One True Thing

by Marilyn Pappano

  Reese led them into the great room that filled the center half of the house. The colors were muted—soft greens, roses, tans and blues—and the furniture was oversize, overstuffed, and great for relaxing in front of the big-screen TV. A stone fire-place filled one wall and large bay windows took up another. A rustic oak table separated the living area from the kitchen, where Neely was restuffing twice-baked potatoes at an elaborately tiled countertop.

  After Jace performed the introductions, Neely smiled. “Cassidy McRae…is that a good Irish or Scottish name?”

  Cassidy didn’t have a clue—she’d picked the name the way she’d picked every name she’d used, made up out of thin air—so she returned the smile and gave a nonanswer. “Yes, it is. I appreciate the invitation to dinner. I’ve been busy since I moved here, so it’s nice to finally get to meet someone. Can I help you with anything?”

  “What’s up?”

  Jace was leaning against the railing on the back deck, a bottle of water in hand, his gaze on the row of arched windows that looked into the kitchen. He couldn’t see much, just occasional glimpses of Cassidy and Neely as they passed a window on the way someplace else, but on a warm night with the sun low on the horizon, steaks cooking on the grill and the occasional nicker of horses behind them, it was enough.

  “Nothing’s up,” he replied, glancing at Reese, who stood in a similar position a few yards away. “My life is normal and routine—”

  “—and dull.”

  Jace shrugged. “What’s dull to one man can be satisfying to another.”

  “What’s up with Cassidy?”

  “Your wife invited me to dinner, then after she stirred my appetite, she added the stipulation that I had to bring a woman. Since Cassidy was handy…” It was a bad attempt to downplay his interest in his neighbor. Neely wasn’t so great in the kitchen that Jace would put himself out to eat her cooking, and Reese knew it. He had come because he wanted to, and he’d brought Cassidy because he wanted to.

  “I see she grew a few inches, lost a few pounds and discovered the fountain of youth since we were out at your place Tuesday.”

  “Yeah, she cleaned up pretty good, didn’t she?” Too bad she didn’t seem to know the other meaning for clean, as in coming clean. He had an excellent memory for details, and he knew there had been no misunderstanding about her having a brother, just an outright lie on her part. Why? Whether she had a brother didn’t matter to anyone in the world, except maybe the brother himself. Why lie about it? And what else had she lied about? Was she really a writer? Were her parents really dead? Was she really from Lemon Grove?

  He could find out. All it would take was one phone call to an old buddy in Kansas City—or hell, one request to Reese. Within twenty-four hours they could tell him everything there was to know about Cassidy McRae.

  But he didn’t make the request of Reese, and he wouldn’t make the phone call. It smacked too much of police work and he wasn’t about to get tangled up in that again. Besides, what did it matter that she’d lied about having a brother? And about not liking kids. And had gotten a little shaky on her story of living in Lemon Grove. And was evasive about everything having to do with her work. Maybe she was just a very private person who saw no reason to share any details of her life with someone she’d just met.

  More likely she was just one of those people who lied, whether it benefitted them or not, whether it would cause trouble, whether it would be easier to tell the truth. God knew, he’d run into plenty of those folks in his seventeen years in the department. Honesty was the first virtue to make it onto the endangered list. He knew that better than most.

  Besides, he’d lied, too, when he’d described her to Reese and Neely. He’d had his reasons, but presumably she did, too. That didn’t make him any nobler than her.

  “Find out anything about her?” Reese asked.

  “What makes you think I’m trying?”

  His cousin’s only response was a snort.

  “Hey, I know all I need to know about her. She’s pretty, she’s single and she’s not going to be around long.”

  “And that’s all that matters?”

  “I’m not looking for anything permanent, bubba. What else do you need to know before you sleep with a woman?”

  Reese gave him the sort of look his father would have given had he been here. There had been a time when Reese’s only real interest in women had been sex, too, but you couldn’t tell it from the way he acted these days. Of course, that time had been a long time ago—before Neely. It had been a long time ago for Jace, too—before Julie, who’d come before Lisa, who had come before Amanda—but he was looking to get back into that mode. Sex, he could handle. Anything more didn’t interest him at the moment.

