Her Man Behind the Badge

by Stella Bagwell

  “That was certainly a surprise,” Connor said as the two men climbed back into the truck. “Why didn’t you tell me about Jazelle Hutton before now?”

  Frowning, Joseph started the engine and put the gearshift into Reverse. “What do you mean ‘tell you about her’? You’ve heard me talk about our housekeeper. Well, she’s not my housekeeper any more since Tessa and I live on the Bar X,” he corrected himself, “but she’s a part of the family on Three Rivers.”

  Connor wiped a hand over his face as fatigue began to flood back into every muscle in his body. “That’s not what I mean. Why didn’t you tell me she was young and beautiful?”

  There was a long pause and then Joseph shook his head. “You have plenty of women in Yavapai County without Jazelle.”

  Frowning, Connor glanced at him. “We’re the same age, Joe. So why do you always have to treat me like you’re the big brother?”

  He shrugged. “Just bossy, I guess. Anyway, Jazelle’s been with the family for seven years or so now. She’s like a sister to me. I guess the times you’ve visited the ranch she wasn’t around. Otherwise, you would’ve probably seen her.”

  The moment Connor had seen her standing in the doorway, questions had started swimming around in his head. Why was a lovely woman like her single? Where was the father of her child?

  “Seven years...” Connor repeated thoughtfully. “She must have been mighty young when she started working for your family.”

  “Eighteen. Just out of high school.”

  So that made her twenty-five now, Connor thought. Eight years younger than him. He’d never let age stand in the way of a beautiful woman before. Still, he couldn’t forget about the boy. His policy of not dating a single mother was a good one. It kept him out of messy entanglements and made it easy when the time came to say goodbye.

  “What about Raine’s dad? Is he around?”

  “No. And good riddance, I’d say. Chandler met him once, but I never did. He was a day hand on the Johnson Ranch. I’m not sure what happened between him and Jazelle, or why it didn’t work out. All I know is that the guy was out of her life long before Raine was born. That was about a year after she’d come to work on Three Rivers.”

  Connor was suddenly thinking of the heartache and hardship Jazelle must have endured because of the shiftless cowboy. And then there was little Raine with his round, freckled face and big blue eyes. He’d never know his biological father. Connor was surprised at how much that fact bothered him. Unfortunately, there were plenty of kids around without a father or a mother. In his line of work, he saw many of them.

  “Uh, does Jazelle have a special guy in her life now?”

  A scowl wrinkled Joseph’s forehead. “I don’t think so. I’ve heard Mom remark that Jazelle is carrying around too many scars to ever want another man in her life. Sometime back, my sister Vivian tried to set her up with a park ranger she works with, but Jazelle flatly refused to meet him.”

  Sounded like Jazelle wasn’t interested in dating or in finding a father for Raine. Well, he could hardly blame her. She’d been burned in the worst kind of way. Yet he couldn’t help thinking that she was too young and lovely to go through life alone. And that little boy could sure use the comforting hand of a father.

  “She’s not your type.”

  The last of Joseph’s words tugged Connor out of his rambling thoughts and he frowned at his buddy. “Who’s not my type?”

  “Damn. You are tired. Who do you think? We were talking about Jazelle.”

  Trying not to bristle, Connor replied, “I never said she was my type. Why would you even bother saying such a thing? You know I don’t go out with women who have children.”

  “Jazelle only has one child.”

  “One is all it takes for me to push on the brakes.” Connor leaned his head against the headrest and closed his burning eyes. “But he’s a cute little guy.”

  “You don’t even have enough patience to get along with your cat much less a child.”

  Connor didn’t bother opening his eyes. “That damned tom doesn’t want to get along with anyone or anything,” he muttered. “He only stops by once in a while to beg for a meal. And don’t be worrying about my lack of patience. I don’t want to be a father now. Or ever.”

  “Okay. Got it. As far as you’re concerned, Jazelle is off limits,” Joseph muttered. “For her sake, I hope you remember that.”

