The Sheriff's Son Read Free

wavered. By the time she reached five, her attention had returned to his face, the chiseled mouth and the hooded gray-blue eyes, the sandy hair curling around his ears and the back of his neck. She’d once showered that face with kisses, she remembered, threaded her fingers though his hair and held his head fast to her breast.
    He’d made her heart beat fast and wild then. She’d never loved anyone the way she loved him, and now, after all this time, she was afraid she never would again. This man had ruined her chances of happiness, and he didn’t even know it. Moreover, he didn’t care.
    Her nostrils flaring, she lifted her chin. “The babies were on the porch by the door. In a laundry basket.”
    â€œWhere is the basket?”
    â€œIn the kitchen.”
    â€œI’d like to see it.”
    And she’d like to stuff it over his head, Justine thought. But the pistol strapped to his hips and the badge pinned to his breast reminded her of his authority in this county, even in this house. She didn’t want to test it at this moment.
    â€œFollow me,” she told him.
    Justine took him to the kitchen, where the basket was still sitting atop the table. Ignoring her, he looked inside.
    â€œWas there any sort of note, anything inside other than this blanket?”
    â€œThe only things I found were four diapers, two bottles and two pacifiers.”
    He looked at Justine, his lips thinning with obvious disapproval. “And you’ve handled them all?”
    â€œOf course. I had to change the babies, and I didn’t want the formula to spoil. The two of them will eventually need to eat.”
    He lifted his hat from his head and raked his fingers through his hair. Justine couldn’t help but notice that it was still thick and shiny.
    â€œI don’t suppose you thought about getting fingerprints?”
    She dismissed his question with a wave of her hand. “I’m not stupid, Roy. I think you and I both know that whoever left these babies doesn’t have a criminal record or have their fingerprints on file. It doesn’t appear to me to be a crime committed by a repeated felon with a jail record. There’s no motive or gain.”
    She was probably right, but that didn’t 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.
    â€œHow old do you think the babies are?” he asked after a moment.
    â€œFive 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?”
    â€œNo. 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.
    â€œHave you ever seen the twins before?”
    â€œNo.”
    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.”
    â€œYou