Sheriff’s Runaway Witness

by Kathleen Creighton

  “Could easily find out about the trust and who funded it,” Katie finished for him.

  He let out a breath, counted ten, then said, as he bookmarked the page and logged off, “Any developments in the case of the two dead federal agents?”

  “Nothing I’ve been able to find. Also, no word on whether Carlos Delacorte is under surveillance.”

  J.J. snorted. “I think it’s a pretty safe bet the feds have been watching the entire Delacorte organization for a while now. Which I’m thinking is probably what led to the attempted takedown outside that nightclub to begin with.”

  “Probably,” said Katie, “but even if that’s true, the feds aren’t likely to be sharing their information with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Not with a lowly deputy from an armpit of a desert outpost out in the middle of nowhere, anyway,” J.J. said sourly. He let out another gust of frustration, thanked Katie for her efforts, told her to keep trying to get a line on Carlos’s activities and signed off.

  With the computer screen blank, the cell phone silent and Josie evidently occupied in some distant quarter, the house seemed silent as a tomb. Since there was still no sign of Rachel and Sage, J.J. figured he’d go to his room and get his hat, then maybe take a walk down to the farm…see if he could meet up with them. He started across the courtyard to his room, then at the last moment, found himself taking a slight detour to Rachel’s room next door instead.

  The French doors to both his and Rachel’s rooms stood open onto the veranda. He paused there, taking in the sweet smells of flowers and the warm spring breeze, listening to the wind chimes and for sounds of infant displeasure. Hearing none, he hesitated, and then, with no idea what motivated him, stepped into Rachel’s room. He waited a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dim light, then walked-okay, tiptoed, being mindful of the blinking monitor-to the side of the bassinet. Stood-for how long he didn’t know-gazing down at the kid, watching him sleep, and wasn’t even aware, just then, that he was holding his breath.

  He had to admit the kid had improved with age, although he still didn’t think he’d call him beautiful, exactly. Then again, seeing him all wrapped up like a papoose in a blue blanket with teddy bears on it, dark hair waving across his scalp, lashes fine as spider webs laying on fat pink cheeks, he could see how a mother might think he was. One tiny hand had managed to break free of the swaddling blanket and was splayed over one cheek, wrinkly fingers spread wide. He reached out with one finger and touched the hand. Instantly, the fingers moved…curled… It reminded him of the way a sea anemone contracted when you poked it with your finger. The pink mouth contracted, too, drawing up into a tight little bud, and the forehead wrinkled into an infant version of a frown.

  J.J. realized, suddenly, that he was smiling.

  What the hell am I doing? He jerked his hand back, turned and tiptoed quickly across the room and through the French doors.

  Rachel was in the courtyard, standing by the fountain. She was gazing down at the hand she was trailing in the water, but looked up quickly when he stepped onto the veranda, reminding him of a doe startled at a waterhole. She broke into a smile when she saw him, eyes bright and cheeks flushed, and it occurred to him she looked as guilty as he felt.

  “Hi,” he said. “Back already?”

  At almost the same moment, she nodded toward the room he’d just left and said, “Is he-”

  He shook his head. His heart was thumping. “Sound asleep.”

  “Oh.” For an instant she looked as if she didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. Then, smiling again, she burst out, “Oh, I had the best-” just as he was saying, “How did your-” So he stopped and motioned for her to continue.

  She did, breathless as a child. “Oh, Jethro, you should have seen it, there are just babies everywhere. I guess that’s the way it is, in the spring, on a farm. Baby calves-there’s even a little tiny calf Sage said they have to feed with a bottle because he was a twin and his mother rejected him, but that’s only until they get him strong enough, then he said they’ll let him nurse one of the milk cows. They are so pretty…the calves are. They seem so shiny and new, and they have such beautiful eyes. There are baby lambs, too, and baby goats-the goats and sheep don’t seem to mind twins. Almost all of them have twins, and one of the goats even has triplets. They aren’t out in the pasture-they have to stay in pens until the babies are bigger, because of coyotes. Even bears and mountain lions, sometimes, can you imagine? And there’s a litter of kittens- Sage said they were born in the haystack, but he moved them into the tack room because they’re safer there. They’re just getting their eyes open now. I can’t wait to see them when they start running around. Oh-and the house is fascinating, too. It’s over one hundred years old, made of adobe. The walls must be a foot thick. Sage said-”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” J.J. interrupted, mainly because he didn’t think he could stand hearing “Sage said” one more time. “I hate to stop you there-you’ll have to tell me all about it some other time. Right now, I’m fixin’ to head down the mountain, see if I can pick you up a cell phone.”

