Montana Mavericks 04 - The Once and Future Wife

by Paige, Laurie

  Unable to resist, he caught her face between his hands and kissed her. A low growl of need escaped him. Every moment seemed to strengthen the bond between them.

  When he let her up for air, they stared into each other’s eyes, the passion plain to see. But there were other things there, too—the doubts and the questions.

  Where was this going? When would it end?

  The telephone on Tracy’s desk rang. She reached out and flicked on the speaker, her eyes still dazed from their embrace. A sense of pride pushed its way into his consciousness. At least he did the same thing to her that she did to him.

  He limped back to his office and sat down. Propping his foot on the desk, he picked up a report. But his mind stayed on Tracy.

  She was talking to the FBI office, telling them what was going on with the case. “This week?” he heard her say.

  His attention caught, he listened as she told her boss that she was sure they’d find more evidence soon. The man was against spending any more time on it.

  “Okay, the end of the week,” Tracy said. “Yes, I’ll be off the case then. I’ll tell the sheriff.”

  Judd realized he didn’t want to know. Darkness hovered near, threatening to descend at any moment. When she told him she was leaving, what would he say?

  Hell, he’d probably break into tears and beg her to stay. She had to know he wanted her. He’d accepted her into his house and his bed. Didn’t that tell her how he felt?

  He ran a hand over his face and searched for the emptiness that had saved him before. It wasn’t there. She’d slipped in and filled every lonely crevice of his life. When she left…

  Tracy finished her call. She walked into his office with her purse and bag in her hands. He noticed she didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she’d gone quiet…the way she had before she’d finally admitted the end of their marriage.

  To his surprise, she knelt beside him and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him. It felt like goodbye.

  The secretary stuck her head in the outer door. “Hey, Boss, Sterling wanted to—Oh, excuse me.”

  Tracy let him go and stood. A flush crept into her cheeks. The secretary grinned.

  “What was Sterling’s problem?” Judd managed to ask in a level voice.

  “He wanted to let you know the raid on the mayor’s house went fine. They arrested this little old gray-headed woman who insisted she was the mayor’s mother…as if we were stupid hick cops who’d believe that.”

  Tracy’s mouth dropped open.

  Judd closed it gently with a fist under her chin. “A hick cop’s idea of a joke,” he explained, a smile lighting his face. “Tell Sterling to use the rubber hoses on the little old lady. We’re after a full confession.”

  Tracy was still grinning when she left, after promising Judd she’d be back promptly at noon. A short time later she pulled into the parking lot of the Native American museum.

  Several other cars were there. She noticed the license plates. Lots of tourists on the road in August, apparently.

  Sara Lewis was busy with a scout troop, but she stopped long enough to show Tracy where the bones were kept.

  Tracy was impressed. The collection was housed in protective drawers the same as the Smithsonian used for their archives.

  An hour of comparing thigh bones assured her she was right. Her bones belonged to an Anglo, a white cowboy who had trusted the other person enough to turn his back on him…or her, she mused, thinking of the long blond hair with the dark root.

  The two-faced woman?

  Tracy pictured the setting as she closed the last drawer and repacked her bone. A clandestine meeting…a lover’s quarrel…anger…a thrown rock…then…

  But women rarely displayed the type of fury that would result in bashing a person in the back of the head, even if they had knocked the victim down with a rock thrown in anger. Maybe some jealous husband had bashed the cowboy after seeing the young man with his wife. That was more likely.

  Anyway, it was all speculation. A scientist was supposed to present the evidence, not make up wild stories.

  “Did our collection help?” Sara asked when Tracy emerged from the back room.

  “Yes. Thanks so much for letting me use it.” She told the young curator what she’d found and headed back to the office. She needed to call Jackson and tell him the news so that the tribe could quit worrying about the bones. And the case. It was out of their hands.

  In fact, it was now in Judd’s jurisdiction. He’d be glad of that. She’d tell him over lunch. Maybe they would have a quiet meal together while they went over the case. Alone in the office while the secretary was at lunch. She smiled.