  Reese checked the steaks on the grill, then added one more. Three mediums and one medium-rare coming up. Stepping away from the heat, he took a long swallow from his pop, then asked, “You remember Troy Littlejohn?”

  “Graduated the year after us? Smart kid? Lazy as hell?”

  Reese nodded. “We busted up a meth lab out at his folks’ farm yesterday. His mama was so mad at him, I don’t think he would make bail if he could. He’s gonna have to find someplace else to live for a while.”

  “Yeah, like Lexington,” Jace said dryly. That was where newly incarcerated guests of the Oklahoma State Department of Corrections went to be processed, evaluated, then assigned to a prison. “You gonna seize the property?”

  “Nah. The Littlejohns didn’t know what was going on. Their only mistake was treating Troy like family when he’d already proven a few dozen times he didn’t deserve it, and there’s no crime in that.”

  A lot of people wouldn’t have anything to do with their family if they weren’t family, Cassidy had said. Jace figured it was true of the Littlejohns. Troy had been nothing but trouble since he’d been old enough to walk, but they’d still let him come around. They owed him. He was family. Too bad that sense of obligation hadn’t run both ways. Then Troy wouldn’t have used his parents’ property for his drug manufacturing operation, and they wouldn’t have risked losing the land that had provided a living for a hundred years’ worth of Littlejohns.

  “I always thought Troy was too lazy to get into any serious lawbreaking,” Jace remarked as Reese removed the steaks from the grill.

  “He had partners. He provided the place and they did the work.” Reese turned off the gas to the grill, picked up the serving plate and tongs, then glanced at Jace. “How long did you work drugs?”

  “A couple years. Too long.” He’d preferred just about every division he’d worked. At least in the others, there was a clear-cut right and wrong, victim and bad guy. In narcotics, like prostitution, the victims were willing and not much, if any, more righteous than the bad guys.

  “We’re running into more drug cases every week. We could use someone with some experience to help out,” Reese said as he opened the back door.

  “Advertise,” Jace replied sarcastically as he walked inside. “You’ll find someone.”

  “Not for the salary we can pay.”

  That was no joke. Sheriff’s deputies in the majority of Oklahoma’s seventy-seven counties were notoriously under-paid and overworked. Most of Reese’s deputies were people with solid ties to the community that kept them close to home. The single deputies kept their expenses down, and the married ones could count on their working wives’ contributions to make up the shortfall. The only exception was the undersheriff, Brady Marshall, who’d come to Buffalo Plains from Texas, whose family money and wealthy wife—Neely’s younger sister, Hallie—made the pay issue a nonissue.

  “If I wanted to bust my butt for less than minimum wage, I’d hire on with Dad to run the ranch,” Jace remarked.

  “You’re gonna have to go to work sometime. Your savings aren’t gonna last forever.”

  “No, but it’ll last a while longer. Then I’ll think about getting a job.” But it wouldn’t involve carrying a badge and a gun or busting up meth labs. He real
ly would rather take over his folks’ ranch or even help out in the garage his dad owned in Buffalo Plains with Reese’s dad.

  Cassidy and Neely were sitting on opposite sides of the oak table, where four places had been set. A cucumber salad, a towel-wrapped loaf of bread, twice-baked potatoes and ears of early corn filled the center of the table, along with tall glasses of iced tea. Jace took the seat next to Cassidy as Neely fixed her gaze on him.

  “What were you two talking about?” she asked.

  “Reese was telling me about Troy Littlejohn.”

  She wrinkled her nose distastefully. “No discussion of my client at the dinner table, okay?”

  “You’re representing him?” Reese’s grimace was distasteful, too, as he sat down. He forked the medium-rare steak across to Jace’s plate, then passed the remaining steaks around.

  “That must make life interesting,” Cassidy remarked.

