The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

way, not hard. He lowered his cup, paused a moment, then said in the same quiet rumbling voice, “I’ll put it another way. Are you ready to tell me what I’m gonna need to know so I can protect you?”

She made an automatic gesture of protest and managed to choke out, “I don’t need-” before he stopped her with a firm but patient, “Now, that’s just stupid.” As if she were Susie Grace talking nonsense.

Anger stung her, threatening the delicate web of self-control she’d woven around her emotions. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t know if she could talk without feeling it all over again. And she didn’t want to feel any more, not today. Not right now. Not while he was anywhere near her. Because it would be too hard to keep from crawling right back into his arms, where every shred of sense told her she had no business being.

Far too easy to accept the comfort and kindness he offered and pretend it was something more.

But Roan was at the table, pulling a chair out for her, waiting for her. She went reluctantly, set her coffee on the table and let him seat her-and she thought again, as she had when he’d first given her a ride in his car, what irony it was-as if they were on a date, having dinner together.

“Besides which,” he continued as he took the chair opposite her, “it’s just not true. You sure as hell do need protecting. Look at this place. Look at where you work. If somebody wants to get to you, you’d be a sitting duck, and I’m responsible for your safety whether you like it or not. So let’s quit wasting time. I want you to tell me everything you can about how you got into this mess, and maybe we can figure how to get you out.”

Mary studied her hands wrapped around the coffee mug. She nodded, cleared her throat, using all her willpower to put her anger-and all the less definable emotions-on slow simmer. “Where do you want me to start?”

“You told me about your parents…you were a preacher’s kid.”

She had to use both hands to hold her coffee steady as she lifted it to her lips. “And you asked me how I got from there to being a…what was it you called it?” There was a rasp of resentment in her voice she couldn’t hide, and she allowed her mouth to tilt in a sardonic little smile. “A mobster’s…girlfriend? But you leapfrogged right over the part where I ran away to the wicked city at seventeen to be a model.”

“All right, let’s start there.” His eyes were resting on her again, narrowed in appraisal, keen as ever, but once again without that all-seeing cop look she’d come to dread.

Relaxing a little, she stared into her coffee for a moment, then took a deep breath and began. Though not where she’d expected to.

“You’ll probably find this hard to believe, the way I am now,” she said lightly, even laughing, “but when I was a little girl I was in love with pretty clothes. My own were hand-me-downs, ill-fitting, years out of style, and I hated having to wear them when I knew what beautiful clothes could look like. And I did know, because I used to steal catalogs from people’s mailboxes-” she threw him a glance “-probably a felony, I know-and I’d sneak fashion magazines wherever I could find them and look at them at night under my blankets with a flashlight. I had to be careful-my father would have punished me if he’d known.”

“He’d what-make you kneel in the church and pray for your sins?” Roan’s voice was tight.

“Or worse.” She smiled; it was getting easier, she could suppress the memories even while she spoke of them, now. She felt only a faint chill, like a frosty breath on the back of her neck. “But he could have done just about anything to me, it wouldn’t have made any difference. I wanted the world I saw in those magazines, and I was determined to have it.

“Anyway, I was in my last year of high school when I answered this ad-some sort of model search-in a magazine. I nearly died when I was accepted. Then it was completely crazy, trying to keep the secret. I had to ditch school to go have pictures made. Borrow money from classmates to pay for them. But in the end it was worth it, because I was offered a scholarship to a modeling school in New York City-room and board and everything.”

Roan pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” she said flatly, “I was thrilled. Then I had to break the news to my parents.”

“How’d that go?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.

Her hands had gone clammy. She drew them slowly from the tabletop and into her lap, and began to rub them methodically on her thighs. Shielding herself, she said evenly, “I don’t think it matters, does it? It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened after.” She tightened her lips, clamping down on the pain. “Suffice to say, I left home that night and haven’t been back.”

“What’d you use for money?”

She gave a brittle laugh and shifted in her chair. “Oh, well, now that I’m not proud of.”

He put a hand over his eyes. “Lord-don’t tell me-you robbed the church poor box.”

“Something like that, yeah.” She picked up her coffee cup, discovered it was empty and set it down again. “Anyway,” she added, a surge of righteousness bubbling up inside her, “I paid it back-and then some-out of my first modeling check. It’s not one of the things I still lose sleep over, that’s for sure.”

Without comment, Roan got up from the table and went for the coffeepot. He refilled her mug and his and brought her two packets of a sugar substitute and a spoon-a man who was comfortable in the kitchen, she noticed- then sat back down, picked up his coffee and blew on it. “So-you were a success at it? The modeling?”

“Oh, yeah.” She managed a smile, but it slipped awry. “It happened pretty quickly. In fact, after the sheltered life I’d led, everything in the city came at me hard and fast.” She lifted her coffee, frowned at him through the steam and said darkly, “And in case you were thinking about asking, I’m not going to elaborate on that, either. It was a tough time, and it’s got nothing to do with anything now.” She paused, looked down at her coffee cup and blinked. “I’m not sure I’d have survived it, though, if it hadn’t been for…Joy.” She clamped a hand over her mouth as the tears welled.

He didn’t crowd her, she gave him credit for that. Just waited a moment to give her time to regain control, then said quietly, “The two of you were roommates?”

Mary gulped a swallow and nodded. “She advertised, I answered, we hit it off right away. She was…” She paused once more, cleared her throat. “She was the big sister I’d never had. There were times she seemed more like the mother I’d never had.”

“What do you mean by that?” Again, giving her time, she thought. But she’d given up trying to stop the tears.

“Because,” she whispered, blotting them with her fingers, “she loved me. Unconditionally. Nobody had ever given me that-unconditional love. Nobody.” She touched her nose with the back of her hand, then scrubbed angrily at her cheeks. “God knows, my parents never did. I’d had friends, growing up, but I always felt like I had to put up a front for them-be somebody I wasn’t. Same with the people I met, working in the city. But not with Joy. She knew I wasn’t perfect and loved me anyway. She’d have given her life for me-she almost did.”

“Ah,” said Roan. “Tell me about that.”

She gave her head a fierce little shake. “Not yet. That comes later. That was after I met Diego DelRey.”

“So, tell me about that.”

“Uh-uh-that comes later, too. First I have to tell you how I got to there. You have to understand…why.”

“Okay-make me understand.” He said it gently. She was smiling at him now, winsomely through her tears, like a child hoping for a stranger’s approval. And at the same time she seemed calmer…stronger, he thought, as if even the memory, the thought of her friend’s love nurtured her.

“It’s hard to explain,” she said, intently studying her hands and the coffee mug they cradled. “The modeling career was going well, I had the job I’d always wanted, but I wasn’t happy. I found out I really hated modeling, if you want the truth. I always felt like a…a product, rather than a person.

“Anyway, Joy was trying to become a writer, and she got me started writing, too. First it was just a journal- personal stuff. Then, one day during a break on a photo shoot for this huge fashion magazine, I was off in a corner writing in my journal, and one of the photographers saw me and wanted to know what I was writing. I told him it was just stuff about the shoot, and he asked if he could read it. I felt really shy about giving him my personal writings, but he was pretty persuasive. Then, after he’d read some of it, he asked if I’d mind if he showed it to his editor at the magazine. At this point, I figured, how much difference could it make?

“Well…as it turned out, a lot.” She answered her own question with a dazed laugh. “The editor liked my stuff so much she decided to make an article out of it to go with the photo layout-kind of a model’s diary of what a photo shoot was like.” She shrugged…drew a hitching breath.