Loving the Texas Lawman_A Texas Lawman Romantic Suspense

by Mary Connealy

  She knew he was dangerous. But she also knew he needed help. Seeking God in prayer, she forced herself to use the bedrock honesty that had made her books bestsellers. She typed, choosing each word with love.

  When she at last saved her work, she’d written three thousand words and saved one thousand. Rubbing her burning eyes, she sat at the desk and wished this night away.

  The bed mocked her.

  “God, where is your peace?”

  The alarm clock glared a red digital 3:09 at her. Four hours of sleep max, if she went to sleep right now.

  Trudy got up from the computer, so tired, she weaved her way to the bed. At least her nighttime torture could be in a soft place.

  She climbed into bed and mentally told Liz and Ethel off for another hour. After that she chased Ben around with a big stick. Turn the other cheek, but carry a big stick. Teddy Roosevelt meets Jesus Christ.

  Every time she realized what she was doing, she prayed, and, before she knew it, she’d be after Ben with a stick again.

  Trudy would have cried her heart out, thinking about how tired she’d be tomorrow, but she’d gotten over letting her insomnia make her quite that crazy.

  Staring at the bedroom ceiling, she whispered, “I’ve been tired before. I’ll be tired again. Big deal.”

  As a motto, it left a lot to be desired.

  But it kept her from letting these sleepless nights get the best of her. The fault for her lack of sleep didn’t lie with Ben or Liz or Ethel. She’d always had trouble sleeping, even as a child. So, she tried her soothing tricks again.

  Washington

  Adams

  Jefferson

  Madison

  Monroe

  Maybe she just needed someone to shake some sense into her.

  10

  “Somebody needs to shake some sense into that woman,” Ben muttered as he tried the door to Trudy’s house the next morning. It was unlocked. That lit the fuse on his temper.

  He glanced at his watch. He was early. Good, he’d be on hand when Liz came in.

  He swung the door open, and Tru just about ran him down. Today’s business-like, yet classy and beautiful outfit was navy blue slacks and blouse, the blazer was a blue tweed-y thing. Her hair the same polished pony tail. Ben was sensing a theme.

  “We go right now, or I go in alone.”

  Ben reached for her but she slipped past him and headed for his truck. “Tru, I want to talk to Liz before we go.”

  She opened his truck door and looked over her shoulder. “We go now, Ben, or I get the Seville. I’m not waiting while you harass my employees.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him and looked so darn cute trying to boss him around, he decided to encourage her by obeying. She needed to have a little success being bossy. It might be better to talk to Liz later, maybe drop by for a little chat without Tru refereeing.

  By the time they reached the police station, he was exhausted from listening to her cheerful view of the world.

  Trudy was touched by Ben’s interest in her theories, so she continued to explain them. “And so you see, it’s the intense personal counseling for an extended period of time that proves to these people that someone cares. And that’s what makes all the difference.”

  Trudy smiled at him, amazed that he was beginning to see things her way. God bless him, he was really sweet under his gruff exterior.

  He rounded the truck and opened her door with all the chivalry of a knight in shining armor.

  He took her arm. “Stay close to me, Tru-Blu. There can be some shady characters hanging around a police station.”

  “How thoughtful, Ben.” He really was a gentleman, until he towed her behind him with all the finesse of a tug boat dragging a floundering ship into port.

  The police station was raucous as Ben more or less goose-stepped her through the room, winding around crowded desks and stepping over scruffy feet in narrow aisles.

  “Garrison,” a man roared like a wounded buffalo out of an office. “I need that report yesterday.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ll get it when you get it,” Ben snarled as he dragged Trudy along without stopping.

  The roaring man slammed his door so hard, the white glass window rattled.

  Ben didn’t look left or right as he towed her like she was under arrest. She’d have fought him except she was afraid to be separated from him in this room full of grumpy, handcuffed men and even grumpier police officers interrogating their prisoners.

