Meet Me In Texas

“He’s retired from the FBI.”

Lynn looked surprised. “Really? Somehow I imagined he wouldn’t retire until age forced him to. He wasn’t wounded or anything, was he?”

“I don’t think so,” Allison said. “He told me he decided to do something else with his life.”

“And why not?” Sam announced, as if that was the best idea he’d heard in ages. “He’s still a young man. He could probably make a ton of money working in the private sector doing security. Is that what he’s planning?”

“I don’t know, Dad. All I can tell you is that whatever he’s going to do, he’ll be doing it right here in Crystal Creek.”

“You’re joking.”

Allison crossed three fingers over her heart then held them up. “Scout’s honor.”

“Well, that’s just about the most exciting thing to happen around this old town in months,” Sam said.

Sandy Russell had been leaning against the doorway to the kitchen for the last minute or so. “The FBI guy? The one that saved Allison?”

“The very same,” Sam replied.

“Cool,” she commented, then turned and left the room.

“And,” Allison went on, “he bought that two-story house over on Roanoke. You know, Mom, the one Rudy Loftin and her family used to own, but his furniture and belongings won’t arrive until Monday, so he’s camping out in the empty house.”

Lynn turned to her husband. “Maybe you should have invited him to stay here when you spoke to him earlier.”

“Honey, I would have if I’d known, but everything happened so fast. He had the injured dog and—” Sam looked at Allison. “What was wrong with the dog, anyway?”

“Mike Tanner had to suture a gash, but she was mostly suffering from malnutrition and dehydration.”

Lynn sighed. “I feel terrible thinking about him over there with no heat, all by himself.”

“He’s got a fireplace and company.” Allison grinned. “Although he wasn’t particularly thrilled about taking the dog.”

“Don’t tell me he doesn’t like dogs,” Sam said.

“Who doesn’t like dogs?” Hank, youngest of the Russell children, sauntered into the kitchen and grabbed an apple from the bowl of fruit on the kitchen table.

“You should be in bed, young man,” his mother pointed out.

“Chill, Mom. It’s Saturday. Scary Movie 3 is coming on cable and Dad said I could watch it.”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot. Tired, I guess.”

“Who’s the jerk that doesn’t like dogs? Must be some kinda freak.”

“Hank,” his mother cautioned, “if you’re going to walk into the middle of a conversation, at least listen for a minute before you start asking questions.”

“Okay, but who’s—”

“No one,” Allison said. “I was just talking about Del Rickman taking in a stray dog, that’s all.”

Hank shrugged and left the room.

“I’m afraid Dr. Mike and I double-teamed Del to take the dog, at least until we can find the owner or a good home,” Allison told her parents.

Lynn, who was filling the coffeemaker for the following morning, glanced over at her. “I’m sure you didn’t talk him into anything he didn’t really want to do. If I remember correctly, Del Rickman knew his own mind well enough not to be bulldozed by anyone.”

“He didn’t give you any indication what he plans to do here?” Sam asked. “I mean, the man may have retired, but surely he’s got plans to do…something?”

“No specifics, but you can ask him when he comes to dinner tomorrow night.”

Lynn finished filling the filter basket and set the timer. “Well, I for one would be the last person to question Del Rickman about anything. He saved our daughter’s life, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes him a friend for life. You don’t give friends the third degree.”

Sam walked over to his wife. “You’re absolutely right, darlin’. And to be honest, by the time church services let out tomorrow, the grapevine will be humming with speculation, anyway, regardless of the truth.”

Lynn gritted her teeth. “Those tacky women and their gossip. They just love setting their tongues to wagging over any stranger that comes into town.”

“He’s hardly a stranger,” Allison said, noting the snippy tone in her mother’s voice. Lynn might not like gossip, but she was usually a tolerant, good-natured woman inclined to live and let live. The sharp tone was another indication of the stress Allison had noticed in her over the last several days.

Sam turned to his daughter. “Not to us, but you know how people talk. If past history is any indication, the grapevine will have you secretly engaged to Del, with you arranging some kind of clandestine meeting using your family as a ruse. Well,” he said when his wife raised an eyebrow, “that’s just about how crazy some of those old busy-bodies can get.”

