Название: The Sheriff's Son
Автор: Stella Bagwell
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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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 СКАЧАТЬ