The Sheriff's Son
Autor
Stella Bagwell
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Harlequin
HarlequinChapter One
Justine Murdock flexed her aching shoulders and shook her long red hair in the wind blowing through the open pickup. It was June in New Mexico. The sun was warm, and the orchards and pastures had just been washed with an overnight rain.
As the pickup rattled over a planked bridge crossing the Hondo River, Justine breathed in the fresh evening air. It was wonderful to be out of the medical clinic. She’d had an especially tiring day, and all she could think about was getting home to the ranch, taking a long, hot bath, then setting down to supper with her family.
The Bar M Ranch spread over several hundred acres at the foothills of the Capitan mountains. The house itself was built in a square, with a small courtyard in the center. The pink stucco walls, red tiled roof and ground-level porch, with arched supports, made the home a typical hacienda-style ranch house.
A graveled driveway circled the house, but since her sisters parked their vehicles in the back, Justine always used the front entrance.
Leaving her mud-splattered pickup in the shade of a piñon pine, Justine walked the short distance to the porch, rubbing the back of her neck as she went. For some unexplainable reason, half the mothers of Lincoln County had decided to bring their babies in for their immunizations today. Each time Justine jabbed a fat little thigh or hip, horrified shrieks had echoed through the whole clinic.
Rubbing her furrowed brow, Justine glanced around her. It still seemed like she was hearing babies crying!
She saw it then. The straw laundry basket on the flat concrete porch, the tottery little head wavering just above the rim.
Running the last few steps to the porch, Justine knelt beside the basket. A loud gasp rushed past her lips. There wasn’t just one baby sitting on the fuzzy blue blanket, there were two! A girl in pink, with bright red hair, and a boy in blue, with slightly darker auburn hair. Their features were almost identical, right down to the green of their eyes.
Dear God, twins! Where had they come from?
Quickly she scanned the area back over her shoulder. There were no strange vehicles parked nearby, no one to be seen. Did her sisters or aunt not know the babies were out here?
She looked back down at the twins, her face still mirroring the shock of finding them. “Where did you two come from?”
Distracted by Justine’s voice, the babies suddenly stopped their fussing and stared, wide-eyed, at her. After a moment, the boy stuck out his lower lip and the girl began waving her arms in the air.
“Yeah, I know,” Justine said. “You can’t talk yet. You’re not old enough.”
Quickly she picked up the basket of babies and carried it into the house. “Aunt Kitty! Rose! Chloe! Is anyone home?”
No one answered as Justine carried the heavy load into the kitchen and placed it carefully on the long Formica table.
With one hand still on the basket, Justine glanced at the refrigerator door, where notes were usually left, beneath an array of colorful magnets. A tiny square of paper dangled beneath a banana.
Charlie and I have gone to the grocery store in Ruidoso. Be back before dark. Love, Aunt Kitty
Justine groaned. It was nearly two hours before dark. That meant it would probably be at least an hour before her son and aunt returned home. As for her sisters, she doubted either of them would show up any sooner. Since their father’s death six weeks ago, which had left them in dire financial straits, both Rose and Chloe had taken to doing the work of the wranglers they’d been forced to let go.
“Well,” Justine said to the twins. “Looks like it’s just you and me, kids. What are we gonna do?”
Now that the two had an audience, the twins didn’t seem too perturbed at being confined to a laundry basket. Thankful for small favors, Justine thrust her hands through her thick red hair and tried to calm her racing mind.
Of course, she’d heard of babies being left on doorsteps in books or movies. But that was fiction. That didn’t happen in Hondo, New Mexico. And certainly not to Justine Murdock.
What should she do now? What did a person do when she found deserted babies on her porch? she wondered wildly. And they were obviously deserted. No one was knocking at the door or calling on the telephone to claim them.
A thought suddenly struck her, and she quickly made a search around and under the babies for a note, or any sort of clue. The only things she found were two bottles and two pacifiers, wrapped in several disposable diapers. The bottles were filled, and the formula was still cool, as though the bottles had only been taken out of the refrigerator a short time ago.
Her nursing instincts kicking in, Justine picked up the boy, gave him a quick inspection, then did the same with the girl.