  Connor scowled. “You know just the right button to push to make me feel about two inches tall. Well, go ahead. Remind me that I’m a sorry son of a gun. At least I recognize my limitations.”

  “Is that what you call them?”

  Ignoring the sarcasm in Joseph’s voice, Connor let out a tired grunt. “Look, partner, I’ve already forgotten Jazelle and her son. I have a date tomorrow night with a luscious little redhead. That’s what I have to look forward to.”

  Joseph sighed. “One of these days, Connor, you’re going to end up crying in your beer.”

  No, he thought, his partner was wrong. Connor would never shed a single tear over a woman, or child, or anything else. The last time he’d cried, he’d been fifteen years old and he’d watched his father’s lifeless body being carried away in the back of a hearse. Since then, his eyes had dried and his heart had hardened. He no longer knew how to cry.

  Chapter Two

  “Mommy, why was Uncle Joe here at our house? Is he chasing bad people?” Raine asked, tugging on the leg of his mother’s jeans.

  Jazelle took her son by the shoulders and turned him in the direction of the bedroom. She regretted that he’d awoken to find the two deputies in the living room. But thankfully both men had been thoughtful enough to keep the real reason for their visit from her son.

  “Where did you hear that Joe chases bad people?” she asked.

  “Grandma Reeva says so.”

  Reeva was the longtime family cook at Three Rivers Ranch. For the past seven years, Jazelle had worked closely with the older woman and, over time, she’d become like a second mother to her and more of a grandmother to Raine than his actual grandmother, Della Hutton.

  “Well, sometimes it’s Joe’s job to chase bad men,” Jazelle told him. “But not tonight. Joe and his partner just happened to drive by our house, so they stopped to say hello. That’s all.”

  She disliked bending the truth, but at Raine’s age, he didn’t need to know that thieves had been prowling the home of their nearest neighbors. It would only frighten him.

  The boy’s small bedroom was modestly furnished with a twin-size bed, a chest of drawers and a nightstand with a lamp. The walls were covered with colorful posters of horses and dinosaurs. In one corner, a wooden box was filled with an assortment of toys ranging from dump trucks and race cars to baseballs and stuffed animals.

  Raine headed straight to the rumpled bed. Halfway there, he paused to look back at his mother. “I wish Little Joe had been with Uncle Joe. Can we go see Little Joe tomorrow, Mommy? And baby Spring?”

  Jazelle pulled back the rumpled covers on the bed. Raine leaped onto the mattress and snuggled his head on the pillow. As she smoothed the sheet and a light blanket over him, she said, “Not tomorrow. But we’ll stop by the Bar X and see them soon. You like to play with Little Joe and Spring, don’t you?”

  “Yeah! We have fun!” he exclaimed with a toothy grin. Then, just as quickly, his little face took on a thoughtful expression. “Little Joe is Spring’s brother. And she’s his sister. Did you know that, Mommy?”

  “Yes, I did.” But she had no idea that Raine thought of the two children in the terms of being relatives.

  Wondering if she should say more on the subject, Raine spoke again. “Uncle Joe is their daddy, too. And Little Joe says it’s fun to have a daddy. ’Cause I asked him. Is it, Mommy?”

  Her throat suddenly tight with emotions, Jazelle tucked the sheet beneath his armpits. “Is it what?” />
  “Fun to have a daddy?”

  How could she answer her son’s question? The man who’d fathered Raine had never been in his life. Nor would he ever be. In fact, other than one grainy photo, Raine had never seen the man. Her son didn’t know what having a father in the house meant or the difference it might make to him.

  As for Jazelle, she’d been in junior high school when a divorce had split her parents. Afterward, her father had moved two hundred miles away and she’d rarely had the opportunity to spend time with him since.

  Taking a seat on the edge of the mattress, Jazelle gently smoothed a hand through Raine’s tawny blond hair. “Well, it was fun when I was a little girl and Dad—your grandpa Sherman—was home. He liked to laugh and sing a lot.”

  “I heard him laugh and sing one time,” Raine said. “But we don’t see him very much.”

