Sheriff’s Runaway Witness

by Kathleen Creighton

  Intellectually, of course, because of her medical training she’d been able to mark the mileposts of pregnancy and monitor her own health and that of her growing baby, doing the best she could in her situation. And as her date of delivery had come closer she’d become more and more frightened and her instincts had focused mainly on finding a way to survive, for both herself and her baby. But emotionally…

  She lifted her eyes to J.J.’s and said it again. “It just doesn’t seem real.”

  “Sounds real enough to me,” he said dryly, as the unhappy sounds from the backseat grew more earnest, and Moonshine whined nervously. He slapped at the gearshift and the truck started to move again, winding its way between towering evergreens and newly leafed poplars, and well-kept beds filled with rosebushes already pruned and ruddy with fragile new growth. “Let’s hope they’re ready for us.”

  From a window high in the bell tower above the hacienda’s tiny chapel, keen blue eyes followed the white pickup truck’s progress as it slipped in and out of view behind copses of trees and sunny beds of roses. Avidly, they watched as the truck drew to a stop next to the curving flagstone steps. The door on the driver’s side opened and a tall man got out, crossed to the passenger side and opened the door.

  The watcher’s head dipped in approval.

  He leaned forward, gripping the window ledge with both hands as the woman emerged, stepping carefully, gingerly, the man helping her. While the man turned to open the back door, the woman stood looking around her, then lifted her eyes to the bell tower. For a moment it seemed as if she was looking directly into the watcher’s eyes, but he didn’t draw back; he knew the tower’s thick adobe walls and the angle of the sun would make him invisible to her. He gave a cackle of laughter.

  “Well, Elizabeth, should a’ known your granddaughter would be the first. Have to say, though-she sure don’t look like her daddy, does she? Our Sean…” He gave a sigh. “I know…I know, I got no right to call him mine, after I gave him up-and you, too. But…we both know what a damn fool I was, and that’s water under the bridge.”

  Turning his attention once again to the tableau far below, he watched avidly as the man lifted the carrier holding his first great-grandchild from the pickup truck’s backseat. The kid was sure kicking up a rumpus-he could hear it all the way up here. He had to smile at that-fine strong set of lungs, it sounded like.

  Then he grew still, and his old heart sped up a notch or two as he watched the girl bend over the carrier, then straighten up with the baby in her arms. He felt a softness in his chest that hadn’t been there for a long, long time.

  “There’s something about her, Elizabeth. Something that reminds me of you.” The way she moves…I remember the way you used to look, holding our baby boy in your arms.

  A whisper stirred through the quiet, so soft it might have been the breeze blowing in the open window.

  Are you goin’ out to greet them? She’s your granddaughter, after all.

  Sam Malone shifted his shoulders impatiently. “In good time…in my own good time.”

  He heard a familiar cackle of laughter. You always were a coward, Sam Malone. At least when it comes to emotions.

  Mildly stung, he turned to reply, and was surprised to find the room behind him empty.

  But not too surprised-it wasn’t the first time.

  J.J. kept his hand on the small of Rachel’s back as they walked together up the wide curving flagstone pathway to a heavy arched wooden door with black iron hinges. He didn’t stop to think why; it just felt right to him.

  He could feel her body vibrating-trembling, he supposed, was the word he ought to use, but somehow it didn’t fit with the strength he knew she had. Didn’t matter. Whether she was scared, or just wired up with suspense about this unknown she was facing, he felt a powerful need to be there right beside her, to give her support. Protect her, if she needed it.

  “Stay, Moonshine,” he said, and the dog lowered her haunches to the ground beside the truck but kept her eyes glued to Rachel and the baby. As if she didn’t trust the situation any more than he did.

  The front door opened, and a woman stood there, smiling a welcome. At the same time, from down the long drive they’d just traveled a man came walking, with a black-and-white border collie ambling at his heels.

  Moonshine got up and shambled out to meet them, on alert, but not as if there was any real danger there. And although J.J.’s cop-senses were on full alert, he didn’t get any real sense of danger from the man or his dog, either. Like the dog’s, the man’s pace was unhurried, and although he didn’t appear to be smiling, his face and body seemed relaxed.

