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It was true Chloe had a feisty temper. She got along with her horses far better than she did with men. Still, it went against everything inside Justine to ask Roy for anything.
“I don’t know why you two are doing this to me,” Justine said wearily.
“Because you’d have a far better chance of persuading the sheriff than Rose or I,” Chloe insisted. “Come on, say you’ll do it. Please!”
If her sisters only knew, Justine thought sickly. What would they think if she told them that Sheriff Pardee was Charlie’s father?
Closing her eyes, Justine pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “We’re already shorthanded here on the ranch. You and Rose work like dogs from sunup to sundown. How are you going to take care of two demanding babies?”
“I’ll manage through the day,” Kitty spoke up. “Charlie is big enough to fetch things for me. Besides, since Tom died, the house seems so quiet and empty. The babies will put a little life back into things around here.”
Justine groaned. Rose smiled and nodded, while Chloe clapped her hands together.
Chloe pressed on. “That’s right. The babies will help take our minds off all the problems we’ve been having lately. And it will be good for Charlie to have other children around.”
Justine let out a long sigh. How could she say no, when the whole family was counting on her? “It could only be temporary,” she pointed out.
“Temporary is a start,” Rose said quietly.
Justine tossed her hands resignedly up in the air. “All right, okay. I’ll call him. But don’t get your hopes up. Sheriff Pardee doesn’t strike me as a warmhearted man.” In fact, Justine didn’t think he had a heart at all, but she couldn’t express that thought to her sisters. Not without raising some eyebrows. As far as they knew, he was just an old acquaintance, not the only man she’d ever loved.
Normally, Justine helped with cleaning the kitchen after the evening meal, but this time, both sisters shooed her out of the room.
“We’ll take care of this mess. You go call the sheriff,” Chloe told her.
Knowing her sisters wouldn’t let her put it off any longer, Justine walked down to her bedroom and shut the door. If she had to talk to Roy, she wanted to do it in private.
As a nurse, Justine had been schooled to remain calm in a crisis. She’d seen people broken and bleeding and dangerously close to death, but she’d forced herself to be collected and focus on her job. Yet just the act of dialling Roy’s number had her hand shaking and her breaths coming in shallow little jerks. It wasn’t right that one man could have so much of an effect on her, she thought with self-disgust. Especially when he’d been out of her life for years now.
It rang four times, and Justine was on the verge of hanging up when he answered.
“Sheriff Pardee.”
“Roy.”
He knew instantly that it was Justine. No other woman had ever said his name quite like she did. He closed his eyes and gripped the receiver.
“Yes.”
“This is Justine.”
“I know.”
Her shaky legs forced her to take a seat on the edge of the bed. “I—I’m calling about the twins.”
“I didn’t think you were calling to ask me for a date,” he said dryly.
Her nostrils flared as she closed her eyes. She wished she could get her hands around his throat! No—she instantly changed her mind. She didn’t want to touch him. Ever! If she did, she didn’t know what she’d do. Kiss him? Claw him? Break down in tears? She wasn’t going to test herself.
“I don’t know how you ever won the sheriff’s election,” she muttered.
To Justine’s amazement, he chuckled. The sound sent little shivers of nerves tumbling through her stomach.
“I won it because the majority of the people in Lincoln County like and trust me.”
Even if you don’t. Justine could hear the unspoken words hovering on the line between them.
Knowing she’d never get anywhere with him if she allowed her temper to get the better of her, she said, “I heard you got ninety percent of the vote. Are you sure you had an opponent?”
“Somebody mentioned there was another guy running for the job. I didn’t notice.”
His cockiness had Justine rolling her eyes. “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re so liked and well-thought-of around here,” she said, “because I’m going to…ask a favor of you.”
Roy had been lying back in his leather recliner, but now his boots hit the floor with a loud thud. In his wildest dreams, he’d never expected Justine Murdock to want or need any sort of help from him. He didn’t know whether to tell her to go to hell, or silently thank God. In fact, for years now Roy had never been quite able to decide if he hated Justine or loved her.
