The Sheriff's Son Page 8

  Justine couldn’t believe he was inviting her and Charlie to his home. She’d only been there once, and that had been years ago. “I don’t know if that would be wise,” she started.

  “Hellfire, Justine! I’m not inviting you over here to seduce you!”

  Her spine went rigid. “I didn’t think you were! But Charlie doesn’t know you, and—”

  “Yes, he does. He knows I’m the sheriff, and he thinks I’m the boss.”

  Justine closed her eyes against her spinning thoughts. “And you like it when anyone thinks of you as the boss,” she said dryly.

  He chuckled under his breath. “I’d like it if you did.”

  Dear heaven, he was a flirt, she thought with a groan. Six years hadn’t taken that out of him. “To be truthful, I was just about to call you myself. I found an address for my cousin.”

  “Good. Bring it when you come.”

  “Roy—”

  The line went dead, and she knew he’d hung up so that she wouldn’t have a chance to say no.

  Jamming the phone back on its hook, she swiped a frustrated hand through her tangled hair. What was she going to do now?

  “Justine? Was that Sheriff Pardee?”

  Justine glanced absently across the room at her aunt. “I’m afraid so.”

  “What did he want? Does he have a new lead on the case?”

  Justine wanted to scream. “No. Is Charlie still in his pyjamas?”

  Kitty frowned. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Because the sheriff wants to see him,” she said sharply.

  Her face full of concern, Kitty rose from the table and walked over to where Justine still stood, by the telephone. “Okay, honey, I want to know what’s going on. And I’m not simply being a nosy old aunt. I can see you’re troubled. You look troubled every time you say the sheriff’s name.”

  With her hand on her forehead, Justine tilted her face toward the ceiling. “What is it with you and my sisters? You all seem to think I have this thing for Roy, when—”

  “Don’t give me that cock-and-bull runaround. This is your old wizened aunt who’s been down the road and seen a mile or two. I realize that you and the sheriff have had to meet because of the twins. But that doesn’t account for the way the two of you look at each other.”

  “Aunt Kitty—”

  “Now, don’t interrupt when I’ve got my fires burning. I’m not blind or deaf. I can see that Roy is more to you than just an old acquaintance or high school classmate. You were lovers, weren’t you?”

  To Justine’s surprise, it was a relief that her aunt had finally guessed the truth. Roy had been in her heart for so long, but there had been no one, not her parents, not her sisters, not anyone, that she could say his name to and cry. That she could tell how much she’d loved him and how much it had hurt her to let him go.

  Before she realized it, tears were streaming down her cheeks and her aunt was holding her tightly in her arms.

  “My dear honey girl,” she said, patting Justine’s trembling shoulder. “What a burden you’ve been carrying around inside you.”

  “Oh, Aunt Kitty, I thought when Mother got sick that I could come back home and never have to see him again. And I didn’t see him until the twins showed up and I had to call him. I thought then that facing him again wouldn’t hurt. But it did. It still does.”

  Kitty gently put Justine away from her and looked directly into her teary green eyes. “Roy is Charlie’s father, isn’t he?”

  Justine’s throat was so clogged she could merely nod.

  “I thought as much. The other night, I noticed the boy favors him in ways. His walk and gestures. His blue eyes and sandy hair. Does Roy know?”

  Justine shook her head. “No. And he never will.”

  “Why?”

  Groaning, Justine turned away from her aunt and desperately wiped at her eyes. “Because—There’s lots of reasons.”

  Kitty’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “Roy doesn’t love you? Is that the reason?”

  “Roy never loved anyone but himself. But I’m not keeping Charlie from his father simply because he doesn’t love me. I’m not that selfish.” She glanced over her shoulder at Kitty. “When Roy and I—When Charlie was conceived, Roy wasn’t ready for a family, and I didn’t want to trap him that way.”

  “And what about now?” Kitty asked, her expression full of concern. “Six years have passed, Roy might feel differently after all this time.”

  Justine shook her head. “No. He told me himself, just yesterday, that he wasn’t cut out to be a father or a family man.”

