A Man for All Seasons

by Diana Palmer

  She felt his pleasure even through the violent satisfaction he gave her. So this was what it was all about, she thought dazedly, clinging to him with bruising fingers. Her mouth opened against his bare shoulder and she shivered with the intensity of it, the beauty of fulfillment. She understood at last what he’d meant when he said he’d given her a taste of satisfaction just as they began. Words couldn’t do justice to the sensations that whipped through her slender body. She kissed the taut muscle of his shoulder hungrily as she sank into the mattress with a final, agonizing shudder of ecstasy.

  It was hard to breathe. She couldn’t stop shaking. Her body was sore, but gloriously pleasured. She felt the dampness of moisture clinging to her skin, her hair. Her fingers brushed lightly against his long, lean back and she felt the same moisture there. She moved, and felt him deep in that secret place and she laughed softly.

  “For a nervous beginner, you’re a quick study,” he murmured into her throat.

  She laughed out loud and hugged him close. “Oh, you rake,” she whispered lovingly, kissing his throat. “You wonderful, wonderful rake!”

  He laughed, too, exhausted but completely relaxed for the first time in years. He rolled onto his back, still intimately joined to her, and held her gently on his body. “Two years of stoic repression. My God, am I glad I waited!”

  “So am I.” She kissed his chest, the hair tickling her nose where her lips pressed. “We forgot something.”

  His lean hand smoothed her hair with magnificent unconcern. “What?”

  She punched him in the ribs. “You know what.”

  He only sighed. “It’s in the drawer.”

  “It does us a lot of good in there!”

  His mouth traveled over her chin.

  “I know that.” He sighed. “Kids are great. I wouldn’t mind one, even this soon. But we should use more restraint next time.”

  “Sure,” she murmured. Then she laughed. She yawned. “I’m sleepy.”

  “So am I.”

  “Shouldn’t we…?” she asked, moving slightly.

  His lean arm came around her. “Stay right where you are,” he whispered. “I don’t want you any farther away than you are right this minute.”

  She smiled and snuggled closer with a sigh. “That goes double for me. Marc?”

  “Hmm?” he asked sleepily, his voice deep and soft at her ear.

  “I like being married.”

  She felt the faint rumble of laughter under her. “So do I.”

  It was the last thing she heard for a long time.

  The honeymoon was officially over in a week, but people around Jacobsville noticed that it never seemed to end. You never saw Marc unless you saw Josie. She worked out of the D.A.’s office, and he worked out of the Victoria Texas Ranger post, but when they weren’t on the job, they were inseparable.

  A few months later, Josie was sweeping off the front porch early on a Saturday morning while Marc was getting the men assigned to the day’s work when two long, black limousines flying diplomatic flags pulled up in the dusty front yard.

  Josie was wearing jeans and a dusty sweatshirt. Her hair was loose and still a little tangled, she had no makeup on, and she was wearing ancient moccasins and socks with holes in them. So, naturally, this had to be Gretchen Sabon and her husband the Sheikh. It was nice to know that she was going to make a suitable impression on her new relation, the head of state of Qawi. They’d wanted to fly to Qawi for the meeting, but their jobs had made it difficult. And there had been another power struggle in Qawi that had only just been resolved successfully. Now the Sabons had apparently taken matters into their own hands and decided to just show up as a surprise. Josie groaned and shook her head. Her hair wasn’t even combed!

  Marc came striding out of the barn grinning as the tall bodyguard he recognized from Gretchen’s wedding got out, waved and opened the back door.

  “Hi, Bojo!” Marc greeted the tall man, shaking hands. He opened his arms as Gretchen got out, looking young and happy and very elegant, and went rushing into them.

  “Hello, big brother!” Gretchen laughed. “We came to welcome Josie into the family. You remember Philippe.”

  Her husband was now standing beside her, tall and handsome even with his scarred face, and beaming at his wife. He shook hands with Marc.