They were both plump, the boy a little more so than the girl. Their skin was clear and pink, their eyes were bright. Both babies appeared to be perfectly normal and healthy.
Satisfied with her examinations, Justine set the twins facing each other in the basket, then stepped back and studied them thoughtfully. From what she could remember from her own son, and from the babies she saw in the medical clinic, she would guess the twins to be somewhere around five months old. Neither one had any teeth, yet they could both sit up without any props.
Try as she might, Justine couldn’t remember any of their friends or neighbors in the area having twins in the past six months. Nor could she remember twins of this age visiting the clinic at any time. Did that mean they weren’t from around here? If so, why would anyone bring them to the Bar M?
Maybe her aunt or sisters would have some idea, but Justine doubted it. She figured the three women were going to be just as flabbergasted to find the twins here as she’d been.
You know you’re going to have to call the sheriff, a voice said inside her head. Whoever had left the babies had committed a crime. Technically, the law needed to be advised and an investigation started. But calling the sheriff was the last thing on earth that Justine wanted to do.
Her legs suddenly wobbly, Justine pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. The babies stared at her, gooed and banged their little fists against the sides of the basket.
Justine smiled at their sweet round faces, while inside her stomach churned sickly. More than five years had passed since she saw or talked to Roy Pardee, the sheriff of Lincoln County. And during the year and a half that she’d been back home in Hondo, she’d carefully avoided any contact with the man. He was a part of her past that she wanted to keep in the past.
But now she had two strange babies on her hands, and he needed to know about them before the trail from where they came from turned cold. Dear God, could she face him again? Could she look at him and pretend that nothing had ever happened between them?
The questions made her hands tremble, but when she looked at the two helpless children, her jaw set with determination. She wasn’t an innocent twenty-year-old anymore. She was a mother, a nurse, a strong, grown woman. Someone had dumped two precious humans, and they deserved her help. Roy Pardee be damned!
Before she could lose her courage, Justine went over to the wall phone, located at the end of a row of cabinets, and punched the number listed for the Lincoln County sheriff.
A female dispatcher answered on the first ring, and Justine quickly gave the woman her name and address and went on to explain the problem.
“If you’ll hold a moment, Ms. Murdock, I’ll see how quickly someone can get out there,” she told Justine, then went off the line. Seconds later, she returned. “Sheriff Pardee will be right there, Ms. Murdock.”
In spite of all her earlier bravado, Justine felt as if the wind had been knocked from her. “Oh, it isn’t necessary to send him. Any deputy will do.”
The dispatcher must have considered Justine’s suggestion strange. She paused for long seconds, then said, “In a case like this, Sheriff Pardee would rather see things first-hand.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Justine said, glad the woman couldn’t see her red face. “Then I’ll be here waiting for him.”
The woman thanked her, then hung up. Justine placed the receiver back on its cradle, then groaned loudly. “I’ll be waiting for him,” she repeated with a snort, then turned and looked at the twins. “What am I saying? I won’t be waiting for him. I’ll simply be here—ready to talk to…whoever shows up. But I won’t wait on Roy Pardee. Not even for you,” she added to the babies.
As soon as the words were out, the girl began to cry. Justine quickly went over and lifted the baby into her arms.
“It’s all right, honey girl,” she said in a soothing voice. “Not all men are like Roy Pardee. Besides, when you grow up, you’ll be a lot smarter than I was. You’ve got an intelligent little face. I can already tell you’ll know to steer clear of men who walk with a swagger and wear a badge in place of a heart.”
The trip from Carrizozo, where the sheriff’s department was located, to the Bar M was a bit over forty miles. She figured she had thirty minutes or more before Roy arrived. She used part of the time to make a quilt pallet on the living room floor for the babies.
While the twins rolled and stretched on their new bed, Justine peered out the windows, toward the corrals and barns, in hopes of catching a glimpse of Chloe or Rose. If there had ever been a time she needed the support of her sisters, it was now. But there was no sight of them anywhere, and she could hardly leave the babies alone to go in search of them.
As for her son and aunt, Justine hoped the two of them didn’t show up until after the sheriff had come and gone. She didn’t want Charlie to see Roy. And she didn’t want Roy to see her son. Maybe that was selfish and ridiculous on her part. Roy would probably never make any sort of connection. Still, she wasn’t ready to take that chance. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be.
