Loving the Texas Lawman_A Texas Lawman Romantic Suspense

by Mary Connealy

  Trudy caught his hand and pushed it away. “I know all that. Peter denied Christ and he heard the cock crow at sunrise and recognized his sin and repented. But I feel as if dawn is a thousand years away. I’m not even close to accepting my failure and restoring my ministry.”

  Ben reached for her hand.

  “Tru, I want you to know you’re not alone.” Ben leaned closer.

  She needed his strength because she had none of her own, and that wasn’t a fair burden to place on anyone. She turned away. “I’m quitting, Ben.”

  “Quitting what?”

  “Everything. Writing books, teaching my class, living in Long Pine. I’m moving to live near my great aunt in Tampa, Florida. I’m going to take care of her. I’ve tried to serve God and instead, I’ve enriched myself. Now the money is gone and I’m being harassed by a lunatic.”

  She turned to face him. “It’s forced me to take a hard look at myself. My life isn’t about serving the Lord.”

  “Of course it is.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve been serving myself. I’ve gathered so many material things around me that I couldn’t even keep track of them all.”

  “Liz cheated you.”

  “No.” Trudy wasn’t going to let herself off the hook. “I knew I had nice things. I didn’t have any idea of the extent of the spending, but even that is arrogance. God is dealing with me through this money mess and Watson’s stalking. God called me to serve him. I’m going to do it. My aunt is eighty-seven and she needs help. I’m going to move near her and serve God in a more personal way by caring for her through her last years.”

  “Tru, your money problems will iron out, and we’ll get Watson.”

  “When he attacks me again?”

  Ben didn’t answer. Trudy appreciated that he didn’t give her some soothing lie.

  “He’s escalating, the vandalism is proof of that. He can’t be functioning beyond his harassment of you. In the meantime, you’re safe. He can hover all he wants, but he can’t get to you.”

  Trudy gave a cynical snort much like the sounds Ben had made in her classroom.

  “Don’t cut and run like this, Tru, it’s beneath you.”

  “I’m going to ask the dean for a leave of absence effective immediately.”

  “What about your students?”

  “They’ll be better off with someone else. I don’t have anything but platitudes for them.”

  “Jesus’ words are not platitudes.”

  Trudy nodded. “His words aren’t the problem. I am. I’m the hypocrite who stands in front of a class and spouts off about love while I’m carrying around a heart weighted down with hate.”

  A long silence stretched between them.

  It was over. She would escape from more than Watson; she’d escape from her whole, worthless life. She’d failed God. She shouldn’t expect things to turn out any differently.

  “What about me, Tru?”

  She looked up and saw from the deepened furrows on his forehead and the wounded look in his eyes that she’d hurt him. Their gazes locked.

  “You’ll be better off, Ben. I haven’t done anything since we met except take. I don’t have anything to give to my students, or my patients, or my friends.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Is that what I am? A student—a patient—a friend?”

  She wanted to say no, and tell him how much he meant to her. She wanted to reach out and pull him into her arms, into her life. But this wanting came out of the weakest part of herself.

  She grabbed for the door handle instead.

  He got out and rounded the truck. Just before she reached the door, he caught her arm. Trudy looked up at him. He had a strangely confident smile, considering she’d done nothing to inspire any confidence.

  “You’re not going to move to some retirement village in Florida. You’re not going anywhere.”

  He bent down and pressed his mouth against her lips. The kiss ended before she had a chance to stop him, before she could talk herself into not kissing him back.

  “Let’s go make sure the house is secure, and see if Eleanor has returned to your big pink palace.” He shoved her gently but firmly into the house.

  21

  Trudy didn’t go straight to the phone and call in her resignation that night, nor over the weekend, nor the next week. She wasn’t going to let Ben stop her, but she’d think of that kiss and put off her resignation. She could always quit later.

  Sitting at her desk in the hour before her last class on Friday, she was grading year end term papers when her door swung open.

  “Do you mind if I come in?”

