The Lawman

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “I know it. A few months ago I would have choked before admitting that a place could have...well, like a healing effect on people. Living with asphalt and concrete all my life, I couldn’t imagine what a ride through the desert on a good horse could do for me.”

  Joe laughed. “The way I heard it, you ended up so saddle sore you could barely stand up.”

  “That, too.” Ry guided his horse carefully over a fallen tree. “Who knows, maybe it won’t happen for you. I was just a paperpusher back in New York, but out here...”

  “I know what you mean. It’s the way the dust smells, the way the shadows change on the mountains.”

  “The sunsets.”

  “The thunderstorms,” Joe said. He’d loved that storm yesterday, he realized now. It wasn’t very rational to tempt lightning that way, but he hadn’t been operating rationally, especially after Leigh arrived.

  “It’s up to you, of course, but I wouldn’t send Kyle back just yet,” Ry said. “Give it some time. I don’t think you’ll regret it.”

  “Hell, I have so many regrets now, a few more wouldn’t matter, anyway.”

  9

  LEIGH UNDERSTOOD that Joe had to make the investigation top priority. He and Ry had found evidence of dynamite at the ruined dam, and the whole future of the ranch was at stake. Yet, she thought Joe was carrying his absorption in the case too far. For the past three days, he’d spent virtually no time with Kyle. True, he spent his days and some of his nights talking to anyone who might have information he could use, and he had reason to be tired and distracted. But Leigh suspected Joe was using the admittedly legitimate excuse of the investigation to avoid painful contact with a son he didn’t understand.

  Kyle made do, Leigh noticed. He played Junior Scrabble with Dexter a lot and swam in the pool under Belinda’s watchful eye. Leigh set up the adobe block project, and she and Dexter spent an afternoon out behind the patio wall teaching Kyle how to make the sun-dried bricks. They’d had to erect a plastic tent to keep the adobe dry during the afternoon rain, but the blocks had turned out fine. Kyle had used them to build a shelter for his Star Trek action figures.

  To someone who didn’t look closely, Kyle might have seemed perfectly happy, but Leigh watched Kyle with the empathy of a kindred spirit. She noticed each time he looked longingly after his departing father, and the slump to his shoulders after Joe had dismissed an overture for attention by saying he had to discuss something with Ry.

  Apparently, Joe had decided to ignore Leigh, too. His words to her were few, and if from time to time he glanced her way, he turned his head the minute she tried to meet his gaze. After two earth-shattering kisses, he’d closed himself off. Textbook Scorpio—stubborn and wary. But knowing that didn’t ease the ache in her heart.

  Still, she thought she and Kyle were coping well under the circumstances and she’d decided not to make an issue of Joe’s behavior. Until today, however, when she looked out the living room window and saw Kyle fishing in the swimming pool with a fishing pole made from a stick, a string and a rock tied to the end of it. Chloe, Dexter’s dog, lay beside Kyle, her head on her paws. The sight of that lonely little boy sitting cross-legged by the pool pretending to fish broke her heart.

  She walked through the French doors onto the patio and Kyle looked up, his Spock ears still resting on the underside of his cowboy hat. Leigh smiled whenever she saw those ears. Joe didn’t realize it, but Kyle’s stubborn insistence on wearing the ears was evidence enough he was Joe’s son.

  “Hi, Leigh,” Kyle said. Chloe lifted her head and smacked her shaggy tail on the concrete.

  “Hi, yourself.” She took a deep breath of the rain-scented air. A storm had passed through a few minutes earlier, washing away the intense heat. Scattered clouds remained, blocking out the punishing afternoon sun. “It’s nice out here. Mind if I join you and Chloe?”

  “No, but I only got one fishing pole.”

  “That’s okay.” Leigh grabbed a plastic chair cushion and set it down next to Kyle on the damp concrete. “Isn’t your behind getting wet?”

  “Yeah.” Kyle grinned. “I don’t care. Chloe doesn’t care, either.”

