Judd, bare-headed and quiet, didn't answer her. He watched the aide change the bed and refill the ice pitcher without visible reaction. The aide finished, helped Christabel back into bed, smiled shyly at Judd, and left, closing the door behind her.
Judd still hadn't spoken. He moved to her bedside and looked down at her broodingly. Her hair needed washing. It was tangled and limp. Her weakness was evident, and she moved with difficulty because her lungs were only beginning to heal from the double peril of a bullet wound and bronchitis. She was winded just from getting up out of the chair and back into bed.
But to Judd, who'd watched her in anguish from the time she came out of the anesthetic until now, she was beautiful.
"You'll lose your job and it will be my fault," she persisted.
"I won't lose it. I have permission to be here." He lifted her left hand and rubbed his thumb over the signet ring she'd given back to him two months ago. He'd replaced it on her ring finger while she was still unconscious. "You gave us all a scare," he added solemnly.
She moved her finger experimentally, only just realizing the ring was back. "How did that get there?" she asked drowsily.
"I put it there," he replied quietly. "We're still married. I had to sign you in under your legal name."
She averted her eyes and tugged her hand away from his. "That must have shocked Miss Moore," she said very dully. "I hope she's willing to wait until we can get divorced."
He drew in a short breath and rammed his hands into his pockets. "Let's see about getting you well and back on your feet before we talk about that."
She arched an eyebrow. "Why wait?"
He turned away, frowning. Inspiration came as he studied the painting on the wall. It looked vaguely Japanese. "You're forgetting the business trip to Japan, aren't you?" he murmured. "We wouldn't want to upset the negotiations at this stage by presenting a divided front, would we?"
"It shouldn't affect the negotiations," she replied, but she didn't sound convincing.
He turned and studied her slight form under the sheet. "Let's not take chances, just the same."
She frowned, but she didn't argue. "Whatever you want to do is fine with me," she replied after a minute. "But you may have to go to Japan alone. I don't know that I'll be up to it."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said. He moved back to the bed, his face drawn and taut with worry and lack of sleep. He reached down and touched her face lightly with his fingertips. "You're a little better today."
"It's slow," she replied.
His thumb rubbed slowly, softly, over her full mouth. It excited him to remember its ardent response on Christmas Eve. He had so many regrets. He could hardly find room for them all in his conscience.
"You don't sleep well, do you, honey?" he asked with some concern. "There are dark circles under your eyes."
She laughed without humor. "If I could get out of this bed, Jack Clark would have a few dark circles under his eyes, too, but they wouldn't be from lack of sleep!"
"He'll go away for a long time," he said curtly.
Her dark eyes sought his. "Cash said you tried to attack him."
His gaze moved to the far wall. "I didn't even realize you were shot until Cash turned you over and we saw the blood. We thought you'd fainted until then."
"I don't faint," she remarked drowsily. She sighed and closed her eyes wearily.
"You brave little idiot," he bit off, moving closer to the bed. "Why didn't you just sing out?"
"He had you right in his sights," she said involuntarily. "There wasn't time to shout a warning. By the time I spotted him, he was already pulling the trigger."
"Christabel, how do you think I'd feel if you'd died?" he asked bluntly. "Do you think I could have lived with knowing that you bought my life with your own?"
She barely heard him. She was so tired. "Couldn't...let him... kill you."
He bent with a groan and pressed his lips hard to her forehead. "Listen, there's something I need to tell you," he began.
"No, there's not," she murmured. "It was my choice. I made it. You've taken care of me for five years, Judd. It was my turn to take care of you."
He couldn't bear the pain of remembering how she'd looked just after the bullet hit her. He bent and drew his mouth tenderly over her dry lips, savoring their warmth in a tense silence.
"Don't," she moaned, putting her hand against his mouth. "Don't, please! I don't want to mess up your life any more than I already have. You don't owe me a thing."
He kissed her palm hungrily. "You don't understand."
