by Diana Palmer
When she finished, she put the file along with the legal pad and pen on the bedside table and propped herself against the headboard with both plump pillows. She wasn't really sleepy, and her mind was whirring around so fast that she couldn't hold a single thought in it. She turned on the television, but there wasn't anything interesting on, except the weekly political faux pas. In an election year, one-upmanship on the nightly news was definitely the thing.
She turned off the television in disgust. What was there to do in a hotel miles from her apartment? She missed Barnes, her cat. Usually he slept curled up next to her on the bedcover.
She wondered if Brannon had a cat these days. He used to have a mangy old yellow tomcat that slept on the kitchen floor at night. It had been Gretchen's pet, but Brannon had fed it, and when nobody was looking, he played with it. He called it John, after the fictional John Reid, the original "Lone Ranger" of television legend. He'd always wanted to be a Texas Ranger, Gretchen had told her once. He knew the tiniest details about the first Rangers. He'd worked hard at law enforcement, just to have a shot at a job with the exclusive law enforcement group. It was a difficult job to get, too. There were only fifteen Ranger sergeants in Company D, Brannon's company, that operated out of San Antonio, and they had to cover forty-one counties. They worked with many other law enforcement agencies to solve crimes, because their authority was literally borderlessa Ranger could go anywhere in Texas to assist in criminal investigation, and infrequently even went overseas in such endeavors.
Gretchen had wondered if Brannon's infatuation with law enforcement had been because of his father. As a young boy, Marc felt he had no power at all. He was at the mercy of a verbally abusive father, and Marc was the only protection his mother and Gretchen had. While old man Brannon might not beat his son, he was apparently good at mental cruelty, which was, in its own way, equally destroying to a young ego.
She remembered how often Brannon went out of his way when he was on the Jacobsville police force to keep young offenders on the right track. He was a caring man. And he liked cats. She smiled, thinking sadly of poor Barnes, sitting in the vet's boarding room while she was away.
She knew Brannon had good horses and beef cattle at his Jacobsville ranch, the one that his manager kept solvent for him. He was an expert horseman, another Ranger skill that he'd mastered long before he pinned that star on his shirt. He could spin a lariat, bulldog, ride barebackdo most anything that equestrian skill demanded. She remembered horseback rides with him in San Antonio during those wonderful, idyllic days before Henry Garner's murder. She liked to ride, too.
Her mind, oblivious to the present as she wandered through happier times, was intent on the good memories. It was so intent on them that she forgot her wet hair was still done up in a towel. She was about to cut out the bedside lamp when a sharp knock came at her door.
Chapter Eight
» ^ «
Josette got out of bed and padded to the door in her bare feet, keenly aware that she was wearing nothing but a robe over bare skin. She hesitated, remembering all the reasons she shouldn't open that door. Her purse with the stun gun was halfway across the room, and she didn't have a firearm. For all she knew, the murderer could be on the other side of the door.
Her heart pounded. Her mouth was dry. The knock came again, far more insistent. She went close and looked out through the peephole. It was Brannon, disheveled and dusty, with a cut beside his firm, chiseled mouth.
With a sigh of relief, she opened the door at once and let him in. "What in the world happened to you?" she exclaimed.
He wiped the cut beside his mouth. "I got jumped at my apartment as I was getting out of the truck," he said, traces of anger still evident in his deep voice. "I didn't know if they had a double header in mind, so I came to check on you."
"You could have phoned," she pointed out.
"A lot of good that would have done if they'd already managed to get into the room," he said sarcastically.
The concern, which was obviously genuine, made her feel warm inside. She stared at his face. She winced as she reached up to trace beside the cut. "Well, at least they didn't seem to do any permanent damage to you. How many were there?"
"Two."
"Recognize them?"
He shook his head. "Too dark, and they were wearing face masks."
"Why would they jump you?" she wondered aloud.
