by Diana Palmer
He nodded. “Pity neither of us wants to sit around and babysit cattle. We’re too career conscious.”
“When you get older, it might appeal.”
“It might,” he said, but not with any enthusiasm. “We hold on to it because Jon’s mother likes to have company there.” He grimaced. “She’s got a new prospect for Jon.”
“I heard.” Alice chuckled. “He had her arrested in his own office for sexual harassment. I understand Joceline Perry is still making him suffer for it.”
“It really was sexual harassment,” Kilraven corrected. “The woman is a call girl. We both tried to tell my stepmom, but her best friend is the woman’s mother. She won’t believe us. Mom keeps trying to get her to the ranch, with the idea that Jon will like her better if he sees her in blue jeans.”
“Fat chance,” Alice said. “Jon should tell Joceline the truth.”
“He won’t lower his dignity that far. He said if she wants to think he’s that much of a scoundrel, let her. They don’t get along, anyway.”
“No offense, but most women don’t get along with your brother,” she replied. “He doesn’t really like women very much.”
He sighed. “If you had my stepmother as a mom, you wouldn’t, either.” He held up a hand. “She has her good qualities. But she has blind spots and prejudices that would choke a mule. God help the woman who really falls in love with Jon. She’ll have to get past Jon’s mother, and it will take a tank.”
She pursed her lips. “I hear Joceline has the personality of a tank.”
He chuckled. “She does. But she hates Jon.” He hesitated. “If you get any new leads, you’ll tell me, right?”
“Right.”
“Thanks for the lecture,” he added with twinkling eyes. “You’re not bad.”
“I’m terrific,” she corrected. “Just you wait. Harley Fowler will be rushing me to the nearest minister any day now.”
“Poor guy.”
“Hey, you stop that. I’m a catch, I am. I’ve got movie stars standing in line trying to marry me…Where are you going?”
“Back to work while there’s still time,” he called over his shoulder.
Before she could add to her bragging, he hopped into his squad car and peeled out of the parking lot.
Alice stared after him. “You’d be lucky if I set my sights on you,” she said to nobody in particular. “It’s your loss!” she called after the retreating squad car.
A deputy she hadn’t heard came up behind her. “Talking to yourself again, Jones?” he mused.
She gave him a pained glance. “It’s just as well that I do. I’m not having much luck getting people to listen to me.”
“I know just how that feels,” he said with a chuckle.
He probably did, she thought as she went back to her van. People in law enforcement were as much social workers as law enforcers. They had to be diplomatic, keep their tempers under extraordinary provocation, hand out helpful advice and firm warnings, sort out domestic problems, handle unruly suspects and even dodge bullets.
Alice knew she was not cut out for that sort of life, but she enjoyed her job. At least, she chuckled, she didn’t have to dodge bullets.
Saturday, she was still in Jacobsville, waiting for one last piece of evidence that came from the site of the car that was submerged in the river. A fisherman had found a strange object near the site and called police. Hayes Carson had driven out himself to have a look. It was a metal thermos jug that the fisherman had found in some weeds. It looked new and still had liquid in it. Could have been that some other pedestrian lost it, Hayes confided, but it paid to keep your options open. Hayes had promised that Alice could have it, but she’d promised to go riding with Harley. So she’d told Hayes she’d pick it up at his office late that afternoon.
“And you think the sheriff himself sits at his desk waiting for people on a Saturday?” Hayes queried on the phone in mock horror.
“Listen, Hayes, I have it on good authority that you practically sleep at the office most nights and even keep a razor and toothbrush there,” she said with droll humor. “So I’ll see you about seven.”
He sighed. “I’ll be here, working up another budget proposal.”
“See?” She hung up.
Cy Parks wasn’t what she’d expected. He was tall and lean, with black hair showing just threads of gray, and green eyes. His wife, Lisa, was shorter and blonde with light eyes and glasses. They had two sons, one who was a toddler and the other newborn. Lisa was holding one, Cy had the oldest.