  “I guess you’re both tougher than I am, then.” Leigh lowered herself to the cushion and sat quietly, waiting to see if Kyle would talk.

  “This is the part of fishing I like,” he said at last. “You can just sit and think. Or if somebody’s with you, you can talk a little bit. I’ve been talking to Chloe.”

  Leigh’s heart squeezed. “That is a good part of fishing.”

  “I don’t like the catching fish part.”

  “Me, neither.”

  Kyle sighed, and it was much too grown-up a sound to have come from a seven-year-old.

  Leigh waited, letting him choose his moment, his way of communicating his problem.

  “Like I’ve been telling Chloe, my dad sure is busy,” Kyle said at last.

  “It takes a lot of time, trying to find out who blew up that dam.”

  “Don’t worry. Dad will catch them. He’s the best.”

  Leigh gazed into the turquoise water of the pool. “I’m sure he is.”

  Kyle raised his pole a little and the stone tied to the end bobbed to a different spot on the bottom of the pool. He sighed again. “The trouble is, my dad hates me.”

  Leigh gasped and turned to him. “Oh, no, Kyle! He loves you more than anything!” That much she knew. Joe couldn’t express his love, but she never thought for a moment it didn’t exist.

  But Kyle shook his head. “He thinks I’m a wimp because I like Star Trek stuff, and I’m scared to ride a horse by myself, and I don’t like catching fish. I bet he wishes he had a different boy.”

  Leigh wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “More likely he wishes he could be a different kind of dad.”

  “Different?” Kyle looked at her in surprise. “But he’s perfect the way he is!”

  A lump lodged in her throat. “So are you,” she murmured.

  “No, I’m not. I get scared. I get scared a lot.”

  She gazed into his blue eyes and debated how much to say. “Everybody gets scared sometimes.”

  Kyle returned his attention to his fishing pole. “Not my dad.”

  “Even your dad.” Instinct made her glance toward the living room window. Somehow, she’d known Joe would be there, watching them. She caught the bleak yearning in his expression before he realized he’d been discovered and walked away from the window.

  Apparently, Kyle had been too wrapped up in his misery to notice the figure at the window. “My dad’s not afraid of anything,” he maintained, his chin jutting out.

  He looked so much like Joe at that moment that Leigh had a sudden insight. What if Joe had been a sensitive little kid, just like Kyle? Maybe he’d been teased, hurt, disgraced somehow. Someone with a protective instinct as developed as Joe’s would want to make sure his son didn’t suffer the same fate. The only way to do that was to toughen the kid up and help him build a shell around himself just like his father had.

  “Kyle, I’m going to tell you something about me, something I don’t talk about with people unless I trust them. Can I trust you?”

  Kyle turned to her and nodded so hard his hat flipped off. He grabbed it and put it back on, careful not to crush the Spock ears.

  “All my life I’ve been able to...sense things. I’m sort of like a radio that picks up waves. If I tune in, I can sometimes tell what people are thinking. If I really concentrate, I can tell what animals are thinking.”

  “Cool! What’s Chloe thinking?”

  Leigh hesitated, then focused on the dog. She smiled. “She’s thinking that damp concrete feels good. And that she likes the way you smell.”

  Kyle laughed and scratched behind the dog’s ears. “I like the way she smells, too. We can’t have a dog in my mom and stepdad’s apartment, but I sure would like to have Chloe live with me. Would you like that, Chloe?”

  Chloe licked his hand.

  “I don’t thin
k she would,” Kyle said, looking back at Leigh. “No rabbits to chase, no horses, no Dexter.”

  “You see? You can figure out what animals are thinking, too.”

  Kyle looked startled. Then he shook his head. “I was just guessing.”

  “I think with practice you could do more than guess.”

  “Wow. That would be cool.”

  Leigh smiled down at him. She could really grow to love this kid. “I had a specific reason for telling you about this ability I have. First of all, do you believe me?”

  Kyle nodded.

  “Then listen very carefully. Your dad doesn’t hate you. He loves you very much. He’d like for you and he to be better friends, but he hasn’t figured out yet how to make that happen.”

