His Partner's Wife (37 page)

His eyes narrowed. "Horses kick."

"If they don't know you're back there." Or if
they're in a fever already. "Approach him from the side, so he sees you.
That's right," she said as he warily followed her instructions.
"Please don't shoot him by accident."

Foxfire rolled his eyes toward the stranger who had been
loitering at the edge of this scary scene. Natalie felt his gathering tension.

"Put your hand on his back. Like that," she
encouraged, as though they were friends again. "Now, just move slowly
around to his rear."

The tail whipped, snapping across Geoff Baxter's face and
drawing another profanity from him.

He faced the horse's side, his left hand resting gingerly on
Foxfire's sweat-soaked chestnut back. His gun hand dangled, the barrel pointing
at the ground.

Forgive me, Foxfire.

As if all her senses were heightened, she was aware of a car
turning off the road. Before Geoff could notice, she said hastily, "Okay,
now.
Push!"

As he moved, she yanked hard on the lead, letting it snap as
she pulled. The already panicky stallion reared back, then felt the strange man
shoving against his hock. Fury and terror bunched in his powerful back and
hindquarters. He lashed out viciously.

Geoff fell back with the first kick, startled more than
hurt, because he'd been standing too close for the hooves to connect. If he had
thrown himself to the side, the rampaging horse would have missed him with the
next wild kick.

He didn't. Steel-shod hooves crunched bone as they connected
with Geoff's ribs and the arm he'd thrown up to protect himself. A shot cracked
and wood splintered on the barn wall.

Dust made the air acrid as a car slid to a stop in the
gravel. Natalie was transfixed by the sight of Geoff Baxter, making a horrific,
guttural noise, crawling on his hands and knees in the sawdust-strewn dirt
toward his gun.

Her nerveless hand dropped the lead rope. Foxfire screamed
defiance and fear, bucked one more time and raced away with the leather lead
flying.

Natalie sank onto the wooden ramp and watched as John McLean
kicked the gun away and arrested his friend and partner.

"
How did you know
to come?" she asked.

She sat on the closed toilet seat in his bathroom. Crouched
in front of her, John was smoothing ointment on her raw palms and reaching for
a roll of gauze on the bathroom counter.

He grimaced. "You told me enough. I felt like an idiot
once I thought it through. You were right. Why didn't we look at the one large
expenditure we knew Stuart had made? Especially since, given what we knew about
him, it was an odd one."

"Maybe because you didn't know it was an odd one until
I admitted that our marriage had been falling apart. I should have been honest
sooner."

He squeezed her knee, his eyes vivid. "You couldn't
know. How could either of us?" He made a rough sound in his throat.
"Two friends. Men I'd worked with, thought I knew inside and out. And both
of them were willing to kill for money."

Natalie had heard part of Geoff's justifications.

"We got two scumbags off the streets for good."
Even as he was being strapped to a gurney and loaded into the ambulance that
had arrived within minutes of John's call, Det. Baxter had been pleading for
understanding. "What's so goddamn bad about that? So we sold the drugs. It
would have hit the streets if we hadn't been there. Don't you ever want a life
you can't buy with our poor excuse for a salary?"

Rage had twisted John's face, and he'd bent to look into the
back of the ambulance, voice low and furious. "You would have killed
Natalie so you could have some luxuries. What's so goddamn bad about that? I'll
tell you…"

The two uniformed officers had pulled him back before he got
his hands on Geoff again.

"What was it he wanted?" she asked now.

"Nothing so big. That's the sad part." John tucked
the end of the gauze bandage in and sank back on his heels. "Right after
he and Stuart did the drug dealers, Geoff bought an RV. I, uh, did a financial
check on him." He shook his head. "I didn't want to believe it. I
didn't even want to put the idea in your head that he might have gone bad, so
you'd look at him differently. But try as I might to deny the possibility, I
couldn't help remembering that he and Stuart were partners when it happened.
And damned if Baxter hadn't made the one big purchase. I don't know why the
bank gave him the loan on his salary. It looks like the bank was about ready to
take the RV back."

"But Linda also had her hours cut at work this past
year," Natalie remembered.

John grunted. "Maybe they could have made the payments
if Linda had kept working full-time. He must have convinced her that they
could. The financial picture alone, at least as much as I've discovered so far,
wasn't enough to do more than make me uneasy."

"Did he say why he killed Ronald Floyd?"

"As an excuse to search your house. Floyd was nothing
to him. Another scumbag to get rid of, I guess. A fly to be swatted."

Natalie bit her lip. "Poor Linda."

"Yeah. It's going to be a shock. I should go see her
tonight."

"Do you want me to come?"

Creases formed on his brow. "Would you?"

"Hey, she and I are in the same boat, aren't we? The
shamed wives of crooks."

He caught her wrapped hands loosely. "You don't have
any reason to feel shame."

"I was an idiot."

"No more than I was, or any of Stuart's friends."