  When she entered Judd’s office half an hour later, she stopped abruptly. A woman was there with him. Holding his hand.

  “You poor dear,” the Kincaid woman was saying. “When I heard the news, I couldn’t believe someone had tried to hurt you. This is all so strange. I thought small towns were supposed to be safe from all that.”

  “I guess people are the same the world over,” Judd remarked.

  Rather facetiously, Tracy thought. She noticed he wasn’t trying to get his hand loose from the treacly female, whose name she couldn’t recall. But she was married to Dugin Kincaid.

  “Hello, Mrs. Kincaid,” Tracy said brightly, bustling in and breezing toward her own office. She noticed the china plates, the silverwear and napkins on Judd’s desk, all showing signs of a recent meal. She did a slow boil. “You brought lunch. How nice.”

  “The cook out at the ranch knows how much I like Cornish pies,” Judd hurriedly said. “Mary Jo brought two in. I insisted she eat with me. We talked about the case.”

  “It’s so interesting. I’d no idea a forensic detective could tell so much just by digging around and looking at old bones.” Mary Jo gave her a gentle smile. “The news report said it was a cowboy. However could you tell that?”

  Tracy felt like a heel. The woman was extremely nice. “By the shape of the pubic bone,” she said.

  “Oh,” Mary Jo said. She actually blushed. “Oh, I see.”

  Judd covered a grin as Tracy stared in astonishment. She hadn’t known anyone was that inhibited in this day and age.

  “Well,” Mary Jo said, getting to her feet. “I suppose I’d better go. I have some errands to run.”

  Tracy murmured a farewell and closed the door to her room. She replaced her evidence and went over all the reports, including her own, to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

  Judd came in a few minutes later. He propped himself on the corner of the table. “Did you have lunch?”

  She shook her head.

  “I assumed you would eat before you came back. That’s why I invited Mary Jo to share the lunch with me.”

  “And she was so interested in the case, especially your injuries, I noticed,” Tracy replied sweetly.

  “Jealous, Trace?”

  She took a deep breath, aware of his dark gaze on her every second. “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Then you know how I feel about your old friend Jackson Hawk and your new friend Rafe Rawlings.”

  “Yes, I understand.” She faced him. “Judd, where do we go from here?” It was an issue she didn’t want to discuss, but she had to know.

  “I wish the hell I knew.” He lifted her hand and clasped it between his palm and his thigh. “I only know I don’t want you to leave. I can’t give you up, not yet.”

  To her, that implied he could give her up when he’d gotten his fill of her. She wondered how long that would take.

  Tracy stretched her weary back. She and Rafe Rawlings, who’d volunteered to help her on his day off, had searched the area along the base of the cliff for hours. She’d spent the rest of the week combing the narrow bank in hopes of finding something.

  Disgruntled, she sat on a boulder and ate an apple while staring at the creek. The water was at its lowest level now, but in spring, with snowmelt from the mountains, it turned into a dangerous torrent. No telling where or
how far debris might be carried in the rushing current.

  “Giving up?” Rafe asked.

  She nodded. “This could take years.”

  He hobbled over, then plopped down beside her. He looked at the river. “Yeah.”

  “Yet I have this feeling….” She shook her head. She knew there were more clues, if only she could find them. She sighed, then laughed. “I’m like a prospector. I’m sure I’m going to find gold around the next bend.”

  “Why don’t you ask Winona for help?”

  “In case she can see where the other bones are?”

  “Yeah. Why not?” he asked at her surprised glance. “What do you have to lose?”

  “You’re right.” She jumped to her feet. “I’ll take a bone to her.” She laughed at how that sounded.

  “Come in, you two,” Winona called from the door.

  “Help me watch for those damned goats,” Judd told Tracy.

  She handed him the crutches after he’d maneuvered himself out of her compact car. Reaching in the back seat, she withdrew the bag with the pelvis inside, having decided that it was the most likely bone to invoke a sense of who the person had been.

