the sincere desire to help. As she had said to Tate Owens earlier, she repeated, “Thank you. I’ll remember that.”
“Something tells me you won’t.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?” she snapped defensively.
“Do you always keep your promises?”
She remembered other promises—vows—she’d made and broken by running off. “When I can,” she said quietly.
“What would it take to make you break a promise?” he asked.
“Betrayal,” she said without thinking.
There was a quick flash of understanding in his eyes. “Who betrayed you, Patsy?”
“No one,” she said hurriedly. “Forget I said that.”
His gaze searched her face. She could see there were a hundred questions on the tip of his tongue, but he finally nodded. “For now,” he agreed.
Patsy should have felt relieved, but instead the reprieve promised only a temporary solution. Sooner or later, Justin Adams was going to pursue his questioning until he had all the answers he wanted. He was too good a lawman not to. She knew he didn’t totally believe a word out of her mouth.
Still she could enjoy tonight. The summer air was dry and stirred by a faint, cooling breeze. The streets of Los Piños were peaceful. The only arguments were between children squabbling over a toy or a game of hopscotch. If there were more serious fights between grown-ups, they were behind closed doors and they weren’t her fights. Will Longhorn was far away and, hopefully, nowhere close to finding her. Right this minute she and Billy were safe. They had found a temporary haven, where they could get back on their feet again, where she could rebuild her self-respect.
And even though he represented a very real threat of discovery, Justin Adams also reassured her. She sensed that his quiet strength would never be used against her and, after so many months of fearing for her own safety and Billy’s, that was wonderful.
Yet she couldn’t help wondering what would happen if Justin knew the truth. Would he feel betrayed because he’d risked believing in her? Would he send her straight back to her husband? Would be believe the lies that Will was bound to tell to discredit her?
Or, as he had with the incident over the Tylenol, would Justin understand that she was only doing what she’d had to do? Would he protect her? Did she even have the right to expect that of him?
As a lawman, yes. It was his sworn duty to keep her safe. Thanks to Sharon Lynn and Tate Owens, she already knew how Justin felt about duty.
But as a man? In less than forty-eight hours she had come to see him as both. Wrong as it was, she had wished, however fleetingly, that she could be loved by a man like Justin Adams. She’d dismissed the thought as ridiculous and hypothetical, not a serious yearning for this particular man. But now, with him beside her, she wondered if the thought had been hypothetical at all, or truly wistful longing?
Forget it, she told herself. It wasn’t even something she could afford to consider until she did something about her marital status. At some point, she would have to file for divorce she supposed, but that meant facing Will, dealing with him in a courtroom at the very least. Now she was too fearful of the outcome to risk it. She would live the rest of her life in limbo if she had to.
“Patsy.” Justin spoke quietly as if he feared startling her.
Startled anyway, she jerked, then gazed up into those vivid blue eyes again. “Yes?”
His smile was slow and a little sad, perhaps regretful over frightening her. “We’re here.”
She glanced toward the neatly tended house, a low brick rambler with roses in the yard and a sheriff’s car parked in the driveway. The latter was a shock, a reminder that she’d been too ready to drop her guard.
He led the way inside. Punk was eager to explore, but a soft command to stay had him flopping on the cool marble floor in the foyer.
“The kitchen’s this way,” Justin said, leading her through a dining room that was empty of furniture.
He spotted her quick look around, then shrugged sheepishly. “I can’t decide if I want to use it for a dining room or a family room,” he explained. “It seems a little silly to put a fancy table in here, when I never entertain.”
He opened a swinging door and gestured inside. “The kitchen’s plenty big enough for a table and chairs. Everybody hangs out in here, anyway.”