Fearless

“Who expects to have someone break into a cop’s apartment and rob him?”

“He does have a point,” Haynes had to admit.

“I guess so.”

Marquez looked at his watch and grimaced. “I have to be in court this afternoon to testify for a homicide case,” he told them. “I can tell my boss that you’re going to Jacobsville, right?”

She sighed. “Yes. I’ll go tomorrow morning, first thing. Do I need a letter of introduction or anything?”

“No. Jason will let the manager know you’re coming. You can stay in the house on the property.”

She hesitated. “Where is the manager staying?”

“Also in the house.” He held up a hand. “Before you say it, there’s a housekeeper who lives in the house and cooks for the manager.”

That relaxed her, but only a little. She didn’t like strange men, especially at close quarters. She decided that despite the summer heat, she’d pack thick cotton pajamas and a long robe.

JACOBSVILLE SEEMED MUCH smaller than she remembered it. The main street was almost exactly the same as it had been when she lived nearby. There was the pharmacy where her father had gone for medicine. Over there was the café which Barbara, Marquez’s mother, had run for as long as she could remember. There was the hardware store and the feed store and the clothing boutique. It was all the same. Only Glory herself had changed.

As she turned onto the narrow paved road that led to the Pendletons’s truck farm, she began to feel sick at her stomach. She’d forgotten. The house was the same one she’d shared with her mother and father, until her mother’s explosive temper had shattered Glory’s young body and their family. Until now, she hadn’t thought about how difficult it might be, trying to live there again.

The old pecan tree in the front yard was still there. She spotted it before she saw the mailbox beside the narrow paved driveway. Years ago, there had been a tire swing on the tree.

The real surprise was the house. The Pendletons must have spent some money remodeling it, because the old clapboard house of Glory’s youth was now an elegant white Victorian with gingerbread woodwork. There was a long, wide front porch which contained a swing, a settee and several rocking chairs. Far behind the house was a huge steel warehouse where workers were putting boxes of fresh corn and peas and tomatoes and other produce from the large fields on all sides of the house and warehouse. The fields seemed to stretch for miles into the flat distance.

She pulled up in the graveled parking lot under another pecan tree and cut off the engine. Her small sedan contained most of her worldly goods. Except for her furniture, and she hadn’t even considered bringing that along. She was keeping her apartment in San Antonio. The rent was paid up for six months, courtesy of her stepbrother. She wondered when she’d get to go home.

She opened the door and got out, just in time to see a tall, jean-clad man with jet-black hair and a mustache come down the front steps. He had a strong face and an athletic physique. He walked with such elegance that he seemed to glide along. He looked foreign.

He spotted Glory and his taut expression grew even more reserved. He moved toward her with a quick, elegant step. As he came closer, she could see that his eyes were black, like jet, under a jutting brow and dark eyebrows. She had the odd feeling that he was the sort of man you hope you never meet in a dark alley.

He stopped just in front of her, adding up her inexpensive car, her eyeglasses, her windswept blond hair in its tight bun and her modest clothing. If he was measuring, she thought, she’d fallen short.

“May I help you?” he asked coldly.

She leaned heavily on the car door. “I’m the canner.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

She swallowed, hard. He was very tall and he looked half out of humor already. “I can can.”

“We don’t hire exotic dancers,” he shot back.

Her green eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“The can-can is a dance, I believe?”

“Is it, really?” she asked with a mischievous glance. “Would you like to demonstrate it, and I’ll give you my opinion of whether it’s a dance or not?”

Incredible, she thought. Until now, she hadn’t really believed that a man’s eyes could explode with bad temper…

2

THE MAN’S JAW CLENCHED. “I am not in the mood for games,” he said in coldly accented English.

“First you talk about dancing, now you’re on about games,” she said. “Really, I don’t care about your private life. I was sent here to help with the canning. Jason Pendleton offered me the position.”

His eyes were really smoldering now. “He what?”

“Gave me a job,” she replied. She frowned. “Are you hard of hearing?”

He took a step toward her and she moved further toward the hinges. He looked ferocious. “Jason Pendleton offered you a job, here?”

“Yes, he did,” she replied. Perhaps humor wasn’t a very good idea at the time. “He said you needed someone to help put up his organic fruit. I can make preserves and jellies and I know how to can vegetables.”

He seemed to be struggling with her presence. It was obvious that he wasn’t happy about her coming here. “Jason said nothing about it to me.”

“He told me he’d phone you tonight. He’s in Montana at a cattle show.”

“I know where he is.”

Her hip was throbbing. She didn’t want to mention it. He was irritated enough already. “Would you like me to sleep in the car?” she asked politely.

He seemed to realize where they were, as if he’d lost his train of thought. “I’ll have Consuelo get a room ready for you,” he said without enthusiasm. “She’s been putting up the jellies and preserves herself. It’s a new line. We have a processing plant for the vegetables. If the fruit line catches on, we’ll add it into the plant. Consuelo said the kitchen here is plenty large enough to do for a sampling of products.”

“I won’t get in her way,” she promised.

“Come on, then. I’ll introduce you before I leave.”

Was he going to quit already, then, to keep from having to work with her? she wanted to ask. Pity he had no sense of humor.

She reached back into the car for her red dragon cane. She had an umbrella stand full of the helpful devices, in all sorts of colors and styles. If one had to be handicapped, she reasoned, one should be flamboyant about it.

She closed the door, leaning on the cane.

His expression was inexplicable. He scowled.

She waited for him to comment about her disability.

He didn’t. He turned and walked, slowly, back to the house, waiting for her to catch up. She recognized that expression. It was pity. She clenched her teeth. If he offered to help her up the steps, she was going to hit him right in the knee with her cane.

He didn’t do that, either. He did open the door for her, grudgingly.

Great, she told herself as she walked into the foyer. We’ll communicate in sign language from now on, I guess.

He led the way through a comfortable living room with polished bare wood floors, through what seemed like pantries on both sides of the narrow passage, and into an enormous kitchen with new appliances, a large table and chairs, a worktable, and yellow lace curtains at all the windows. The floor was linoleum with a stone pattern. The cabinets were oak-stained, roomy and easy to reach. There was a counter that went from the dishwasher and sink around to the stove. The refrigerator was standing alone in a corner. It must have offended the cook and been exiled, Glory thought wickedly.

A small dark woman with her hair in a complicated ponytail down her back, tied in four places with pink ribbon, turned at the sound of footsteps. She had a round face and laughing dark eyes.