Winter Roses

by Diana Palmer

“Well, not in most ways. Come on. Let’s go.”

  Life was sweet again. Ivy forgot the cartel, Rachel’s burial, everything as she and Stuart dropped her car off at the sheriff’s office.

  “I wondered why she wasn’t staying with you,” Hayes commented to Stuart. “She and Merrie have been friends forever.”

  “We had a misunderstanding,” Stuart replied. He caught Ivy’s hand in his, to make the point, just in case Hayes had missed it. “But we’ve cleared things up. Merrie’s coming home for a few days, too. Chayce and I, and the boys, will make sure Ivy’s safe.”

  Hayes grinned wickedly. “What about the pretty debutante?”

  Stuart raised an eyebrow. “Her fiancé is waiting for her back in Houston.”

  “Oh,” Hayes remarked, with a speculative look at Ivy, who flushed.

  “Thanks for letting me keep my car here,” Ivy said. “I was worried about leaving it at my boarding house.”

  “No problem,” Hayes said. “It might work to our advantage if they think you’re staying here in my office.” He grinned. “In fact, I hope they do think it. I’ll call Cash and tell him, too.”

  “Let me know if you catch anyone,” Ivy asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Will he really call me, do you think, if he catches somebody?” Ivy asked as they drove to Stuart’s house.

  “I imagine so. You’re involved, whether you want to be or not.” He took her hand in his and held it tightly. “I found out something else in New York that I didn’t share with Hayes.”

  “What?” she asked, certain that it was something unpleasant.

  “The millionaire was concerned enough to hire a private detective. He shadowed Rachel before she took the overdose. She led him to one of the bigger names in drug distribution in the country. The detective said that she was black mailing the man with information she’d gleaned from her boy friend. She’d hidden the evidence, and nobody could find out where.”

  “Did they kill her?” she asked worriedly.

  “It wouldn’t have been wise to do that, considering that they didn’t know exactly what she had on them, or where it was kept.”

  “She’d used drugs for years,” she argued. “She wouldn’t have taken an overdose deliberately.”

  “There were no signs of force on her body,” he replied. “I checked with the medical examiner.”

  “Then, how…?”

  “They did a toxicology screen, though,” he added. “The stuff she injected was a hundred percent pure. She used too much.”

  “Did she have help using too much?” she asked warily.

  “Her boy friend was right in the middle of her schemes,” he said. “It’s possible that he deliberately gave her the pure drug, instead of the drug that had been cut, to save himself. He might not have known about the evidence she had. He might have thought she was bluffing. She would have used her regular dose, which was fatal because of the substitution. It would still look like suicide.”

  “Tough luck for him, if it’s true,” she said curtly. “Because when the drug pipeline gets shut down by the DEA, they’re going to want to punish someone, and he’s the only one left alive that they can get to. If he lives, he may wish he’d died.”

  “Yes.” He glanced at her. “Poetic justice, you might say.”

  She had to agree that it was. “Poor Rachel,” she said, shaking her head. “She was always greedy.”

  “Always.” He squeezed her hand. “She was at that party with Hayes’s brother Bobby, you know,” he added. “She knew the dealers and where to get the drugs, and she had a case on Bobby at the time because he was rich. She might have thought she was doing him a favor, so when it went bad, she put it around that Minette did the dirty work.”

  “That would be like her,” she agreed. “But Hayes still thinks Minette did it.”

  “God knows why,” he said. “Minette sings in the choir at church, teaches a Sunday school class and she’s never had so much as a speeding ticket. She never even knew any kids who were on the wrong side of the law.”

  “Hayes is blind when it comes to her,” she said.

  He smiled. “Men tend to be that way when they’re afraid of being caught,” he told her. “Freedom becomes a religion when you’re over thirty.”

  “I guess most men don’t want to settle down.”

  “Oh, we do, eventually. Especially when we realize that some other man might be poaching on our territory.” He glanced at her. “I was ready to punch Hayes.”

  She felt her cheeks go hot. She smiled. “Were you?”

  “Are you sure there’s nothing between you?” he persisted.

