The Sheriff's Son

“I’ll manage through the day,” Kitty spoke up. “Charlie is big enough to fetch things for me. Besides, since Tom died, the house seems so quiet and empty. The babies will put a little life back into things around here.”

Justine groaned. Rose smiled and nodded, while Chloe clapped her hands together.

Chloe pressed on. “That’s right. The babies will help take our minds off all the problems we’ve been having lately. And it will be good for Charlie to have other children around.”

Justine let out a long sigh. How could she say no, when the whole family was counting on her? “It could only be temporary,” she pointed out.

“Temporary is a start,” Rose said quietly.

Justine tossed her hands resignedly up in the air. “All right, okay. I’ll call him. But don’t get your hopes up. Sheriff Pardee doesn’t strike me as a warmhearted man.” In fact, Justine didn’t think he had a heart at all, but she couldn’t express that thought to her sisters. Not without raising some eyebrows. As far as they knew, he was just an old acquaintance, not the only man she’d ever loved.

Normally, Justine helped with cleaning the kitchen after the evening meal, but this time, both sisters shooed her out of the room.

“We’ll take care of this mess. You go call the sheriff,” Chloe told her.

Knowing her sisters wouldn’t let her put it off any longer, Justine walked down to her bedroom and shut the door. If she had to talk to Roy, she wanted to do it in private.

As a nurse, Justine had been schooled to remain calm in a crisis. She’d seen people broken and bleeding and dangerously close to death, but she’d forced herself to be collected and focus on her job. Yet just the act of dialling Roy’s number had her hand shaking and her breaths coming in shallow little jerks. It wasn’t right that one man could have so much of an effect on her, she thought with self-disgust. Especially when he’d been out of her life for years now.

It rang four times, and Justine was on the verge of hanging up when he answered.

“Sheriff Pardee.”

“Roy.”

He knew instantly that it was Justine. No other woman had ever said his name quite like she did. He closed his eyes and gripped the receiver.

“Yes.”

“This is Justine.”

“I know.”

Her shaky legs forced her to take a seat on the edge of the bed. “I—I’m calling about the twins.”

“I didn’t think you were calling to ask me for a date,” he said dryly.

Her nostrils flared as she closed her eyes. She wished she could get her hands around his throat! No—she instantly changed her mind. She didn’t want to touch him. Ever! If she did, she didn’t know what she’d do. Kiss him? Claw him? Break down in tears? She wasn’t going to test herself.

“I don’t know how you ever won the sheriff’s election,” she muttered.

To Justine’s amazement, he chuckled. The sound sent little shivers of nerves tumbling through her stomach.

“I won it because the majority of the people in Lincoln County like and trust me.”

Even if you don’t. Justine could hear the unspoken words hovering on the line between them.

Knowing she’d never get anywhere with him if she allowed her temper to get the better of her, she said, “I heard you got ninety percent of the vote. Are you sure you had an opponent?”

“Somebody mentioned there was another guy running for the job. I didn’t notice.”

His cockiness had Justine rolling her eyes. “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re so liked and well-thought-of around here,” she said, “because I’m going to…ask a favor of you.”

Roy had been lying back in his leather recliner, but now his boots hit the floor with a loud thud. In his wildest dreams, he’d never expected Justine Murdock to want or need any sort of help from him. He didn’t know whether to tell her to go to hell, or silently thank God. In fact, for years now Roy had never been quite able to decide if he hated Justine or loved her.

“A favor,” he repeated, his voice gone husky. “What kind?”

She drew in a shaky breath. “It’s about the twins. Do you think it might be possible for us…I mean, my sisters and me…to keep them here until…you locate the real parents?”

“Why would you want to do that? I’m sure you and your family have plenty to keep you busy besides two demanding babies.”

“Of course we do. But my sisters are infatuated with the babies, and since…Daddy’s death, well, I think it would be good for all of us to have them around.”