  Doubt struggled with hope in Kyle’s blue eyes. “You saw that in his mind?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Hope won, and a tiny smile played at the corners of his mouth.

  “So think about that while you and Chloe are fishing, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I have a few things to take care of, but I’ll see you at dinner.” Leigh pushed herself upright and picked up the chair cushion.

  “Yep,” Kyle said happily, his face lit with joy. “See you at dinner.”

  * * *

  LEIGH HURRIED toward the French doors. With luck Joe was somewhere nearby, and he was going to listen to what she had to say if she had to rope him and tie him to a post to keep him in one spot.

  Joe was no longer in the living room, but Rosa, the head housekeeper, was there supervising a new girl who was cleaning the cobwebs from the high, beamed ceiling.

  “Did either of you see where Mr. Gilardini went?” Leigh asked.

  Rosa propped her hands on her hips. “Out on the porch, I think. Sí. The porch.”

  But Joe wasn’t there anymore, either. Leigh gazed around in frustration. Then she started down the flagstone walk. She’d told Kyle she could read minds, and many times she could. Right now, she had to connect with Joe’s if she expected to locate him. The ranch was a big place.

  At the end of the walk she paused and glanced at the sandy ground. There were boot prints in the moist earth and the prints led off to the left. She followed them, knowing that she could be tracking anybody in a pair of cowboy boots. But intuition told her she was following Joe. A path beyond the parking area led to a seldom-used picnic spot in a grove of mesquite trees. Leigh had vague memories of family picnics there when she was very young and her mother was still alive. But with one rickety picnic table and no fireplace for cooking, it wasn’t a practical spot for feeding ranch guests, and few people knew it was even there.

  The tang of wet creosote bushes spiced the air. The green bark of a nearby palo verde tree gleamed as if it had been shellacked, and in its branches hung a cobweb woven with diamonds. Bring water to the desert and amazing things happened, Leigh thought. Flowers bloomed where only thorns had been before. If only such a transformation could be wrought in people. Perhaps what some people needed was a cleansing storm.

  Her boots crunched along the sandy path as she walked toward the picnic area. She made no attempt to approach quietly. She was through pussyfooting around Joe Gilardini.

  He sat on the table, his feet propped on the attached bench. His expression was guarded as he watched her come toward him. “There must be some Indian blood in your ancestry,” he said. “Tracking me all the way out here.”

  She stopped and braced herself for the fray. “Maybe I should just stake you over an anthill and pour honey on you, come to think of it.”

  Joe nudged his hat back with his thumb. “And to what do I owe this flood of hostility?”

  She threw her anger at him as if hurling a bolt of lightning. “Your general stupidity.”

  “That comes as no surprise. I never claimed to be a genius.”

  She aimed again, determined to crack his armor. “How about a father? Did you ever claim to be that?”

  His eyes darkened and he stepped down from the table. “I should have known this would be about Kyle. I saw you out there having a little talk with him while he fished with that stick of his.”

  “Don’t you dare make fun of that fishing pole.”

  He came closer. “If I don’t, some other kid will. The way I look at it, it’s my job to—”

  “Make him tough?”

  “Somebody has to.”

  “And make him think you hate him?”

  He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. His mask slipped. “What?”

  “That’s what he thinks. And considering all your macho instructions, your disapproval, your long absences lately, it’s no wonder. He has every reason to suppose that—”

  Joe grabbed her by the shoulders, his eyes reflecting the storm in hers. “How could he think I hate him? Did you plant that in his head? Because if you did, so help me, I’ll—”

  “You planted it in his head, you idiot! You’ve given him the idea that there’s something wrong with him because he’s not as fearless as you are. He doesn’t realize that you’re the cowardly one, running away from any show of emotion, running away from anybody who might make you feel something.” She gasped for breath, drawing the warm, wet air into her lungs, the scent of ripe earth into her nostrils. Her heart fluttered like a bird’s.

  A muscle worked in his jaw as he glared down at her. “You’re nothing but trouble. I figured that out the first time I saw you.”

