Rogue Stallion (4 page)

S
he made it two blocks before her feet gave out. Thank goodness for the Chamber of Commerce, she thought, taking advantage of the strategically placed bench near the curb bearing that agency’s compliments. The late April sun was hot, and her suit, though light, was smothering her. The high heels she was wearing with it were killing her. She took off the right one, grimaced and rubbed her hose-clad foot.

She was suddenly aware of the unmarked patrol car that cruised to the curb and stopped.

McCallum got out without any rush and sat down beside her on the bench.

“You are the most difficult man I’ve ever met,” she told him bluntly. “I don’t understand why you feel
compelled to make me so miserable, when all I’ve ever wanted to do was be kind to you!”

He leaned back, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, and crossed his long legs. “I don’t need kindness and I don’t like your kind of woman.”

“I know that,” she said. “It shows. But I haven’t done a thing to you.”

He took off his sunglasses and turned his face toward her. It was as unreadable as stone, and about that warm. How could he tell her that her nurturing attitude made him want to scream? He needed a woman and she had a delectable body, but despite her response to him that night in front of the bus station, she backed away from him the minute he came too close. He wasn’t conceited, yet he knew he was a physically dynamic, handsome man. Women usually ran after him, not the reverse. Jessica was the exception, and perhaps it was just as well. He wasn’t a man with commitment on his mind.

“We’re supposed to be working on a case together,” he reminded her.

“I don’t work on cases with men who talk to me as if I were a hooker,” she shot back with cold dark eyes. “I don’t have to take that sort of language from you. And I’ll remind you that you’re supposed to be upholding the law, not verbally breaking it. Or is using foul language in front of a woman no longer on the books as a misdemeanor in Whitehorn?”

He moved uncomfortably on the bench, because
it
was
a misdemeanor. She’d knocked him off balance and he’d reacted like an idiot. He didn’t like admitting it. “It wasn’t foul language. It was explicit,” he defended himself.

“Splitting hairs!”

“All right, I was out of line!” He shifted his long legs. “You get under my skin,” he said irritably. “Haven’t you noticed?”

“It’s hard to miss,” she conceded. “If I’m such a trial to you, Detective, there are other caseworkers in my office….”

He turned his head toward her. “Hensley said I work with you. So I work with you.”

She reached down and put her shoe back on, unwittingly calling his attention to her long, elegant legs in silky hose.

“That doesn’t mean we have to hang out together,” she informed him. “We can talk over the phone when necessary.”

“I don’t like telephones.”

Her eyes met his, exasperated. “Have you ever thought of making a list of your dislikes and just handing it to people?” she asked. “Better yet, you might consider a list of things you
do
like. It would be shorter.”

He glowered at her. “I never planned to wind up being a hick cop in a hick town working with a woman who thinks a meaningful relationship has something to do with owning a cat.”

“I can’t imagine why you don’t go back into the service, where you felt at home!”

“Made too many enemies.” He bit off the words. “I don’t fit in there, either, anymore. Everything’s changing. New regulations, policies…”

“Did you ever think of becoming a diplomat?” she said with veiled sarcasm.

“No chance of that,” he murmured heavily, then sighed. “I should have studied anthropology, I guess.”

Her bad temper dissipated like clouds in sunlight. She could picture it. She laughed.

“Oh, hell, don’t do that,” he said shortly. “I didn’t mean to be funny.”

“I don’t imagine so. Is your lack of diplomacy why you’re not in the service anymore?”

He shook his head. “It didn’t help my career. But the real problem was the new political climate. I’m no bigot, but I’m not politically correct when it comes to bending over backwards to please special-interest groups. If I don’t like something, I can’t pretend that I do. I didn’t want to end up stationed in a microwavable room in Moscow, listening to people’s conversations.”

She frowned. “I thought you were in the navy? You know…sailing around in ships and stuff.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “I didn’t serve on a ship. I was in Naval Intelligence.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t realized that. His past took on a whole new dimension in her eyes. “Then how in the world did you end up here?”

“I had to live someplace. I hate cities, and this is as close to a home as I’ve ever known,” he said simply. “The last place I lived was with an elderly couple over near the county line. They’re dead now, but they left me a little property in the Bighorn Mountains. Who knows, I may build a house there one day. Just for me and Mack.”

