The Sheriff's Son
Stella Bagwell
twins on the doorstepWHOSE BABIES WERE THEY?When single mother Justine Murdock found baby twins abandoned on her doorstep, she saw the Murdock chin and big green eyes in those sweet little face. Oh, maybe she was just imagining the family resemblance. Or maybe she was just stalling on calling the too-handsome, too-sharp sheriff….Sheriff Roy Pardee thought all babies looked alike, but the minute he arrived at the Bar M ranch he did notice a startling family resemblance. Between himself and Justine's five-year-old son. Who those little twins belonged to was a mystery. But who Justine and her boy belonged with was clear as day….twins on the doorstep. Those little babies lead the Murdock sisters straight to love!
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u4fdeb430-9f7a-56dd-8483-614cff88800b)
Excerpt (#u6acaba04-d595-5e27-8a44-85e2d471c657)
Dear Reader (#ua40f4e47-543a-52c1-ad13-455e499e9025)
Title Page (#u76dab057-11ff-573e-8a11-472725d74597)
Dedication (#u07f7db3c-7445-5ec7-8898-5833741560fc)
About the Author (#u680019e5-c68c-5f4b-b52e-7f0042cf5150)
Chapter One (#u355bce03-da65-5cf7-8062-09068440ee77)
Chapter Two (#ua973ce54-79ee-5449-af06-1ab5c4f0c94b)
Chapter Three (#u0e25006b-8afa-55c9-8317-0e73aab1f119)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Mommy, where did you get the baby?”
Justine’s little son asked. “Who is that man? He’s got a baby, too!”
Justine cast a glance at Roy. He was staring at her and Charlie. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking, but it was quite clear that the appearance of her son wasn’t pleasing to him. And suddenly she knew she’d been right all those years ago…
“Yes, honey. Mommy found the babies and the sheriff has come to help find out where they belong. Now will you go get Aunt Kitty? The sheriff would like to speak with her.”
Charlie raced out of the room. Once the boy was out of sight, Roy released a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“You have a son?” There was an odd look of betrayal on his face. As though he knew…but no. No one, not even her sisters knew that Roy Pardee was Charlie’s father…
Dear Reader (#ulink_89f73b3b-8084-575e-a5e4-5f256e7304a7),
This April, let Silhouette Romance shower you with treats. We’ve got must-read miniseries, bestselling authors and tons of happy endings!
The nonstop excitement begins with Marie Ferrarella’s contribution to BUNDLES OF JOY. A single dad finds himself falling for his live-in nanny—who’s got a baby of her own. So when a cry interrupts a midnight kiss, the question sure to be asked is Your Baby or Mine?
TWINS ON THE DOORSTEP, a miniseries about babies who bring love to the most unsuspecting couples, begins with The Sheriff’s Son. Beloved author Stella Bagwell weaves a magical tale of secrets and second chances.
Also set to march down the aisle this month is the second member of THE SINGLE DADDY CLUB. Donna Clayton, winner of the prestigious Holt Medallion, brings you the story of a desperate daddy and the pampered debutante who becomes a Nanny in the Nick of Time.
SURPRISE BRIDES, a series about unexpected weddings, continues with Laura Anthony’s Look-Alike Bride. This classic amnesia plot line has a new twist: Everyone believes a plain Jane is really a Hollywood starlet— including the actress’s ex-fiancé!
Rounding out the month is the heartwarming A Wife for Doctor Sam by Phyllis Halldorson, the story of a small town doctor who’s vowed never to fall in love again. And Sally Carleen’s Porcupine Ranch, about a housekeeper who knows nothing about keeping house, but knows exactly how to keep her sexy boss happy! Enjoy!
Melissa Senate
Senior Editor
Silhouette Romance
Please address questions and book requests to: Silhouette Reader Service
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Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont L2A 5X3
The Sheriff’s Son
Stella Bagwell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Thelma and Gerald with love and appreciation
STELLA BAGWELL
lives in the rural mountains of southeastern Oklahoma, where she enjoys the wildlife and hikes in the woods with her husband. She has a son, a wonderful daughter-in-law and a great passion for writing romances—a job she hopes to keep for a long time to come. Many of Stella’s books have been transcribed to audiotapes for the Oklahoma Library for the Blind. She hopes her blind audience, and all her readers, will continue to enjoy her stories.
Chapter One (#ulink_fe535d72-ed94-5133-93bf-d156cbeed84b)
Justine Murdock flexed her aching shoulders and shook her long red hair in the wind blowing through the open pickup. It was June in New Mexico. The sun was warm, and the orchards and pastures had just been washed with an overnight rain.
As the pickup rattled over a planked bridge crossing the Hondo River, Justine breathed in the fresh evening air. It was wonderful to be out of the medical clinic. She’d had an especially tiring day, and all she could think about was getting home to the ranch, taking a long, hot bath, then setting down to supper with her family.
The Bar M Ranch spread over several hundred acres at the foothills of the Capitan mountains. The house itself was built in a square, with a small courtyard in the center. The pink stucco walls, red tiled roof and ground-level porch, with arched supports, made the home a typical hacienda-style ranch house.
A graveled driveway circled the house, but since her sisters parked their vehicles in the back, Justine always used the front entrance.