  “No. Your grandpa is very busy working in the mine.” And taking care of the wife and two children he’d acquired after leaving Jazelle and her mother behind.

  She could honestly say she didn’t blame or resent her father for making a new life for himself. While her parents had been married, he’d tried hard to make Jazelle’s mother happy. But Della was the sort of woman who’d never allow herself to be cheery or positive about anything. It would’ve been a major mistake for Sherman to remain in such an intolerable marriage.

  “If I ever have a daddy, I want him to be nice like Uncle Joe. I don’t want a mean one.”

  Jazelle blinked at the moisture stinging the backs of her eyes. “Raine, I promise that I will never let anyone be mean to you. Not ever. Okay?”

  Grinning, he raised up and wrapped his arms around Jazelle’s neck. “I love you, Mommy. Lots and lots.”

  “I love you, too, honey.” She swallowed hard as she eased his head back against the pillow and pressed a kiss on his forehead. “Go to sleep now. And in the morning, you can go to the ranch with me.”

  His grin was wide. “I don’t have to go to Kiddy Korner tomorrow?”

  Smiling, Jazelle touched her forefinger to the tip of his nose. “No. You don’t have to go to Kiddy Korner. Reeva and I are going to be doing some extra baking and tomorrow is Kat’s workday, so you can help me watch the twins. How’s that?”

  “Good!” he said then giggled. “Abby and Andy are funny ’cause they do naughty things.”

  Blake Hollister, the eldest of the Hollister siblings, and his wife, Katherine, had three-year-old twins and a thirteen-year-old son, Nick. Chandler, the second eldest brother of the bunch, along with his wife, Roslyn, and their two babies, Evelyn, who was going on three and one year old, Billy, also lived in the big ranch house.

  When Jazelle had first started her job at Three Rivers Ranch, none of the Hollister siblings had been married. Now the four brothers and two sisters all had wives and husbands and young children to round out their families. Along the way, “part-time nanny” had been added to Jazelle’s duties of housekeeper and kitchen help. But she didn’t mind the extra work. She loved children and the Hollisters were more like her family to her than her actual relatives were.

  Tickling Raine beneath his chin, she said, “Well, you just make sure you don’t do any naughty things, young man.”

  He giggled again as Jazelle turned off the bedside lamp and switched on a tiny night-light.

  “Good night, funny bones.”

  “’Night, Mommy.”

  Jazelle left the bedroom door partially open and walked out to the kitchen to make sure the back door was securely locked. She’d lived alone in this same little house since she was eighteen years old and she’d never felt uneasy. The rural area outside of Wickenburg had always been quiet and safe. Still, she couldn’t deny that the break-in at the Wallace house left her a little shaken.

  Feeling more restless than she cared to admit, she walked out to the living room and rechecked the lock on the front door. Satisfied it was bolted, she plopped into a wooden rocker and switched on the television just to have a bit of noise in the house. After a moment, the screen flickered to the Phoenix evening news, where a weatherman was pointing to a blazing sun icon plastered over several counties. Like three-digit temperatures were anything new for August in Arizona.

  Closing her eyes, she put the rocker into a gentle motion and tried to relax. But her plan was instantly waylaid as the image of Connor Murphy suddenly paraded through her thoughts.

  Before tonight, she’d heard his name mentioned in connection with Joseph’s work, but she’d never met the man. Tall, and nothing but lean muscle, the deputy had looked every inch the rough, tough lawman. Beneath his gray Stetson, his thick blond hair curled slightly around his ears and against the back of his neck. His face, burned brown by the sun, had a squared jaw, hard-chiseled lips and eyes bluer than the azure sky.

  When he’d introduced himself, those eyes had looked at her with a soft sort of gleam. And if that hadn’t been enough to scatter her senses, he’d held on to her hand for what had seemed like ages. During that span of actual seconds, however, all she’d been able to think about was how warm and callused his palm felt against hers, and how those masculine lips curved into the most beguiling smile she’d ever seen on any man.

  At some point during the visit, Jazelle had suffered a brain lapse and it wasn’t until the two men had left and Raine had tugged on the leg of her jeans that she’d finally managed to pull herself together.