Roy knew that Justine had been very close to her mother and father. She was probably still grieving over Tom’s death. If the babies could help ease the ache, what the hell, he thought. Even though she’d made his life miserable, that didn’t mean he wanted to rub salt in her wounds.

“You don’t have to sell me on the idea, Justine. I know I can trust the twins’ welfare to you and your family.”

She couldn’t believe he’d so readily agreed to her request, and for a moment she didn’t know what to say.

“Justine? Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?”

“I—Uh, yes,” she finally managed to answer. “Is that all we have to do? Is your permission enough to keep them here?”

“Legally, no. I’ll have to get a court order from Judge Richards. But he and I are good friends. He’ll go along with my feelings on the matter.”

“That’s all there is to it?”

“You sound surprised.”

She was. She’d expected Roy to resist everything about the idea. Now, because of who he was and what he was, he was going to make it legally possible for her family to keep the babies. She didn’t know what to think.

“I guess I expected it to be a lot more complicated.”

“Well, since it’s only a temporary situation, there’s not that much legal red tape.” He paused, then asked, “Justine, you do understand that once this case comes to some sort of end, you’ll have to give the babies up?”

“Yes. I understand. I don’t know if my sisters will. But I do.”

“Then, for their sake, you’d better remind them.”

“I will. And thank you, Roy.”

She thought she heard him sigh. “Good night, Justine.”

“Good night.”

Slowly, Justine replaced the receiver, then stared blankly at the floor. After a moment, tears blurred her eyes. She wiped at them viciously and tried to swallow away the tightness in her throat.

She didn’t know what was the matter with her. Her sisters were going to be very happy, and Roy had been almost nice to her. There was no reason for her to get emotional. No reason at all.

A light knock sounded on the bedroom door. Justine quickly wiped her eyes again. “Come in.”

Stepping into the room, Chloe looked hopefully at Justine. “Did you call the sheriff?”

Justine nodded. “We can keep the babies.”

Chloe gasped with joy. “Oh, Justine, that’s wonderful! See, I knew you could persuade him!”

Justine sighed. “Believe me, Chloe, there was no persuading to it.”

Chloe eased down on the bed beside her sister. “You don’t sound very excited about it.” She peered anxiously at Justine. “Have you…been crying?”

Justine quickly shook her head. “No, of course not. I think—I might be coming down with a cold. The clinic has been full of sniffling people.”

“Why don’t you go to bed early tonight?” Chloe suggested as she rose to her feet. “Rose and I will see to the babies. She’s gone up in the attic right now, to see if she can find our old baby bed and playpen. I’d better go see if she needs some help.”

“What’s Charlie doing?”

Chloe laughed. “He’s playing with the twins. He thinks those babies are the grandest things to come along since dump trucks and tractors.”

Justine smiled wanly. She’d never wanted Charlie to be an only child. But time had a way of passing on. Now he was five, and she was no closer to marrying and adding to her family than she had been when she gave birth to him.

Rising from her seat on the bed, she said, “I’m glad he’s taken to the twins. But right now it’s getting close to his bedtime. I’d better go coax him into the bathtub.”

As the two sisters walked down the wide hallway, toward the living room, Chloe slung her arm around Justine’s shoulders.

“Do you realize how lucky you are to have a child, Justine?”

In spite of Roy, and the fact that Charlie was growing up without a father, Justine was very aware of the precious blessing her son was to her. She wished with all her heart that Chloe could have the chance to be a mother.

Slipping her arm around her younger sister’s waist, she gave her an affectionate squeeze. “I realize it every day.”

Chloe sighed. “You know, there has to be a reason for those babies showing up here on the ranch.”

“I’m sure there is. We just don’t know what it is yet.”

“Well, I think they’re a gift from God. He took Daddy from us, so he’s given us the babies to fill his place in the family.”

Justine glanced anxiously at her sister. “Chloe, Roy wanted me to remind you and Rose that keeping the babies on the ranch is only a temporary thing. You’ll have to give them up eventually. You know that, don’t you?”

