Heartless

by Diana Palmer

“I don’t mind at all, Bobby,” she said.

  “Climb in, then,” he said with a grin.

  “You’re a lifesaver!”

  She jumped in beside him and they set off toward town. His banking business took him several minutes longer than he’d anticipated, and then the fire chief called and asked him to stop by the office supply company and pick up some pencils.

  Finally through, he was on his way to drop off Gracie when a rescue call came in. He answered it, frowning in Gracie’s direction.

  “They’ve got someone in the water off the River Bridge,” he said. “I have to go, I’m the only diver we’ve got on call. Tell you what, I’ll have one of the boys at the scene bring you back to town. Somebody’s life may be on the line…”

  “Say no more,” she said. “Go!”

  He was already out of town at the strip mall. He wheeled the truck, gunned the engine and shot back down the road. It took a minute for Gracie to realize that they were headed for the same bridge her car was stuck on.

  Several men were gathered on the bridge. The police were there, along with the emergency services people, a fire truck and a couple of private cars. One was Jason’s red Jaguar convertible. Gracie ground her teeth together. What in the world was Jason doing out here?

  “Did you see anybody on the bridge when your car quit?” Bobby asked Gracie.

  “No, nobody. I wonder who fell in?”

  “We’ll know soon, I hope.”

  He pulled up as close as he could get to where Gracie’s car was sitting. They both got out. Gracie peered through the crowd toward the river.

  “For God’s sake, could you hurry?” Jason’s voice came urgently.

  Jason? She pushed through the men to stand beside him, looking down at the river. “Who fell in?” she asked worriedly.

  He stopped and stared down at her. “Gracie?” He caught her against him and held on hard, shuddering. “I thought you were in the river!” he groaned.

  She was still trying to sort things out in her mind. “In the river?”

  “Your car was sitting here, abandoned.”

  How had he known her car was here? Had he followed her, hoping to make up?

  “You said she jumped in the river!” Assistant Chief Palmer accused, pausing beside them. “You were sure!”

  Jason let Gracie go reluctantly. He winced. “Well, we’d had an argument, sort of. I got worried and followed her, and found her car sitting here abandoned!” he said defensively.

  “Abandoned and with the keys gone!” Gracie muttered, pulling them out of her pocket to shake them under his nose. “Who takes out the car keys before they jump in the river?” she cried indignantly.

  Jason’s lips made a thin line. He was embarrassed and hating it.

  Palmer grimaced. He’d been a police officer until he’d switched jobs and become a fireman. From his old job, he had a good idea about what was going on. “Listen, no harm done,” he said calmly. “It’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Of course it is,” Gracie replied. “Thanks.” She smiled at him.

  He smiled back. “Okay, guys, let’s wrap it up and get back to the station.”

  Bobby Hawkins let out a whistle. “Good thing, I wasn’t anxious to dive into that cold water,” he said sheepishly, “although I’d have done it. We can go now, Miss Gracie, I’ll drop you at the college.”

  “I’ll drop her off,” Jason said firmly. “We can call Turkey Sanders on the way and have him tow the car.”

  Bobby stood, indecisive.

  “Thanks, Bobby, but I’ll let Jason drive me,” she said. “I’ve been enough trouble.”

  “No trouble at all,” Bobby replied. “Honest.”

  Jason took Gracie’s arm, opened the door of the Jaguar and put her in beside him.

  “Nice wheels,” Bobby said with a whistle.

  Jason chuckled. “It belongs to me and the bank, Bobby,” he told the other man. “I don’t know anybody who can lay down a cash payment for one of these.”

  “Still, it must be nice.” Bobby sighed. He grinned on the way to his truck.

  “Yes, it must.” Gracie sighed, also, glancing at the sad old car she owned, sitting there in a heap on the bridge.

  “You can come home and have a new Jaguar any time you want one,” Jason said gruffly.

  She glanced at him. “Jason, I’m not playing at being independent. It’s important to me to see if I can make it by myself.”

