Official Duty. Doreen Roberts

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      She nodded and slid her gaze away from the appraisal in his eyes. She must look older, too. God knows she felt every one of her thirty-one years.

      “You look real good, Ginny.”

      She started, remembering his uncanny ability to read her mind. From the first moment he’d set eyes on her, he seemed to know what she was thinking, even before she did.

      “I’m not Ginny anymore,” she said quietly. “My name is Justine now.”

      His answer unsettled her even more. “It makes no difference what fancy name you’ve given yourself. You’ll always be Ginny to me.”

      He’d teased her that first day, telling her it would be her job to milk the cows at the crack of dawn every morning. Then he’d patted her shoulder and promised he’d watch out for her. You don’t have to be afraid of nothing as long as I’m around, he’d said. Them cows are more afraid of you than you are of them. You just holler at ’em and watch ’em run.

      Grateful for his understanding, for the first time since arriving at that rambling old farmhouse, she’d smiled. He’d seemed so tall, so powerful. She remembered looking way up into his dark gray eyes and knowing somehow that here was someone she could trust.

      From then on she’d followed him around like Mary’s little lamb, until a short year later when he’d gone to help out on the Double K Ranch. The home she’d come to love had seemed empty after he’d gone.

      She made herself push the memories away.

      He sat twisting the mug of beer in front of him between his strong fingers, not looking at her. “I’m real sorry you had to come back to this. I know how you felt about Mabel and Jim. It must have hurt bad to hear what happened.”

      She made an effort to control the wobble in her voice. “I still can’t believe it happened. Jim was such a careful driver.”

      Something in his face changed and he glanced over at the bar. “Get you a beer?”

      “I don’t drink beer anymore. A glass of white wine would be good, though.”

      The corner of his mouth lifted in a cynical smile. “Oh, right. I forgot. City gals don’t drink beer.”

      It shouldn’t have hurt. She wasn’t sure why it did. On the defensive, she said crisply, “We city folk tend to be civilized.”

      “Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?” He shoved his chair back, scraping the feet on the hardwood floor. “I’ll be right back.”

      She watched him get up and head for the bar. She wasn’t surprised to hear he’d gone into law enforcement. He’d once told her that he’d run away from home when he was a kid and a friendly cop had found him a place in the Corbett household. He’d talked a lot about being a cop.

      Mabel had told her that he’d left the ranch and gone to Rapid City for training. That was right after she’d turned her back on the town for good. It hadn’t taken him long to be assigned as deputy in McKewen County and eventually located in Gold Peak. She might have known he’d end up back here.

      He came back with her wine and set it in front of her. She murmured her thanks and waited for him to sit down.

      Before she could ask what she wanted to know, he said casually, “Paul’s reading the will at ten o’clock tomorrow morning at his office. I’ll pick you up at the motel and run you over there.”

      She gave a decisive shake of her head. “Sorry, I’m booked to fly back on the midday flight. I have to be back at work the next day.”

      He drained the last of his beer. “They can’t do without you for a couple of days?”

      She almost smiled. “No, they can’t.”

      “Must be a tough job if you’re so indispensable.”

      “It’s a responsible one. I’m head fashion buyer for a well-known department store. I’m supposed to be ordering for the spring line and the samples will be coming in any day now.” She sent him a cynical look from under her lashes. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

      If he was stung by the remark, he showed no sign of it. “Paul was pretty insistent you be there. He’s been trying to get ahold of you. No one knew where you were. Not even Mabel or Jim. I didn’t even know you were in touch with them until you called yesterday.”

      She dropped her gaze and fiddled with the stem of her wineglass. “I can’t imagine why their lawyer would need me there.”

      Cully shrugged. “Maybe he wants you to take care of their personal effects. What with Jim or Mabel not having any family and all, someone needs to clear out the house before it’s sold. Though I think Paul has a list of things they wanted to leave to some of the kids.”

      For a long time she stared at her glass, struggling with indecision. Then she said wearily, “I suppose I could talk to him. I really hadn’t planned on staying that long.”

      “So you said.”

      Ignoring the irony in his voice she said sharply, “There’s something I don’t understand about the accident. You said it happened late at night?”

      “Yep.” He reached for his second beer and she had the feeling he was deliberately avoiding her gaze.

      “How late?”

      He shrugged and answered reluctantly, “Around two in the morning.”

      “And Jim was driving?”

      He swallowed several mouthfuls of the golden liquid then slowly set the glass mug down in front of him. “He was behind the wheel when the truck crashed.”

      She knew him well enough to know when he was keeping something from her. Her hand trembled as she lifted her glass. She let the mellow wine slide down her throat, then said carefully, “Cully, you know as well as I do that Jim never drove at night. He had night blindness. They rarely went out at night, certainly never that late and if they did, Mabel always drove.”

      The silence between them stretched into minutes, while a nasal voice from the speakers, accompanied by guitars, sang about a mangled heart.

      Finally Cully sighed. “I know. I had the same thought. Which is why I had the wreck investigated. I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you. I figured you wouldn’t want to be alone when you heard. It wasn’t an accident, Ginny. Jim and Mabel were already dead when the truck went off the road. I’m real sorry.”

      Her breath seemed to be caught somewhere in her throat. This was worse than anything she could have imagined. For some silly reason, it was on the tip of her tongue to remind him her name wasn’t Ginny anymore. Except it didn’t seem to matter now. She’d always been Ginny in her heart, no matter how hard she’d tried to escape the past.

      She made her lips move. “What happened?”

      “They’d both been shot at close range. We think by Jim’s shotgun, which is missing. Could have been a burglary that went bad, though there was no sign of a break-in. Then again, it could have been a drifter looking for a handout. Knowing Jim and СКАЧАТЬ