reasons, we were breaking whatever law existed at that time. Shirt and I managed to get away. I owe him my life for his quick thinking. I was pretty new to the profession back then. I learned.”
“He told me his name was Matthew,” she remarked with a smile.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Be flattered. It was three years before I found that out.”
She toyed with her crumpled napkin. “I liked him. I liked all of them.”
“Shirt’s quite a guy. He was the one who pushed me into law,” he said with a laugh. “He thought I needed a better future than rushing around the world with a weapon.”
“You think a lot of him,” she observed.
He shrugged. “I never knew my father,” he said after a minute. “Shirt looked out for me when we served in the military together. I don’t know—maybe he needed somebody, too. His wife had died of cancer, and he didn’t have anybody else except a brother in Milwaukee who still doesn’t speak to him. I had Martina. I suppose Shirt became my father, in a sense.”
She cupped her hands around her coffee mug and wondered what he’d say if she told him that Shirt had said the door to the past was closed for J.D. Probably he’d laugh it off, but she decided she didn’t want to find out.
He looked up. “How about your family? Any sisters, brothers?”
She laughed softly. “No. I was an only child. My father owned a ranch, and my mother and grandfather and grandmother had gone to San Antonio on vacation. Mother met Dad then and ran away to marry him over the weekend.” She grinned. “My grandparents were furious.”
“I can imagine.” He searched her face. “You look like your mother. How about him? Was he big?”
She shook her head. “My father was small and wiry and tough. He had to be, you see, to put up with Mama. She’d have killed a lesser man, but Dad didn’t take orders. There were some great fights during my childhood.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Did they make up eventually?”
She sighed. “He’d send her roses, or bring her pretty things from town. And she’d kiss him and they’d go off alone and I’d go see Miss Patty who lived in a line cabin on the ranch.” She grinned. “I visited Miss Patty a lot.”
He chuckled. “They say the making up can be pretty sweet.”
She studied his hard face. “Yes, so I hear.”
He lifted his eyes to hers. “We’ve had a royal falling out. Want to make up?”
She hesitated, and he concentrated on finishing his coffee.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m rushing things.”
Hesitantly, she reached across the table and touched the back of the big hand resting there. It jerked. Then it turned and captured hers in its rough warmth.
“J.D., what do you want from me?” she asked.
“What do you think I want, Gabby?’ he asked in turn.
She gathered all her courage and put her worst fears into words. “I think you want to make amends for what happened in Guatemala, before you fly off into the sun. I think you want to have an affair with me.”
“That’s honest, at least,” he said. His eyes fell to their clasped hands, and he watched his thumb rub softly against her slender fingers. “You want something more permanent, I gather.”
She couldn’t answer that without giving herself away. She drew her hand away from his with a light laugh. “Aren’t we getting serious, though?” she asked. “I need to go home, J.D. I left the laundry in the washing machine, and I’ve got a week’s cleaning to do.”
His face hardened. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“So?”
She lifted her eyes to his. “I go to church on Sunday.”
He frowned slightly. “I haven’t been to church since I was a boy,” he said after a minute. “I don’t know what I believe in these days.”
It was a reminder of the big differences between them. She frowned, too, and got to her feet slowly.
“It would bother you,” he murmured, watching her. “Yes, I suppose it would.”
She half turned. “What would?”
“Never mind.” He sighed as he put the remains of their meal into the trash can and replaced the tray in the rack on their way out. “Just a few adjustments that have to be made, that’s all.”
That didn’t make sense, but she didn’t pressure him. He didn’t pressure her, either, leaving her outside her apartment building with a rueful smile.
“I hate being stood up for the damned laundry,” he muttered, hands in his pockets.
“New experiences teach new things,” she murmured dryly. “Besides, I can’t finish out the week in dirty clothes.”
That put a damper on things. Her smile faded at the memory of how little time they had left together. His face grew harder.
“Well…thanks for lunch,” she said awkwardly.
“We could do it again tomorrow,” he said before she went inside.
Her eyes lifted. She wanted to. She wanted to, desperately. She tried to convince herself that it would be a mistake, but her body tingled and her heart surged at the idea.
“Yes,” she said under her breath.
His chest rose and fell, as if in relief. “Suppose I pick you up about ten-thirty?”
She hesitated. “Church is at eleven.”
“Yes, I figured it would be,” he said with a rueful smile. “I hope the angels won’t faint at having me in their midst.”
All the color drained out of her face as she stared up at him, and she couldn’t have said a word to save herself.
“Well, I won’t embarrass you,” he muttered curtly. “I do know not to stand up and yell ‘Hallelujah’ every five minutes or to snore in the front pew.”
“I didn’t say anything,” she said.
“I still have a soul, too, even if it has taken a few hard knocks over the years.” He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “I…need to go back. All the way back.” His eyes held hers. “Gabby?”
“I’m Methodist,” she said.
He smiled. “I used to be Episcopalian. The denomination doesn’t matter so much, does it?”
She shook her head. “We can walk from my apartment.”
He
