The Texas Ranger (17 page)

“And you made biscuits.” He put the bucket of chicken on the counter and went to the table to look at the meal she'd prepared. “You shouldn't have gone to this much trouble, but I do love homemade biscuits,” he murmured with a gentle smile. “I haven't had a decent one since we were dating. I used to stop by for breakfast some mornings, because you always cooked them at home.”

“Yes.” The memory made her sad. She'd thought they were going to have a future together back then. He'd even teased her about moving in with him so that he could have fresh biscuits every morning.

“That was an idiot comment,” he muttered. “I didn't mean to bring back unpleasant memories.”

“They weren't all unpleasant,” she remarked. “Here, sit down and butter a biscuit before they get cold.”

He seated her, and then himself, but he noticed that she only took a little taste of chicken and a single biscuit. “Aren't you hungry?” he asked, concerned.

“Not really. I'm a little nauseous still. I hope the biscuits are okay,” she added. “I had to make them with one hand, and I couldn't roll them out.”

He took a nibble of one. “They're delicious.”

She smiled. “I'm glad. You never used to eat proper meals. You were forever snacking, because something always came up when you were working.”

“That goes with the turf,” he reminded her. “I can't remember the last time I had a single uninterrupted meal.” He took a forkful of chicken to his lips and savored it.

“Are you happy, now that you're back with the Rangers again?” she asked conversationally.

“I love the Rangers,” he replied. “I always have. I suppose I'll keep working for them until I'm old
enough to retire with a pension. But I'll still have the ranch. It brings in a nice profit. I put the money right back into livestock and mechanical improvements. What's left over, I invest. I've made some good choices. So good, in fact, that I could probably quit working whenever I felt like it.”

She smiled. “You aren't cut out to sit around on a ranch and let everyone else do the work.”

“You've got that right. At least drink some more juice,” he chided when she left her glass and started to stand up. “And don't even think about doing the dishes. That's my job. Tomorrow night, I'll cook.”

“Can you?” she asked.

“I'm no gourmet chef, but I make a mean meat loaf.”

“My favorite!” she exclaimed.

He gave her a speaking look. “One of the only two restaurants you'd let me take you to had meat loaf on the menu. I haven't forgotten.”

“I love it.”

“Meat loaf and peach cobbler,” he murmured, smiling reminiscently. “And crepes and chocolate malt shakes.” The smile faded. “I wish we could go back in time. I've made serious mistakes. I don't suppose I'll ever be able to make up for them.”

She avoided his eyes. “The past is best left alone. What did you find out about the shooter?”

He told her, adding the bit about York being the nervous minister at the funeral of Dale Jennings.

“I thought he looked very nervous for a minister, but I assumed he was just new at the job! What was he doing there?” she exclaimed.

“Probably,” he said flatly, “getting a good look at his next target.”

J
osette felt her heart drop. “Do you think he killed Dale?” she asked bluntly.

“I don't know. It's possible. But what connection could Jennings have had to York, or to Jake Marsh, for that matter? Were they in on some blackmail scheme with him? Or are they in cahoots with somebody else? Despite all the investigating we've done, we haven't answered many questions.”

“I know.” She looked at him worriedly. “York's in custody now, though. He can't hurt anybody else.”

“York is like Marsh—he's slippery,” he replied. “York got loose once and he can do it again. Apparently he's being paid well enough to make the risks worthwhile. He probably has a new identity and a plane ticket hidden and ready to use, once he
gets rid of the target. Or targets.” He grimaced. “This whole damned case is like a well. You go down an inch and discover you've got several yards below to explore. Somebody has a lot to lose, and is willing to kill however many people it takes to keep a secret.”

“Mrs. Jennings has been targeted once already,” she pointed out. “If the perpetrator thinks she knows more than she's telling—and I think that myself—she's still in danger. Maybe not from York, but from somebody else.”

His gray eyes narrowed as he watched her across the table. “You shouldn't have done so much,” he said gently. “Go to bed. I'll clean up in here.”

“I do feel a little woozy,” she murmured, smiling faintly as she got to her feet. “I'll be better tomorrow.”

He made a noise, but it didn't sound like he was agreeing. She went back into the room he'd given her and sat down heavily on the bed, feeling weak and shaky. A minute later, he came in with a pajama top and tossed it to her. It was brand-new and looked as if it had never been worn.

“I keep a pair in case I get shot and have to go to the hospital,” he murmured dryly. “Otherwise, I don't wear any.”

She flushed, looking at the top, which would probably come down to her knees.

“I'll wear the bottoms while you're here,” he
added. “Tomorrow, I'll go by your hotel and pick up some things for you. And tell the clerk to hold your room.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Try to get some sleep. Good night.”