  Trudy’s head snapped up. Ralph Watson stood in the door to her office. Her heart bounded into her throat and when she opened her mouth to scream, not a sound came out. Where is Gordan? Why didn’t he stop this man?

  Watson’s hands came up. “Please, just hear me out. I mean you no harm.”

  Stay calm. Stay calm. “You don’t expect me to…to believe that when you’ve perched in front of my house every day, Mr. Watson.”

  “Please, call me Ralph.”

  Call me Ralph? Hate swelled in Trudy’s heart. The conflict inside her almost tore her apart. She hated this man. God called her to love him but she couldn’t. God, help me do what’s right.

  If she couldn’t turn the other cheek with the only person who had ever actually harmed her, then she was a hypocrite. God had called her to love when it wasn’t easy. To cure the ills of the world to the best of her ability with love.

  And now she hated. She’d failed God in her first real test.

  But she refused to continue to be a blatant sinner.

  She dragged breath into her lungs, forcing the words out that she knew God expected her to say.

  “Very well, Ralph. Have your say.”

  Her mouth spoke the kind words, but her heart didn’t feel kindness. The hate and fear were too strong.

  Panic added, “I’m very busy. I’m due in class in a few minutes.”

  The lies slid out of her mouth too easily. With an hour before class, she wanted him to think she’d be missed if she didn’t appear somewhere very soon.

  “You’re not in any danger from me.” Ralph stepped into the room and reached for the door behind him.

  “Leave it open.” Trudy didn’t like the apprehension she heard in her voice. She was in a building full of people in the middle of the day. Surely, he wouldn’t hurt her.

  But Watson’s eyes took on a hungry look as if he fed on her fear. His hand dropped away from the door and came to stand just across her desk.

  Trudy looked past him into her outer office and her stomach jumped. Where was Ethel? She’d been told never to leave the front office without getting a replacement.

  Trudy swallowed hard and made her eyes relax when she looked back at Watson. She knew, then, that he had watched and waited for a time when she would be alone. Had he hurt Gordan?

  Watson licked his fleshy lips. His fingers shook as he ran a hand through oily black hair that stubbornly drooped over his eyes.

  Trudy noticed he was disheveled. He’d looked like this when he came at her in the parking lot, then he’d been clean and tidy when he came that time with his lawyer. Now it was as if he was in a descent again. His jacket was Brooks Brothers, but his white shirt was dirty. Even standing across the desk from her, she could smell old sweat and urine, like the homeless men Trudy had worked with during her student days. He hadn’t shaved in weeks. His teeth were yellow and his dark, greasy hair hung until it nearly covered his red veined eyes

  “So, you’re an author, Ralph.” Trudy thought the normal topic might break the tension in the room. “I’ve looked up your books. You’re very successful.”

  Watson’s eyes shifted like an animal caught in a cage. “That’s one reason I wanted to talk to you. I love the written word and I think you’re a master.” He placed his fingertips on her desk and leaned over.

  Dark curves of dirt shown beneath his overly long nails. His v
oice shook as if the sound carried through high tension wires. “As a fellow author, I thought you could help me. I know now that was presumptuous of me.” He leaned closer and the acid smell nearly pushed Trudy out of her chair. She stayed where she was to keep the desk between them.

  Soft Answer. Soft Answer. C’mon Trudy, practice what you preach. “Ralph, I’m sorry I can’t help you.” She tried to shake off her revulsion and fear, and deal with the man honorably. She forced herself to lean forward a bit and cancel out her retreating body language. “The kind of help you’re asking for isn’t within my power to give.”

  “I know that.” Watson shook his head as if denying his own words.

  “Listen to me, please.” Trudy felt the peace of God settle on her and she almost reached for the man’s grimy hands. “My methods include intensive, twenty-four-hour intervention by professionals. You would benefit from this program, but a woman can’t be there for you the way you need.”

