Read The Ranger And The Widow Woman Online
Authors: Stella Bagwell
The Ranger And The Widow Woman (4 page)
Maybe his captain had been right a week ago when he’d said, “You need a long rest, Charlie. You’re drained.” For eighteen months Charlie had worked without a break, and nearly six months of that time had been spent on one intricate murder case involving a young Mexican woman. For a long time Charlie had tried to deny that the tragedy of Lupé Valdez had not affected him that deeply. He didn’t
want
to believe her death had changed him. But now he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t take women he knew home with him. And especially home to the Pardee Ranch! What in hell was he going to do with her?
want
to believe her death had changed him. But now he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t take women he knew home with him. And especially home to the Pardee Ranch! What in hell was he going to do with her?
Violet shifted Sam’s head to a more-comfortable position against her thigh and brushed his sweat-dampened hair away from his forehead. As soon as the Ranger had put the pickup truck back on the highway, her son had fallen into an exhausted sleep, and she felt very guilty because her plans had gone so awry. If the car hadn’t broken down, the two of them would have been in Las Cruces by now, having a good hot meal and looking forward to a quiet night in a nice motel room. Instead she was driving to God-only-knew where with a man she’d met only a few hours ago. A Texas Ranger to boot!
Violet honestly wondered if the strain of the past months had finally broken her. Maybe losing Brent, then dealing with Rex had warped her ability to think sensibly. She couldn’t think of any other reason why she would be putting herself and her son in the hands of a total stranger!
But there was something about Charlie Pardee, something beyond his muscles and stern demeanor that made Violet feel safe with him. He exuded confidence and self-assurance. He was a man who could take care of himself... and a woman, too, if the situation warranted it. So why did Violet get the shivers every time she looked at him? Why did she feel like she was headed to a lion’s den, rather than a Ranger’s haven?
“I haven’t been to my cabin in over a year. I’m not sure what kind of condition it will be in. You should stay with my parents tonight,” Charlie suggested a second time. “They have plenty of room. And if Dad being the sheriff is intimidating you, don’t let it. Both my parents are hospitable people.”
“I’m sure your parents are very nice. But I wouldn’t feel right about imposing on them. I’m not even sure why I allowed you to bring Sam and me out here with you. I really think I’m losing my mind,” she mumbled, then let out a small sigh.
Charlie could have voiced the same thing about himself, but he didn’t. Instead, he glanced at her, then decided to voice the question uppermost in his thoughts. “Are you...having problems, Violet?”
Her head jerked up and her eyes found his profile in the waning light. “Problems? Of course I’m having problems! My car needs repairing, and I don’t have the extra money to have it done.”
His features hardened at her flip answer. “I wasn’t referring to your car. I’m talking about...other things.”
Violet’s heart slowed to a fearful crawl. “What makes you ask something like that?”
His eyes still on the highway, he said curtly, “It’s my job to know when things aren’t exactly as they appear on the surface.”
He didn’t know about her surface beforehand or now. And he sure as heck wasn’t going to find out what was underneath, Violet thought.
“Just because my vehicle broke down doesn’t mean I’m a candidate for the psychiatrist’s couch or a...jail cell.”
“Defensive little thing, aren’t you?” he countered.
Unconsciously her chin jutted forward. “Do you think if I really needed to spill my guts, it would be to a Texas Ranger?”
“I am off duty,” he drawled mockingly.
What would it be like, Violet wondered, to tell someone, anyone, all the fears, pressures and anger she’d lived with for so long now? She couldn’t imagine the relief it might be to lay her head on Charlie Pardee’s broad chest and pour it all out to him.
But Violet wasn’t naive. She didn’t have to be told that Charlie was never “off” duty. And the fear of Rex finding her through any remote channel would keep Violet’s lips sealed forever. All that she’d left behind in Amarillo she would carry deep inside her, hold it to her and hope it had finally come to an end.