“I don’t think I like dogs.”

“And I hate cats,” he said at once.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

His eyebrow jumped. He put his sunglasses back on and got to his feet. He looked marvelously fit, all muscular strength and height, a man in the prime of his life. “I’ll run you back to your office. I want to go out to the Kincaid place and have a talk with Jeremiah.”

She stood up, holding her briefcase beside her. “I can walk. It’s only another block or so.”

“Five blocks, and it’s midday,” he reminded her. “Come on. I won’t make any more questionable remarks.”

“I’d like that sworn to,” she muttered as she let him open the door for her.

“You’re a hot-tempered little thing, aren’t you?” he asked abruptly.

“I defend myself,” she conceded. “I don’t know about the ‘little’ part.”

He got in beside her and started the engine. Five minutes later she was back in the parking lot at her office. She was strangely reluctant to get out of the car,
though. It was as though something had shifted between them, after weeks of working fairly comfortably with each other. He’d said “the last place he lived,” and he’d mentioned an elderly couple, not parents.

“May I ask you something personal?” she said.

He looked straight at her, without removing his sunglasses. “No.”

She was used to abruptness and even verbal abuse from clients, but McCallum set new records for it. He was the touchiest man she’d ever met.

“Okay,” she said, clutching her briefcase as she opened the door. She looked over her shoulder. “Oh, I’m, uh, sorry about hitting you with this thing. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“I’ve been shot a couple of times,” he mentioned, just to make sure she got the idea that a bash with a briefcase wasn’t going to do much damage.

“Poor old bullets,” she muttered.

His face went clean of all expression, but his chest convulsed a time or two.

She got out of the car and slammed the door. She walked around to the driver’s side and bent down. “I accept your apology.”

“I didn’t make any damned apology,” he shot right back.

“I’m sure you meant to. I expect you were raised to be a gentleman, it’s just that you’ve forgotten how.”

The sunglasses glittered. She moved back a little.

“Don’t you have anything to do? What the hell
do they pay you for, and don’t tell me it’s for stand-up comedy.”

“Actually, I’m doing a brain-surgery-by-mail course,” she said pertly. “You’re first on my list of potential patients.”

“God forbid.” He slipped the car into gear.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Are you going to tell anyone about the brooch you found?”

“No,” he replied impatiently. “That brooch is my ace in the hole. I don’t want it publicized in case someone comes to claim the baby. I’ll mention it to selected people when it comes in useful.”

“Oh, I see,” she said at once. “You can rule out impostors. If they don’t know about the brooch, they’re not the baby’s mother.”

“Smart lady. Don’t mention it to anyone.”

“I wouldn’t think of it. You’ll let me know what you find out at the Kincaids’, won’t you?” she asked.

“Sure. But don’t expect miracles. I don’t think Dugin’s the father, and I don’t think we’re going to find the baby’s mother or any other relatives.”

“The baby is blond,” she said thoughtfully. “And so is Dugin.”

“A lot of men in this community are blond. Besides, have you forgotten that Dugin is engaged to Mary Jo Plummer? With a dish like that wearing his ring, he isn’t likely to be running around making other women pregnant.”

“And he could afford to send it away if it was his,
or have it adopted,” she agreed. “Funny, though, isn’t it, for someone to leave a baby on his doorstep? What did his father say?”

“Jeremiah wasn’t there, according to Hensley. He’d been away and so Dugin called the law.”

“That isn’t like the Jeremiah Kincaid I know,” she mused. “It would be more in character for him to start yelling his head off and accusing Dugin of fathering it.”

“So I’ve heard.”

He didn’t say another word. Under that rough exterior, there had to be a heart somewhere. She kept thinking she might excavate it one day, but he was a hard case.

He gave her a curt nod, his mind already on the chore ahead. Dismissing her from his mind, he picked up the mike from his police radio and gave his position and his call letters and signed off. Without even a wave, he sped out of the parking lot.

She watched him until he was out of sight. She was feeling oddly vulnerable. There was a curious warm glow inside her as she went back into the office. She wished she understood her own reactions to the man. McCallum confused and delighted her. Of course, he also made her homicidal.