  “Welcome to the fraternity,” Philippe murmured.

  “Imagine you, getting married, and to somebody as nice as Josie,” Gretchen said warmly. She looked up onto the porch. “Hi, Josie!”

  Josie put down the broom, wiped her hands on her jeans and danced down the steps, feeling shy and nervous.

  “I wear jeans and sweatshirts around the palace,” Gretchen said, realizing at once what the problem was. “And I never wear makeup around my husband,” she added with a wicked glance at the tall, smiling man beside her.

  “It is a waste of time,” Philippe drawled. He glanced at Marc and grinned. “As you know, I presume.”

  “I do.” Marc pulled Josie close to his side. “This is your new brother-in-law, Philippe Sabon. He’s the ruling Shiekh of Qawi.”

  “I’m very honored,” Josie began.

  Philippe took her hand and raised it to his lips with a smile. “It is a pleasure to meet you, madame,” he said. “We thought you might like to meet your nephew as well.”

  He said something in Arabic, and a woman in a hajib and an aba climbed out with a young man of about two years of age held tight in her arms. “Our son, Rashid,” he introduced, grinning at the child, who reached for his father and went eagerly into his arms.

  “See that?” Gretchen said with a sigh. She shook her head. “His first word was da-da. He cries unless Philippe reads him a story at bedtime. When he gets up, he runs to his father.” She threw up her hands. “I’m just a walking incubator around here!”

  “Liar.” Philippe chuckled, grinning at her. “You are a walking reform committee,” he corrected.

  “I have only made a few minor changes,” she began.

  He smiled and kissed his son on the cheek. “Can you make coffee?” he asked his new sister-in-law. “It has been a long and very thirsty trip out here from the airport.”

  “I make excellent coffee,” Josie said, laughing. “I work in the district attorney’s office. We live on it.”

  “Yes, I heard about your new job,” Gretchen said, linking arms with her. “I want to talk to you about some legal issues….”

  “Oh, my God,” Philippe groaned.

  Marc patted him on the shoulder. “Now, now, I’m sure it’s only things like water pollution and global warming.”

  “We really need to do more about prison reform in Qawi” Gretchen was saying as she and Josie went into the house.

  Philippe exchanged a complicated glance with Marc.

  “I’ve got some aged scotch whiskey in my office,” Marc said.

  “Yes. And big glasses” came the amused reply.

  “Uh, Your Highness…?”

  Philippe turned. Curtis Russell was standing just outside the limousine alongside another Secret Service agent and two of Philippe’s personal bodyguards.

  “Yes?” Philippe asked.

  Russell cleared his throat. “About that matter we discussed?”

  Philippe sighed. “Complications, complications.” He glanced at Marc. “Your bureau chief at the FBI is willing to give Russell a job if you recommend him.”

  Marc looked as if he’d been asked to swallow a salt block.

  “It seems that his last assignment proved unlucky,” Philippe continued.

  “He was sticking his nose into organized crime the last time I heard anything about him,” Marc pointed out. “In Austin, I believe?”

  Russell swallowed hard. “I was only showing them how good an agent I’d be. And I did help that guy Phil Douglas get some evidence that helped us track down the Gates woman and bring her back for trial.”

  “Yes, you did.” Marc had to agree.

  “Sadly,” Philippe interjected, “h
e identified himself as an FBI agent.”

  “You’re Secret Service!” Marc exploded.

  Russell grimaced. “Well, yes, technically, sort of.” He coughed. “I was on vacation at the time. I did used to work for the FBI, for a year or so.” He scowled. “Look here, I’d make a good agent. With all due respect, I’m wasted on visiting dignitaries! I can solve crimes. All I need is a chance!”

  Philippe lifted an eyebrow at Marc, who shrugged.

  “All right,” Marc said. “I’ll put in a word for you. With one condition,” he added very deliberately.

  “Anything!” Russell exclaimed with delight.