Leaving her mud-splattered pickup in the shade of a piñon pine, Justine walked the short distance to the porch, rubbing the back of her neck as she went. For some unexplainable reason, half the mothers of Lincoln County had decided to bring their babies in for their immunizations today. Each time Justine jabbed a fat little thigh or hip, horrified shrieks had echoed through the whole clinic.
Rubbing her furrowed brow, Justine glanced around her. It still seemed like she was hearing babies crying!
She saw it then. The straw laundry basket on the flat concrete porch, the tottery little head wavering just above the rim.
Running the last few steps to the porch, Justine knelt beside the basket. A loud gasp rushed past her lips. There wasn’t just one baby sitting on the fuzzy blue blanket, there were two! A girl in pink, with bright red hair, and a boy in blue, with slightly darker auburn hair. Their features were almost identical, right down to the green of their eyes.
Dear God, twins! Where had they come from?
Quickly she scanned the area back over her shoulder. There were no strange vehicles parked nearby, no one to be seen. Did her sisters or aunt not know the babies were out here?
She looked back down at the twins, her face still mirroring the shock of finding them. “Where did you two come from?”
Distracted by Justine’s voice, the babies suddenly stopped their fussing and stared, wide-eyed, at her. After a moment, the boy stuck out his lower lip and the girl began waving her arms in the air.
“Yeah, I know,” Justine said. “You can’t talk yet. You’re not old enough.”
Quickly she picked up the basket of babies and carried it into the house. “Aunt Kitty! Rose! Chloe! Is anyone home?”
No one answered as Justine carried the heavy load into the kitchen and placed it carefully on the long Formica table.
With one hand still on the basket, Justine glanced at the refrigerator door, where notes were usually left, beneath an array of colorful magnets. A tiny square of paper dangled beneath a banana.
Charlie and I have gone to the grocery store in Ruidoso. Be back before dark. Love, Aunt Kitty
Justine groaned. It was nearly two hours before dark. That meant it would probably be at least an hour before her son and aunt returned home. As for her sisters, she doubted either of them would show up any sooner. Since their father’s death six weeks ago, which had left them in dire financial straits, both Rose and Chloe had taken to doing the work of the wranglers they’d been forced to let go.
“Well,” Justine said to the twins. “Looks like it’s just you and me, kids. What are we gonna do?”
Now that the two had an audience, the twins didn’t seem too perturbed at being confined to a laundry basket. Thankful for small favors, Justine thrust her hands through her thick red hair and tried to calm her racing mind.
Of course, she’d heard of babies being left on doorsteps in books or movies. But that was fiction. That didn’t happen in Hondo, New Mexico. And certainly not to Justine Murdock.
What should she do now? What did a person do when she found deserted babies on her porch? she wondered wildly. And they were obviously deserted. No one was knocking at the door or calling on the telephone to claim them.
A thought suddenly struck her, and she quickly made a search around and under the babies for a note, or any sort of clue. The only things she found were two bottles and two pacifiers, wrapped in several disposable diapers. The bottles were filled, and the formula was still cool, as though the bottles had only been taken out of the refrigerator a short time ago.
Her nursing instincts kicking in, Justine picked up the boy, gave him a quick inspection, then did the same with the girl.
They were both plump, the boy a little more so than the girl. Their skin was clear and pink, their eyes were bright. Both babies appeared to be perfectly normal and healthy.
Satisfied with her examinations, Justine set the twins facing each other in the basket, then stepped back and studied them thoughtfully. From what she could remember from her own son, and from the babies she saw in the medical clinic, she would guess the twins to be somewhere around five months old. Neither one had any teeth, yet they could both sit up without any props.
Try as she might, Justine couldn’t remember any of their friends or neighbors in the area having twins in the past six months. Nor could she remember twins of this age visiting the clinic at any time. Did that mean they weren’t from around here? If so, why would anyone bring them to the Bar M?
Maybe her aunt or sisters would have some idea, but Justine doubted it. She figured the three women were going to be just as flabbergasted to find the twins here as she’d been.
You know you’re going to have to call the sheriff, a voice said inside her head. Whoever had left the babies had committed a crime. Technically, the law needed to be advised and an investigation started. But calling the sheriff was the last thing on earth that Justine wanted to do.
Her legs suddenly wobbly, Justine pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. The babies stared at her, gooed and banged their little fists against the sides of the basket.
Justine smiled at their sweet round faces, while inside her stomach churned sickly. More than five years had passed since she saw or talked to Roy Pardee, the sheriff of Lincoln County. And during the year and a half that she’d been back home in Hondo, she’d carefully avoided any contact with the man. He was a part of her past that she wanted to keep in the past.
But now she had two strange babies on her hands, and he needed to know about them before the trail from where they came from turned cold. Dear God, could she face him again? Could she look at him and pretend that nothing had ever happened between them?
The questions made her hands tremble, but when she looked at the two helpless children, her jaw set with determination. She wasn’t an innocent twenty-year-old anymore. She was a mother, a nurse, a strong, grown woman. Someone had dumped two precious humans, and they deserved her help. Roy Pardee be damned!