  “How’s the missing-persons search going?” Winona asked, holding the door open so Judd could get inside.

  “Well, we have a few possibilities. Judd has been checking the state and FBI lists through the computer for me this week.” Tracy took the crutches and set them out of the way when Judd was seated. She pulled the footstool over and propped his leg up. “Is that comfortable?”

  “Yes,” he said grumpily. “You don’t have to wait on me hand and foot. I’m fine.”

  “He’s been on his feet way too much this week. Kane saw us at the café last night. He checked Judd’s leg and told him to stay off it and keep it propped up until the swelling has gone down,” she explained to Winona, ignoring his scowl as she put a pillow under the cast.

  Winona sided with Tracy. “You should take care of yourself,” she told Judd. “You’ll end up with arthritis in that leg, then you’ll be sorry.”

  “Is that a prediction?” he snapped. “I’m sorry,” he went on before she could speak. “I’m in a hell of a mood.”

  “If you’d take the painkillers Kane gave you, you might feel better,” Tracy put in with no sympathy.

  “All right. Give me two. And don’t complain when I fall asleep in the middle of dinner.”

  “We wouldn’t think of it,” Tracy told him coolly. “Winona, I brought the pelvis with me. Do you feel up to doing anything with it, or would you rather wait until after we eat?”

  “Let’s do it now.”

  Tracy nodded. She removed the evidence from the bag and carried it to the psychic.

  “What do you want to know?” Winona asked, laying it in her lap and placing both hands on the bony structure.

  “Who it belongs to?” Judd said dryly.

  Tracy gave him a be-quiet-and-don’t-be-so-cynical look. “Or where the skull is,” she added. “That would help a lot.”

  Winona closed her eyes. Tracy pulled a chair close and sat down quietly. They waited.

  A minute went by. Another. Five minutes. Six.

  Winona opened her eyes. “Nothing is coming to me, except a few vague images. I can’t force it,” she apologized.

  “I know.” Tracy patted her arm.

  Winona gasped and pulled away.

  Tracy shot a questioning look at her, but the older woman’s eyes were closed. “Tell me what you see, no matter how odd,” she requested, bending close but not touching.

  “A child, alone and frightened, crying…dark…woods all around…he’s lost…falling…falling…you must save him….”

  Tracy was disappointed. She knew the vibes Winona was picking up came from Rafe Rawlings. His personal quest to find his parents was messing up her quest to find the rest of the bones, darn it.

  She laid a hand on Winona’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You can let it go.”

  Winona moved away as if stung. Tracy hesitated, not sure what to do. She’d never seen her friend so pale.

  “Leave her alone,” Judd said quietly. “What do you see?” he asked the psychic.

  “The woman, the two-faced woman. Two men, fighting.” She shook her head. “Too many images…too hard to see…a child is crying…Tracy…crying…help her, Judd, help Tracy.”

  Tracy looked at Judd, but his attention was glued on Winona. She swallowed against the knot of emotion that had formed at the mention of a child. Her own memories must have interfered with the reading, even though she’d made her peace with the past. Or perhaps it was the future Winona was seeing.

  Winona opened her eyes. She handed the pelvis back to Tracy. “I’ll try and describe the images I saw as they came to me. First, I saw two men fighting, then they disappeared. Next there was a child lost in the woods. That was after you touched me. It wasn’t Thadd,” she quickly stated.

  Tracy looked up to find Judd watching her with concern. The longing that had grown all week surfaced. She wanted another child with him. She wanted him to ask her to stay and make a new life. She wanted him to tell her how very much he loved her.

  But he hadn’t, and she couldn’t ask.

  “It was Rafe Rawlings,” Tracy explained. “He worked with me at the site today. He was probably the child you saw lost in the woods. That was where he was found, remember?”

