The Sheriff's Son. Stella Bagwell
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 cushion. As soon as he offered the baby the nipple, the little tyke latched on to it like a hungry pup.
“I didn’t come here to act as a temporary daddy,” he muttered.
Temporary daddy. Justine’s lips twisted with a grimace as she repeated the two words to herself. The man didn’t look as if he’d be comfortable in that role, much less being a father in a permanent capacity.
“I know you didn’t come here for this. But I can’t handle two of them at the same time. And when a baby gets hungry, he doesn’t care where he is or who he’s with, he wants his dinner. Surely you know that.”
Roy shot her a glare as the baby reached for the shiny badge pinned to the pocket of his khaki shirt
“How would I know that? I’ve never had a child!”
He growled the question at Justine, and, if it was possible, her face went even whiter. I’ve never had a child. What was he saying? What about Marla, and the baby she and Roy had been expecting all those years ago? The questions roared through her head like a tornado.
Through offhand remarks of her father’s, Justine had learned that Roy and Marla’s marriage had ended and the woman had moved far away. At the time of the divorce, it had been rumored that Marla was pregnant, but Tom had never heard anything about a child being born and he hadn’t wanted to appear nosy and ask Roy outright. Especially since the two of them had been divorced.
Down through the years, Justine had simply assumed the baby had been born and lived with its mother in another state. Now Roy was telling her he’d never had a child! What did it all mean?
Struggling to collect her thoughts, she said, “I—Well, I just figured you were probably a daddy by now.”
Roy glanced down at the auburn-haired boy in his arms. The tiny fingers were doing their best to tug the sheriff’s badge away from his shirt. Carefully he plucked the baby’s hand away, only to have the stubby little fingers wrap tightly around his forefinger.
“Do I look like one?” he asked gruffly.
No, she thought, her teeth grinding together, Roy Pardee was the very image of a man who liked to make babies, not father them.
Ignoring his question, she asked, “Did you find anything outside?”
The baby was still clinging to his finger. It made him feel hemmed in, but needed. And that was a strange feeling for Roy. No one had ever really needed him. As a lawman, maybe. But not like this helpless little fellow in his arms.
“No. I need to talk to your sisters. When do you think they’ll be in?”
Justine shrugged as she absently rocked the child in her arms. “By dark. Maybe later. Rose is probably out in one of the pastures checking on the cattle, and Chloe should have been down at the stables with the horses. You didn’t see her?
“No. The barns and the stables were all empty.”
Glancing down, Justine studied the little girl’s round face, dimpled cheeks and soft red hair. “Do you think it was the parents that left these children here? I mean, how could someone do such a thing? If I hadn’t come home when