The Marriage Profile (4 page)

When she'd first walked out on him, he hadn't been all that sure he would get over her. Those first few weeks had been a real bitch. But eventually time and burying himself in work had helped to dull the pain.

He'd gotten over Angela Mason. Or at least he'd thought he had gotten over her—until she'd walked through the doors of the hospital for tonight's party. And now in less than an hour after seeing her again, she had him all tied up in knots.

He didn't want her here. At least he'd been honest with her about that. What he hadn't told her, and had no intention of telling her, was that he didn't want her here because he didn't want to remember what it was like to be with her, to hold her, to touch her, to taste her.

Justin shoved a hand through his hair. Dammit, he didn't
need this kind of grief. Not now. Not when he had so much on his plate trying to train a rookie deputy, finding the judge's murderer, dealing with Del Brio and finding that missing baby. Having Angela show up now would only screw up his head, something he could ill afford at the moment. She would simply have to go, Justin reasoned.

“Justin? Are you all right?” she asked, and touched his arm.

Justin stilled even though his body went on full alert. Angela had always had that affect on him, from day one when he'd first seen her at the police academy. With a look, the brush of her fingers, one little word, she set off some primal instinct in him—an instinct that had caused him to practically bully her into marrying him because his need to bind her to him had been so strong. It was also an instinct that invariably led them to bed where the sex had been mind-blowing. And thinking about having sex with Angela was the worst thing he could do. He jammed his fists into his pockets to keep from reaching for her as that instinct kicked in again now. “Go away, Mason,” he told her, his voice deliberately hard. “Just go away.”

“I'm sorry,” she said softly, in much the same way she had that day when she'd told him that their marriage wasn't working and that she was taking the job in San Antonio. “Truly, I am.” There was regret in her voice and in her expression as she turned away from him.

It was like déjà vu, Justin thought, watching her walk away from him. Five years ago, he'd been a lovesick fool. He had swallowed his pride and pleaded with her to stay. When she'd refused and kept right on packing, he'd resorted to threats and then anger. But nothing had worked. She'd walked away from him, anyway. He'd almost gone to San Antonio after her—until what little pride he had left kicked in and kept him from making a bigger fool of him
self. And it was that same stubborn pride that kept him from going after her now. Pride and the fact that he wasn't the same lovesick fool he'd been all those years ago.

But not even pride could stop him from tracking her movements as she crossed the room. And pride didn't have a thing to do with that kick in his gut when he saw her hook up with Ricky Mercado again. Irritated with both Angela and himself, Justin marched over to the bar.

“What can I get for you, Sheriff?”

Justin glanced up at the petite redhead he recognized from the Lone Star Country Club. “Erica, isn't it?”

“That's right. Erica Clawson,” she replied, and gave him a smile that was a shade too saccharine for his taste. Not at all like Angela's warm smile, he thought, then chastised himself at once for thinking of her again.

“You got anything besides soda pop and wine back there, Erica?”

“What did you have in mind?” she asked, tipping her head to one side flirtatiously.

“Whiskey, neat,” Justin said, choosing to ignore the come-on. Besides the fact that he wasn't interested, he'd heard noises that little Miss Butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth Erica Clawson had been keeping company of late with Frank Del Brio.

“Here you go.” She slid the glass toward him, gave him a soulful look.

“Thanks,” he murmured, taking the drink and turning his back to her. He tossed the whiskey back, welcomed the fiery burn down his throat and the way it spread like acid in his stomach. Like radar, his gaze sought out Angela. She was still with Ricky, their heads bent close together, the two of them in what appeared to be a deep conversation. Justin tightened his fist around the glass, wishing it was Ricky Mercado's throat. Agitated with him
self for letting her get to him, he turned away and slapped the empty glass down on the bar.

“Another one?”

“Yeah.” He had the glass halfway to his mouth, was already anticipating the fiery kick, when he noted Ricky leading Angela toward the exit. In the blink of an eye, he had an image of Ricky sliding into the car next to Angela, reaching across the seat to touch her face, to taste her mouth.

