Marilyn Pappano - Lawman's Redemption

Before heading home, he drove by the county maintenance facility in the north part of town and filled up his gas tank. It wouldn’t do to get called out on an emergency in the middle of the night and find out the gas tank was empty.

That done, he started home…and made it as far as the stop-light in front of the courthouse. It was red, and he stopped, wondering idly what he could fix for dinner that wouldn’t take long, paying little attention to the music on the radio, when something—he couldn’t even say what—caught his attention and made him look to his left.

There in front of the First National Bank of Buffalo Plains, fiddling with a camera and a tripod, was Hallie Madison. I imagine in a town like this, it will be impossible to avoid each other entirely, she’d said at lunch. No kidding. He wondered why that was. In spite of the town’s size, he rarely had any problem avoiding people, so why was she any different?

Maybe because she’d been on his mind ever since he’d seen her at the wedding.

Checking the rearview mirror and finding the street clear, he backed up far enough to pull into a parking space, then climbed out. When he crossed the street, Hallie was bent slightly, making adjustments to the camera. He kept his distance and remained silent until she straightened and took a step back.

“What are you doing?”

She automatically smiled when she saw him. “Taking a picture of the courthouse in the setting sun. You’re a master at asking the obvious, aren’t you?”

“That’s what I get paid the big bucks for,” he said dryly.

“Oh, so is this an official interrogation?” She stood straighter and raised her hands in the air. “I’m not doing anything wrong… What’s your official title?”

“Undersheriff.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Gee, I believe I’ll stick with deputy. I swear, Deputy Marshall— Isn’t that cute? Did you ever notice—”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll get it right this time. I swear, Deputy Marshall, I’m not doing anything wrong, and I don’t have any weapons, drugs or contraband. You can search me if you like.”

One innocent, playacting sentence, and it changed the whole tenor of the evening. It was still hot and muggy, but now the air seemed to crackle all around them. Brady felt the strong pull of desire deep in his belly, as if he hadn’t just spent practically two entire nights with this woman. He was finding it difficult to breathe, or think, or to find words to give voice to—especially when the only words he wanted to say were, yes, I like.

Slowly, her gaze locked with his, she lowered her arms, then laced her fingers together. “I—I didn’t mean—”

“Damn,” he murmured. “And here you got my hopes up.” And that wasn’t all.

For a moment she looked uncertain, as if she wasn’t entirely sure he was teasing—fair enough, since he wasn’t either. Then she started fussing with the camera again. “If you work this late every day, you need a raise,” she remarked, her tone a shade too cheerful.

“Every deputy in the state of Oklahoma needs a raise.”

“Not a job you’ll get rich doing, huh?”

“Not if you’re honest.”

“And you are.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if there could be no doubt.

“As the day is long.” Coming a few feet closer, he gestured toward the camera. “Isn’t it too dark to be taking pictures?”

“Not if you know what you’re doing. For a time I worked as a photographer—did portraits, weddings, publicity photos. That’s how I met Max. I did a portrait of his sister’s kids, and we became friends—sort of—and she introduced us.”

It appeared most of her friends in California had been sort-of friends, since at lunch, she said Max had gotten them all in the divorce. That couldn’t have been fun. “Then you married the big Hollywood producer and…took up a life of leisure?”

“And photography became a hobby that interfered with my obligations as Mrs. Max Parker.” She leaned back against the bank building and gazed at the courthouse. “It’s impressive, isn’t it? Looks as if it’s been there forever.”

He moved to stand a few feet from her and studied the building where he worked. It was built of native stone and stood three stories tall, with arched windows spaced equidistantly on all four sides. Carved into the stone above the main entrance was the date it was built. Eighty-two years old, he calculated, and still looking as solid as when it was new.

“What brought you to Buffalo Plains?”

With the heat seeping from the bank’s stone facade into his back, Brady slowly turned his head to look at her. “How is it Neely’s the lawyer when you’re the one full of questions?”

She laughed. “Neely’s the lawyer because she’s the smart one.”

“Uh-huh.” He’d heard that before. “And what are you?”

For a long time she continued to gaze at the courthouse, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t seeing the building. After a while, she shook her head, making her braid swing, then laughed again, though far less convincingly this time. “I’m the screwup. The dumb one, the ditzy one, the one who doesn’t know the meaning of the word commitment.”

His jaw tightening, Brady looked away. His impulse was to disagree with her, to insist that her family didn’t see her in those terms, but he wasn’t sure he would be telling the truth.

Her eyes too bright, she bumped his arm with her shoulder. “Made you uncomfortable, didn’t I?”

“No. I was just thinking that a better label for you is probably the misunderstood one.” And he knew how it felt to be misunderstood.

Without giving her time to respond, he went on. “After the divorce, I wanted to be anywhere but Texas. First I headed out to New Mexico, then into Colorado, and about six years ago I wound up in Buffalo Plains. I got a job, I liked it and was good at it, and I stayed. It only took me eight years to find a place I could stay.”

“Sheesh, I hope I have better luck.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not staying in Beverly Hills. I’m going to sell the house and find someplace where I can belong. What do I need with ten acres of lawn and gardens, seven bedrooms, a dining room that seats thirty, a screening room that seats fifty and two guest houses?”

“That’s not a house. It’s a mansion.”

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I never liked it anyway. Max picked it out, and his interior designer decorated it. All I got to do was live in it.”

“If you didn’t like it, why didn’t you let him have it in the divorce?” He’d been more than happy to walk away from the house he’d built for Sandra. If he’d kept it after the divorce, he would have burned it to the ground, then left the rubble there so he would never forget.

By then the sun had set enough that the streetlights were on. In their artificial glow, he could make out the sheepish expression on her face. “The bimbo wanted it, and I— She’d already taken my husband. There was no way I was going to let her have my house, too.”

“Does the bimbo have a name?” He hadn’t set foot in a movie theater in longer than he could remember, but his satellite system delivered more channels of movies than a reasonable person could watch. Since he spent the bulk of his free time alone, he watched a lot.

“Lilah Grant.”

He gave a low whistle.

“I see you’re familiar with her,” Hallie said, her voice so dry it could suck the humidity out of the air. “She wears a size two—which also happens to be her IQ, by the way—and she’s got less acting talent than that post over there, but she never met a nude scene she didn’t love. And, no, they’re not real. Those are the best triple-D breasts money can buy.”