Fearless (16 page)

“You brought me in,” she murmured drowsily.

“Yes.”

She touched her flat belly and started to cry silently. She knew her child was gone. She could feel the emptiness. “I lost my baby, didn’t I?”

His mouth made a straight line. “I’m sorry.”

She looked up at him in anguish.

“It gets better,” he said stiffly. “It just takes time.”

“Have you…lost a child?”

His mouth made a thin line. “Yes.”

She had to fight to breathe. Her cheeks were flushed. Her heartbeat was moving the sheet that covered her.

He pushed the intercom button and said something into it, very softly. Seconds later, a nurse bustled in and checked her vitals. She grimaced.

“Just lie still,” she said gently. “I’ll be right back.”

“What is it?” she asked the officer.

“They’ll hang me if I tell you.”

She studied him. “They wouldn’t dare. Tell me.”

His broad chest expanded under the uniform. “I think you’re having a heart attack.”

She nodded. “That’s what…I think, too.”

The nurse was back with Dr. Copper Coltrain. He checked her vitals, looked at her chart and whispered something to the nurse, who nodded and scurried out of the room.

“Heart attack.” Glory murmured drowsily.

“I don’t think so. An episode of angina, probably, but we’ll run tests.” He glared at the officer. “She can’t have visitors,” he said flatly.

Kilraven clasped his hands behind his back and stood at parade rest. He didn’t move. His silver eyes dared Coltrain to evict him.

“He saved me,” Glory protested. “I’d never have made it on my own.”

Coltrain’s evil expression mellowed, just a little. The nurse came back and handed him a syringe. He injected it into Glory. She managed a weak smile and everything faded away again.

T
HE NEXT TWO DAYS
were a blur. She awoke to an ungodly noise outside her room. She recognized Sheriff Hayes Carson’s deep voice cursing. She wondered if he did it often, because he was using some odd phrases.

“Crackers and milk!” Carson exploded. “I’m not serving damned divorce papers on a woman in her condition!” he was yelling into his cell phone. “You tell your damned client if he wants them served, he can come right down here to Jacobsville General and serve them himself!”

“You’re disturbing the patients,” Lou Coltrain chided.

“Sorry,” Hayes muttered sheepishly. “It was unavoidable.”

He and Lou exchanged a meaningful look. They didn’t go inside and tell Glory anything. Which was a shame. Because three hours later, her husband walked into her room unannounced and stared at her as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“What do you want?” she asked icily.

“Your sheriff refused to serve divorce papers on you.” He started to pull them out of his pocket, but he hesitated. She looked worn out, heartsick, exhausted. “What the hell are you doing in here? Is it your hip again?”

Her green eyes flashed at him. “What do you care?” she asked. “You didn’t even ask me why I’d come to see you. You think I’m mercenary, do you? You think money is all I want out of life.”

His teeth clenched. “That’s all women have ever wanted from me,” he said coldly. “Except…”

“Except for Sarina,” she finished for him. “But you can’t have her, can you? I guess Conchita is your present consolation. Pity I didn’t know that I was standing in for your ex-partner!”

His eyes darkened and he smiled coolly. His pride stung and he retaliated, “You were a poor substitute.”

That was the absolute last straw. “Get out!” she shouted, sitting up. The action made her feel faint. She felt her heart racing wildly, in spite of the drugs they were giving her.

“Shall I leave the divorce papers on the table before I go?” he taunted.

“I’ll tell you where to put them, and how far. Get out!” she yelled. “Get out!”

Copper Coltrain burst into the room like a redheaded tornado. “Get out of here,” he said in a furious undertone. “Right now.”

“I’m talking to my wife…” Rodrigo shot back.

Coltrain dragged him out of the room. “She had an attack of angina soon after she was brought in. She has extremely high blood pressure, and she’s already had one heart attack before she came down here to Jacobsville!” he said icily. “Her blood pressure has been worse since she lost the baby, two days ago…”

“Baby?” Rodrigo leaned against the wall. His horrified dark eyes held Coltrain’s blue ones unblinking. His olive complexion faded to the color of oatmeal. “She was pregnant?!”

“Yes.” Coltrain scowled. “Surely you knew?”