“You wouldn’t give Charlie up, would you?”

She tried to imagine Roy filing for custody of his son, and found the image so frightening that she instantly put it out of her mind. “Not for anyone or anything. But, Chloe, Charlie is mine. There’s a difference.”

“Well, those twins are going to be mine. You just wait and see,” she said.

Justine didn’t argue with her sister. Instead, she silently prayed that Roy would soon solve the case.

The next morning, Justine was taking a much-needed coffee break on a little bench outside the clinic building when she saw Roy walking up the sidewalk toward her.

He was dressed as he had been yesterday, in jeans, boots and a khaki shirt. Justine couldn’t help but notice his long legs and lean waist, the width of his broad shoulders beneath the close-fitting fabric. He was a very sexy man. But sex was all he had to offer a woman. She knew that better than anyone.

“How did you know where I worked?” Justine asked as he came to a halt in front of her.

A faint smile touched his lips, as though he found her question amusing. “I’m the sheriff, remember? I can find out most anything I need to know.”

Not everything, she promised herself as her thoughts went to their son. He could search all he wanted to, but there was no way he was going to find out he’d fathered Charlie. Unless she told him. And right now, she couldn’t see herself ever doing that.

“What did you need to see me about?” she asked, her fingers curled tightly around the foam-cup of coffee in her hands.

He pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and unfolded it. “I need your signature on this before I take it back to Judge Richards.”

She accepted the paper from him and read it carefully. Once Justine was satisfied that she understood it, she slipped a pen from a pocket of her shift and quickly signed her name.

Handing it back to him, she asked, “Do you have any new information about the twins?”

He pushed the legal document into his pocket. “No. Other than that no children fitting the twins’ description have been listed as missing in the state in the past twenty-four hours.”

“Does that surprise you?”

He watched Justine sip her coffee. The morning was cool but clear. The bright sunlight caught her red hair and turned the wavy tendrils to molten bronze. She was still by far the most beautiful woman he’d ever know, and he wondered what had happened between her and Charlie’s father. Why hadn’t the man married her? Or had it been Justine’s choice to end their engagement?

“Not really,” he said in answer to her question. “Like I said, whoever left the twins intended your family to have them. They’re not going to go to the police. Unless they have a change of heart.”

“Then how do you plan to start an investigation without anything to go on?”

“I already have. My deputies are out now, questioning everyone and anyone up and down the streets of town to see if the twins were seen around here yesterday. It could be they traveled through Ruidoso before going on to the Bar M.”

Ruidoso wasn’t a particularly large metropolis, but it was a heavily traveled tourist town. Thousands of people came to see the horse races at Ruidoso Downs, shop the unique little stores lining the highways and simply enjoy the sight of the cool, beautiful mountains. How could anyone remember one set of babies, when they saw tourists with babies every day? Justine wondered.

“That’s another thing that puzzles me,” Justine mused aloud. “How did this person or persons know where the ranch was?”

“Because they know you, or at least know of you. That’s why you and your family need to rack your brains. You might come up with something or someone.”

Her break time nearly over, Justine rose to her feet and brushed at the wrinkles in her straight skirt. “Of course, we’ll try. Now I have to get back inside.”

Roy needed to get to work himself. But he was reluctant to leave just yet. Last night, after Justine called, he’d spent hours thinking about her, the way she’d looked and sounded, and the way he’d felt upon learning that she’d loved some other man enough to have his child. He hadn’t expected to feel anything like regret. Six years ago, when he became involved with her, he hadn’t been ready for marriage or children. So why did it hurt so much to think of her turning to another man?

“How long have you worked here?”

Surprised by the personal question, she slanted him a glance from beneath her lashes. “Since before Mother died seven months ago.”

He grimaced. “I was sorry to hear about her passing.”

He sounded sincere, and somehow that made it harder for Justine to remain callous toward him. She knew that Roy had lost his mother long before he was grown. His father had died in a hunting accident when Roy was only a teenager. He understood what it was like to lose a parent.

