But later that night, when she went to bed, she could no longer keep up the pretense. She sobbed into her pillow over all the things she’d lost and all the things that could never be.
The next morning, Justine was assisting Dr. Bellamy in dressing a burn on an older woman’s leg when Carlita, the receptionist, entered the examining room and informed her that she was wanted on the telephone.
“I’m busy right now, Carlita. If it’s one of my sisters—”
She cut in anxiously. “But it’s the sheriff, Justine.”
Justine could feel patient, doctor and receptionist staring curiously at her. “Perhaps you’d better go answer it, Justine,” Dr. Bellamy told her. “I can finish up here.”
She gave the older man an appreciative nod. “Thank you. I’ll only be a moment or two.”
Outside the examining room, Justine hurried down the hallway to the front desk. Carlita had put the receiver back on its hook. She lifted it and punched the glowing line number.
“Hello,” she said cooly.
“It’s Roy,” he replied. “Sorry to bother you at work again, but I didn’t want this to wait.”
His tone was all business, nothing like the taunting, sexy way he’d talked to her last night, in the stables. She was relieved.
“You have a lead on the twins?”
“Maybe. There’s a man who runs an ice-cream parlor here in Ruidoso who thinks he might have seen them. He says he’d have to see the babies to be sure. Can you bring them into town after work this evening?”
She thought for a moment. “Dr. Bellamy is leaving early this afternoon. I can have the babies in town by four-thirty at the latest. Where do I take them?”
“Meet me at the Ruidoso Police Department. We’ll leave from there.”
“I don’t want to do that,” she came back quickly.
For a moment, the line was silent. “What do you mean, you don’t want to do it?”
She let out a heavy breath as she glanced down the hallway to the examining rooms. Carlita would be coming back any minute. She didn’t want the woman to overhear anything personal she might be saying to Roy.
“I told you last night—I don’t want to see you again. Have one of your deputies go with me.”
“Are you that afraid of being alone with me?”
“I’m not afraid. I just prefer not to be in your company.”
“Well, forget your preferences and be there.”
She opened her mouth to tell him no, but he hung up before she could get the word out. Furious, she slammed down the phone just as Carlita arrived at the desk.
“My goodness, you don’t look too happy,” she said, her dark gaze studying Justine’s red cheeks and tight lips.
“Happy? Nothing about Sheriff Pardee makes me happy,” she said to the shocked receptionist, then turned and walked quickly back to the examining rooms.
Chapter Four
“Justine, do you really think it’s necessary to take the twins into town?” Rose asked later that afternoon, as she helped Justine dress the babies in clean clothes. “It’s not likely this man really knows that much. Besides, it would be easier for him to come out here to the ranch than transporting the babies into town.”
“I know,” Justine agreed. “But apparently that suggestion wasn’t put to him. Roy said for me to be there with the babies. And as much as I hate to, I’m going to be there.”
In her usual quiet and thoughtful manner, Rose regarded Justine’s grim face and flustered movements.
“You don’t like Sheriff Pardee much, do you?”
Justine didn’t look up from her task as she buttoned a shirt on the boy twin. “Not really.”
“Why?”
Justine momentarily closed her eyes, and then her blood began to boil. Before she knew it, words were spilling out of her mouth. “He’s just not my type of man. He’s arrogant and cocky and he thinks women are playthings. He has no respect for women or families in general. He’s callous and hateful and he thinks all he has to do is look at a woman to make her lust after him.”
Rose gasped softly. “Justine! My word, where did you come up with such things about a man you barely know? Sheriff Pardee has been kind to us. And when he looked at me, I didn’t get the impression he was trying to be suggestive or provocative.”
Since Rose rarely had anything good to say about a man, Justine was more than surprised by her sister’s outspoken opinion on Roy.
“I just happen to know his kind, Rose. I ought to—I encountered plenty of them in college.”
“He doesn’t seem like a phony to me,” Rose went on.