Before she could lose her courage, Justine went over to the wall phone, located at the end of a row of cabinets, and punched the number listed for the Lincoln County sheriff.
A female dispatcher answered on the first ring, and Justine quickly gave the woman her name and address and went on to explain the problem.
“If you’ll hold a moment, Ms. Murdock, I’ll see how quickly someone can get out there,” she told Justine, then went off the line. Seconds later, she returned. “Sheriff Pardee will be right there, Ms. Murdock.”
In spite of all her earlier bravado, Justine felt as if the wind had been knocked from her. “Oh, it isn’t necessary to send him. Any deputy will do.”
The dispatcher must have considered Justine’s suggestion strange. She paused for long seconds, then said, “In a case like this, Sheriff Pardee would rather see things first-hand.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Justine said, glad the woman couldn’t see her red face. “Then I’ll be here waiting for him.”
The woman thanked her, then hung up. Justine placed the receiver back on its cradle, then groaned loudly. “I’ll be waiting for him,” she repeated with a snort, then turned and looked at the twins. “What am I saying? I won’t be waiting for him. I’ll simply be here—ready to talk to…whoever shows up. But I won’t wait on Roy Pardee. Not even for you,” she added to the babies.
As soon as the words were out, the girl began to cry. Justine quickly went over and lifted the baby into her arms.
“It’s all right, honey girl,” she said in a soothing voice. “Not all men are like Roy Pardee. Besides, when you grow up, you’ll be a lot smarter than I was. You’ve got an intelligent little face. I can already tell you’ll know to steer clear of men who walk with a swagger and wear a badge in place of a heart.”
The trip from Carrizozo, where the sheriff’s department was located, to the Bar M was a bit over forty miles. She figured she had thirty minutes or more before Roy arrived. She used part of the time to make a quilt pallet on the living room floor for the babies.
While the twins rolled and stretched on their new bed, Justine peered out the windows, toward the corrals and barns, in hopes of catching a glimpse of Chloe or Rose. If there had ever been a time she needed the support of her sisters, it was now. But there was no sight of them anywhere, and she could hardly leave the babies alone to go in search of them.
As for her son and aunt, Justine hoped the two of them didn’t show up until after the sheriff had come and gone. She didn’t want Charlie to see Roy. And she didn’t want Roy to see her son. Maybe that was selfish and ridiculous on her part. Roy would probably never make any sort of connection. Still, she wasn’t ready to take that chance. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be.
Grimacing, Justine sat down on the couch in front of the twins’ makeshift bed. More than likely, she thought, Roy had forgotten all about the brief affair they had nearly six years ago. Yet she hadn’t forgotten. She couldn’t. Charlie was a constant reminder of the time she’d spent with Roy.
As she watched the twins examine each other’s ears and eyes, a soft smile curved Justine’s lips. Having Charlie far outweighed the heartache and humiliation Roy had dealt her all those years ago. Her son gave her life meaning and purpose. She loved him fiercely, and would do anything to protect him. And knowing that only made her wonder how any mother had been able to leave these two babies behind.
It had been at least two years since Roy was on the Bar M Ranch. He’d stopped by on a trip to Picacho to see Tom. There’d been a rash of cattle thefts at the time, and he’d wanted to see if the ranch had suffered any losses.
Roy had always liked the older Murdock man, and had been sorry to hear of his sudden death a few weeks ago. Yet he’d not gone to the funeral. He’d known that she would be there and he’d decided that if or when he ever saw her again, he didn’t want it to be over her father’s grave.
That day, he’d chosen not to see Justine. But today he had no choice, and he didn’t know how he would feel to finally look at her beautiful face once again. And she would still be beautiful. She could only be twenty-five or twenty-six now.
He didn’t know exactly when Justine had returned home to Hondo. Quite by accident, he’d overheard someone in a Ruidoso café talking about Tom having his middle daughter back out on the ranch again. That had been several months ago, yet he could still remember how the snippet of news had stunned him. He’d come close to casually questioning the person about Justine’s coming home. But he’d stopped himself short of doing such a thing. When the county sheriff asked questions about anyone, it always started the gossip mill grinding.
Six years ago, he’d been a young deputy in the middle of a messy breakup with the sheriff’s daughter when Justine came into his life. The result had been a secret affair. To this day, he didn’t think anyone knew about the torrid liaison he’d had with the fiery-haired Murdock girl. Except him. And it annoyed the hell out of him, because he couldn’t forget.
The knock on the door startled Justine, making her hands jerk as she fastened the adhesive tab on the waist of the diaper.
“He’s not going anywhere.” Justine spoke in a hurried hush to the boy twin. “And I want to make sure your pants aren’t going to fall off.”
Her heart beating in her throat, Justine took another moment to check the fresh diaper she’d placed on the baby. Then, rising to her feet, she went to answer Roy’s second knock.
The thin strips of glass running the length of the oak door gave her a glimpse of a tall man dressed in blue jeans, boots and a khaki shirt. His head was turned toward the corrals and barns, but the moment Justine opened the door, it jerked around to face her.
For long seconds, Justine could only stare at him and wonder why, after all these years, he should still look so good, so sexy, to her. The years she’d been away had changed him very little, except to add a few sunlines to his face and muscular weight to his body.