  Trudy was actually breathing hard from the quick pace. “Ben, don’t you think we should…”

  “Garrison, we’ve got two weeks’ worth of paperwork backed up. We’re going to lose our court date and have to…”

  Ben’s shouted reply didn’t appear in any books on chivalry. Trudy knew, because she’d cut her teeth on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

  Another bellowing man was left in the dust as Ben pulled her into an office with the name Lt. Scott Sheridan in chipped paint on the opaque white glass.

  “She’s filing a report, Loo.” Ben kicked the door shut. “I’ve got her. We’ve got priors. I want a judge to issue a search warrant for…”

  A black man who looked about Ben’s age, dark hair cut so short it was almost shaved, slapped his hand over the receiver. “Can’t you see I’m on the phone?”

  “I told you about her. Tru Jennings. She was attacked.”

  “Get out of here, Ben. I’ve got to take this call. Wait outside for a second.”

  Ben reached across the desk of the man Trudy assumed was his direct superior and plucked the phone out of the Lieutenant’s hand. Ben put the phone to his ear. “Call back in a half hour.”

  He hung up the phone with a sharp click. “We’ve got to move on this, Scott.”

  Scott Sheridan erupted from his desk. His chair skidded behind him and crashed into the wall. “That was the Captain on the phone. Are you out of your mind?” Scott reached for the phone.

  Ben slapped his hand down on the receiver to hold it in place. “He’s got nothing else to do.. He can chit-chat with you later. This is important.”

  Trudy tried to step back from the fire flashing in the Lieutenant’s eyes but Ben still had her snagged by the wrist.

  “Chit chat?” The man slammed his fist on his paper-stacked desk. “You think the captain calls me every day? You think we’re swapping recipes on the phone?”

  “Can it, Scott. This is important.”

  “Can it? Can it? Ben, I ought to…”

  “Ralph Watson. You’ve been after him for years. He lives it up while women get coerced out of filing complaints. We’ve got a folder on him. He lives in Bourne, flaunts his money and makes a fortune writing books about his abuse of woman. Well, I’ve got a woman who won’t drop the charges this time.”

  The Lieutenant dropped into his chair. His eyes cut away from Ben and zeroed in on Trudy. “You? You’re going to press charges against this guy? I had him cold when I was in uniform. Dragged him off the poor woman myself. We nailed him that time because I was the eye witness. He went away for two years. We managed to hang on to the felony conviction. He’s…”

  “Yeah, yeah, right, we know all about the bad boy.” Ben waved his boss’ story aside like it was a pesky gnat. “You want to hear her or what?”

  “Garrison,” the lieutenant growled. “You’ve got the people skills of a pit bull.”

  Ben shook his head. “I pulled him off of her, too. So, she pressing charged and I’m the witness, just like you were. We’ll get him again. At first, he claimed he only approached her to talk to her, and that the scrape on her face was her fault for fighting him. She’s a bleeding heart and was going to wimp out of it. But now that he’s emailing her twenty times a day and…”

  “Fifty,” Tru interjected.

  “She’s ready to testify. We can finally nail him on a third strike. He’s got a list of priors, all with dropped charges that…” Ben’s head turned to face Trudy. “Fifty?”

  Trudy nodded
. “I got a bunch more last night.”

  A broad smile broke across Ben’s face. “Oh, man that’s great.”

  The lieutenant looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “That’s awful, Miss Jennings. You must be upset.”

  “Well, honestly it’s…”

  “Sure, it’s awful.” Ben cut her off and went on with his own yammering. “The worse it gets for her, the better it gets for us. He’s really harassing her. Add to that he’s hanging around her office and we’ve got him on stalking…”

  “And my home.”

  “…charges that will add another…” Ben turned to her again and locked his gunslinger eyes on her, no smile this time. “Your home? He came to your home?”

  “Yes.” Trudy shrank a little under Ben’s dead-eye gaze.

  “When?”

