Texas Proud

by Diana Palmer

  She was thinking the same thing about him, that he didn’t want to hurt her feelings by admitting that he couldn’t live with a woman who might be an invalid one day, a woman who could barely keep up with him on a slow walk in the woods. He needed somebody vibrant and healthy, who could thrive in his company, not a woman who would limit his activities.

  “It might be an idea to cool it, just for a little while,” Mikey said finally. “I’ve got people working on that car that almost hit you. We’ll find out who it was.”

  “Probably somebody drunk who misjudged the curb,” she replied with a faint smile. “It’s a small town. Odd things happen here.”

  His dark eyes seemed even darker as they searched her light ones. “I’ve never enjoyed anything more than this time with you.”

  “Me, either,” she confessed, and tried not to show that she was dying inside.

  “But we need to give each other a little space. Just for now,” he added quickly so it didn’t sound like he was trying to dump her. He couldn’t bear to hurt her feelings.

  She nodded. “It’s a good idea.” She fingered the ring that stood in place of an engagement ring. She started to take it off.

  His big hand went over both of hers. “No,” he said, and sounded choked. “You keep that. You keep it forever. Think of me when you wear it.”

  She looked up, fighting tears. “I’ll never forget you. No matter what.”

  “Yeah. It’s like that with me, too.” He hesitated. “Santi doesn’t like having me apart from him at night, the way things are going.”

  Her eyes widened with worry. “They haven’t sent somebody else after you...?” she asked almost frantically.

  He almost bit his lip through. That soft concern made him hate himself. “No,” he lied quickly. Some quick thinking by Paulie and the feds had saved him, already. “It’s just that he thinks a bodyguard should stay with the boss, and he can’t live in the room with me here. So...well, I’m moving over to the motel, and Santi and I can have adjoining rooms.”

  Her heart sank. She’d gotten used to seeing him at the table when they had meals, in the hallway, everywhere. “That’s probably a good idea,” she said softly. She looked up. “You take care of yourself, okay?”

  His big hand touched her cheek. “You do that, too. Don’t go out alone after dark. Be aware of your surroundings.”

  “I always do that. Well, almost always,” she amended. “But the car came out of nowhere. I didn’t even hear it coming.”

  That wasn’t surprising. Most newer model cars had quiet engines. It still bothered him that it didn’t sound like an accident. Paul was checking. If there was anything sinister, he’d find it.

  “So,” Mikey said. “I’ll see you around.”

  She forced a smile. “Yes. Well, goodbye.”

  She went into her room, resisting the urge to look behind her. She closed the door and let the tears fall silently. It was the biggest pain of her life, almost as bad as knowing what her grandfather had done, losing her sweet grandmother and the community where she’d grown up. It was like losing a loved one.

  Outside the door, Mikey was feeling something similar. But he had to do it. If he stayed here, seeing her every day, he’d go nuts. He couldn’t keep away from her, not unless he distanced himself from her. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. It was the only thing he could do. Bernie couldn’t live with the man he was. He didn’t blame her. It was just that she was the only woman he’d ever wanted to live with him.

  He let out a weary breath and went into his room to pack.

  * * *

  “You moved out of the boardinghouse,” Paul remarked a week later, when Mikey was having supper with him and Sari while Mandy bustled around in the kitchen making a cake.

  “Yeah,” Mikey said. He moved his cup around in the saucer. “Santi kept harping on it. He said he couldn’t protect me if he was several blocks away. I finally listened.”

  Paul, remembering an earlier conversation, knew what the truth was. Mikey was distancing himself from Bernie, removing temptation.

  Sari glanced at Mikey’s lowered head and started to speak, but a sharp jerk of the head from Paul silenced her. Instead, she started talking about a reality show she and Paul had been watching lately.

  After Mikey went back to his motel, Sari questioned Paul about his odd behavior.