  “Sometimes more than others,” Neely replied with a droll smile. “There was a time it was a huge problem, but now we have a few rules. We don’t discuss the cases we’re both involved in, and whoever’s side wins doesn’t get to rub it into the loser.”

  There was more to it than that, Jace knew. Neely was selective about the few criminal cases she voluntarily took on. She had to believe the defendant’s claims of innocence or extenuating circumstances, she didn’t represent repeat offenders, and she didn’t represent men who raped or beat their wives, or anyone who mistreated children.

  Of course, those restrictions couldn’t be applied to the defendants the court appointed her to represent. He would bet next month’s grocery bill that Troy Littlejohn was such a case.

  “Not that anyone’s asked,” Neely went on, “but Cassidy and I were talking about the Founder’s Day barbecue next weekend. It’s about as much fun as a body can have in Heartbreak, and, Jace, I told her you would prove it by bringing her. We’ll meet here around eleven, then drive over together.”

  He glanced at Cassidy, who seemed to find that cutting her steak required one-hundred-percent of her attention. Even so, a pink tinge crept into her face. “Sure,” he agreed. “I was planning on going anyway.” Probably. Alone. In the evening, when the carnival atmosphere gave way to a band and dancing. Not that he objected to the idea of spending the better part of another day with Cassidy or showing her what constituted a good time in a tiny place like Heartbreak. Coming from the San Diego metropolitan area, she would probably find it quaint, amusing and ripe for big-city disdain.

  As soon as the thought took form, though, he dismissed it. She’d had plenty of chances when they were in town on Thursday to make snide remarks about the shabbiness of the town, but she hadn’t said a word. Just because the women he’d brought for a visit—Amanda and, before her, Julie—had scorned his hometown didn’t mean Cassidy would. After all, she’d chosen to come here, hadn’t she? No one had twisted her arm to get her here and no one was making her stay.

  Maybe, because he didn’t say anything else on the subject of Founder’s Day, it was still on Cassidy’s mind when they headed home a few hours later. Little more than a shadow in the dim lights coming from the dash, she kept her gaze directed out the side window as she politely said, “You don’t have to take me to the barbecue Saturday. I’m perfectly capable of going on my own. It’s just…Neely thinks you need a social life.”

  “Did she say that?”

  She glanced at him then, shaking her head. Her blond hair was a pale tousle of light in the darkness.

  “No, she would have been more blunt and said I needed a woman.” He did, too. Just not in the way Neely thought. She wanted him happily married and settled down, doing what he did best—being a cop—and raising a family. He wanted sex.

  “Would she be right?”

  The question surprised him, and not just because there was a sensual, seductive huskiness to her voice. It was a leading question, suggestive for a woman who’d shown little interest in getting close to him, or anyone else.

  A glance her way as they reached downtown Heartbreak and the regular illumination of streetlights showed that the question had surprised her, too. He couldn’t see for sure that she was blushing, but he would have bet she was—would have bet she wished she could call back the words or, failing that, could brush them off as not even worth a response.

  He had a response, all right—one that necessitated turning up the air conditioner a notch and shifting position in the seat. Doing his best to ignore the sudden discomfort, he shrugged and carelessly said, “Man is not meant to sleep alone.” Woman, either.

  “That sounds like a big yes,” she murmured.

  And getting bigger with each passing moment.

  Since he saw little reason to get hot and hard over a woman who’d given him zero encouragement so far—reluctantly accepting a few invitations to meals didn’t count—he forced his attention back to the subject. “If Neely had given me a chance, I would have asked you to the barbecue myself. There are crafts for sale, games, carnival rides for the kids and plenty of food. It’s like going to the fair, only the food’s better and you don’t have to deal with all the crowds to get to it.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “Nice. Now there’s a big endorsement.”

  She smiled unexpectedly. “Wow, that really sounds great! It’ll be so cool! I can hardly wait!”

  “Now you sound like Elly Harris. Everything in her world is great and cool and fills her with anticipation.” Which wasn’t a bad way to live. It beat the hell out of disillusionment and misapprehension.