  Kitty snorted. “Most all men say that. They have to say it, because they don’t want to admit they’re afraid of becoming husbands and daddies. Why, even your father was gun-shy before your mother roped him in.”

  “Roy is different.”

  Kitty dismissed Justine’s idea with a wave of her hand. “Roy is a man. And he looks at you with enough heat to set a house on fire. Why don’t you do something about it?”

  “Because I don’t want to do anything about it. Because Roy hurt me once, and I won’t allow him to do it twice.” Desperate to escape the hemmed-in feeling coming over her, Justine skirted around her aunt and walked over to the open screen door leading out to the back courtyard. After a moment, she sighed, then said, “If Roy wants anything from me, and that’s a big if, the anything would be sex, pure and simple.”

  From behind her, Kitty laughed. “Oh, Justine, there’s many a woman who would give anything to have Roy Pardee attracted to them in that way. He’s strong, intelligent, good-looking, and too sexy for any woman to resist.”

  The idea of Roy with just any woman was sickening to Justine. Though it shouldn’t have been. If he was involved with another woman, she could breathe a sigh of relief. Yet she couldn’t stand the idea of him marrying someone, making love to her, giving her a child. Justine supposed that because she’d loved him so much and borne his son, she’d somehow always thought of him as her man. Which was crazy. Roy wasn’t her man, and never had been.

  “I guess I’m just not like other women, Aunt Kitty. I want more than that, and Roy can’t give it to me.”

  Kitty let out a hopeless sigh. Then, walking up behind her, she placed a hand on Justine’s arm. “I would like to know something, Justine.”

  “What?”

  “Why you kept Charlie’s parentage a secret. Why did you not tell your parents, your sisters? Instead, you let us all believe you were engaged to a college student and he was the one who’d left you pregnant.”

  A pang of regret lanced through her chest. “Because I— I was ashamed of myself for getting involved with a man who was a—a philanderer. I didn’t want them to think badly of me. But more than that, I didn’t want anyone, especially Roy, putting two and two together and wondering if Charlie was his son. And, oddly enough, I didn’t want to ruin his reputation.”

  Kitty stared thoughtfully at her niece’s bent head. “Why in the world would you be worried about his reputation? You should have wanted to smear him in the dirt.”

  Justine let out a deep sigh. “Roy was a deputy then, everyone liked and respected him. And when I realized things weren’t going to work for us, I was devastated, I hated him, or I thought I did, and told myself I could never forgive him. But I didn’t want to humiliate him by dragging his name through the mud. I guess I still don’t. Crazy, huh?”

  “Love is crazy, Justine. And I think you need to face the fact that you still love Roy Pardee.”

  An hour and a half later, Justine turned her pickup down a dusty side road and through an arched-pipe entrance with a sign announcing that she was on the Pardee Ranch.

  On the bench seat beside her, Charlie stared curiously out the windshield. “Is this the way to Sheriff Roy’s house?”

  “Yes. It will only be a few minutes until we get there now.”

  He looked at his mother. “Why are we going there, Mommy? Does he think we’ve done something bad?”

  Just
ine smiled at him. “No, darling. I’ve got to give Roy a paper, and he—wanted you to. come along, too.”

  Charlie’s face brightened. “Do you think Sheriff Roy likes me?”

  Justine had never been an overly emotional woman, yet she suddenly felt tears clogging her throat. “I’m sure he does. You’re a pretty easy boy to like.”

  Charlie giggled, but then his little face sobered. “Well, I couldn’t tell if Sheriff Roy liked me, ‘cause he don’t smile very much. Why doesn’t he smile, Mommy? Is he a sad man?”

  Justine darted a glance at her son as she went over the question in her mind. Was Roy a sad man, or had he simply grown hard?

  “I don’t know, Charlie. A sheriff is a very busy guy. He has to protect a lot of people. It might be that he forgets to smile.”

  Charlie tilted his head one way and then the other as he contemplated his mother’s words. “Then we’d better remind him.”

  If only it could be that simple, Justine thought.

