by Diana Palmer
The boy was worried a lot lately. John had tried just once to talk to him, but the phone rang. The phone was always ringing. John was in a better situation than some of the other Rangers when it came to late-night crime. He had someone to watch Tonio, and he had no wife or small children to be concerned with. So when a Ranger was needed, he was usually called. And he’d always go, without complaining.
Now he wondered if he hadn’t been hiding behind his job. He’d grieved for his late wife. He’d drawn into himself. Tonio had needed his father badly, and John had buried himself in work. It was something he regretted. Perhaps he could find a way to get back on the old footing with his son, if he worked at it. If they were closer, perhaps Tonio wouldn’t get so bent out of shape about John bringing a woman home.
He was growing ever more fond of the blonde woman sitting beside him in the big SUV. She was sweet and gentle and she made him feel protective. He liked being with her. He didn’t want to like being with her. Always, in the back of his mind, was the fear of losing Tonio. He’d made a lot of mistakes with the boy.
“You’re very quiet,” Sunny remarked.
He chuckled. “I’m working.” He glanced at her from dancing black eyes. “I gnaw on a case like a dog on a bone while I drive. I don’t usually have anybody riding with me,” he added. Not quite true. Tonio rode with him. But he wasn’t sharing that.
“I didn’t even ask, what movie are we going to see?”
“It’s a honey,” he replied. “It’s a foreign language film—”
“Oh, dear, not one of those very racy ones...?” she interrupted.
His eyebrows arched and he chuckled. “No, Miss Prim and Proper, it’s not one of those racy ones. It’s part of a film revival they’re showing at the Diamond Cinema downtown.” He glanced at her. “It stars Jean Reno, and it’s set in France and—”
“—and Japan!” she exclaimed, all eyes. “He’s a policeman with a really bad temper and he has a daughter he didn’t know about who’s Japanese!”
“Her mother dies and he has to assume guardianship and she hates cops.” He grinned from ear to ear. “It’s called Wasabi. You’ve seen it!”
“I own it,” she corrected. “I fell in love with it the first time I ever saw it. I bought the DVD. I discovered Jean Reno years ago, when he was in that Godzilla movie. I thought he was a terrific actor, so I looked for other films he’d been in, and I found Wasabi! It’s great!”
“Subtitles and all?” he teased.
“Subtitles and all. I’m crazy about foreign films. I love Toshiro Mifune, too.”
“The Samurai Trilogy,” he said. “The Hidden Fortress. Dozens more.”
“Oh, yes. He was one of my favorite actors.”
“Mine, as well.”
“It’s a small world,” she said, shaking her head.
He smiled. “So it is, rubia.” And that was a very odd coincidence, that they enjoyed the same sort of movies. He felt as if he’d always known her.
She was feeling something similar, and fighting it tooth and nail. Despite Cal Hollister’s reassurances, she was worried about John’s reaction if he knew the whole truth of what had happened to her when the bullets started flying through the apartment she shared with her mother and little brother. He was in law enforcement. He’d seen terrible things, just as nurses and doctors and rescue personnel, cops and firemen saw terrible things. But it was different, when the terrible things were part of strangers. It didn’t mean that John would react any differently than the boy she’d dated so long ago.
She stared down at her purse. She should never have agreed to go out with him. It was going to end badly, she knew it was.
A big, warm hand came down on both of hers, where they gripped her purse.
“You worry all the time,” he said quietly. “It shows. What’s bothering you so much?”
She wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t betray Tonio’s confidence. She’d promised she wouldn’t say anything to anyone about his friend David.
“It’s been a long week,” she said instead, forcing a smile. “One of our patients is very sick. They have her in ICU. They called a priest in last night, before I went off duty.”
His hand lifted back to the steering wheel. She felt empty and cold, although she shouldn’t encourage his touch.
“I imagine illness is harder, when the patient’s a child,” he agreed. He was remembering Tonio, in bed with a virus. And here John was, about to enjoy a movie when he’d told his son he was going to be working. It was just, he was so alone. Sunny filled the empty spaces in him. She made him feel warm, comforted. He didn’t want to give her up, and that might cause some very big problems down the line.
“It is,” she agreed.
He turned into the parking lot of the theater and cut off the engine. “We’ll bury ourselves in the movie and forget our troubles for a couple of hours. How about that?” he teased.
She smiled. “That sounds very pleasant.”
“To me, too.”
* * *
They sat near the back of the theater with soft drinks and a huge barrel of buttered popcorn that they shared. Every time Sunny’s fingers encountered John’s in the popcorn, she felt thrills of pleasure go through her. He was the most attractive man she’d ever known. Which raised the question, why did he keep seeing her, because she wasn’t really that pretty.
He could have picked any woman in San Antonio to be with. She felt self-conscious about her injury, and she never spoke of it. But it made her uncomfortable. She worried about what a man would think if there was ever intimate contact...
She had to stop thinking like that. John was a friend. Just a friend.
While she thought it, he moved the popcorn barrel to the floor and slid his fingers into Sunny’s, holding them tight while the movie ran.
