At twenty-three, Phoebe was dedicated, smart and ambitious. Grady figured she was after his job. She’d probably have it someday, but not until he was ready to give it up. He was acting sheriff while elected sheriff Warren Drummond was on medical leave after a heart attack. But he would probably retire early, since his health was unlikely to permit him to return to the demanding job.
“My observations are that Maggie and Jack are friends.”
Phoebe shook her head and slid him a pitying look. “If that isn’t just like a man.”
“You want to elaborate on that?”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Let me rephrase. What does that mean, Deputy?”
“It means you wouldn’t know a romance in progress if it sashayed up and hit you in the head with a two-by-four.”
He grinned. She had a way with words and didn’t mince any of them. Not unlike a sassy brunette he couldn’t seem to get out of his mind. Thoughts of Jensen had kept him awake tossing and turning.
“I seriously doubt that there’s anything going on between Jack and Maggie. Like I said, friends.”
“That’s not what Ginger Applewhite said.”
Ginger clerked at Charlie’s Tractor Supply for her owner husband. “What did she say and how did she know?”
Phoebe sighed. “She told me Jack O’Hunk stuck like gum on a boot heel to Maggie at the high school championships last night. Then today he shows up in town and disappears inside her shop. When they come out, he’s not carrying a bag, which means he didn’t purchase anything. So it was personal. Then they wind up having lunch together. What would you call that?”
“Circumstantial evidence.”
“Not to me. It’s love, plain and simple.”
“There’s nothing plain and simple about love.”
Jensen was walking, talking, curvaceous, sexy proof of that statement. He didn’t believe in love, but she’d spent a lot of years pining for a guy who wasn’t worth the powder it would take to blow him to hell. What was plain and simple about that? Or the fact that Grady couldn’t seem to get her out of his mind.
He might have been able to—at least, he’d have had a fighting chance if he hadn’t been dumb enough to kiss her. What was that all about? And could he take it back?
But there was something about the way she’d looked standing on the porch in the moonlight. Something about the vulnerability peeking through the tough outer shell around her when she’d told him about the night Zach died. Something sad and brave that had tugged at him and made him want to fix what ailed her. Even though she’d tried to shrug it off, he knew the bull-riding accident had shaken her up.
He knew it as surely as he knew staying far away from her should be his modus operandi. Hard to do, considering her determination to help. He wished she would just leave it alone.
Phoebe tipped her head to the side as she studied him. “Is that experience talking? Macho baloney? Or are you just a confirmed bachelor?”
“The latter.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Me, too.”
“You? By gender definition you can’t be a bachelor. Besides, I thought your motto was So Many Guys, So Little Time.”
She smiled, a dazzling display of full lips and straight white teeth. “You heard that, huh? It’s not that so much as my life is steady and on course. I don’t need a—how can I put this? A nasty speed bump.”
“Me, either.”
Her gaze swung past his shoulder as she looked out the big window on downtown Destiny’s main street. “Don’t look now, but here comes one. A speed bump, I mean.”
Grady half turned and heard a car horn honk as he spotted Jensen hesitate while she waited to see if the truck would stop for her. When it did, she hurried across the street. There was no hesitation as she opened the door to his office and came in. Her green eyes held anger, betrayal and confusion.
He straightened and went to her. “What’s wrong, Jen?”
“I need to talk to you.”
He took her arm and studied her. She was wearing a short-sleeved, light blue denim shirt tucked into jeans. He’d seen her legs in last night’s sundress and somehow covering them seemed even more sexy, hiding her curves yet outlining them at the same time. After the way he’d left her last night, he hadn’t expected she would voluntarily seek him out. His gut tightened and a knot of apprehension pressed on his chest.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m so not okay.” She looked at Phoebe.
“Jensen Stevens, this is one of my deputies, Phoebe Johnson.”
The redhead nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
Jen’s polite smile was strained. “Same here.” She looked up at him. “Is there somewhere private we could have this conversation?”
He put his hand at the small of her back. “Let’s go in my office. Hold my calls unless someone’s bleeding or on fire,” he said to his deputy.
“You got it, boss.”
He guided Jen down the hall and felt her trembling. What in the world was wrong? They passed three offices. When they reached the fourth, he turned her inside and closed the door behind them. His gray metal desk was littered with files and scattered papers. The computer monitor was on, displaying data from an unsuccessful search he’d initiated just that morning into the background of Billy Bob Adams. Unfortunately he’d turned up nothing of any use, which was why he’d asked for Jack Riley’s help earlier at lunch. His old friend had been in the army—Special Forces. And a computer expert. Grady figured he could go places a small-town sheriff like himself couldn’t. Especially with equipment from the Stone Age—relatively speaking.
“Sit down, Jen,” he suggested, indicating one of the chairs in front of his desk. The metal frames with plastic-covered seats and backs didn’t invite visitors to stay long. But it was all he could offer.
“I don’t want to sit.”
“Suit yourself.” He took off his hat and placed it on the paperwork strewn across his desk. Then he rested a hip on the corner and folded his arms over his chest. “What can I do for you?”