  “Of course you can,” he said as he pulled back onto the road and waved as he went around the rescue people. “You’re no dummy.”

  She flushed with pleasure. “You said I was.”

  “I never.”

  “You said I was good at giving teas,” she muttered.

  “You’re good at anything you do,” he said simply. “Especially in emergencies.”

  She smiled reluctantly. “Okay.”

  He glanced at her as he drove. “I don’t want Kittie. I never did.”

  She flushed. She glanced at the fields where plows had turned under the dead summer crops. “I was jealous,” she said through her teeth.

  He chuckled softly.

  She turned her attention back to him, amazed at the change her statement had provoked.

  His eyes met hers for an instant.

  She shrugged. “I’m frustrated, too,” she confessed.

  “You aren’t the only one.”

  “It was your idea, all this abstinence.”

  “First times are rough on women, or so I’ve heard,” he said evenly. “If I lose it, you aren’t going to enjoy the result. I’m trying to cool things off, just a little.”

  “With what end in mind?” she asked finally.

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  She shifted. “I mean, what do you see for us in the future? Am I going to be a notch on the bedpost…”

  “For God’s sake!” He pulled onto the side of the road and gaped at her. “Is that what you really think I want from you? No, don’t prevaricate,” he added when she tried to find a reply. “I want to know. You think I’m so shallow that my ultimate aim is to get you into bed?”

  She shrugged. She had, just briefly. But that expression was unmistakable. She tried to backpedal. “I didn’t know. This is all new to me. You stayed engaged to Kittie for a long time…”

  “I didn’t think I had anything else left,” he said flatly. “I burned up inside every time I looked at you, and all you did was back away. I’d given up. I didn’t care whether I was engaged or not. I was dead inside.”

  Her eyes grew softer as she looked at him, saw through the frustration to the need in him. She drew in a slow breath. “I want children.”

  His black eyes kindled. “So do I.”

  She began to relax.

  “We get along well,” he said. “Most of the time, anyway. We know the worst and the best of each other. Physically, we’re dynamite together. Children would fall naturally into that.”

  “We’d live together…”

  “We’d get married, Gracie,” he said flatly.

  The change in her was remarkable. “You never said…”

  “You never asked!”

  She began to realize just how much damage she’d done to their fragile relationship out of misplaced jealousy. She turned her purse in her hands.

  “We’ve still got a long way to go, haven’t we?” he asked absently. He pulled back onto the road. “What are you teaching at the community college?”

  “History,” she said. “The regular adjunct teacher was in a wreck. I’m filling in for him. I start teaching full-time when spring semester starts.”

  He frowned as he drove. “Full-time?”

  “This class meets three nights a week,” she said.

  “You don’t have a teaching certificate, do you?”

  “If you’re teaching adults, you don’t have to have one. You don’t have to have a master’s degree, either.”

  He sighed. “Oh.”

  “I’v
e never had to depend on myself,” she tried to explain. “Until all this came up, I never thought past the next day, the next charity, the next party.” She searched for the right words. “I don’t want to take over a corporation or climb Mount Everest. I just want to do something that matters in the world.” She laughed self-consciously. “It sounds corny, doesn’t it?”

  “Not really. We all want to feel that what we do is worthwhile.” He glanced at her and smiled. “Even a rancher likes to know that his policies help the environment, provide for wildlife habitat, leave the world a little better than he found it.”

  He did understand. It made things easier.

  “My father hated the ranch. He couldn’t understand why I wanted to go out and dig postholes and help brand cattle. He felt it was beneath the dignity of our station in life, for me to do manual labor.” He shook his head. “He really was a snob.”

  “That’s what Mrs. Harcourt said.”

  He laughed. “She’d know. He wouldn’t let her sit at the table and eat with us. He said servants belonged in the kitchen.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I remember when that changed.”