“Good night.”

He closed the door. She changed into the pajama top and climbed under the covers. In scant minutes, she was dead to the world. But it didn't last long. She woke in the night, feverish and frightened.

Brannon opened the door and moved to the bed, feeling the fever with a cool hand against her forehead.

“Hot,” she whispered hoarsely. “So hot!”

He turned on the bedside light and went to get a wet cloth. He bathed her face and hands with it and lifted her head so that she could swallow the analgesic to take the fever down. Then, afraid to leave her alone in a room, he got under the covers and pulled her close, holding her while she shivered with the fever.

“Oh, Marc,” she whispered in her delirium. “Marc, why did you leave?”

His teeth ground together as she relived that last, disastrous date with him that had put an end to their relationship. She wept and shivered until the analgesic finally kicked in, and she slept, her face bathed in tears.

 

By the time she woke, Brannon was already up and dressed. She didn't even realize he'd stayed with her all night. But with morning, she didn't feel better. Her arm throbbed, no matter how she held it or rested it, and she was still feverish. All that long day, Brannon didn't leave her. He bathed her heated face and her hands, dispensed aspirins and antibiotic and painkillers to her, and finally stretched out on the cover and pillowed her head on his chest while she wept from the misery of it all.

“I guess you've been shot,” she said wearily when the pain had eased a little.

“Twice,” he said. “Once in the leg—missed the bone, fortunately—and once in the shoulder.”

“Who looked after you?” she asked absently.

There was a pause. “I looked after myself,” he said.

“Did Gretchen know?”

“I don't tell my sister things that will upset her,” he said stiffly. “She had enough responsibility, looking after our mother and the ranch. Mother's cancer was rough on Gretchen. That's why she went on holiday overseas after our mother died, and it's how she met her husband.”

“I always liked Gretchen,” she sighed.

“She liked you, too.”

“How's the hit man?”

He chuckled, surprised at the reference. “In a room, under heavy guard, being relentlessly ques
tioned by Grier. I wouldn't wish him on my worst enemy.”

“I haven't met him yet.”

“You haven't missed much. He probably has a badge sewn on his underwear and a tattoo on his butt. He's the type.”

“Not a Ranger badge, though,” she murmured drowsily.

“Those are hard to get. But actually, he had one, until two years ago.”

Her eyes closed. “I'll be better tomorrow.”

He smoothed her disheveled hair, liking the faint scent of roses that clung to it. She was warm and vulnerable in his arms. He felt peace. Odd, when he'd never felt it with anyone else. He liked holding her while she slept. But he wasn't going to tell her that he'd spent the previous night with her, or what she'd whispered in the grip of fever.

“Go back to sleep,” he said softly.

She felt him move and her fingers clung to his shirt. “Don't go,” she whispered, too weak from pain to pretend she didn't mind being left alone.

His chest rose and fell heavily, but he sank back down and her body relaxed against him. Seconds later, she was asleep again and, like the night before when she lay so close in his arms in the darkness, he was fighting once again a two-year-old hunger that had never diminished. Only when the first light broke through the window did he leave her and go
back to his own bed. It was best for now if she didn't know that she had company at night.

 

The next morning, she was up before Brannon. She dressed and began making breakfast. It was ready when he came out of his bedroom, wearing jeans and nothing else, yawning.

He stopped short at the sight of her putting butter on the table and blinked. “I thought I told you to stay in bed,” he remarked, coming closer.

She was trying not to stare. His wavy blond-streaked brown hair was disheveled, and his chest was sexier than a TV commercial. She'd seen his chest before, with broad, hard muscles covered with a tangle of soft hair that wedged from his collarbone down into the low waistline of his jeans. She'd touched it as well, that last memorable evening they'd spent together; touched it, kissed it, nibbled it…

She flushed and averted her eyes. “I'm much better,” she said. “It's sore, but I can handle that. The fever seems to be gone.”

“Does it?” He was beside her before she had time to be shocked, one lean hand pressed to her cheek.

Her heart stopped and ran away. He saw her pulse rampaging in the artery of her neck. The shirt she was wearing—his shirt—was throbbing from the force of her heartbeat. His fingers spread gently on
her cheek and his thumb rubbed softly over her swollen lips, sensitizing them in a silence broken only by the insistent sizzle of bacon in the iron skillet on the stove.

“The bacon,” she choked.

His eyes held hers for one long minute before he dropped his hand and moved to the table. The impact of those soft, dark eyes made him ache. He'd done nothing but hurt her in the past, but she still wanted him. He wondered what she'd say if she knew how hungrily her hands had explored his chest while she slept in his arms for the past two nights. It had kept him awake until dawn. Of course, he was used to grabbing catnaps and functioning with them.