“Hello, Roy.”
Beneath the brim of his black Stetson, his blue eyes flicked impassively over her face. “Hello, Justine.”
She didn’t realize just how much seeing him had affected her until she stepped back to allow him entry into the house. Her legs were trembling on weak knees, and for a moment she clung to the doorknob for support.
“Please come in. The babies are right here.”
He stepped past her. Justine shut the door and turned to him.
“Were you the only one here when you found the babies?” he asked.
No “How are you, it’s good to see you, how have things been?” Justine thought. He was going to be strictly business. That was good, she supposed. She didn’t want anything personal to pass between them. Still, his indifference hurt. She’d once given him so very much of herself. But she supposed Roy Pardee was like so many men in this world. They took a woman’s heart, then forgot all about it.
“It appears that way. My sisters must be out on another part of the ranch. And my—aunt has gone into Ruidoso.”
He was looking at the two babies now. Justine drew in a shaky breath and raked her fingers through her long, tangled hair.
“What time was it when you came home and found them?”
Justine glanced at the watch strapped to her left wrist. “I don’t know exactly. I got off work a little later than usual, then drove straight home. I’d say it’s been at least an hour and a half.”
“And how were they when you found them?”
Her brows lifted as he turned back to her. “How were they?” she repeated inanely. “They were fine. In fact, I’d say they’re both in perfect health.”
Roy’s eyes slowly drifted over her white nurse’s shift. “I wasn’t asking about their medical condition. I want to know where they were. In the house, here on the floor?”
There was a thread of impudence in his voice, a sound that said he was just waiting, hoping, for her to make some sort of foolish remark. A second time. Justine suddenly wanted to slap him.
She tried to count to ten, but her mind wavered. By the time she reached five, her attention had returned to his face, the chiseled mouth and the hooded gray-blue eyes, the sandy hair curling around his ears and the back of his neck. She’d once showered that face with kisses, she remembered, threaded her fingers though his hair and held his head fast to her breast.
He’d made her heart beat fast and wild then. She’d never loved anyone the way she loved him, and now, after all this time, she was afraid she never would again. This man had ruined her chances of happiness, and he didn’t even know it. Moreover, he didn’t care.
Her nostrils flaring, she lifted her chin. “The babies were on the porch by the door. In a laundry basket.”
“Where is the basket?”
“In the kitchen.”
“I’d like to see it.”
And she’d like to stuff it over his head, Justine thought. But the pistol strapped to his hips and the badge pinned to his breast reminded her of his authority in this county, even in this house. She didn’t want to test it at this moment.
“Follow me,” she told him.
Justine took him to the kitchen, where the basket was still sitting atop the table. Ignoring her, he looked inside.
“Was there any sort of note, anything inside other than this blanket?”
“The only things I found were four diapers, two bottles and two pacifiers.”
He looked at Justine, his lips thinning with obvious disapproval. “And you’ve handled them all?”
“Of course. I had to change the babies, and I didn’t want the formula to spoil. The two of them will eventually need to eat.”
He lifted his hat from his head and raked his fingers through his hair. Justine couldn’t help but notice that it was still thick and shiny.
“I don’t suppose you thought about getting fingerprints?”
She dismissed his question with a wave of her hand. “I’m not stupid, Roy. I think you and I both know that whoever left these babies doesn’t have a criminal record or have their fingerprints on file. It doesn’t appear to me to be a crime committed by a repeated felon with a jail record. There’s no motive or gain.”
She was probably right, but that didn’t make him like the fact that she’d tampered with evidence. Besides that, he was finding it damn hard to concentrate on anything but her.
He’d thought seeing her again would be easy. He’d thought he could look at her and not remember the passion that had once burned so briefly between them. But images of the past were blurring his vision, reminding him of the fool he’d been.
“How old do you think the babies are?” he asked after a moment.
“Five months, give or take.”
He walked over to the screen door leading out to the courtyard. “Do you have any idea who they might belong to, or where they might have come from?”
“No. No idea.”
He continued to look out at the courtyard, with its brick patio, its redwood lawn furniture and its huge pots of bright flowers. Rooms and a ground-level porch were built in a square around the small yard. Directly in front of him, on the south wall, a wrought-iron gate led outside, to the barns and stables.
From where Roy stood, he could see nothing out of the ordinary. He glanced at Justine. Her face was pale, and her fingers were nervously tracing a pattern on the edge of the laundry basket.
“Have you ever seen the twins before?”
“No.”
His jaw tight, Roy looked away from her. “I need to take a look around the place. Do I have your permission, or should I drive back to Carrizozo and get a search warrant?”
Justine’s lips parted as her eyes bored into the side of his darkly tanned face. “A search warrant? Do you think I had something to do with the twins appearing on the doorstep?”
He turned to face her. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Roy frowned at her incredulous expression. “This is your home, Justine, your property. Not mine. If you don’t want me on it, you have the legal right to see a search warrant. As a lawman—”
“You don’t have to remind me you’re the law of Lincoln County, Roy,” she said dryly. “I’m well aware that you are.”