Allison smiled and kissed her father on the cheek. “You’re hopelessly straitlaced, Dad, but I love you just the way you are. There’s nothing wrong with me inviting Del to have dinner with the entire family. We owe him a lot. I owe him a lot. I’m thrilled he’s in town to stay and I don’t give a da—”

“Allison,” Lynn cautioned.

“…darn what the grapevine spreads.”

“I agree,” Lynn said, “but you know a lie can do a lot of damage, and basically, people believe what they want to believe.”

“Let them. Del Rickman is the first interesting person to hit this town in years, and I have no intention of walking on eggshells around him because some old biddy might think the worst. He’s intelligent, obviously ambitious and very good-looking.”

Lynn and Sam exchanged glances. “Is he?” Lynn asked.

“Oh, yeah. Most definitely. But more than looks, he’s…” Allison slowly smiled. “Intriguing. I like the way he makes eye contact when he talks to you, and the way he looked at that scruffy, hurt dog when he knew there was no way he was going to get out of the clinic without him. So if the gossips want to link us, you won’t hear me complain.” She looked at the curious expressions on her parents’ faces. “Relax, you two. I’m not going to run off to Mexico with the first intriguing man I’ve met in ages. It’s just nice to have someone new around to change the dynamic of things. I’m looking forward to getting to know our agent turned entrepreneur better, and I hope he’s wildly successful, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Sure.”

Allison leaned over and kissed each of them on the cheek. “Good night, Mom. ’Night, Dad.”

Sam and Lynn watch her disappear up the stairs.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Sam said when his daughter was out of sight. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Are you kidding? About our daughter showing some real interest in a man. And one old enough to be her—”

“Father? Hardly, Sam.”

“Well, old enough to be her uncle.”

“I think that she’s a healthy young woman and all that that implies. Why shouldn’t she be happy to have the opportunity to be around an intelligent man with more to talk about than hot cars and cattle prices like the boys around here? You heard her. It’s not like she plans to seduce him. Besides, you know how single-minded she is.”

“Single-minded. Is that a euphemism for stubborn as a Missouri mule?”

“One and the same,” Lynn said.

“I always thought her strong will was a good thing when she was pushing herself through school, then vet technician classes. Right up until—”

“She started applying it to us, right?”

Sam sighed. “She was never the same after the kidnapping.”

“Nobody would be after something like that. I certainly wasn’t.”

“Of course not. It affected all of us. And on top of everything else, you had to go through labor and delivery without me. No, I just meant Allison changed so drastically. Not that it wasn’t for the good, but I have to admit I never expected the level of determination we’ve seen. She knows what she wants and won’t settle for anything less. Obstacles are only minor problems to be overcome as far as Allison is concerned. She just doesn’t think there’s any barrier she can’t breach, and I worry that sooner or later she’ll come up against one that’s too strong even for her. I know I sound like a paranoid father, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up with a broken heart one day, and it’ll more than likely be over a man.”

“Let’s hope not.” But as Lynn spoke, a slight shiver ran through her.

“What was that?” Sam asked. “Did you just get one of your feelings?”

“Sam—”

“I saw you shiver. Was it about Allison?”

As a rule, Lynn wasn’t one to keep secrets, especially from her husband, but over the years she had discovered that sharing her gift for precognitive feelings wasn’t always a good idea. The darned things scared her enough. There was no reason to alarm the people she loved unnecessarily.

“No,” she told her husband.

“You sure?”

“You know; I do get a real honest-to-God, plain old ordinary shiver once in a while,” she shot back. “It’s not always necessary to start looking up to see if the sky is falling.”

“Okay, okay.” Sam raised both hands as if in surrender. “I admit I get a little paranoid when I see you shiver.”

Lynn sighed, knowing her sarcasm had been uncalled for. “I know, and I love you for it.”

He slipped an arm around her waist, and kissed her on the cheek. “You look tired, and I noticed you had another one of those headaches today. Are you feeling all right?”

“Oh, I’m no more tired than usual.”

“You had your yearly gynecological checkup not long ago, didn’t you?”

“Three weeks.”