Her eyes opened and looked up into his. "Sure I do," she whispered wearily. "You feel guilty for what you told Tippy about how I embarrassed you. Then I got shot and you're trying to sacrifice yourself to make amends. It isn't necessary. You can take this ring back. I'll give you a divorce..."
He caught her hand, preventing her from removing the ring. But coping with her suspicions was harder than he'd realized it might be. She wasn't going to listen to reason. She thought he was lying out of guilt and pity.
"You might lose her if you wait too long," she continued, her voice trailing off as she drifted in and out, on the verge of falling asleep.
"I've already waited too long," he bit off, hating the lump in his throat that he couldn't seem to lose, his eyes intent and tortured on her pale face.
But she didn't hear him. She was asleep.
Soon after they brought her home from the hospital, Christa-bel was struggling around the house trying to cook. Once Maude escorted her back to bed. The next day, Judd carried her there, tight-lipped and unresponsive to her protests.
"I can't just lie around here like a lump, I'll never get well," she raged when he started to put her back into bed. "Copper said I had to exercise!"
"A little at a time, and not the way you're trying to do it," he retorted curtly. He put her down against the pillows and glared down at her. She'd had a shower and washed her hair, with Maude's help, and she looked infinitely better than she had days earlier.
"All right, I'll stay put," she muttered, averting her eyes. "You should be spending time with Miss Moore. They're wrapping the film Friday and then they'll be gone."
He hadn't been able to get her to listen to a thing he'd said about his relationship with Tippy. She cut him off before he could even begin to explain it. Tippy had given him back the emerald and diamond ring, with all sorts of mumbled apologies, and he'd returned it to the jewelers for the refund of most his money. He'd wanted to tell Christabel, but she wouldn't listen. Neither would she accept the still-wrapped Christmas present he'd brought down for her, certain that it was an attempt to make up for not giving her one at the time. Maude had given him the tie tack Christabel had bought for him, and he'd kept it with him the whole time she was in the hospital. She didn't know that. He was tired of trying to make her listen.
Grier had been more visible lately, too, another source of worry, because Christabel perked up the minute he stuck his head in the door. She laughed with him as she never did with Judd anymore.
"I can't make you listen," he said in a heavy, defeated tone. "You don't want to hear me."
She glanced up at him with troubled dark eyes. "You won't listen to me, either. I said I'd give you a divorce whenever you want it. We can afford it now that we have the film company's check in the bank."
His jaw tautened. "I don't want a damned divorce!" he snapped. "I don't want to marry Tippy Moore! I never did!"
She tried to sit up and accidentally knocked over the glass of orange juice by the bed, spilling it all over herself in the process. "Now look what you made me do!" she raged.
"I never touched the damned thing!" he shot back, furious.
Tippy Moore heard the raised voices and stuck her head in. "Oh, for heaven's sake," she muttered, rushing back out again. She was back seconds later with a towel and a wet washcloth. "Out," she told Judd, holding the door.
He started to argue.
"You heard her!" Christabel seconded. "Out!"
He threw up his hands and stalked out in a black temper, slamming the door viciously behind him.
Tippy laughed. "Aren't men the living end?" she mused. She mopped up the orange juice with the towel. "Where do you keep your gowns?" she asked matter-of-factly.
Crissy told her, surprised by the woman's efficiency. She was bathed off with the washcloth, her dirty gown deftly removed and replaced by the clean one.
"Oh, I've spent years taking care of my little brother, and then a man I cared...very much for," Tippy said. "My brother's nine, now, and in military school." Her eyes were haunted. "I spent a fortune getting custody of him from my mother and her latest lover, but I wouldn't put it past them to try and kidnap him for more money. Nobody knows where he is except me."
Crissy was fascinated by this glimpse of the woman's private life. There was a haunted look about her. "You must care about him a lot."