Grimacing, Justine sat down on the couch in front of the twins’ makeshift bed. More than likely, she thought, Roy had forgotten all about the brief affair they had nearly six years ago. Yet she hadn’t forgotten. She couldn’t. Charlie was a constant reminder of the time she’d spent with Roy.
As she watched the twins examine each other’s ears and eyes, a soft smile curved Justine’s lips. Having Charlie far outweighed the heartache and humiliation Roy had dealt her all those years ago. Her son gave her life meaning and purpose. She loved him fiercely, and would do anything to protect him. And knowing that only made her wonder how any mother had been able to leave these two babies behind.
It had been at least two years since Roy was on the Bar M Ranch. He’d stopped by on a trip to Picacho to see Tom. There’d been a rash of cattle thefts at the time, and he’d wanted to see if the ranch had suffered any losses.
Roy had always liked the older Murdock man, and had been sorry to hear of his sudden death a few weeks ago. Yet he’d not gone to the funeral. He’d known that she would be there and he’d decided that if or when he ever saw her again, he didn’t want it to be over her father’s grave.
That day, he’d chosen not to see Justine. But today he had no choice, and he didn’t know how he would feel to finally look at her beautiful face once again. And she would still be beautiful. She could only be twenty-five or twenty-six now.
He didn’t know exactly when Justine had returned home to Hondo. Quite by accident, he’d overheard someone in a Ruidoso café talking about Tom having his middle daughter back out on the ranch again. That had been several months ago, yet he could still remember how the snippet of news had stunned him. He’d come close to casually questioning the person about Justine’s coming home. But he’d stopped himself short of doing such a thing. When the county sheriff asked questions about anyone, it always started the gossip mill grinding.
Six years ago, he’d been a young deputy in the middle of a messy breakup with the sheriff’s daughter when Justine came into his life. The result had been a secret affair. To this day, he didn’t think anyone knew about the torrid liaison he’d had with the fiery-haired Murdock girl. Except him. And it annoyed the hell out of him, because he couldn’t forget.
The knock on the door startled Justine, making her hands jerk as she fastened the adhesive tab on the waist of the diaper.
“He’s not going anywhere.” Justine spoke in a hurried hush to the boy twin. “And I want to make sure your pants aren’t going to fall off.”
Her heart beating in her throat, Justine took another moment to check the fresh diaper she’d placed on the baby. Then, rising to her feet, she went to answer Roy’s second knock.
The thin strips of glass running the length of the oak door gave her a glimpse of a tall man dressed in blue jeans, boots and a khaki shirt. His head was turned toward the corrals and barns, but the moment Justine opened the door, it jerked around to face her.
For long seconds, Justine could only stare at him and wonder why, after all these years, he should still look so good, so sexy, to her. The years she’d been away had changed him very little, except to add a few sunlines to his face and muscular weight to his body.
“Hello, Roy.”
Beneath the brim of his black Stetson, his blue eyes flicked impassively over her face. “Hello, Justine.”
She didn’t realize just how much seeing him had affected her until she stepped back to allow him entry into the house. Her legs were trembling on weak knees, and for a moment she clung to the doorknob for support.
“Please come in. The babies are right here.”
He stepped past her. Justine shut the door and turned to him.
“Were you the only one here when you found the babies?” he asked.
No “How are you, it’s good to see you, how have things been?” Justine thought. He was going to be strictly business. That was good, she supposed. She didn’t want anything personal to pass between them. Still, his indifference hurt. She’d once given him so very much of herself. But she supposed Roy Pardee was like so many men in this world. They took a woman’s heart, then forgot all about it.
“It appears that way. My sisters must be out on another part of the ranch. And my—aunt has gone into Ruidoso.”
He was looking at the two babies now. Justine drew in a shaky breath and raked her fingers through her long, tangled hair.
“What time was it when you came home and found them?”
Justine glanced at the watch strapped to her left wrist. “I don’t know exactly. I got off work a little later than usual, then drove straight home. I’d say it’s been at least an hour and a half.”
“And how were they when you found them?”