It was puzzling even to Justine. A few days ago, she’d felt certain any feelings she had toward Roy had died when Charlie was born. But now that he’d kissed her, she knew he’d stirred up a long-buried need inside her.
“That’s because you don’t know men like I do. But believe me, it doesn’t take very long to see through them,” Justine said flatly.
Rose frowned as she watched her sister stuff several clean diapers into a duffel bag. “Well, I admit I haven’t had as much experience with men as you, but this attitude that you have toward the sheriff seems rather unfair. You make him sound like the cad who ended your engagement and left you pregnant with Charlie.”
Justine hoped her face wasn’t white as she glanced evasively at her sister. “Believe me, Rose, all men are from the same mold. You ought to know that as well as I.”
Rose walked over to the bedroom window and glanced out at the corrals in the distance. Her face was suddenly pinched with pain and disgust. “And you know I’ll never forget what Peter did to me, Justine. I’m frigid now because of him.”
“Oh, dear heaven, you’re not frigid, Rose!” Justine softly scolded her. “You just think you are.”
Rose slowly turned back to her sister. “Frigid or not, I realize all men aren’t bastards. And I have a feeling that Sheriff Pardee is different from most men out there. I think deep down you know he’s different, too.”
Justine sighed as she gazed at the two babies lying side by side on the double bed. They were looking up at her with trusting eyes, the same way Charlie did. Her heart surged with love. “Right now, I’m not concerned with Roy. I just want to make sure the twins are taken care of.”
A few minutes later, Rose helped her carry the babies and the duffel bag out to her pickup, where the two women had strapped down a double car seat for children.
After securing the babies, Justine climbed behind the steering wheel. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I don’t know how long this is going to take. Just make sure Charlie doesn’t eat any candy before supper.”
Rose nodded and smiled. “He’ll be fine. As long as he’s with Chloe and the horses, he won’t even miss you.”
“That really makes me feel needed,” Justine said with a grin, then started the engine and pulled the gearshift into drive. “See you later.”
Rose stepped back and waved her sister and the twins down the road.
Thirty-five minutes later, Justine pulled into the parking lot in front of Ruidoso’s police department. Roy’s four-wheel-drive vehicle was parked to one side of the building. She parked beside it and killed the motor.
She didn’t know what she was supposed to do now. She wasn’t about to leave the twins in the pickup alone while she went inside to find Roy. Nor was she capable of safely carrying both twins into the building with her.
The dilemma was suddenly solved, as Roy and a man who appeared to be one of his deputies walked through the front entrance. The two men paused on the steps and exchanged a few more words before Roy walked over to her vehicle.
“Are you ready to go?” He glanced at the babies, then settled his gaze on Justine’s face.
She wanted to stay angry with him, she wanted to look at him and feel nothing, yet she could do neither.
“The babies are strapped in their car seat. Do you want to move it to your vehicle or take mine?” she asked.
He opened the do
or and motioned for her to scoot over and let him behind the wheel. “It’s only a few blocks to the ice-cream parlor,” he told her. “This will be faster.”
Justine wedged herself as close as she could to the babies, but there just wasn’t enough room on the bench seat for her to put space between herself and Roy. His thigh was pressed into hers, and his upper arm pinned her shoulder to the back of the seat. Touching him like this was agony, and she figured he knew it.
“I don’t like being manipulated,” she said as he steered the pickup onto a main thoroughfare.
He glanced at her. “You think I’ve done all this just to see you again? What conceit!”
Heat poured into her cheeks. Maybe it had been stupid of her to think he actually wanted to see her again. But his behavior last night had warned her to expect anything from him. “Are you saying you didn’t want to see me?” she asked, her tone faintly challenging.
“I said I didn’t manipulate you.”
Justine didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “You could have asked Chloe or Rose to bring the babies into town,” she quickly pointed out.
