The Texas Ranger (26 page)

Marsh groaned louder.

 

It took the rest of the day to write up the report, turn in the evidence and talk to the assistant district attorney who was going to be handling the case. Grier sat in with the small group in the meeting room.

“If that isn't the damnedest story I've ever heard,” Grier said, just shaking his head. “We've been after Marsh for years with no success whatsoever. The FBI has been after him for years. The
state attorney general's been after him for years. And you two just waltz in and put him away!”

“We got lucky,” Brannon said easily.

“What about the hit man, York?” Josie asked worriedly. “He's still on the loose, isn't he?”

Grier glanced at the young Bexar County sheriff's deputy who'd been out at the Holliman place. He was now occupying a chair in the office with Brannon and the others, since he'd been involved in the arrest.

The deputy leaned back in his chair with a wicked grin. “No need to worry about York,” he murmured. “I was driving down the 410 Loop, minding my own business, when this beat-up old car went by me like I was backing up. Even though it was my lunch hour, I chased it down and stopped it. And lo and behold, there was York himself with a dirty bandage on his bullet wound.” He pursed his lips and smiled. “He's sitting down at the county jail even as we speak. And if Marsh sings like I expect him to, we'll have York just where we want him.”

“But he didn't kill anybody,” Josie pointed out. “Silvia killed Garner and Jennings.”

“Yes, but Marsh hired York to kill a man and to try to run down Judd Dunn two months ago when he started investigating the murders that Marsh was suspected in.” He grinned slowly. “Dunn has worked day and night to get enough evidence to put him away for good. He's the one who told me about
the make and model of York's car. I've been looking for it for the past week. York is just going to love prison,” he added with a sigh. “And the men on the inside will certainly love a young, sweet-faced handsome young fellow like him, don't you think?”

Brannon decided that he wouldn't answer that, but he grinned back.

T
he worst part of the ordeal was having to tell Bib Webb what they'd found, and what his wife had done. Brannon took Josie with him, but he phoned Becky Wilson before he left San Antonio and had her come as well.

Bib looked as if he'd been shot. He walked out onto the patio near the swimming pool and stood, with his hands in his pockets, just staring into space.

“Let me have a minute with him first,” Brannon told Becky, who was obviously aching to go to the man on the patio.

“All right.” Becky sat back down with a sigh and smiled shyly at Josie. “Won't you have a mint?” she offered, and then looked surprised when Josie laughed. Those mints had helped solve a murder.

 

Bib heard Brannon come up beside him and grimaced. “There are none so blind…” he quoted. He
glanced at his best friend. “Did you suspect her?”

“No” came the flat reply. “My money was on the computer hacker. Then we found out that Marsh's new ‘friend' was married, and she liked expensive mints.”

Bib took his left hand out of his pocket and studied his wedding band. “I've been a bachelor since Silvia was about seventeen,” he murmured. “She liked sex at first, but I wasn't rough enough to suit her, or reckless enough. She started having ‘friends.' I started drinking. It wasn't much of a life. But people get comfortable walking in familiar ruts, and they just keep walking out of habit.”

“This trial is going to be very messy,” Brannon said after a minute. “I wouldn't bet five cents on your chances for the senate seat when it's over, and that's God's truth.”

“I don't care.” Bib turned to him. “It doesn't matter if I lose the lieutenant governor's spot. I have a company I love, good employees, and we're branching out into experimental projects that will benefit millions of hungry people in third world countries if we can perfect them. What's that compared to a political job?”

“That sounds like you.”

Bib smiled. “That
is
me. All this—” he waved his hand at the opulent living room inside, with its imported crystal and fabric “—is Silvia.” He
shrugged. “There's nobody I want to get even with. Except maybe Marsh.”

“Marsh will serve time, no matter how many good lawyers he can afford. Sadly, so will Silvia, if they don't find her insane. And they might,” he added quietly. “You have to be prepared for that. She made a pretty shocking confession about her past. I have to tell what I heard.”

“What did she confess?” Bib asked, aghast.

“There's time for that later,” he said. No reason he couldn't give the man a few more hours of peace before the media exploded into his life.

Bib worried his hair again. “Well, I'll phone our attorney and see if he can do anything for Silvia. Maybe he can get a psychiatric profile and have her declared insane. There have been signs for a long time. I've been in denial, and pretended I didn't see them. But,” he added on a heavy sigh, “it's no use pretending anymore.”

