The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 (33 page)

John nodded. "If you don't show, I promise I'll hunt you down, Paul. Hope you've got some money. Since Judge Morrison's seen you before, he'll probably fine you heavy."

One side of Paul's mouth tipped up in a crooked grin. "You doing this 'cause you're fuckin' Izzy?"

In no mood for bullshit, John ignored the insult. His conscience and his duty had warred within him all morning. "I'm giving you a break. I don't need a reason."

Paul looked across the room at the gray concrete wall. "What about my knife?"

John couldn't believe he had heard right. The guy either had nothing under his hat but hair or he had more balls than anybody John had ever met. "What about it?"

Paul shrugged. "I need it. And it cost me a lot of money. Buck Brown made it."

"The knife's gone, buddy." John got to his feet, out of patience. "This is your last chance on my watch, Paul. Don't fuck it up. Clean up your act. You got a sister who cares about you. Do it for her sake as well as your own." John turned his back and stepped to the cell door. "Rooster'll do the paperwork to get you out of here."

"John?"

John stopped in the cell's doorway. "What?"

"I didn't get you with that knife, did I?"

John's jaw clenched. "No."

A soft
heh-heh-heh
came from Paul. "Well, that's good, I guess. Things is a little fuzzy. I thought I'd cut you."

A shiver ran all the way up and down John's spine. He didn't know if the man was relieved to hear he hadn't done serious bodily harm or was lamenting the fact that he had failed to. Was it a dangerous mistake letting a man as squirrely as Paul Rondeau off the hook?

Chapter 21

John walked from-the courthouse to Betty's Road Kill for breakfast. With a stiff body, a sore stomach and little sleep, he didn't feel up to facing Callister's citizens, but he didn't feel like hanging out in his dismal apartment either. Later, after Izzy had time to cool off, he would drive out to her house and discuss Paul.

When he returned to the sheriff's office after breakfast, Rooster had already cleaned up the empty cell. No sign of the prisoner remained. "Come on into the office," John told him. John shrugged out of his jacket, then unlocked his bottom drawer, removed Paul's knife and laid it on the desk blotter. "Take a look at this."

Rooster picked up the knife and turned it over in his hand, gripped it by the handle, tested it for weight, then gave a low whistle. "This is a Buck Brown knife." He handed the knife back to John and pointed out two
Bs
engraved on the hilt.

"Paul said the same thing. Who's Buck Brown?"

"An old hippie up on Cabin Creek. He gets a pretty penny for his knives. Never could afford one myself."

"Yeah?" Curiosity aroused, John took back the knife and looked at it closer, hefted the weight of it. "From now on, it stays in the gun safe. You could gut an elk with it."

Rooster grinned. "Guess that's what Paul uses it for. In hunting season or out." The deputy started for the door, but turned back. "You know ol' Paul pretty well, don't you?"

"We were in the same grade in school 'til he quit. Why?"

The deputy looked at the floor and shook his head. "Something about that little dude makes me twitchy."

Twitchy.
Good description for how Paul affected John, too. "He drinks too much. Otherwise, I think he's all right."

As the words left his mouth, John wondered if they were a belief or a prayer.

"Guess so." Rooster gave up the discussion and left the office.

John hadn't had time to pick up the phone and call Izzy before he heard her voice in the anteroom. He walked out to where she stood hanging on to Ava's hand in front of Rooster's desk.

"Hey, Isa—"

"Where is he?" she demanded by way of greeting.

She was on edge. She wore no makeup and her face looked drawn and tired, like she had been awake since his midnight phone call. He wished he could take her in his arms and comfort her, but with her attitude about public displays of affection, he didn't want to embarrass her. Nor did he want to aggravate the already touchy situation.

Rooster spoke. "He didn't exactly draw us a map."

Her hot brown glare roasted the deputy, then swung to John. "You released him and you don't even know where he went?"

John clasped her elbow and urged her toward his office, speaking over his shoulder to Ava. "Wait out here for just a minute, okay?"

Rooster stood up and offered the kid a candy bar.

As John closed the office door, eager to explain Paul's circumstances, Isabelle yanked her arm free. "Don't manhandle me. This is the craziest thing I've ever heard."

"Tell me about it," John said, surprised at her ferocity. "Look, Paul's facing minor charges, nothing more. I could've—"

"What charges?"

"Misdemeanor drinking and disturbing the peace." He met her eyes, hoping that when she heard Paul was in less trouble than he could have been, she would become less angry. Wrong. She continued to glare at him.

"What I started to say, Isabelle, is I could've charged him with something more serious. It's not right for me to make this personal, but it's hard not to when I'm... well, when I'm with you and when I've known him my whole life. And I feel for him."

When she didn't reply after a few beats he pushed on. "This isn't the first scrape he's been in. When he's drunk, he's mean and dangerous. He could kill some—"

"My brother isn't mean. Nor is he dangerous."

Her eyes and body might teem with defiance, but John recognized bravado when he saw it. As smart as Izzy was, she had to be scared for her brother. John ached to comfort her. "Okay, maybe he's not mean. But he's got the worst judgment I've ever seen in a grown man and he drinks too much."

She lifted her nose and crossed her arms over her chest. "I guess you should know about drinking too much."