So she thought he was cocky, just here to flaunt his authority in her face. Well, there were a lot of things Roy was thinking about her, too. But he wasn’t going to voice them. The past was dead, and he wasn’t going to give Justine Murdock the satisfaction of knowing how hard it had been for him to finally bury it.
Striding over to her, he looked down at her upturned face. “I’m glad you realize that, Justine.”
Her nostrils flared as her eyes scanned his face, then settled on the firm line of his lips.
She realized a lot of things about him, Justine thought. That these past six years had not only lined his face and muscled his body, they had extinguished the light that once burned in his eyes. The smile that had always been so ready on his lips had totally disappeared. What had happened to the Roy Pardee she used to know?
“Go ahead. Do your search,” Justine told him, her eyes drifting to a point over his shoulder. “You won’t get any resistance from me.”
Roy’s lips twisted. Too bad she hadn’t resisted his advances all those years ago. If she had, then maybe he wouldn’t be feeling this awful, empty anger inside him now.
“Thank you. I’ll try to be quick.”
He left the room, and Justine immediately sagged against the table. Dear God, let this be over soon, she prayed. Let him be gone from here before her son and aunt returned.
Justine didn’t know how long she stood there before the fussing of the babies called her back to the living room. Kneeling down on the pallet, she checked both their diapers. They were dry, so she patted their backs and tried talking to them. Neither the girl nor the boy seemed interested in what she had to say. Both simply chewed their fists and cried harder. Justine knew there was nothing left to do but heat their bottles and feed them.
By the time Roy returned from his search through the house and over part of the grounds, Justine was sitting on the floor with the babies, doing her best to balance bottles in each hungry mouth.
“Thank God you’re back!” Before Roy could say anything, she picked up. the boy and thrust him into his arms. “You can feed him while I take the girl.”
Stunned, Roy looked helplessly at the baby in his arms. “I don’t know anything about feeding a baby!”
Frowning at him, she cradled the redheaded girl in her arms. “Just put the nipple in his mouth and keep the bottle tilted up. He’ll do the rest.”
Roy awkwardly carried the boy and the bottle over to the couch and took a seat on the edge of the cushion. As soon as he offered the baby the nipple, the little tyke latched on to it like a hungry pup.
“I didn’t come here to act as a temporary daddy,” he muttered.
Temporary daddy. Justine’s lips twisted with a grimace as she repeated the two words to herself. The man didn’t look as if he’d be comfortable in that role, much less being a father in a permanent capacity.
“I know you didn’t come here for this. But I can’t handle two of them at the same time. And when a baby gets hungry, he doesn’t care where he is or who he’s with, he wants his dinner. Surely you know that.”
Roy shot her a glare as the baby reached for the shiny badge pinned to the pocket of his khaki shirt
“How would I know that? I’ve never had a child!”
He growled the question at Justine, and, if it was possible, her face went even whiter. I’ve never had a child. What was he saying? What about Marla, and the baby she and Roy had been expecting all those years ago? The questions roared through her head like a tornado.
Through offhand remarks of her father’s, Justine had learned that Roy and Marla’s marriage had ended and the woman had moved far away. At the time of the divorce, it had been rumored that Marla was pregnant, but Tom had never heard anything about a child being born and he hadn’t wanted to appear nosy and ask Roy outright. Especially since the two of them had been divorced.
Down through the years, Justine had simply assumed the baby had been born and lived with its mother in another state. Now Roy was telling her he’d never had a child! What did it all mean?
Struggling to collect her thoughts, she said, “I—Well, I just figured you were probably a daddy by now.”
Roy glanced down at the auburn-haired boy in his arms. The tiny fingers were doing their best to tug the sheriff’s badge away from his shirt. Carefully he plucked the baby’s hand away, only to have the stubby little fingers wrap tightly around his forefinger.
“Do I look like one?” he asked gruffly.
No, she thought, her teeth grinding together, Roy Pardee was the very image of a man who liked to make babies, not father them.
Ignoring his question, she asked, “Did you find anything outside?”
The baby was still clinging to his finger. It made him feel hemmed in, but needed. And that was a strange feeling for Roy. No one had ever really needed him. As a lawman, maybe. But not like this helpless little fellow in his arms.
“No. I need to talk to your sisters. When do you think they’ll be in?”
Justine shrugged as she absently rocked the child in her arms. “By dark. Maybe later. Rose is probably out in one of the pastures checking on the cattle, and Chloe should have been down at the stables with the horses. You didn’t see her?
“No. The barns and the stables were all empty.”
Glancing down, Justine studied the little girl’s round face, dimpled cheeks and soft red hair. “Do you think it was the parents that left these children here? I mean, how could someone do such a thing? If I hadn’t come home when I had—” Shuddering at the thought, she shook her head. “With just a little motion, they could have turned that basket over. No telling what would have happened to them.”
Roy could see that the idea of the babies being harmed alarmed her greatly. It bothered him, too. Still, he didn’t think the person or persons who’d left the twins had meant to put their lives in jeopardy. “It’s too early to say if it might have been one or both of the parents, or someone unrelated. The only thing that’s clear to me is that whoever left them here meant for you or one of your family members to have them.”
Justine’s head swung back and forth. “But that’s insane! Why would someone want me or my sisters to have their babies?”