With unsteady hands, Josette took a spatula and piled the bacon onto a platter lined with paper towels. She then moved the pan off the hot burner to an unlit back one. She put the bacon on the table beside the eggs she'd just scrambled and the basket of hot biscuits. She poured coffee into two mugs and put them on the table.

“I'm going back to work today,” she said huskily.

“You're not.”

She glared at him. “I don't get paid for lying around in bed…!”

“You have sick days just like any other government worker,” Brannon said calmly, while he but
tered a biscuit. “I'll bet you haven't taken a sick day off since you've been in Simon's office,” he added, staring straight into her eyes.

She averted her gaze and grabbed a biscuit. “I don't get sick.”

“Neither do I, as a rule, but a gunshot wound isn't exactly sick. You'll stay home today,” he added, impatiently taking the biscuit she was trying to butter with one hand away and buttering it himself.

She took the biscuit from his outstretched hand with a mutinous expression. “All right,” she said curtly. “One more day.”

“We'll see.”

Her gaze fell reluctantly to his chest and darted away. He wasn't overly muscular, but he was well-built and fit physically. She didn't doubt that he could hold his own in a free-for-all. He was certainly efficient when he went after someone, and she remembered amusedly how he'd tackled the man who shot her.

He finished his eggs and bacon and biscuit and sat back with his coffee cup in his hand, and watched her try not to look at his chest. It amused him that she was still shy.

“You could take off your shirt, too,” he remarked as he sipped coffee. “We could compare wounds.”

“You've already seen mine,” she pointed out, trying not to react.

“And a lot more,” he added with a wicked grin.

She flushed, almost overturning her coffee cup. “That's enough, Brannon.”

“We're back to that, are we?” he said wistfully. “I suppose you don't think we know each other well enough for first names anymore.”

She put down her cup audibly and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “I'm going back to bed, since you won't let me out the door.”

He stood up, blocking her way. His big, warm hands caught her face and held it up to his pale, glittery eyes. “Don't box it up inside you,” he said curtly. “You still resent the fact that I walked away from you without a word.”

“Yes, well, some memories are more vivid than others.” Her voice sounded odd. The touch of those strong hands on her face made her melt inside.

“I testified for the prosecution at your rape trial,” he continued, his tone blunt and uncompromising. “On the basis of the boy's assurances and the deposition of a resident in the emergency room. How do you think I felt when I knew,
knew,
that you were telling the truth that night?”

She searched his eyes. “It was a long time ago,” she said heavily.

“Not for me. I made a mistake—a hell of a mistake. Instead of support and justice and sympathy, you were treated as if you'd committed the crime. It scarred you. You're still carrying the wounds, and they're not easily treated, like the one in your arm.”

Her gaze fell to his chest, but she didn't really see it. “I can live with my scars.”

“Well, I can't,” he said flatly. His eyes were flashing like sunlit silver. “I can't bear them! You dress like a dowager. You don't date—yes, I know,” he added when she looked up, surprised. “Simon told me. He said you cut men dead if they so much as smile at you. You had therapy, but only for a couple of weeks, because your father didn't believe in that sort of thing. Now here you are, twenty-four years old and as sexless as that table over there. And it's my fault. It's my fault, Josette!”

Her eyes closed. Most of it was true, she supposed. She hadn't wanted to think about the past. But the past and the present were linked together like a circle, forming a chain that was endless.

His warm hands went to her waist and contracted. “I couldn't deal with it, so I quit the Rangers, joined the FBI and left Texas. But even that didn't work. The memories went along.” His hands drew gently over her small waist. “Gretchen said you didn't blame me.”

She searched his hard face, surprised by the indecision there, when he was always such a forceful person. Her lips parted on a soft breath. “I didn't,” she said. “I was in Jacobsville selling my father's last bit of property there. I ran into her at the bank.” She looked down at his broad chest. “She said it wasn't because I accused Bib Webb of old Mr. Gar
ner's murder. I thought it was, you see. I thought you blamed me for accusing him, and you couldn't bear the sight of me afterward…”

“Dear God.” He drew her to him and held her as gently as he could, allowing for the wound in her left arm. His lips moved in her long, soft hair. “People disagree with me all the time. It doesn't usually inspire me to quit my job and leave the state.”

She smiled to herself. “I'll remember that.”

He smoothed the length of her hair, enjoying the softness of it. “I left because I knew how badly I'd misjudged you. Despite the relationship we were developing in San Antonio, I still had doubts,” he confessed quietly. “If you were the sort of woman who'd accuse an innocent boy of rape…Well, it was a question of trust.”