  She laughed. She and Glory had gone into the kitchen with their plates and sat down to eat with Mrs. Harcourt, leaving an amused Jason and a shocked Myron Pendleton at the formal dinner table.

  After a minute, Jason had followed them into the kitchen, informing his father that if he felt inclined to play upstairs, downstairs, then Jason and the girls would eat with the help. Shamed and embarrassed, Myron had invited Mrs. Harcourt to eat with them, and the custom had remained. Now, Dilly and John also had dinner at the table with the family, along with Mrs. Harcourt.

  He frowned suddenly. “I haven’t been able to find John,” he said quietly. “It worries me.”

  “Can’t you get that private detective to track him down?”

  He scowled, remembering that he’d pried into Gracie’s life without telling her. “I wasn’t sure I should.”

  “He’s probably afraid Kittie has something on him that she’s threatened to reveal, and he’s hiding,” she said quietly. “She threatened Mrs. Harcourt. I don’t know with what.”

  “Your own past, probably,” he said easily. “Mrs. Harcourt is very fond of you.”

  She smiled. “Yes. I’m fond of her, too.”

  “We’ll find John sooner or later. We’d better.” He sighed. “I’m not driving myself to the airport, and I don’t like hiring a car out of San Antonio to come after me. But I’m not leaving this—” he indicated the fast car “—in any parking lot. I left it in a well-guarded covered lot when I went to Europe.”

  She laughed. He loved his cars, especially this one.

  “I’m eccentric,” he said defensively.

  “If you were poor, they’d lock you up. It’s only called being eccentric when you’re rich.”

  “You could come home and be rich, too.”

  She shook her head. “Not yet.”

  He sighed. “Okay.”

  She was standing up to him more these days than she ever had before. It felt good; not only to defend her position, but to have him so easygoing about it. He was the exact opposite of her father.

  “Why can’t you live with me and be independent, too?” he asked suddenly.

  Her eyebrows arched. “That’s a contradiction in terms.”

  “I don’t like having you alone at night,” he said. “You had a traumatic experience in Mexico. I’ll bet you still have nightmares about it.”

  “I’ve had a lot of traumatic experiences, and I do have nightmares, but I’m a grown woman. I can cope.”

  “You could go see Dr. Hemmings,” he murmured.

  The doctor was a psychologist. Gracie and Glory had both gone to see him regularly in high school on Jason’s insistence. He knew about Glory’s background. He hadn’t known about Gracie’s, but he’d felt that Dr. Hemmings would help her cope with the loss of her mother.

  She toyed with her purse as they drove into Jacobsville, across the railroad tracks in the center of town. “I like him. I could always talk to him about things that frightened me. I might do that, later,” she said vaguely. She wasn’t going to ask Jason to pay for the visits and she couldn’t afford them.

  “You and your pride,” he said with resignation. “I don’t want you to be scarred mentally any more than you already are about sex.”

  She jumped at the sound of the word and he flinched. “Sorry,” he said.

  “I’m not that messed up,” she replied. “Besides, it’s not so scary when I think about doing it with yo…” She clamped down hard on the word.

  But he knew what she was going to say. He smiled at her. “Now that’s my idea of diplomacy,” he murmured.

  “Baloney. Your idea of diplomacy is a cannon.” She cleared her throat. “But I won’t do it with you until we’re married.”

  He chuckled. “Okay. No, really,” he assured her when he pulled up into the parking lot of the college, which was already almost full. “I like cold showers and hard exercise. My muscles are getting bigger.”

  She burst out laughing. He was outrageous.

  “What time do I pick you up?” he asked.

  “About nine-thirty,” she said. “I’m on the second floor, room 106. We usually leave the doors open because we’re the only class meeting in that section. You can come in even if I’m not through.”

  “I’ll come early,” he said easily, studying her with warm eyes. “I’d like to hear you lecture.”

  She flushed with pleasure. “I’m still feeling my way along.”