Her eyes darkened to a shade of hunter green. “You can tell me what my dead husband’s brother has to do with you and your children.”
He felt as if he’d been sucker punched. “What are you talking about?”
“I hope nothing more than Destiny gossip.”
“You’re going to have to be a shade more specific.”
“Someone overheard you talking to Jack Riley at the Road Kill Café a little while ago.”
“Small-town communication system strikes again,” he said grimly. “What about it?”
“The rumor is that Billy Bob Adams is the one suing you for custody of the girls.”
He would feel less cornered if he’d been pinned down by the Hole in the Wall gang. A million things came to mind that he would rather do than have this conversation. With a little two-stepping and a bucket of grease maybe he could slide out of it. “And?”
“Is it true?”
“It’s hearsay, Jen. Not permitted in a court of law.”
“Don’t patronize me, Grady. I know what hearsay is. I also know something felt weird from the time you got those papers.”
“I’ve never been sued before. Of course I acted weird.”
She wasn’t going to let it drop. She was going to force him to tell her something that would rock her world. It was like drop-kicking a kitten, and he was going to hate himself forever for doing it to her.
“Don’t you dare put your cop face on.” She glared at him and tension starched every line and curve of her body. “Billy Bob is Zach’s brother. Only a blood relative would have a chance of success in a case like this or no lawyer worth his salt would waste time with it. I need the truth, Grady. I need to know what’s going on.”
He let out a long breath. “Okay. You want it straight?”
“That’s what I just said. Why would my dead husband’s brother sue for custody of your children?”
“Because he’s their uncle, Jen. Zach is the twins’ biological father.”
Chapter Four
Jen felt as if a tornado had dropped out of the sky and caught her up in the funnel of its spinning power and destruction. A fissure opened up in the foundation of the life she’d created. She wanted to collapse in the chair he’d offered her a few moments ago, but she’d trained herself not to show weakness.
“I was his wife,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper no matter how much steel she tried to put in it. “I never heard anything of the kind. How could you say that?”
Grady ran a hand through his hair. “You don’t need to hear all the ugly details.”
“Yes, I do,” she snapped. “I need to know the truth. It’s been ten years and it’s about damn time, don’t you think?”
“What’s the point? He’s gone.”
“The point is he was my husband.” She rested a hand on the back of the chair and gripped so hard her fingers hurt. “I have to know what happened.”
He let out a long breath and looked at the ceiling as if for divine intervention. Time seemed to stand still. Finally he nodded. “Okay. You win. It was during the high school rodeo championships, the last time we were all together—you, me, Jack, Mitch, Dev, your little sister. One night a bunch of us went to the lake to party.”
She thought back to that year—the last time they’d all been together. Just before she’d run off and married Zach. Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t remember.”
“You weren’t there. It was me, Jack Riley, Dev Hart. Mitch had just gotten the old one-two from the Stevens sisters. You dumped him, then Taylor pushed him in the pool. He was ready to get some of that out of his system, and he rounded us up to go to the lake. There were a few girls. Lacey was one of them. I tried to get her to stay home, but she wouldn’t listen. Her dad wasn’t there and it was her chance to have a little fun.” He stopped. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
It was as if Jensen had been transported back in time. She recalled that she and Zach had argued about her refusal to “put out,” as he’d called it. He’d said he would find someone woman enough to give him what the all-around point winner was entitled to. Then he’d left.
Her heart pounded, palms grew slick and her legs turned to taffy. She steeled herself to show nothing.
“Go on,” she said, pleased that her voice barely shook.
He studied her carefully, as if he could see into her soul and how much hearing and remembering that painful time was tearing her apart. It was like taking a stubborn Band-Aid off a deep cut—the slower you tugged, the more it hurt.
“Get it over with.”
He nodded grimly. “We had a few beers. After competing in our events during the day, we let off steam at night. It was loud and crazy. Some of us wound up in the lake, splashing and hollering. Zach singled Lacey out.”
It was coming, the biggest hit of all. She sealed her emotions away under a glass dome and numbed herself. It was the only way she could continue to probe.
“What about Zach—and Lacey?”
“She’d come with me, over my protest. But I promised myself I’d look after her. When the party broke up, we found Lacey huddled in the bushes. He’d refused to take no for an answer. They call it date rape today.”
“No!”
He nodded. “We wanted to take him apart, but she wouldn’t let us. Said it would raise too many questions. She’d die if her father found out. She made us promise not to do anything.”
“But the twins? How can you know he…”
She couldn’t finish the statement. Zach had fathered them? How could those sweet little girls be the result of something so ugly?
“She was a virgin, Jen. And after that night she was never with anyone else.”
“How can you…”
“Know? I just do.” He ground out the words. “The last night of the championships you eloped with Zach. No one knew where you were. Lacey was desperate when she found out she was pregnant.”
“Oh, God…” She met his gaze. “Did Zach know?”
“Yes.” He stood and looked down at her. “And I’m surprised.”
“Join the club.”
