Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,66
in a small Texas town, she explained to the other women. She’d always had to fight to get ahead, where she’d come from, and it was difficult to stop. But she wanted to fit in. She was going to try harder. The other women in the office, suspecting nothing, warmed to her.
And Jessie just smiled to herself. So far so good, she thought. She even lost her fear of being fired, which she couldn’t afford just now. She had a job to do. So she smiled and answered the phone and stopped flirting with rich men.
Bernie mentioned the changed attitude to Mikey on one of their dates, and he laughed. Bernie, he commented, was rubbing off on the other woman. He was happy to see it. So the next time he came across Jessie in the courthouse, where he’d gone with Paul to talk to a judge, he smiled and was pleasant to her.
* * *
Several days later, there was a complication. Bernie was walking back to the boardinghouse from work, after refusing a ride from Glory, and a car ran off the road, up onto the curb, and missed her by a few feet.
It sped away while she was getting back onto her feet. She was badly shaken. She picked up her pocketbook and her cane, and stood shivering while she tried to catch her breath. Had it been a car that just lost control, or was it deliberate? She worried the question all the way home.
She’d have told Mikey, but he was out of town on business. He’d mentioned at the boardinghouse that he had to meet with one of the deputy marshals in San Antonio, but he’d be back in time for a date they’d arranged for Saturday. He and Bernie had planned a sightseeing trip to San Antonio because they had plenty of chaperones. Bernie had always wanted to go through the Alamo, but there had never been time since she’d been an adult. Now she looked forward to seeing that part of Texas history with the love of her life.
* * *
Mikey picked her up in the limo, with Santi at the wheel, just after she got off work at one o’clock on Saturday. She was wearing a beige sweater and skirt with flats and a cane that matched her outfit.
“Color coordination, huh?” Mikey teased as he helped her into the back seat and climbed in beside her.
“I like things to match,” she teased.
He indicated the beige suit he was wearing with a white shirt and a brown paisley tie. “And so we do,” he laughed.
She grinned. “We do, indeed.”
“I wanted to see the Alamo when I was here last time, when Merrie was in trouble. But I never had the time. You Texans are pretty proud of it, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “We really are.”
He sighed. “I don’t know much about history, even in Jersey,” he commented. “Well, maybe one sort of history, but it’s not told in polite company,” he chuckled.
“I won’t ask,” she returned, smiling up at him.
“You haven’t carried the cane lately, until today,” he pointed out. “Having a flare?”
“Well, not really. I had a fall the other day on my way home from work.”
He scowled. “A fall?”
She nodded. She bit her lower lip. She hadn’t wanted to mention it. “A driver lost control of his car and it came up on the curb where I was walking. It missed me by several feet,” she added.
“What sort of car?” he asked with barely concealed anger.
She blinked. “That’s the thing, I really didn’t have time to notice. I fell and, while I was getting up, it sped away.”
“Big car, small?”
She frowned. “Medium.”
“What color?”
She tried to remember what it had looked like. “I think it was dark. Not black, but not a colored car, like blue or red or anything.”
He looked troubled. He pulled out his cell phone and texted a message to someone. She couldn’t tell who.
“I don’t think it was deliberate, Mikey,” she added softly. “I mean, it didn’t come right at me.”
“Warnings don’t,” he said curtly. He typed some more.
Her heart jumped. He was thinking it might be his enemy. But she was thinking it might be an enemy of her family, someone who’d tracked down the one surviving member and tried to avenge a loved one. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened. That worried her.
He put down the phone. “I wish you’d told me sooner,” he said. His big hand reached out and touched her long hair