Читать книгу The Officer And The Renegade - Helen Myers R. - Страница 8

One

“Jeez...look at the place. You really expect us to live way out here?”

As Taylor Grace Benning eyed the small town coming into view beyond the highway’s exit sign, she gripped the steering wheel of her aging red Jeep Cherokee and struggled to keep calm. It wasn’t the view that got to her, though, it was her son. No less than thirteen-point-three years old, yet he remained cranky when he first woke from a nap just as he had at three months.

You’d think I would be used to him by now.

Well, there was used and used. Besides, her nerves weren’t at their best, and the hurried marathon drive from Detroit hadn’t improved on that status, either.

“Come on, Kyle, you sound as though this were your first trip. So far things don’t look that much different since the last time we visited.”

“That’s the point—last time we weren’t planning on staying. Besides, I was a little kid. I didn’t know any better.”

Taylor eyed the extralarge T-shirt that hung on him like a parachute over a sapling, and his baggy, ripped jeans, and wondered what kind of emotional explosion she would have to deal with if she told him that he still didn’t have a clue. She opted for a mild cold war.

“It’s not that bad.”

“Right. Who wouldn’t want to live in a ghost town that’s been painted every gross shade of neon ever invented?”

Ignoring him, she exited Interstate 40, which went on to Albuquerque, and eyed their destination nestled at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Kyle was right; these days Redoubt, New Mexico, was like a surprise streak of paint on an otherwise no-nonsense canvas. The salmon pink, canary yellow, peacock blue and electric white buildings that she could see so far were startling against tree-covered cliffs. After driving for hours along the flat, then rolling, prairie tempered with spotty vegetation, this shocking splash of color was unexpected, despite her father’s warning that the town was attempting once again to reinvent itself. Aside from the fresh coat of paint, though, there was no missing that most of the structures were a half-century old and spare. No Frank Lloyd Wright or Taj Mahal creations here. On the other hand, glamour and grandeur weren’t what she and her son needed at this stage in their lives. The challenge was to make Kyle understand that.

“Forget aesthetics for the moment, okay? Your grandfather’s counting on us.” She hoped the reminder would trigger his conscience. “Once you get a chance to stretch your legs and take a better look around, I bet you’ll see things aren’t so bad.”

“Compared to what?”

“Reform school for one.”

“Not funny.”

She wasn’t trying to be; she was thinking about what he could have—probably would have—had to look forward to if they’d stayed much longer in the urban hotbed they had previously called home. “Sorry, dear heart. You leaned straight into that one.”

The young teen slouched lower in his seat and crossed his legs, further exposing a bony knee sticking through his torn and fraying jeans. Her only child was at a difficult stage in more ways than one. While physically sprouting into a man, emotionally he was light-years away from adulthood. As a result, when he wasn’t bumping his long legs or those clodhopper feet into walls and furniture, he was pining after girls aeons ahead of his maturity and experience, or else hanging out with boys too reckless and angry for any parent’s peace of mind. A month ago, when her fellow officers on the Detroit police force brought him home for the second time for offenses almost worthy of arrest, she’d begun giving serious thought to returning to the land of her birth. A few days later, a call from her father had convinced her to follow through with the idea.

Despite the dark lenses on her sunglasses, Taylor had to squint against the late-June sun, which was nearing its midpoint in the cerulean sky. But her eyes stung for another reason, too: having been away from the state for fourteen years with few visits between—and brief ones at that—the emotions rushing through her were as painful as they were sweet. As a girl, she’d ridden bareback across this land, slept under the canopy of this incredible sky, made love for the first time in this relentless heat. Once she’d made up her mind to come back, she’d understood she would have to deal with those memories, the old feelings... many things. But she’d hoped that she would be too busy to be susceptible to the “what if...” demons. Apparently those gremlins were more resilient than she’d anticipated.

“I sure hope Gramps has indoor plumbing,” Kyle muttered, twisting in his seat as they passed a weather-beaten shack with an even shakier-looking outhouse behind it.

Taylor felt her lips twitch. “You know he does. You’re just having withdrawal pangs because there’s no mall.” Thank goodness, she added silently.

“Yeah, and now that you brought it up, what do you expect me to do all day while you’re working?”

“Count grains of sand and dodge rattlesnakes.”

“I’m serious.”

“All right, so this ground is more clay than sand. I’ll still expect you to be careful about rattlers.”

