Lawman's Redemption

“Sure can.”

“Then I’ll take it. And these, too.” She picked up several platters, then followed Stella to the checkout counter. A few minutes later, she was walking out the door, her platters in a bag and a Sold sign planted in the middle of her table.

She took the bag to her car and locked it in the trunk, then checked her watch. She still had a few minutes before she was supposed to meet Brady. Time enough for a quick walk through one more store.

Then lunch. With Brady. A part of her felt almost as giddy as a teenager going on her first date, but this wasn’t a date. A date would have been dinner, picking her up at the motel, taking her back there—or to his house—when it was over.

This was just lunch. Between friends. Innocent.

Exactly what she wanted, she assured herself.

The little voice inside her head didn’t agree, whispering a childhood taunt.

Liar, liar, pants on fire….

After a morning on patrol, Brady parked in his reserved space behind the courthouse, entered through the back door, then went into the sheriff’s department and headed for his office. He was almost there when the dispatcher stopped him.

“Someone to see you, Brady.”

He glanced at the cramped space set aside for a lobby, where the dispatcher gestured, expecting to see Hallie, a few minutes early for their lunch. The only one there, though, was a teenage girl. Though there was something vaguely familiar about her, he was sure they’d never met. Purple hair was hard to forget.

So were enough holes in her ears to make the wind whistle through. There was a gold bar and chain through her right eyebrow, a stud through her nostril and another in her navel, around which a circle in what appeared to be a Celtic design was tattooed. He didn’t even want to think about where else she might be mutilated.

He backtracked a few steps in her direction. “Can I help you?” he asked brusquely.

She was sprawled on one of the molded plastic chairs, her long legs stretching halfway across the room. Her boots were clunky, black and scuffed, her skirt was too short and rode low on her hips, and her lace top had been too small a year ago. A pair of headphones dangled around her neck, she wore way too much makeup, and her expression was 100-percent whiny adolescent pout.

Her insolent gaze started at his feet and moved up. By the time it reached his face, she’d curled one lip in complete disdain. “You Brady Marshall?”

“Yes.”

“A cop. Jeez, what a loser.” She stood up, her thin body looking like a stick figure unfolding. She was about five foot ten—not a bad height for a young woman. Not a great one for a barely-a-teenager girl. “Well, there’s my stuff.” With a hand that bore rings on every finger, she pointed in the direction of a duffel bag. “Let’s get out of here.”

Clomping on the wood floor, she got as far as the door before realizing that he wasn’t following. “We-ell?”

“Who are you?”

She clomped back to stand in front of him and sneered.

“Don’t you recognize me? Why, I’m your own little girl, and I’ve come to stay with you.”

Behind the counter, a clipboard clattered to the floor, and over by the coffeemaker, someone muttered, “What the—” Brady didn’t look at either eavesdropper. He didn’t take his gaze from the girl.

He never thought of himself as a father, not even as having been a father for a few short months. Even though he’d paid child support without fail for the past fourteen years, it was testament only to how desperately he’d wanted out of the marriage. Sandra had wanted money, and he’d agreed to give it in exchange for a quick divorce and escape to go off and lick his wounds.

Even after she’d admitted to sleeping with any man who was willing.

Even after she’d taunted him with the fact that he wasn’t the father of her little girl.

Even after she’d stripped him of even the slightest hope that the baby whose birth he’d been awaiting so anxiously could possibly be his.

He studied her, trying to reconcile this tall, skinny, odd-looking child with the tiny, cuddly baby he’d fed, rocked to sleep and changed diapers for. That baby had smiled sweetly and cooed whenever she saw him, and she’d clung to his finger every time he’d held her.

This one…

This one was waiting for some sort of response from him. So was everyone else in the squad room.

He moved a few steps closer to her. “What’s your name?”

“Les Marshall.” Then she rolled her eyes as if he were making unreasonable demands. “Alessandra Leigh Marshall. Can we go now?”

See? Sandra had explained, still woozy from giving birth. Sandra, Alessandra. Her pretty little girl could be named after her and yet still have her own name. Wasn’t she clever?

Cleverer than he’d been.

He glanced around at the curious faces in the squad room. No one even tried to pretend that they weren’t openly listening, and he couldn’t blame them. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Hallie he had deep, dark secrets. He’d worked with these people for more than six years, and this was the first any of them had heard of a marriage, a divorce or Texas.

Or a daughter.

“Tell me something,” he said, gesturing from her spiked purple hair all the way down to her combat boots. “Are you making a fashion statement, or do you just enjoy making your mother squirm?”

The question took her by surprise. She blinked, then sneered, “That’s none of your business.”

Which meant she was making her mother squirm. Brady couldn’t begin to imagine how intensely Sandra hated her daughter’s look. She was the vainest, trendiest, most appearance-conscious woman he’d ever known, and it must have killed her every time Les walked into her line of sight.

Aware that everyone was still watching, he gestured toward the door. “Let’s discuss this outside.”

He hustled her out the door into the courthouse lobby, then outside. On the east side of the building, the lawn stretched across half a block, with sidewalks leading to park benches and war memorials. In cooler weather, retired old men and other folks with time on their hands often filled the benches, but thanks to the day’s heat, they were the only ones there.

He stopped in the dappled shade of a large oak. There was a breeze blowing, but all it did was rustle the leaves. It didn’t provide any cooling. “So you’re Sandra Whitfield’s daughter.”

With a put-upon sigh, she ticked off names on her fingers. “Actually, Sandra Whitfield Marshall Davis Thompson Valdez Napier. For the moment.”

So Sandra had five marriages and four divorces behind her. Of course, she wasn’t looking for a husband, a family or any of the usual stuff. She wanted money, security, an easy life. She was a beautiful woman and thought nothing of trading on her beauty to fulfill her goals. Even if it did make her little more than a very-high-priced hooker.

“And you’re my father,” Les went on. “Like it or not.”

She sounded pretty sure of herself—almost as sure as Sandra had been that he wasn’t. She’d had no doubts, and she’d left none for him.

Obviously, Sandra had lied—either to him or to Les. The question was, which one?

“Where is your mother?”

Shoving her hands into her pockets, she shrugged and leaned back against the tree. “Right after she put me on the bus to come here, she headed south of the border for her annual summer spa treatment. She won’t be back for a week…or two or three—though she promised she’d get home before school starts again. Until then, you’re stuck with me.”

Brady gazed across the park to a familiar little silver-blue convertible. For fourteen years his life had gone exactly the way he wanted it—no trouble, no entanglements, no complications—and he’d been perfectly…well, not happy, but satisfied with it. Then Hallie Madison had sat down at his table in the bar, and all his quiet loneliness and satisfaction had been shot to hell. And now this. Which gods had he pissed off lately?

“What about your stepfather?”