  “He’s doing it for her own good,” Paul said on a sigh. “He thinks she couldn’t cope with his lifestyle. You know, Isabel, it’s not the same life as this one. Not at all. He’s in constant company with people who break the law. He travels in high social circles just the same, rubs elbows with movie stars and politicians and gamblers. He couldn’t settle down here if his life depended on it—well, except briefly, like he’s having to do now. But Bernie would never fit into that sort of world.”

  Sari met his eyes and nodded sadly. “But she was so happy,” she said softly. “Bright as the sun. She almost radiated with it. And now she’s so quiet we hardly know she’s around. She never jokes and smiles anymore.”

  “Neither does my cousin,” Paul said. He pulled her close. “You and I came from different worlds, but we worked it out, because we loved one another. You can tell how Mikey and Bernie feel about each other just by looking at them. Why couldn’t they work it out, too?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. She laid her head against his broad chest. “What about the sudden residents? Any new intel on them?”

  “Not a lot,” he confessed. “Jessie and her friend Billie are both from New York originally. They do have mob ties, but not to Cotillo or Tony Garza. Their connections aren’t apparent, but we’re trying to run them down. There’s still a family that operates in New York, even covertly, but it’s fragmented and the boss is in prison.”

  “He can still run it from prison. It’s not even hard.”

  “True. He has an underboss holding power for him. Jessie may have something to do with him. That wouldn’t necessarily mean she or the boss favored Cotillo. He’s an outsider and he does a bloody business. You know how well that goes over in mob circles. They don’t like attention. Cotillo’s getting them a lot of it.”

  “Wouldn’t it be lovely if somebody in one of the old outfit families decided to take Cotillo out of the equation?” she asked on a sigh. “Shame on me. I work for the court system. I should be ashamed.”

  “Yes, you bad girl.” He kissed her hungrily. “You need to be severely reprimanded. Come right over here and I’ll do my best.”

  She laughed as he tugged her down onto the bed. “Oh, this is a reprimand I’m going to love,” she teased.

  He chuckled as he started to remove her gown. “You bet, you’re going to love it!”

  * * *

  The driver of the car that almost hit Bernie was a local businessman who’d had three drinks too many out at Shea’s Bar and misjudged the curb, just as Bernie had figured. He turned himself in to Cash Grier with many apologies and Cash got him into rehab.

  Bernie listened to Cash’s explanation in the office a couple of weeks after Mikey had moved out of the boardinghouse.

  “I thought it was something like that,” she said quietly. “I mean, if people in organized crime want to hurt you, they just kill you, don’t they?”

  “More or less.” They were alone in the office. It was just after lunch and the other women hadn’t returned. “What about you and Mikey? I thought that was going to be permanent.”

  She flushed. “I’m not healthy,” she said. “His grandmother had what I’ve got. She was an invalid, bedridden, when she was old. I’m likely to end up in that condition a lot sooner.” She fought down panic at the thought that she might not even be able to work. She was far too proud to ask for government relief, even though she might one day be forced into it.

  “There are new drugs,” he pointed out.

 
She smiled sadly. “Chief Grier, the sort you’re talking about costs over a thousand dollars a month. They do have programs to help people afford them, but it isn’t that much of a reduction.”

  He grimaced.

  “I get by. My rheumatologist has me on a regimen of medicines that mostly take care of the pain. I have flares, days when I can’t get out of bed, and I have to use a cane from time to time. But there are lots of people worse off. Look at Glory in my office, and what she had to go through in her life. She still limps from time to time because her hip was broken long ago and it has arthritis in it, and her blood pressure is controlled but still subject to spikes. She lives with it. I live with my problems.”

  “But you don’t think Mikey could?” he fished, his eyes piercing hers.

  She toyed with a pen on her desk. “He was overheard telling his cousin that he wasn’t sure that he could.” She looked up. “Don’t you dare repeat that, ever. It would hurt his feelings. He can’t help what he thinks. He lives with glitzy people, rides in limousines, travels all over the world. I’m lucky if I can get from work to my boardinghouse without falling over my feet. How would I fit into that sort of lifestyle? I’d be a sparrow among peacocks, if you see what I mean.”

