The Sheriff's Surrender (7 page)

He went to the cabinet next to the sink, then came back with an open bottle. He shook two tablets into her palm, then sat again. After she'd washed the pills down with pop, he quietly asked, “Did Forbes do that?”

For a moment she considered not answering, but those were quite possibly the only non-accusing, non-bitter, non-hostile words he'd spoken to her. Besides, she was hiding in his house. If Forbes found her, the next car bombed might be Reese's, the next house shot up, this one. It was only fair that he know.

Managing another tight smile, she nodded. “The verdict's not in on the bomb yet—whether it malfunctioned or their timing was simply off—but I wasn't in the car when it exploded. As for the shots in the night, I was lucky. The first one woke me up and I managed to crawl to safety. But don't
worry. They say the third time's the charm. Then I'll be out of your life for good.”

His features darkened into a scowl. “I don't want—” Clenching his jaw on the denial, he dragged his fingers through his dark hair, then gave a shake of his head, as if he knew he was wasting his breath. “Look, we're stuck here until Jace makes other arrangements, and God only knows when that will be. If we don't start acting like reasonable adults, it's going to be the most miserable time of our lives. We can either stay in our respective corners, or we can negotiate a truce.”

Staying in their corners hadn't worked very well so far, Neely admitted. She felt as if she'd gone five rounds with a much better opponent and couldn't possibly survive another five. Compromise was the only reasonable action, though it held risks of its own. If Reese quit attacking her, if he let her forget for one moment that he despised her, she could be foolish enough to fall for him all over again. He was more handsome than ever, surely—with others, at least—as charming as ever, and she'd always been so susceptible. She'd built such fantasies around them.

But he'd despised her so much more—and so much longer—than he'd ever loved her, and he wouldn't forget, or let her forget. He was offering to compromise on his behavior, not his beliefs. That damning look in his eyes, the one that shadowed every other emotion he was feeling, would probably never go away, no matter what.

“So what do we do?” she asked. “Agree that certain topics are off-limits?”

Reese shrugged.

“The Miller case?”

“Your noble profession.”

Ignoring the sneer underlying his words, she smiled. “Your narrow-minded, damn-the-law-and-the-lawyers pigheadedness.”

He opened his mouth to refute her statement, then almost smiled. It had been so long since he'd smiled at her that she stared and made silent, fervent wishes that he would let the
smile form. He didn't. “At least we agree that we don't think much of each other professionally.”

“You're wrong, Reese. I always thought you were the best thing that ever happened to the Keegan County Sheriff's Department…until you became just like the others.”

“I was never just like them,” he denied a little too quickly and too vehemently.

“Careful there. A person might think you find being compared to your former fellow deputies an insult, and that might suggest that you have a problem with the way they did their jobs. That maybe they weren't always so right. Maybe I wasn't always so wrong.”

After studying her a moment he mildly said, “It seems to me that discussion encompasses all three topics we just agreed were off limits. So…how are your sisters?”

It was entirely too normal a question, one that left her feeling unbalanced, as if the gibe would come in a moment, when she wasn't prepared. She shrugged and cautiously replied, “My sisters are fine. Kylie is living in Dallas. Hallie is in Los Angeles, and Bailey lives in Memphis.”

“Any of them married?”

“Hallie just divorced number three—no kids, fortunately. Kylie and Bailey are waiting for the right guy. They're learning from her example.”

“And yours?”

“Hallie's got the relationship ‘dos and don'ts' all to herself. I'm the ‘don't' for everything else.”
Don't try to make a difference. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can be important. Don't care too deeply or too passionately about anything. Don't mix relationship and career. Don't work where you might make men with guns angry with you.
And the biggie—
Don't piss off drug-dealing murderers.

“And your mother?”

“She's also fine. She's living in Illinois with husband number two. She golfs, cooks, plays doting grandmother to his grandkids and routinely complains that none of us has provided her with grandchildren of her own.” She heard the cyn
ical note in her voice and was embarrassed by it. She'd long ago learned to not expect much from her mother. Doris Irene had done the best she could with the life she'd gotten. All she'd ever wanted to be was a wife, mother and grandmother, with a husband who would take care of all life's problems so she wouldn't have to bother her pretty little head with them. And that was what she'd gotten in the first ten years of her marriage.

Then the police had come in the middle of one winter night, kicking in doors, waving guns, shouting commands, and they'd taken Lee Madison away. To this day Neely remembered the cold, hard knot of terror in her stomach, her mother's tears and her sisters' screams. She'd stood there in her little flannel nightgown, the younger girls and Doris Irene huddled behind her sobbing, and her feet had felt like ice as she stared unflinchingly at the officers who dragged her father away.

“You never mentioned a father.”

Her startled gaze jerked to Reese. Seeing curiosity in his expression, she forced herself to relax, to breathe deeply and hopefully get some color back into her face. Under the protection of the table, she rubbed her hands together, her fingers as icy as her heart that long-ago night. “You never asked.”

“I figured he was a sore point. People who get along with their parents tend to bring them up from time to time. You never did.”

“I got along with him beautifully. I loved him dearly. I adored him.”

“Is he dead?”

The cold, hard knot was back, making it difficult to breathe. For years she couldn't think about her father without bursting into tears, or dissolving into a nerveless, trembling heap.
I'm not bitter,
he'd told her the last time she'd seen him. She had been bitter for him. That was when she'd learned to truly, intensely, unforgivingly hate.

Rising abruptly from the table, she carried her dishes to the sink and rinsed them. Her hands were unsteady—the silverware slipped through her fingers, and the plate clattered
against the sink. When she dried her hands, she wrapped them tightly in the towel, knotting muscles and cotton as she flatly replied, “Yes, he's dead. He was murdered.”

