Lawman's Redemption (27 page)

Brady stared at her. He shouldn't be surprised—God knows, he was well aware how petty and selfish she could be—but he couldn't help it. She didn't show the slightest concern for her daughter, less than the total strangers who'd helped search for her. He couldn't believe it.

“Well? Where is she?”

“Lexy will be here soon.”

“Lexy.” Sandra snorted. “Another stupid nickname. Hell, she can call herself Moron for all I care. She doesn't deserve my name, anyway.”

“You do know your husband kidnapped your daughter yesterday and was going to kill her?”

“More of her lies,” Sandra said, waving her hand in the air.

“Alessan— She doesn't like Adam, and she's constantly causing trouble for him.”

“There were witnesses, Sandra. One will be here soon, and two are locked up in jail.”

“Liars, all of them. You know, she didn't have permission to come here. She stole money and Adam's business records, and she ran away. It took his investigators nearly a week to find her.”

And then the trouble had started. “If she hadn't stolen the records, would he have bothered to send someone looking for her?”

“Probably not.”

“Would you?”

“Probably not.”

Her answer, and the callous way she said it, made Brady sick inside. “She's your daughter, Sandra. How can you not care that she was missing? That your husband was going to kill her?”

“What do you care? She's not
your
daughter.”

“What do you mean?”

He swallowed a groan as he shifted his gaze from Sandra to the partially opened door. Lexy was standing there, wide-eyed and pale, staring from her mother to him then back again. Right behind her, Hallie looked as if she'd rather be anyplace else but here.

Lexy came into the room, circled wide around her mother and stopped near Brady. “What do you mean, I'm not his daughter? Of course I am. I'm a Marshall. His name is on my birth certificate. I have pictures. How could I not be his daughter?”

“Oh, for God's sake, shut up!” Sandra snapped. “I have more important things to deal with at the moment.”

“No!” Lexy snapped back. “You brought it up, you deal with it! How could I not be his daughter?”

Sandra looked bored as she rolled her eyes, then heaved a sigh. “There's a chance,” she said at last. “Not a very good one, but…a chance.”

For a time everything was silent. Not even the radio made a sound. Then Lexy turned toward him, the tears welling up making her eyes look twice their size. “And you knew that all along, didn't you?” she whispered.

He nodded.

“That's why you left me with her. Why you never wrote or called or asked me to visit.” She turned to Hallie. “Did you know, too?”

Finally Hallie came inside and let the door close. “Yes, sweetie. I'm sorry no one told you.”

Lexy swiped at the tears dripping down her face. “Well, I guess that settles that,” she said in a sad little voice. “I was gonna ask if maybe I could stay with you, but I wasn't sure you'd let me when I thought you were my dad, and now that I know you aren't—”

“You don't know that, babe,” Brady said. Taking hold of her thin shoulder, he pulled her through the swinging gate and
wrapped his arm around her. “Look,
I
was going to ask if you wanted to stay with me. You can go to school here and help me with the new house and do your room however you want….”

“But if you're not my dad—” Abruptly she looked up, her eyes brightening. “We could take a blood test or a DNA test and prove it—”

“Lexy, I don't need a test to prove it. You're my daughter, and no test is going to change that.”

Her lower lip started trembling. “Really? You don't wanna know for sure?”

“It wouldn't change the way I feel.” Brady swallowed hard, tried to forget that they had an audience and forced out words he hadn't said in fourteen years. Oddly enough—or maybe it was fitting—the last time he'd said them had been to the same person. “I love you, Lexy, and I want you here with me.”

Grinning through her tears, Lexy hugged him tightly. “That is so cool! I love you, too, and I'd love to live here—just you, me and Hallie. That's so cool!”

“And it's not going to happen,” Sandra said coldly. “You're not her father. You have no legal claim to her.”