It was an action movie, but parts of it were hilarious. Sunny didn’t feel like laughing. Her heart was in her throat. She hoped John wouldn’t notice. Her heart was going like an old-fashioned watch ticking.
* * *
He knew. Of course he knew. He was older than Sunny, and he’d been married. The signs were so obvious that she found him attractive. But she didn’t want more than friendship, any more than he did. His reason was Tonio. He wondered what hers was.
Surely she wasn’t married? No. That innocence he saw in her wouldn’t be there if there had ever been a man in her life. She kept apart, alone. Why?
His fingers played with hers while Jean Reno and his French sidekick battled it out with Japanese gangsters on the screen. She was watching the movie, but her heart was jumping madly. He could see it bouncing under her coat.
She was wearing a high-necked sweater. He frowned. He’d never seen her in anything that wasn’t high-necked. She even wore high-necked things under her work scrubs. It was as if she didn’t want to call attention to her breasts.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at them, surreptitiously. Odd, the way the sweater fit on one side, the left side. It looked as if it had some sort of makeshift padding under it. The other side was normal.
He averted his gaze before she caught him looking. Her family had been killed by gunfire. If she’d been with them, he knew her well enough now to be fairly certain that she’d have thrown herself over them to protect them, perhaps even jumped in front of them to do it.
Had she been shot, and she was self-conscious about her body? She wasn’t a poverty case, but her finances seemed to be about even with the poverty line. That meant there would have been no money for plastic surgery.
He’d almost worked it out by the time the movie finished. He kept her hand in his while they walked back to the SUV.
“You’re very quiet,” he remarked softly.
She swallowed. “Am I? It was a great movie. Thanks.”
He shrugged. “You can take me to the next one,” he said, and smiled
tenderly.
She laughed. “Okay.”
He stopped at the SUV and opened the door. But before she could turn to climb into it, he backed her gently up against the door that opened to the back seat. His big, warm hands framed her face.
She caught her breath at the look in his black eyes. “There are...people,” she began in a rush, because he was looking as if he meant to kiss her, right there.
“When your family was shot, what did you do?” he asked quietly. “Did you jump in front of them, Sunny, to shield them?”
SEVEN
Sunny’s heart stopped in her chest at the question. It went through her like fire. She ground her teeth together.
He nodded slowly, certain of what had happened. “It would be like you, to shield people you love by sacrificing yourself. You were injured, too, weren’t you?”
She lowered her eyes to his shirt. There was thick, dark, curling hair peering out of the opening at his throat. It was very sexy. Like him.
She drew in a breath. “Yes. I spent several days in the hospital. A bullet collapsed my lung.”
“And damaged you, in a way that makes you self-conscious and uneasy about relationships with men.”
She shivered. She looked up, the surprise in her dark eyes. “How...?”
“I work crime scenes, rubia,” he said gently. He brushed back her long, silky hair and speared his fingers through its softness. “If you were involved in a shooting and two people died, it’s pretty inevitable that you had to be a victim as well. I’ve seen gang shootings more than I care to remember. They’re thorough.”
She swallowed. She hadn’t wanted him to know. But it was just as well that it was out in the open, she supposed. Now he’d understand why she didn’t get involved with men.
“It’s not pretty,” she confessed. She still couldn’t look at him. “I didn’t have the means to fix it with plastic surgery. My dad had taken out insurance on all of us, so there was enough to bury them. There was nothing left over.”
“Six years. How old were you?”
“I was seventeen,” she said heavily.
Which made her twenty-three. That stung a little, because he was thirty-four. Probably too old for her, but he wouldn’t think about that right now. “And you didn’t date anybody until now?”
How had he known that? A lucky guess? Probably. She sighed. “I dated one boy.” She hated the memory. It showed on her face.
He tilted her chin up. “Look at me. No, don’t do that. Tell me.”
Those black eyes were compelling. She imagined the look worked very well on people he interrogated. It was hard to resist. “It was just after I lost my family. The rent on the apartment was paid up. Mr. Carrera did repairs very quickly and told me I could stay there rent-free while I was in nurse’s training. He was so kind.”
“A former mobster,” he mused. “With a kind heart.”
“Very kind. I’d graduated high school just before the gang shooting. I decided on nurse’s training just afterward and enrolled at the Marshall Medical Center. Mr. Carrera offered to put me through school, but I told him he’d done enough, that I had to support myself. I worked part-time at a department store on the night shift, to help pay for my training. There was a boy there who was a stocking clerk in the same area I worked. He invited me out. I’d had a crush on him ever since I got the job. I was so thrilled. I bought a dress...”
She broke off. It was a bad memory. “So we went to a dance and he parked the car after, on a side street. He was a nice boy. I really liked him. So he kissed me, a lot, and then his hand slid under my blouse.” Her eyes mirrored the pain. “To say he was shocked was an understatement. He drew back as if he was scalded. He took me right home, put me out and drove off like a madman.” She smiled sadly. “I knew then that it would be the same, every time. So I never accepted another date.”
“What a stupid boy,” he muttered. “Rubia, you’re a woman with a scar, not a scar with a woman attached. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” he asked.