  Marc’s eyes narrowed. “That you work in one of the other forty-nine states of the union!”

  Russell gave him a tight salute. “You bet. Yes, sir. Florida looks good to me. I love beaches.” He grinned.

  Marc threw up his hands and went into the house.

  That night, after the company was nicely settled in the guest bedroom, with guards outside the door, Marc and Josie lay close in each others’ arms while moonlight made stripes across the quilted coverlet.

  “Christmas is next month,” she murmured with a smile, snuggling closer. “I want a live tree that we can plant.”

  “Done.”

  “And some new decorations just for us.”

  “You can have all the rope and spurs you want.”

  Josette chuckled. “And a special ornament.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You know, one of those that has our names and the date we married.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “Next year we can add new ones.”

  He was drowsy. “New ones. Mmm-hmm.”

  “Like one that says, Baby’s First Christmas.”

  “First Christmas. Nice. I like…what?”

  He sat straight up in bed and gaped at her. “Did you say what I thought you said?”

  She grinned. “We never did open that drawer next to the bed,” she reminded him.

  Brannon wasn’t listening to explanations. His lean hand pressed softly against her belly and he looked at her as if she’d just solved the mystery of life.

  “My very own miniature Texas Ranger, boy or girl.” He chuckled softly. “What a Christmas present! Lucky, lucky me,” he whispered, and bent to kiss her with breathless tenderness.

  She smiled under his mouth and lifted her arms to bring him down to her. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Lucky me!”

  Outside, the wind was up. It was autumn after all, nippy and frosty and crisp. But inside that room, there was a warmth that all the snow in Alaska couldn’t have chilled. It was, Josie thought, going to be the most wonderful Christmas of their lives. And it was.

  GARDEN COP

  To Joan Johnston.

  She and I really did sing with the Marines

  at a conference we both attended in Atlanta,

  but she did it better!

  CHAPTER ONE

  The woman was brazen. She couldn’t have picked a more public spot to grow those marijuana plants. They were right on the main street in the small north Georgia town, right on a leg of the state highway. It was as if she were daring the police to do something about them.

  Little did she know, of course, that Curtis Russell, FBI agent, was visiting his mother right across the street from this brazen woman and her illegal substance. Just because he was on vacation, that pert little blonde shouldn’t expect him to look the other way when the law was being broken. He was just off a high-profile murder case in San Antonio, and newly a member of the FBI. He could hardly wait for his first real case.

  His dark eyes narrowed as he stared out his mother’s picture window across the street, where Marijuana Mary was busily fertilizing her bumper crop. He had to admit, she did look good in those beige shorts and top. She had nicely browned skin, and prettily rounded arms. She lived alone in a small rental house, and drove one of those new VW Beetles, pea-green with a sunroof. He wondered what she did for a living. She’d just moved in three months ago, according to his mother. Just in time to plant marijuana and get it almost to harvest. It was planted in a neat row beside an equally neat row of tall red flowers.

  Curtis, no gardener, had no idea what any of it was, except the marijuana. He’d seen that in pictures.

  “Curt, I do believe you’ve got a crush on that lovely young woman across the street,” his mother called amusedly as she mashed potatoes in the kitchen.

  “Why do you think so?” he asked abruptly.

  “For one thing, you’ve spent the past three days staring out the window at her,” came the teasing reply.

  “It isn’t a crush,” he said with pure disgust. He unwound his six-foot frame from the chair he’d been occupying and stretched lazily, taut muscles rippling down his broad chest, before he wandered into the kitchen where his mother was working at the counter. “Do you know her name?” he asked hopefully.

  “Mary Ryan,” she replied. “I don’t know anything else about her.”

  “Who owns that house?”

  “Greg Henry,” she told him. “Why?”