Rodrigo slumped back against the wall and closed his eyes. Glory had come to Houston to tell him something, and he wouldn’t let her speak. She was pregnant. She’d come to tell him about the baby. He’d sent her away, upset her. A heart attack. High blood pressure. It would be dangerous for her to have a child. He knew she was prone to attacks of faintness, but he’d dismissed it, paying more attention to her bad hip. She’d said she didn’t want children. It was a lie. Her health made it life-threatening, and he hadn’t even known. God forgive me, he thought. Dear God, forgive me!

“I said things to her in there,” Rodrigo said heavily. “It angered me that she came to my apartment in Houston and then walked away without even talking to me. I thought she’d come to ask for money…” His eyes closed. “I knew nothing about any of this.”

“For a married man, you’re damned uninformed about your wife.”

“I filed for divorce,” Rodrigo said in a haunted tone. “My attorney said the sheriff refused to serve the papers on her, and called me. I thought maybe she was in traction for her hip…” His face was drawn. “I should be horsewhipped for what I said to her.”

“An apology wouldn’t be out of place.”

He looked at the other man evenly. “I’m not going to upset her any more than I already have. She’ll be all right?”

Coltrain nodded. “She’s already under the care of a heart specialist.”

“Good. Good. If she needs anything…”

“She has good insurance. We’ll take care of her.”

Rodrigo stood erect. He started to speak, but he only shrugged. He was ashamed of himself. Glory had done nothing to deserve such treatment from him. He’d been horrible to her, and not just today. He didn’t understand himself. Not at all.

Coltrain moved away. He could read people very well. This man had no idea what was going on. Maybe it was just as well that he hadn’t known, if he was divorcing Glory. Good riddance, Coltrain thought. She deserved better.

The officer who brought Glory in, Kilraven, wandered back from the canteen and watched the woman’s husband staring at her door. One of the nurses had identified him to Kilraven, who was feeling anger at the man for what Hayes Carson had said.

“She’s been through a lot,” he told the tall, dark man. “She doesn’t need any more upsets.”

Rodrigo looked at him coldly. “I didn’t come here to upset her. Nobody told me she’d had a miscarriage. I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

The older man’s silver eyes narrowed. “I heard. Pity you want to live in the past.” His head jerked toward Glory’s room. “That one has more grit and courage than any woman I’ve ever known.”

“Yes,” Rodrigo replied, feeling empty. “But she and I are as incompatible as any two people have ever been. She’ll be better off without me.”

Kilraven smiled coldly. “My thoughts exactly.”

Rodrigo didn’t like the arrogance in that smile, and he had to restrain his first impulse, which was to deck the man. This wasn’t the place. Besides that, he was feeling particularly guilty. If he hadn’t been so cruel to Glory, perhaps she wouldn’t have lost his child. His child. He was responsible for its loss. Surely he could have found a kinder way to get Glory out of his life!

“I’ll take care of her,” Kilraven said, breaking into his thoughts. “The divorce will help her heal.” His silver eyes glittered. “From what I’ve seen, she’s never done anything in her life bad enough to deserve you as a husband.”

Rodrigo’s black eyes glittered as well. “She couldn’t wait to replace me, could she?” he asked icily. “You’re welcome to her. She would never have fit into my world.”

He turned and walked away. Kilraven had made him murderously angry. Glory was still his wife. He could keep her; he didn’t have to sign divorce papers. But the guilt ate away at him. His child was gone. She’d never forgive him for its loss. He’d never forgive himself.

On his way out, he almost collided with tall, handsome Jason Pendleton and his stepsister, little blond Gracie.

“Rodrigo,” Jason greeted him nonchalantly. “We heard about the drug bust. Good work.”

Rodrigo wasn’t paying attention. He was still seeing Glory’s tragic face and damning himself for his part in it. “Yes.” He tried to sound interested. “What are you two doing here?”

“Visiting a family member,” Jason said, scowling. “Are you all right?”

“Not really. I have to go. Good to see you both.”

They watched him walk away with open curiosity.

“He’s a strange man,” Gracie mused.

“All men are strange,” Jason said wickedly, and grinned when she flushed and laughed. “Come on. Let’s see what we can do for our Glory.”