  Her lips twitched and her dimple threatened. “‘Fixin’ to’-that’s Southern, right?”

  He grunted. “Funny. Look, I was just wondering if there’s anything you need me to pick up for you while I’m down there.”

  “Oh-yeah.” She pressed a hand to her forehead, smoothing back damp wisps of hair. And his stomach clenched as he flashed on an image of his own hand smoothing those same damp wisps while he growled at her, One more time…come on, baby, you can do it…one more. “I made a list-Josie has it…”

  “Might as well save her the trip.” He motioned for her to stay put. “I’ll get it from her.” He started on across the courtyard, then reversed direction when he remembered he still needed to get his hat. Then halted again and turned back to her, feeling awkward as a tongue-tied kid. “Uh…any particular kind of cell phone? Color? Bells and whistles?”

  She shook her head, smiling crookedly and without the dimple. “I don’t need fancy. Just need it to work.”

  He nodded and stepped across the veranda, boots scraping on the stone pavers.

  Rachel watched him go, one hand pressed against her pounding heart. She waited until he’d disappeared into his room before letting out the breath she’d been holding.

  Thank God I have quieter shoes than he does, she thought. Otherwise, he’d surely have heard me. If he knew I’d seen him…knew I’d witnessed that moment…him with Sean…he might never forgive me.

  Oh, but I did see it. And I’m so very glad I did.

  Chapter 11

  She was prepared for him, that night.

  She’d brushed her hair, for one thing, and made sure to put on a clean shirt and pants, the cotton knit ones with the elastic waistband Katie had given her to wear while she was getting her figure back. And how long was that supposed to take, she wondered as she surveyed herself in the mirrored closet doors in her room, standing sideways and trying very hard to suck in her stomach. Granted, it hadn’t even been a week, yet, but still…

  Who am I kidding? And why should I care? With a sigh, Rachel let her cotton knit tunic top fall back into place, covering her billowing breasts and stomach bulges. Not a chance in hell any man was going to find that attractive, which was probably for the best, anyway. Sure, Sheriff Jethro Fox was attractive, and given that he’d saved her life and Sean’s, too, it was understandable that she might develop some feelings for him. But the timing was all wrong. And, she devoutly hoped, she’d learned a few lessons from past experiences about following where her emotions led too impulsively.

  With those emotions firmly in hand, she turned to the bed where Sean lay kicking, squirming, snuffling and gnawing on his fist, not yet worked up to full cry. Murmuring soothing promises, she picked him up and tucked him in the crook of her arm, then opened the door and stepped into the hallway. In the soft glow of the sconces high on the wall she could see J.J.’s door was
closed. She hadn’t meant to look but couldn’t help it as she turned the other way and headed for the kitchen. Just as well, she reminded herself. Remember?

  In the softly lit kitchen, she marched with confidence to the refrigerator and took out the package of disposable formula bottles. It was much easier to get one out of the package now that it had been opened.

  However, opening the bottle, she found, still took two hands. She struggled with it while Sean worked his way from snuffling to fussing to wailing, coming dangerously close to wailing herself, then thought, Enough of this. She plunked the unopened bottle in the sink, sniffed, wiped her eyes and marched out of the kitchen and down the hallway. At J.J.’s door she paused, but Sean’s insistent wailing made it easy to summon the courage to raise her hand and knock.

  “Jethro,” she called moistly, “are you awake? I need you.”

  He’d been listening for her. He hadn’t been sleeping, and with his French doors open to the courtyard, he’d heard every restless movement she’d made, and most of Sean’s, too. When he’d heard her door open and her bare footsteps retreat down the hallway toward the kitchen, he’d almost gotten up and followed her. Almost. Until he’d reminded himself of all the good reasons why it was a bad idea being alone with a beautiful woman wearing very few clothes in the wee lonely hours of the night.