  “No reason,” he murmured, and pulled out a kitchen chair to straddle. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, his dark hair unruly, his brown eyes smiling at his mother. It had been just the two of them since he was six and his father had died of an untimely heart attack. His mother had held down two jobs just to keep food on the table, working full-time as a reporter for a daily newspaper and doing feature material for a regional magazine as a district staff writer.

  Curtis took a paper route when he was ten, and he’d done odd jobs to bring in a little extra money. When he was sixteen, he went to work after school to help take some of the financial burden off her. The only thing he hadn’t liked about the Secret Service job he’d had before, or the FBI job he had now, was that he had to be so far away from Matilda Russell. But she had her church work and her circle of friends, and she wasn’t a clinging parent. In fact, she still did the odd feature for her old newspaper, but no news. Although she did seem to know a lot of things that weren’t in the paper. She had contacts everywhere, in the most surprising sort of places, on both sides of the law.

  “Are you still hanging out with that convicted gun runner?” he asked suddenly.

  His mother, an elfish silver-haired woman with wicked dark eyes, smiled vacantly. “He wasn’t convicted,” she said pleasantly, transferring potatoes to a bowl. “Besides, he went straight. He’s a college professor now.”

  “Imagine that?” he asked the table. “Teaching what?”

  She pursed her lips. “Ethics.”

  He almost doubled up laughing.

  “Just kidding,” she added as she put the last bit of her hot, cooked lunch on the table and went to get place settings for the two of them. “He teaches criminal justice.”

  “That’s still ironic.”

  “Lots of young men get into trouble once,” she pointed out and gave him a speaking look as she put plates, silverware and napkins at two places. She went back for coffee cups and the carafe that held the coffee, adding a cream pitcher and sugar bowl to the menagerie on the inexpensive lace tablecloth.

  “At least I had the decency to wreck my own house instead of a stranger’s,” he said with a rueful smile.

  “And the good sense to know friends using illegal drugs could lead to trouble,” she added. She sighed, studying her only child. “I was never so scared in my life when you were involved in that bust and we went before the judge with your attorney,” she added somberly. “I’d covered drug-related stories for ten years. It was terrifying to see it firsthand.”

  He got up and hugged her warmly. “I never messed up again,” he reminded her with a kiss. “I catch guys who do that, now,” he added.

  “You go after much bigger game than teenagers experimenting with drugs,” she replied, holding him by both arms. “I’m very proud of you. That was a first-rate job you did in San Antonio, helping to track down and return that hacker from South A
merica to trial in Texas. Even the state attorney general praised you.”

  He shrugged. “Shucks, it weren’t nothin’,” he drawled.

  She popped him one on the upper arm and went to sit down. “Just watch your back,” she cautioned. “It was bad enough thinking you might have to throw yourself in front of a bullet for some visiting dignitary,” she said, referring to his earlier stint in the Secret Service. “It’s worse having you working homicide cases.”

  “Why is it worse?” he teased.

  She leaned toward him. “Because I’m retired! Can you think of the scoops I’d have had if you’d done this when I was still an ace reporter?”

  He grinned. “You could always come out of retirement and write news instead of little feature articles on some guy’s giant pumpkin.”

  “I like sleeping all night,” she mused, pouring coffee into both their cups. “I like not having to spend holidays looking at crime scenes or listening to politicians defend harebrained policies that don’t work. Roses,” she added, “are much less demanding than editors, and I don’t have to pack a laptop and a camera everywhere I go.”

  “Good point.”

  “Besides,” she added, “I make a lot more money at what I do now.”

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  They ate in a companionable silence for several minutes.

  “Really, why are you watching the girl across the street?” she asked suddenly. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “Not yet,” he confessed. “But give me time.”

  The next day, he went to see Greg Henry at his local realty company. He asked the man about his new renter point-blank.

  “Is she in trouble with the law?” Greg asked sharply, because everybody in town knew what Curt did for a living.

  “How would I know?” Curt asked, throwing up his hands. “That’s why I’m asking you.”