She nodded. "He's my whole life." She picked up the towel and washcloth and gave the other woman a long, sad look. "I've made a lot of trouble for you with Judd. I want you to know that I'm sorry for all of it. I felt safe with him. He was the best man I've ever known and I got possessive. But if I'd had the slightest idea you were married, I'd never...!"
"It's all right," Crissy said, embarrassed. "You can't help how you feel about people."
Tippy sighed. "Isn't that the truth," she murmured, thinking about Cash Grier and his coldness, despite her attempts to revise his opinion of her.
Crissy, predictably, thought she meant Judd and was even more depressed.
"I gave Judd back the ring," she added firmly. "And I'm sorry about letting him buy it for me, too. I never realized how bad things were around here."
"They won't be for much longer," Crissy told her. "We're working on a new deal with an overseas market. If we can pull it off, I'll move out after we get the divorce, and he'll have everything he wants."
"Without you?" Tippy asked, astonished. "Can't you see how
he feels?"
"He feels guilty," Crissy told her flatly. "That will wear off, given time." She lay back with her eyes closed. "I'm tired of being married to a man who thinks of me as an albatross. I just
want out."
Tippy didn't know what to say. She stood there with remorse eating at her. Finally, she went out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her. She'd caused enough trouble for one day, with only the best of intentions.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Judd reluctantly returned to Victoria when Christabel was able to get around the ranch comfortably. He'd gone back to work the week after she'd come home, after the second shooting investigation that cleared him of any wrongdoing. But he'd commuted from Jacobsville to Victoria, to be on hand if he was needed. He and Nick had outlined new plans for the ranch, bought new materials, hired on a full-time man, and organized work schedules for maximum efficiency.
Christabel, who'd tried but failed to get so much work out of the part-time help, stood in awe of Judd when he set his mind to a problem. Nick just grinned and did what he was told, watching with amusement the way the part-timers jumped on projects and carried them through with no coaxing or argument.
The ranch was looking up, with the new infusion of money from the film project. Another film company, in fact, had targeted the ranch for a setting the following year. Christabel had groaned, but Judd had dangled promises of a new barn and improving the house even more, and she'd given in. Besides, it wouldn't happen until autumn next year. A lot could happen in that length of time, she told herself. In fact, she might not even be here then.
Meanwhile, the Japanese company had been in touch and arrangements were made for Judd and Christabel to fly over to Osaka for meetings. She'd tried to get out of going, pleading work, but Judd knew better. She couldn't even argue about not having a passport, because he'd had plenty of time to get her one. Nick was perfectly capable of overseeing what needed doing here at home, and it wasn't time for calving yet, either. She had no excuse, unless it was being reluctant to leave Cash Grier, he'd added with bitter coldness.
Cash had become her security blanket. She kept him between her and Judd, because she didn't want Judd making her any declarations out of gratitude or guilt. She knew he wanted to. She read him very well. He was still awed at the fact that she'd tried to sacrifice herself to save him. He couldn't get past that, no matter how hard he worked at it. She couldn't have made her feelings for him plainer if she'd worn a sign.
But she couldn't talk her way out of going to Japan. Even Maude jumped on the bandwagon and started insisting that she
go.
"I'm still weak from being in the hospital," she argued with
Judd the day before they were leaving out of the Houston airport.
He studied her with that brooding, almost painful scrutiny that had been so evident lately. "I know that," he told her gently. "But it will be a new experience for you. You need to get away from here for a while."
She gave him a long look. "Away from Cash, don't you mean?"
His jaw clenched. Just the sound of the man's name was like waving a red flag at a Texas longhorn bull. "You do live in his pocket since you came home," he pointed out.
She turned away from him, tired of the fighting. She and Cash were friends. That was all it would ever be. But it kept Judd from wallowing over the debt he owed her.
"If it had been me, in the same circumstances, you'd have done what I did, and you know it," she said quietly, her eyes on the pasture out the window. "You're making such a big deal of this, Judd, and it isn't necessary."