“Thanks for the offer of your ear, Charlie,” she said as casually as she could manage. “But I wouldn’t want to bore you.”
A brief glance told him her face was as closed as her words. The suspicion she was hiding something should have warned him to turn the truck around and head back to Ruidoso. But Charlie wasn’t known for always doing the sensible or right thing.
“Sam told me he had asthma.”
She nodded. “Thankfully, it’s only an occasional thing. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to move from where we lived. It was very dusty and windy there. Not a good environment for a person with asthma.”
Dusty and windy. In Texas that could mean anywhere east of the Brazos or as far north as Canada.
“He said his father had gone to heaven. Is that true?”
Violet wasn’t at all sure Brent was wearing a halo. During the seven years she’d known him he’d turned from the loving man she’d first married to a stranger, someone she no longer wanted to know. But for Sam’s sake she’d tried to soften the loss by assuring the child his father was with the angels.
Her eyes on the sleeping face of her child, she said, “Sam’s father was killed in a plane crash. A light, singleengine. He flew into a thunderstorm. Wind shear severed the plane in two.”
“He was a pilot?”
Violet nodded. “He got his pilot license because his job forced him to travel a lot.”
“What did he do?”
She hesitated, then decided it would look very odd if she didn’t say something. “He...uh, was a salesman for a meat company.”
They were passing through a faint smattering of houses. One tiny building built close to the highway had a sign that read U.S. Post Office, Hondo, New Mexico.
Her brows lifted with wry amusement. The place wasn’t large enough to be called a settlement, much less possess a United States Post Office, but maybe there were more people hidden in and around these desert mountains than she could see from Charlie’s pickup truck.
“Were you raised in this area?” Violet found herself asking as he turned north onto a graveled dirt road.
“Until I was five my mother and I lived in Las Cruces. After that, we moved here, and my parents got married.”
Violet knew she should keep her curiosity to herself. Tomorrow or the next day she and Sam would have to be finding a place of their own. She’d be saying goodbye to Charlie Pardee. The less she knew about the man the easier it would be to forget him.
“Your parents...weren’t married when you were born?” she couldn’t help asking.
He had slowed the truck considerably since they had left the main highway. Through the dusky light outside the windshield, she could see clumps of choya and sage and a few scrubby pinon pine dotting the hills rising around them. Violet had never traveled this far west before, and its stark beauty mesmerized her as much as the man behind the wheel.
“No,” he answered. “When my mother was pregnant with me, she left here thinking my dad was obligated to marry someone else. And my dad didn’t know about me. A few years later my mother decided to return to Hondo Valley to be with her family. It was then my father learned he had a son, and in the process my parents realized how much they still loved each other.”
Her gaze slipped over his strong face. “That’s quite a romantic story,” she murmured.
To Charlie’s annoyance, he felt a blush sting his cheeks. He was a grown man who’d seen and heard everything. He didn’t think there was anything that could embarrass him. But somehow Violet had managed to leave him feeling like an awkward teenager for relating his parents’ history.
“I wouldn’t call it romantic,” he muttered. “For a while it was hell for both of them.”
His sharp cynicism shouldn’t have surprised Violet. She had already decided he wasn’t the most cheerful of men. Yet he did seem to be a man who had deep values. She wouldn’t have taken him for a man to mock love or romance. But then he could have been burned by a lover or wife and never gotten over it. And that idea unsettled her far more than his hard-bitten attitude.
“Have you...ever been married, Charlie?”
He felt the warmth of that damn blush on his face deepen, suffusing his face with unaccustomed heat. “No,” he said curtly. “I’m not the marrying kind.”
Her brows arched, but other than that she made no remark to his answer. Charlie wondered what she was thinking and why she’d asked the personal question in the first place. She was not a woman looking for a man. He’d come to that conclusion within minutes after meeting her. So what was she looking for, he asked himself. Money? Security? A hiding place?
“How long had you been married when your husband was killed?” he asked.
