“I didn’t think what danger I might be placing Sassy Peale and her mother and stepsister in, I just knew they’d help me and I was terrified. I banged on the door and Sassy came to it. When she saw how I looked, she ran for the shotgun they kept in the hall closet. By the time the hired man got on the porch, Sassy had the shotgun loaded and aimed at his stomach. She told him if he moved she’d blow him up.”
She sipped tea while she calmed a little from the remembered fear. Her hand was shaking, but just a little. Her free hand was still clasped gently in Theodore’s.
“He tried to blame it on me, to say I’d flirted and tried to seduce him, but Sassy knew better. She held him at bay until her mother called the police. They took him away.” She drew in a breath. “There was a trial. It was horrible, but at least it was in closed session, in the judge’s chambers. The hired man plea-bargained. You see, he had priors, many of them. He drew a long jail sentence, but it did at least spare me a public trial.” She sipped tea again. “His sister lived over in Wyoming. She came to see me, after the trial.” Her eyes closed. “She said I was a slut who had no business putting a sweet, nice guy like him behind bars for years.” She managed a smile. “Sassy was in the kitchen when the woman came to the door. She marched into the living room and gave that woman hell. She told her about her innocent brother’s priors and how many young girls had suffered because of his inability to control his own desires. She was eloquent. The woman shut up and went away. I never heard from her again.” She looked over at him. “Sassy’s been my friend ever since. Not a close one, I’m sorry to say. I was so embarrassed at having her know about it that it inhibited me with her and everyone else. Everyone would believe the man’s sister, and that I’d asked for it.”
His fingers curled closer into hers. “No young woman asks for such abuse,” he said softly. “But abusers use that argument to defend themselves. It’s a lie, like all their other lies.”
“Sometimes,” she said, to be fair, “women do lie, and men, innocent men, go to jail for things they didn’t do.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But more often than not, such lies are found out, and the women themselves are punished for it.”
“I guess so.”
“I wasn’t here when that happened.”
“No. You were doing that workshop at the FBI Academy. And I begged the judge not to tell you or anybody else. She was very kind to me.”
He looked over her head, his eyes flashing cold and black as he thought what he might have done to the man if he’d been in town. He wasn’t interested in Jillian as a woman back then, because she was still almost a child, but he’d always been fond of her. He would have wiped the floor with the man.
His expression made her feel warm inside. “You’d have knocked him up and down main street,” she ventured.
He laughed, surprised, and met her eyes. “Worse than that, probably.” He frowned. “First the hired man, then the accountant.”
“The accountant was my fault,” she confessed. “I never told him how old I was, and I was infatuated with him. He was drinking when he tried to persuade me.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I even did that.”
He stared at her. “You were a kid, Jake. Kids aren’t known for deep thought.”
She smiled. “Thanks for not being judgmental.”
He shrugged. “I’m such a nice man that I’m never judgmental.”
Her eyebrows arched.
He grinned. “And I really can do the tango. Suppose I teach you?”
She studied his lean, handsome face. “It’s a very, well, sensual sort of dance, they say.”
“Very.” He pursed his lips. “But I’m not an aggressive man. Not in any way that should frighten you.”
She colored a little. “Really?”
“Really.”
She drew in a long breath. “I guess every woman should dance the tango at least once.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
He wiped his mouth on the linen napkin, took a last sip of the excellent but cooling coffee and got to his feet.
“You have to watch your back on the dance floor, though,” he told her as he led her toward it.
“Why is that?”
“When the other women see what a great dancer I am, they’ll probably mob you and take me away from you,” he teased.
She laughed. “Okay.” She leaned toward him. “Are you packing?”
“Are you kidding?” he asked, indicating the automatic nestled at his waist on his belt. “I’m a cop. I’m always packing. And you keep your little hands off my gun,” he added sternly. “I don’t let women play with it, even if they ask nicely.”
“Theodore, I’m scared of guns,” she reminded him. “And you know it. That’s why you come over and sit on the front porch and shoot bottles on stumps, just to irritate me.”
“I’ll try to reform,” he promised.
“Lies.”
He put his hand over his heart. “I only lie when I’m salving someone’s feelings,” he pointed out. “There are times when telling the truth is cruel.”
“Oh, yeah? Name one.”
He nodded covertly toward a woman against the wall. “Well, if I told that nice lady that her dress looks like she had it painted on at a carnival, she’d probably feel bad.”
She bit her lip trying not to laugh. “She probably thinks it looks sexy.”
“Oh, no. Sexy is a dress that covers almost everything, but leaves one little tantalizing place bare,” he said. “That’s why Japanese kimonos have that dip on the back of the neck, that just reveals the nape, when the rest of the woman is covered from head to toe. The Japanese think the nape of the neck is sexy.”
“My goodness!” She stared up at him, impressed. “You’ve been so many places. I’ve only ever been out of Montana once, when I drove to Wyoming with Uncle John to a cattle convention. I’ve never been out of the country at all. You learn a lot about other people when you travel, don’t you? ”
He nodded. He smiled. “Other countries have different customs. But people are mostly the same everywhere. I’ve enjoyed the travel most of all, even when I had to do it on business.”
“Like the time you flew to London with that detective from Scotland Yard. Imagine a British case that involved a small town like Hollister!” she exclaimed.
“The perpetrator was a murderer who came over here fishing to provide himself with an alibi while his wife committed the crime and blamed it on her absent husband. In the end, they both drew life sentences.”
“Who did they kill?” she asked.
“Her cousin who was set to inherit the family estate and about ten million pounds,” he said, shaking his head. “The things sensible people will do for money never ceases to amaze me. I mean, it isn’t like you can take it with you when you die. And how many houses can you live in? How many cars can you drive?” He frowned. “I think of money the way the Crow and Cheyenne people do. The way most Native Americans do. The man in the tribe who is the most honored is always the poorest, because he gives away everything he has to people who need it more. They’re not capitalists. They don’t understand societies that equate prestige with money.”
“And they share absolutely everything,” she agreed. “They don’t understand private property.”
He laughed. “Neither do I. The woods and the rivers and the mountains are ageless. You can’t own them.”