"At a guess, it was a warning that we're getting too close to something they want to stay hidden," he told her. His eyes narrowed. "Wet hair?"
She nodded. "I was going over my notes before I dried it. I forgot all about it," she added with a sheepish smile, as she recalled where her mind was when she was about to turn out the light.
He went and put on the chain latch and made sure the door was locked before he sailed his Stetson into the chair next to it. Then he caught her hand and pulled her into the bathroom.
She didn't need to ask why. He stood patiently while she got a washcloth and soaped it, reaching up to clean the wound on his forehead. He'd been in a fight with a suspect while they were dating. She'd patched him up then, too, flattered and secretly amused that he came to her for bandaging that he could easily have done himself.
"We don't even have an antiseptic or a bandage," she murmured as she bathed the cut.
"I'll get one when I get home. Thanks."
He washed his hands and his face before he wiped them on a towel and turned toward her, reaching for the towel wrapped around her head. "What are you doing?" she protested.
He wrangled the towel off her hair and plugged in the hair dryer that came with the room. "Nice thing about hotels these days," he murmured, "they furnish everything you need to travel in style. Stand still."
He'd let her clean him up. So she let him dry her hair. It was odd, the feeling of nurturing it fostered in her. Of course, Brannon had always been special to her. That never changed. The feel of his big fingers in her hair was hypnotic, soothing. The nearness of his lean, fit body was disturbing. It had been a long time since she'd been this close to Brannon. She remembered the feel of those hands on bare skin, the faint spicy scent that clung to him, the fresh odor of the soap he used. He was familiar to her as no other man had ever been. She closed her eyes and let the memories wash over her of the last time they'd been close, before he'd walked out of her life.
She'd genuinely believed that he was intensely serious about her in those days. Brannon had never been a ladies' man. He didn't notch his bedpost. He was somber, and quietly deliberative about things, and he was decidedly old-fashioned in his attitudes. He had a tender side, but it was shown rarely, and only to people he trusted. But Josette hadn't understood how hard it was for him to trust. Her judgment had been faulty there. His loyalty to an old friend superceded his trust in a woman he didn't know intimately.
She had to remember that, and hold onto her pride. It was hard, standing so close to him that she could feel the warmth of his body. She wanted so badly to press herself into his arms and forget the past. The comfort of those strong arms had been the crowning glory of her life during those sweet months they'd gone together in her last year of college.
"You seem to shrink every time I see you," he murmured, noticing the disparity in their heights.
"I wear two-inch heels to work," she replied.
"So do I," he murmured dryly.
She looked down involuntarily and noted the riding heels on those hand-tooled cowboy boots he wore. She chuckled softly. "I guess so. But you're still wearing them. I'm not."
He ruffled her hair as the warm air blew it up in wafts of pure gold. "I always loved long hair," he mused.
"You could let yours grow," she pointed out.
"It's not the same." He turned her so that he could dry the back. Over her head, he met her eyes in the mirror. "I still remember you at fifteen," he said quietly. "You don't look much older, now."
Her face flamed. "That isn't a memory I like," she said, averting her eyes.
"Did I ever tell you that just before the rape trial, I'd just seen a man go to prison for a rape he didn't commit?" he asked out of the blue.
"What?"
"He was a nice, clean-cut young man who worked in an office and had a new assistant who seemed to dote on him. One day she went home from work and called the police and told them he raped her."
"Did he?"
"No. She wanted his job. She got it, too. He went to jail."
"But that's so unfair!"
"It was. He would have stayed there, too, but she made the mistake of bragging to a friend about her crafty promotion, and he went to the police. There was a new trial and he testified. The young man was cleared and she was fired. But he was never the same again. He said he couldn't ever trust another woman."
"I guess not." She sighed, meeting Brannon's pale eyes in the mirror. "No wonder you didn't believe me that night. Some people are worse than snakes, aren't they, Brannon?"
"You never use my first name anymore," he said quietly. "Why?"