“We’ve heard a lot about you,” Cy mused as Alice stood next to Harley. They were all wearing jeans and long-sleeved shirts and coats. It was a cold day.
“Most of it is probably true,” Alice sighed. “But I have great teeth—” she displayed them “—and a good attitude.”
They laughed.
“We haven’t heard bad things,” Lisa assured her, adjusting her glasses on her pert nose.
“Yes, we have.” Cy chuckled. “Not really bad ones. Harley says you keep proposing to him, is all.”
“Oh, that’s true,” Alice said, grinning. “I’m wearing him down, day by day. I just can’t get him to let me buy him a ring.”
Cy pursed his lips and glanced at Harley. “Hey, if you can get him in a suit, I’ll give him away,” he promised.
Harley grinned at him. “I’ll remind you that you said that,” he told his boss.
Cy’s eyes were more kind than humorous. “I mean it.”
Harley flushed a little with pleasure. “Thanks.”
“Does that mean yes?” Alice asked Harley, wide-eyed.
He gave her a mock glare. “It means I’m thinking about it.”
“Darn,” she muttered.
“How’s your murder investigation coming?” Cy asked suddenly.
“You mean the DB on the river?” she asked. “Slowly. We’ve got evidence. We just can’t puzzle out what it means.”
“There are some messed-up people involved, is my guess,” Cy said, somber. “I’ve seen people handled the way your victim was. It usually meant a very personal grudge.”
Alice nodded. “We’ve found that most close-up attacks, when they aren’t random, are done by people with a grudge. I never cease to be amazed at what human beings are capable of.”
“Amen.” Cy slid an arm around Lisa. “We’d better get these boys back into a warm house. We’ve been through the mill with colds already.” He chuckled. “Nice to meet you, Alice. If you can get him—” he pointed at Harley “—to marry you, I’ve already promised him some land and a seed herd of my best cattle.”
“That’s really nice of you,” Alice said, and meant it.
Cy glanced at Harley warmly. “I’d kind of like to keep him close by,” he said with a smile. “I’d miss him.”
Harley seemed to grow two feet. “I’m not going anywhere,” he drawled, but he couldn’t hide that he was flattered.
“Come back again,” Lisa told Alice. “It’s hard to find two minutes to talk with little guys like these around—” she indicated her babies “—but we’ll manage.”
“I’d love to,” Alice told her.
The Parks family waved and went into the house.
“They’re nice,” Alice said to Harley.
He nodded. “Mr. Parks has been more of a father to me than my own ever was.”
Alice wanted to comment, to ask about the senator. But the look on Harley’s face stopped her. It was traumatic. “I haven’t been on a horse in about two years,” she told him. “I had to go out with the Texas Rangers to look at some remains in the brush country, and it was the only way to get to the crime scene.” She groaned. “Six hours on horseback, through prickly pear cactus and thorny bushes! My legs were scratched even through thick jeans and they felt like they were permanently bowed when I finally got back home.”
“I’ve been there, too.” He laughed. “But we won’t go six hours, I promise.”
He led her into the barn, where he al
ready had two horses saddled. Hers was a pinto, a female, just the right size.
“That’s Bean,” he said. “Colby Lane’s daughter rides her when she comes over here.”
“Bean?” she asked as she mounted.
“She’s a pinto,” he said dryly.
She laughed. “Oh!”
He climbed into the saddle of a black Arabian gelding and led off down the trail that ran to the back of the property.
It was a nice day to go riding, she thought. It had rained the night before, but it was sunny today, if cold. There were small mud patches on the trail, and despite the dead grass and bare trees, it felt good to be out-of-doors on a horse.
She closed her eyes and smelled the clean scent of country air. “If you could bottle this air,” she commented, “you could outsell perfume companies.”
He chuckled. “You sure could. It’s great, isn’t it? People in cities don’t even know what they’re missing.”
“You lived in a city once, didn’t you?” she asked in a conversational tone.