“I'll do whatever I can to help.”

Bib smiled at him. “I know that. I appreciate it. You're the only friend I ever had who was willing to believe I wasn't guilty of any sort of graft.”

“I know you,” Brannon pointed out. “And I don't desert my friends. Ever. Let Becky come out and talk to you. She'll save you from the media.”

“Yes, she will,” he said calmly, and with a smile. “I'm going to marry her, when all this is finally over.”

“That doesn't come as a surprise. She'll be good for you, too.”

Brannon went back in and spoke briefly to Becky before he sent her out to Bib.

“What do we do now?” Josie asked Brannon, because she felt adrift.

He pursed his lips and smiled slowly. “We have supper, of course. Then we start making plans.”

She wondered about that last remark, but she kept it to herself until they'd had a nice, quiet supper and they were sitting in his SUV in the parking lot of her hotel.

“That looked like Grier's car,” he remarked as he cut off the engine. “Why would he be here?”

“I don't know. I haven't seen him today.” She studied him openly. “You said earlier that we'd make plans. What sort of plans?”

Brannon smiled and touched her mouth gently. “You had surgery just for me. I think that deserves a reward.”

Her face began to redden. “If you mean we'll go to bed together…”

He grinned. “Why, you shameless hussy,” he teased. “See this?” He pointed at the star on his chest. “I took a vow of chastity. I don't mess around with women,” he added haughtily.

“Oh, everybody who knows you would believe that, I'm sure,” Josette said with a wry look.

“I don't mess around with women who aren't
named Josette,” he qualified lazily. “Furthermore, I expect to be an exemplary husband and father.”

She just looked at him. Her eyes were wide, steady and uncertain.

The smile faded. He took her hand in his and lifted the knuckles softly to his mouth. “I love you,” he said quietly. “I never stopped. I'm tired of trying to live without you.”

She still stared, mesmerized.

“I'm in a dangerous profession, but I won't take unnecessary chances. I can work out of the Victoria office and commute. We'll have the ranch and both our salaries, and we know the best and worst of each other. We'll make it. I know we will.”

Josette drew in a long, slow breath, searching his pale eyes. “It's rather sudden,” she began.

“I know that. I wasn't suggesting that we jump into bed together tonight and get married in the morning,” he said. He looked very somber. “I want you to resign your job and spend three weeks with me at the ranch.” He held up a hand. “My wrangler and his wife still live in. We'll have built-in chaperones. You can talk to our local district attorney in Jacobsville about a job, I expect he'd be happy to have the help. I'll get transferred down to the Victoria office. I've already checked, and there's a man who wants to be closer to his parents in San Antonio. He is more than willing to trade jobs.”

She just shook her head. “You've given this a lot of thought,” she said.

“I've done nothing else since you came to San Antonio to work on this case.” Brannon searched her eyes. “It all hinges on whether or not you can forgive me for the past. I know it's a lot to ask. I've made mistakes. Bad mistakes.”

She reached up and touched his firm mouth. “We both did. I should have been willing to talk to you when you called me later that last night we were together. I should have called you back and explained what I felt. After the trial, I should have at least tried to talk to you.”

“That works both ways,” he said curtly. “I didn't even give you a chance. I just left town.”

“But now I know why you left,” she said. She smiled as his lips pursed against her fingertips. “I've been lost without you,” she began, and got choked up.

His arms reached for her. He held her bruisingly close and kissed her so fiercely that it hurt. After a few seconds, his mouth slid against her neck and he held her even closer, a faint tremor in the powerful arms holding her.

“Marc!” she exclaimed, shocked by the way he reacted to her soft confession.

His fingers bit into her back. “I…hated myself,” Brannon whispered hoarsely. “I couldn't live with hurting you.” His breath sighed out harshly at her
ear. “Oh God, I love you—love you with all I am, all I ever will be! When they lay me down in the dark, the last word I whisper will be your name…!”

Josette kissed him hungrily, stopping the words, stopping the pain. She held on for all she was worth, telling him with her lips that she would never leave him, never stop loving him. Tears poured from her eyes, hot and wet on her cheeks, and still she couldn't let go.

Neither of them noticed that the windows had all fogged up as emotions flared between them. At least, not until there was a firm, and very insistent, knock on the driver's window.