  Now that she was thinking rationally again, common sense told her that a long line of women probably always trailed after him. And from the empty ring finger on his left hand, none had so far managed to catch him. That was hardly a surprise.

  Guys like Connor Murphy were the fun-loving sort. Not the kind who wanted a wife and children to go home to. He was also the type of man that Jazelle would walk a mile to avoid, so she didn’t need to give him one more minute of thought. As far as that went, she didn’t need to waste her time thinking about any man. She was just fine without one.

  Little Joe says it’s fun to have a daddy. Is it, Mommy?

  Raine’s question shot a pang of regret through Jazelle and, with a weary sigh, she switched off the TV and rose from the rocker. Maybe she was just fine without a man in her life, but her son wasn’t. He was missing so, so much because she’d not been woman enough to hold on to his father. Because, even now, after all these years, she was still too cowardly to consider giving Raine a stepfather and siblings.

  Damn it, what in heck was wrong with her? Just because a good-looking deputy had shaken her hand and smiled at her, she’d suddenly gone all emotional. She didn’t have time for such nonsense. Tomorrow was going to be a heavy workday at the ranch. She needed to be in bed, getting as much rest as she could, not thinking about a blond-haired deputy who had “playboy” written all over him.

  With that mindset, she turned off the lights and headed straight to the bathroom for a quick shower.

  She’d just pulled on a pair of light cotton pajamas and was combing out her damp hair when her cell phone rang. Puzzled that someone would be calling at such a late hour, she snatched up the phone from the nightstand and glanced at the ID illuminated on the screen. Seeing it was Joseph’s wife, she immediately swiped to answer.

  “Jazelle! For a minute, I thought you weren’t going to answer,” Tessa said with a rush of relief. “Have you already gone to bed?”

  “No. Just getting ready. Is anything wrong?” Jazelle asked. They had been friends ever since the young woman had moved from Nevada to her late father’s ranch, the Bar X, which was located only a few miles from Three Rivers Ranch.

  “I’m calling just to make sure everything is okay there. Joe just came in a few minutes ago and told me about the break-in at your neighbor’s house.”

  Jazelle sat on the edge of the bed. “All is quiet here. The doors and windows are locked, and I’ll keep an ear out.”

  “Keep your phone right beside yo
u, Jazelle,” Tessa ordered. “If you hear anything, punch Joe’s number. We’re closer to you than the nearest deputy station. He can be there in a matter of minutes. Promise you will.”

  She tried to laugh, but the sound was a bit shaky even to her own ears. “Tessa, you’re being paranoid. The thieves would have to be downright stupid to hit this area twice in a matter of hours.”

  “Criminals are stupid, Jazelle. That’s why they’re criminals.”

  Jazelle could hardly argue the point. “Okay. I promise. But don’t worry about me and Raine. We’ll be fine.”

  Tessa wasn’t the least bit reassured. “What I really wish is that you and Raine would go stay at Three Rivers tonight. Or better yet, just stop here at the Bar X and stay with us. We have plenty of room for you two.”

  “Thanks, dear friend, for your concern, but we’re staying right here at home.”

  Tessa sighed. “Okay—I give up. You’re staying home. I can’t say that I blame you. But I will worry. Call me early in the morning—as soon as you get up.”

  “Tessa, that’s at four thirty.” And even at that early hour, she barely had time to throw on her clothes and make the drive to Three Rivers by five.

  “I know. That’s just about the time Spring wants her diaper changed. I’ll be awake.”

  Jazelle chuckled. “I promise I’ll call. Now get off the phone and visit with your husband while you have the chance.”

  “I’m heating his supper as we speak,” she said. “So—oh, before I hang up, what did you think about Connor?”

  Jazelle lifted the phone away and stared comically at the screen before she finally returned it to her ear. “What did I think? Is this some kind of trick question?”

  Tessa laughed. “Not hardly. Joe said that Connor introduced himself to you, so I wondered what kind of impression you had of him. Remember, I’ve told you he’s single.”