“I moved back to the Hondo valley to be with her and nurse her while I could.”

His eyes searched her face. “And you stayed because…?”

She met his gaze. Was he thinking the reason was him? No, surely not. It should be obvious. She’d been home a year and half, and she’d carefully kept her distance from him.

“Mother’s death made me realize how much I needed to be with my family, and how much Charlie needed them, too.”

He glanced at the ground and shifted uncomfortably. “Now, you’ve lost your father. That must have been quite a blow.”

“I think you know how much of a blow. You lost your father, too.”

He glanced up, and for a split second, Justine saw naked pain in his eyes, but it was gone just as swiftly and he was back to being the steely-eyed sheriff of Lincoln County.

“You remember that?” he asked lowly.

He seemed surprised, and Justine couldn’t understand why. True, their time together hadn’t been that long. Two months, at the most. But during those weeks, she’d grown so very close to him. She’d learned all about his growing-up years, his hopes and disappointments, his dreams for the future. How could he think she had forgotten anything about him?

“Of course I remember. He was hunting elk up in the mountains near Cimarron and fell from a cliff.”

“I guess you do remember.”

Too much, Justine thought. Far too much. She turned down the sidewalk heading back to the entrance of the building, then paused awkwardly, a few steps away from him.

“I should thank you again for your help with the twins. I’m sure it would have been impossible for us to keep them if you hadn’t intervened on our behalf. Chloe and Rose are beside themselves.”

Being the sheriff, Roy often received thanks from the people he was able to help. Yet a thank-you coming from Justine was something entirely different. He didn’t want to be touched by it, but he was. He didn’t want to be drawn to her beauty, but he was. More than that, he didn’t want to think of her as his lover. In the past or the present. But he was. And he didn’t know how to stop it.

“I’ll be out at the ranch again this evening,” he said without preamble.

Surprised, Justine looked at him. “For what?”

“Remember, I still need to talk to your sisters. I’d appreciate it if you’d tell them to be there. And I’d like to talk to you some more, too.”

Her heart began to thud rapidly. “About the twins?”

One corner of his mouth curled mockingly. “What else?”

What else indeed, she thought, as heat colored her face. “All right. We’ll be there.”

He touched his finger to the brim of his Stetson, then turned and walked away.

Justine watched him until he was out of sight, then forced herself to go back inside to work. But forcing him out of her mind was another matter.

Chapter Three

That evening, when Justine got home from work, she scraped her hair back into a ponytail, donned a pair of old, faded jeans, a worn chambray work shirt and tennis shoes with paint splotches on the toes.

When Roy Pardee showed up, he was going to see that enticing him was the last thing on her mind, Justine assured herself as she walked down to the kitchen.

As she stepped into the room, Kitty looked up from her task at the cabinet. “What are you going to do, clean the attic?” the woman asked, her eyes running over Justine’s grubby clothes.

“No. Just getting comfortable,” Justine said offhandedly, then walked over to where the twins were seated, in two high chairs. Bibs were tied around their necks, and damp vanilla-wafer crumbs were scattered across the trays in front of them.

“Where did the high chairs come from?” Justine asked.

“Rose found one in the attic, and Vida brought the other one over this morning,” Kitty said. Vida was an old friend of hers, who lived a few miles down the road, toward Picacho. “Her grandbabies have all grown out of the high-chair stage, and she said she wouldn’t be needing it.”

“She knew about the twins being here?”

“I told her last night on the phone. But I think the whole Hondo Valley must know by now. The telephone has been ringing all day.”

Justine tweaked both babies’ cheeks with thumb and forefinger. “I guess it would be impossible to keep the news from traveling. Especially with Roy’s deputies asking questions all over town.”

Kitty turned her attention back to the cookbook lying open on the cabinet counter. “How do you know this?”

“Roy told me,” Justine answered. “He came to the clinic this morning to have me sign a legal document about keeping the twins.”