Her son tugged his Detroit Tigers baseball cap lower over his eyes. “Maybe I’ll hitch a ride back home. Al Deaton said I could move in with him if I wanted.”

Despite a sinking sensation in her abdomen, Taylor kept her gaze on the row of stores coming up. “What a delightful thought. Considering how infrequently he practices any form of personal hygiene, being his roommate would be a genuine treat.”

“You know what, Mom? I live for the day you don’t have a wise-guy answer for everything.”

“No doubt you do. But you’ll be an old, old man before it happens, compadre. Even your grandfather said that the only thing faster than my draw was my mouth. Deal with it.”

Usually that would have earned her a reluctant smile from Kyle, but he was locked in too stubborn a mood to let her see it—a little trait he’d inherited from his father. To hide his feelings, he turned to look out the passenger window. Taylor didn’t mind the break in the conversation, though. She wanted a minute to take in the view herself.

The town of Redoubt hadn’t been “discovered” per se. It had evolved quite by accident when in the early 1880s Murdock Marsden’s great-grandfather camped in the area as part of a wagon train heading for California. The topography of the land had reminded this ancestor of the area in Africa an uncle had described to him. A member of the small British contingent that in 1879 held Rork’s Drift from the onslaught of thousands of Zulus, the uncle, through his letters, had made a lasting impression on Murdock’s other ancestor. Enough of one to stay behind when the rest of the wagon train moved on. Enough to carve not only a town but a prosperous ranch out of the territory, which Murdock now ruled.

Today the sign at the outskirts of town announced Redoubt’s population as 914, about double what it had been when she’d lived here. It would be 916 if the residents showed a fraction of the enthusiasm for her and Kyle’s return that her father did. He thought she was worrying for no reason, but she had legitimate ones. In the past she’d made her biggest mistakes by assuming too much, falling in love too hard, planning too quickly, racing toward tomorrow with an energy that had bubbled up from some bottomless well inside her. No more. She wasn’t the eighteen-year-old spitfire who’d raced out of Redoubt all those years ago with a broken heart and shattered dreams. She was a thirty-two-year-old mother of a troubled teenager. A divorcée who’d walked away from a challenging but promising career. And although she still had more energy than most people her age, she no longer took any of it, anything at all, for granted.

“Hold me back. Is that supposed to be a burger biggie joint? I don’t remember that being there before.”

At Kyle’s mocking query, she eyed the yellow frame building with the green-and-white lettering on the window announcing Boo’s Biggest Burgers. “Me, neither. But now you know you won’t starve to death. And there’s the public library,” she added, pointing to the narrow red brick building next door. “While you’re feeding your stomach, you might think about feeding your brain.”

“It all depends on how long the line is to check out the book.”

She groaned at the joke that had been corny even when she’d been a kid, and scanned the rest of stores that made up Main Street. Many of the businesses had been handed down from one generation to the next, and she could easily recall the names of their proprietors—Graham, Redburn, Yancy and Montez; however, there were a number of new businesses—mostly antique shops and art galleries—that were part of the town’s turn toward becoming a miniartist’s colony. She hoped those newer residents would also be openminded about having a female law enforcement officer in their midst. Her father didn’t seem to think there would be a problem—and that, regardless, he expected her to do what had to be done.

“We’ll soon see,” she murmured.

“See what?”

Jarred out of her mild brooding, she shook her head. “Nothing. We’re here.”

She pulled into the parking lot next to the low adobe building on the far eastern side of town. The Spanish architecture. which would have been taken for granted in Albuquerque, seemed misplaced in Redoubt. As expected, the town’s single patrol car was there. So was her father’s white Chevy Blazer. How he’d driven it here in his condition she didn’t want to guess.

“Let’s go say hello and get him back to the house,” she said after parking.

“I hope he doesn’t try to hug me.”

It was all Taylor could do not to laugh out loud. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten his man-to-man handshakes, too? You may end up wishing he still treated you like a kid.”

They walked to the front of the police station, Kyle barely an inch or so shorter than her own five-eight. By next year, she would be lucky if she didn’t have to look up to the feisty pup. Her heart swelled with pride as she remembered the thoughtful, kind boy he could be when not under the influence of his schoolmates, and how his grades once reflected his good mind and considerable talents. Hopefully it wasn’t too late to get the old Kyle back.

