“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you, it’s just that I really am very tired. I’ve been trying to find Jenny for almost three weeks.” Ginny bit her lower lip for effect. He probably liked playing the big, strong hero. It only cost her a little to let him think he was. “She ran away from home.”
Quint nodded, still playing the stumbling bumpkin the lady took him for. “I kind of figured that out on my own.”
Maybe he could be made to come around after all, Ginny thought, relieved. It was about time something finally went her way.
The phrase echoed in her head.
It seemed ironic to feel that way. From the outside, Ginny knew she appeared to have everything going her way. She was an up-and-coming corporate attorney in line for a possible junior partnership at a well-respected L.A.-based law firm. She had risen above daunting circumstances, gotten an education and not only provided for herself and for her sister, but also provided well. She was a far cry from the devastated, newly orphaned Arizona teenager she’d once been.
And yet, happiness and peace of mind continued to elude her.
Continued to elude her because the better circumstances became, the more her relationship deteriorated with the sister she had been both mother and father to. It was as if Jenny resented her success. Nine years her junior, her sister seemed to relish going out of her way to make her life a living hell. Over the past couple of years, communication between them vacillated between bad and nonexistent. And Jenny had changed. Drastically. First there’d been the dropping grades, then the friends Ginny had warned Jenny against, the friends Jenny stubbornly refused to give up. Like Kyle.
Running away had been the last straw.
Ginny had put her entire life on hold, not to mention quite possibly jeopardizing her career, to come and bring her home after the detective she’d hired had tracked Jenny down.
Now, to top it all off, this muscle-bound man with a badge was giving her grief.
Desperate, Ginny went against her principles and tried flattery.
“Well, you figured right, but then you’re probably accustomed to that.” She drew closer to him, searching for his good side and praying he had one. “I really am running horribly behind, so if you could just let her go…”
She smelled good, Quint thought. Something pricey and tempting, guaranteed to make a man take notice. As if she needed that. Everything about the woman made a man sit up and take notice.
Quint held his ground as she placed a supplicating hand on his arm. There were things at stake here that couldn’t be swept away and ignored.
“I already told you,” he said, the amiable smile on his lips never fading, “I can’t do that.”
Annoyed, embarrassed by his smile, Ginny stared at him. “You can’t be serious. You’re really going to hold my sister in jail for stealing four packages of cupcakes?”
He nodded. He had no doubt that Joe Taylor could be convinced to drop the charges. But the girl inside the cell needed something more important than her freedom right now. “For that, and for her attitude.”
Her attitude? Where did he get off, damning her sister and putting her into a jail cell because he didn’t like her attitude? Ginny made no attempt to hide the indignation she felt.
“And since when is a bad attitude a reason for imprisonment?”
Maybe bad attitudes ran in the family, Quint thought. This woman could certainly stand a little attitude adjustment herself. “Since maybe she could put the time in jail to good use and cool off a bit.”
Ginny couldn’t believe it. He was serious. “That’s not what jails are for.”
Where she came from, Quint was sure only hardened criminals saw the inside of a cell. It was different out here. “Know a lot about jails, do you?”
Ginny really didn’t care for his tone. If he asked her, he was the one who could stand to have his attitude reworked. He was mocking her.
“I’m an attorney.”
That explained a great deal. Quint had never had much use for lawyers. They tended to be enamored with their own importance. “Ah.”
Finally. She’d gotten through. He was probably afraid she’d sue his butt off. The idea was not without its merits. But she had a sister to bail out and a plane to catch.
“Yes, ‘ah.’ Listen, Sheriff, surely we can come to some sort of understanding before either one of us gets too old to stand up.” She couldn’t help the sarcasm that wrapped itself around her words. He’d pushed her past the limit of good manners with his concerned-sheriff act.
Quint almost laughed, but knew that wouldn’t be appreciated. “You certainly are testy.”
All right, since they were making observations and being honest, she could fire one in kind back at him. “And you certainly are annoying.”
If she was trying to get him angry, Quint was afraid he was going to disappoint her. Growing up with his brothers and sister had taught him all about the merits of hanging on to his temper. He figured if he could put up with Morgan, he could put up with any woman. Even one who acted so cock-sure of herself as this one.
“Just playing by the rules, ma’am.”
“Drop the hayseed act, my name is Geneva Marlow.”
“Pretty name, Geneva.” Unusual, he mused. It fit her.
“Thank you.” Ginny bit off the words. She glanced at her watch. Time was growing short. “Now I’d like to pay my sister’s fine and get out of here.”
Once again, he shook his head. “Can’t do that”
Ginny felt as if she was stuck in someone’s idea of a joke. Or a science-fiction story where the characters were destined to go around and around the same point until the end of time.
“And why not?” She stopped herself from shouting the words at the last minute.
The lady’s buttons were definitely close to the surface, Quint realized. He wondered how often she and the girl in the back got into shouting matches. Probably too often. Still, she’d come looking for her, expressing concern. That meant there had to be some sort of an emotional bond between them. Perhaps even love. Too bad neither one seemed consciously aware of that.