Roy shrugged. “You’re a nurse. Maybe someone knew that and believed you’d take good care of them.”
Milk was dribbling from the corner of the baby’s mouth. Drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, Roy dabbed it away. With the bottle still in his mouth, the little boy grinned broadly and let out a happy goo.
Scowling, Roy jammed the damp handkerchief back in his pocket. Poor little guy, he thought grimly. He wasn’t even aware that he’d been abandoned. He was too small to know about the pain of rejection. But Roy knew all about it, and even though the person or persons who’d left these babies behind might not have intended physical harm to them, they still needed to be strung up by the heels. Roy vowed then and there to track them down, no matter how long it took!
Across the room, Justine watched the dark, angry expression spread over Roy’s face as he looked down at the baby in his arms. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There was such hardness in his eyes and on his lips. Was the man totally heartless? Didn’t he feel anything for the helpless child in his arms?
If it hadn’t been for the girl still feeding in her arms, Justine would have ripped the baby away from him and ordered him out of the house. As it was, however, she was hardly in a position to vent her feelings to him.
But she would someday, Justine silently promised herself. Someday she’d let him know what a selfish, heartless man he really was.
From out of nowhere, hot moisture blurred her vision. She shut her eyes and swallowed at the unexpected rush of emotion. This wasn’t like her to get teary and mad and vindictive. Normally she was a loving woman. But Roy Pardee, or the thought of him, had never left her feeling normal.
The sound of a vehicle caught both her and Roy’s attention. Rising up in the rocking chair, Justine glanced out the window. Her heart immediately dropped to her stomach.
“It’s my aunt,” she told Roy.
He nodded.
Moments later, a screen door banged and the patter of racing feet on Spanish tile grew closer. Then, suddenly, the running footsteps stopped and Charlie, her five-year-old son, stood just inside the living groom, his wide blue eyes going from his mother and the baby in her arms to the strange man on the couch.
“It’s all right, darling. You can come on in,” Justine told him gently.
With a cautious eye on Roy, the boy scurried to Justine’s side.
“Mommy, where did you get the baby? Who is that man? He’s got a baby, too!”
Justine cast a glance at Roy. He was staring at her and Charlie, his eyes squinted to slits, his jaw rigid. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking, but it was quite clear that the appearance of her son wasn’t pleasing to him. And suddenly she knew she’d been right all those years ago. She could stop beating up on herself, stop feeling guilty. Roy Pardee hadn’t been father material then, and he wasn’t now.
“Yes, honey. Mommy found the babies, and the sheriff has come to help find out where they belong.”
Smiling with instant fascination, Charlie carefully touched the red fuzz of hair on the girl twin’s head. “She has red hair like you, Mommy!”
Justine smiled at her son’s observation. “She sure does. Now, will you go get Aunt Kitty? The sheriff would like to speak with her.”
Charlie glanced curiously over at the man and the baby on the couch, then started toward the door. “Aunt Kitty had to go to the bathroom! I’ll get her!”
Charlie raced out of the room. Once the boy was out of sight, Roy released a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“You have a son?”
The sound of his low, gravelly voice caused Justine to jerk ever so slightly. She looked up from the baby and over to him. There was an odd look of betrayal on his face. As though he knew…But no, she swiftly assured herself. He couldn’t know anything. No one, not even her sisters, knew that Roy Pardee was Charlie’s father.
Chapter Two (#ulink_808a3110-06bc-50bb-bad8-e386db5b24d5)
Justine’s chin unconsciously tilted upward. “Yes. Charles is my son.”
Of course, it had been obvious when the boy called her Mommy. But hearing Justine admit it out loud was like the blow of an ax to Roy.
His face like chipped granite, he said, “Someone told me you’d been engaged to be married, then later I heard the marriage had been called off. But I didn’t know you’d had a child back then. Did you…ever get married?”
Roy hated himself for asking. He wanted to appear indifferent. He wanted to be totally disinterested, but he couldn’t be. Justine Murdock had done something to him all those years ago. She’d shown him heaven and then shown him hell. She’d given him. his first true love lesson. One that he’d never forget. There wasn’t such a thing as real love.
“No. I’ve never been married,” Justine admitted, then wondered what he could possibly be thinking. Let it be that she was a promiscuous woman. Anything would be better than the truth.
“You had the boy while you were in college.”
It was a statement, not a question, but Justine found herself nodding at him anyway. She was determined to appear cool, no matter how much her insides were shaking with fear. “Being pregnant and going to school wasn’t a picnic. I had to cut down on my classes and scrimp and save the money my parents sent me. But I managed to get through.”
“So where is his father?”
She met his gaze, and her green eyes were unusually dull. “After I became pregnant with Charlie, he realized he didn’t want to be a family man. He didn’t even want to get married. So we—ended things, and since then he’s been totally out of my life.”
Roy wanted to tell her she’d been a fool to bear such a man’s child, but at that moment a petite woman with short salt-and-pepper hair walked into the room. Justine’s son was tagging close to her side.
“Charlie said I was wanted,” Kitty said. “What’s going on here?”