Things just had to go well.

As they entered the station, a deep baritone called out, “There they are! Hey, what did you do, break every speed limit between here and Detroit?”

A grinning Emmett Kyle Benning hobbled out of his office balanced on crutches. Injury aside, the sixty-year old still cut a striking image, although his dark brown hair was now mostly salt-and-pepper, and his face had turned ruddy from too much sun and an unapologetic affection for beer.

“Hiya, Dad.” Taylor reached for him to give her son time to prepare himself. “You look good for a one-legged cop.”

“You’re the one. Damn, honey, if I’d remembered how cute you were, I’d have thought twice about offering you this job. The guys in this town are likely to look for trouble for the sheer pleasure of getting arrested!”

Taylor had heard variations of that line more often than she cared to remember over the years, but she knew her father didn’t have an ounce of male porky in him; he was simply making all of the right noises because he knew she’d never been overly impressed with her gangly body and unremarkable looks. Although she supposed she’d improved somewhat with time, she didn’t miss her son rolling his eyes, or how Orrin, her father’s longtime “volunteer” dispatcher and drinking buddy, was suddenly preoccupied by an itch in the graying peach fuzz growing out of his chin.

“I don’t know how you ever earned your driver’s license, let alone became the fine marksman you are,” she said, “when it’s obvious you’re as blind as a bat.” She added a nod at his cast. “And what are you doing on your feet? Didn’t you say the doctor wanted you in bed with that leg propped?”

“I couldn’t very well leave the town fending for itself. But now that you’re here, I’ll be glad to kick back and play invalid. Who’s that big lug you brought with you? Maybe I’ll deputize him while I’m at it and get me a real bargain.”

Kyle all but elbowed her out of the way. “Hey, Gramps.”

Her father held out his hand, and Taylor could almost hear her boy sigh with relief when awarded a formal, unchallenging handshake.

“You’re looking fine, son. How’s your blackjack these days?”

“My poker’s better.”

Emmett threw back his head and roared. “Orrin—you remember my family? Taylor Grace and Kyle Thomas Benning.”

They were summarily reintroduced to baby-faced Orrin Lint, whose thinning white hair and near colorless gray eyes looked at the world as if constantly trying to figure out the punch line to a joke.

Although he rose—which did little to improve his height—and thrust out his hand like a trained robot, he whispered to Emmett, “What’re they doing with your name? I thought she got hitched?”

“Divorced,” her father whispered back through a stiff smile.

“Both of them?”

Her father’s smile grew strained. “Say hello, Orrin. Then shut up.”

Still looking confused, Orrin shook Taylor’s hand. “Sure glad you’re here, Miz Taylor. But I am sorry our plans for your arrival party kinda fell through. Things changing the way they have, them new folk just don’t know—”

“Orrin, what did I just say about flapping that yap of yours? Come on, Taylor.” Her father took her arm. “Let’s get you sworn in.”

Although Taylor couldn’t be more relieved to skip a formal celebration, she wondered what Orrin had begun to say and wished he’d had a chance to finish. “Dad, what’s the rush? Can’t we visit a few minutes first?”

Her father glanced back at her son. “Kyle, can you drive your mama’s car yet?”

The boy nodded eagerly—a surprise to Taylor, since as far as she knew he’d never been behind the wheel of anything.

“Terrific.” Her father beamed. “Soon as we get you legal, Taylor, Kyle’ll drive your car to the house for me, and you can take mine.”

“Take it where? And why can’t I drive the patrol car?”

“You can if you want, I’m just used to the radio and stuff in mine. I thought you’d like it better, too. In any case there’s something I need for you to do.”

As he spoke his blue-gray eyes avoided her gaze, and when she combined that shiftiness with his odd behavior toward Orrin, it triggered Taylor’s suspiciousness. Something about this situation was suddenly not the cut-anddried affair he’d assured her it would be during their phone conversations.

“Exactly what is going on? Dad?”

“Where’s my Bible? Oh, heck, there’s no need to waste time searching around for the thing. Everyone knows that once a Benning gives his word he doesn’t break it. Besides, if anyone tries to say this ain’t legal, I’ll whack ’em alongside of the head with one of these tree stumps,” he said, banging one rubber-tipped crutch on the dull gray linoleum. “Now raise your right hand and repeat after me. I—and state your name...”