Unable to shake the image, Justin slapped his glass on the counter. Ignoring the slosh of whiskey, he started to get up and follow them when a firm male hand clamped down on his shoulder. “You might want to let your head and your blood cool before you go after her,” Hawk Wainwright told him.

Justin narrowed his eyes, stared into the sun-darkened face of his half brother. Although he'd been aware of his father's long-ago affair with the Native American beauty who had been Hawk's mother, only recently had he and Hawk acknowledged the blood bond between them. The relationship was tenuous at best, and there were old wounds that needed time to heal. But tonight he was feeling too edgy to mince words with Hawk and blurted out, “That a Native American thing? You being able to tell what's going on inside a man's head?”

Hawk smiled, something Justin realized that he could rarely recall the other man doing. “More like an observation.”

“Then you have some pretty amazing observation skills,” Justin told him, and went back to nursing his drink.

Hawk declined a drink with a shake of his head and urged Justin away from the bar. “Not all that remarkable. I remembered that the woman you watch with hot eyes was once your wife.”

“
Was
being the operative word here. We're divorced now, have been for more than five years.”

“There are still strong feelings between you.”

“Not the kind you're talking about,” Justin assured him. “Whatever Angela and I had ended a long time ago.”

“Who are you trying to convince? Me? Or yourself?”

“Neither. And since discussing my ex isn't exactly one of my favorite things to do, I'd just as soon drop the subject.”

“Whatever you say.”

Noting his brother's stoic gaze, Justin asked, “What?”

“I was just wondering if you'll be able to shut off your feelings for her as easily.”

“What are you talking about?” Justin asked.

“I'm talking about the green-eyed monster that eats at your heart now as you think of your woman with another man.”

“She's not my woman anymore,” Justin insisted.

“But you want her to be. Or am I wrong?”

Justin gritted his teeth and met Hawk's steady gaze, refusing to answer the question even to himself. “It's not that simple.”

“It's not that complicated, either.”

“You don't understand,” Justin told him.

“Maybe I understand far better than you realize. I may have Apache blood in my veins, but I also have Wainwright blood,” Hawk explained. “I know what it is to want something, to want someone, until that want becomes a hunger that burns like fire in the belly. And I know what it is to feel the steel talons of pride digging deep into the soul until it's pride that rules one's tongue and actions instead of what's here,” he said, thumping a fist against his heart.

But Justin didn't need to be reminded that Hawk had
spent much of his life wanting to be accepted, to be acknowledged as Archy Wainwright's son and not merely the bastard half-breed who had been at the root of Archy and Kate's divorce. Even now Justin couldn't help but feel a measure of shame at the callous way their father had treated Hawk. Justin also couldn't help but feel shame of his own, as well as regret, for not doing more to bridge the gap that had long existed between Hawk and the rest of the Wainwrights. Not only had Hawk lost all those years, but he and the rest of his family had lost, too.

“I nearly let pride cost me the thing I wanted most—Jenny,” Hawk told him, referring to the interior designer who'd recently become his wife. “Don't make the same mistake I almost did and let pride cost you what you want most.”

 

“I wouldn't drink that if I were you,” Audrey Lou Cox told him the following morning as Justin prepared to take a sip of the coffee he'd just poured himself.

“Why? You lace it with arsenic so you can have my job?” Justin teased the stern-faced secretary he'd inherited along with the sheriff's office. Somewhere between the age of fifty and eighty, the woman had served more than twenty-five years under a string of Mission Creek sheriffs. “You don't have to kill me to get the job, you know. I keep telling you, the folks in this town would vote you in over me in a heartbeat.”

“And why on earth would I want your job?”

“You'd get to wear a badge,” Justin offered.

The woman didn't even crack a smile. “I got all the jewelry I want already. Besides, somebody has to keep this place running, and it don't look like that person's going to be you if you keep spending all your time traipsing from one end of the county to the other.”

“You got me there,” Justin told her, and took a sniff of the coffee.

“Heard there was quite a turnout for the dedication of the maternity ward at the hospital last night.”

“Yeah, I think half the county was there. You should have come,” Justin told her.