  Particularly when she was a potential witness, one he was starting to have some decidedly unprofessional feelings about.

  So now here she was, knocking on his door. Telling him she needed him. What was he supposed to do about that? Pretend to be asleep and ignore her? No way in hell.

  He got up, pulled on the same pair of sweatpants he’d worn the night before, raked back his hair with his fingers and opened the door.

  She glared up at him, the tears in her eyes shining golden in the light from the hall sconces. “You said I shouldn’t have to do this alone. I’m sorry to wake you, but I tried, and I can’t.”

  “Shh,” he said, only because he was pretty sure his voice would be too growly for real words. Then, because the need to take her in his arms and comfort her was too great to ignore, he took the baby from her and cuddled him instead.

  She gave him a fierce, almost accusing look, muttered, “Thanks…” and turned and marched off toward the kitchen, head down, every step, every line of her body proclaiming wounded pride.

  Watching her as he followed, J.J. would have smiled, except the knot of emotions in his chest didn’t make him feel much like smiling. What they did make him feel was light-headed and a little scared.

  In the kitchen, he made himself comfortable in a chair beside the island as he had the previous night, with Sean in the crook of one elbow, and watched Rachel while she got out the formula bottle and warmed it. Evidently though, for Sean the novelty of staring at J.J.’s face had worn off, because after staring at it for a couple of seconds, the kid went back to snorting and squirming and making unhappy faces. So, J.J. gave him the tip of his little finger to suck on.

  “What?” he said when he saw Rachel looking at him openmouthed-with alarm, maybe, or horror. “Never hurt my sister’s kids any.” He looked down at Sean, now sucking greedily on the finger. “Maybe you ought to get him a pacifier.”

  “I’ll put it on the list,” she said absently, apparently unable to take her eyes off the awful sight of her child sucking away on his pinky finger. But after a moment she gave herself a little shake and turned back to the sink, picked up the bottle, tested it on her arm then brought it over and handed it to him.

  Sean wasn’t any too happy about losing the “pacifier” he’d been sucking on, and for a moment or two didn’t seem to know what to do with the nipple it was being replaced with. Which prompted J.J. to growl at him in what probably qualified as baby talk. “Yeah…you kinda liked ol’ Jethro’s finger, didn’t you, little guy?”

  Rachel gave a liquid-sounding laugh. She pulled out the chair next to him and hitched herself onto it, somewhat gingerly, he noticed.

  “Sore?” he asked, without thinking. Then, having bitten down on his tongue in remorse, muttered, “Sorry.”

  How is this possible? Rachel thought. Shouldn’t there be hormones of some kind that would block feelings like these? It can’t be normal, can it, to be so attracted to a man, when my body is still battered and bleeding from giving birth? When at this point, I’m not even sure I could stand to have a man touch me?

  A moot question, she reminded herself, considering in her present shape she couldn’t imagine any man wanting to touch her.

  She cleared her throat. “It’s okay. I don’t think my body has any secrets from you, anyway.”

  His gaze was sleepy, heavy-lidded. And for some reason her heart responded by beating faster. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said, in a voice like a tiger’s purr. “I think there are all sorts of secrets that body of yours has…”

  Her cheeks burned. Did she imagine it, the unspoken finish: …I’d like to explore…?

  She stared back at him, unable to speak or move, the silence in the kitchen broken only by the squeaky sounds Sean made, nursing greedily at the bottle. J.J.’s gray-green eyes seemed almost smoky, and she kept looking into them, desperately afraid if she stopped, her eyes might just travel anywhere they pleased…to his lips, maybe, and then on down to his neck…his throat…his chest. And she would think about…wonder about what it would feel like, touching him.

  She leaned her elbow on the island top and propped her cheek in her hand. Feigning a yawn, she murmured, “Jethro, are you ever going to tell me what the other J stands for?”

  He dropped his gaze to the baby in his lap, and she saw a smile-a small one-touch his lips. “No big secret,” he drawled. After a pause, he came out with it, elongating it into a kind of growl. “Jefferson.”