“Simple,” he explained. “Fine hasn’t been set yet”
Was he deliberately acting like a half-wit, or had she overestimated his brain capacity? Ginny wondered. It wouldn’t be the first time a hunk of a man turned out to have next-to-nothing between his ears.
“So set it,” she told him. The innocent look on his face, in her estimation, was wearing a bit thin.
“You being an attorney and all, you’d know that I can’t do that. It’s up to the judge.”
Yes, she knew that. Knew, too, that he was doing this on purpose. “Then get him, please.”
Quint noticed that her lips barely moved. He made no effort to go. “Can’t. He’s on vacation.”
Now Ginny was convinced. “Are you deliberately trying to annoy me?”
“Not deliberately.” And then he smiled. It was a rich smile, the kind that took in everything within range. Ginny tried not to react to it. It was all undoubtedly part of his scam. “Well, maybe, but you can see how annoying it is to talk to someone who’s got the wrong answer to everything, now can’t you?”
She’d had just about all of him she could take. Mentally, she began framing the letter registering her complaint about this misrepresenter of the law to the nearest person in authority.
“Your point?”
Quint spelled it out for her. “Your sister acted pretty much that way when I tried to talk to her, except she didn’t smile like I just did.”
Ginny’s mouth dropped open. That did it. The sooner she got Jenny and herself out, the better.
“We’ll take points off her score for that,” she promised. “Now what do I have to do to get her out of jail?”
That answer, in Quint’s estimation, was even simpler. “Wait.”
This had to be the most infuriating man on the face of the earth. “Wait? For what? Hell to freeze over?” She took his hand and turned it, palm up. “I k
now a scam when I see one, Sheriff, and this is a scam, but I don’t have time to fight the forces of evil. I have a real case to prepare for and a trial date breathing down my neck, so just take this money and let my sister out. Then you can go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before I walked in. Putting up posters, or scratching yourself, I don’t care—”
The look in his eyes brought her tirade to an abrupt halt.
“If you mean scratching my head, I do that on occasion, particularly when I’m puzzled. Like now, because I’m trying to figure out why a lady like you would act in a manner that wasn’t befitting to her.”
She hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. “I’m sure all this is very fascinating but I don’t have time to hear this.”
“Oh, but you do.” Taking hold of her arm, Quint gently but firmly escorted her to the rear of the building. “You’re going to have a lot of time to hear things. Especially your sister when she talks. I figure that might be the problem in a nutshell. Neither one of you is taking the time to listen.”
She struggled, trying to shrug him off. She could have saved her effort. “Just what are you implying?” Ginny demanded.
Jenny was on her feet the moment she saw Ginny. Tears of relief formed and dried in an instant, replaced by the bravado that had become the younger girl’s armor. “About time you got here. Get me out of this cage, Ginny.”
“Ginny?” Quint looked from Jenny to Ginny, waiting for an explanation.
“It’s my nickname,” she said tersely. “Now, can we get on with this?” Again, Ginny tried to pull her arm away, but found that his grip, though gentle, was completely unshakable.
“Absolutely. Step back, please.” Waving at Jenny, he waited until she complied. When she did, he unlocked the cell. But instead of allowing Jenny to come out, with one deft movement, he pushed Ginny in.
The door clanged into place. He locked it again.
It all happened so fast that, for a moment, Ginny could only stare at him in complete shock. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Quint smiled patiently. “I’d think that would be plain, Miss Marlow. I’m arresting you.”
It took everything she had not to sputter. “On what charge?”
His smile widened. Ginny had a very uneasy feeling, watching it spread on his lips. Something told her she was in real trouble.
“We’ll skip the part about mouthing off and go straight to attempted bribery of an officer of the law,” Quint answered. “Get comfortable, ladies. Looks like you’ve got a long day ahead of you. I suggest you spend it ironing out your differences.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I can.”
Turning, he walked away, grinning to himself.
2
The sound of a raised female voice met his ears even before Carly Cutler had a chance to pull the outer jailhouse door completely open. The girl his cousin Quint had brought in earlier this morning sounded madder than his mother had the time she’d caught him and Suzee Daltry in the hayloft.
Closing the door behind him, Carly winced as the voice rose another decibel. He could have sworn it changed pitch, as well. Maybe they had a real mental case on their hands, although on first glance, she didn’t look it. Just mad, real mad.
He caught his cousin’s eye and looked at Quint, his handsome, uncomplicated features settling into a puzzled frown.
“Is that girl yelling at herself, Quint?” He dropped his hat on the desk. “Sounds like we’ve got ourselves more than we bargained for with that one.”
Quint thought of the other woman in the cell. The one who looked like a long, tall glass of cool water on a hot day. Made a man realize how thirsty he could get without even knowing it.
“You might say that.” Quint leaned back at his desk. “She’s not yelling at herself, by the way. She’s yelling at her sister.”
“Sister?” The frown dissolved into a look of utter mystification. “You mean there’s two of them back there now?” When he’d left, Carly mused, there had only been the girl, Jenny. The three cells in back were usually kept empty. One of them was used as a storage area and he occasionally availed himself of one of the remaining ones as a temporary bedroom whenever he spent the night in town. Occupants were a rarity, two was unheard of. “When did that happen?”