  He did see. But she was a sweet, kind woman. “If he loves you, it won’t matter.”

  “That’s the thing, though,” she continued. “He said it would be better if we sort of let things cool off. And he’s probably right. He has enough problems right now. They won’t kill him, will they?” she asked, and looked agonized by the thought.

  “He has powerful friends,” he replied. “Marcus Carrera is one of them. Carrera runs a legitimate operation in the Bahamas, but he wasn’t always a good guy, and his reputation still strikes fear in people who knew him back in the day.” He chuckled. “He’s got Tony Garza so surrounded by experienced mercs that only a suicidal maniac would try to get to him.”

  “Sari said that Mr. Garza gave her sister away at her wedding to that Wyoming rancher,” Bernie said.

  “He did. He’s not what he seems.” He cocked his head and studied her. “Neither is Mikey. His reputation is fearsome. But he’s not as bad as people think he is.”

  “He was arrested once, though,” she said.

  He nodded. “And charged with attempted murder. But the charges were dropped,” he reminded her. “Nobody’s ever been able to bring him to trial on a major crime. For a man who operates outside the law, he’s amazingly conventional.”

  She smiled sadly. “He’s amazing, period,” she said softly. “I’ll never forget him.” As she spoke, she twisted the turquoise-and-silver ring he’d given her. She wore it on her right hand, though, not her left. She didn’t want it to get back to him that she considered herself engaged, not when he was backing away.

  Cash muttered something about men being fools, smiled, and left her.

  * * *

  “What in the hell is wrong with you?” Cash asked Mikey when he saw him with Paul at Barbara’s Café one day at lunch.

  Mikey’s eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”

  “You have almost as much money in foreign banks as I do,” Cash said as he joined them for coffee and pie. “You could easily afford the newest treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, whatever they cost.”

  Mikey stared at him. “I don’t have arthritis.”

  “Bernie does.”

  Mikey averted his eyes. “I know.”

  “She wouldn’t let him, though,” Paul said, and he was giving Cash expression cues that asked him to cool it. “She’s too proud.”

  “Besides that, we’re not... Well, we’re not an item anymore,” Mikey added. “She has her life, I have mine.”

  “Yes, but she...” Cash continued, ignoring Paul.

  Before he could finish the sentence, Jessie came in the door, spotted Mikey and came right to the table, smiling.

  “Don’t forget, you’re taking me to Don Alfonso’s for supper, right?” she asked.

  Mikey chuckled. “You bet, doll. Santi and I will pick you up about five.”

  “I thought maybe you could drive us both and leave Santi at home,” she said with a husky laugh.

  “Sorry. Santi drives, I don’t.”

  “Well, okay. It doesn’t matter. I’ll be ready on time. Hi, Chief Grier. Mr. Fiore,” she added, a little unsettled when Paul just glared at her without speaking. “See you later.”

  She went to the counter to pick up her order. Paul glared at Mikey with much more venom than he’d shown the gorgeous, well-dressed woman waiting for her order.

  “She doesn’t mind riding around with a criminal,” Mikey said sarcastically. “She loves casinos and fancy restaurants and she’s classy enough to take to ritzy gatherings. So?”

  “You’re about to ruin your life,” Paul said curtly. “What if Bernie finds out? Jessie works in the office with her, for God’s sake!”

  “I told you,” Mikey said, averting his eyes. “Bernie and I are no longer an item. I can date any woman I like. Jessie’s not so bad.”

  But Paul was thinking that Jessie was every bit as bad as she seemed. She was rubbing Bernie’s nose in the fact that she had Mikey’s attention. Not only that, she was pressuring Mikey to be alone with her, without Santi. That was suspicious. Very suspicious. He glanced at a taciturn Cash Grier and had the impression that the police chief was thinking the same thing.