McCallum went out to the Kincaid ranch the next day, with the brooch in hand. He had some suspicions about that brooch, and it would be just as well to find out if anyone at the ranch recognized it.

When he drove up, the door was opened by Jeremiah himself. He was tall and silver haired, a handsome man in his late sixties. His son was nothing like him, in temperament or looks. Jeremiah had a face that a movie star would have envied.

“Come on in, McCallum, I’ve been expecting you,” Jeremiah said cordially. “Can I pour you a whiskey?”

Characteristically, the man thought everyone shared his own fondness for Old Grandad. McCallum, when he drank, which was rarely, liked the smoothness of scotch whiskey.

“No, thanks. I’m working,” McCallum replied.

“You cops.” Jeremiah shook his head and poured himself a drink. “Now,” he said, when they were seated on the elegant living room furniture, “how can I help you?”

McCallum pulled the brooch, in its plastic bag, out of his pocket and tossed it to the older man. Jeremiah stared at it for a long moment, one finger touching it lightly, reflectively. Then his head lifted.

“Nope,” he told McCallum without any expression. “Never saw this before. If it was something that belonged to anyone in this family, you’d better believe I’d recognize it,” he added.

He tossed it back to McCallum and lifted his glass to his lips. “What else can I tell you?”

“Was there anything on the baby that wasn’t turned in when Sheriff Hensley came?” McCallum persisted.

“Not that I’m aware of,” the other man said pleasantly. “Of course, I wasn’t home at the time, you know. I didn’t find out what had happened until the baby had been taken away. Hell of a thing, isn’t it, for a mother to desert her child like that!”

“I didn’t say it was deserted by its mother,” McCallum replied slowly.

Jeremiah laughed, a little too loudly. “Well, it’s hardly likely that the baby’s father would have custody, is it? Even in these modern times, most men don’t know what to do with a baby!”

“Apparently, some men still don’t know how to prevent one, either.”

Jeremiah grunted. “Maybe so.” He glanced at the younger man. “It isn’t Dugin’s. I know there’s been talk, but I asked the boy straight out. He said that since he got engaged to Mary Jo last year, there hasn’t been any other woman.”

“And you believe him?”

Jeremiah cleared his throat. “Dugin’s sort of slow in that department. Takes a real woman to, uh, help him. That’s why he’s waited so late in life to marry. Mary Jo’s a sweet little thing, but she’s a firecracker, too. Caught her kissing him one afternoon out in the barn, and by God if they didn’t almost go at it right there, standing up, in front of the whole world! She’s something, isn’t she, for a children’s librarian.”

McCallum’s eyes were on the lean hands holding the glass of whiskey. They were restless, nervous.
Jeremiah was edgy. He hid it well, but not with complete success.

“It sounds as though they’ll have a good marriage.”

“I think so. She’s close to his age, and they sure enjoy being together. Pity about your boss’s marriage,” he added with a shrug, “but his wife always was too brainy for a man like that. I mean, after all, a cop isn’t exactly an Ivy League boy.” He noticed the look on McCallum’s face and cleared his throat. “Sorry. No offense meant.”

“None taken,” Sterling replied. He got to his feet. “If you think of anything that might help us, don’t hesitate to call.”

“Sure, sure. Look, that crack I made about cops not having much education…”

“I took my baccalaureate degree in science while I was in the navy,” he told Jeremiah evenly. “The last few years before I mustered out, I worked in Naval Intelligence.”

Jeremiah was surprised. “With that sort of background, why are you working for the sheriff’s department?”

“Maybe I just like small towns. And I did grow up here.”

“But, man, you could starve on what you make in law enforcement!”

“Do you think so?” McCallum asked with a smile. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Kincaid.”

He shook hands with the man and left, thinking
privately that he’d rather work for peanuts in law enforcement than live the sort of aimless existence that Jeremiah Kincaid did. The man might have silver hair, but he was a playboy of the first order. He was hardly ever at home, and Dugin certainly wasn’t up to the chore of taking care of a spread that size.

Speaking of Dugin… McCallum spotted him near the toolshed, talking to a younger man, and walked toward him.