The Sheriff's Son (9 page)

“Well, I guess I do forget sometimes,” he told Charlie. Then, rising to his full height, he looked at Justine, his brows arched with a dry presumptuousness. “I didn't realize you were concerned about my emotional health.”

“I'm not. Charlie is.”

His eyes searched hers, as though he were trying to find something more revealing than her words. Justine nervously folded her hands in front of her and glanced away at the desert hills.

After a moment, Roy gave up and turned to Charlie. “Come along, son,” he said, taking the child by the hand. “I have something down at the barn I want you to see.”

“Can Mommy come, too?” Charlie asked him.

“Of course. If she wants to,” he added with a glance at Justine.

Without a word, she fell into step behind the two of them. As they walked behind the house and toward the corrals in the distance, she was acutely aware that Charlie was with his father and Roy was with his son. Yet neither of them knew.

Guilt crushed down on her like the sudden blow of a sledgehammer. What was she doing? Why was she not allowing Charlie to have a father? His real father? And why was she keeping Charlie from Roy? Was she being a selfish, vindictive woman?

No, she thought miserably. She was keeping her secret because Roy didn't want a family. He'd told her so only yesterday. She wasn't about to force a ready-made one on him. He'd only resent her for burdening him with such a responsibility. And who was to say that he would even want to be a real father to Charlie? she asked herself. Not having a father would be better for Charlie than having one that didn't want him.

At the barn, Roy opened a big double door that allowed them to walk through the structure and out to the back, where another maze of corrals was constructed of metal pipe. Inside one of the pens was a painted mare, saddled and tied to the railing. Next to her, in a connecting pen, was a spotted colt.

The moment Charlie saw the two horses, he pointed with excitement.

“Look, Mommy! Look at the colt! It looks like Thundercloud!”

“I believe he's a bit smaller,” Justine told her son. “He's not big enough to ride yet.”

“Sugar Boy was a yearling in March,” Roy told them. “And that's his mother, Brown Sugar.”

Charlie's blue eyes glowed at the sight of the painted quarter horses. “Can I go pet them?” he asked Roy.

“Sure. But be careful of Sugar Boy. He likes to take a nibble now and then.”

“I'll swat his nose!” Charlie promised, already in a run to the horses.

Roy and Justine followed at a slower pace. The sky was cloudless, and the sun was warm without being too hot. The day couldn't have been more beautiful, but Justine was
afraid to relax and enjoy it. Minute by minute, she was seeing Roy in a different light, and she was afraid that if she spent much more time with him, she'd break down and tell him something he wouldn't want to hear. Like how she'd never gotten over him.

“I thought you didn't like children,” she said as they ambled across the dusty pen.

“Where did you get that idea?”

She shrugged. “Just an impression.”

“I've never had the opportunity to be around children much, except for the juveniles and runaways that come through the sheriff's department. They're not exactly good examples to learn by.”

“No. I don't expect so.”

Roy watched Charlie gently stroking the mare's nose. “It's refreshing to see a little boy like Charlie who hasn't yet been corrupted by his peers or ruined by a dysfunctional family.”

Justine figured that, more often than not, Roy did see the bad side of children. The bad side of humankind in general. She didn't know how he dealt with it, day in and day out. Especially when he had no one close to share it all with.

“To be honest, I was surprised that you asked me to bring him over this morning. The first evening you came out to investigate the twins, I got the feeling Charlie made you uncomfortable.”

He stopped a short distance from Charlie and propped his arms on the top railing of the corral. Justine stood a small step away, watching a pensive look settle over his face as he turned his profile toward the distant hills.

“It wasn't Charlie himself that bothered me. It was—”

Justine waited for him to finish. When he didn't, she moved closer and touched his arm.

“It was what?” she asked.

He turned his head slightly toward her. His eyes were shaded by the brim of his hat, but Justine could see that
they were clouded. With anger? Pain? Loss? She didn't quite know.