Roy’s gaze remained on the traffic. “I don’t know Chloe or Rose like I know you.”
“Thank God,” Justine muttered. “No need for all three Murdock sisters to be corrupted.”
“You think that’s what I did to you?”
“What you did to me isn’t fit for babies’ ears,” she said.
A frown twisted his profile. “I suppose Charlie’s dad treated you better?”
Charlie’s dad. Dear God, how she wished she could forget he was Charlie’s father.
“How he treated me is none of your business,” she said flatly, then purposely turned her attention to the twins. The girl had lost her pacifier. She offered it to the baby again, then wiped drool from the boy’s chin.
From behind the wheel, Roy was very aware of Justine’s soft body pressed against his, the sweet, flowery scent of her, and the way her red hair fell in wild, loose curls down the middle of her back.
Last night, he’d purposely kissed her, to prove to himself that she was totally and irrevocably out of his system. But the kiss hadn’t proved anything. Other than the fact that he was still a fool where she was concerned. He still wanted her with a vengeance, and he didn’t know what in hell to do about it.
“You sure are testy where Charlie’s father is concerned,” he said after a moment.
Justine resolutely turned away from the twins and looked him squarely in the face. “Maybe I’m testy where all men are concerned.”
His brows lifted at the heat in her voice. “That’s not true. You like men.”
She gritted her teeth. “You don’t know that.”
He chuckled under his breath. “I know it better than anybody.”
“You only know what you remember,” she said tightly. “When I was with you, I was reckless and in-infatuated.”
He kept his eyes on the traffic ahead, but Justine could see a muscle working in his jaw. If she’d made him angry, she didn’t care. She was just relieved she’d caught herself before she blurted out that she’d been in love with him. She didn’t want Roy to ever know how much she’d cared for him. It was safer to let him think she’d carelessly moved on to some other man.
Roy told himself to forget the woman beside him. She was trouble. That was all she’d ever been in his life. Yet all he could think about was the way she’d tasted last night, the way she’d made love to him all those years ago. She’d given herself to him in a way that no woman had since. She’d branded him deep inside, and now that she was back in the Hondo Valley, he felt like a marked man.
The ice-cream parlor was at the west end of town, where the street began to climb up into the mountains. Along with ice cream, the shop also served sandwiches and short orders. At this time of the evening, the place was beginning to fill up with after-work diners.
After unfastening the babies from the car seat, Roy took the boy and Justine carried the girl. They found a small table in one corner of the room and waited for a waitress. When she finally arrived, Roy glanced at Justine.
“Do you want something to eat?”
She’d thought this was supposed to be strictly a police visit, but he was making it seem like a family outing with the kids, Justine thought with a measure of surprise. And from the curious glances the four of them were receiving from the other diners, she suspected they were equally surprised to see their county sheriff with a woman and a couple of babies.
“No, thank you. I’ll eat later, with my sisters.”
“What about the babies?”
The twins had taken a bottle an hour or more before Justine headed into town with them. At their age, they would probably be getting hungry before she got the two of them home.
“I suppose we could feed them some vanilla ice cream,” she said.
“We?”
She slanted him a dry look. “You can handle a spoon, can’t you?”
With a sigh, he glanced up at the hovering waitress. “Vanilla ice cream for the kids, and two coffees. Also, tell Fred that Sheriff Pardee is here. He’ll know what I want.”
The waitress flashed him a ready smile. “Yes, sir. Can I get anything else for you?”
“No, thanks. That will do it.”
The young woman hurried away to do the sheriff’s bidding. Justine’s lips curved with faint amusement. “I wonder what she would have done if you’d asked for the moon?”
He flashed her an annoyed glance. “You’re being nasty.”
Justine shrugged innocently. “Not really. She was bedazzled by you.”
“She was simply doing her job.”
Justine’s eyes clashed with his, then drifted down to the hard line of his mouth. She didn’t have to recall what it had been like last night to have those lips pressed against hers. The image was already burning through her mind.