“A favor,” he repeated, his voice gone husky. “What kind?”
She drew in a shaky breath. “It’s about the twins. Do you think it might be possible for us…I mean, my sisters and me…to keep them here until…you locate the real parents?”
“Why would you want to do that? I’m sure you and your family have plenty to keep you busy besides two demanding babies.”
“Of course we do. But my sisters are infatuated with the babies, and since…Daddy’s death, well, I think it would be good for all of us to have them around.”
Roy knew that Justine had been very close to her mother and father. She was probably still grieving over Tom’s death. If the babies could help ease the ache, what the hell, he thought. Even though she’d made his life miserable, that didn’t mean he wanted to rub salt in her wounds.
“You don’t have to sell me on the idea, Justine. I know I can trust the twins’ welfare to you and your family.”
She couldn’t believe he’d so readily agreed to her request, and for a moment she didn’t know what to say.
“Justine? Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?”
“I—Uh, yes,” she finally managed to answer. “Is that all we have to do? Is your permission enough to keep them here?”
“Legally, no. I’ll have to get a court order from Judge Richards. But he and I are good friends. He’ll go along with my feelings on the matter.”
“That’s all there is to it?”
“You sound surprised.”
She was. She’d expected Roy to resist everything about the idea. Now, because of who he was and what he was, he was going to make it legally possible for her family to keep the babies. She didn’t know what to think.
“I guess I expected it to be a lot more complicated.”
“Well, since it’s only a temporary situation, there’s not that much legal red tape.” He paused, then asked, “Justine, you do understand that once this case comes to some sort of end, you’ll have to give the babies up?”
“Yes. I understand. I don’t know if my sisters will. But I do.”
“Then, for their sake, you’d better remind them.”
“I will. And thank you, Roy.”
She thought she heard him sigh. “Good night, Justine.”
“Good night.”
Slowly, Justine replaced the receiver, then stared blankly at the floor. After a moment, tears blurred her eyes. She wiped at them viciously and tried to swallow away the tightness in her throat.
She didn’t know what was the matter with her. Her sisters were going to be very happy, and Roy had been almost nice to her. There was no reason for her to get emotional. No reason at all.
A light knock sounded on the bedroom door. Justine quickly wiped her eyes again. “Come in.”
Stepping into the room, Chloe looked hopefully at Justine. “Did you call the sheriff?”
Justine nodded. “We can keep the babies.”
Chloe gasped with joy. “Oh, Justine, that’s wonderful! See, I knew you could persuade him!”
Justine sighed. “Believe me, Chloe, there was no persuading to it.”
Chloe eased down on the bed beside her sister. “You don’t sound very excited about it.” She peered anxiously at Justine. “Have you…been crying?”
Justine quickly shook her head. “No, of course not. I think—I might be coming down with a cold. The clinic has been full of sniffling people.”
“Why don’t you go to bed early tonight?” Chloe suggested as she rose to her feet. “Rose and I will see to the babies. She’s gone up in the attic right now, to see if she can find our old baby bed and playpen. I’d better go see if she needs some help.”
“What’s Charlie doing?”
Chloe laughed. “He’s playing with the twins. He thinks those babies are the grandest things to come along since dump trucks and tractors.”
Justine smiled wanly. She’d never wanted Charlie to be an only child. But time had a way of passing on. Now he was five, and she was no closer to marrying and adding to her family than she had been when she gave birth to him.
Rising from her seat on the bed, she said, “I’m glad he’s taken to the twins. But right now it’s getting close to his bedtime. I’d better go coax him into the bathtub.”
As the two sisters walked down the wide hallway, toward the living room, Chloe slung her arm around Justine’s shoulders.
“Do you realize how lucky you are to have a child, Justine?”
In spite of Roy, and the fact that Charlie was growing up without a father, Justine was very aware of the precious blessing her son was to her. She wished with all her heart that Chloe could have the chance to be a mother.
Slipping her arm around her younger sister’s waist, she gave her an affectionate squeeze. “I realize it every day.”