Her brows lifted as he turned back to her. “How were they?” she repeated inanely. “They were fine. In fact, I’d say they’re both in perfect health.”
Roy’s eyes slowly drifted over her white nurse’s shift. “I wasn’t asking about their medical condition. I want to know where they were. In the house, here on the floor?”
There was a thread of impudence in his voice, a sound that said he was just waiting, hoping, for her to make some sort of foolish remark. A second time. Justine suddenly wanted to slap him.
She tried to count to ten, but her mind wavered. By the time she reached five, her attention had returned to his face, the chiseled mouth and the hooded gray-blue eyes, the sandy hair curling around his ears and the back of his neck. She’d once showered that face with kisses, she remembered, threaded her fingers though his hair and held his head fast to her breast.
He’d made her heart beat fast and wild then. She’d never loved anyone the way she loved him, and now, after all this time, she was afraid she never would again. This man had ruined her chances of happiness, and he didn’t even know it. Moreover, he didn’t care.
Her nostrils flaring, she lifted her chin. “The babies were on the porch by the door. In a laundry basket.”
“Where is the basket?”
“In the kitchen.”
“I’d like to see it.”
And she’d like to stuff it over his head, Justine thought. But the pistol strapped to his hips and the badge pinned to his breast reminded her of his authority in this county, even in this house. She didn’t want to test it at this moment.
“Follow me,” she told him.
Justine took him to the kitchen, where the basket was still sitting atop the table. Ignoring her, he looked inside.
“Was there any sort of note, anything inside other than this blanket?”
“The only things I found were four diapers, two bottles and two pacifiers.”
He looked at Justine, his lips thinning with obvious disapproval. “And you’ve handled them all?”
“Of course. I had to change the babies, and I didn’t want the formula to spoil. The two of them will eventually need to eat.”
He lifted his hat from his head and raked his fingers through his hair. Justine couldn’t help but notice that it was still thick and shiny.
“I don’t suppose you thought about getting fingerprints?”
She dismissed his question with a wave of her hand. “I’m not stupid, Roy. I think you and I both know that whoever left these babies doesn’t have a criminal record or have their fingerprints on file. It doesn’t appear to me to be a crime committed by a repeated felon with a jail record. There’s no motive or gain.”
She was probably right, but that didn’t make him like the fact that she’d tampered with evidence. Besides that, he was finding it damn hard to concentrate on anything but her.
He’d thought seeing her again would be easy. He’d thought he could look at her and not remember the passion that had once burned so briefly between them. But images of the past were blurring his vision, reminding him of the fool he’d been.
“How old do you think the babies are?” he asked after a moment.
“Five months, give or take.”
He walked over to the screen door leading out to the courtyard. “Do you have any idea who they might belong to, or where they might have come from?”
“No. No idea.”
He continued to look out at the courtyard, with its brick patio, its redwood lawn furniture and its huge pots of bright flowers. Rooms and a ground-level porch were built in a square around the small yard. Directly in front of him, on the south wall, a wrought-iron gate led outside, to the barns and stables.
From where Roy stood, he could see nothing out of the ordinary. He glanced at Justine. Her face was pale, and her fingers were nervously tracing a pattern on the edge of the laundry basket.
“Have you ever seen the twins before?”
“No.”
His jaw tight, Roy looked away from her. “I need to take a look around the place. Do I have your permission, or should I drive back to Carrizozo and get a search warrant?”
Justine’s lips parted as her eyes bored into the side of his darkly tanned face. “A search warrant? Do you think I had something to do with the twins appearing on the doorstep?”
He turned to face her. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Roy frowned at her incredulous expression. “This is your home, Justine, your property. Not mine. If you don’t want me on it, you have the legal right to see a search warrant. As a lawman—”
“You don’t have to remind me you’re the law of Lincoln County, Roy,” she said dryly. “I’m well aware that you are.”
So she thought he was cocky, just here to flaunt his authority in her face. Well, there were a lot of things Roy was thinking about her, too. But he wasn’t going to voice them. The past was dead, and he wasn’t going to give Justine Murdock the satisfaction of knowing how hard it had been for him to finally bury it.
