Natural Born Lawman

“Look, if you’ll just get my car back here and loan me the money for some food, I’ll buy my own gas with the money I have left and be on my way. I can see that staying here isn’t such a good idea. For all the pretty words, Officer, it’s clear you don’t really trust me.”

“If you’d let me take a look in your purse, it would go a long way toward changing that,” he cajoled.

“Not a chance,” she said, her gaze clashing with his.

Justin debated the meaning of her resistence. She could just be a woman who knew her rights and intended to protect them. Or else she was hiding something. Maybe both. He was going to have to decide quickly whether it would be smarter to encourage her to leave town or to stay right here where he could keep an eye on her until he knew more. He gambled on the latter. It was probably better that he not examine his motives too closely.

“Okay, come with me.”

Her gaze narrowed suspiciously. “Where?”

“We’re going to talk to my sister Dani about using the other half of this house. It’s fully furnished and, other than crashing here occasionally after a late night with an injured animal, she doesn’t use it.”

There was no mistaking the quick survey she did of the white house with its neat lawn, nor the flaring of hope in her eyes. The house was small and tidy. Something told him it was nothing at all like what she was used to. He waited to see how she’d react.

“Do you really think she’d let me use it for a few days, just until I get on my feet?” she asked eagerly.

Her reaction went a long way toward reassuring him. “If I know Dani, she’ll insist on it.”

“Maybe you should go ask her first. It’ll be easier for her to say no if I’m not standing there with Billy staring her in the face.”

Justin grinned. “Which is precisely why I want you to come along. One look at you and the baby and she’ll be running out to stock the refrigerator for you. Dani is a very soft touch when it comes to taking in strays. You’ll see what I mean when you keep tripping over all the kittens underfoot.”

“Kitty?” the boy echoed happily, coming awake again. “Where kitty?”

Justin reached down and took him from his mother’s lap. The boy came to him eagerly. Justin grazed his cheek with his knuckles and noted that whatever fever he’d had seemed to have come down. “Inside, son. Want to see?”

His dark eyes regarded Justin somberly, but he nodded at once. “See kitties.”

Justin started up the walk, leaving Patsy no choice but to follow.

“Hey, sis, you around here someplace?” Justin called out, striding straight through the crowded waiting room and into the back, where there was a cacophony of sound from the animals being boarded here while families went on summer vacations. A cat promptly wound between his legs, almost tripping him.

“Dani, dammit. Get these cats away from me.”

His sister poked her head out of one of the tiny examining rooms. “Justin, why are you raising such a ruckus?” she demanded, then spotted Billy. “Oh, my, isn’t he darling? Where’d you find him?”

Justin nodded over his shoulder. “He came with her.”

His sister’s gaze shifted at once to Patsy. “Ah, yes, I see,” she murmured.

Justin regarded her suspiciously. “What does that mean?”

“It means Sharon Lynn mentioned you were hot on the trail of a woman and a baby.”

“Sharon Lynn has a big mouth.”

“I had to pry it out of her,” Dani assured him. “After I’d heard about it from three other people.”

Justin sighed. There were no secrets in Los Piños, not when it came to an Adams. “They need a place to stay.”

“And you were thinking that they could use this place,” she guessed.

He grinned sheepishly. “Well, you’re never here. Maybe Patsy could look after the animals for you at night. I’m sure your husband would appreciate having you home all night long for a change.”

“An interesting deal.” She glanced at Patsy, who was hovering in the doorway. “How do you feel about it?”

Justin waited uneasily. There was no predicting how she would react. Patsy had been surprising him from the second they’d met. So far he’d seen no evidence of uppity, high society ways, but maybe she’d draw the line at caring for a bunch of sick animals. A part of him hoped she would.

In fact, she seemed about to argue, then she glanced his way and sighed. “I’d be grateful,” she said with apparent sincerity. “And of course I’d be willing to look after the animals in return, at least until I can get a job and pay you rent.”

“No need to worry about that,” Dani replied. “We’ll try it for a few days and see how it goes.” She reached for Patsy’s hand. “Come with me. I’ll show you around.”

Justin would have followed, but Billy patted his cheek. “Want to see kitties,” he reminded Justin.

“So you shall,” he promised, pausing in the kitchen where several cats were sprawled in patches of sunlight. He hunkered down so Billy could see. The boy’s coal black eyes lit up.

“Kitties,” he whispered with obvious satisfaction. “Nice kitty?”

Justin nodded and set the boy on his feet. “You can pet them.”

Billy toddled to the closest one and bent down until he was practically nose to nose with it. “Kitty,” he pronounced, and petted it gently on the head. The cat, used to the comings and goings of Dani’s rambunctious stepsons, merely yawned widely and stretched before curling up again with its head resting on its paws.

Billy toddled on unsteady legs toward another and went through the same routine again. Not until he’d greeted every cat in the kitchen did he come back to Justin and hold out his arms to be picked up.

“Mama,” he whispered, as if he’d just noticed she was missing. Tears began to well up in his eyes.

“It’s okay, fella. Your mama’s right here. We’ll go find her, okay?”

A thumb went into his mouth and he nodded. “’Kay.”

His mother might be all bristly caution, but Billy was so thoroughly trusting it made Justin’s heart ache with unexpected longing. He’d never given much thought to marriage and kids. If he wanted to hold a baby, there were plenty to choose from in his family. If he wanted to be surrounded by laughter and love, he could invite himself to dinner at any number of homes.

There was something very different about holding a child that belonged to you, though. He’d seen it in the awed expressions of his cousins’ husbands. Something told him that it might feel a whole lot like the sensation rushing over him now.

And that, given how very little he knew about Patsy Gresham and her true circumstances, was a very dangerous reaction.

Chapter Three (#ulink_971abc98-f54e-5bee-a4ad-953f9adb9711)

Justin saw to it that Patsy Gresham and her baby were settled at Dani’s. He made sure her car was filled with gas and parked out front. He even had the Italian restaurant down the block send over dinner.

And then he washed his hands of the entire situation. He’d done his good deed for the week. Maybe even for the whole year. He predicted if word got around that he’d not only let a shoplifter get away, but that he’d taken her under his wing, he’d never hear the end of it.

As it turned out, it didn’t take long for word to get around. He was the butt of a fair bit of good-natured teasing from his uncles and cousins at the poker game that night at White Pines. Obviously Sharon Lynn had decided to spill the beans, after all. She must not have taken his threat to have a revealing talk with her fiancé all that seriously.

“Don’t pay any attention to them, son,” Grandpa Harlan advised, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “They’ve gotten so old now, they don’t recall what it’s like to be captivated by a pretty face.”

“Except for me, of course,” Harlan Patrick said. “I’m younger than Justin.”