Violet carefully kept her eyes on the darkening landscape. She didn’t like thinking about her marriage to Brent. It reminded her of how foolish and vulnerable she’d once been. And how she could never be the loving, trusting woman who’d first married him.
“Six years,” she said quietly.
Charlie mulled this over. “That’s a hell of a thing to have happen.”
Guilt coursed its way through Violet. Charlie believed she’d been a grieving, devastated widow. And maybe she had been, to a certain degree. Heaven knew she’d never wanted Brent to die. She’d simply wanted him out of her and Sam’s life. When she’d filed for divorce, she’d had no way of knowing a week later her husband’s plane was going to crash.
“It was,” she agreed. “But time has helped us to adjust. We’re making it okay.”
From the closed expression on her face, Charlie figured she’d either loved her husband very much or hated the very sight of him. And he was angry with himself for wanting to know which.
She cast him a sparing glance. “Have you been a Texas Ranger for long?”
“Seven years.”
He must have become a lawman at a very early age, Violet decided. She doubted he’d seen his thirtieth birthday yet.
“You must like it,” she mused aloud.
His lips twisted sardonically. Charlie never thought about whether he liked being a Ranger. He just was one. He couldn’t imagine himself being anything but a Ranger.
“My dad has been the sheriff of Lincoln County for nearly thirty years. Being a man of the law is a way of life for him. And me, too.”
A way of life
. Violet didn’t know what her way of life was. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had one. She’d always been a daughter or a wife. She’d gone from living at home with her parents straight into marriage. She’d never really been out on her own, with the chance to be Violet Wilson or Violet O’Dell.
. Violet didn’t know what her way of life was. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had one. She’d always been a daughter or a wife. She’d gone from living at home with her parents straight into marriage. She’d never really been out on her own, with the chance to be Violet Wilson or Violet O’Dell.
Sighing, Violet gazed down at Sam, who was still sound asleep in spite of the roughening road and the jostling of the truck. “I hope I can let Sam choose his own path as he grows up. I want him to make good decisions, but I don’t want to push him to be something he isn’t comfortable with.”
“I don’t know what it’s like to have a child, and I probably won’t ever know,” Charlie replied, “but I expect letting loose of the reins is the hardest part of raising one.”
He wasn’t the marrying sort, and he didn’t expect to have children. Violet understood there were plenty of men in the world who didn’t want families. But somehow the idea of Charlie Pardee living alone for the rest of his life just didn’t fit.
The road made a wide bend around another bald hill, and Violet leaned forward as the vague outline of a house and trees appeared in the distance.
“Is that your cabin?” Violet asked. “It looks more like a house to me.”
“House. Cabin. Whatever you want to call it, there it is. If we’re lucky, the electricity will be on.”
Violet couldn’t believe the house had electricity. This must be the darkest place she’d ever seen. For as far as she could see there were no houses with lights or any sign of civilization. The horizon held nothing but desert hills and a rising crescent moon.
Charlie parked in front of the house and instructed Violet to wait in the truck until he unlocked the door and made sure the power was on.
In a matter of moments a light flared in the window, and then he was back, lifting her son off her lap. “I’ll carry Sam. Follow me and watch your step. The ground is rocky out here.”
On the way to the house Violet drank in the utter quiet, the soft breeze scented with sage and pinon, and the moonlight slanting silver rays across the yard. She’d never lived in the country before. Nor had she ever thought she’d want to, but she could see why Charlie considered this place as coming home. There was an inviting serenity about it all.
Just inside the door Charlie turned to her. “I’m going to put Sam on the couch for now. I’m not sure whether the beds are made up with clean sheets.”
“Of course. Thank you for carrying him. He’s getting to be quite a load.” She watched him lay the child gently down on a couch covered with a blanket in a bright, Southwestern design.
For a man who as yet had no children or plans to have any, he seemed adept at handling them. Maybe he had dated a woman with children, she surmised. Or maybe things just came naturally to Charlie Pardee.
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