Audrey Lou sniffed. “And why would I want to spend my evening eating puny little sandwiches, drinking watered-down punch and listening to long-winded speeches from politicians when I could eat a nice hot meal, put my feet up and watch my favorite crime show?”

“When you put it like that, I guess I can't think of any reason.” Justin certainly wished he had skipped the ceremony last night. If he had, he wouldn't have seen Angela and might have actually managed to get some sleep. As it was, he'd barely slept a wink. Soured by thoughts of Angela, he stared at the inky contents of his cup. “So what's wrong with this stuff?”

“That boy you hired made it about an hour ago, and he put enough grinds in the thing to make six pots.”

“Strong, huh?”

“I wasn't about to drink any to find out. I was waiting for a free minute so's I could come in here and throw the stuff out and make a fresh pot. But since you're here, you can do it. I've got work to do.” And on that note, she turned and exited the little kitchen.

Desperate for the caffeine, Justin took a sip. And he nearly gagged. Audrey Lou had been right. While he generally liked his coffee black and strong, he drew the line at drinking brew that could pass for tar. Not that the extra caffeine would hurt, Justin admitted as he went about the business of measuring coffee grinds and water. After his chat with Hawk, he'd driven around and thought about
what his brother had said. Hawk's remark about pride had hit close to the mark. Too close.

More than once after Angela had left him, he'd missed her so much that he'd almost gone after her—until pride had kicked in and he'd abandoned the idea. Hawk had also hit the nail on the head about his feelings for Angela. Seeing her with Ricky had made him jealous, he admitted. And it had been that jealousy that had been the driving force behind his anger toward her last night.

As he waited for the coffee to finish dripping, Justin grimaced as he remembered swinging by the town's two hotels, intent on apologizing to her for his behavior. Only there had been no Angela Mason registered at either establishment. He'd gone home to the ranch wondering if she'd driven back to San Antonio or if she was spending the night with Ricky Mercado. And it had been thoughts of Angela with Ricky that had kept him awake most of the night. Sometime during the early hours of the morning, he'd finally fallen asleep, only to dream about her. The way she'd looked at him on their wedding day in the small church when she'd pledged her love. The sweet, shy smile that curved her mouth on those mornings when he'd awakened her with a kiss. The way she'd gasped his name as he filled her when they'd made love. The way he'd felt when he'd been inside her.

Justin scrubbed a hand down his face. Was it any wonder he'd awakened with a dull, throbbing ache in his head and a painful hard-on for his ex-wife?

“Sheriff, the mayor's on the line for you and your sister Rose wants you to call her, something about a dinner party,” Audrey Lou told him.

“Thanks,” Justin said, and forgoing the coffee, he headed for his office.

More than an hour later when Justin hung up the phone,
the dull throbbing in his head had escalated into a bruiser of a headache. And he wasn't at all sure how much of it had to do with his sleepless night or the workload. Rubbing the muscles at the base of his neck, Justin sat back and stared at the piles of paperwork and messages that covered his desk.

Maybe now was a good time for that coffee, Justin decided. After pouring himself a mug of the no-longer-fresh brew, he went back to his desk and began sorting through the endless reports and files and messages. For a county that he had always considered small by Texas standards, Mission Creek had certainly been a hotbed of activity lately, he thought as he sorted the open case files jammed with reports.

He opened the file containing a report on the abandoned baby girl named Lena who had been found on the Lone Star Country Club's golf course last year—the same little girl who had since been kidnapped and he had yet to find. Picking up the snapshot of the smiling sweetheart that Josie Carson had taken only days before the kidnapping occurred, he traced her tiny face with his fingertip. Once again he felt that familiar pang as he thought of the little angel being snatched from the Carsons. And on the heels of that ache came frustration and anger. Anger with the person who had taken her. Anger with himself for failing to find her. Whooshing out a breath, Justin put the photo aside and reminded himself that as sheriff he couldn't afford to let his emotions become involved. Anger and resentment weren't going to help him find Lena. Only solid skills and dogged determination would do that.