  Apparently, Cassidy felt the same. “I remember a time when my biggest worry was finding the patience to wait. Christmas, birthdays, holidays, vacations—I wanted everything now. My mother used to tell me to quit wishing my life away because time passed quickly enough and I’d never be able to get it back. And you know what? She was right. Time does pass quickly, and once it’s gone, all you have left are the regrets.”

  Once again she was gazing out the window, as if they were passing something more interesting than open pasture and clumps of woods. She seemed lost in the past that had gone by too quickly, so unaware of him for the moment that when he spoke, she startled. “What are your regrets?”

  She turned away from the scenery, crossed her legs, smoothed her skirt, then shrugged. “The usual.” Then she added a less-than-convincing smile. “Everything about me is as usual and normal as can be.”

  Except that she was about as alone as anyone he’d ever met. And that she was keeping secrets by telling lies.

  “I don’t know what constitutes ‘the usual’ in regrets. My regrets are different from Reese’s, whose are different from Neely’s, whose are different from yours.”

  Not unexpectedly, she shifted the conversation from herself. “What are your regrets?”

  His grin was braced with a cockiness he didn’t feel. “I don’t have many.”

  “So what are they?”

  He regretted devoting seventeen years of his life to a job, only to be betrayed by the people he answered to. He regretted getting sucked into believing Amanda’s sweet lies. No matter how good she was at them, a damn good detective should have suspected something. He regretted not having more of a life—getting married somewhere along the way, having kids, non-cop friends, a life that would have been there for him when the department screwed him over.

  He didn’t offer any of that in response, though. “I regret not becoming an astronaut and living in space with a few pretty Russian babushkas. And not joining the Navy and becoming a pilot, going 800 miles per hour with my hair on fire. And not breaking the four-minute mile.”

  Her snort sounded remarkably like Reese’s, despite the fact that she was half his cousin’s size and delicate as spun glass. “You never even tried to do those things, did you?”

  “Only the four-minute mile. But not trying doesn’t mean you can’t have regrets.” For example, if he didn’t try to kiss her good-night when they reached her cabin, he would likely regret it when he
was alone in his bed and trying to sleep. And if he hadn’t done more than just think about sex with her before she packed up and returned to California, he would regret that, too.

  “To be an astronaut or a Navy pilot, you need a college degree. Do you ever regret not getting that?”

  He gave her a sideways look. “What makes you think I didn’t?”

  The question, or maybe the sharp undertone, flustered her. “I—I just thought—” She shrugged apologetically. “You said yourself you lacked ambition and worked only part-time as a cowboy. I assumed…”

  “What? That I can’t get a better job? That I’m stupid, lazy or both?”

  She hugged her arms to her chest, the posture looking more defensive than defiant, but said nothing.

  “Oklahoma State University. Class of ’87.”

  “Sorry,” she murmured.

  He forced his fingers to loosen their grip on the steering wheel. She thought he was a dumb, lazy cowboy. A cowboy, for God’s sake. Even when he’d lived on his folks’ ranch, getting up before dawn and working past dusk, dealing with four-legged critters all day, wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat as naturally as breathing, he’d never thought of himself as a cowboy. In his very young days, like when he was eight, he’d considered himself a rancher in training. By the time he’d turned twelve, he’d changed that to a rancher’s son doing what was necessary until he got out on his own. Even when he’d worked for Guthrie Harris and Easy Rafferty this past spring, it hadn’t been a job so much as a way to break up the monotony of his days and helping friends who’d needed it.

  “I take it from your superior attitude that you went to college, too,” he said.

  “University of California,” she murmured.

  “Which one?” When he felt her gaze on him, he glanced her way. She looked as if she’d been caught off guard and didn’t quite know what to say, and the itch started again between his shoulder blades.

  “Uh…Los Angeles.”

  Big school. Well-known. Easy name to pull out of thin air, especially for someone living—or claiming to live—in Southern California.