She remained more than a little confused, but Taylor took the oath and became the first female police officer in Redoubt, New Mexico. For the next six weeks she would be the only active cop, since her father had been forced to let Lew Sandoval go only days before injuring himself. As she looked down at the badge that he pinned matter-of-factly on her Save A Vegetable, Eat Popcorn T-shirt, she experienced another flood of doubts. Had her father done the right thing? She didn’t want anyone accusing him of nepotism. And why couldn’t he have waited for her to change into something more suitable?

“All right, out with it,” she said, accepting the gun he’d shoved across the desk at her. She began slipping the holster’s belt through the loops of her jeans. “What’s so important that we can’t all go to the house and get you and Kyle settled?”

“Blackstone’s out.”

Taylor gripped the Smith and Wesson .357 revolver as though it was the only link between her and oblivion. The last time she’d come anywhere close to losing control had been in her rookie year as a Detroit cop, when she’d held her first partner’s hand while an internist had sewn shut a knife wound over the veteran cop’s eyebrow. This felt worse.

She had to lick her lips before they would form words. “Hugh’s escaped from prison?”

“Hell, no! Paroled. About time, too. Damn Murdock Marsden for almost convincing the judge to throw the book at the guy. As it was be made sure several parole boards kept him locked up.”

“What changed things this time?”

“Apparently the old goat himself. He didn’t even show up at the hearing.”

That was good news for Hugh...and anything but for her. “Surely he won’t come back here. You said that Jane still has the feed store, and that running the place without him has been rough on her, but—”

“He’s already arrived, hon. Got in around dark yesterday. I hear Jane drove her old jalopy to Albuquerque herself to meet his bus.”

Suddenly it all made sense, and fury surged from a deep, dormant place inside her. “You sneaky, conniving—” She looked at her son now gaping at her. No doubt the combination of heat and anger was turning her face the color of a well-cooked sugar beet. “Kyle, go ask Orrin to show you around the station, please. Your grandfather and I have a few things to discuss.”

“I’d rather stay put. It’s not every day I get to hear you cuss.”

Wise guy. He was right, and she intended to keep things that way. “Do it, young man. Now.”

As expected, he pouted, but he left. Taylor shut the office door after him.

“Now, Gracie...honey...”

“Don’t you Gracie me. You’re lower than a snake, do you know that? Sneakier than a roach! All this pleading to me to come back because you broke your leg.”

“Well, you can see that’s true!”

“But you knew Hugh was getting out!”

“Who could say it was a sure thing until he got here?”

“Oh, you knew, all right. And you knew I would never have agreed to come if I’d heard there was the slightest chance of running into him again.”

“Listen, all I’m asking is that you go talk to him. Tell him that things are changed here more than ever, that the new blood in town sides with Marsden on just about everything. Tell him no way he can stay. If anyone can make Hugh Thomas see reason, it’s you.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong—and Kyle and I are out of here.”

She reached for the badge. Before she could unhook it, though, her father managed to shuffle around his desk again and gripped her shoulder, stopping her.

“Don’t desert me. Hell, all of the old-timers know and respect you. They’re glad you’re back.”

“How can they? They knew about Hugh and L”

“Yeah, and they remember your integrity even more. That will count for bunches, and they’ll convince the others no matter what earful Marsden feeds them.”

She doubted it. In any case, he didn’t get it. “I can’t be here,” Taylor said, enunciating slowly. Her voice sounded desperate even to her own ears. “I can’t face him again. What’s more, I don’t want to have to go through that—and considering what I did to him, I doubt he wants to get within a thousand miles of me!”

Her father gripped her shoulder harder. “Listen to me. You did what you had to do. Anyone with half a brain knows it’s only because of you that he’s still alive.”

“Right. I’m sure he thanked me every day that he spent in prison.” Taylor backed out of his reach and raked her hands through hair she wore almost shorter than some boys did. “This is a nightmare. What were you thinking? Didn’t you realize what you were doing?”

“Absolutely. You needed to get out of Detroit. I needed to keep this town from rioting.”

And for that he was willing to sacrifice her sanity. Maybe she could have managed somehow if there was only herself to consider, but... She pointed at the shut door. “What about that boy out there?”

“Aw, Kyle’s gonna be fine.”