"We're business colleagues," she said, avoiding his piercing gaze. "I want to keep things at a professional level."
"Most co-workers are on a first name basis these days."
Her face was stiff. She felt him let go of her hair and she pulled away, running her fingers nervously through the silky length of it. "Thanks."
He turned off the dryer and laid it aside. Before she could move, he had two great handfuls of that golden wealth and was lifting it to his mouth. His eyes closed, brows drawn down over his eyes as if he were in pain.
She was uneasy. She caught his hands, as if to remove them, but they turned and caught hers instead, leading them to his shirt. She felt the metal badge on the left pocket cold against her fingers, smelled the scent of her own shampoo and his cologne mingle.
"I was wrong about you. So wrong. I couldn't even apologize," he said as he bent. "Maybe I'm more like my father than I realized, Josie"
The sound went into her mouth as his lips covered it gently. There in the silence of the room, she felt the heat and power of him as his arms enfolded her against the length of his powerful body and held her there.
She should struggle. It would be more dignified than moaning under the warm, sweet crush of his lips. Her hands clenched his shirt, still crisp and clean-smelling despite the long day and the fight he'd been in. Pictures ran through her mind of Brannon in an alley with a bullet in him, like poor Dale. Her arms went under his and around him and she moaned again, frightened of what she imagined.
He bent suddenly, lifting her into his arms. With his mouth still covering hers, he carried her to the first of the two double beds and sank into its softness with her under him.
"No," she whispered breathlessly.
"Yes." He kissed her again, his arms making a cage around her. "I know what you are," he breathed into her mouth. "We both know I couldn't seduce you if I wanted to, so relax."
It was disturbing that he knew, or thought he knew, such intimate things about her. "You aren't supposed to know that," she whispered shakily.
He smiled against her mouth. "I know everything about you. I always have." He brushed the hair back from her face and lay propped on one elbow, just looking into her soft eyes. "I hated the FBI," he murmured in a deep, intimate tone.
Her eyebrows lifted. "Then why did you stay with it for two years?"
He shrugged. His fingers touched her softly swollen mouth. "I thought I could leave Texas and get rid of the bad memories. But they followed me."
"Memories are portable," she agreed.
He sighed, brushing her hair back from her face. "You look tired."
"I am," she said, aware of that gentle, caressing hand at her throat, tangling in the softness of her hair. "I'd been putting in twelve-hour days lately on a new project Simon had initiated, to put information on state felony cases into a central database."
"I thought you weren't a computer whiz," he mused, smiling.
She smiled back. "I'm not. That's where our head computer guy, Phil Douglas, excelled. He investigated cybercrime and did most of the correlation for the database. I did the legwork and made the contacts."
"Like your job, do you?" he asked.
"I might as well. I make a comfortable living."
"So do I, but I'll never be a millionaire," he added. "Not unless cattle prices skyrocket and the price of feed plummets before winter."
"The drought has been hard on ranchers and farmers."
He nodded. "I'm breaking even. I'll settle for that, if it means I can keep the ranch in the family."
"You don't have children," she pointed out.
"Gretchen does," he replied. "Their son is almost two years old now."
"Yes, but she's the equivalent of a queen, too," she returned. "Will her children want to come to Texas to live? Her son inherits the throne of Qawi."
He didn't like that question. He grimaced. "I might have kids of my own one day," he argued.
"Only if the tooth fairy brings them," she said under her breath.
His eyebrows arched. "Oh, that was a low blow."
"You said you never wanted to get married," she reminded him.
"I'm thirty-three, almost thirty-four," he replied. "And two incomes would come in handy. I could buy a good seed bull and breed my own strain of cattle."
"And give up working for the Texas Rangers?" she teased.
"There's a Ranger post in Victoria," he countered. "And Judd Dunn works there now. We were partners until I left the outfit. We could be again."
"Victoria's close to Jacobsville," she remembered.
"Exactly." He traced one of her eyebrows. "Do you want children?"
