The Sheriff's Son by Stella Bagwell Read Free Book Online Page A

and then can’t stay together for more than twelve weeks.”
    Justine tried not to appear shocked as she gazed at her aunt. Two months after she left Roy and went back to college in Las Cruces, Roy had tried to call her several times. Each time, she’d refused to talk to him. Had he and Marla already divorced by then? She didn’t know why it should matter to her now, but it did.
    â€œI wonder what ever happened to Marla?” Justine asked more to herself than Kitty.
    Kitty leaned her hip against the cabinet and tapped a finger against her thumb. “You knew his wife?”
    Justine nodded, but didn’t say more. Since she returned home a year and a half ago, she’d deliberately refrained from asking her father or any of her old acquaintances anything about Roy. For one thing, she didn’t want to arouse any sort of suspicion about Roy Pardee and herself. And for another, she’d always told herself she didn’t care what had happened in his life once she went back to college.
    Kitty spoke up, totally unaware of Justine’s spinning thoughts. “Well, apparently the woman wasn’t what the sheriff expected in a wife, because they split the blanket before it ever got warm.”
    And Justine could only wonder why. Was that what he’d been wanting to tell her when he called her at NMU all those years ago? That he and Marla were finished? And what about the baby Marla had been expecting? He’d saidhe’d never been a father. Had the woman suffered a miscarriage?
    Oh, none of it mattered now, she wearily told herself. What had happened in the past couldn’t change the way things were now.
    â€œThat’s his business, Kitty. Not ours.”
    Before the older woman could reply, Justine carried her coffee out through the screen door and across the small courtyard. In one corner, Charlie was playing in the sandpile her father had built for his grandson before he died.
    Smiling at the precious sight, Justine sat down beside her son and picked up a small road grader. “May I play, too?”
    â€œSure, Mommy.” He pointed to a long trench he’d dug in the sand. “See, this is the Hondo River, and this is our house over here.”
    â€œAnd we need to have a bridge to cross to the other side,” Justine observed. “Maybe we can find a few twigs to use for logs.”
    Twenty minutes later, Justine was admiring the miniature ranch she’d helped Charlie construct when the screen door leading out from the kitchen softly banged closed. Glancing up, she saw Roy sauntering slowly toward them.
    Before Justine could say a word, Charlie jumped to his feet and went to meet him.
    â€œYou’re the sheriff,” he said, smiling up at the tall man with the black Stetson and the steel-blue eyes. “Did you come here to arrest us?”
    Roy had never felt comfortable with young children. He’d never been around them much, and he didn’t know what they were capable of talking about or how their minds worked. Yet something about this sturdy little boy of Justine’s was different. For some reason, he felt attuned to him.
    â€œDo you know what arrest means?” he asked the child.
    Charlie nodded vigorously. “Yep. Aunt Kitty told methat’s what sheriffs do. They arrest people who do bad things and take them to jail.”
    His expression serious, Roy said, “Your aunt Kitty is right. Have you done something bad?”
    Charlie wagged his head back and forth. “No. If I do something bad, Mommy won’t let me ride the horses with Aunt Chloe.”
    Sounded like Justine knew the right button to push to keep her son in line, Roy thought. “Then I’m not going to arrest you and take you to jail. You like to ride horses?”
    Charlie’s blue eyes lit up. “Yeah! I have a painted pony named Thundercloud.”
    â€œCan he run like the wind?”
    Charlie grinned. “When Aunt Chloe rides him he goes