Her perception surprised him. She seemed to really care about the child. But he reminded himself that criminals were just like normal people, except for making their living in illegal ways. He’d gotten sort of used to Tony Garza, who was nobody’s idea of the law-abiding citizen in his younger days. Not that Tony wasn’t accepted with affection by all the Everetts since he’d become like a guardian to Stasia and given her a big job in New York at his art gallery.
“How many of you are there?” she asked suddenly.
“Us kids, you mean?”
She nodded.
“Three. Tanner’s the eldest. He’s married to a girl we’ve known all her life. She paints. She’s the most talented artist I’ve ever seen.” He bit down hard on the comment. It still hurt him badly that he’d never been able to win Stasia’s heart. It was worse that she was married to the brother he loved.
Josie glanced at him. He probably didn’t realize how much he was giving away, not just by the words but by the tone of his voice when he spoke of her. She felt a twinge in her heart. Must be heartburn, she told herself stubbornly.
“Misplaced longing, I take it,” she said with biting sarcasm.
He glanced at her with black fury in his pale eyes.
“Sorry,” she murmured, averting her eyes. “Didn’t mean to step on broken bones.”
“What would you know about that?” he asked curtly.
“I was crazy about a boy in my class at school when I was a senior. He took me to movies and brought me flowers and told everybody he was crazy about me.” She shifted. “It turned out that he just wanted to make his girlfriend jealous and was using me to do it. He married her. She invited me to be a bridesmaid and thanked me for helping him get to her.”
He relented. “Sorry.”
“I was young and stupid. I trusted people.”
“We all start out that way.”
“Then life kicks us in the teeth a few times and we realize that you can’t trust anybody, really. Even the people you trust the most will betray you. Everybody’s got an agenda. The trick is to realize it in time.”
“And I thought I was paranoid,” he mused.
“I’m not paranoid. I’m cured.”
He glanced at her. No wonder she worked outside the law. She’d probably had more hard knocks than she could admit to. A hard woman with a hard past. Someone to steer clear of, he reminded himself.
He pulled up in front of her motel in Percell. The establishment looked seedy, which it was. She saw that one of her contacts’ cars was parked nearby. A shadowy figure was sitting in it.
“Looks like you’re expected,” John said pleasantly.
“Sure.”
“Funny how you turned up at a rodeo the one night I signed up for an event there,” he remarked.
She turned her head and studied him. “I’m sure that I knew you were going to be there,” she said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “I must be psychic.”
“My grandmother was,” he said out of the blue. “Dad’s mother. She knew she was dying. She had her will done just a few days before she died in her sleep. She even left a letter for my dad.”
“Goodness.” She studied him. “Do you have it? That perception?”
He shook his head. “My sister does.”
“Wow.”
His eyes narrowed. “If I did have it, I’d never have gone near that rodeo.”
She gave him a droll look. “And you’d never have met JJ or taken him home to your parents.”
He scowled. That was true.