Striding over to her, he looked down at her upturned face. “I’m glad you realize that, Justine.”
Her nostrils flared as her eyes scanned his face, then settled on the firm line of his lips.
She realized a lot of things about him, Justine thought. That these past six years had not only lined his face and muscled his body, they had extinguished the light that once burned in his eyes. The smile that had always been so ready on his lips had totally disappeared. What had happened to the Roy Pardee she used to know?
“Go ahead. Do your search,” Justine told him, her eyes drifting to a point over his shoulder. “You won’t get any resistance from me.”
Roy’s lips twisted. Too bad she hadn’t resisted his advances all those years ago. If she had, then maybe he wouldn’t be feeling this awful, empty anger inside him now.
“Thank you. I’ll try to be quick.”
He left the room, and Justine immediately sagged against the table. Dear God, let this be over soon, she prayed. Let him be gone from here before her son and aunt returned.
Justine didn’t know how long she stood there before the fussing of the babies called her back to the living room. Kneeling down on the pallet, she checked both their diapers. They were dry, so she patted their backs and tried talking to them. Neither the girl nor the boy seemed interested in what she had to say. Both simply chewed their fists and cried harder. Justine knew there was nothing left to do but heat their bottles and feed them.
By the time Roy returned from his search through the house and over part of the grounds, Justine was sitting on the floor with the babies, doing her best to balance bottles in each hungry mouth.
“Thank God you’re back!” Before Roy could say anything, she picked up. the boy and thrust him into his arms. “You can feed him while I take the girl.”
Stunned, Roy looked helplessly at the baby in his arms. “I don’t know anything about feeding a baby!”
Frowning at him, she cradled the redheaded girl in her arms. “Just put the nipple in his mouth and keep the bottle tilted up. He’ll do the rest.”
Roy awkwardly carried the boy and the bottle over to the couch and took a seat on the edge of the cushion. As soon as he offered the baby the nipple, the little tyke latched on to it like a hungry pup.
“I didn’t come here to act as a temporary daddy,” he muttered.
Temporary daddy. Justine’s lips twisted with a grimace as she repeated the two words to herself. The man didn’t look as if he’d be comfortable in that role, much less being a father in a permanent capacity.
“I know you didn’t come here for this. But I can’t handle two of them at the same time. And when a baby gets hungry, he doesn’t care where he is or who he’s with, he wants his dinner. Surely you know that.”
Roy shot her a glare as the baby reached for the shiny badge pinned to the pocket of his khaki shirt
“How would I know that? I’ve never had a child!”
He growled the question at Justine, and, if it was possible, her face went even whiter. I’ve never had a child. What was he saying? What about Marla, and the baby she and Roy had been expecting all those years ago? The questions roared through her head like a tornado.
Through offhand remarks of her father’s, Justine had learned that Roy and Marla’s marriage had ended and the woman had moved far away. At the time of the divorce, it had been rumored that Marla was pregnant, but Tom had never heard anything about a child being born and he hadn’t wanted to appear nosy and ask Roy outright. Especially since the two of them had been divorced.
Down through the years, Justine had simply assumed the baby had been born and lived with its mother in another state. Now Roy was telling her he’d never had a child! What did it all mean?
Struggling to collect her thoughts, she said, “I—Well, I just figured you were probably a daddy by now.”
Roy glanced down at the auburn-haired boy in his arms. The tiny fingers were doing their best to tug the sheriff’s badge away from his shirt. Carefully he plucked the baby’s hand away, only to have the stubby little fingers wrap tightly around his forefinger.
“Do I look like one?” he asked gruffly.
No, she thought, her teeth grinding together, Roy Pardee was the very image of a man who liked to make babies, not father them.
Ignoring his question, she asked, “Did you find anything outside?”
The baby was still clinging to his finger. It made him feel hemmed in, but needed. And that was a strange feeling for Roy. No one had ever really needed him. As a lawman, maybe. But not like this helpless little fellow in his arms.
“No. I need to talk to your sisters. When do you think they’ll be in?”
Justine shrugged as she absently rocked the child in her arms. “By dark. Maybe later. Rose is probably out in one of the pastures checking on the cattle, and Chloe should have been down at the stables with the horses. You didn’t see her?
