“Penance.”
He sighed as he poured himself a cup of black coffee, pulled out a chair and sat down at the small kitchen table. “When are you going to grow up, tomboy?” he asked.
She looked down at her dusty boots and stained jeans. She could imagine that her braided hair was standing out in wisps around her flushed face, and she knew without looking down that her short-sleeved yellow cotton blouse was wrinkled beyond repair. In contrast, Judd’s jeans were well-fitting and clean. His boots were so polished they reflected the tablecloth. His white shirt with the silver sergeant’s Texas Ranger star on the pocket was creaseless, his dark blue patterned tie in perfect order. His leather gunbelt creaked when he crossed his long, powerful legs, and the .45 Colt ACP pistol shifted ominously in its holster.
She recalled that his great-grandfather had been a gunfighter—not to mention a Texas Ranger—before he went to Harvard and became a famous trial lawyer in San Antonio. Judd held the record for the fastest quick-draw in northern Texas, and his friend and fellow Ranger Marc Brannon of Jacobsville held it for southern Texas in the Single Action Shooting Society. They often practiced at the local gun club as guests of their mutual friend Ted Regan. A membership at the club was hundreds of dollars that law enforcement people couldn’t usually afford. But former mercenary Eb Scott had his antiterrorism training school in Jacobsville, and he had one of the finest gun ranges around. He made it available at no cost to any law enforcement people who wanted to use it. Between Ted and Eb, they got lots of practice.
“Do you still do that quick-draw?” she asked Judd as she sliced the pie.
“Yes, and don’t mention it to Harper,” he added flatly.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Don’t you want to be in pictures?” she drawled.
“About as much as you do, cupcake,” he mused, absently appreciating the fit of those tight jeans and the curve of her breasts in the blouse.
She shrugged. “That would be funny. Me, in pictures.” She studied the pie, her hands stilled. “Maybe I could star in a horror movie if they put me in a bathing suit and filmed me from behind.”
There was a shocked silence behind her.
She put a slice of pie on a saucer and added a fork, sliding it in front of Judd.
He caught her hand and pulled her down onto his lap. “Listen to me,” he said in that deep, tender tone he used when little things were hurt, “everybody’s got scars. Maybe they don’t show, but they’re there. A man who loves you won’t care about a few little white lines.”
She cocked her head, trying not to let him see how it affected her to be so close to him. She liked the spicy aftershave he wore, the clean smell of his clothes, the faint whiff of leather that came up from the gunbelt.
“How do you know they’re white?” she asked.
He gave her a worldly look and loosened the tie at his collar, unbuttoning the top buttons of the shirt to disclose a darkly tanned chest with a pelt of curling black hair. She’d seen him without his shirt, but it always unsettled her.
He pulled the shirt and the spotless white undershirt under it to one side and indicated a puckered place in his shoulder, from which white lines radiated. “Twenty-two caliber handgun,” he said, drawing her hand to it. “Feel.”
Her hand was icy cold. It trembled on that warm, muscular flesh. “It’s raised,” she said, her voice sounding breathless.
“Unsightly?” he persisted.
She smiled. “Not really.”
“I don’t imagine any of yours are that bad,” he added. “Button me up.”
It was intimate, exciting, to do that simple little chore. She smiled stupidly. “This is new.”
“What is?”
“You never let me sit in your lap before,” she reminded him.
He was looking at her with an odd expression. “I don’t let anybody sit in my lap.”
She pursed her lips as she got to his collarbone. “Afraid I might try to undress you?”
His chest rippled, but when she looked up, his face was impassive. His eyes were glittery with suppressed humor.
“That wouldn’t do you much good,” he commented.
“Why not?”
One black eyebrow arched. “You wouldn’t know what to do with me when you got my clothes off.”
There was a clatter of falling potatoes on the floor.
Judd and Christabel stared toward the door where Maude was standing with both hands on the edges of her apron and potatoes still spilling out around her feet.
“What the hell is your problem?” Judd asked darkly.
Maude’s eyes were like saucers.
“Oh, I get it,” Christabel said, grinning. She had one hand on Judd’s shoulder and the other on his tie. “She thinks I’m undressing you. It’s okay, Maude,” she added, holding up her ring finger. “We’re married.”
Judd gave her a royal glare and gently dumped her out of his lap and onto the floor. She grinned at him from the linoleum. He leaned back in the chair and finished adjusting his shirt. “I was showing her one of my scars,” he told Maude.
Maude had picked up the potatoes and she was trying very hard not to say anything stupid. But that innocent remark produced a swell of helpless laughter.
“Now don’t do that,” Christabel groaned, getting up. “Maude, it was very innocent, and he really was showing me his scar.”
Maude nodded enthusiastically and went back to her potatoes. She cast a quick, amused look at Judd, who had a forkful of apple pie suspended in midair and was glaring at her.
“Sure he was,” Maude agreed.
Judd’s eyes narrowed. “I’m armed,” he pointed out.
Maude put down her knife and potato and spread out her arms. “Me, too,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.
Judd glowered at her, and at Christabel, who was grinning from ear to ear. “Now I know where she gets it from,” he told Maude.
“He’s just jealous because he can’t make jokes,” Christabel said wickedly.
Judd gave her a measuring glance and went back to his pie.
2
That night, after Judd had gone back to his apartment in Victoria where he was stationed, Christabel lay awake for hours worrying about Tippy Moore and Judd’s odd reaction to the news that she was going to be in the movie. He seemed fascinated by the woman, just from her photographs, and it was obvious enough to be painful. He might hold Christabel on his lap and reassure her about her scars, but it was impersonal. He’d never even touched her in an inappropriate way, despite her efforts.
Her