With the twin girl still in her arms, Justine got to her feet. “Roy, this is my aunt Kitty. She’s my mother’s sister. She came to live with us before our mother passed away.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Roy said, with a nod toward the older woman. “It seems that your niece found two babies on the porch when she came home from work. You wouldn’t happen to know who they might belong to?”
Kitty’s mouth formed a perfect O as she glanced from one baby to the other. “Land sakes no! You mean they were on the doorstep? Just like in the movies?”
“That’s the way Justine described it.”
Justine turned her eyes on him. “That’s the way it was,” she said crisply.
“Well! What do you think about that?” Kitty asked no one in particular. “I wish Lola and Tom were alive to see this.”
Charlie ventured over to Roy, who’d just slipped the empty bottle from the boy twin’s mouth.
“You have a badge,” Charlie told him.
Roy looked at the boy. He had a stocky build, like his late grandfather Tom. His thick hair was light brown and fell in a straight bang across his forehead. Freckles dotted his broad-bridged nose and dimples dented both cheeks. He was an endearing child, and Roy couldn’t help but somehow feel cheated that Justine had chosen to have some other man’s baby.
“Yes, that’s a badge,” Roy told him.
“You have a gun, too,” Charlie went on, his gaze on the pistol holstered to Roy’s hip.
“That’s right.”
“Are you a policeman?”
“I’m a sheriff.”
Charlie repeated the word. “What does a sheriff do?”
“He tells the other policemen what to do.”
Charlie grinned and plopped down beside Roy on the couch. “So you’re the boss.”
In spite of everything, Roy found himself smiling back at Justine’s son. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“Would you like for me to take the baby now, Mr. Pardee?” Kitty asked him.
“Thank you, ma’am.” He handed the twin over to the older woman, and was instantly struck by the emptiness of his arms.
“He looks like the one you have, Mommy,” Charlie said, pointing at the tiny boy in his aunt’s arms. “Is that his sister?”
“Yes, honey. I expect they are brother and sister,” Justine told him.
“I can’t get over it,” Kitty said as she strolled around the room like a doting grandmother. “Babies left on our ranch! Where do you think they came from?”
“I was hoping that you or Justine’s sisters might have some clues,” Roy told the woman. “Are you certain you don’t know anyone who’s had twins in the past six months? An old friend or distant relative?”
Kitty thought for a moment, then shook her head. “My old friends are too old to have babies, and most of my relatives live here on the Bar M.”
Sighing, Roy glanced at Charlie, who was sidled up to him the way a tomcat would a warm stove. The sight of the trusting child disturbed Roy almost as much as the sight of Justine.
Rising to his feet, he said, “Well, if neither of you can think of anything else, I’m going to get on the phone and find a place to take these babies tonight.”
Roy headed out the door. Justine glanced at Kitty, then quickly placed the twin girl down on the pallet and followed him out on the porch.
Hearing her footsteps, Roy turned, his brows arched with speculation.
“Was there something else you wanted to tell me?” he asked.
Justine met his eyes, moistened her lips, then glanced away. “Just that there’s no need for you to find a place for the babies to stay. We’d be happy to keep them here.”
He didn’t say anything, just kept gazing at her through narrowed eyes.
Justine heaved out a breath, then folded her arms across her breasts. “I love babies, but I wouldn’t go so far to steal a pair of them, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” he said roughly.
And she didn’t want to know, Justine thought hotly. “Well, think about this. There’s not exactly a plethora of orphanages around here. As far as I know, there’s not any. You probably know a few foster parents who’d be willing to take the babies in, but I doubt they would be any more capable than four grown women would be.”
His gaze slanted downward from her face, to settle on the bulge of her breasts spilling over her folded arms.
“Don’t forget to point out you’re an experienced mother,” he added sarcastically.
At that moment, Justine was certain she hated this long-legged man with hard blue eyes and an even harder mouth.
“Is there something wrong with being a mother?” she asked him challengingly.
Roy didn’t know why he was behaving so churlishly. Just because seeing Justine again had thrown him off kilter, that didn’t mean he lacked manners.
“No. There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said. Then with a tired sigh, he lifted his hat and combed his fingers through his hair.
The sun had set some minutes ago, and the sky over the ranch had turned dusky. The day had been a long one for Roy. He should be looking forward to going home, taking a hot shower and fixing himself a steak for supper. But not even the prospect of those things eased the weariness that had suddenly come over him.
“I suppose it will be all right for the babies to stay here tonight,” he said after a moment. “I’ll have someone from social services come out to get them tomorrow.”
He stepped off the porch. Justine suddenly realized he was going to leave. “You’re not going, are you?”
A faint smile touched his lips, but not his eyes. For one brief moment, Justine felt a sadness she didn’t quite understand. She only knew that a long time ago, Roy had smiled at her. Really smiled. But she would never see that man again.
“There’s not much more I can do here tonight, other than speaking with your sisters. And since they obviously weren’t around when the babies were left, they may not know any more than your aunt. But just in case, I’ll question them later. Until then, if any of you come up with something, let me know.”
He took a step toward a Bronco with the sheriff’s department seal painted on the side. Justine called after him.
“How long do you think it will take you to find out who did this?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Not long,” he said grimly.
“But you hardly have any evidence to work with.”
“I’ve had less.”