  Winona nodded. “But then the first image came back—the two men fighting. One of them was the person whose bones you found. I’m sure of that. The two-faced woman was there. But then the scene shifted and I saw you and Judd and many others.” She frowned as she studied Tracy. “You were worried about someone. That was all. I don’t know if any of the images were connected. They could have been entirely random events.”

  “Yes,” Judd said sardonically. “There seems to be a lot of skeletons in a lot of closets in the county.”

  Tracy fetched him water and two tablets. “Let me help you with supper,” she suggested to Winona.

  It was time for a lighter mood. Judd was obviously tired and in pain. She didn’t feel good either, in spite of a week of ecstasy in Judd’s arms. It was only while they were making love that she could forget the distance between them. At those moments, they were of one mind, one body…but not one heart.

  Judd was keeping his under lock and key.

  “Is it that bad?” Winona asked softly when they were in the tiny kitchen.

  Tracy glanced over her shoulder. Judd was catching the evening news on TV. He couldn’t hear them. “What do you mean?”

  “You sighed as if life were a burden you’d as soon put down.” Winona checked the vegetable stew in the Crockpot. “From what I’ve heard, things are pretty cozy between the sheriff and the FBI lady these days.”

  “Lily Mae, no doubt,” Tracy said with a wry smile.

  “And others. Don’t give up on him. You two shared something precious once. You can have it again. If you’re not afraid to ask for it.”

  “He hasn’t asked me to stay.”

  Winona gave an impatient snort. “Have you told him you want to? He’s not a mind reader, you know.” She grinned. “In fact, he’s damned obtuse, if you ask me. He’s waiting for you to make the first move.”

  “Do you think so?” Tracy wanted to believe her mentor, but uncertainty rose, jarring her confidence.

  The rest of the evening passed in a pleasant blend of food and conversation. They sat outside while the sky changed from twilight to dark. At ten, Tracy herded Judd into the car.

  Winona gave her a meaningful stare before they drove off.

  The dark interior of the car held a quiet, intimate ambiance that Tracy didn’t want to break. She’d wait until they arrived at the house before she said anything, she decided.

  Fear ate at her. The seventeen-mile trip had never seemed shorter. Once home, she fussed over Judd, getting him inside and settled on the family-room sofa, then dashing off to bring him a glass of water and two of his pills. She kne
w he was hurting. He looked very grim and tense around the eyes.

  “Will you stop fluttering around?” he finally snapped. “You may as well tell me what’s on your mind.”

  She sat in an easy chair. The time had come to ask what his intentions were for their future.

  What if he didn’t want her to stay?

  Twelve

  “I talked to my boss on this project Monday afternoon,” Tracy began tentatively. “As of now, I’m off the case. We agreed, if I didn’t find anything else this week, to call it quits. As far as the federal government is concerned, it’s your bailiwick now.”

  “Yeah, I heard the conversation.” His face held no expression that she could detect. He kept his gaze focused on the TV, which he’d turned to a news channel, but with the sound off.

  “The tough lawman who doesn’t let emotion cloud his life,” she muttered, feeling it was useless to talk to him. She’d felt that way before. She closed her eyes and pressed her thumb and finger against her forehead, where a faint headache nagged.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means I can walk out of here tomorrow and never darken your door again…if that’s what you want.” She tried to smile, but her mouth wobbled.

  The silence trembled between them. She recalled Winona’s advice about speaking her mind and heart.

  “Or I can stay…longer,” she added, unable to ask for a lifetime. “I have some time before I report to a dig.”

  “A dig?” He glanced at her, then away.

  “A Smithsonian fellowship to examine a find in South America. The bones may be Spanish. If so, the Conquistadors penetrated farther south during that era than previously thought.”

  “I see.” His wariness was a barrier between them. Perhaps the chasm of distrust was too wide to ever be breached.

  She hoped not. She was filled with so many wants. She wanted his love, his faith in their future. She wanted him to love her, to believe in her and her love. They’d had all that at one time, but somehow it had been lost, tragedy added to tragedy.

  She knew now she wanted to go forward. She wanted a new life…with this man.