Lawless

His broad shoulders moved restlessly. “He said she wrote him a letter. He never told me what was in it, but he admitted that his own pride had killed any hope of them getting back together. He couldn’t bear having everybody know what she did to him.” He smiled sadly. “She was his first woman,” he added, with a glance at Christabel’s wide-eyed stare. “And his last. I don’t suppose some people today even think it’s possible for a man to be faithful to one woman his whole life, but it’s not so rare a thing in small towns, even in the modern world.”

“I guess you’ve thought about how it would have been, if he could have forgiven her.”

“Yes.” He turned the coffee cup in his big, lean hands. “It was a lonely life after she left. I could never talk to him the way I could to her, about things that bothered me. I guess I drew inside myself afterward.”

He’d never talked to her this way before, as if she were an adult, an equal. She studied his hard face and ached to have his mouth on hers again. She knew she’d never be able to forget how it felt.

He pushed back from the table and got to his feet. “I need to get back to Victoria.”

She got up, too, eyeing him curiously. “What did you come down here for?”

“Leo Hart phoned me about some Salers bulls that have died mysteriously. He said he’d heard that our young one was poisoned. I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“Yes, I tried to tell you when it happened that I thought Jack Clark was responsible, and you wouldn’t listen...” she began.

He held up a hand. “You know you didn’t have the boys check that pasture for bloat-causing weeds,” he pointed out. “I told Leo so. I warned you about that, Christabel. You can’t accuse people of crimes without solid proof.”

“I wasn’t! Judd,” she said, exasperated, “there were four other young bulls in that pasture with him. They didn’t die.”

“I know that. They were lucky.”

She grimaced. “They were Herefords,” she said impatiently. “The only bull we lost was a Salers, and he was one of the same group that Fred Brewster bought calves from. He thinks Mr. Brewster’s bull was poisoned, and I still think ours was, too.”

He picked up his Stetson and slanted it across his brow. “Prove it,” he said.

She threw up her hands. “I don’t save dead bulls!” she exclaimed. “You wouldn’t believe me and I couldn’t afford an autopsy! We buried him with the backhoe!”

“Dig him up.”

She gave him a speaking glare. “Even if I did, where am I going to get the money to have an autopsy done?”

“Good point.” He sighed. “I’m skint. I used the last of my savings to repair that used tractor we had to have for haying.”

“I know,” she said, feeling guilty. “Listen, as soon as I graduate next year, I’ll get a job in town at one of the businesses. Computer programming pays good wages.”

“Then who’ll do the books?” he asked. “I don’t mind writing checks to pay bills, but I’m not burying myself in ten columns of figures and justifying bank statements. That’s your department.”

“I’ll justify the statements and do the printouts at night or on the weekends.”

“Poor Grier,” he said sarcastically.

“I only just met the man,” she pointed out.

“Stay out of parked cars with him,” he said with rare malice.

“He drives a truck,” she reminded him pertly, throwing his own earlier statement back at him.

“You know what I mean.” He turned and started out the front door.

She followed him, seething inside. He didn’t want her, but he didn’t want any other man around her, either.

“I’ll do what I please, Judd,” she said haughtily.

He whirled at the front porch. “You put your name on a marriage license,” he reminded her curtly.

“So did you, but that’s not stopping you from doing what you want to!”

He lifted an eyebrow and went on down the steps to his truck. “The film people are coming back Saturday to set up their equipment,” he added. “The director’s bringing Tippy Moore with him, and the guy who’s playing the cowboy—Rance Wayne.”

She couldn’t have cared less about the movie people. She hated the way Judd’s eyes twinkled when he mentioned Tippy Moore. The woman was internationally famous for her beauty. Christabel was going to look like a cactus plant by comparison, and she didn’t like it.

“I can hardly wait,” she muttered. “Do they like pet snakes? I’m thinking of adopting a black one and keeping it in the living room...”

“You be nice,” he said firmly. “We need the money. There’s no way we can fix the barn or buy new electric fencing without that grubstake.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “I’ll be nice.”

“That’ll be a change,” he remarked deliberately.

“And that’s just sour grapes because I didn’t dress up and look sexy for you,” she said, striking a pose. “You can go home and dream about me in that red negligee, because that’s the only way you’ll ever see it,” she added.

He made a rough sound in his throat, something like laughter, and kept walking.

She stared after him with flashing dark eyes, wishing that Cash would drive up before he left so that she could flaunt her date in front of him.

Daydreams so rarely come true, she thought wistfully as Judd climbed in behind the wheel, started the SUV, and drove off with a perfunctory wave of his hand.

It was a full ten minutes later that Cash Grier drove up in his black pickup truck. It was a huge, new vehicle with a spotlessly clean bed.

“Well, I can see that you don’t haul cattle,” she remarked as she went out to meet him at the bottom of the steps.

“Maybe I just keep an immaculate truck,” he chuckled.

He looked really good. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater with a casual jacket and dress slacks. His shoes were polished to a perfect shine. His dark hair was in a neat ponytail. He was easy on the eyes.

“You look nice, even out of uniform,” she pointed out.

He was doing some looking of his own, with eyes at least as experienced as Judd’s. She thought about the way Judd had kissed her and she flushed.

“You look a little uptight,” he remarked. “Second thoughts about tonight?”

“Not a single one,” she said firmly.

“Not worried about what Judd will say?” he persisted as he helped her into the truck.

“Judd said he didn’t care,” she replied. “He was here earlier.”

Which explained her flustered look and the deep swell of her lower lip, Cash thought privately and with some amusement. Apparently Judd was more jealous of his paper wife than Christabel realized, and had made sure that she had a yardstick to measure men by. He had a feeling he’d never measure up to the hero-worship she felt for her husband. But she made him feel good inside, young inside, and he wasn’t going to fall at the first fence because of a little competition.