  The distance from the Bar M to the Pardee Ranch was not that far, but in those few miles the landscape began to change. The mountains began to slope off into desert hills covered with sage, scrubby creosote, piñon pine and choya cactus. The area was a startling change from the heavily forested mountains in Ruidoso, but it was equally beautiful to Justine.

  Roy’s home was a split-log structure built near the edge of the Hondo River. A row of poplars and several cottonwood trees shaded the house and the yard. There was hardly any grass to speak of, and the closest thing to a flower was a blooming prickly pear growing at the edge of the barbedwire fence.

  Justine parked the pickup near the front of the house. By the time she and Charlie had climbed to the ground, a collie was there to greet them with a friendly bark.

  “Don’t worry. He doesn’t bite.”

  She looked up to see Roy rounding the corner of the house. This morning he was dressed in jeans and boots and a plain blue work shirt. The absence of his badge and gun made him seem more approachable, somehow, and more like the man she’d first fallen in love with.

  To her disgust, she felt a faint smile tugging at her lips. “Hello,” she said.

  He came to stand a few steps away from them, his eyes running slowly over Justine, then on to Charlie, who was on his knees, hugging the collie around the neck.

  “Hello,” he replied. “I’m glad you decided to come.”

  “You really didn’t give me much choice, did you?”

  A little grin crooked his lips, and suddenly, deep in her heart, Justine could admit to herself just how happy it made her to see him.

  “Oh, I think you could have come up with some excuse if you’d wanted to.”

  “I’m not a woman who would ever stand in the way of the law,” she said lightly, then pulled a small slip of paper from the back pocket of her blue jeans and handed it to him.

  Roy read it, then nodded. “You couldn’t find anything on the female? Her name was Earlene, wasn’t it?”

  “I couldn’t find an address for her, but I did find a short letter from her mother saying she was living in a small town north of Boise, Idaho. That was three years ago.”

  “Old information is better than none at all,” he said. Then, turning away from Justine, he squatted down on his heels in front of Charlie and the dog.

  “What do you think about Levi?”

  Charlie gave him a broad grin. “He’s got sandburs in his hair, but he’s pretty. Does he help you round up the cows?”

  Roy was impressed. He hadn’t expected the boy to know about working dogs or rounding up cows. “He sure does. He can do more work than two cowboys put together.”

  Forgetting the dog for a moment, Charlie inspected Roy with the bold innocence of a child. “You’re not wearing your gun or badge,” he said. “Who’s gonna be the sheriff today?”

  “I’m still the sheriff. But I’m taking today off. Unless something really bad happens, my deputies will take care of things.”

  Smiling happily, Charlie continued to pat the dog’s head. “That’s good. Because Mommy says you work too hard.”

  Roy cut his eyes up to Justine. “So your mother thinks I work too hard, does she?”

  Justine could feel heat splotching her cheeks. Charlie had embarrassed her before, by repeating things he shouldn’t. All children did that to their parents. But she’d rather it happen with anyone other than Roy.

  “Yep,” Charlie answered. “She say that’s why you don’t smile. I thought you were just sad. But Mommy says you get so busy being the sheriff you forget to smile.”

  “Well, I guess I do forget sometimes,” he told Charlie. Then, rising to his full height, he looked at Justine, his brows arched with a dry presumptuousness. “I didn’t realize you were concerned about my emotional health.”

  “I’m not. Charlie is.”

  His eyes searched hers, as though he were trying to find something more revealing than her words. Justine nervously folded her hands in front of her and glanced away at the desert hills.

  After a moment, Roy gave up and turned to Charlie. “Come along, son,” he said, taking the child by the hand. “I have something down at the barn I want you to see.”

  “Can Mommy come, too?” Charlie asked him.

  “Of course. If she wants to,” he added with a glance at Justine.

  Without a word, she fell into step behind the two of them. As they walked behind the house and toward the corrals in the distance, she was acutely aware that Charlie was with his father and Roy was with his son. Yet neither of them knew.