Reese didn't know what to say. It was strange, but even in his profession, he hadn't met the families of very many murder victims. Canyon County averaged about one homicide every couple years, and in Keegan County, he'd been too inexperienced to handle capital cases.

Though he'd seen Judy Miller gunned down not twenty feet in front of him. She was the first person he'd ever seen die, and he sincerely hoped she was the last.

“Your father was murdered, and you can still justify defending the bad guys?”

“My noble profession's off limits for discussion, remember?” she reminded him, her voice less than steady. Then she went ahead and answered. “It wasn't the bad guys who killed my father. It was the state.”

“I don't under— He was
executed?
”

She turned from the sink, her arms folded across her middle.

“Not formally. But he died in prison, killed after an assault by another inmate. And he was there for a crime he didn't commit.”

Reese swallowed hard. “But…don't they all say that?”

The look she gave him was disappointed, as if she expected better from him, and scornful, as if she didn't. “Yes, most convicted felons say that. But my father's name was cleared by authorities. Unfortunately, it was too late for him.”

So that was why she'd become a lawyer, why she defended people accused of crimes. She believed her father hadn't gotten a fair trial and was probably right. With a better lawyer, a better chance, he might still be alive today.

But if Leon Miller had had a less competent lawyer, Judy might still be alive.

Judy was one of the first people Reese had met in Thomasville. She'd been a waitress at the diner where he'd eaten most of his meals the first week—when Leon let her work—and they'd struck up a friendship. Her utter lack of knowledge
of or interest in his injury-shortened baseball career had been a welcome change. With her he'd just been one more deputy in the long line that frequented the diner.

In the beginning he'd never guessed that anything was wrong. He'd seen an occasional bruise or two, but she'd always had a plausible explanation. Then one day he'd seen the distinct fingerprints that circled her arm, and soon after she'd been sporting a black eye. It had taken him weeks to coax the truth from her, months to convince her to file a police report.

Weeks before Leon's last arrest, Judy had confided in Reese that she was going to stop calling the cops. Nothing ever changed, she'd complained. He kept getting out of jail, kept coming back.

And she'd kept taking him back, he'd pointed out. She didn't throw him out. Didn't get a protective order against him. Didn't go for counseling, either jointly or alone. Didn't disappear someplace where he'd never find her. Didn't take his threats seriously enough.

The last time he'd beaten her, she'd taken him seriously. She'd wanted to run away. Reese had convinced her to go through with the trial. The sheriff's department would protect her, he'd promised.
He
would protect her.

And that was why he'd been so quick to put all the blame on Neely. Because Judy had believed him, had trusted him with her life, and he'd failed her.

Feeling queasy, he stood, neatly pushed the chair in and walked into the living room. He didn't stop until he was at the window, where he turned around and looked back at Neely, still standing by the sink, still holding herself because there was no one to do it for her. He was guilty, too, just as she'd said, but that didn't make her not guilty. It didn't make her role any more forgivable. There was plenty of blame to go around. It was just weightier for some than for others.

He turned back to the window and stood there a long time, staring and seeing nothing. When the floorboard in front of the kitchen door creaked, he didn't look. When the leather of
his favorite chair made its familiar rubbing sound, he continued to gaze out.

“How is your father?”

The question was so normal, so expected when talking with someone he hadn't seen in years, that it was unexpected. Frowning, he turned to face her and found her watching him without expression. For all the life it showed, her face might have been a porcelain mask—beautifully detailed, delicate, perfect in its design and execution, but lacking life. Warmth. Hope.

“He…he's fine.”

“Does he live around here?”

“In Buffalo Plains.” Remembering that the truce negotiations had been his idea, he stiffly continued. “He has a garage over there with Jace's father, and he's thinking about giving marriage another try. I'm not sure, though, which is the bigger attraction—the pretty widow, or the fact that she owns a vintage Mercedes that he loves to tinker with.”

“Tell him to marry for the car. It won't break his heart.”

The muscles in Reese's jaw tightened. “Actually, my advice was to forget the widow and make an offer for the car instead. If she turns him down, he can find another one like it and be just as happy.”

“Everything's interchangeable with you, isn't it?”

He didn't like the way she spoke—didn't like the bitter little smile that accompanied the words. He for damn sure didn't like the twinge of guilt they sent down his spine. “A car's a car,” he said flatly.

“And a woman's a woman, and a crook's a crook, and any one can take any other's place.”

If that were true, he would have replaced her nine years ago. As soon as he'd moved from Thomasville to Buffalo Plains, he would have found a job, a place to live and a woman to love, all in short order. Instead, it had been one hell of a long time before he'd even given thought to finding a woman to have sex with. He hadn't yet found the desire to look for one to love. “According to your reasoning, men are inter
changeable, too. How many men have you used in my place over the years?”

“None.” Apparently his cynicism showed on his face, because she smiled that bitter little smile again. It was a gesture he could easily learn to hate. “I'm not saying I've been celibate all these years. I haven't. I'm just saying that you were a tough act to follow. I couldn't find many men out there who despised me as much as you did but wanted to sleep with me badly enough to sacrifice their self-respect.”

Reese opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. He'd told her just that morning that his relationship with her had cost him his self-respect. He couldn't blame her now for throwing it back at him.

When he didn't say anything, she made a regretful sound. “We got a little off track there, didn't we? You say your father's contemplating marriage again, and I'll say ‘Oh, that's nice—how many does this make?' and you'll say…”

“This will be number four.” This wasn't the conversation he wanted to have. He wanted to back up, to ask her how many men she hadn't been celibate with. Had they been relationships or affairs? Had she contemplated marriage with any of them, or had they merely been substitutes—making do with what was available?

“What happened to numbers one through three? And which one was your mother?”