Lawman's Redemption

She waved her hand idly without looking up from her magazine. She was a good dispatcher and was less likely to miss work than any other department employee besides him, but she wasn’t the friendliest of people. Some of the deputies complained, but it suited him just fine.

He left the department, located on the first floor of the Canyon County Courthouse, and stood for a moment in the shade of an old oak. Buffalo Plains was a nice town—not big enough ever to get crowded, but large enough to provide everything a person needed. If there was something you absolutely couldn’t find, Tulsa was only an hour to the east, Oklahoma City about the same distance to the southwest. In six years, he’d made fewer than a half dozen trips to Tulsa and none to OKC.

After crossing the park alongside the courthouse, he walked half a block east to the sandwich shop. Eating alone in a restaurant was one of the hardest things he’d had to learn to do after his marriage ended. Even now, it didn’t come easily. Most days he went to the Dairy King for a burger and fries, and on really slow days he’d go home. Today, though, a quick sandwich seemed best.

He got a roast beef sandwich, a bag of chips and a soft drink, then headed for an empty table. Just as he set his tray down, he happened to glance at the woman sitting by herself at the next table, and for a moment he froze.

Hallie Madison gazed back at him. After a moment, she waggled her fingers in a wave.

“What are you doing here?” he asked brusquely.

“Having lunch.”

“You were supposed to go home yesterday.”

She shook her head. “My mother and my sisters left yesterday. I’m staying awhile.”

“How long?”

Wariness slipped into her expression. “Do you want to have this conversation from over there, or would you like to join me?”

It was a toss-up, he admitted sourly. He damn sure didn’t want the other diners to listen in, but he also didn’t want to share her table, not when he wasn’t sure he could look her in the eye. But he picked up the tray and moved it to her table, then slid onto the bench opposite her. First thing he did was bump her feet, then bang his knee on the table’s center leg.

“How long?” he asked again once he was settled.

“At least three weeks. I’m overseeing the construction on Neely and Reese’s house.”

Three weeks. Damn. He never would have gone near her or her motel Saturday night if he’d known that. He’d thought she was leaving. He’d thought he wouldn’t see her again. He’d thought…

His jaw tightened. He’d thought he would take what he wanted from her, then say goodbye and forget her.

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” he asked as he unwrapped his sandwich.

“When did you ask?”

She had him there. He’d known the other Madisons were leaving Sunday, and he’d assumed she was, too. That was his mistake, not hers.

She finished the last of her chips and stuffed her trash into the bag, then set it aside and rested her arms on the tabletop. “Look, Brady, you’re apparently concerned that I might expect something from you. I don’t. What we did…that’s all it was. Two nights. Nothing more. I imagine in a town like this, it will be impossible to avoid each other entirely, but we can try. If we fail and you do run into me, don’t feel you have to acknowledge me. I don’t expect that, either.”

She looked so cool, but her hazel eyes were a little too bright, the muscle in her jaw clenched a little too tight. Picking up her purse, she slid across the seat to leave, but he extended his leg, blocking her way.

“Don’t go. I didn’t mean— I just thought—”

When he didn’t go on, she finished for him. “That you would never have to see me again. I’m not yet as experienced at one-night stands as you are, but I do understand how they work. No strings, no commitment, no nothing once the night is over.”

It was illogical as hell, but he took offense at her assumption that he had some vast experience at sleeping with strangers, and he took even more offense at her use of the word yet. She was implying that one day she would be as experienced as he was—an idea that made his gut tighten. As if it were any of his business.

“It’s just that seeing you took me by surprise.” And he didn’t like surprises—never had. Most of his security came from controlling as much of his life as possible, probably because he hadn’t had any control to speak of until after his divorce. His job wasn’t predictable, but everything else in his life was, and he liked it that way.

Hallie was still poised to leave, stopped only by his size-twelve boot blocking her exit. He wished she would relax and stop looking at him as if he were the last person she wanted to see—which was only fair, since he’d made her feel as if she were the last person he wanted to see. “Sit with me while I eat,” he said, trying to sound friendly but doubtful he succeeded. “Please.”

After a moment, she moved back to the center of the bench and laid her purse aside. She sipped from her drink, then folded her arms across her chest. “Are you aware everyone in here is watching us?”

He didn’t bother to look. He could feel the curious stares. “I imagine they’re surprised.”

“By what?”

“The fact that you’re sitting here and we’re talking.” He scraped a pile of lettuce from his sandwich, then took a bite.

“People don’t sit with you?”

“Generally not. I don’t exactly invite friendly overtures.”

“Oh, gee, now there’s a surprise,” she said with a delicate little sniff, and then she simply watched him. Figuring turnabout was fair play, he fixed his own gaze on her. Her blond hair was pulled back in a fancy braid, and she wore a sleeveless yellow sweater with white shorts and sandals. Even so casually dressed, she looked like money, and a lot of it. Her nails were manicured and painted a deep rose, and her only jewelry was a wristwatch and earrings…and a stud nestled in her navel. He hadn’t seen it—had only felt it in the dark—so he didn’t know exactly what it was.

Besides sexy.

How many other men knew that about her?

An ex-husband or two. Probably a few others. She hadn’t said he was her only one-night stand.

“Tell me about your divorce,” he said as he picked up the second half of his sandwich.

“I got the house, the Mercedes and a nice cash settlement. He kept his fabulous career and got the girlfriend and all the friends.”

What girlfriend? he wanted to ask. At the moment he couldn’t imagine the woman a man would pick over her. “I guess I made the wrong request. Tell me about the marriage.”

“Which one?”

I’m a three-time loser, she’d said at the reception Saturday night, with more than a little bitter mocking. “The most recent one.”

After a moment’s silence, she shrugged. “His name was Max Parker. He’s a film producer. We were married four years and were—I thought—happily in love. But at my birthday party last winter, I went looking for him and found him boffing the star of his last movie. He needed someone who could arouse his passion, he said—someone who was…oh, gee, how did he put it?” She pretended to think, then scowled. “Oh, yeah. Someone who wasn’t as old as me.”

He thought about the things he could say. I’m sorry. That must have hurt. The guy’s a bastard. You’re better off without him. He settled for something a little less sympathetic. “You look pretty damn good for an old broad.”

For a moment she simply looked at him, her hazel eyes opened wide. Then slowly a smile curved the corners of her mouth, and he felt the first real warmth from her since he’d left her bed before dawn Sunday. “Thank you,” she said. Uncrossing her arms from her chest, she settled more comfortably on the bench. “What about yours?”

Now that she’d relaxed, Brady grew stiff, stilled in the act of gathering the sandwich wrapper and lettuce shreds. Turnabout was fair play, remember? But weren’t there limits to how many old habits a man could be expected to break all at once? He’d been in Reese’s wedding, had attended the party afterward, had turned his one night with Hallie into two and was sitting with her now in full view of anyone who cared to look. Every one of those things was new for him.

And keeping his past in the past—and private—was old. The oldest habit he had.

But she was waiting quietly, patiently, and for some unfathomable reason, he didn’t want to disappoint her.

“That’s a deep, dark secret around here,” he said at last.

“How deep? How dark?”

As she’d done, he pretended to need a moment to think about it. “Well, you’re the only person in Oklahoma who even knows I was married.”