  Guilt crushed down on her like the sudden blow of a sledgehammer. What was she doing? Why was she not allowing Charlie to have a father? His real father? And why was she keeping Charlie from Roy? Was she being a selfish, vindictive woman?

  No, she thought miserably. She was keeping her secret because Roy didn’t want a family. He’d told her so only yesterday. She wasn’t about to force a ready-made one on him. He’d only resent her for burdening him with such a responsibility. And who was to say that he would even want to be a real father to Charlie? she asked herself. Not having a father would be better for Charlie than having one that didn’t want him.

  At the barn, Roy opened a big double door that allowed them to walk through the structure and out to the back, where another maze of corrals was constructed of metal pipe. Inside one of the pens was a painted mare, saddled and tied to the railing. Next to her, in a connecting pen, was a spotted colt.

  The moment Charlie saw the two horses, he pointed with excitement.

  “Look, Mommy! Look at the colt! It looks like Thundercloud!”

  “I believe he’s a bit smaller,” Justine told her son. “He’s not big enough to ride yet.”

  “Sugar Boy was a yearling in March,” Roy told them. “And that’s his mother, Brown Sugar.”

  Charlie’s blue eyes glowed at the sight of the painted quarter horses. “Can I go pet them?” he asked Roy.

  “Sure. But be careful of Sugar Boy. He likes to take a nibble now and then.”

  “I’ll swat his nose!” Charlie promised, already in a run to the horses.

  Roy and Justine followed at a slower pace. The sky was cloudless, and the sun was warm without being too hot. The day couldn’t have been more beautiful, but Justine was afraid to relax and enjoy it. Minute by minute, she was seeing Roy in a different light, and she was afraid that if she spent much more time with him, she’d break down and tell him something he wouldn’t want to hear. Like how she’d never gotten over him.

  “I thought you didn’t like children,” she said as they ambled across the dusty pen.

  “Where did you get that idea?”

  She shrugged. “Just an impression.”

  “I’ve never had the opportunity to be around children much, except for the juveniles and runaways that come through the sheriff’s department. They’re not exactly good examples to learn by.”

  “No. I don’t expect so.”

  Roy watched Charlie gently
stroking the mare’s nose. “It’s refreshing to see a little boy like Charlie who hasn’t yet been corrupted by his peers or ruined by a dysfunctional family.”

  Justine figured that, more often than not, Roy did see the bad side of children. The bad side of humankind in general. She didn’t know how he dealt with it, day in and day out. Especially when he had no one close to share it all with.

  “To be honest, I was surprised that you asked me to bring him over this morning. The first evening you came out to investigate the twins, I got the feeling Charlie made you uncomfortable.”

  He stopped a short distance from Charlie and propped his arms on the top railing of the corral. Justine stood a small step away, watching a pensive look settle over his face as he turned his profile toward the distant hills.

  “It wasn’t Charlie himself that bothered me. It was—”

  Justine waited for him to finish. When he didn’t, she moved closer and touched his arm.

  “It was what?” she asked.

  He turned his head slightly toward her. His eyes were shaded by the brim of his hat, but Justine could see that they were clouded. With anger? Pain? Loss? She didn’t quite know.

  “I couldn’t believe you’d given birth to another man’s child,” he said. Then, with a self-deprecating snort, he gave her a little mocking smile. “Charlie should have been mine. Instead, you ran off and gave yourself to some other man.”

  She opened her mouth as questions begged to be released, but she couldn’t voice any of them. For the first time since she’d come home to the Hondo Valley, she was afraid she’d made a mistake in keeping her pregnancy from Roy six years ago. And she was even more afraid she was going to make a bigger one now.

  “Roy, I wish—”

  Before she could finish, Charlie raced over to them, his face lit with excitement

  “Do you have any more horses, Roy?”

  “I have two more in the barn,” he told the boy. “If your mother wants to, I’ll saddle them, and we can all go for a ride. You can have Brown Sugar for a mount. How would that be?”

  Charlie’s eyes grew wider and wider as he looked from the painted mare to Roy, and then on to his mother.