John had come to group the people in his life into three categories. Everyone who was either in awe of or feared him called him Big John. Everyone who liked him—at least sometimes—called him J.P. And the few who wished he’d never crossed their paths called him Paladin. Right now he knew there were only two members in that second group.
“Sure. I’m great,” he muttered. “I get my kicks out of driving all the way to town to ask total strangers to take care of my kid while I hunt down my wife. It doesn’t faze me at all when my best friend not only refuses to help me, but threatens to arrest me for making a disturbance in a public facility.”
“All I said was that we couldn’t put out a missing person’s bulletin for twenty-four hours,” Bud replied as though indifferent to the edge in John’s voice. “And that I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to be chasing all over the country for Celene when you had greater responsibilities here.” The quiet-mannered cop hunched more deeply into the collar of his down jacket and eyed the makeshift car seat. His expression appeared to stay the same except that the raindrops on his glasses seemed to twinkle a bit more. “Whatcha gonna do about the tyke, guy?”
John’s glower intensified. “Thought I’d put him in the pen with the other new calves until he’s weaned, but I’m open to suggestions. You want to lend me Kay for about ten years?”
“I’d rather eat my mother-in-law’s rhubarb pie three times a day for the rest of my life.”
“Hmph. You think so? You should have sampled some of the junk I’ve eaten lately. Rhubarb pie doesn’t sound so bad at the moment.”
“Be careful for what you ask, old son. Lucille’s only a phone call away.”
John glanced over at his boy and sighed. “I know you think I’m slightly unhinged at the moment, Bud, and that you have to watch over me like some big guard dog to protect me from myself, but can you cut me some slack?”
“You’re making that damned difficult.”
“What are you talking about?” He’d thought Bud was going to write him up for the makeshift car seat. Surely he wasn’t accusing him of something worse, like having been drinking?
As though he’d read his mind, Bud tilted his head toward the road ahead. “Look where you pulled over.”
John glanced beyond Bud’s left shoulder—and groaned inwardly. He’d guessed wrong. It was worse than he’d imagined.
Cripes.
He’d stopped right before the turnoff to Dana’s place. Eat crackers and whistle, he thought, feeling several times the fool.
“Innocent enough mistake, old pard,” Bud continued, sounding suspiciously calm all of a sudden. “Once you get away from town and landmarks, one road starts to look like another.”
“Stuff it,” John barked, reaching for the last ounce of his self-control. “The boy was fussing, so I pulled over.”
“Is that so? For a minute there, I was worrying that you might have had something else in mind. Something as foolish as when you got involved with Celene. That’s what made me decide to follow you out of the hospital in the first place. You haven’t been in any shape to think clearly in a while, J.P.”
As he spoke he’d been glancing around the interior of the cab, making it impossible for John to miss his meaning. His truck looked the way his stomach, he, felt—a mess. Neglected. Chronically abused. Falling apart. Because he knew it was the truth, John’s mood grew even more caustic.
“You gonna stand out there and catch pneumonia for the sheer pleasure of irritating me some more? You already told me back at the hospital that there was nothing I could do about Celene, so either give me a ticket, or bug off,” he snapped, hating the whole embarrassing situation. Regardless of what some people thought, he wasn’t all quick temper and impulsiveness. Well, not always. At least he preferred to keep his personal problems to himself as much as possible. “You’re gonna get my boy sick with that wind blowing in here.”
“You should have thought of that before you took him out in the first place. But,” Bud added more kindly, “I’ll let you go, provided you fill me in on what your plans are once I turn around and head back to town.”
The man was clever. Sneaky. Low-down. He’d once told Bud that he had the personality of a fox. Now he decided his friend had taken the analogy too seriously.
“Up yours, compadre.”
“I could always haul you in on a DWI.”
It took all of John’s control not to lunge out through the half-lowered window. “You know damned well that I haven’t had a drink in—”
“Ah-ah-ah.”
“Since the day John, Jr. was born,” he snarled.
“A whole ten days, good job. Because with a great-looking boy like that, it wouldn’t make sense to stick your ornery neck out any farther than it already is. Understand?”
“Remind me to call you if ever I have a massive coronary,” John muttered sarcastically. “It would be comforting to know someone was around who would be sympathetic.”
Bud straightened somewhat and looked up and down the road. “I am sympathetic, J.P., but you’ve gotta pull it together now.”
Feeling another surge of panic and frustration, John replied with a snort. “For what?”
“For that new life beside you, you big lummox! The one who didn’t do a danged thing to deserve this, but who’s stuck having to live with what you’ve helped create for him.”
John felt Bud’s words reverberate through him. No matter how annoyed he became with his friend, the truth remained irrefutable.
“I know you’re right but…I don’t know what to do,” he whispered to the dashboard, afraid to be heard, afraid he wouldn’t be.
“What do you want to do?” came the gruff, though empathetic question.
He didn’t have to think about the answer at all, although five minutes ago he’d had something far more vengeful in the forefront of his mind. “File for a divorce and get full custody of my kid as soon as possible.”
“Anything else?”