She felt his warmth at her back, felt his breath stirring the hair at her temples.
"You took a bullet that was meant for me," he said curtly. "How, exactly, should I take it?"
His big hands caught her shoulders and turned her around, very gently, so that he could look down into her eyes.
"I move one step closer and you move two steps back," he said broodingly. "Are you the same woman who couldn't get close enough to me on Christmas Eve?"
She flushed. "How dare you bring that up!" she raged.
"And you hadn't even been drinking," he added with amused indulgence.
She looked everywhere except in his eyes. "It was a mistake. You said so."
"I said a lot of things," he murmured evasively.
"Yes, and now you're saying a lot more, and you shouldn't," she tried to explain, pulling away from his hands. "Listen, you want a divorce. No problem. I'm not even arguing about it. You can marry Tippy Moore and I'll go around with Cash until he decides whether or not he can live in Jacobsville for the rest of his life."
He wondered if she had any idea how much it hurt him when she made offhand remarks like that. He had no interest in Tippy Moore. But her fascination with Cash had caused him to pretend one, out of wounded pride. Cash was everything most men wanted to be. He was handsome, charming, cultured and absolutely fearless. There wasn't a peace officer in Texas who didn't recognize his name. Judd had a cursory education and some college, but he wasn't in Cash's league intellectually and he was keenly aware of it. He wasn't cultured, either, and he didn't speak half a dozen impossible foreign languages.
Worse, he knew how Cash felt about Christabel, and that, given the least chance, he'd marry her out of hand, without a second thought.
Judd began to see how his indifference and rejection had wounded her all these long years, when he'd been so determined to keep his distance from her. He'd told himself it was for her good, so that she'd be heartwhole and innocent, so that she could pick up the threads of her life when their marriage was annulled. But it wasn't. He didn't want ties, roots, a family. He couldn't help remembering his own childhood when his mother left his father for another man. She'd been like Christabel, innocent and married in her teens, with no experience of the world or other men except her husband. It wasn't surprising to him, now, in manhood, that she would have been temp
ted by other men.
He'd had visions of Christabel doing as his mother had, running into some other man's arms out of curiosity after years of marriage, and it had frightened him. He'd turned away from her hungry eyes, her dreams of a life with him. Now he wanted those things back again, but she didn't. She was as remote and unresponsive as he'd ever been. With greater cause, he had to admit. He'd given her no encouragement whatsoever. Now, it seemed, it was too late. And the competition was fierce. Even he, with his massive self-confidence, felt uncertain around the threat of Cash Grier.
"I've told you until I'm blue in the face that I never intended to marry Tippy," he said through his teeth. "But you won't listen."
Because he'd said he was going to marry Tippy continually until Christabel was shot, she thought, but she was through arguing. "If I can't get out of going, I guess I'll pack," she said heavily. "Thirteen hours on an airplane. I'll be foaming at the mouth before we even get to California "
He gave her a worldly look. "We could do the initiation for the Mile High club."
It took a minute for her to realize what he was talking about.
She glared up at him. "I am not having sex with you in the washroom of an airplane!"
"Not even if I bought you a red negligee?" he asked softly.
Maude stopped in the doorway with one foot raised. She cleared her throat, put her foot down, and almost ran for the safety of the kitchen.
Judd didn't say anything. He was laughing too hard. Christa-bel made a rough sound in her throat and beat a hasty retreat to her room as fast as she could walk.
The trip was long, and a little frightening to Christabel, who'd never been on an airplane in her life. It was noisy in the economy section, but she and Judd had both refused to let the company pay for business class tickets. They felt bad enough about having to take the tickets in the first place. The seats were cramped and it was difficult to relax, but just thinking about the wonder of being in a foreign country fascinated Christabel.
They were fed and soon afterward the sleepless nights caught up with Christabel and she fell asleep. It seemed like no time before Judd was kissing her awake.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 353