LITMIR.BIZ

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own secretary signed up.”

      “Your secretary?”

      He nodded, pushing the chair back under the table slowly. “She says if they hire her to do security, they’ll have to give her a badge and a gun, and she can arrest me anytime she feels like it if I make her work late.”

      She laughed in spite of herself. He’d gone far away for a minute there, and she’d felt uncomfortable.

      “Are you a bad boss?”

      “I’m temperamental.”

      It showed, but she wasn’t going to say so.

      “Thanks for the coffee and pie,” he said quietly.

      “You’re very welcome.”

      He turned and went down the hall. His back, she noted, was arrow-straight. He walked with a peculiar gait, a softness of step that was vaguely disquieting. He walked like a man who hunted.

      He got to the front steps and turned so suddenly that she went off balance and had to catch one of the porch posts to save herself.

      “Do you like pizza?” he asked abruptly.

      She was still reeling from his sudden stop. “Uh, yes.”

      “Friday night,” he persisted, dark eyes narrowed. “There’s a band. Do you dance?”

      “I do,” she said.

      “What will Judd do, if you go out with another man?”

      She was uneasy. “I...well, I don’t really know. I don’t think he’d mind,” she added. “It isn’t that sort of relationship.”

      “He may mind having you go out with me,” he said flatly. “He knows more about me than most people do around here.”

      She was shocked and intrigued. “Are you a bad man?”

      Something terrible flashed in his dark eyes. “I have been,” he said. “Not anymore.”

      Her face softened as she looked at him. She wondered if he realized how much his eyes gave away. There were nightmares in them.

      She let go of the post and moved a step closer to him. “We all have scars,” she said, understanding what Judd had been saying to her that day in the kitchen. “Some show, some don’t, but we all have them.”

      His eyes narrowed. “Mine are deep.”

      She began to smile. “Mine, too. But all of a sudden, I don’t mind them so much. They seem less conspicuous.”

      His broad chest rose and fell. He felt light. “Funny. So do mine.” He smiled.

      “The only place that serves pizza and beer and has a dance band is Shea’s Roadhouse and Bar, out on the Victoria road,” she told him. “Judd never goes there. I’m afraid he won’t like me going there.”

      “I’ll take care of you,” he told her.

      She sighed. “People have been taking care of me all my life, and I’ll be a grown woman in less than two months.” She studied his face. “I have to learn how to take care of myself.”

      “Funny you should mention it,” he said, and his eyes softened. “I wrote the book on self-defense for women.”

      “Not that kind of taking care,” she muttered.

      “I’ll teach you, just the same. Ever shot a gun?”

      “Judd taught me to shoot skeet,” she told him. “I’m hell on wheels with a .28 gauge. I have my own, a Browning.” She didn’t add that he hadn’t taken her shooting in years.

      He smiled, surprised. Many women were afraid of shotguns. “Imagine that!”

      “Do you shoot?”

      He gave her a look that reduced her height by three inches.

      “You’re a police officer. Of course, you shoot,” she muttered.

      “Eb Scott’s got a nice firing range. He lets us use it for practice. I’ll teach you how to shoot a pistol FBI style.”

      “Can you ride?” she asked.

      He hesitated. “I can. I don’t like to.”

      He was probably a city man, she guessed, and hadn’t had much to do with horses or ranching.

      “I don’t like pistols,” she confessed.

      He shrugged. “We can’t like everything.” He looked down at her with mingled emotions. “I suppose I really am too old for you.”

      Cash, who was four years older than Judd, thought she was too young. Maybe Judd did, too. That would explain, as nothing else did, the hesitation he showed in getting involved with her. It hurt.

      “On the other hand,” he murmured, misreading her look of disappointment, “what the hell. That movie star who’s a grandmother just married a man twenty-five.”

      Her eyes brightened and she grinned. “Are you proposing? After only two slices of apple pie? Gosh, imagine if I cooked you supper!”

      He burst out laughing. He hadn’t laughed like this in a long time. He felt as if all the cold, dead places inside him were warming.

      “Imagine,” he agreed, nodding. “Pizza, Friday night,” he added.

      “Pizza and beer,” she corrected.

      “Beer for me, soft drinks for you,” he said. “You’re not legal yet. You have to be twenty-one to drink beer in Texas.”

      “Okay, I’m easy—I’ll drink bourbon whisky instead,” she agreed.

      He gave her a sardonic look and went down the steps. He hesitated and looked up at her. “How many people know you’re married?”

      “A handful,” she said. “They also know that it’s a business arrangement. It won’t damage your reputation.”

      “I don’t have a reputation to damage anymore,” he replied. “I was thinking of yours.”

      Her face broke into a smile. “How nice of you!”

      “Nice.” He shook his head as he opened the door of the patrol car. Static was coming from the radio. “I can think of at least a dozen people who would roll on the floor laughing if they heard me called that.”

      Her dark eyes twinkled. “Hand over their numbers. I’ll phone them!”

      He grinned at her. “See you Friday. About five?”

      She nodded. “About five.”

      He drove off with a wave of his hand and Crissy went back into the kitchen, where Maude was standing by the sink looking worried.

      “What’s your problem?” Crissy asked her.

      “I overheard what he said. You just agreed to go out on a date.”

      “Yes. And your point is?”

      “You’re married, darlin’,” Maude reminded her. “Judd is not going to like this.”

      “Why should he mind?” she asked reasonably. “He’s said often enough that he doesn’t want me for keeps. It’s just a business arrangement.”

      Maude didn’t say a word. She was remembering the look on Judd’s face when she’d walked into the kitchen unexpectedly and found Crissy sitting on his lap. Crissy hadn’t noticed anything different, but she had. She turned back to her chores. Judd wasn’t going to like this.

      3

      Judd drove up in the yard Friday afternoon in his big black SUV, just an hour before Christabel was expecting Grier to pick her up. She was nervous. Worse, she was dressed to the teeth, and Judd noticed.

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