  “Two nights ago.” She’d planned to tell him yesterday, but she’d been so annoyed with him…and this morning, he’d wanted to hear about her work and she’d gotten sidetracked. “He was on the…”

  “Did he get inside? You never said anything. I suppose you didn’t lock the door. That’s so dumb. How can you be so careless?” Ben shook his head. “Somebody oughta lock you up for your own safety. Did he touch you? Did he…”

  “Will you shut up?” Trudy shouted.

  The room fell silent.

  Trudy’s cheeks heated. Ben narrowed his eyes at her. The Lieutenant rubbed his hand over his mouth, but Trudy could see him smiling.

  “Now then,” she said, giving Ben her sweetest smile. “He was on the beach outside my home. I saw him there around two yesterday morning, but I didn’t get a good enough look at him to swear to it in court.”

  “Are you sure you can’t finger him? This isn’t more of your give-the-clown-a-break-because-his-mommy-didn’t-love-him garbage, is it? You’re such a wimp, Tru-Blu. If you know it’s him…”

  “Ben!” Trudy wasn’t sure where that voice came from. She would bet her life it’d never come out of her mouth before. She jerked against his iron clad grip on her arm.

  Releasing her by opening his hand one finger at a time, he raised one eyebrow. “Go on.”

  “I can’t swear it was him but that is part of what solidified my desire to do something about him. If you’ll remember, I agreed file charges last night but couldn’t because of another commitment. Then last night, when we suspected he was loitering around the church, that only made me more determined. For him to come to my home was frightening. It’s a private beach and all the homes have fences and security gates.”

  She looked at the Lieutenant, then at Ben. “Assuming it wasn’t one of my neighbors out there—and I can’t swear it wasn’t, but no neighbor has ever trespassed onto my beach before—then the only way for him to have gotten there, assuming my neighbors didn’t let him in voluntarily, is by climbing someone’s fence and wading in very rough surf and climbing over stretches of rock for a long way. No one has ever been out there before. That tells me he’s determined and over the edge.”

  She shook her head. “So, although I can’t testify to that being him, I can testify to him grabbing me and threatening me at the college. He intended to force me to go with him, he said that clearly. That’s attempted kidnapping. I tried to get away from him several times and he restrained me each time. If that night had been a one-time incident, I might have accepted his explanations and excuses but, considering the behavior that has followed, I now know I have to take action to protect myself and to protect other women.”

  There was a prolonged moment of silence.

  Ben said at last, “May I talk now?”

  Trudy held his gaze without flinching. “If you’re going to continue to insult me, the answer is no.”

  Lieutenant Sheridan coughed behind his hand. Ben turned on him.

  “He’s making that same sound you kept making in my class on Monday night.” Trudy crossed her arms.

  Ben ignored his boss, which Trudy couldn’t imagine ever doing to her boss. “I thought you were supposed to be so easy going.”

  “Well, I guess I’m surprising both of us, aren’t I?”

  “I’m trying to save your life. Liz bullies you every day and you do nothing. How come I get all the grief?”

  “You asked me to come in here and press charges.” A sudden pang hit Trudy low in her stomach. “I thought you were worried about me, but you’re just obsessed with getting a criminal, aren’t you?”

  She squared her shoulders, aware of her wimpy tone. “Forget I said that. Of course, you’re just interested in arresting a dangerous man. What other reason could there be?”

  She turned to the snickering lieutenant. “Now, how do I swear out a complaint? Do I have to sign a paper, or raise my right hand and actually swear to it, or what?”

  Lieutenant Sheridan rose from his chair and extended his hand. “Hello, my name is Scott Sheridan.” He took Trudy’s hand. His eyes went to her scraped face. “I’m sorry you were hurt, Dr. Jennings.”

  He was so kind, and the look of regret over her injury was so sincere, Trudy felt her eyes tear up. “Thank you, Lieutenant. It really was a shocking experience.”

  With his other hand, he cradled both of hers. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you very badly, Trudy?”

  She shook her head, speechless from the gentle concern.

  “Ben was in here yesterday, talking with me about possible charges we could file against Watson. We’ve got some paperwork we’ll need you to go over and sign. I’d like to take photographs of your injury.”

