Lawman's Redemption

“Uh-huh.” He’d heard that before. “And what are you?”

For a long time she continued to gaze at the courthouse, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t seeing the building. After a while, she shook her head, making her braid swing, then laughed again, though far less convincingly this time. “I’m the screwup. The dumb one, the ditzy one, the one who doesn’t know the meaning of the word commitment.”

His jaw tightening, Brady looked away. His impulse was to disagree with her, to insist that her family didn’t see her in those terms, but he wasn’t sure he would be telling the truth.

Her eyes too bright, she bumped his arm with her shoulder. “Made you uncomfortable, didn’t I?”

“No. I was just thinking that a better label for you is probably the misunderstood one.” And he knew how it felt to be misunderstood.

Without giving her time to respond, he went on. “After the divorce, I wanted to be anywhere but Texas. First I headed out to New Mexico, then into Colorado, and about six years ago I wound up in Buffalo Plains. I got a job, I liked it and was good at it, and I stayed. It only took me eight years to find a place I could stay.”

“Sheesh, I hope I have better luck.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not staying in Beverly Hills. I’m going to sell the house and find someplace where I can belong. What do I need with ten acres of lawn and gardens, seven bedrooms, a dining room that seats thirty, a screening room that seats fifty and two guest houses?”

“That’s not a house. It’s a mansion.”

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I never liked it anyway. Max picked it out, and his interior designer decorated it. All I got to do was live in it.”

“If you didn’t like it, why didn’t you let him have it in the divorce?” He’d been more than happy to walk away from the house he’d built for Sandra. If he’d kept it after the divorce, he would have burned it to the ground, then left the rubble there so he would never forget.

By then the sun had set enough that the streetlights were on. In their artificial glow, he could make out the sheepish expression on her face. “The bimbo wanted it, and I— She’d already taken my husband. There was no way I was going to let her have my house, too.”

“Does the bimbo have a name?” He hadn’t set foot in a movie theater in longer than he could remember, but his satellite system delivered more channels of movies than a reasonable person could watch. Since he spent the bulk of his free time alone, he watched a lot.

“Lilah Grant.”

He gave a low whistle.

“I see you’re familiar with her,” Hallie said, her voice so dry it could suck the humidity out of the air. “She wears a size two—which also happens to be her IQ, by the way—and she’s got less acting talent than that post over there, but she never met a nude scene she didn’t love. And, no, they’re not real. Those are the best triple-D breasts money can buy.”

Earlier he hadn’t been able to imagine the woman a man would pick over Hallie. Even knowing, he couldn’t see it. The starving waif look had never appealed to him, not even with the big boobs. He liked women who looked like women, who had curves where they should, who had a little softness to them.

“So did you know when you married him that he was an idiot, or did you find that out later?”

Pushing away from the wall, she disconnected the camera from the tripod, returned it to its bag, then expertly folded the tripod and slid it through a loop on the bag. When she was done, she faced him. “You’re a nice man, Brady.”

Her words struck that place deep inside him that was always frozen and hard, and made his muscles clench and tighten. “No, Hallie,” he said quietly. “I’m not.”

She shrugged as if his disagreement meant nothing. “You see yourself your way, and I’ll see you my way.” Then… “I guess I’ll head back to the motel.”

She’d gone a few yards before he could bring himself to move. “Hey, where’s your car?”

“Back at the motel. I walked.”

“Let me give you a ride.”

She turned around, her head tilted to one side. “I understand Buffalo Plains is about as safe as a town can get.”

“It is, but there’s no reason to tempt fate.” Which was exactly what he was doing. If he took her back to the motel, would he insist on seeing her to her door? Would he stop there?

He honestly didn’t know.

After a moment’s consideration, she nodded and returned to him. He automatically reached for the camera bag and was surprised by its weight. “What have you got in here?”

“Just the essentials. I’d be happy to take it back if you can’t handle it.”

He scowled at her. “Don’t forget—I’m the one with the gun and the handcuffs.”

“Yeah, and I’m the one whose favorite sister is married to your boss.”

And he kept managing to forget that.

He directed her to his truck around the corner, then put her bag in the back seat. “Have you had dinner?” he asked when he settled in the driver’s seat.

“I had a chili dog at the drive-in across the street from the motel.”

“You like to live dangerously, don’t you?”

“I’ve been doing that ever since I set foot in this town,” she said quietly.

They drove the nine blocks to the motel in silence. How many times had he gone to a motel with a woman he hardly knew? And yet it felt strange this time. Maybe because he already knew to pull around back and park next to the Mercedes.

Or maybe because this time he wanted like hell to go inside with her…but not as much as he wanted to say good-night in the parking lot.

He shut off the engine, and for the space of a few heartbeats, they both sat there. Brady was looking at the window of the room in front of them, and he could tell by nothing more than feeling that she was looking elsewhere, too.

As the cool air inside the SUV was replaced with warmer, damper air, she opened the door. He did the same. She led the way up the stairs, and he followed…but only as far as the top landing. She had covered half the twenty-foot distance to her room before realizing that he’d stopped. Turning back, she smiled uneasily. “Would you like to come in?”

“Very much.”

“But you’re not going to.”

He shook his head.

“Why not?”

Because it would be wrong—more so than the first time, not as much as the second, but still wrong. Because, in spite of her assurances, he wasn’t sure what her expectations were. Hell, he wasn’t sure what his expectations were. Because they were a great match for a one-night stand, but neither of them brought much hope to the success of anything more.

And because he liked her, honestly liked her, and though he didn’t know what he wanted from her, he did know one thing for sure—he didn’t want to hurt her. She’d gotten enough of that for a lifetime.

She smiled faintly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to answer that. I’ve got plenty of answers to choose from.” Coming back, she held out her hand, and he gave her the camera bag. “Thank you for the ride home.”

He nodded, then watched until she’d unlocked her room. “Hallie?”

She glanced at him.