  Meanwhile, the border collie had trotted out to meet Moonshine, and the two of them were sniffing up one another the way dogs do when they’re meeting for the first time and are probably going to decide to be friends. Which meant the other dog was probably a male, J.J. thought, since Moon tended to be a little bit territorial around other females.

  Satisfied the newcomers posed no threat, to Rachel and the baby or the old hound dog, he turned his attention back to the woman in the doorway. She was holding out her arms to Rachel in an open, generous way, and her smile was warm and wide.

  “Welcome, Rachel, welcome,” she said, and lifted her eyes to include J.J. in the smile. She offered him her hand. “We’ve been expecting you. I’m Josie.”

  Her voice was musical and pleasant. She had a smooth, round face with the broad cheekbones and olive skin tones that strongly suggested Native American ancestry. She appeared to be in her mid-sixties, although it was hard to tell since she had so few wrinkles, and her straight salt-and-pepper hair was cut in a style that was both up-to-date and becoming to her face. She wore slacks and a rose-pink blouse with a collar, and what he was almost certain was a hand-beaded Native American-style necklace. Although she was short, she still had an inch or two on Rachel, and her figure was what he thought of as solid…comfortably mature-not slim, but definitely not fat, either.

  She nodded and smiled briefly at J.J. as he shook her hand, before turning her attention back to Rachel and the baby. She reminded J.J. then of the hens his mother used to raise, the way she sort of gathered them in under her wings, clucking to them in a welcoming, mothering way.

  “Come in, come in, dear…oh, what a sweet baby…a hungry baby, too. Come, I have a nice quiet place where you can nurse him. And you need something to drink, too, I’m sure. Do you like milk? It’s fresh-we have our own cows-or would you rather have some tea?”

  Rachel threw him a look over her shoulder, a look not of pleading or of panic, but of such intensity he knew it would stay in his mind for a long time while he tried to figure out what it meant. Then the door closed, leaving him to deal as he would with the man and the dog.

  The border collie was now cavorting in happy circles around Moonshine, who sat placidly, evidently considering herself above such unseemly behavior. The man came on alone up the flagstone steps, holding out his hand.

  “Hello,” he said, “I’m Sage.” J.J. took the proffered hand and shook it. “J.J.”

  “You’d be the sheriff.”

  “That I would,” J.J. drawled. He and the other man locked eyes, sizing each other up. Like their respective dogs, he thought, figuring out whether or not to be friends.

  J.J. couldn’t speak for the other guy, but as far as he was concerned, the jury was still out on that one.

  The man who called himself “Sage” looked respectable enough, being clean-shaven and neatly dressed in jeans and a western-style long-sleeved blue shirt. J.J. wasn’t sure how he felt about the black hair worn in a braid thick as his wrist that hung down past the man’s hand-tooled leather belt. But he had to admit it suited him, somehow.

  Sage also had a direct and steady gaze and a firm handshake, but since J.J. had known both con men and murderers with those qualities, that didn’t mean much to him. Still…the guy did have a definite-and indefinable-presence, the kind of pride and self-confidence that didn’t need proving to
anybody. And there seemed to be both humor and intelligence in those jet-black eyes.

  “Alex told us you’d be coming.”

  “Alex-that would be…”

  “Alex Branson-Mr. Malone’s attorney.”

  “Ah,” said J.J.

  Sage nodded toward the closed door. “You met Josie- Josephine-she’s my mom. She…uh, she runs the house.”

  “Uh-huh,” J.J. said, and waited. It had been his experience that if he left the silences for the other person to fill, most of his questions got answered without his having to ask them.

  This time was no exception. “I run the ranch,” Sage said, and J.J. saw a flash of humor in the other man’s eyes that suggested he probably knew exactly what J.J. was up to and didn’t particularly mind. “I have a place down at the other end of the meadow. If you’d hung a right at the T instead of a left, it would’ve taken you to the original old June Canyon Ranch adobe. That’s where I live.”