  Trudy thought of her agreement with Ben, but Ben wasn’t a candidate for her intensive therapy. He just needed a healthy nudge once in a while. And maybe a whack or two with Eleanor’s frying pan in a pinch.

  Watson needed the whole shebang.

  “Dr. Jennings, if you could even give me an hour or so of your time, once a day, during a free period. If I could talk to you…the love and understanding I feel flowing out of you inspires me. It makes me believe all things are possible.”

  “All things are possible with God. There are so many people who can help you find the inner peace you’re missing and help you to trust in the love your Heavenly Father has for you.”

  “This isn’t about God.” Watson straightened away from the desk and clenched his fists. “This is about my wife leaving me.”

  God nudged her to be honest. “Your wife was in the hospital because you hit her.”

  “I shoved her.” Watson jammed his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t tall, but he seemed solid. If he wanted, he could keep her in here by force until her screams brought help, which would be a matter of seconds.

  “I never intended for her to fall.” His hands fisted in his pockets and his grizzled face turned red. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “It’s physical abuse.” Trudy wondered at the leading she felt to pursue this. It was obviously not helping Ralph to admit his wrongdoing or, more importantly, to leave her office. “Classic denial says ‘it’s not my fault.’ Your actions put your wife in the hospital.”

  Watson’s teeth gritted and his eyes flared.

  But Trudy plowed on. “That tells me you’ve got a long way to go before you can be in any healthy relationship. And it tells me you would never take counseling well from a woman.”

  “You say my problem is with women. Who better to work with me than a woman I respect?”

  “Don’t play games with me. You’re a literate, intelligent author who can manipulate words. I know how therapy works. A man who hits women doesn’t respect them, and he won’t respect a woman’s counsel. It’s absolutely out of the question. You can be helped. It’s possible your relationship with your wife can be mended.”

  She’d uttered her first real lie there.

  She leaned forward, even though she saw his eyes narrow with rage. “Let go of your anger and let me help you, through Dr. Pavil, to restore yourself to the loving man God created you to be.”

  “So, you won’t help? You’re going to abandon me just like every other woman I’ve ever known?”

  “I am helping you, if you’ll just let me.”

  Watson shook his head, looking like an enraged bull. Trudy didn’t want him to charge so she decided to stop waving red flags. “Let me call the doctor right now. You can speak with him yourself.”

  Trudy reached for the phone.

  “No!” Watson lunged forward and slapped his hand over the receiver and Trudy’s hand.

  Trudy pulled back, but Watson held her hand, pressed down on top of the phone. His stench caused her stomach to roil.

  “You have to help me.” His hand tightened on Trudy’s. His fingers cut off her circulation. “Give me what I want or I’ll take…”

  The outer door swung open and Ethel walked in singing the old Tina Turner classic, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” at the top of her lungs as she did a snazzy little salsa dance over to her desk.

  Watson released Trudy’s hand with a low-pitched growl. Clenching and unclenching his hands, he worked his mouth, as if physically restraining the words he wanted to say.

  Trudy started shaking, and she saw Watson studying her. He licked his lips as if he could taste her fear and thought it was delicious and wanted more.

  “Ethel, would you please come in here?” Trudy’s voice shook.

  A sharp sideways jerk of his chin seemed to admit he was routed this time. With narrow eyes and a smug little smile, he said, “We haven’t settled our business.”

  “My decision is final. I’m going to include what happened here today in my police report.”

  “What did happen here today? All I saw was another example of your unkindness to a man in need. I wonder how the press would handle a story about how unloving and selfish you are?” Watson arched a shaggy eyebrow. “Another time, perhaps?”

  He brushed past Ethel as she came into the office, still dancing to the oldies.

  “Whazzup, Trudy?” Ethel chomped away on a mouth full of gum as the outer office door slammed.

  Trudy drew in a deep breath and said to the woman who had just saved her, “Whazzup is, you’re fired.”

  Ethel drew herself up to her entire five foot two. “You can’t fire me. I’m calling my cousin, Lloyd.”

  “The dean is your cousin?”