“And everything was fine?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

“No reason, I just wanted to be sure you weren’t having any problems.” He winked and gave her a slight nudge in the ribs. “We’re not getting any younger, you know.”

Of all the times for him to tease her about growing older, Lynn thought. “Speak for yourself,” she said, trying to match his light mood even though it was miles away from how she felt.

“Well, before they come to take us to the senior home, what do you say we wobble upstairs to our bed and pretend we’re twenty again?”

Lynn reveled in the physical side of her marriage and it pained her now to deliberately avoid intimacy, but she knew she couldn’t make love to Sam without revealing everything that was on her mind, and she wasn’t ready to do that.

“Hank is still up,” she said, avoiding eye contact.

“He’s thirteen. He knows to go straight to bed after the movie.”

“I know, but I have to get some craft materials together. I’m taking over Maggie Langley’s Sunday school class tomorrow.”

“I see.” There was no mistaking the disappointment in his voice.

Lynn hated not being up front with him, but she had no choice.

“All right, then,” he said after a long pause. “Good night.”

“Good night, sweetheart.”

She actually heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Sam turn the corner at the top of the stairs and head toward their bedroom. He was right; she’d had one of her “feelings,” as he liked to call them, and it had concerned Allison. As she’d watched the stepdaughter she had come to love as her own disappear up the stairs, apprehension had grown in the pit of Lynn’s stomach until it was a knot. She’d experienced an almost overpowering urge to race up the stairs to Allison’s room and tell her to be careful, but she had no idea of what. Yet the warning hovered at the edge of her mind. Not for the first time, she wished she had never inherited some of her Grandpa Hank’s “shine,” which seemed to come to her as brief premonitions. Then again, a little of it might be very helpful at the moment.

Crossing the kitchen to a small table by the back door, Lynn opened a shoe box filled with the craft items she’d already collected. Another fib she’d told her husband. For a woman who prided herself on honesty, she’d been telling lies and half truths for days, but she had good reason. Or at least she thought she did. Now, however, the guilt over not sharing news of her pregnancy with Sam was threatening to overwhelm her.

Pregnant. At her age.

Not that she was over the hill, but she would be forty in three months. Forty and pregnant. That was something totally unexpected, and under normal circumstances might even be joyful. But there had been a problem with her blood test. The doctor had used words like questionable results and abnormalities.

That had caused her enough concern, but when she heard him say, “It’s possible we may be dealing with Down’s syndrome,” she had felt real fear.

She’d wanted to rush home to Sam, cry in his arms and have him comfort her. She’d wanted that desperately until she realized that she would simply be transferring her fears to him and the children. It was bad enough that she had to go through three weeks of anxiety until she could have the test to confirm or rule out Down’s syndrome. But it would have been unfair to burden the rest of her family with the nerve-jangling wait. Her husband, her children—the people she loved most and who loved her—would suffer needlessly. So she’d kept her own counsel, but it was beginning to take a toll on her, and she wasn’t sure she could hold out another week until the test. But she had to. Until she knew the results of that test, she had decided to keep the news of her pregnancy to herself. Meanwhile, she’d gone over the options in her mind. Over and over them. It had been a shock to learn she was pregnant, but the news that her baby might be born with a handicap that could range from mild to severe had shaken her—to the point she considered terminating the pregnancy.

She’d desperately wanted other children after Hank was born, but when two miscarriages followed, it didn’t seem to be in the cards. And now…

Be careful what you wish for, Lynn thought. And because more children had been her fondest wish, terminating the pregnancy, no matter how the tests turned out, didn’t feel right to her. If the time came to make a decision, Sam’s opinion would count for a lot, but she couldn’t see him choosing that option. Meanwhile, carrying this secret around was eating away at her like acid.

Lynn put her hand on her stomach. “Dear Lord,” she whispered, “please let my baby be healthy. And give me strength to make it one more week.”

TWO HOURS AFTER she’d heard Lynn come upstairs to bed, Allison lay in the dark, wide-awake, her mind so filled with thoughts of Del she couldn’t possibly sleep. She wasn’t given to dramatics, but if she had to describe what had happened the moment he came through the doors of the clinic, she would say that it was like having viewed the world ever so slightly tilted, only to have it righted in a heartbeat. It sounded hokey, but there it was. Suddenly she felt as if everything was in the right place; everything fit. And she was infused with a kind of energy she’d never experienced. Not a frenzied kind of energy, but a powerful, steady flow of warmth, vitality and a thrilling sense of well-being.