  “Anybody else live there? Employees? Hired hands?”

  “Not at the moment. Later on we’ll have a crew to help take the cattle up to the high meadows. Right now there’s still too much snow, so it’s just me.” The tone of Sage’s voice hadn’t changed, but the sharp black eyes narrowed slightly. “You got a particular reason for asking?”

  “Just curious,” J.J. said, then found himself on the receiving end of a waiting silence. Score one for you, he thought as he let out a capitulating breath. “Look, I’m sure the lawyer explained about me-”

  Sage nodded, his gaze keen and unwavering. “He did. What he didn’t tell us is why Mr. Malone’s granddaughter is in need of a police bodyguard.”

  “He’s a beautiful baby.”

  Rachel gave a small laugh that was both agreement and frustration; she was still trying to master the art of putting a disposable diaper on a squirming, kicking, unhappy infant. She shook her head and said, “I just can’t believe he’s really mine.” She glanced up at Josie. “You know? Like…oh, my gosh, I have a baby.”

  Josie laughed, a musical ripple that made Rachel think of mountain streams. “Oh, I do know. I remember how it was when Sage was first born.”

  “Sage is your son?” She hadn’t gotten more than a glimpse of the man as he’d come up the drive, but Josie had seemed too young to have a grown son.

  The other woman nodded serenely. Then for a few moments they were both silent as Rachel struggled to get the diaper fastened and the blanket snugly wrapped. When the job was done-more or less, Josie looked at Rachel with raised eyebrows and said, “May I?”

  “Oh,” Rachel said. “Sure.” She stood aside and hovered self-consciously as the other woman carefully, tenderly picked up the tidy package she’d made of her baby son. They both laughed as he instantly turned his face toward Josie, mouth open, like a hungry baby bird.

  “Oh, my, I think he needs his mama,” Josie said, laughing as she handed back the squirming bundle, and Rachel felt a kind of tremulous relief as she took that tender weight in her arms once more.

  How terrifying this is, she thought, to have this bond, now, that I can’t bear to have broken, even for a moment.

  “Would you like to come out and sit on the veranda to nurse him? It’s nice there this time of day. There’s a comfortable chair-a rocker-I like to sit there sometimes.”

  Realizing suddenly how unsteady she was and grateful for the chance to sit down, Rachel murmured her thanks and followed her hostess through wide, double French doors. She caught an involuntary breath.

  “Oh-it’s beautiful.”

  The house had been built Spanish-style around a central courtyard. In the center of the courtyard a three-tiered fountain flowed with happy music into a pool covered with tile artistically done in a colorful mosaic of flowers and birds. Wide pathways paved with flagstone curved from each wing of the house to the central fountain, and between the pathways, small patches of lush green lawn separated flower beds filled with newly leafed shrubs and spring-flowering bulbs-hyacinths and daffodils and freesias, and tulips of every shade. Peeking out between the nodding heads of flowers Rachel could see the spikes and leaves of perennials that would come later-daisies and iris and cannas and peonies. Adjacent to the covered veranda that ran around all four sides of the courtyard, flowerbeds held climbing roses that clung thickly to the supporting pillars and arched over the tiled veranda roof, tangled with honeysuckle and trumpet vines. Here and there among the foliage Rachel caught glimpses of garden art: an old wagon wheel, a ceramic tiled birdbath, a terra-cotta statue of Saint Francis of Assisi, another of a child, a little boy, fishing. Birdhouses, hummingbird feeders and wind chimes hung at intervals from the eves of the veranda, the latter tinkling softly now in the breeze.

  Josie glanced at her, a pink blush of pleasure showing in her smooth cheeks. “Thank you. This is…oh, I guess it’s my special place. I love flowers. Here in the courtyard, the dogs aren’t allowed and the deer and rabbits can’t reach, so I can have all the flowers I want. Maybe I overdo, a little.”

  “Oh, no-it’s beautiful. My grandmother loved flowers, too. She would have loved this…” She had to stop, suddenly awash in emotions she thought she’d gotten past. Hormones, she supposed.