“Raise him to be a better man than his father,” he said grimly, only to add with no small anxiety, “but…I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Take it one step at a time, friend.”
John wanted to nod; instead he gripped the steering wheel. “There’s something else, too. I want to get Dana back.”
Several long, weighted seconds passed. “You’ve never had Dana, John,” came Bud’s reluctant reply. “Not any more than my kid ever possessed that orphan fawn the year we rented that place near your east boundary. Some wounded things can’t learn to trust again after they’ve been damaged.”
Everything Bud said was true, and he should know; he was one of the few in town who understood exactly how rough a childhood Dana had experienced. Frustrated and often left feeling helpless due to his youth, John had used Bud as a sounding board. But that was then. Donnal was long gone and as far as John was concerned, nothing was over until it was over. This conviction strengthened his resolve, was the steel that kept his spine straight.
He felt Bud’s stare for another few seconds and then his friend swore under his breath. “Well then, stop turning my road into a parking lot while I’m standing out here like a drowning fool. You turn that way,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
Farm-to-Market Road 5555. Like all the nonexistent telephone numbers on TV shows, this one ricocheted through John’s mind like a UFO streaking for home, triggering memories that were not all good. Not hardly.
“She may not want to see me,” he said, thinking of that last ugly scene between them. It had been the evening before he’d left for the stock sale in Abilene and driven by jealousy and fear, he’d jumped to some terrible conclusions about her and Guy Munroe.
“Probably not,” Bud agreed. “I said she was cautious, not stupid.”
John shot his friend a withering look. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“I’m paid to uphold the law for all of my constituents. The fact that deep down I may have hoped you and Dana could h
ave overcome both of your backgrounds and created something special together is beside the point.”
Hearing him speak in the past tense wasn’t reassuring, either. “You don’t believe it’s still possible?”
Bud wrinkled his nose. His dripping glasses inched back up the bridge a bit. “You were always too much for her to handle, my friend. Now there’s two of you Paladins. What do you think? Either way,” he added, angling his head so that the collected rainwater sluiced off the rim of his Stetson, “you keep your temper in check, hear?”
“I never hurt her the way her father did, and I never would.” He knew Bud would understand his dangerously soft tone.
“No man can say what he’d do in a moment of passion, John. Fact is, you never erased the look of wariness in her eyes. Could be you even made it worse. I have seen you lose control enough not to care how badly you upset her. So I’m telling you outright, don’t make me have to choose between you.”
Maybe Bud was within his boundaries to read him the riot act, but that didn’t mean John had to like it. “Go dry off,” he said, shifting into gear again. “You won’t have to worry about any—calls this afternoon. At least not any from her place.”
The lawman straightened and held up his hands in surrender. “Having your word on that makes me feel a lot better. Thanks, J.P…. and good luck.”
As his friend returned to his car, John rolled up his window and turned left onto Dana’s street. Ironically his shaking had stopped, but now the rock he perpetually seemed to carry in his chest suddenly began slamming against his breastbone like a medieval battering ram.
Had he been intending to do this all along? What did that make him—besides a jerk for blowing his chances with her in the first place? He gripped the steering wheel more firmly. How was she going to react? Would he see at least a flash of joy in those beautiful brown eyes of hers?
A soft mewing sound rose from the box.
“We can’t ask for a miracle right off,” he said, his gaze locking on the house. “It may take some time and even more work. She was pretty upset the last time I saw her, but I promise you this, little guy, if there’s a snowball’s chance in, er, never mind. Just trust me. One look at you and she’ll be hooked. I promise you’ll have a momma—the best—before all this is over.”
But he didn’t feel quite so confident as he eyed Dana’s home. He’d hated the small white frame house even more than their former dwelling from the moment he’d heard that she’d planned to buy it for herself and her mother. He’d understood the frustration she’d been experiencing with spending money on rent, but had believed he’d had a better idea. Only she’d rejected it. Rejected him.
The place looked somewhat better now. In the two plus years she’d been living there, she’d planted shrubs and repainted the cottage. The trim was now an attractive country blue instead of the ugly medicinal pink it had been. Nevertheless, John still disliked the house, having always hated anything that gave Dana more independence or responsibility. Both had done their share in keeping them apart.
As he pulled into her driveway, he eyed the sign swaying in the wind. Bookkeeping & Tax Service. Dana had established the business five years ago, right after college. She’d needed a job where she could work from home and still care for her arthritic mother. Since not everyone needed the services of a full-fledged certified public accountant, she’d developed a modest clientele quickly, leaving her with plenty of time to devote to her increasingly incapacitated parent.
After her mother’s death and his subsequent marriage, John had heard that Dana had taken on even more accounts. That could create a problem, he thought, shutting off the truck’s engine.
“Well, first let’s see what kind of reception we get,” he said, releasing the safety belt from around the box. Deciding the baby was better off left inside it, John picked up the box like a hamper of clothes and climbed out of his truck. Then he negotiated the puddles and mounted the front steps.
As he rang the doorbell, he noticed his hand was steadier than ever. Odd, he thought, since he suddenly felt more anxious than any time previously in his life. What if she slammed the door in his face? What if she looked through the peephole and refused to even acknowledge his presence?