Chloe sighed. “You know, there has to be a reason for those babies showing up here on the ranch.”
“I’m sure there is. We just don’t know what it is yet.”
“Well, I think they’re a gift from God. He took Daddy from us, so he’s given us the babies to fill his place in the family.”
Justine glanced anxiously at her sister. “Chloe, Roy wanted me to remind you and Rose that keeping the babies on the ranch is only a temporary thing. You’ll have to give them up eventually. You know that, don’t you?”
“You wouldn’t give Charlie up, would you?”
She tried to imagine Roy filing for custody of his son, and found the image so frightening that she instantly put it out of her mind. “Not for anyone or anything. But, Chloe, Charlie is mine. There’s a difference.”
“Well, those twins are going to be mine. You just wait and see,” she said.
Justine didn’t argue with her sister. Instead, she silently prayed that Roy would soon solve the case.
The next morning, Justine was taking a much-needed coffee break on a little bench outside the clinic building when she saw Roy walking up the sidewalk toward her.
He was dressed as he had been yesterday, in jeans, boots and a khaki shirt. Justine couldn’t help but notice his long legs and lean waist, the width of his broad shoulders beneath the close-fitting fabric. He was a very sexy man. But sex was all he had to offer a woman. She knew that better than anyone.
“How did you know where I worked?” Justine asked as he came to a halt in front of her.
A faint smile touched his lips, as though he found her question amusing. “I’m the sheriff, remember? I can find out most anything I need to know.”
Not everything, she promised herself as her thoughts went to their son. He could search all he wanted to, but there was no way he was going to find out he’d fathered Charlie. Unless she told him. And right now, she couldn’t see herself ever doing that.
“What did you need to see me about?” she asked, her fingers curled tightly around the foam-cup of coffee in her hands.
He pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and unfolded it. “I need your signature on this before I take it back to Judge Richards.”
She accepted the paper from him and read it carefully. Once Justine was satisfied that she understood it, she slipped a pen from a pocket of her shift and quickly signed her name.
Handing it back to him, she asked, “Do you have any new information about the twins?”
He pushed the legal document into his pocket. “No. Other than that no children fitting the twins’ description have been listed as missing in the state in the past twenty-four hours.”
“Does that surprise you?”
He watched Justine sip her coffee. The morning was cool but clear. The bright sunlight caught her red hair and turned the wavy tendrils to molten bronze. She was still by far the most beautiful woman he’d ever know, and he wondered what had happened between her and Charlie’s father. Why hadn’t the man married her? Or had it been Justine’s choice to end their engagement?
“Not really,” he said in answer to her question. “Like I said, whoever left the twins intended your family to have them. They’re not going to go to the police. Unless they have a change of heart.”
“Then how do you plan to start an investigation without anything to go on?”
“I already have. My deputies are out now, questioning everyone and anyone up and down the streets of town to see if the twins were seen around here yesterday. It could be they traveled through Ruidoso before going on to the Bar M.”
Ruidoso wasn’t a particularly large metropolis, but it was a heavily traveled tourist town. Thousands of people came to see the horse races at Ruidoso Downs, shop the unique little stores lining the highways and simply enjoy the sight of the cool, beautiful mountains. How could anyone remember one set of babies, when they saw tourists with babies every day? Justine wondered.
“That’s another thing that puzzles me,” Justine mused aloud. “How did this person or persons know where the ranch was?”
“Because they know you, or at least know of you. That’s why you and your family need to rack your brains. You might come up with something or someone.”
Her break time nearly over, Justine rose to her feet and brushed at the wrinkles in her straight skirt. “Of course, we’ll try. Now I have to get back inside.”
Roy needed to get to work himself. But he was reluctant to leave just yet. Last night, after Justine called, he’d spent hours thinking about her, the way she’d looked and sounded, and the way he’d felt upon learning that she’d loved some other man enough to have his child. He hadn’t expected to feel anything like regret. Six years ago, when he became involved with her, he hadn’t been ready for marriage or children. So why did it hurt so much to think of her turning to another man?
“How long have you worked here?”