  Josie nodded, her eyes kind. “Your grandmother-she was Elizabeth. Sam’s first wife.”

  “Yes,” Rachel said, and turned away, looking for the promised rocking chair, thankful for the distraction of her squirming son, whose snuffling, fussing noises were becoming increasingly insistent. She had no wish to talk about her grandmother. And especially not her grandfather-not yet. Soon, she would have to. But not now.

  “Oh-here,” Josie said, and guided her to the glider-type patio rocking chair, holding her arm to help support the baby as Rachel sank gingerly into the thick cushions. “There-you just go ahead and nurse your little one while I get you something to drink. You need to drink lots of fluids, you know, to make milk.”

  She bustled off, stepping back through the open French doors, and Rachel was left alone with the wind chimes and the chuckling fountain and the scent of hyacinths steeped in sunshine.

  How strange…how unreal it all is.

  And yet, she realized, that wasn’t quite true. What was maybe the strangest thing was how normal it seemed. Because it was happening to her, and that made it somehow normal. Or something. She wasn’t able to explain it very well, even to herself, but she knew it to be true. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, she thought. Watching that movie as a child with her grandmother, she’d never understood how Dorothy could accept so easily meeting witches and munchkins and talking lions and characters made out of tin and straw. Now she knew that the unreal, once you are in it, becomes your reality.

  Which makes all this just one more way station on my yellow brick road. And I’m off to see the wizard, the one who is supposed to solve all my problems…

  And the wizard is…my grandfather?

  She shook off the notion and the irony of it with a small, sobbing laugh.

  She was getting better at this nursing business, she thought as she lifted her shirt and unhooked the special bra, one of several Katie had bought for her. She was able to get her swollen nipple into the baby’s frantically searching mouth on only the second or third try. As the baby began to nurse hungrily, she closed her eyes and eased herself back into the cushions. Tears stung the backs of her eyelids and breath hissed between her lips as showers of tingles spread from her breasts through her whole body.

  It’s almost like sex, she thought, then wondered where the thought had come from. It had been a long time since she’d had any thoughts about sex whatsoever. She thought she’d forgotten what it felt like…

  She heard rustlings and quiet footsteps, and opened her eyes to see Josie placing a small tray on the table beside her chair.

  “Sorry,” Josie whispered, “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “You didn’t,” Rachel said, and reinforced it with a smile.

  “I brought you both milk and tea-decaf. And I didn
’t know if you take sweetener, so I brought both sugar and low-cal stuff-the yellow ones. Hope that’s okay.”

  “That’s fine,” Rachel murmured, filled now with a sweet sense of contentment, listening to her son make satisfied, squeaky sounds as he nursed. “Thank you.”

  Josie hesitated, seeming uncertain whether she should stay or leave her alone. She gestured toward the doors she’d just come through. “Is this room okay? It’s closest to the main wing-to the kitchen, you know-so I thought-”

  “It’s lovely-thank you.”

  “Your friend, the sheriff-J.J.-can have the room right next door. Unless you’d like to have him-” She broke off, clearly embarrassed, and gestured again toward the door to Rachel’s room.

  Rachel just gazed at her for a moment, comprehension coming slowly to her in her mellow mood. Then her heart gave a funny kick and she half straightened. “Oh-no, no. No.” Laughing, she made erasing gestures with her hand. “We’re not-no. He’s just my-I guess he’s sort of my-”

  “I know you are under his protection,” Josie said, coming finally to settle onto the edge of another chair half facing her. She shrugged. “I just thought, maybe there was…you know-something more.”

  Now it was Rachel’s stomach that did an odd little flip. “Why would you think that? I mean-I just met him two days ago. He delivered my baby-saved both our lives, probably. But…no, there’s nothing…”

  “I’m sorry,” Josie said, that pink blush coming again to her smooth round cheeks. “I just thought…you know, the way he is with you. The way he looks at you. Maybe he feels…I don’t know…responsible for you?”

  “That’s probably it.” But Rachel’s heart was beating faster. The way he is with me?