“That’s not what I meant. You haven’t come straight out and called me a low-down, rotten liar.”
“I…” She swallowed hard. “How do you know for sure Zach did what you’re saying? That he knew about the baby?”
“Besides the fact that Lacey wouldn’t lie to me, he confirmed it. I saw him when he was back in town.”
She nodded. “We made it home for a couple of days in between rodeos.”
“I found Zach and his brother drinking beer one night behind Charlie’s Tractor Supply. It’s how Billy found out Lacey was pregnant and he was going to be an uncle.”
“You fought with Zach, didn’t you?” She remembered her husband had come home with a black eye, broken nose and split lip.
“Yeah.”
“Tell me everything, Grady.”
“Jen, there’s no point—”
“I need to know!” She raised her voice, so unlike her. But this was unlike anything she’d ever been through. The illusion of the man she’d married, lost and kept in her heart for all these years was disintegrating. She wanted answers, and she wanted them now. “I have to know, Grady. Everything.” Doubt and hesitation swirled in his blue eyes. “If you’re my friend, you’ll tell me the truth. All of it. Now. Please.”
“Okay,” he said, then let out a long breath. “He tried to tell me the baby wasn’t his, that she’d slept with other guys. That’s when I went after him.” Tension turned his jaw to granite. “She’d never been with anyone before. Zach forced her to do something she didn’t want to do, then he tried to make her cheap.” His voice was humming with anger, hard as nails.
She shivered, still unwilling to believe he was talking about Zach Adams. Her husband. The man she thought she’d known as well as she knew herself. This was a side to him she’d never seen. Or had she, and just ignored it?
Signs had begun to surface, a voice in the back of her mind said. Memories surged and twisted at the edge of her consciousness, but she didn’t want to acknowledge them. She’d buried the feelings along with her husband. There’d been no good reason to deal with them. He’d died. But if he hadn’t died, what then? What would have happened to their marriage?
Grady moved forward. Only the chair she still gripped stood between them. “Jen, he gloated that he didn’t have to take responsibility for the brat she was carrying because he was already married. He was proud of the fact he could duck any consequences.”
Guilt and pain twisted together in her gut. Had Zach urged her to run off with him because he’d wanted a shield from what he’d done? There was no way he could know a pregnancy would result. But still—
She looked up at Grady into blue eyes so cold she shivered. “He could have been held responsible for child support.”
He shook his head. “Lacey didn’t want that, or anything to do with him. She was afraid no one would believe her. She was scared of the gossip, the way everyone in town would look at her. She wasn’t strong like you. Delicate in body and spirit, like her name. Lacey.”
The soft look on his face almost made Jen jealous. What would it be like to be loved the way he’d loved her? she wondered.
“She didn’t want anyone, especially her father, to know what had happened to her. But she couldn’t hide the pregnancy. I found her running away after her dad found out she was going to have a baby.”
“And you married her. Because you loved her.”
“I married her,” he agreed. “We didn’t find out until just before the birth that she was having twins. Then after they were born, there were complications. Lacey had just enough time to reconcile with her dad and make us both promise to raise her daughters together before she died.”
Such a tragedy, she thought. Would Lacey still be alive if there hadn’t been so much trauma attached to the pregnancy?
She’d felt badly for Grady, losing his wife. He loved her so much, he’d married her in spite of the fact that she carried another man’s babies. Now he was raising them alone.
Jensen couldn’t think about it right now. Pain would wait. It always did. Sooner or later she would have to deal with it. But not yet. She would sort through it all later. What she had to do now was focus on the children. His daughters—Kasey and Stacey. Whatever had happened in the past didn’t matter. Grady raised them and loved them. He was their father. An uncle who hadn’t shown his face in Destiny for as long as she could remember was trying to take them away. It was wrong.
“I don’t recall much about Billy,” she said. “I haven’t seen him for over ten years.”
“Don’t be so sure. It’s been so long maybe you didn’t recognize him. I think he was the guy who made small talk with you and the girls at the rodeo last night. Toying with you. Devious little sleaze…” He stopped and let out a long breath.
She frowned, trying to picture the stranger. “I sure couldn’t pick him out in a lineup. I was distracted by the girls.” But she shivered; the whole scenario gave her the creeps. “Even ten years ago—I don’t have a memory of him.”
“He’s about four years younger than Zach. In trouble a lot trying to grab his share of attention from the fair-haired boy. Zach was a tough act to follow—first place in bull riding at the championships and all-around point winner. Billy had to get creative, since he didn’t have anything else going for him. Still, his folks were the kind who believed their kid could do no wrong.” He shrugged.
“Zach didn’t talk about him.”
Or much of anything else, she thought. That slipped out from under the protective seal over her feelings. It started to crack. Memories buried for years startled her. She pushed them away.
“Why now?” she asked. “The girls are nine years old. Why would he bring a custody suit now?”
“Who knows.”
“But I just don’t understand. Zach’s folks left Destiny after he died, and my sister let me know when they both passed away. I always assumed Billy had gone with them. What would make him surface here and now?”
What If We Fall in Love? Page 4