She looked up into soft, kind eyes. She drew in a breath. “Yes, well, it’s sort of hard to think that way after someone’s treated you like someone with a contagious fatal disease.”
“I can imagine. It must have hurt very badly, especially if you liked the boy.”
“He didn’t even speak to me at work, afterward. And it wasn’t much longer before he quit the job.”
“Maybe he just got a better one,” he pointed out.
“Maybe. Nevertheless, I never saw him again.”
“That wasn’t a bad thing,” he said, bristling. “Idiot.”
Her eyebrows arched.
“Not you. Him!”
“Oh.” She laughed self-consciously. “Well, anyway, now you know why I keep to myself. I have a job that makes me feel needed. I’m happy, in my way.”
“And you don’t have to worry about being rejected ever again.”
She stared at him blankly.
“Idiot.” He smiled, tracing her lips with one forefinger. “And this time, I mean you. Get in the truck.”
She let him lift her up into it. She felt confused. “It’s not a truck.”
“It’s sort of a truck,” he conceded. “Fasten your seat belt.”
He closed the door and went around to get in under the steering wheel. He fastened his own seat belt and cranked the engine.
But he didn’t drive her back to her apartment. He went down the road that led to Jacobsville, in Jacobs County.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He grinned. “I have to interview a woman who’s a witness to a crime. I thought I’d take backup along. Unless you want to go home...?” he added.
“No!”
He chuckled at the way she said it.
“I don’t have a badge or a gun,” she pointed out, flushing with delight that he still wanted her company after what she’d confessed.
“You don’t need, either. I think the witness might feel more confident if there’s a woman with me. So I’m deputizing you. For the next few minutes,” he teased.
“Oh, boy, I’m a Texas Ranger,” she chuckled. “I feel more confident already.”
“A few martial arts classes might not hurt. Not,” he added, “to teach you to actually attack someone who’s attacking you. That never works out unless you’re a trained professional. You run if you get into a situation where you’re threatened, or you scream. Most perps are bigger and stronger than you, and many are on drugs. Even a .45 won’t stop a man who’s high and angry unless you empty a clip into him.” He glanced at her horrified look. “No, I haven’t,” he added. “But I know at least one man in law enforcement who had to. He drinks. A lot.”
That surprised her. “But I thought shooting people when you had to went with the job,” she said.
“It does. That doesn’t make it easy to take a life. I’ve had to do that a time or two in the past... First in the military, then on the job.” He grimaced. “I don’t talk about it. It’s like you and your injury,” he said, glancing at her with a sad smile. “Both of us put the horrors out of mind and hope they’ll stay there.”
“What branch of the military?” she asked, changing the subject because she could see how much it bothered him.
“Army,” he said. “Green Berets.”
She smiled. “I should have known. Spec ops. It’s why you sort of get along with Cal Hollister.”
“He wasn’t military,” he pointed out. “We have a touchy relationship with mercs. They’re often used as additional troops in combat zones, but some of them are rougher than they need to be overseas. It’s led to problems.”
“I don’t doubt it. But Cal’s one of the nicer ones.”
His face hardened. “Is he, really?” His black eyes pinned hers as he drove. “I suppose he’s all right, as long as he stays away fro
m you.”
Her expression betrayed her surprise.
“Think I’m joking?” His free hand felt for hers and tangled with it. “I don’t want to get involved with you,” he added shortly.
“Then why are you holding my hand?” she asked with exasperated humor.
“My hand’s cold.”
She burst out laughing. His hand was warmer than hers.
He glanced at her and grinned. “That’s better. We were getting morose.”
“I see.”
“You don’t.” He drew in a long breath. “I’ve got complications. Lots of them. I haven’t been serious about a woman since my wife died, and I can’t get serious.” He glanced at her again. “I’d like to. But it’s not possible. Not yet.”
“I have complications, too,” she said.
“Yours aren’t a problem,” he said, and meant it. “You really do need to enroll in a martial arts class. It will give you self-confidence. You’re the least assertive person I’ve known, since Maria,” he added softly. “It’s a trait I love. But it’s not good for you.”
“You can’t change people.”
“I don’t want to change you. I just want you to be confident enough to say no to people.”
“Like you?”
He chuckled. “Now, when have I done anything that you need to say no to, rubia?” he teased.
“Nothing, I guess.”
“Exactly.” His fingers toyed with hers. “So we’ll be friends. For the time being, at least.”
She looked out the window, but she was troubled.
“Now what’s going through that quick mind?” he asked.
“I’m not modern,” she began hesitantly.
“I’m not modern, either,” he replied. “I don’t talk about personal things much. But my wife was like you, very innocent. I waited until we were married. I wouldn’t have disgraced her for anything in the world. She came from a very religious family. In fact,” he added quietly, “so did I. I lost my parents when I was just ten. I came here to live with my grandfather, in Jacobsville. He was a great old gentleman. Crusty, but with a soft center. He raised me to believe that good character was far more important than wealth. And he took me to Mass every Sunday. Even when I didn’t want to go,” he added with a chuckle.