Exasperating man. “Now you’re a psychic? Have you heard anything I’ve said? You made decisions that weren’t yours to make. I don’t want my son exposed to gossip and heaven knows what else!” She didn’t want to think about all of the rumors and truths that Kyle would hear. To think she’d believed their relationship on tenuous ground before. What a joke!

“I thought of a heap of things, Taylor Grace, and I made a judgment call.” Her father stood before her proud and unapologetic. “You understand the necessity of those well enough.”

Unfortunately she did. And, as a result of one she’d made long ago, Hugh had gone to prison. Because of another she had moved to Detroit. Yet another had brought her back here.

Her father must have seen the crack in her defenses. With a sad smile, he inched closer, this time easing his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t tell me there isn’t a small part of you that wants to see him again?”

“I’ve often wondered what it would be like to stand on the moon and look back at the earth, too, but you don’t see me climbing into a metal canister and letting someone light a few million gallons of fuel under me.”

“You’re worrying about the bottom line, aren’t you? You’re thinking that you were never certain yourself whether he was guilty or not, and how that didn’t change what you felt for him. Maybe now you’ll get your answer.”

“Curiosity is not an adequate motivator for something like this.”

“Bull. So why’d you try to contact him after he was sent to the penitentiary. Sheriff Trammell told me that Hugh’s attorney said you even wrote from Detroit.”

“Well, if he told you that, then he also must have told you that my letters were returned unopened. I think that was a fairly clear message to assume the worst.”

Her father sighed. “Okay, then. Let him take one look at you and maybe it’ll convince him and his mother to sell the business and move on, the way Murdock and his friends in the chamber of commerce have been trying to coax her to do all along. Shoot, Jane’s barely getting by. Except for Mel Denver and a handful of referrals from him, most of her business is from the reservation folks. Maybe that’s been enough for her, but I can’t see how the two of them will manage.”

Taylor suspected he was right, but that only made her feel worse. She had to ask the question she’d only asked him once before. “Do you think he killed Piers Marsden, Dad?”

He took his time answering. “Hon, he was angry enough to. And if someone had done to you what Piers did to Noel, I could see myself that angry. What’s more, a number of people considered Piers’s death a personal favor. Remember all those rumors about what a creep he was?”

“That’s not what I asked.” Taylor was no more happy to hear these evasions than she wanted to feel the familiar, dull pain in her chest. She’d believed, hoped, that she’d gotten over Hugh. “Do you think he killed Murdock’s son?”

Her father bowed his head, a strand of graying hair slipping low over his forehead. “Yeah, Gracie, I’m afraid I do.”

So did she, and that was the tragedy of it. It didn’t matter that, like her father, she’d understood the anger that would have compelled him to do it. There had been a moment when she’d first learned what Piers had done to Hugh’s sister, after she’d witnessed the poor girl’s trauma in the hospital, that she had wanted to hurt the bastard herself. The difference was, she had too much respect for the law.

“See, another reason I have to get this resolved,” her father continued, “is because people are saying that once word gets around that he’s out, the whole place will become a ghost town...especially after sundown.”

“That’s ridiculous. Hugh loved this town and most of the people who lived here. He’s not at risk of being a repeat offender.” Unless he saw her again.

“I’m merely repeating the consensus of opinion.” Her father gave her a sidelong look. “Well? Can you handle this for me?”

The sympathy in his voice decided her. She snatched his straw cowboy hat off his in-box and slammed it on her head. “I took the oath, didn’t I? What choice do I have?”

“Atta girl. Now make sure you tell him that I’m not asking for him to get lost overnight. All we need is some assurance that he will leave. Soon.”

Taylor handed over her keys and picked up his from his desk blotter. “When I get to the house, I’d better find you stretched out on the couch with that leg up, and holding a cold beer.”

“Can’t have any. Doc’s got me on damned pain pills,” her father replied as she reached for the doorknob.

“Not for you. For me.”

By the time Taylor made a right onto Main Street, her stomach was churning and cramping. If it wasn’t for Kyle, she knew she could easily have made a U-turn and directed the old Chevy for the interstate, she felt that much the coward.

Hugh. Heaven help her. Until minutes ago, she’d believed she would never see him again; she had buried the dreams she’d once cherished for their future. The news that he had gained his freedom should have sent her shouting with joy and relief...only, thanks to her father’s explanation, there was nothing to celebrate, and everything to dread.

Somehow she had to keep her wits about her, do what she’d been hired to do. The past couldn’t be allowed to matter. Nothing else could matter.