She sat up in bed.

And balance.

That was it. Balance. Ever since the kidnapping and the journey of self-discovery that followed, she had moved forward, eager to embrace life. And while she knew in her heart she was moving toward her goals, she had never felt steady, balanced. But the instant she looked up and saw Del, that feeling disappeared. She hadn’t realized it until this very moment, but for the first time in years she felt as if she was standing on bedrock. Call it Kismet, Fate, serendipity or whatever, but all her instincts told her Del Rickman’s return wasn’t a coincidence. Not for her, at least. They had a connection. He had altered the course of her life all those years ago, and his influence had been almost as strong as her parents’. Not that she thought of him as a parental figure. Certainly not after meeting him face to face again. She hadn’t exaggerated one bit when she’d told her folks he was the most interesting man she’d met in ages. As far as she was concerned, Del Rickman was a man in a town full of boys.

And she was definitely attracted to him.

She couldn’t honestly say the attraction wasn’t all tangled up with hero worship. After all, she’d thought of him as a hero all these years. But this didn’t feel like hero worship. It felt like real male-female attraction—the kind that made your heart beat faster. And it was totally unexpected.

It wasn’t as if she’d been impatiently waiting for one man to come along and sweep her off her feet. Far from it. She’d started dating like most normal teenagers and gone through the crushes and going-steady phases. She’d had a year-long relationship her last year of high school and a semi-serious one her second year of college. But neither relationship had made her think of marriage and a lifelong commitment, particularly since so much of her time and energy had been devoted to her studies. In the last few months she’d chosen to limit her social life to going out with groups of friends because it was simply more fun than going on dates. She’d never doubted that one day she would find a terrific guy and fall in love, but she’d never gone looking for him, either.

And then Del had walked through the clinic door. There had been a moment, before he knew who she was, when she sensed that his interest in her was most definitely not platonic. For a few seconds he’d looked at her the way a man looked at a woman he wanted to kiss. A woman he wanted to touch and take to bed.

Not that Allison was looking for sex, or not looking for that matter. She wasn’t a prude or a virgin, but she was selective. Until today the temptation for a sexual relationship had been weak at best, but that could change. She was hardly planning to seduce Del, although, she mused, the thought did have an undeniable appeal. What she did plan to do was just be herself, a confident, intelligent woman open to life’s possibilities, and get to know him a whole lot better.

CHAPTER THREE

DEL TOSSED AND TURNED inside the sleeping bag, his mind a jumble of memories.

Men in place. Sniper set and ready. Wait for my signal.

Careful. Careful.

Go!

No! No, he moved! Oh, God, no…no…

A banging sound brought Del out of his nightmare with a jolt, followed closely by…barking?

“What the—” Awake now, he realized someone was knocking on his door and his canine houseguest was barking not two feet away. “Oh, yeah.” He rubbed his eyes. “Okay, enough, boy. I mean, girl. Take it easy. I’m up.” The dog quieted, but paced between the sleeping bag and the door. Del grabbed his jeans, stepped into them and staggered over to see who was outside. “Who the hell could it be this time of morning?” he mumbled. The dog beat him there and gave two sharp barks.

“Who is it?” Del snapped.

“Allison. I come bearing hot coffee, fresh cinnamon rolls, and a Greenie.”

Shoeless, bare-chested and sleepy-eyed, he yanked open the door. “Allison.” He was wide awake now. “I, uh…wasn’t expecting, uh…” Unconsciously, he put a hand to his chest and only then realized he was half dressed. “Oh, uh, excuse—” Before he could finish the dog tried to jump up and greet Allison but couldn’t quite accomplish the feat because of her wound.

“Hey, sweetie.” Juggling the large shopping bag she held, Allison bent down to the dog, scratching her behind one ear. “I’ve got a treat for you, too.” She looked up at Del. “I’m sorry, I had no idea you would still be asleep at this hour. Normally, I would have called, but you don’t have a phone.”