Brannon, half dazed, let Josette move discreetly out of his arms before he lowered the window.

Grier was leaning down with a theatrical disgusted look on his face. “I never thought I'd see the day that a Texas Ranger would get caught making out in a parked car in front of a really nice hotel.”

“Well, where else could we go?” Brannon demanded, fierce-eyed. “I can't take her back to my apartment and we can't go up to her hotel room, for obvious reasons! We just got engaged!”

Grier's eyes widened. “You
did?
”

Brannon sat very still. “Now, listen here…”

“Engaged.” Grier nodded. He grinned. He chuckled. He turned around and started walking away.

“You're not invited! If you show up at the wedding, you'd better be wearing body armor and a raid jacket!” Brannon yelled at his retreating back.

Grier just kept walking.

With a groan, Brannon powered the window back up and turned to Josette.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

He studied her. She looked delicious with her hair loose around her shoulders and her mouth softly swollen from his kisses, and her blouse half undone. He couldn't stop smiling at the picture she made.

“Hmm?” he murmured absently.

“Marc, what was that all about?” she insisted.

“Grier has this, uh, reputation for going to weddings,” he imparted slowly.

“Reputation?”

He cleared his throat. “Well, don't worry, because he isn't doing it to ours. Honest. I promise.”

“Okay.” She opened her arms, just to see what would happen.

He went into them without hesitation, and began to kiss her again. Grier and his reputation were the last thing on his mind in the turbulent minutes that followed. And, just in case, he locked the doors….

 

Several weeks later, Josette was standing with Marc in a small, but beautiful little church in Jacobsville, Texas, having already signed a legal doc
ument and taken vows that made her Mrs. Josette Anne Langley Brannon.

She wore a simple white peasant dress with high heels and a hastily improvised veil that had been a lace mantilla. Amazingly, Brannon had even found two unique gold wedding bands that fit at the jewelry shop. She looked at the man she'd just married with her whole heart in her eyes.

“That was a lovely ceremony,” Josette told the minister and his wife, who'd acted as witnesses along with their daughter.

“It was our pleasure,” the minister told her, shaking hands with both of them. “Are you sure you didn't want something grander? You're both known in Jacobsville. Your mother was baptized here,” he reminded Brannon.

“Yes, but my sister is now a queen,” Brannon reminded him. “And I didn't want a media frenzy.”

The minister cleared his throat. “Of course. Of course. Well, congratulations! And we'll hope to see you both here one Sunday, if you'd like to visit.”

Josette looked up at her husband. “Yes,” she said for both of them. “I think we would.”

 

He held her hand all the way back to the ranch. They'd spent a wonderful three weeks being engaged while they went horseback riding and visiting friends, and generally getting to know each other all over again. They found so much in common that
getting married seemed the most natural thing in the world. They even agreed on politics. The one place they drew the line was at sleeping together. And it was Marc who insisted on that condition. They were going to have a conventional wedding night, he informed her. He grinned at her blush and added that he was going to make her very glad that she'd waited for him. Which produced another blush.

He glanced at her while he drove and grinned at her shy scrutiny. They were going to spend a week honeymooning at Marc's ranch, just the two of them. The housekeeper and wrangler had their own little cottage now, that Marc had provided the year before, so the newlyweds had the house to themselves.

Or so they thought. Then they arrived at the ranch. There was a crowd waiting for them.

Marc groaned out loud. “Oh, no. No! Grier, I'll tie you to a horse and send you through a cactus thicket!” he swore.

Beside him, Josie chuckled. “So that's what you meant, about Grier not coming to the wedding.”

“He did this to Bud Handley,” he said irritably, “and his wife actually shot at him!” His eyes narrowed. “Too bad she missed…!”

“Now, now.” She soothed him. “I'm sure they'll go away soon. They just want to congratulate us.”

“That's what you think,” he muttered, slowing
down. “So help me, if I see one damned camera…!”

“There's Grier on the porch! And isn't that Judd Dunn?” she asked suddenly, staring at a tall, lean dark-haired man in jeans, wearing a Texas Ranger star on his shirt pocket. He was dangling a white hat in one hand, with a big booted foot propped against one of the columns on the ranch house's front porch. “But who are those men and women with them?” she added, noting several other assorted uniforms and badges.