It was barely a mile drive to Blackstone Feed and Supplies. A left turn at Crooked Pine Road and she saw the metal building. The plywood doors of the warehouse were wide open, and as she pulled into the dirt-and-gravel parking lot she saw a silhouette of someone moving around in there. She drew in a deep breath to ease the growing discomfort in her stomach, killed the truck’s engine and climbed out.

He was restacking fifty-pound sacks of range cubes. A quick glance to her left and right to make sure no one else was around told her that her father had been correct; this was a modest operation. There wasn’t so much as a forklift to help with the lifting and hauling, nor was there that much inventory. However, as she got closer, she could see powerful muscles flexing and stretching across Hugh’s bronzed back, and realized that he wouldn’t have needed any help if the business had been larger. But then, he’d always been capable.

She didn’t like that her mouth went dry again. After fourteen years, she expected more from herself, regardless of their history. On the other hand, theirs was some history.

She had been the one for him, the only one who ever knew the feel of that strong, magnificent body against hers, and those callused yet gentle hands exploring and claiming. From the day they’d met as kids, back when their relationship had been about kinship and understanding, through the sweet, sweet years of discovering love, then passion...all the way to the moment the court bailiffs escorted him away, there had never been anyone else for either of them. That was a huge stack of memories for a woman to repress, even a woman with a profession like hers.

When she’d pulled up, he had glanced over his shoulder and recognized the truck, but he finished stacking the last two sacks before he faced her. Only now did she realize he’d been expecting her father. It was there in the way he suddenly froze. Because of where she was standing, she supposed she was little more than a silhouette against the blinding New Mexico sun. But apparently there was nothing wrong with his memory.

Finally, slowly, he began to walk toward her.

“How the hell did he get you to come back?”

She thought of potential replies. Since they would all require a strength and control she didn’t possess quite yet, she simply said, “It’s good to see you, Hugh.”

He stepped closer, so close she could smell salt, heat and man. Suddenly it all came back—the way he kissed, the care he took undressing her, how it felt to hold him deep, deep inside her. The memories struck like one tidal wave after another, until she wanted to slump to the concrete floor and weep for dreams and innocence lost. But somehow she remained upright, and met his furious scowl.

He glared at her badge and read her T-shirt. Sort of. Mostly his gaze raked up and down her, and she concluded years of incarceration had changed his tastes. No doubt he now thought her about as appealing as a telephone pole. It was only a guess, though; his sharp black eyes gave nothing away.

He finally settled his focus on her gun. “Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?”

“No. I just haven’t had time to change into my uniform yet.”

“So that’s why you’re here. Funny how social calls mean different things these days.”

“Please, Hugh.” She saw no point in hiding the weariness in her voice. “I didn’t know you were here until fifteen minutes ago. I’ve only been back in town for about twenty myself.”

She hoped he could find it within himself to ignore the badge and gun, as she wanted to. If only she could reach him on the level she once did. As once no one else could. How furious she was with her father for taking advantage of their past.

“This is no place for you.” Bitterness and defeat chilled his words. “It’s not going to be a pretty homecoming.”

“Yes, well...I don’t know about pretty, but one thing it isn’t going to be is violent.”

“You think that badge and gun will stop the inevitable?”

He was starting to sound as though he was heading for the gunfight at the O.K. Corral or something. She needed to try another approach. “Regardless of what you think, Hugh...I’m glad you’re out.”

“Then you’re one of the few.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Isn’t it?”

His piercing, unrelenting gaze threatened to turn her into a coward. She suspected a scorpion sting would feel friendlier. On the other hand, he had a legitimate reason for the attitude. “We need to talk.”

Once again he considered her badge and the gun. “While you’re wearing that stuff? I don’t think so.”

“I’m willing to put the gun and badge in the car if that will help.”

Something primitive flashed in his eyes. “You can take off anything you want.”

“Is talk like that necessary? We were friends once.”

“Friends don’t send friends to jail.”

“I didn’t send you to jail. A judge and jury did.”

“But you told your father where to find me.”

“To save your life! To keep Murdock Marsden from ordering someone to hunt you down like an animal and kill you in cold blood. I won’t apologize for that.”