He turned his head sideways. Pale blue eyes narrowed under the wide brim of his hat as he pondered the question. “You’ve been making connections, Alice.”
She flushed a little. “No, I really haven’t. I’ve just noticed similarities.”
“In names,” he replied.
“Yes,” she confessed.
He drew in a breath and drew in the reins. So did she. He sat beside her quietly, his eyes resting on the horizon.
“The senator is your father,” she guessed.
He grimaced. “Yes.”
She averted her gaze to the ground. It was just faintly muddy and the vegetation was brown. The trees in the distance were bare. It was a cold landscape. Cold, like Harley’s expression.
“My parents were always in the middle of a cocktail party or a meeting. All my life. I grew up hearing the sound of ice clinking in glasses. We had politicians and other rich and famous people wandering in and out. I was marched out before bedtime to show everybody what a family man the politician was.” He laughed coldly. “My mother was a superior court judge,” he added surprisingly. “Very solemn on the bench, very strict at home. My sister died, and suddenly she was drinking more heavily than my father at those cocktail parties. She gave up her job on the bench to become an importer.” He shook his head. “He changed, too. When he was younger, he’d play ball with me, or take me to the movies. After my sister died, everything was devoted to his career, to campaigning, even when he wasn’t up for reelection. I can’t tell you how sick I got of it.”
“I can almost imagine,” she said gently. “I’m sorry.”
He turned back to her, frowning. “I never connected those two facts. You know, my sister’s death with the changes in my parents. I was just a kid myself, not really old enough to think deeply.” He glanced back at the horizon. “Maybe I was wrong.”
“Maybe you were both wrong,” she corrected. “Your father seemed very sad when he saw you.”
“It’s been almost eight years,” he replied. “In all that time, not one card or phone call. It’s hard to square that with any real regret.”
“Sometimes people don’t know how to reach out,” she said. “I’ve seen families alienated for years, all because they didn’t know how to make the first contact, take the first step back to a relationship that had gone wrong.”
He sighed, fingering the bridle. “I guess that describes me pretty well.”
“It’s pride, isn’t it?” she asked.
He laughed faintly. “Isn’t it always?” he wondered aloud. “I felt that I was the wronged party. I didn’t think it was up to me to make the first move. So I waited.”
“Maybe your father felt the same way,” she suggested.
“My father isn’t the easiest man to approach, even on his good days,” he said. “He has a temper.”
“You weren’t singing happy songs the day I called you, when the cow ate your turnips,” she replied, tongue-in-cheek.
He laughed. “I guess I’ve got a temper, too.”
“So do I. It isn’t exactly a bad trait. Only if you carry it to extremes.”
He looked down at his gloved hands. “I guess.”
“They’re not young people anymore, Harley,” she said quietly. “If you wait too much longer, you may not get the chance to patch things up.”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
She hesitated. She didn’t want to push too hard. She nudged her horse forward a little, so that she was even with him. “Have you thought about what sort of ring you’d like?”
He pursed his lips and glanced over at her. “One to go on my finger, or one to go through my nose?”
She laughed. “Stop that.”
“Just kidding.” He looked up. “It’s getting cloudy. We’d better get a move on, or we may get caught in a rain shower.”
She knew the warning was his way of ending the conversation. But she’d got him thinking. That was enough, for now. “Suits me.”
He walked her back to the van, his hands in his pockets, his thoughts far away.
“I enjoyed today,” she told him. “Thanks for the riding lesson.”
He stopped at the driver’s door of the van and looked down at her, a little oddly. “You don’t push, do you?” he asked solemnly. “It’s one of the things I like best about you.”
“I don’t like being pushed, myself,” she confided. She searched his eyes. “You’re a good man.”
He drew his hand out of his pocket and smoothed back her windblown dark hair, where it blew onto her cheek. The soft leather of the glove tickled. “You’re a good woman,” he replied. “And I really mean that.”
She started to speak.