  “That’s right. We’ll just see who stays and who goes.”

  All the fear and rage Trudy had controlled around Watson erupted on poor unsuspecting, incompetent Ethel. “Don’t call him from this phone. I’m barring you from it and from this office. You walk over and tattle-tale on me. And be sure to take all your personal things with you because I’m not letting you back in here.”

  “I’ve wanted out of this stupid job anyway. I’m sick of working for such a nicey-nice wimp.”

  She walked to her desk, snarling insults at Tru as she packed up her belongings.

  “And then,” Trudy laughed, “I had to Heimlich Ethel because she swallowed a wad of gum that was about twice the size of her throat.”

  “But you didn’t back down.” Ben made her go over the whole story again while he drove her home. “That’s great.”

  “It’s awful.”

  “You were strong.”

  “I’m a bully. I’m the exact person I’m writing about. I need to check myself into my own program. Maybe Dr. Pavil will take me on.”

  Ben smiled. Tru-Blu was growing a real live spinal column. “You stuck to your guns, right? She’s fired, for real?”

  “Ben, I’m supposed to be helping you respond to people in a more loving way. In the months since we started your therapy…”

  “It’s really been just a couple months—well, three…and a half,” he said, smiling.

  “You have turned me into a tyrant.”

  “Tyrant? Yeah, whatever. I’m hiring your next secretary, Tru. You’re not good at this.”

  Tru sniffed at him, which Ben decided was the same as agreeing. He’d make sure her next secretary had a black belt and a license to conceal carry. Oh, and her new male secretary was going to be way too old for her and happily married.

  “While I’m referring myself to Dr. Pavil, I’ll sign you up, too. And I’d better do it quick, before I join a karate league and start prowling the streets of Long Pine wearing a super hero costume and beating up street punks.”

  Ben chuckled. “Nothing wrong with knowing how to defend yourself. I could show you some self-defense moves. As far as prowling the streets, you need to pick your spots. Street punks can be…”

  “I’m not going to prowl.” When Tru bared her teeth, Ben didn’t grin for fear
she’d bite him. “I’m turning into a raving lunatic who takes her temper out on anyone who gets in her way.”

  Ben decided his plan was working nicely. “Did I tell you I apologized to Scott for hanging up on the captain? And I make coffee every day now.”

  “How’s that working out for you?”

  “We’ve had six guys ask for a transfer out of the precinct because my coffee is so bad, but still, it was polite of me to do it. I do that three-second thing ten times a day when someone asked me a question. Since you weren’t around to blame, I just said, ‘I’ll have that to you by the end of the day.’ I’ve been told to report to sick leave and a few wise acres keep telling me they’ll drive me to the ER.”

  “You’re really trying to be polite?”

  Ben nodded. “And I’m going to keep it up. I can smell the promotion already.”

  “The money and status will be great, but the reason to do this is for yourself, to live a more Christ-like life.”

  “You said I should do it for the money.” Ben snapped his eyebrows low, then caught himself. “Sorry, that wasn’t nice, and you’re right. I’m going to work on my motives. Of course, I want to live a Christ-like life.”

  Bickering with Tru was so much fun, he usually threw her words back at her without thinking about them. But this time, when he said it out loud, he was a little surprised to realize he meant it. What would Jesus do? He sure wouldn’t bark at Yarrow, no matter how fun it was. He might not dedicate his life to toughening up Tru either. He might like Tru just as squishy and sweet as she’d been when the semester started.

  Ben sighed. All this counseling was hard work. “Early this morning, I sent a couple of uniforms to ticket Watson and arranged to have the church that owns that parking lot complain about his presence there. He’s not going to be able to hang around in that spot anymore. He’ll find another one I’m sure, but for now, he’ll be gone.”

  “What time was he ticketed?”

  “Just after noon. I called the church then sent the uniforms over.”

  Trudy sighed. “I suppose that’s what set him off.”

  Ben turned away from the busy interstate. “Set him off?”