“Get her out of there, now!” Marsh snapped.
The policeman grabbed Marsh’s arm to keep him from exiting the paneled truck. “Wait a minute! Listen!”
“Why did you attack me in the press?” Delia asked. “Why not keep it between us?”
“You were incorruptible, your honor,” Sam conceded. “That made you a real pain in the ass. No. You have to go, Judge Carson. I can’t have you making a mess of things.”
“But I know your secret,” Delia said. “There’ll be no getting around the truth this time, Sam. I’ll go to the press—”
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
Marsh listened to the silence. All he heard was Delia’s rapid breathing.
“Put that gun away, Sam. It won’t do any good to kill me now,” Delia said. “I’m—”
Marsh was out of the van and running toward the house when he heard the single shot.
“Noooo!” he howled. “No!”
He hit the front door on the run with his shoulder, and wood splintered as it burst open. He sprinted for the back of the house in the direction of Sam’s study. He stopped cold in the doorway and stared.
Sam Dietrich sat slumped over his desk, a .38 Smith & Wesson in his hand. Blood splattered the wall behind him. Delia stood white-faced in front of him.
“Delia!”
She remained frozen, apparently unable to move. Her body wavered as though she were a building teetering in an earthquake, threatening to crumple at any second. He saw her swallow before she said, “The blood on the wall . . . it’s just like Daddy.”
She made a sound like an animal in pain. A moment later he had her in his arms, clutching her close.
“Look at me, Delia,” he insisted, shoving her chin up and forcing her to focus on his face. “There was nothing you could do.”
“I know,” she said. “Not then. And not now.”
She stared at him a moment longer, long enough for him to realize that at long last, she had let go of the past.
“I thought he shot you,” he said, holding her tight. “I thought you were dead.”
“He was going to kill me,” she said. “But I showed him the wire, and he turned the gun on himself instead.”
Police surrounded them moments later, and Delia explained again what had happened. Marsh kept one arm around her waist the whole time, unwilling to let her go. He led her into the living room, away from Dietrich’s corpse, so she could answer the barrage of questions the police threw at her. The attorney general had shown up after the police called him.
“Did you get it all on tape?” Delia asked as she stood with Marsh in the elegant front hallway of Dietrich’s home.
“We got it all, Judge Carson,” the officer in charge said. “There are camera crews outside already, if you’d like to make a statement for the ten o’clock news.”
Marsh looked at her expectantly.
“No statement,” she said.
Marsh exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He eyed Delia sideways. So she wasn’t going to quit, after all. He could hardly blame her. Dietrich’s last words completely exonerated her. She could go back to the courtroom with a clean slate. And why wouldn’t she? She was a great judge. Incorruptible.
“Let’s go home,” she said to Marsh, grasping his hand.
He hadn’t even realized he had let her go.
“To your apartment in Park Slope?” he asked.
She smiled. “No, silly. To Texas.”
“But you just said—”
“I said I have nothing to say to the press tonight. I want time to organize my thoughts. I want to write my resignation out before I announce it to the public.”
Marsh tensed. “You’re resigning from the bench?”
“I have more important things to do with my life.”
Marsh felt his insides unclenching. “Such as?”
“Such as marry the man I love and have his baby.”
Marsh lifted her up and swung her in a circle, giving a Texas-size whoop of joy.
“Put me down,” Delia protested with a laugh.
“No way, lady. You’re not getting free of me till we see a justice of the peace.”
“There’s no one who can marry us right now,” Delia said. “It’s practically the middle of the night.”
“If we can find a judge to sign a court order, we can find a judge for this,” Marsh said.
“What about a license?”
“There must be a way around that,” Marsh said.
“But I’m—”
“Incorruptible,” Marsh said. “I know. So we’ll fly to Las Vegas—”
“Las Vegas? Marsh, I don’t think—”
“Don’t think, sweetheart. Just say yes. I’ll take care of everything else.”
Delia grinned. “All right, Marsh. Yes.”
He stood staring for a moment, unwilling to believe his dreams were all going to come true, that after all these years they were finally going to be married.
“Let’s go,” he said, gripping her hand tightly. “The world’s waiting for us, Delia. I promise you—”
“No more promises,” Delia said, looking earnestly up at him. “They aren’t necessary. I don’t think I could ever be any happier than I am right now. There’s no way to see the future. We have to take one day at a time and live it to the fullest. That’s the only promise we can keep.”
Marsh felt his throat tighten. “All right, Delia.” His grasp tightened. “One day at a time. Lived to the fullest.”
“Promise?” she said with a cheeky grin.