He didn’t respond, at least not with words. He did, however, close the few yards remaining between them. The lazy, almost insolent stride gave her ample time to confirm that he hadn’t wasted his time in prison, but had made full use of the gym. Beneath the black mat of chest hair, there wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on him. Every inch of exposed skin was glistening, toned muscle. He’d been something to look at as a young man of twenty-two. Now at thirty-six, without a strand of gray in his black hair, she had no words to describe him, beyond breathtaking. But, dear Lord, his face... The hardness and bitterness in those sharp, sculpted features were too much to endure. In his eyes she saw a man who’d suffered every day of the fourteen years taken from him. This was a man whose entire aura vibrated outrage.

It took all of her courage to stand her ground, and she couldn’t deny a brief impulse to place her hand on her revolver. Making matters worse, when he stopped a spare foot away from her, she had to tilt back her head thanks to her father’s dratted hat blocking her view.

“When’d you cut your hair?”

The question came as a surprise, but it was better than others he could have asked. “When I entered the Detroit police academy.”

It shouldn’t have been possible, but his expression grew more grim; nevertheless, once again he took his time with this closer inspection. He lingered longest on her mouth. Once he’d told her that she had a heartbreaker smile and that her kisses alone could make him come. Older and wiser now, she knew men said things like that to women all the time to get them into bed. But Hugh hadn’t. She’d been the one doing the begging—for what had seemed like forever. He had turned her down each and every time because she’d been only seventeen then. Turned her down, although he’d said himself that there would never be anyone else for either of them.

He’d wanted to wait, and had shown the discipline to do so.

Until her eighteenth birthday.

Taylor almost sighed with relief when he again lowered his gaze to her badge.

“If you’re a Detroit cop, what are you doing wearing that one?”

“I quit.”

“Why?”

“Personal reasons.”

“Must have been a whopper to throw away what could have been a nice pension.” He slowly reached out and fingered the shiny metal. “This won’t bring you anything near that.”

It was unbearable to think of how close his fingers were to her breast. Could he see her nipple hardening? “Sometimes money can’t be allowed to matter.”

Hugh let his hand fall to his side. “I heard that your old man hurt his leg. Is he all right?”

“He will be in six weeks or so.”

“What happened to Sandoval?”

“The town got fed up with his bullying ways. My father had to let him go.”

“And no one else wanted the job?”

“I’m the most experienced.”

That had him lifting one straight eyebrow. “How much do you have?”

“Too much.”

As expected, that had him searching her face again, this time focusing on her eyes. For a small eternity he just looked, and she knew he was reading and gauging, but she wasn’t quite the open book she used to be. She did, however, let him see her regret...and that she refused to be intimidated by him. Neither emotion seemed to impress him.

“Qualified or not, you shouldn’t have come back,” he said at last.

Taking hope in the quieter note she’d picked up in his voice, she allowed herself to continue with what she’d come to say. “You shouldn’t have, either. People are nervous, Hugh.”

“Afraid the half-breed may go on a bloodthirsty rampage?”

She hated hearing him talk that way. Except for snobs like the Marsdens, no one around here had ever said anything derogatory regarding his heritage. Even now, she’d been given no hint that people’s concern was ethnically motivated.

“Let’s just say you have friends here who are concerned that you might have some form of revenge on your mind.”

“Now what right does a guilty man have to think of revenge?”

She wasn’t going to fall into that trap. But he wasn’t going to like what she had to say next any better. “My father—The chief says he wants assurance from you that you plan to leave before anything happens that we’ll all regret.”

“Tell him not to hold his breath.”

“No one wants any trouble, Hugh.”

“Right. That’s why you came to see me wearing a gun.”

“It comes with the badge, you know that.”

“Go away, Taylor. Get off my mother’s property and get out of this sorry excuse for a town. It’s not the place you remember. Maybe we were kidding ourselves to ever think it was better.”

“I wish I could leave, but it’s too late. I already gave my word that I’d stay.”

He twisted his compressed lips into a smirk. “You gave me your word once. We found out fairly quickly what that was worth.”

Had she thought him hardened? He was ruthless.

So be it. Let him understand that I’ve changed, too.

“Congratulations,” she snapped. “Now you’ve proven that you can sound like a bastard. But the message stands. There’s to be no trouble. Understood?”

“Oh, I understand, all right.” Without warning, he took hold of her belt and jerked hard, slamming her pelvis against his. “You try understanding this. If you ever come near me again wearing that gun, you’d better plan on using it!”