Lawman Read Free Page B

behaves like that!”
    â€œIt’s the twenty-first century,” he began.
    â€œWould your mother ever have done that?” she asked shortly.
    He actually caught his breath. His little mother had been a saint. No, he couldn’t have pictured her being available to any man except his father—until his father had cheated on her and hastened her death.
    Miss Jane read his reply on his face and her head jerked up and down. “Neither would my mother,” she continued. “A woman who’s that easy with men she doesn’t even know will be that way all her life, and even if she’s married she won’t be able to settle. It’s the same with men who treat women like disposable toys.”
    â€œSo everybody in town is celibate?” he queried.
    She glared up at him. It was a long way. “People in small towns mostly get married and have children and raise them. We don’t look at life the way people in cities do. Down here, honor and self-respect are a lot more important than closing a business deal and having a martini lunch. We’re just simple people, Mr. Grier. But we look deeper than outsiders do. And we judge by what we see.”
    â€œIsn’t there a passage about judging?” he retorted.
    â€œThere are several about right and wrong as well,” she informed him. “Civilizations fall when the arts and religion become superfluous.”
    His eyebrows went up.
    â€œOh, did you think I was stupid because I keep house for you?” she asked blithely. “I have a Master’s Degree in History,” she added with a sweet smile. “I taught school in the big city until one of my students beat me almost to death in front of the class. When I got out of the hospital, I was too shaken to go back to teaching. So now I keep house for people. It’s safer. Especially when the people I keep house for work in law enforcement,” she added. “Your supper’s on the table.”
    â€œThanks.”
    She was gone before he could say anything else. He was still reeling from her confession. Come to think of it, the Jacobs County Sheriff, Hayes Carson, had recommended Miss Jane. She’d worked for him temporarily until he could get the part-time housekeeper he wanted. No wonder she was afraid of her old job. He shook his head. In his day, teachers ran the classrooms. Apparently a lot of things had changed in the two or so decades since he graduated from high school and went off to college.
    He was lying awake, looking at the ceiling, when there was a frantic pounding at the front door.
    He got up and threw on a robe, tramping downstairs in his bare feet. Miss Jane was there ahead of him, turning on the porch light before she started to open the door.
    â€œDon’t open it until you know who it is!” he shouted at her. His hand was on the .40 caliber Glock that he’d stuffed into his pocket as he joined her.
    â€œI know who it is,” she replied, and opened the door quickly.
    Their next-door neighbor, Grace Carver, was standing there in a ratty old bathrobe and tattered shoes, her long blond hair in a frizzed ponytail, her gray eyes wide and frantic.
    â€œPlease, may I use your phone?” she panted.
    â€œGranny’s gasping for breath and her chest hurts. I’m afraid it’s a heart attack. My phone won’t work and I can’t start the car!” Tears of impotent fury were rolling down her cheeks. “She’ll die!”
    Before she got the words completely out, Garon had dialed 911 and given the dispatcher the address and condition of the old woman.
    â€œWait for me,” he told Grace firmly. “I’ll be right back.”
    He ran up the stairs, threw on jeans and a shirt and dragged on his boots without socks. He grabbed a denim jacket, because it was cold, and was downstairs in less than five minutes.
    â€œYou’re quick,” Grace managed.
    â€œI get called out at all hours,”