  “I’m very sure,” she replied, linking her fingers closer into his.

  He smiled.

  Merrie was already at the house when they got there, to Ivy’s faint disappointment. She’d hoped to have some time alone with Stuart.

  He got out and opened her door, helping her out. He led her up the steps, leaving the car in the driveway.

  “I didn’t believe him when he told me,” Merrie teased, hugging her friend.

  “I still can’t,” Ivy confessed, with a shy glance at Stuart.

  “Come on in,” Merrie said. “Mrs. Rhodes has already made some tea cakes and coffee for us.”

  “I’d love something hot to drink,” Ivy replied. “It was cold at the cemetery.”

  “I would have been there, too, if I’d known,” Merrie said gently. “I just got here about twenty minutes ago. I’m sorry about Rachel.”

  “Me, too,” Ivy replied. “I wish she’d made better choices in her life.”

  “I hope that information she furnished helps close doors around here for the drug trade,” Stuart said as he sat beside Ivy on the sofa. “It’s more dangerous than ever when you have two factions fighting for supremacy.”

  “Rachel actually turned informant?” Merrie exclaimed.

  “She did,” Ivy replied, and told her the whole story, interrupted briefly by Mrs. Rhodes bearing a silver tray with coffee and tea cakes, milk and sugar and china.

  “But why did Hayes take you to Minette’s house?” Merrie asked curiously. “He hates her.”

  “I wouldn’t take any bets on that,” Stuart replied, munching on a tea cake.

  “They’re very explosive together,” Ivy said warily.

  Merrie sighed. “I had a feeling about that,” she confessed. She grinned. “I had a real crush on Hayes when I was about sixteen, but I’m not stupid enough to think we’d do well as a couple. We’re too different. Besides,” she confessed with a shy smile, “there’s a very handsome divorced doctor I work with at the hospital.”

  “Tell me all about him,” Ivy coaxed.

  Stuart finished his coffee and stood up. “I’ll pass,” he said with a grin. “I have things to do. Don’t go away,” he told Ivy.

  “I won’t,” she promised.

  He winked at her, leaving her flushed and delighted.

  “I still can’t believe it!” Merrie exclaimed when he’d gone out of earshot. “You and my brother! I thought you hated each other!”

  “So did I,” Ivy confessed. “I’ve loved him since I was eighteen.”

  “I think he feels something similar. He was livid about seeing you around town with Hayes. No man gets that mad about a woman he hates.” She laughed. “You can’t imagine how relieved I was! I was sure you were falling for Hayes, and I knew that he and Minette were passionate about hating each other. One day, mark my words, there’s going to be an explosion between the two of them. I didn’t want you to be hurt,” she added gently.

  Ivy felt the relief all the way to her toes. She just smiled. “Thanks. But I wasn’t kidding when I said Hayes was a friend. I’ve loved Stuart forever, it seems. I can’t believe he feels the same.”

  Merrie chuckled. “I can.”

  Ivy leaned forward. “Well, now that we’ve got Hayes out of the way, tell me about this sexy doctor you work with!”

  After supper, Merrie discreetly went up
stairs to watch a movie on pay-per-view with Mrs. Rhodes while Stuart went into his study with Ivy and closed the door. As an after thought, he locked it behind him.

  Ivy was nervous and delighted, all at once, as he drew her into his arms.

  “I’m starving,” he whispered as his mouth covered hers.

  She realized quickly that he wasn’t talking about food. She held on for dear life and kissed him back with her whole heart. She felt him lift her, carry her, to the long leather sofa. He put her down on it and joined her, drawing her completely against his powerful body.

  She shivered at the sensations that rose like a flood, almost searing her as passion consumed them both.

  He ground her hips into his, groaning when she jerked and gasped into his demanding mouth. She made no protest at all when she felt his lean hands go under her blouse, against her bare skin.

  “Your body is softer than silk,” he breathed into her mouth. “Warm and sweet to touch. I want you, Ivy.”

  She wanted him, too, but they were getting in over their heads and she was an old-fashioned woman. She grew more nervous as his ardor in creased. Helpless, she stiffened.