  “I need a night on the town, anyway,” Mikey said as he finished his pie and washed it down with coffee. “I’ve been vegetating down here in cowboy town.”

  “You watch your step,” Paul said shortly. “Don’t forget that Cotillo may have people here that we don’t even know about.”

  “Surely you don’t think Jessie’s one of them?” Mikey drawled. “You checked her out and found no connections to any of Cotillo’s people.”

  “Yeah, I checked out our last limo driver, too, and he almost got Merrie killed because the perp had connections I didn’t ferret out,” he was reminded.

  “I can handle myself,” Mikey reminded him curtly.

  “You’d better have a concealed carry permit if you walk around with a weapon in my town,” Cash told him humorously, but with a cold glint in his eyes.

  “I got one the second day I was in town, for your information,” Mikey said smugly. “I know you, Grier. No way I’m stepping out of line around here!”

  Cash just chuckled.

  * * *

  Paul cornered him after Grier left, while they were waiting on the sidewalk for Santi to collect Mikey.

  “This is going to ruin any chance you have of getting back together with Bernie,” he told his cousin. “You know that, right?”

  Mikey’s eyes were hollow with pain. “She can’t live with a crook, Paulie,” he said shortly. “That’s what she said.”

  Paul’s lower jaw fell. “She said that to you?”

  “Of course, she didn’t say it to me! She wouldn’t hurt my feelings for anything. But she was overheard saying it,” he added, and flushed, remembering who’d told him. “There’s Santi. I gotta go. See you around, cuz.”

  “Watch your back!” Paul called after him.

  Mikey waved and climbed into the limo.

  Paul stood watching it pull away from the curb. Something Mikey had said piqued his curiosity. He was going to speak to Sari about it when he got home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sari was going over a brief when Paul walked into the study and closed the door.

  “What’s up?” she asked, because he looked worried.

  “Did Bernie say anything to you about having an issue with Mikey’s background?” he asked curiously.

  “No,” she replied. She grimaced. “But she doesn’t really discuss Mikey with me,” she added. “I guess she thinks I might tell him what she said.” She put down the pencil she was using to edit the
document she was working on. “Why?”

  “He said she told somebody that she couldn’t live with a man who made his living outside the law, with a criminal,” he replied. “Would she tell somebody at work something so personal?” he persisted.

  She frowned. “Well, I don’t really think so. Bernie’s a very private person. She’s not the kind to blurt out intimate details of her life to people she works with. It’s not the way she is. And there’s not really anybody else she might tell, either. She has no close friends.”

  “That’s what I thought. Mikey has the impression that she can’t live with his past.”

  “I know that’s not true,” Sari said gently. “She loves him.”

  One side of his mouth pulled down. “I tried to tell him that. He wouldn’t listen. He’s destroying any chance that he could get back together with Bernie.”

  “How?”

  “He’s taking your coworker Jessie out on the town in San Antonio tonight,” he said through his teeth.

  “Oh, no!”

  “I tried to warn him. It will ruin everything. But he wouldn’t listen. He’s convinced that he’s so bad, only a bad woman would ever want him.”

  “What an idiot. Even if he is your cousin.”

  “Hey, no argument from me. I said the same thing, to his face.”

  “It will kill Bernie if she finds out.”

  He laughed coldly. “If? Jessie will tell the world tomorrow. I don’t doubt she’ll embroider it into something even more than it is.”

  “Jessie.” Sari made a rough sound. “She was our worst nightmare for weeks. Then overnight she turned into a caring, worrying coworker who did everything she could to make things easier for us.”

  “And all an act,” Paul said. “I can see right through her. I wish Mikey could.”

  “I didn’t. Neither did Bernie or Glory or Olivia,” Sari said.

  “I’ve spent my life with people who bend the truth. I’m good at recognizing phonies.”