“I couldn't believe you'd given birth to another man's child,” he said. Then, with a self-deprecating snort, he gave her a little mocking smile. “Charlie should have been mine. Instead, you ran off and gave yourself to some other man.”

She opened her mouth as questions begged to be released, but she couldn't voice any of them. For the first time since she'd come home to the Hondo Valley, she was afraid she'd made a mistake in keeping her pregnancy from Roy six years ago. And she was even more afraid she was going to make a bigger one now.

“Roy, I wish—”

Before she could finish, Charlie raced over to them, his face lit with excitement

“Do you have any more horses, Roy?”

“I have two more in the barn,” he told the boy. “If your mother wants to, I'll saddle them, and we can all go for a ride. You can have Brown Sugar for a mount. How would that be?”

Charlie's eyes grew wider and wider as he looked from the painted mare to Roy, and then on to his mother.

“Do you want to, Mommy? Can we go for a ride with Sheriff Roy?”

She'd never seen her son so animated, and she knew she could hardly tell him no. It would be cruel and selfish of her not to allow Charlie to enjoy such a simple thing as a horseback ride.

“If Roy really wants to go to the trouble of saddling the horses, then I guess we could ride for a while.”

“Oh, boy!” Charlie cried, then flung his arms around his mother's legs and hugged her tightly. “Thank you, Mommy!”

She rubbed the top of his head. “I believe you should be thanking Sheriff Roy. He's the one who invited you.”

Without a moment's hesitation, Charlie ran to Roy and
gave him the same bear hug he'd bestowed on his mother. For a moment Roy was taken aback by the display of affection.

“Thank you, Sheriff Roy. I'll ride Brown Sugar real good.”

“I know you will, son,” Roy told him. Then, bending down, he lifted Charlie and carried him over to the waiting mare.

Once the child was firmly seated in the saddle, Roy adjusted the stirrups to the shortest length possible and gave Charlie the reins. “She's real easy on the mouth. And you don't have to kick her. Just give her a soft little nudge. She'll go where you tell her to go.”

Nodding to show that he understood, Charlie reined the mare away, and Brown Sugar began to walk quietly around the small pen. Justine walked over to where Roy stood watching the boy and horse.

“Charlie is a good rider. But not on something spirited. I hope she's gentle enough for him.”

“I may not know anything about little boys, but I know my horses. Brown Sugar is as gentle as a lamb. There's no need for you to worry.”

Deciding she could trust his judgment, she followed Roy into the barn, yet stood close enough to the open door that she could keep an eye on Charlie.

At the other end of the barn, Roy took two geldings, a bay and a buckskin out of separate stalls, then led them to where Justine was standing in the alleyway.

Handing her the reins, he said, “I'll get the tack and saddles.”

Since the horses were unfamiliar to her, Justine kept a firm hold on the bridle reins while Roy stepped into a small room built into one corner of the barn.

After a few moments, he came out carrying a saddle and several blankets.

“Which of these horses is going to be my mount?” she asked as he started to brush down the buckskin.

“This one. He has a better disposition.”

Justine noticed he worked quickly, his hands firm but easy as he smoothed blankets across the buckskin's back.

“You know, I didn't realize you were still working your father's ranch,” she said after a moment. “I figured being the sheriff was more than enough job for you. Wouldn't it be easier to sell this place and move into Ruidoso?”

“It probably would be easier,” he said as he folded the stirrup onto the saddle seat, then lifted it onto the horse. “But this is my home. It has been since the day I was born. I don't want to live anywhere else, and I like raising cattle, even though they aren't worth much on the market right now. Besides, I may not be reelected when my term as sheriff is over.”

Smiling wryly, she shook her head. “Who are you trying to kid? You'll be the sheriff of Lincoln County as long as you want to be.”

“Maybe so,” he agreed. “But ranching is in my blood. The same way I suspect it's in yours.”

She reached out and stroked the buckskin's neck. “Chloe and Rose are the real ranch women. Both of them can outride me, and they both know infinitely more about cattle than I do. But I like it just the same, and help out wherever I can. Actually, I didn't realize how much I really missed the ranch until I lived away from it,” she admitted.