Brady's muscles clenched at Lexy's assumption that Hallie was going to stick around, but he ignored it as he faced his ex-wife. “Your husband is a drug dealer who's going to prison soon for a very long time. He kidnapped your daughter and threatened to kill her. He would have killed Hallie if we hadn't stopped him. On top of that, as Lexy just mentioned, my name is on her birth certificate, and I've paid child support for fourteen years.
And,
seeing that she is fourteen, any judge in the country is going to ask
her
where she wants to live.”

“And I'll tell him with my dad,” Lexy added triumphantly.

“How stupid can you be, Alessan—whatever?” Sandra spat out. “Do you think he really wants you? Do you think
anyone
really wants you?”

Hurt flared in Lexy's eyes for a moment, then disappeared. “Yep,” she said smugly. “My dad does. And Hallie adores me.”

Hallie smiled at her and gave her a wink, then looked away before her gaze reached Brady. He wondered what it would take
to make her look at him, and how much more it would take to make her stay with him.

Sandra swore. “You'll stay here over my dead body.”

Hallie couldn't stand it anymore. She was already edgy enough, because she'd come here with the intention of confronting Brady about their relationship—starting with telling him she loved him whether he wanted her to or not—and finding his ex-wife there hadn't helped any. Still, she'd stayed as quiet as she could, but enough was enough. “That can be arranged,” she said quietly.

“And who the hell are you?”

“The woman who's going to smack you if you say one more unkind thing to or about that child.”

“And I'll have you arrested for assault!”

“Try it,” Hallie replied, smiling sweetly. “The sheriff in this county is my brother-in-law. I sleep with the undersheriff, and I know a number of the deputies. Let's see who they're more interested in protecting—you or me.”

Sandra looked at each of them with venom in her eyes. “You people are going to be so damn sorry when I get finished with you. I'll be back tomorrow with my attorneys to pick up my daughter.” Grabbing her bag from the counter, she swept out of the room, and Hallie would have sworn that suddenly the air was lighter and smelled sweeter.

“I'll be right back,” she said, then ducked out after Sandra. She still had plenty to say to Brady, but it would wait while she took care of this one detail. Catching up with Sandra halfway to the curb, she spoke her name.

“What do you want?”

“To make a deal. Your husband's going to prison, probably for the rest of his life, and the government is going to seize every asset he's got. That means you'll be left alone with
nothing.
”

Fear darkened the woman's eyes. So she could worry about being penniless, but not about her own child's safety. How in the world had Brady ever fallen in love with such a heartless witch?

“So what's your deal?”

“If Brady sues for custody of Lexy, you and I both know he'll get it. He's respected and admired, he holds a position of authority, and he clearly loves Lexy and is happy to have her, while you'll never convince anyone you're a loving mother or that you've provided your daughter with a healthy home environment. And with Adam going to prison, you're going to be getting a divorce and looking for husband number six. You won't have time for Lexy.”

“So…?”

“How much support does Brady pay?”

“Five hundred a month.”

“Six thousand a year. And that stops when Lexy turns eighteen?”

Sandra nodded.

“Four more years—that would be twenty-four thousand dollars.” Hallie hesitated a moment, then flatly went on. “I'll give you double that—make it an even fifty grand—if you'll terminate your parental rights and let Brady have her, free and clear.”

“Why would you do that?” Sandra asked suspiciously.

Because she loved them both and was hoping—praying—that after she talked to him this morning, she would have at least a chance at living the rest of her life with them. Of course she couldn't give that answer to his ex-wife, of all people. “Because they're family, and people like you shouldn't be allowed to screw up families like theirs. It's your choice. You can go through a court battle, lose Lexy anyway and have nothing to show for it, or you can relinquish your rights and walk away with fifty thousand dollars in your pocket.”

The woman stared off into the distance for a long moment, then curtly asked, “Where can I reach you?”

Hallie pulled a pen and a scrap of paper from her purse and wrote Neely's cell phone number on it. “Don't take too long. I might decide I'd rather use that money to hire the best damn lawyers in the country to take you on.”