Quint smiled at his cousin’s phrasing. Just a week older than Morgan, Carly possessed all the innocence that Quint’s sister didn’t. Whenever he looked at Carly, Quint was reminded of all that was good and uncomplicated in the world. Quint had a suspicion that Carly was living out some childhood fantasy, being deputy to his sheriff. Too many Western novels as a kid, he supposed, but there was no harm in it.
Quint glanced at the overhead clock. It was well into the afternoon. Carly had made his lunch break into a prolonged event—again.
“Almost an hour ago.”
Carly grinned sheepishly. The voices in the back were getting more intense. Curiosity was getting the better of him.
“Can you show me how you did that?” He nodded toward the door leading to the rear of the building, taking a step toward it. “Making one girl into two? Might make for a neat trick. Might even get myself a date for your brother’s wedding that way.” His blue eyes shone. “Can’t find a girl, just conjure one up.”
As if Carly had ever had trouble finding female companionship, Quint thought, amused. Women had always been drawn to Carly, wanting to mother him. That attitude quickly changed once they were in his company. Mothering became the furthest thing from their minds.
In that, Carly was every inch a Cutler, except that no one had ever wanted to mother him, Quint thought. Neither he nor any of his brothers even remotely resembled the type that stirred a woman’s mothering instincts. Judging by the way his brothers were dropping like flies, a great many other instincts were being stirred lately—on everyone’s part. It was, he thought, going to be a very interesting winter. A lot of available ladies were going to be out there now that his brothers had dropped out of the game.
“Sorry to burst your hopes, Carly.” Quint rose from his chair. “But there was no conjuring involved.” Although, he had to admit, if he did have any conjuring abilities, Ginny Marlow would be just the kind of woman he’d want to conjure up for himself. The kind of woman who could heat up a cold Montana night just with the look in her eyes alone. “Geneva Marlow came looking for her sister.”
She didn’t look like a Geneva, Quint decided. Ginny suited her much better. Geneva sounded too aloof and, judging from that hot tongue of hers, if you scratched that aloofness, you were going to get a hell of a lot of emotion for your trouble.
Might be worth it, too, he mused, his mouth curving ever so slightly at the thought.
The argument in the back, whatever it was about, was escalating. Carly strained to make out the words, but all he could hear was the pitch and the timbre. Concern penciled in light lines along his mouth.
His eyes shifted toward Quint. “Shouldn’t you be there in case things get ugly?”
Ugly, now there was a word that neither one of those two women would ever hear in their lifetime, Quint thought. Not unless something really drastic happened to change things.
He placed a hand over the keys that Carly was reaching for. “I don’t think those two will come to blows. The older one has invested too much time and effort in tracking the younger one down. You don’t do that unless you really love somebody.”
A shriek of frustration rattled the windows. Carly looked skeptical. “Doesn’t exactly sound like love to me.”
“Love has many sounds, Carly.” Quint picked up the ring of keys and toyed with them. “Besides, I thought I’d give them both a chance to work things out for a while.”
“Is that why you’re out here instead of in there?”
It was evident that Carly was dying for a look. Quint nodded in reply to his question. “Neither one seemed very keen on my hanging around and refereeing.” He grinned broadly. “Made me feel a little safer
to have the bars between us.”
“What did you arrest the other one for?”
“She tried to bribe me to let Jenny go.”
He hadn’t taken it seriously, of course, although he knew she meant it seriously at the time. If he’d allowed himself to get insulted every time someone threw a sarcastic barb in his direction, or an outsider took a superior attitude, he’d never have time for anything else. He’d just used it as an excuse to put the two women together.
“Bribe you?” This sounded like big-city corruption to Carly. To his knowledge, nobody bribed anyone in Serendipity. “How much?”
There was almost a note of wistfulness in Carly’s voice. Quint tried not to laugh. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that there are two women on the other side of that door who need to find out how to resolve some of the problems facing them.”
Carly had done part of his growing up on the Cutler’s Shady Lady Ranch. It had been a den of constant yelling, competition and more than occasional brawling. This included Morgan, who for a while fancied herself more of a man than any of her brothers, except for Quint. She’d outgrown it, or at least partially so, by the time she’d entered her second decade. But for his own pride’s sake, Carly knew enough to stay clear of Morgan when her temper was running hot.
Like the tempers in the back. “Doesn’t sound like there’s very much resolving going on.”
Quint sighed. You would have thought that after almost an hour, they would have run out of steam and started making sense.
“Nope,” he agreed, “there doesn’t. Looks like they might be here for the day.” That being the case, there were a few arrangements he was going to have to see to making.
Quint wondered if his mother was still as understanding as she used to be.
Ginny closed her eyes, trying to gather strength. Exhaustion had come and gone, and she was riding the crest of her second wind. It was becoming a way of life, plumbing the depths for just a little more energy, a little more endurance. A little more patience.
The Law and Ginny Marlow Page 2