  “Jefferson. Huh. Well, that’s not so bad. You had me thinking it was something awful.”

  He gave a dry laugh. “Yeah, well, Jethro Jefferson-that’s bad enough when you’re a little kid.”

  “Why didn’t you go by Jeff?”

  “Seems my dad had that one spoken for.”

  “Ah. So you’re a junior?”

  “Worse than that. I’m a third.” He set the formula bottle on the island top, shifted Sean to his shoulder and began to pat his back.

  Lord help me, she thought. I could easily fall in love with this guy.

  “Wow,” she said faintly, “Jethro Jefferson Fox, the Third.”

  “They do things like that in the South.” His grin was wry. “So, my mom called me Jethro when I was a kid. Then for a while I got nicknamed Jet-that was when I was playing football in high school. I was a running back, and had some speed in those days, so…I guess it seemed kind of appropriate.”

  “Jet’s kind of cool. So why didn’t you keep that nickname?”

  He hitched a shoulder, the one not supporting Sean’s lolling head. “I don’t know, when I got to L.A. it seemed a little bit too…you know, Southern. Too…Tennessee Williams.”

  Rachel raised her eyebrows at the literary reference, but didn’t comment. After a moment, she shook her head and murmured, “James Dean.”

  “What?”

  “Not Tennessee Williams-James Dean. He was Jett Rink in the movie, Giant. You know-Texas? Oil millionaire? Rock Hudson…Elizabeth Taylor…”

  “That’s an old one.” His eyes twinkled with teasing lights.

  She found herself smiling back at him. “What can I say? I saw it with my grandmother.”

  “But that wasn’t a John Wayne movie.”

  “We didn’t just watch John Wayne movies.” The kitchen was warm and quiet and filled with soft golden light and the smells that lingered from dinner the evening before. She felt secure and comfortable in a way she hadn’t felt since she was a child, and the anxieties of her adult life seemed far, far away, only a distant murmur like the sounds of surf outside the windows of a well-built house. She stifled a yawn and mumbled, “Anyway, you don’t remind me of him anymore, now that I met some
one who really does-”

  A loud burp interrupted her. J.J. came bolt upright in his chair, one hand going to support Sean’s head. He was swearing under his breath.

  Rachel lurched to her feet. “Oh, no. Did he-”

  “Yeah, he did. Get a towel. Something.”

  She was already at the sink, running warm water over a dish towel. She squeezed most of the water out and thrust the towel at J.J., who shrugged it off with a jerk of his head as he balanced a now-somnolent and very satisfied-looking infant in both hands.

  “It’s all down my back. See if you can-”

  “Oh, God-I’m so sorry. Let me see-”

  “What are you sorry for? You didn’t upchuck all over me.”

  She made an ambiguous sound, part laugh and part moan. He shifted in the chair and dipped one shoulder obligingly, and she stepped closer so she could see where the splotch of curdled formula had splattered down his back. His well-muscled, nicely sculpted, lightly tanned back. She reached awkwardly to dab at the spit-up with the wet towel, and her breast bumped against his arm. His well-muscled, nicely sculpted…

  She gasped and whispered, “Sorry.”

  He turned his head and from inches away his eyes burned into hers. “What for?”

  “I, um…didn’t mean to bump you.”

  His lips moved. At such close quarters she couldn’t be sure, since they were just beyond her field of vision, but she thought they formed a smile. “I don’t think you did any permanent damage.”

  She laughed, a tiny whimper of sound her fingers tried to stifle. Then she needed to speak, and there seemed to be no place to put that hand that wasn’t a part of him. It fluttered between them like a drunken moth as she fumbled for words. “I’m not used to such-they’re so much bigger now…”

  “I guess that’s pretty normal. What with nursing, and uh…you know.”

  His voice was a rocky rumble she could feel, and she realized her hand, the one holding the towel, was resting, idle, on his back. And that his skin was warm and smooth beneath her fingers, and that she could feel the thumping of his heart. The heat from his body was like a fur wrap, enveloping her…drawing her closer. But she was already too close…so close, she knew it would take very little-almost nothing-to touch her lips to his.