“She would have liked to do more.”
Would you? The question was in his eyes. But whether he was going to speak it aloud to her, Justine would never know, because the baby boy on his knee grabbed for the saltshaker.
Roy’s hand flashed out, took hold of the eager little fist and guided it away from the table.
“No, son,” he told the wide-eyed boy. “That stuff isn’t good for big people, much less a little tot like you.”
The baby seemed to think having Roy talk to him was quite amusing, and he burst out with a happy little shriek.
Roy rubbed his ear in the aftermath. “What a mouth on this kid!”
Justine couldn’t help but smile. “He likes you.”
Roy glanced from Justine to the baby’s dimpled face. “You think he does?”
“Why does that shock you? To hear you tell it, everybody likes you. Ninety percent of the vote. I guess you can include Adam in that ninety percent now.”
He glanced sharply at Justine. “Adam? You’ve named him?”
With a weary shake of her head, Justine said, “I didn’t name the twins. My sisters did. Anna for the girl. Adam for the boy.”
Justine scooted the wiggling Anna up farther in her lap, while Roy studied her with narrowed eyes.
“I told you, Justine, this is a temporary thing. You can’t name these children!”
Justine sighed. “Yes. I know you’re right, Roy. But I can hardly control what my sisters do. Besides, we can’t simply keep calling them ‘baby boy’ or ‘baby girl.’ The two of them ought to at least have temporary names. Until you can come up with their real ones.”
Before he could make a reply, the waitress arrived with the coffee and ice cream.
Justine placed her coffee safely out of Anna’s reach, then tucked a napkin into the collar of the baby’s dress.
Watching her, Roy asked, “Do I need to put one of those on him, too?”
Justine could have reached across the small table and put a makeshift bib on Adam herself, but she wasn’t going to. It was obvious that he didn
’t want to be a father or have to do the things that being a father sometimes required. But that was too bad, she thought smugly. Taking care of Adam for a few minutes would be good for the man.
“Adam would probably appreciate not having ice cream all over his shirt.”
Grunting with annoyance, he reached for a napkin. “This is—” He paused as he awkwardly tucked the paper around the baby’s throat. “You can’t just expect me to pick up a baby and know what to do with him.”
The sight of Roy’s big hand against Adam’s little cheek stirred a bittersweet ache in Justine. This man was Charlie’s father, yet he’d never touched his son. He’d never held him or fed him or kissed his cheek.
Maybe if he’d known about Charlie…Her regretful thoughts skidded to a jarring halt. If Roy had known about Charlie, he would have become a father to him out of obligation. Justine wanted more than that for her son. He deserved more, and so did she.
“It won’t hurt you to learn,” she said, trying her best to sound casual. “You might want to become a father someday.”
He snorted, and Justine’s heart cringed.
“I doubt I’ll ever become a husband, much less a father,” he told her.
Justine’s eyes dropped to the crown of Anna’s red head. “In other words, you still don’t want a family.”
If there was a caustic sound to her words, Roy didn’t appear to notice. He spooned into the small mound of ice cream, then offered it to Adam. The boy promptly opened his mouth, and Roy cautiously slipped the spoon inside.
“It’s not a matter of what I want,” Roy said after a moment. “It’s just that I—” He paused and gestured toward both twins. “This isn’t for me. I’m a sheriff and a rancher. What time I’m not doing law work, I’m taking care of cattle and horses. Besides, I never met a woman I wanted to get that close to.”
Other than you, Roy very nearly added, but he stopped himself short of that admission. It was bad enough that Justine had walked away from him without a word. The last thing he wanted was for her to know just how much she’d hurt him. She’d made his life sweet, filled it with purpose and meaning. He’d been able to talk to her about anything and everything. She’d not only been his lover, she’d also been his friend and companion. Since then, Roy had never found another woman who could fill the empty hole she’d left in him.
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