  “One of my hands has a sister who teaches at the elementary school,” he said. “She told him that the class you lectured is still talking about the Alamo. Some of them had their parents drive them over to take the tour. They said the kids even impressed the tour guides.”

  She laughed. “I love my subject.”

  “And you’re good with kids.” His eyes held a quiet pride in her that was flattering. “You can do anything you want to, Gracie. All that was lacking was self-confidence. You’re getting that, too.” He shrugged. “I like it when you stand up to me and defend your position.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Go teach your class.” He glanced out the window. Heavy clouds were rolling in. “It’s been unseasonally warm today,” he commented. “I hope we’re not in for a storm. I’m getting another lot of culls ready to ship. We’ll have hell keeping them penned up if it starts lightning.”

  “Don’t get trampled,” she said.

  He grinned. “I won’t.”

  He got out, went around the car and opened her door for her. It was Old-World courtesy that always made her feel good. She smiled at him, waved and walked up toward the main hall of the quad.

  IT WAS JUST NINE-THIRTY when she was finishing up that she noted Jason easing into the room at the back. He was still in working clothes, damp and stained, and he looked tired. He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms and listened attentively. Her heart jumped with pleasure at just the sight of him, even disheveled and worn as he was.

  She was talking about the modern Texas Rangers now, having covered their turbulent and awe-inspiring history already.

  “They still have to know how to rope and ride a horse,” she said, “because their investigations may take them out into the brush. They also work on cases internationally. If you’re interested in learning more about them, they have a Web site at the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame where they go into more detail than I have time for about their history and investigative methods.” She paused. “Are there any questions?”

  “Yes, are they still an all-male force?” a woman student asked.

  Gracie laughed. “They are not. They have female officers, as well as male ones.”

  “Why? You thinking of joining up, Jane?” one of the male students teased.

  She laughed. “Why not? I think I’d look good in a white hat.”

  “If that’s all, we’re done for tonight. I’ll see you all day after tomo
rrow, same time.”

  “Thanks, teach,” one of the young men in the back murmured. He gathered his books and gave Jason a long look. “Man, you ought to sign up for some classes and get yourself an easier job,” he said with genuine sympathy. “Working cattle is no way to make money!”

  Jason pursed his lips. “You could be right.”

  “He is,” another male student echoed. “Besides, the way science is progressing, in a few years they’ll be able to grow a steak in a petrie dish.”

  “God forbid,” Jason groaned.

  Gracie joined them at the back of the room with her briefcase and purse. “God forbid what?” she asked Jason.

  “Growing steaks in a petrie dish.”

  She made a face. She looked at the young man. “Hall, isn’t it?” she asked with twinkling eyes. “Dr. Carlson says you’re his star student in microbiology. Planning to raise cattle in his lab, are you?”

  He laughed self-consciously. “Actually I was thinking more on the order of heart cells,” he told her. “They don’t regenerate, but you can grow them in an agar, even print the cells with a modified ink-jet printer…!” He gained strength, warming to his subject.

  “Barbarian,” the other young man muttered, glaring at him. “What sort of sick mind would want to subject an innocent printer to that sort of abuse?”

  Jason burst out laughing.

  “You need to get him to join our class,” the young man told Gracie. “A degree could get you a much better paying job than working cattle in the rain!”

  “He could be right,” Gracie told Jason, tongue-in-cheek.

  His eyes twinkled as they shared a private, silent joke. “Could be. You ready?”

  She nodded. She turned out the lights and pulled the door closed before she walked out at Jason’s side.

  “Hard night?” she asked him.

  He nodded. “One clap of thunder and the cows stampeded. We had two fences down and livestock all over the state highway.” He shook his head. “One of Cash Grier’s officers threatened to cite me for grazing my cattle on state grass.”

  The students were gathered around the sporty XK convertible that Jason was driving, the new one that was radiant red. It almost glowed in the misty rain under the streetlights.

  “It’s a beaut, isn’t it?” one of Gracie’s students enthused. “I’ll bet it flies! Wonder who owns it?”