John had heard the accusation many times, but coming from her, it hit a nerve. "Low blow, Isabelle. You've never seen me take a drink."

In an attempt to regain control of the conversation, he moved behind his desk and planted his fists on his belt, hoping he appeared authoritative. "I may not be a hotdog peace officer, but at the moment law and order in this town and this county are up to me." He offered a palm to accompany a forewarning. "I'll tell you the same thing I told Paul. He fucked up bad last night. If he does it again, I won't be able to cut him any slack. I won't have a choice."

Her eyes grew shiny as lumps of coal, her chin trembled. "This is my brother, John. My family. Don't you see? He's never had a chance."

Anger he could deal with. Tears were hard. He ducked her gaze, picked up Paul's thick file from his desk blotter and fanned through it. "He's had a lot of chances. All you have to do is look at his record. The law in this town has been turning a blind eye and giving him another chance since he was a kid."

She looked away. A pulse throbbed in her neck. "Wha-what happens now?"

John dropped the file back onto the blotter. "Nothing much if he shows up in court Wednesday. He'll probably pay a fine and that'll be the end of it. I'm not mentioning the knife to the judge. I figure to keep that between Paul and me."

She bit down on her lower Up. A tear slid down one side of her nose.

To hell with her attitude about a public display. He stepped toward her, intending to take her in his arms. "Isabelle, listen—"

She stopped him by backing away. "Leave me alone, John. I wish I'd never gotten involved with you."

"What're you talking about?"

"The facts," she said in a stage whisper, her voice filled with pain. "You've always been on a different level from me. From us. As crazy as Paul acts sometimes, he knew that much. I'm the one who's been living in some kind of dream world."

Her words stunned him. He could think of nothing he had ever done to make her feel she was beneath him in any way. "Isabelle, we need to talk. Rooster's gonna do the bar patrol tonight. I'll be able to get out of here in a few hours. I'll come out and we'll—"

She shook her head. "No. I'm going to look for my brother. When I find him, I'm taking him home with me. I may have been gone when he needed someone in the past, but I'm here now." She took a step toward the door, then stopped and turned to face him. "You're not welcome, John. You can't be around him because of your job. I know that.... Besides, you don't like him."

"What?" He gave her a look and tucked back his chin. "Isabelle, I didn't say that."

"And I don't like
you
much anymore. I don't want to see you again." She walked out of his office and slammed the door.

He rounded the end of the desk, following her. When he opened the door to the anteroom, she had Ava by the hand and they were already marching up the stairs. His heartbeat took off. "Isabelle, listen to me—"

She kept climbing, pulling Ava along. The kid turned her head toward him, her small brows drawn into a frown over teary eyes. " 'Bye, John," she said in a tiny voice.

He wanted to break into tears himself.

He became aware of Rooster's watchful gaze and faced his deputy.

"My mama always said blood's thicker than water, John T.... And I'm pretty sure it runs deeper than having a good time."

* * *

Her hand clenched around Ava's, Isabelle lectured herself all the way up the stairs. Sleeping with John had been a mistake from the beginning. Carrying on an affair with the county's sheriff and trying to reform a brother who was one of the county's outlaws presented crushing conflict. Didn't she already have enough on her plate just surviving and working toward the goals she had set for herself? What kind of person had she become? What kind of example had she set for her daughter?

Outside, said daughter wrenched her hand away, stomped to the passenger side of the Sierra and climbed in.

As Isabelle scooted onto the driver's seat, Ava sat with her arms crossed over her thin chest, her lower lip protruding. The ten-year-old jerked to face her, magnified eyes snapping with anger. "What did you say to him? You said something bad, didn't you? Now he won't come to see us and ride the horses anymore."

"Ava, his helping me with the horses was always temporary. He was an employee."

"He was not. He was my friend." Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She threw her shoulder against the passenger door. "When I get grown, I'm leaving here. I hate it here."

Emotion swelled in Isabelle's throat as she turned the key in the ignition. Not only had she been dumb letting herself get involved in an affair with John, she had been foolish letting Ava build a relationship with him. The last thing her daughter needed was to see another father figure disappear from her life.

Well, she couldn't think about that at this moment. Paul was somewhere alone and depressed. As she backed in a loop in the courthouse parking lot, her mind ran down the list of places she might find him. "We'll talk about it when we get home, okay?"

Her angry little girl didn't reply.

It wasn't eleven o'clock, so Isabelle doubted Paul had hit the bar yet. Her second choice was the travel trailer where he lived.

As she drove the unpaved streets of Callister, disjointed thoughts careened through her head. Every waking day had become a reminder of just how out of place she was in this town and how the life she had cultivated since leaving Callister all those years back had separated her from what she thought she wanted in her small hometown.

An idea had been growing in the recesses of her mind, one as irrational as the one that had driven her back to Callister in the first place. She had to return to Texas, where she could make a living the only way she knew how and where she could associate with people and groups with whom she had something in common. Good grief, what insanity had made her pull up stakes from an area where one out of every fifteen cutting-horse owners in the whole United States lived?

Why hadn't she put it all together before she sold the place in Texas, before she moved back here lock, stock and barrel, before she had two mares in foal? And before she let herself fall into an affair.

She had been kidding herself thinking she had something worth hanging on to with John Bradshaw or any other man she might meet in Callister.