He grinned back. “I promise.”
Epilogue
“Don’t worry, Sylvie. Your husband can’t find you at the shelter. You’ll be safe there.” Delia twisted the phone cord around her finger as she paced the kitchen. She winced as the screen door slammed and Billie Jo appeared.
“Dinner ready yet?” Billie Jo mouthed.
“Soon,” Delia mouthed back.
Billie Jo dropped a mound of teenage paraphernalia left over from a day spent tubing on the Frio on the beautiful oak floor Delia had discovered when she stripped off the worn linoleum in the North Ranch kitchen, and headed down the hall to her bedroom.
Delia gave her attention to the phone again.
“The court order will require your husband to keep his distance from the house. Otherwise, he can be arrested. Yes, I know it’s scary. But you’re doing fine. How are Ricky and Steven? I’m glad to hear it. You and your sons will be home soon, Sylvie. I’ll talk with you again tomorrow. Good-bye now.”
Delia felt Marsh’s arms surround her as she hung up the phone. She leaned back against him and moved his hands down to cover her belly, where their child was growing inside her.
“Well, counselor,” he murmured in her ear. “How goes the war against the bad guys?”
“The good guys are winning,” she said with a smile.
“Anything I can do to help with supper?” he asked.
“It’s roast beef and baked potatoes. Fifteen minutes,” she said, “and it’ll be ready to come out.”
“How about sitting on the porch with me and watching the sun set?”
“Sounds wonderful,” Delia said.
She followed Marsh through the ranch house, which had undergone something of a transformation in the four months they had been married. The roof no longer leaked, and the Sears furnishings had been replaced with selected pieces from estate sales and antique stores they had visited together. The outside had been painted a bright yellow, and the windows framed with pristine white shutters. The porch no longer sagged, and they had replaced the rockers with a large swing they could sit on together.
Delia hadn’t wanted to live at the Circle Crown. Too many unpleasant memories resided there. She had given the house over to the new ranch manager Marsh had hired to help him incorporate both parcels of land into one larger spread.
Marsh sat on the long wooden swing that hung by ropes from the porch rafters, drew Delia
into his lap, and gave the swing a nudge with his boot.
“Happy?” he murmured.
“Umm. I loved your commentary in The Chronicle, the one comparing the difficulties of communication between parents and children with communication between countries. It made sense, Marsh.”
“Billie Jo suggested it.”
Delia chuckled. “I might have guessed.”
She looked across North land that now had no fence line to separate it from Carson pasture. It was April, and immense fields of bluebonnets dotted with occasional patches of Indian paintbrush blanketed the earth as far as the eye could see. “We’re really blessed, Marsh.”
“I know.” He nuzzled her throat, his fingers sending chills down her back as they slid into the hair at her nape. “Have you heard from Rachel today?”
“No. She said she’ll be in touch after she gets settled. She finally found a house she likes near Trinity University in San Antonio. I’m glad she decided to go to undergraduate school somewhere close, so we can see each other more often.”
“Have you told her about the baby yet?”
Delia shook her head. “I was waiting . . .”
“It’s been nearly four months, Delia. The doctor said—”
“I know. If I was going to have serious trouble, I’d have had it by now.” Delia heaved a giant sigh. “I’m afraid to believe it’s going to be this easy,” she said. “I mean, what woman my age gets pregnant so quickly. And with the son her husband asked for, no less.”
Marsh chuckled. “Sexy sirens who forget to take their birth control pills and then don’t let their husbands out of bed for a week.”
Delia hid her face against his chest. “Don’t remind me what a wanton I am.”
“I’m not complaining.”
Billie Jo shoved open the front door and stepped onto the porch. “Are you two at it again? Good grief.”
Delia sat up straight and brushed at her messed-up hair where Marsh’s fingers had been tangled in it. “We were just—”
Billie Jo grinned. “I was only teasing, Delia.”
“Come here,” Marsh said, scooting over so Billie Jo could sit at his side on the swing. He slipped his other arm around her and set the swing in lazy motion once more. “This is the life. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
“Wait till my baby brother comes,” Billie Jo said. “That’ll be even better.”
“Maybe,” Marsh said. “I’m just taking one day at a time.”
Delia caught his eye and smiled. Some promises, she had discovered, were easy to keep.
About the Author
JOAN JOHNSTON is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 54 novels and novellas, with more than 10 million copies of her books in print. Joan lives in Colorado. You can learn more about her at www.joanjohnston.com or reach her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/joanjohnstonauthor.
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Romances by Joan Johnston
THE MEN OF BITTER CREEK
HEARTBEAT
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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