He stared into it, willing her not to resist him. The maneuver must have worked because seconds later the door swung open.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Carl, I was on the—” The apology and the smile of welcome on her face were both cut off abruptly as she saw he wasn’t the person she’d been expecting. The folder she’d begun to pass to him trembled in her hand. Quickly she drew it against her chest like a shield.
“Hello, Dana,” he offered gruffly.
Her stunned gaze went from him to the box, then back up to him, finally turning steely. “You bastard,” she whispered.
It wasn’t, he concluded, the most reassuring of starts.
Chapter Two
S lam the door, Dana told herself. Shut it now, before it’s too late.
She didn’t want to see how awful he looked. She didn’t want to pay attention to what he held in his arms. She didn’t want to let him slip under her defenses again, or make the mistake of letting him know how much the mere sight of him affected her.
“You have your nerve” was all that she could manage.
The comment left him looking even more haunted, more miserable. “I know,” he replied gruffly. “But could I come in and talk to you for a minute?”
Her front stoop offered no protection from the weather, and as furious as she was with John Paladin, Dana knew it would take a heart much harder than hers to keep a newborn infant out in the rain. She wasn’t, however, thrilled with being put in this predicament. Her look mutinous, she stepped back to admit them.
Actually she felt like the weather, gray and dreary. Since she hadn’t been expecting any clients, except Carl Hyatt, who was supposed to pick up his reconciled bank statement, she’d put on the drab, pumice gray tunic and leggings for comfort and warmth, not appearance. On the other hand, she supposed she looked ten times better than the giant dripping all over her entry rug.
Despite the shadow caused by his Stetson and the perpetual tan from endless days in the sun and wind, his strong-featured, wide-planed face was more gaunt than she’d ever seen it. Those dark brown eyes that had troubled more than a few of her dreams now possessed an almost sunken quality, and even his full beard and mustache couldn’t hide the deep lines that bracketed his hard mouth. This wasn’t the face of a thirty-year-old man. What’s more, she was shocked to see the changes in the six-foot-three-inch body that had once made high school and college football coaches rub their hands with glee. In the months since she’d last seen him, he’d turned into a shadow of his former self.
“You look good, Dana.”
“You look like hell,” she muttered, not caring if it did make her sound ungracious. Blast the man, regardless of his reasons for coming here.
“Yeah, well, it’s turning out to be a rough day. A rough year.”
She lifted an eyebrow, determined to retain her dignity, no matter what. “Don’t tell me the honeymoon’s over already?”
“You know there wasn’t any honeymoon.”
“Of course. What could I have been thinking?” she declared, touching her palm to her forehead. “You two had yours before the wedding.”
“There wasn’t any wedding. There was a ceremony to take care of legalities. And to set the record straight once and for all, there wasn’t any love in our marriage, either,” he added, his features resembling a volcano ready to explode. “I told you—”
“Yes, you told me,” Dana said quickly, more concerned with avoiding another barrage of excuses than worrying about his temper. “And I told you when you came over the day you got back from Abilene that I wanted nothing more to do with you. That means you have no business being here now.”
She thought it was a pretty fair declaration of independence under the circumstances…until he shifted his hold
on the in his arms and she was forced to take a closer look at what he was carrying his baby in. Suddenly she forgot everything she’d said. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t carry around a child in that thing!”
He shifted, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “Believe me, that’s been pointed out to me already, but it was all I had at the moment. Would you like to meet my son?”
“No.” She backed away a step and clasped her hands behind her. Getting up close and personal with his flesh and blood was the last thing she needed to do. Bad enough her curiosity threatened to drive her crazy.
“Okay, but I need to give him a bit of air.” He looked around as though trying to decide where to put down the box. “Do you mind if I, er…?”
Dana wanted to resist helping him. Unfortunately, this being her house, she didn’t exercise that option. “The couch is fine,” she finally told him.
She couldn’t help feeling resentful. Set up. As far as she was concerned, they’d finished with each other the day before he’d left for Abilene. But when he cast a dubious look at his soggy, muddy boots and then at her rose-colored carpet, she grew even more agitated. “For heaven’s sake, it’s a little late to worry about dirt. Just do it.”
As he crossed over to the green-and-rose print couch by the wall, Dana wrapped her arms around her waist. She wasn’t surprised at having to fight a feeling of emptiness. Since the day she’d heard he’d married, and why, she’d been dreading this moment. Now that it was here, she didn’t know if she could handle it.
His child…She’d known John Paladin from the time she’d been an inexperienced, shy sixteen and he a larger-than-life twenty. Despite efforts to ignore her contradictory feelings for him during a goodly portion of that time, she’d succumbed to more than a few fantasies. Fantasies such as imagining what it would be like to be possessed by him…to conceive a baby with him and carry his child…to share a life with him.
She’d blamed those daydreams—disaster dreams she called them now—along with her tendency toward melancholia on her Irish genes, the same excuse her mother had ascribed to her father’s drinking and temper. These days she knew better; she’d merely been a fool. But she was trying to change! Surprise visits made that darned difficult, though.
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