Was it true? she wondered, feeling a peculiar little lift.
Stuart Reed had fooled plenty of people besides herself. She actually hadn't
known him as long as the men he'd worked with in the Port Dare P.D.

"Okay." She smiled.
"We're
idiots."

His face changed, the blue of his eyes becoming electric.
"Idiots in love."

"Past or present?" she whispered.

"Oh, definitely past." His voice caressed her.
"Live and learn. I know what I want now."

Natalie found it hard to breathe. "What's that?"

"You," he said simply. "Friend and
lover."

"You really do mean that," she said in wonder.

"Oh, yeah." His thumbs made small circles on the
backs of her wrists. "Have you figured out what
you
want?"

The time for timidity was past. "You," she said,
with equal simplicity and grateful awareness of the echo. "Friend and
lover."

Relief flooded his face before he shuttered it.

"You didn't know that?" Natalie asked in
amazement.

"I wasn't sure."

"I've been in love with you for a long time. I just
never let myself see. Maybe because I'd been so dumb about Stuart, I didn't
trust my feelings. Or maybe because you were his friend, and I was always sure
you were taking care of me for his sake."

"Thus the cookies," he said dryly.

She felt herself blushing, but nodded.

His voice changed, became harsh. "Do you know how
scared I was this morning when I got over to your place and you were gone?"

"I thought I was meeting you." She explained that
Geoff had said he'd call John, and about his lies when she arrived. "Since
I knew Evan was sick, I believed him right away."

"Why wouldn't you have, since I was stupid enough not
to tell you my suspicions?" His mouth twisted. "He would have had to
kill you, you know."

Mute, she nodded.

"It would have been my fault." Muscles knotted in
his jaw. "I couldn't have lived with that."

"Of course you would have," she said firmly.
"You have Evan and Maddie."

"And
my
mother,
and
two brothers…"

In fact, his mother was still here, and Connor was in the
kitchen with her. Maddie was still at school, but Evan was watching TV in the
family room. Natalie was pretty sure the packed house explained why she and
John still lurked in the bathroom.

"You're not used to family hanging around," he
said.

"No, but I like it." She smiled shakily. "I
like them. All of them."

He swore, his hands tightening momentarily on hers before
she winced and he instantly loosened his grip. "Natalie, you deserve roses
and candlelight and the diamond ring I don't have, but I can't seem to make
myself wait."

Her heart drummed, and her eyes burned. She couldn't cry.
Not now.

"Wait?" she squeaked.

He glanced around, seeming to become aware of their surroundings.
A Mickey Mouse towel hung over the shower door, and a toy submarine and a
rubber shark jostled for space in a basket with a mermaid doll and pink and
purple star-shaped soaps.

"At least I seem to be on my knees. I know how to do
that much right."

"You've done more than that right." She had to
clear her throat. "I couldn't have survived this past year without
you."

"You'd have survived today, though. You're a gutsy
lady."

"You'd have still been in time, even if Foxfire hadn't
decided to defend my life and honor." She smiled despite the threatening
tears of emotion. "Or, more accurately, that he was definitely
not
getting
into that trailer."

John's grin answered hers. "Not with some jerk shoving
on his rump, anyway."

Pam and Natalie had managed to catch Foxfire, but not before
he tore up and down a fence line trumpeting his presence to the grazing mares.
Uninjured, he had been enjoying a special mash when Natalie left him.

Remembrance dimmed some of her joy. "I'll have to sell
him, won't I?"

"Foxfire?" He looked surprised. "Assuming
anybody can prove that Foxfire was bought with stolen money. It's not like
anyone's putting in a claim. What you get for him would go to the victim's
fund."

"He was bought with money from selling heroin. It
should
go to
the victim's fund."

"Here's a suggestion." John bowed his head and
kissed one of her bandaged palms. "What if we cut a deal where you put him
up for stud, and the money you earn pays off what Stuart stole? I'm guessing
they'd go for that."

"I … maybe." He'd given her hope. No, more than
that. He'd said
we.
"We can try," she agreed. "Thank you."

"Now, can I get on with this proposal, before Evan
decides he needs to use this bathroom?"

She could just picture it: John mid-proposal, his son
throwing up in the toilet, John's mother hurrying to be sure he was all right,
and Connor hanging out in the hall with laughter in his eyes at his brother's
ineptitude.

She nodded vigorously.

"Natalie, you know cops make lousy husbands. We work
bad hours, we're unreliable, we're…"

"Heroes," she finished.

"On rare occasions. Mostly, we push paper around our
desks and write reports that will bore lawyers, judges and prosecutors."

Natalie studied his face, eyes that showed weariness and
anguish as often as amusement and tenderness, premature creases in his
forehead, jaw unshaven because he'd hurried to her rescue. "I don't mind
the hours," she assured him.

"I have kids."

"I know."

"Obligations."

"I know that, too."

His gaze was dark and intense, his voice low and hoarse.
"Since the day I brought you home, I've known you belong in my house, my
bed, my heart. I don't like waking up and realizing you're not here."

Her own heart was near to bursting, her eyes to overflowing.