“Yeah. I, uh, should have given you my cell phone number last night. What time is it, anyway?” He was so flustered by her appearance that for a moment he forgot they were standing in an open doorway with a nippy breeze whipping through.

“Nine o’clock.”

“I’m sorry. C’mon in, please, and excuse my manners.” As nonchalantly as he could, Del hurriedly pulled on a T-shirt, then yanked on socks. “Here,” he reached for the bag. “Let me take that and your coat, or maybe you want to keep it on?”

“No, the room feels fine.” She handed him the bag and then removed her coat. “How’s our patient today?” she asked, turning her attention to the dog.

“Fine. Guess Dr. Mike was right. A bare floor was a step up for her.”

“You didn’t mind at all, did you, baby?” The dog responded by licking Allison’s hand, and she laughed.

Del put the paper bag down on the only piece of furniture in the room, an empty apple crate standing on end to serve as a table. “What’s this?”

“Hot coffee, Lynn’s homemade cinnamon buns, a fresh bandage for our friend here, and a Greenie.”

“A what?”

She dipped into the bag and pulled out an odd-shaped, very green dog bone. “A Greenie. It’s a dental aid. No preservatives and environmentally safe. It’ll help keep her teeth clean and make her breath smell better.” Green or not, the dog recognized a treat when she saw it. Sitting on her haunches, she lifted one paw.

“You give it to her,” Allison suggested.

“Why me?”

“Your house, your dog.”

“Allison, I thought you understood that I can’t—”

“Seriously, until I can find her a good home, you’re the Alpha dog. The treat needs to come from you.”

“What?”

“Dogs are pack animals. They feel much more secure when they’re in the presence of a leader, the Alpha dog, usually a male. It’s simple. Feeling secure means better behavior, better behavior means good socialization, which makes the animal more accepting of humans. So you, my friend, have been elected the top dog.” She handed him the bone, then winked. “But don’t let it go to your head. This principle only applies to dogs. Go on,” she urged.

Del glanced down at the dog, still sitting, waiting patiently, and offered her the bone. She took it gently, but didn’t move.

“She’s waiting for you to tell her it’s okay,” Allison instructed.

Del had seen guard dogs and police dogs trained to wait for commands, but he didn’t expect it from a stray. “Okay, girl, it’s yours.” He pointed toward the far side of the fireplace and the dog immediately carried the bone there and was soon lost in the pleasure of her treat.

“Good girl,” Allison said. “She’s smart, and I suspect well trained.”

“Just because she waited for permission to eat the bone?”

“That and the fact that she responded to your hand signal.”

“But I didn’t—”

“When you inadvertently pointed, she interpreted it as a signal for her to go there, and did exactly that.”

“So that tells you that she was probably trained before she became a stray.”

“Probably. And when you run that ad in the Lost and Found section of the newspaper, her owner just might turn up.”

Del frowned. “You think so?”

“It’s possible.” The frown didn’t go unnoticed, and Allison suspected the idea of someone claiming the dog didn’t exactly thrill Del, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

She glanced around. “Well, I must say this is the best this house has looked in years, even if it is empty.”

Del laid her coat over his unopened duffel bag. “That’s right. You knew the previous owners.”

“Pre-previous. Rudy, my best friend all through high school and my first two years of college, lived here with her grandparents. I was devastated when she moved away.”

For the briefest of seconds, Del had thought this Rudy was a boy, and his reaction had been instantaneous and unwelcome. Allison was barely more than a kid, but he’d reacted like a man who was interested in a woman. The same as he had last night at the clinic when he’d first seen her. Not a good thing, he cautioned himself. Now that he knew who she was, he had to get those thoughts right out of his head. “It, uh, hasn’t sat empty for very long. Who lived here after your friend?”

“A young couple,” Allison told him. “They’re the ones that restored the place.” Again, she glanced around. “I love the arts-and-crafts style, don’t you? There’s such strength and beauty in its simplicity.”

“Yeah. I took one look at this house and knew it was for me.”

She walked over to a built-in hutch atop a buffet and ran her fingertips over the leaded glass inserts of the doors. “Exquisite. It’s like stroking a piece of sculpture. Or a perfectly toned human body.”