G
LORY TOOK A COUPLE
of weeks off for tests, and to come to grips with her grief at the loss of her child. Her boss was good to her, giving her time off when she needed it and arranging for someone to cover for her when she had the heart catheterization. In the end they did a balloon angioplasty to blow out the plaque that was blocking an artery. Afterward she worked hard at her diet, took her medicine regularly and tried to convince herself that she could still manage her high-stress job despite the blood pressure that responded best to drugs when she was away from work. The doctor warned her quite bluntly that she had a congenital heart defect that had become more serious as she aged. He added that even with her lifestyle changes, she could die if she didn’t find something less stressful to do for a living. It was the same old spiel, but she wasn’t listening. She didn’t care anymore. She’d lost her child and her husband, and the job wasn’t enough to hold her to the world. But she did it with fervor and flair, going after evidence from witnesses like a bloodhound on the trail of a killer. Defense attorneys started to groan the minute she walked into the courtroom. Miss Barnes, they confided, could take rust off battleships with that tongue.

R
ODRIGO HADN’T PURSUED
the divorce, but Glory did. She charged him with desertion and alienation of affection and irreconcileable differences and set her own attorney on him. He offered a cash settlement, which he wasn’t required to do under Texas law. Glory refused hands down. He signed the papers and left the country. Nobody knew where he was.

Glory was enjoying a hostile witness on the stand in a murder trial. The man had lied about everything, especially his involvement in the crime.

“You turned state’s evidence in order to receive a reduced sentence, did you not, Mr. Salinger?” she purred.

“Well, yes, but I was coerced.”

She was wearing a very expensive pale gray suit with a green silk blouse the color of her eyes, and gray shoes with a short heel. Her blond hair had been cut. It curled around her delicate face like feathers. She wore contact lenses and makeup and she looked lovely. Her complexion was like peaches and cream. Her low self-image had been boosted in recent weeks by the gentle attentions of Officer Kilraven from Jacobsville, who spent his days off in the courtroom watching her work. She was one of a handful of people who knew he was the half brother of San Antonio FBI agent Jon Blackhawk. He was working undercover in Jacobsville with the help of police chief Cash Grier. Not even Glory knew on what. He was a secretive man. But he was also very masculine and he knew how to charm women. Glory had blossomed because of his interest. She wished she could encourage him, but she felt nothing more than friendship.

She glanced at him in the audience and grinned. He grinned back.

“Coerced?” she echoed the witness’s statement. She moved close to him, with her file folder in her hand. “How very strange.”

“What is?” he asked.

“It says here—” she indicated the file “—that you requested a meeting with the assistant prosecutor on this case—that would be me,” she purred again, “and swore that you’d do anything for a reduced sentence.”

He frowned. “Well, I might have said that,” he agreed.

“You signed this statement in the presence of your defense attorney. That’s correct, isn’t it, Mr. Bailey?” she asked the defense attorney.

He got up. “Uh, well, yes…”

“Thank you, Mr. Bailey,” she said, smiling. She turned back to the witness and the smile faded. Her green eyes glittered as she leaned toward the nervous man. “You will repeat the statement you gave to me, Mr. Salinger,” she said with icy disdain, “or I will have you charged with perjury and I will ask for the maximum time a judge can give you in jail. Is that clear?” He hesitated. “I said,” she raised her voice, “is that clear, sir?”

“Yes. Yes!” He straightened. “I saw the accused shoot the victim,” he stammered.

“Saw him? Or helped him, Mr. Salinger?” She leaned forward again. “Is it not a fact that you held the gun on the victim while your friend and partner, the defendant, cut his throat from ear to ear and watched him bleed to death on the ground in front of you?!”

There was sobbing from the prosecution side of the courtroom. The victim’s mother, Glory knew, and she hated to make the point so graphically, but it was necessary to force this witness to admit what he knew.

“Yes!” Salinger burst out. “Yes, yes, I held the gun on him while my partner killed him. I saw him do it. But he made me help him. He made me do it!”

“Liar!” raged the defendant.

“Order! Order in the court!” The raven-haired little judge raised her voice. The witness was now sobbing. The defense attorney was gritting his teeth. “Objection!” he called. “Objection, your honor! Leading the witness!”

“Overruled,” the judge said calmly.

The defense attorney said something under his breath and glared at Glory as he sat down again.