He bent and covered her mouth with his before she could say anything. His lips parted, cold and hungry on her soft, pliable lips. She opened them with a sigh and reached around him with both arms, and held on tight. She loved kissing him. But it was more than affection. It was a white-hot fire of passion that made her ache from head to toe. She felt swollen, hot, burning, as his arms contracted.
“Oh, God,” he groaned, shivering as he buried his mouth in her neck. “Alice, we’re getting in too deep, too quick.”
“Complaints, complaints,” she grumbled into his coat.
He laughed despite the ache that was almost doubling him over. “It’s not a complaint. Well, not exactly.” He drew in a calming breath and slowly let her go. His eyes burned down into hers. “We can’t rush this,” he said. “It’s too good. We have to go slow.”
Her wide, dark blue eyes searched his languidly. She was still humming all over with pleasure. “Go slow.” She nodded. Her eyes fell to his mouth.
“Are you hearing me?”
She nodded. Her gaze was riveted to the sensuous lines of his lips. “Hearing.”
“Woman…!”
He caught her close again, ramming his mouth down onto hers. He backed her into the door of the van and ground his body against hers in a fever of need that echoed in her harsh moan.
For a long time, they strained together in the misting rain, neither capable of pulling back. Just when it seemed that the only way to go was into the back of the van, he managed to jerk his mouth back from hers and step away. His jaw was so taut, it felt as if his mouth might break. His pale blue eyes were blazing with frustrated need.
Her mouth was swollen and red. She leaned back against the door, struggling to breathe normally as she stared up at him with helpless adoration. He wasn’t obviously muscular, but that close, she felt every taut line of his body. He was delicious, she thought. Like candy. Hard candy.
“You have to leave. Now.” He said it in a very strained tone.
“Leave.” She nodded again.
“Leave. Now.”
She nodded. “Now.”
“Alice,” he groaned. “Honey, there are four pairs of eyes watching us out the window right now, and two pairs of them are getting a hell of a sex education!”
“Eyes.” She blinked. “Eyes?”
She turned. There, in the living-room window, were four faces. The adult ones were obviously amused. The little ones were wide-eyed with curiosity.
Alice blushed. “Oh, dear.”
“You have to go. Right now.” He moved her gently aside and opened the door. He helped her up onto the seat. He groaned. “I’m not having supper in the big house tonight, I can promise you that,” he added.
She began to recover her senses and her sense of humor. Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, I see,” she mused. “I’ve compromised you. Well, don’t you worry, sweetheart,” she drawled. “I’ll save your reputation. You can marry me tomorrow.”
He laughed. “No. I’m trimming horses’ hooves.”
She glowered at him. “They have farriers to do that.”
“Our farrier is on Christmas vacation,” he assured her.
“One day,” she told him, “you’ll run out of excuses.”
He searched her eyes and smiled softly. “Of course I will.” He stepped back. “But not today. I’ll phone you.” He closed the door.
She started the engine and powered down the window. “Thanks for the ride.”
He was still smiling. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll take it.”
“Merry Christmas.”
He cocked his head. “Christmas is over.”
“New Year’s is coming.”
“That reminds me, we have a New Year’s celebration here,” he said. “I can bring you to it.”
“I’ll be back in San Antonio then,” she said miserably.
“I’ll drive you down here and then drive you home.”
“No. I’ll stay in the motel,” she said. “I don’t want you on the roads after midnight. There are drunk drivers.”
His heart lifted. His eyes warmed. “You really are a honey.”
She smiled. “Hold that thought. See you.”
He winked at her and chuckled when she blushed again. “See you, pretty girl.”
She fumbled the van into gear and drove off jerkily. It had been a landmark day.
Nine
Alice was back in her office the following week. She’d turned the thermos from the river in Jacobsville over to Longfellow first thing in the morning. She was waiting for results, going over a case file, when the door opened and a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman in an expensive dark blue suit walked in, unannounced. He had black hair with silver at the temples, and light blue eyes. She recognized him at once.