“No. The barns and the stables were all empty.”
Glancing down, Justine studied the little girl’s round face, dimpled cheeks and soft red hair. “Do you think it was the parents that left these children here? I mean, how could someone do such a thing? If I hadn’t come home when I had—” Shuddering at the thought, she shook her head. “With just a little motion, they could have turned that basket over. No telling what would have happened to them.”
Roy could see that the idea of the babies being harmed alarmed her greatly. It bothered him, too. Still, he didn’t think the person or persons who’d left the twins had meant to put their lives in jeopardy. “It’s too early to say if it might have been one or both of the parents, or someone unrelated. The only thing that’s clear to me is that whoever left them here meant for you or one of your family members to have them.”
Justine’s head swung back and forth. “But that’s insane! Why would someone want me or my sisters to have their babies?”
Roy shrugged. “You’re a nurse. Maybe someone knew that and believed you’d take good care of them.”
Milk was dribbling from the corner of the baby’s mouth. Drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, Roy dabbed it away. With the bottle still in his mouth, the little boy grinned broadly and let out a happy goo.
Scowling, Roy jammed the damp handkerchief back in his pocket. Poor little guy, he thought grimly. He wasn’t even aware that he’d been abandoned. He was too small to know about the pain of rejection. But Roy knew all about it, and even though the person or persons who’d left these babies behind might not have intended physical harm to them, they still needed to be strung up by the heels. Roy vowed then and there to track them down, no matter how long it took!
Across the room, Justine watched the dark, angry expression spread over Roy’s face as he looked down at the baby in his arms. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There was such hardness in his eyes and on his lips. Was the man totally heartless? Didn’t he feel anything for the helpless child in his arms?
If it hadn’t been for the girl still feeding in her arms, Justine would have ripped the baby away from him and ordered him out of the house. As it was, however, she was hardly in a position to vent her feelings to him.
But she would someday, Justine silently promised herself. Someday she’d let him know what a selfish, heartless man he really was.
From out of nowhere, hot moisture blurred her vision. She shut her eyes and swallowed at the unexpected rush of emotion. This wasn’t like her to get teary and mad and vindictive. Normally she was a loving woman. But Roy Pardee, or the thought of him, had never left her feeling normal.
The sound of a vehicle caught both her and Roy’s attention. Rising up in the rocking chair, Justine glanced out the window. Her heart immediately dropped to her stomach.
“It’s my aunt,” she told Roy.
He nodded.
Moments later, a screen door banged and the patter of racing feet on Spanish tile grew closer. Then, suddenly, the running footsteps stopped and Charlie, her five-year-old son, stood just inside the living groom, his wide blue eyes going from his mother and the baby in her arms to the strange man on the couch.
“It’s all right, darling. You can come on in,” Justine told him gently.
With a cautious eye on Roy, the boy scurried to Justine’s side.
“Mommy, where did you get the baby? Who is that man? He’s got a baby, too!”
Justine cast a glance at Roy. He was staring at her and Charlie, his eyes squinted to slits, his jaw rigid. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking, but it was quite clear that the appearance of her son wasn’t pleasing to him. And suddenly she knew she’d been right all those years ago. She could stop beating up on herself, stop feeling guilty. Roy Pardee hadn’t been father material then, and he wasn’t now.
“Yes, honey. Mommy found the babies, and the sheriff has come to help find out where they belong.”
Smiling with instant fascination, Charlie carefully touched the red fuzz of hair on the girl twin’s head. “She has red hair like you, Mommy!”
Justine smiled at her son’s observation. “She sure does. Now, will you go get Aunt Kitty? The sheriff would like to speak with her.”
Charlie glanced curiously over at the man and the baby on the couch, then started toward the door. “Aunt Kitty had to go to the bathroom! I’ll get her!”
Charlie raced out of the room. Once the boy was out of sight, Roy released a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“You have a son?”
The sound of his low, gravelly voice caused Justine to jerk ever so slightly. She looked up from the baby and over to him. There was an odd look of betrayal on his face. As though he knew…But no, she swiftly assured herself. He couldn’t know anything. No one, not even her sisters, knew that Roy Pardee was Charlie’s father.
