The Chosen

“Damn it, I’ve told you over and over again. The argument was about nothing,” Judd said. “I wanted to reopen the family’s hunting lodge for the weekend and she didn’t want to. She didn’t like the country. She wanted to go to a party some friends were having. We ended up deciding to do neither, to just stay home and spend some time alone together.”

The same honest explanation he’d given repeatedly didn’t satisfy Lieutenant Blake. “Your wife was very beautiful and men adored her, didn’t they? That must have bothered you, knowing your wife was such a flirt—”

“Jennifer was not a flirt!” Judd came up out of the chair and lunged at the detective, whose combative reaction spurred Judd on.

Cam reached for Judd, who was by that time halfway across the table separating him from his tormentor. Cam grabbed hold of Judd’s shoulders just as Lindsay McAllister plopped herself down on the table right in front of her partner, creating a barrier between Judd and the lieutenant.

“My God, Dan, stop this! Enough’s enough. Mr. Walker shouldn’t have to go through this insanity.” Lindsay defended Judd in a loud, authoritarian voice, as if there was not one doubt in her mind that he was an innocent man. “Any fool can see that this man loved his wife, and he’s suffering unbearably.”

Judd allowed Cam to yank him back into his chair. All the while his gaze focused on Lindsay, seeing her for the first time as more than a nonentity.

“That’s quite enough, Sergeant McAllister,” Lieutenant Blake said, his tone calm and even.

Lindsay slid off the table and stood at attention, her cheeks flushed bright pink, and her jaw tightly clenched.

She wasn’t beautiful. She didn’t have a knockout figure. But Cam had been right—she was cute. Short, slender, with an all-American girl wholesomeness. The strangest notion went through Judd’s mind. He bet she liked the great outdoors, probably enjoyed camping and fishing and …

Suddenly he realized that he was thinking of her the way a man does a woman he’s interested in getting to know. His wife had been dead for less than a month and he found another woman attractive and interesting.