Behind Justine, the door opened and closed. She peered around to see Charlie skipping toward her.
“Mommy, I’m hungry. When are we gonna eat?”
Justine took her son by the shoulders and turned him back toward the door of the house. “Go get a graham cracker. Aunt Kitty and I will fix supper in a few minutes.”
The child went back inside. Justine looked at Roy, and suddenly felt more awkward than she had since he first arrived. Maybe it was because he was leaving and she knew that she’d probably never see him again.
The idea should have relieved her, and it did, to a certain degree. But it also reminded her of how empty, how devastated, she’d felt when she lost him all those years ago. He’d been her first and only lover. Whether she wanted him to be or not, a part of him was still ingrained in her.
“Well, another hungry mouth to feed,” she said, with a faint smile and a shrug. “I guess I’d better get to work.”
Nodding, Roy turned and walked the remaining distance to his Bronco. He needed to get back to work, too. But he could feel her eyes on his back until he heard the door to the house shut
Roy climbed into the vehicle and reached to start the motor. Before he could, his eyes were drawn to the house, and his fingers paused on the ignition keys. Through the living room window, he could see Justine bending down and planting a kiss on the top of her son’s head. The boy took a bite of cracker, then offered it to his mother. She took a bite, then put her arm around the child and led him away from Roy’s view.
Annoyed with himself for letting his attention stray once again to the family inside the house, Roy muttered a curse and started the engine. It was high time he got home.
Justine was helping her aunt prepare supper when Rose and Chloe returned to the house. Both sisters were instantly captivated by the twins and insisted on feeding them mashed bananas at the supper table.
“Aren’t they the cutest things you’ve ever seen?” Chloe exclaimed as she scooped a spoonful of fruit into the boy’s mouth. “What do you think we should call them?”
Justine glanced anxiously at her aunt then back to her younger sister. “Chloe, we can’t name the babies. Remember what I told you earlier? Someone from social services will be out tomorrow to get them.”
Chloe kissed the top of the boy’s head, whose dark auburn hair just happened to match her own, then glanced adoringly at the girl sitting contentedly on Rose’s lap.
“Oh, Justine, surely we can keep them until the real parents are found. And who knows? They might not be able to get them back. Not after dumping them like they did.”
Justine sighed inwardly. She knew what these two babies probably meant to Chloe. At eighteen, an infection had scarred her reproductive organs and left her barren. Now, at twenty-three and with no chance of ever having a baby of her own, she probably saw the twins as two little angels sent from heaven.
But Justine knew it wasn’t that way, and she didn’t want Chloe or Rose to get attached to the babies, then go through the heartache of giving them up.
“Chloe,” Justine began, “we don’t know who left the children here. And I doubt—”
At twenty-eight, the chestnut-haired Rose was the oldest of the three sisters, and always the quiet one. But at this moment she chose to interrupt, making the other three women look at her with raised brows.
“If Sheriff Pardee allowed them to stay here tonight, perhaps he’ll consider letting them stay until the case is solved.”
“Yes!” Chloe seconded that idea with an eager yelp, then turned pleading eyes on Justine. “Justine, will you call and ask him?”
Justine glanced frantically at her two sisters. “Me ask him! Why me?”
“Well, you knew him from a long time ago,” Chloe pointed out.
“I did?” Justine asked cautiously.
As far as she knew, no one in her family had known that she and Roy were together, as friends or anything more. At the time she became involved with Roy, he’d been dating Marla, his boss’s daughter. But he’d assured Justine the relationship wasn’t serious and he was trying to gradually break away from her without angering Marla or her father. So she’d agreed to keep their dating a secret. Now that secret was buried deep in her heart.
“We all went to the same high school,” Rose reminded her.
“Oh—yes, I guess we did,” Justine admitted with relief. “But he was three grades higher than me, and I never associated with the guy. Besides—”
Chloe butted in. “Justine, men take to you like ducks to water.”
“Oh, please,” Justine groaned. “I haven’t even dated a man in a long time.”
“Well,” Rose said, her pretty face suddenly taking on a hard edge, “I’m sure not a femme fatale, and I’ll not try to be.”
As Justine glanced at her older sister, she realized she wasn’t the only one who’d suffered because of a heartless man. Since her disastrous engagement ended nine years ago, Rose had shunned virtually all men.
“And you know how easily an arrogant man can rile me up,” Chloe added. “Before I could bite my tongue, I’d be telling the sheriff to jump in the lake. Instead of wooing him to our way of thinking.”
It was true Chloe had a feisty temper. She got along with her horses far better than she did with men. Still, it went against everything inside Justine to ask Roy for anything.
“I don’t know why you two are doing this to me,” Justine said wearily.
“Because you’d have a far better chance of persuading the sheriff than Rose or I,” Chloe insisted. “Come on, say you’ll do it. Please!”
If her sisters only knew, Justine thought sickly. What would they think if she told them that Sheriff Pardee was Charlie’s father?
Closing her eyes, Justine pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “We’re already shorthanded here on the ranch. You and Rose work like dogs from sunup to sundown. How are you going to take care of two demanding babies?”
“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 (#ulink_12588b8b-0bbf-5c5e-82bd-255069115153)
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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