"Someday," she said. She shifted on the bedspread. "I guess."
"You've got some bad memories to get past, I understand that," he said slowly. "In your case, it would have to be with a man you trusted very much. Unless you've had that minor surgery in the past couple of years, I assume you haven't found a man you trusted enough."
She felt the heat in her cheeks. She didn't want to tell him that there was only one man alive she'd ever want intimacy with. Neither did she want to admit what she'd had done, just after their last disastrous date
"The therapist said I hadn't really dealt with it yet," she evaded.
"She's right," he said, recalling the pretty brunette psychologist Josette had seen. "You should have stayed with her for a while."
"I didn't want to remember the past," she said uncomfortably.
"Neither did I," he said flatly. "But you don't get over things by dwelling on them. Sometimes it helps to relive bad memories, so that you can put them away."
"Mine are pretty awful," she said heavily.
"I know." His eyes narrowed. "Were you tempted to get involved with Jennings?"
"No," she said honestly. "I knew him from the coffee shop near the campus, and we were casual friends. It would never have been more than that. I never knew why he invited me to that party."
"I'll bet I know why you went with him," he said. "I'd just walked out on you without a word. You were hoping I'd be at the party, too, weren't you, so that you could flaunt Jennings?"
She grimaced and then she laughed softly. "That's just what I hoped, actually. I must be very transparent."
He lifted up a little and pointed at his badge. "I'm a Texas Ranger. I have experience in deduction."
She made a face at him. "Don't read my mind."
"I assumed Jennings was guilty because of what I knew about his mob connections," he told her. "But I'm beginning to wonder."
"I was so certain that Dale wasn't guilty, and that your friend Bib was. Now, the further we get into this case, the more certain I am that he wasn't guilty, either."
"Just as I am, about Jennings. It's so easy to rush to judgment."
She reached up and shyly traced around the cut on his forehead. "Good thing you have such a hard head," she commented with a faint smile.
"One of my assailants won't be smiling strai
ght for a while," he replied, irritated at the memory. He searched her eyes slowly. "You keep your doors locked tight when I leave here," he said firmly. "And don't open that door to anybody you don't know, regardless of the reason. Got that?"
"Are we going to do the protective male thing?" she said wickedly, and smiled. "Oh, that's so sexy!"
"Cut it out," he muttered, ruffling her hair again. "It's the understaffed thing. I can't solve this case alone, and they won't give me any more people."
"Which means you're stuck with me." She looped her arms around his neck. Amazing, how comfortable she felt lying like this with him, when she was the most standoffish woman in the world with men.
"That works both ways," he taunted.
"Well, then, you have to be careful, too, and keep an eye behind you," she cautioned. "That's the protective female thing," she added.
He drew a strand of her long hair across her lips and bent to kiss her through it. "Even if you do have half a dozen good reasons to, I'm glad you don't hate me, Josette," he said huskily.
"I wouldn't know how to start."
He moved her hair aside slowly, and his mouth toyed softly with her upper lip, while the tip of his tongue probed under in lazy darting thrusts. She wondered if it was meant to make her feel hot all over. Probably it was. She wished she knew more about men.
He nibbled her lip before he coaxed her mouth to open. Then he kissed her again, with an oddly hesitant tenderness, his big, lean hand lying warm and strong against her cheek. It moved slowly down to her collarbone and teased around the opening of the robe. But when he heard her jerky intake of breath and felt her hands clench behind his head, he stilled.
He knew that it wasn't fear. He could feel the soft rush of her breath, feel the tension in her body, almost hear her wild heartbeat. She was involved already. So was he. But it was too soon. He'd been relentless the last time, overwhelming her protests. This time, he had to go slow. He had to treat her like a priceless treasure, and not make her feel uneasy because she wanted him. It flattered him that she could still want him, with their past. He had to be tender with her, now more than ever, and patient. Very patient, despite the ache in his loins.