  “You think you have trouble with me? I wish you’d never set foot on this ranch! Of all the men in the world, it had to be you—a proud, suspicious, stubborn Scorpio. Fate couldn’t send me a gentle Pisces or a fun-loving Libra, or a kindhearted Aquarius. No, I have to end up with you!”

  He gave her a shake. “End up with? What in hell are you talking about?”

  “This.” She stood trembling in his arms, drowning in the sensation of his touch. “Don’t tell me you can’t feel what happens whenever we get within ten feet of each other.”

  His grip tightened and flames danced in his eyes. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Maybe there’s some basic animal attraction between us, but I’m no victim of fate. Neither are you.”

  “Then let go of me,” she murmured, knowing he would not, could not.

  “In a minute.” He drew her closer, swept her hat from her head and tossed it on the table behind him.

  “Why not now?” she taunted as her mouth moistened for his kiss and her body tightened and throbbed for even more.

  “Because I choose not to.”

  She closed her eyes. “That’s what you think.”

  His mustache tickled her upper lip as he paused. “Shut up, Leigh,” he said softly.

  Then he was there, and nothing mattered but this. He pulled her in, setting her heart in motion as surely as the moon swelled the tides. His tongue sought entrance and she gave it—unable to resist giving whatever he called forth in her. Exchanging breath for breath, they kissed deeper, and deeper yet, strengthening the connection made in that first glance, that first touch.

  She arched against him, feeling the familiar imprint of his body. She didn’t know when they would make love—perhaps not even in this existence. But they would make love. It was inevitable. She would smooth the rough, raw edges of his soul with the nectar of desire; he would slake her thirst for cataclysmic passion. Because at last she understood. She was not destined for a gentle love filled with soft sighs and dewy looks. She was born for the whirlwind.

  He’d unfastened the first two buttons of her blouse before his hand stilled and his mouth lifted from hers. He was breathing hard. “There’s no such thing as star-crossed lovers,” he managed to say.

  She greeted his statement with a soft laugh.

  He moved his hand from the buttons of her blouse up the column of her throat to her chin, where he tilted it back so he could look into her eyes. “You’re beautiful and I want you, simple as that. A normal man-woman thing.”

  She struggled for breath. “An
d you always have this strong a reaction to the beautiful women you meet? In a city like New York, where fashion models walk down the street every day, you must be in a perpetual state of arousal.”

  “No, I don’t, but the pressures are different there. The pace is faster. There’s not as much time to think about...” As he gazed down at her, he seemed to lose his train of thought. Naked passion flared in his eyes. “All right. I’ve never wanted anybody like this,” he admitted. “I want to rip your clothes off and take you right here on the picnic table.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  He caught his breath. “God, you’re sassy.”

  “Get used to it, cowboy.”

  “That’s like asking a horse to get used to a burr under his saddle.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better. When are you going to let loose and take that saddle off? Burrs aren’t a problem if you ride bareback.”

  He groaned and pulled her tight against him. “I’ve tried so hard to stay away from you. I need a clear head for this investigation, and you turn my brains to mush.”

  “You’re making the mistake most cops make, trying to solve a case with logic. If you’d let me help, I could save you a lot of time.”

  His gaze narrowed. “With your `powers’ you could lead me to the person who’s doing this?”

  “Maybe. I could certainly tell you who isn’t doing it.”

  “Okay.”

  She was taken aback. He’d capitulated to her methods too easily. “Okay?”

  “Sure. I’ll use any information that comes my way. Go ahead.”

  She backed out of his arms. “You’re stringing me along, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’d honestly like to hear your opinion.”

  She studied his expression and believed his statement, as far as it went. But something didn’t feel right. “We can discuss the case later. The most important issue right now is Kyle. He’s probably still sitting out by the pool, and he desperately needs some attention from you. That’s what I came out here to accomplish. But somehow, when we’re alone...” Her gaze sought his and her body responded to the banked desire in the depths of his eyes. Warmth rushed through her. On this level of communication, she had no doubts.