“You were gone a long time.”

So very long, she thought. Away from him. Away from her family. She'd felt so lonely. But she'd done her best to hide it, and convince her sisters and parents that she enjoyed living in Las Cruces.

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you come home after you graduated? You always told me your intentions were to live here, close to your family.”

Keeping her eyes fixed on the horse's dark yellow hair, she said, “Nursing jobs were plentiful there. I wanted to get some experience before I came back to work for a local hospital or doctor.”

“You like nursing?”

His question sounded sincere, and Justine wondered if he'd ever wondered about her during the time she was living in Las Cruces. Had he thought of her and the days they'd spent talking and laughing and loving each other? Had he wished that Marla's deception had never torn them apart?

Desperately trying to shake the questions out of her mind, she answered, “I like helping people. Especially those who can't help themselves.".

Roy pulled the front saddle cinch tight against the horse and buckled it down. “Well, Marble is ready. If you like, you can lead him outside and hitch him to the fence,” he told her.

Glad that Roy had changed the conversation to something less personal, Justine took a moment to study the horse. “Marble?” she asked. “Why in the world do you call him Marble? He doesn't have any spots or dapples. Why not just call him plain old Buck?”

Grinning, Roy took the horse by the nose and turned his face square around to Justine. “Because he has one brown eye, and one white one that looks like a marble.”

“Is he blind in the white eye?”

“Not a bit,” he assured her. To prove it, Roy made a movement with his hand near the horse's eye, and the animal instinctively blinked.

“Marble,” she repeated with a wry grin. “I'd hate to think what sort of name you'd give me. Red, Carrot, Freckles…”

Without warning, he stepped forward and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. Justine told herself to remain calm. There wasn't any reason for her heart to hammer
out of control. He wasn't going to kiss her. Or was he?

“I don't see any freckles,” he said, his eyes gliding over her satin-smooth complexion. “You used to have a few on your nose. But I guess you've outgrown them.”

So he remembered that about her. What else did he remember, she wondered, as heat seeped into her cheeks, then flared through the rest of her body. “No. They're still there. I cover them up with makeup.”

“You shouldn't hide them. They add charm to your face.”

His eyes weren't on her freckled nose now, they were on her lips, and Justine was finding it very hard to breathe.

“Sure,” she said with wry disbelief. “They're just as charming as the little chip in my tooth and the scar on my forehead.”

Roy lifted wispy bangs from her forehead and ran his finger over the faint, crescent-shaped white scar near her hairline. “You were fighting your sister Chloe over a dress, and she hit you with a wooden trinket box,” he murmured.

Because he still remembered, her heart contracted painfully. “Roy, why did you ask me to come over this morning? I know you said you wanted to show Charlie the horses, but—”

“You think I asked you over here for other reasons.” His mouth twisted cynically as his fingers tightened on her chin. “Do you think I've been pining all these years for you? Do you think I've been counting the days, waiting and hoping that you'd come back to the Hondo Valley— without a husband?”

She didn't like this dark side of him. Maybe because it mirrored the same feelings she'd tried for years to shed, the way a snake sheds its skin. Bitterness, cynicism, blame. They were ugly, painful emotions. She realized that now more than ever.

She swallowed as her eyes fell to the toe of his black boots. “I don't figure you thought of me much at all, Roy.”

She actually believed what she was saying, Roy thought incredulously. He could hear it in the depths of her voice. She really did assume that once she'd gone from his sight, she'd gone from his mind. Dear God, if only that were true, he would have been cured of her long ago.

“You never did truly know me, did you?” he asked, his voice low and accusing.

Her eyes clouded with remembered pain. “I thought I did. I even believed you cared for me. I was a fool. I should have known I couldn't trust you.”

His blue eyes hardened to steel. “Marla was nothing to me.”

Her eyes were equally hard as she held his gaze. “Neither was I.”