“So that part of it is already settled?”

Justine walked over to the coffeemaker sitting on the small breakfast bar. “Yes. It’s all legal now. We keep the twins until Roy finds the parents.”

Kitty looked up from the cookbook. “Sounds like Sheriff Pardee works fast. But, to be honest, I don’t really know how he plans to find who the twins belong to. What does the man have to go on?”

Justine filled a pottery mug full of coffee and took a cautious sip. “Frankly, I don’t know. But he seems confident. By the way, he’s coming back out to the ranch this evening to speak with Rose and Chloe.” Justine refused to add herself to that list. “Did I tell you?”

Glancing over her shoulder, Kitty frowned at her niece. “You knew the sheriff was coming out to the ranch and you dressed in that getup?”

“What do you mean? Roy isn’t coming out here to see what I’m wearing,” she said with faint irritation.

“Why, Justine,” Kitty scolded lightly, “I didn’t imply anything of the sort. It’s just that you’re usually so conscious of your appearance. And Sheriff Pardee is a very good-looking man. Single, too.”

Justine wasn’t surprised at the direction Kitty’s mind had taken. Her aunt was always trying to find husbands for all three of her nieces. “I heard he was divorced.”

“Hmm…I think that’s true. Someone—maybe it was Vida—said he used to be married to the past sheriff’s daughter. But the marriage only lasted two or three months. Strange, isn’t it, two people go to all the trouble of getting married and then can’t stay together for more than twelve weeks.”

Justine tried not to appear shocked as she gazed at her aunt. Two months after she left Roy and went back to college in Las Cruces, Roy had tried to call her several times. Each time, she’d refused to talk to him. Had he and Marla already divorced by then? She didn’t know why it should matter to her now, but it did.

“I wonder what ever happened to Marla?” Justine asked more to herself than Kitty.

Kitty leaned her hip against the cabinet and tapped a finger against her thumb. “You knew his wife?”

Justine nodded, but didn’t say more. Since she returned home a year and a half ago, she’d deliberately refrained from asking her father or any of her old acquaintances anything about Roy. For one thing, she didn’t want to arouse any sort of suspicion about Roy Pardee and herself. And for another, she’d always told herself she didn’t care what had happened in his life once she went back to college.

Kitty spoke up, totally unaware of Justine’s spinning thoughts. “Well, apparently the woman wasn’t what the sheriff expected in a wife, because they split the blanket before it ever got warm.”

And Justine could only wonder why. Was that what he’d been wanting to tell her when he called her at NMU all those years ago? That he and Marla were finished? And what about the baby Marla had been expecting? He’d said he’d never been a father. Had the woman suffered a miscarriage?

Oh, none of it mattered now, she wearily told herself. What had happened in the past couldn’t change the way things were now.

“That’s his business, Kitty. Not ours.”

Before the older woman could reply, Justine carried her coffee out through the screen door and across the small courtyard. In one corner, Charlie was playing in the sandpile her father had built for his grandson before he died.

Smiling at the precious sight, Justine sat down beside her son and picked up a small road grader. “May I play, too?”

“Sure, Mommy.” He pointed to a long trench he’d dug in the sand. “See, this is the Hondo River, and this is our house over here.”

“And we need to have a bridge to cross to the other side,” Justine observed. “Maybe we can find a few twigs to use for logs.”

Twenty minutes later, Justine was admiring the miniature ranch she’d helped Charlie construct when the screen door leading out from the kitchen softly banged closed. Glancing up, she saw Roy sauntering slowly toward them.

Before Justine could say a word, Charlie jumped to his feet and went to meet him.

“You’re the sheriff,” he said, smiling up at the tall man with the black Stetson and the steel-blue eyes. “Did you come here to arrest us?”

Roy had never felt comfortable with young children. He’d never been around them much, and he didn’t know what they were capable of talking about or how their minds worked. Yet something about this sturdy little boy of Justine’s was different. For some reason, he felt attuned to him.

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