  Trudy nodded. “I’ve got some deep bruises on my upper arms, too, if you want pictures of those.”

  “You do?” Ben looked as if he wanted to see them right now. “You never told me that.”

  “Well, I’m telling you now.”

  “Yes, we’d like those pictures. We have a police woman with forensics, she’ll get photos. Thank you. And then we can arrest him. It’s really brave of you to come in. This city would be a safer place if all our citizens were so conscientious.”

  Ben grabbed Trudy by the wrist again and pulled her out of Sheridan’s warm grasp. It was only then that she realized she’d been holding hands with the man through his entire speech.

  “Let’s get on with it, okay? I’ll take her statement.” Ben dragged her out of the office. Trudy looked behind her to see Sheridan watching them with a strangely satisfied smile on his face, a smile that didn’t match the warm sympathy he’d been showing her at all.

  Ben took Trudy into a bland room that looked like the interrogation rooms she’d seen on TV. Her stomach dipped slightly, even though she didn’t know why Ben needed to question her.

  Ben plunked her down in a chair then sat across from her.

  She braced herself for him to bring out the rubber hose. Instead, he slid some papers across the table at her.

  “Name Trudy Jennings,” Ben muttered to himself as he began to fill in blanks on his own forms.

  “What is the matter with you?” Trudy laid her hand over his papers. Ben brushed her hand aside.

  Trudy slapped it back in place.

  He looked up at her, his brow furrowed. “What’s your problem?”

  “Who are you and what have you done to the bossy, but not insane Detective Garrison?”

  “We’re wasting time. Get your hand off that.” He reached for her hand.

  She formed a fist. “Be-e-e-en.” She didn’t plan on making his name three syllables long, but it worked out that way.

  He stopped wrestling her for control of the papers and looked up with an impatient jerk of his head. “What?”

  “Why are you acting like this?”

  “Acting like what?”

  “You mean you’re always such a rude, snotty, impatient, disrespectful pig?”

  Ben’s impatience faded from his eyes, replaced with what looked to Trudy like hurt. “You’re supposed to turn the other cheek. I don’t think you can call me names and qualify for Saint-Tru-hood.”

  Trudy narrowed her eyes at him.
“You know, you pull out my theories to use against me as if you believe in them. But you ignore them when they’re inconvenient, and laugh at them the rest of the time.”

  “This is a police station. We don’t have a lot of time for socializing. Did you want me to invite Scott out for a cup of tea before we filed the report?”

  “I think you can find some middle ground between ‘invite him out for tea’ and ‘hang up on his boss.’”

  “Maybe,” Ben shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’ve never given it much thought.”

  “It can’t be good for your friendships if you treat your fellow officers the way you just treated everyone who made contact with you in that room.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Ben said. “I don’t have any friends.”

  Trudy arched her eyebrows. “There’s a shocker.”

  Ben looked at the door behind him.

  Trudy waited for him to have an awakening.

  He turned back to her. “They’ll be fine. But if you’re really worried about me, you can apply all your counseling methods to me.”

  Ben pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket and clicked it a few times. “How does it work again? It’s a really intensive, prolonged period of one-on-one work, showering the patient with love. You want to volunteer to give me the love that I’ve missed, Tru-Blu?”

  She didn’t think Ben meant that the way it sounded. “In your dreams, buddy.”

  “Fine then.” He centered the form. “For the record, my folks are great. They just love the stuffing out of me. I think if we try and blame my problems on a bad childhood, they’ll really take it hard. So, I’ll keep being my own sweet, if somewhat abrasive, self.”

  “Somewhat abrasive?”

  He grinned at her. “And you answer my questions so we can go bust this guy who’s stalking you.”

  “I won’t counsel you. But I’d be glad to refer you to my colleague.”

  “The overworked Dr. Pavil?” Ben stared at the form for a minute.

  Trudy almost sighed with relief. He was considering it. He was going to let her help him. He was going to invest himself in the class he was taking from her.

  Ben looked up at her. “Not a chance.”