  He hesitated, lifting his head to look down into her wide, apprehensive eyes. His own narrowed. “Yes,” he whispered. “You want me. You’d give in, if I asked you to. But you don’t want it to happen like this, do you?”

  She swallowed, knowing she might lose him forever if she told the truth. “I…I was raised to believe that some things are still wrong even if the whole world says they’re right.”

  She looked up at him nervously, waiting for him to get up and walk out, or just to make some sarcastic comment. He was a worldly man in his thirties. He’d said he wasn’t a marrying man, and she wasn’t capable of sleeping with him out of wedlock. Her heart fell to her knees. She couldn’t go on living if she lost him, now. What would she do? Her eyes pleaded with his as the silence grew around them. It was, truly, the moment of truth.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AND then, when Ivy was certain she’d lost, Stuart began to smile. It wasn’t a sarcastic smile, either. He rolled over onto his side and traced patterns on her soft, swollen mouth. His shirt was open and her fingers were tangled in the thick hair that covered his chest. She didn’t remember unfastening buttons, but she must have. Her own blouse and bra were down around her waist.

  “I told you, I don’t seduce virgins,” he whispered deeply.

  “I remember,” she whispered back.

  “I do, however, marry them,” he murmured against her lips.

  Her eyes widened. “You want to…to marry me?”

  He kissed her eyelids closed. “Of course I do,” he replied huskily. “I wanted you when you were just eighteen. I’ve gone almost out of my mind wanting you since then, and hating myself for it. You’re so young, Ivy,” he told her, hugging her close. “But I can’t live without you.”

  She clung to him, burying her face in his warm throat. “I can’t live without you, either, Stuart,” she confessed on a broken sob. “I love you…!”

  His mouth stopped the words. He kissed her until her mouth was sore and they were both on the verge of surrender.

  Whether it was by accident or by design, a loud knock at the door announced Merrie.

  “Who wants cake and ice cream?” she called.

  Stuart laughed. “Both of us!” he called back, winking at Ivy, who was delightfully flushed.

  “Coming right up. You two coming out to get it?”

  Stuart made a face. “Sure,” he replied.

  “Okay! Five minutes!”

  Her foot steps died away.

  Stuart’s eyes began to glitter wickedly as he eased Ivy onto her back and slid over her. “Five whole minutes,” he murmured against her soft mouth. “Let’s make the best of them, sweet heart.”

  They did, too.

  Amid plans for a big, society wedding that Ivy really didn’t want, Chief Cash Grier and Sheriff Hayes Carson came to talk to Ivy. Stuart had gone out onto the ranch because there was a problem with some equipment, and Merrie was in town ordering invitations and a wedding cake.

  Mrs. Rhodes led them into the living room, where Ivy was making a list of people she wanted to invite to the wedding.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked them, smiling as she offered them chairs around the big, open fireplace that was blazing, cozy and warm in the large room.

  “We thought you might like to know how things are going since we got Rachel’s packet of information,” Hayes told her.

  “Would I ever!” she replied.

  “It turns out that her boyfriend’s main supplier was from Jacobsville,” Cash Grier said. “Do you remember back last year when two of my patrol officers arrested a drunk politician and his daughter slandered me in the press?”

  “Everybody remembers that,” she said.

  “Well, his daughter, Julie Merrill, was up to her neck in drug trafficking, along with the two commissioners who resigned from the city council and vanished.”

  “Julie was arrested and accused of arson for trying to burn down Libby Collins’s house, wasn’t she?” she replied. “And then she skipped bond and vanished, about the same time that Dominguez woman took over Manuel Lopez’s old drug territory.”

  “Good memory, Ivy,” Hayes chuckled.

  “Better than mine,” Cash agreed, grinning. “Anyway, we couldn’t find her anyplace and, believe me, we looked. So this information Rachel left pointed to a hotel in downtown San Antonio where one of her drug-dealing boyfriend’s contacts lived. Guess who the contact turned out to be?”

  “Julie Merrill?!”

  “The very same,” Cash told her. “We’ve got her in custody. She’s lodged in the county jail awaiting arraignment.”

