Lawless

“Funny you should mention it,” he said, and his eyes softened. “I wrote the book on self-defense for women.”

“Not that kind of taking care,” she muttered.

“I’ll teach you, just the same. Ever shot a gun?”

“Judd taught me to shoot skeet,” she told him. “I’m hell on wheels with a .28 gauge. I have my own, a Browning.” She didn’t add that he hadn’t taken her shooting in years.

He smiled, surprised. Many women were afraid of shotguns. “Imagine that!”

“Do you shoot?”

He gave her a look that reduced her height by three inches.

“You’re a police officer. Of course, you shoot,” she muttered.

“Eb Scott’s got a nice firing range. He lets us use it for practice. I’ll teach you how to shoot a pistol FBI style.”

“Can you ride?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I can. I don’t like to.”

He was probably a city man, she guessed, and hadn’t had much to do with horses or ranching.

“I don’t like pistols,” she confessed.

He shrugged. “We can’t like everything.” He looked down at her with mingled emotions. “I suppose I really am too old for you.”

Cash, who was four years older than Judd, thought she was too young. Maybe Judd did, too. That would explain, as nothing else did, the hesitation he showed in getting involved with her. It hurt.

“On the other hand,” he murmured, misreading her look of disappointment, “what the hell. That movie star who’s a grandmother just married a man twenty-five.”

Her eyes brightened and she grinned. “Are you proposing? After only two slices of apple pie? Gosh, imagine if I cooked you supper!”

He burst out laughing. He hadn’t laughed like this in a long time. He felt as if all the cold, dead places inside him were warming.

“Imagine,” he agreed, nodding. “Pizza, Friday night,” he added.

“Pizza and beer,” she corrected.

“Beer for me, soft drinks for you,” he said. “You’re not legal yet. You have to be twenty-one to drink beer in Texas.”

“Okay, I’m easy—I’ll drink bourbon whisky instead,” she agreed.

He gave her a sardonic look and went down the steps. He hesitated and looked up at her. “How many people know you’re married?”

“A handful,” she said. “They also know that it’s a business arrangement. It won’t damage your reputation.”

“I don’t have a reputation to damage anymore,” he replied. “I was thinking of yours.”

Her face broke into a smile. “How nice of you!”

“Nice.” He shook his head as he opened the door of the patrol car. Static was coming from the radio. “I can think of at least a dozen people who would roll on the floor laughing if they heard me called that.”

Her dark eyes twinkled. “Hand over their numbers. I’ll phone them!”

He grinned at her. “See you Friday. About five?”

She nodded. “About five.”

He drove off with a wave of his hand and Crissy went back into the kitchen, where Maude was standing by the sink looking worried.

“What’s your problem?” Crissy asked her.

“I overheard what he said. You just agreed to go out on a date.”

“Yes. And your point is?”

“You’re married, darlin’,” Maude reminded her. “Judd is not going to like this.”

“Why should he mind?” she asked reasonably. “He’s said often enough that he doesn’t want me for keeps. It’s just a business arrangement.”

Maude didn’t say a word. She was remembering the look on Judd’s face when she’d walked into the kitchen unexpectedly and found Crissy sitting on his lap. Crissy hadn’t noticed anything different, but she had. She turned back to her chores. Judd wasn’t going to like this.

3

Judd drove up in the yard Friday afternoon in his big black SUV, just an hour before Christabel was expecting Grier to pick her up. She was nervous. Worse, she was dressed to the teeth, and Judd noticed.

She’d left her blond hair undone, and it flowed like golden silk down to her waist in back. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, just powder and a light lipstick, but her eyes looked larger, a liquid brown that dominated her face and soft little chin. She was wearing a slinky black skirt with black high heels fastened around the ankle, displaying the sexy arch of her little feet. The black vee-necked blouse she had on was unusually tight, emphasizing her small, firm, rounded breasts in a way that made Judd ache in all the wrong places. A wide fringed black Spanish mantilla completed the outfit. It wasn’t expensive, and it was old, but it was sexy. He wasn’t used to seeing Christabel dressed like that. And suddenly he wondered why she was, and why she wouldn’t look him in the eye. He knew from long experience that she was hiding something.

He propped a big booted foot on the bottom step of the porch and his narrow eyes fixed on her face.

“All right, spill it,” he said tersely. “Why are you dressed like that, and why did you come running out the minute you heard me drive up? Are we going on a date, and you forgot to tell me?” he added.

She lifted her eyes and glared at him. The sarcasm hurt. “Wouldn’t that be the day?” she asked with equal sarcasm. “As it happens, I’m going out dancing.”

He didn’t react for several seconds. Then sudden anger hardened his lean face. “Dancing? With a man?”

She straightened. “Yes. With a man.” Her smile was provoking in the extreme. “Go ahead, Judd, tell me you haven’t touched another woman since we married. Tell me you don’t date.”

The expression on his face was impossible to read. He moved up the steps, towering over her. “Who is he? Some boy from school?”

She realized with a start that what had seemed harmless and fun was becoming shameful and embarrassing. Her face colored.

“Not a boy from school,” he guessed. His eyes narrowed again. “Are we going to play twenty questions? Tell me!” he said abruptly.

“It’s Cash Grier,” she blurted out, disconcerted by the authority in his tone.

Now he looked menacing as well as angry. “Grier is even older than I am, and he’s got a past I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy’s sister, much less you! You’re not leaving the house with a man like that!”