Sandra tucked the paper in her purse and stalked off to her car.

Tilting her face to the sky, Hallie closed her eyes and let the sun's heat seep into her. She'd been so very cold ever since
Lexy had disappeared, and she wasn't sure she would ever get completely warm again. But when she turned to go back inside and saw Brady standing on the steps, watching her, suddenly she felt much too warm. She covered the distance between them, stopping a few feet away.

His first question echoed Sandra's. “Why would you do that?”

“I have to do something with Max's money.” She gazed at him, getting lost in his incredible blue eyes, before she realized he was waiting for her to go on. She drew a deep breath of air so hot it could sear her lungs, then blew it out. “I've come to the conclusion that I'm good for something, after all.”

“I can think of a number of things you're very good for,” he said, then one corner of his mouth quirked up. “What's your conclusion?”

“Negotiating. I made a deal with Napier last night that set Lexy free, and I made another that delayed his killing me long enough for you to get there. And Sandra's going to accept my offer. There's no way she won't.”

“Feeling pretty confident this morning, huh?”

“Hey, Lexy and I are alive and well, and her future's looking pretty good. I'm Superwoman. So now I want to make a deal with you.” She'd lain awake all last night, listening to the air conditioner and Lexy's snoring and wondering why the powers that be had named her Queen of Broken Hearts. All she wanted was someone to love who loved her back, a family, a home, a cherished husband to grow old with. Other women had them. Why couldn't she?

Instead, she kept falling for men who found it so easy to make the switch from wanting her to not wanting her. When Brady had said that
he
didn't want her, it had broken her heart. But about five o'clock this morning, she'd realized something important—he hadn't said, I
don't
want you. As in present tense, now,
get out of my life.

He'd said, I
didn't
want you. In the past. And that was no secret. He'd been satisfied with his quiet life before she and Lexy had come along. He'd been up-front about the fact that he didn't want any relationships. He'd just found himself in the position
of not having much say in the matter. Lexy was forced on him, and her presence in his life required Hallie's. He hadn't wanted either of them there, but he'd been stuck with them, and they'd grown on him.

Hey, love at first sight was a wonderfully romantic thing, but she'd settle for it any way she could get it.

“All right,” Brady said, his words quiet, his gaze intent. “I'll give you anything you want. Just…please…don't leave me.”

The intensity of his plea boosted her confidence about a hundred percent. She closed the distance between them, and he backed away until the stone wall stopped him. She didn't stop until there was no place else to go, until she'd thoroughly invaded his personal space. Funny. He didn't seem to mind at all. “Don't agree to the deal until you hear my terms.”

“I don't care about the terms. The answer's yes.”

“I'm warning you—this will be an iron-clad agreement. The only way out of it will be death.”

He touched her for the first time in too long, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sounds like what I'm looking for.”

“I have expectations,” she murmured, leaning so close that her lips brushed his jaw.

“I told you weeks ago you should.” He slid his arms around her waist, then kissed her gently, sweetly—nothing too passionate. Just a little encouragement to go on.

Hallie got serious. “I want to stay in Buffalo Plains. I want to be a part of your life and Lexy's life. I want strings, a commitment, a future. I know it wasn't supposed to turn out like this. I know it was supposed to be temporary, and I tried to keep my emotions in check, but—”

He was smiling so tenderly at her that she lost her train of thought. “What?” she prompted.

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

The air rushed from Hallie's lungs, and her stomach gave a funny lurch. “I think almost as much as I love you.”

“So back to the deal….” He brushed a kiss across her jaw, then nuzzled her hair back from her ear. “I have a few terms of my own.”

“All right. Anything you want.”

“Don't you want to hear them?”

“Do they involve you, me and Lexy living happily ever after?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then that's all I need to know.” Rising onto her toes, she kissed him possessively, greedily, and he kissed her back the same way. When they were both breathless, aroused and weak, they ended the kiss and for one sweet moment, he simply held her. In his arms was the best place in the world to be.