  “Will that shut down the drug trade locally?” Ivy asked. “And what about those two councilmen?”

  “They’re still hiding out somewhere,” Hayes drawled. “But we’ll turn them up sooner or later. Meanwhile, Dominguez has a successor.”

  “Do you know who it is?” she asked.

  Cash and Hayes glanced at each other and some silent message passed between them. “We have an idea,” Cash said. “We’re working on proof. One of Cy Parks’s old friends is going to help us out. He’s a Mexican national with some long-held grudges.”

  “Rodrigo Ramirez,” Ivy murmured thoughtfully.

  “How do you know about him?” Cash asked suspiciously.

  “I know Colby Lane’s new wife, Sarina,” she said. “She mentioned that Colby and Rodrigo had some, shall we say, problems during the time they were working on breaking the Dominguez case.”

  “Translated,” Hayes said with a droll smile at Cash, “that means that Colby and Rodrigo could hardly stay in the same room together without exchanging threats of violence.”

  “Well, Rodrigo and Sarina had been partners for three years, after all,” Cash pointed out.

  “Yes, well, Colby and Sarina had been married and had a child together. Anyway,” Hayes continued, “we have a lead on where Dominguez’s lieutenant, who’s taking over the Culebra cartel, is hiding out. Rodrigo’s going to infiltrate it.”

  “What’s Sarina going to say to that?” Ivy asked. “She and Rodrigo worked together busting up Dominguez’s operation. Sarina’s DEA, too, you know.”

  Cash chuckled. “Cobb doesn’t want to let her resign. He says she can go under cover as Rodrigo’s contact. Colby wants her to work for me. So do I,” he added. “I only have one investigator, and it’s a big county. I was hoping that she’d start right away. But Cobb offered her this peach of a case and she walked right over Colby and took it.”

  “Colby’s really crazy about her,” Ivy mentioned.

  “Yes, and vice versa,” Cash said. He sighed. “Well, maybe one day Colby will find a way to convince her to resign. Meanwhile, he and Bernadette hold down the fort on their ranch in Jacobsville while Sarina works nights.”

  “Is he still teaching tactics for Eb Scott?” she asked
.

  They nodded. “There was one other confession in Rachel’s papers,” Cash added slowly. “We thought you ought to know. She admitted that she gave Bobby Carson the drug that killed him.”

  Ivy’s gasp was audible. She glanced at Hayes, whose face was as closed as a clam shell. “She confessed? But why?”

  “Who knows?” Cash replied. “Maybe she had a premonition. Whatever her reason, she made amends for a lot of bad things she’d done in her life.”

  “Was there anything about me?” Ivy wanted to know. She hadn’t even asked to read the papers, certain that they were all about drug trafficking and not about personal matters.

  Cash hesitated.

  “No,” Hayes replied quietly. “She just noted that she guessed all her things would go to her sister at her death. It wasn’t a will. She wasn’t planning to die. But she knew that black mailing drug lords is an iffy business. I guess she wanted to make the point.”

  Ivy felt her heart sink. She’d hoped for more than that.

  “Don’t lie to her,” Cash said coldly. “Telling the truth is always the best way, even if it seems brutal.” He looked at Ivy. “She said she’d told her boy friend that you’d have all the black mail information in case something happened to her.”

  “Dear God!” Ivy exclaimed, feeling sick.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” Hayes said curtly.

  “It was,” Cash disagreed. “Mean people don’t usually change, Ivy,” he added. “If anything, they get meaner. She put you in the line of fire deliberately by telling Jerry Smith she’d given you the evidence.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she said sadly. “She always hated me, from the time I was old enough to know who she was. My life was hell when I was a child.”

  Hayes pursed his lips. “Not anymore,” he mused. “I noticed that Merrie York was at the engravers ordering wedding invitations this morning for you and Stuart.”

  She burst out laughing. “There’s no such thing as a secret in Jacobsville.”

  “Damned straight,” Cash agreed. “Are we getting invited?”

  “Everybody’s getting invited,” Ivy replied with a smile. “I would have liked to elope, but Stuart says we’re going to have all the trimmings.”