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“I said that Sheriff Banks is family,” Lucy explained. “He is, isn’t he, Aunt Abby?”
Abby looked at him and flushed, but she smiled, too. “Yes, he is,” she said, her voice very soft.
Cody’s chest expanded. He felt like a million dollars. “All this, and chicken and dumplings, too,” he murmured. “How much joy can a man stand before he explodes?”
“Let’s find out,” Abby teased, and she went to him and hugged him, too.
He hugged her back with a sigh. “Be careful. I’ll blow up. It will seriously damage the paint on the walls.”
She just laughed.
DINNERWASANuproarious affair. Abby was telling them about a case she’d been part of back in Denver, some years ago when she was just training as a paralegal. A man had cheated on his wife, and she’d backed the car over him, accidentally she said, three times.
Cody’s eyes opened wide. “Accidentally? Three times?”
“That’s what she swore,” Abby agreed, her eyes dancing with glee. “We were representing her poor husband.”
“Who won?” he asked, while Hannah and Lucy sat, eyes wide.
“Well, of course he did,” she said. “But that wasn’t the end of the case.” She laughed. “His mistress thought he’d been sleeping with his wife, so she ran her car over him, but just once, and nobody could prove it wasn’t an accident—there was thick fog at the time, there were lots of accidents. She bawled at his funeral, but we always thought that was because his wife got everything in his will. Millions of dollars, several houses, a Rolls-Royce, two Jaguars, and a very large Saint Bernard dog.”
“Oh, the irony,” Cody laughed.
“What happened to the mistress?” Hannah wanted to know.
“Another irony,” Abby commented between bites of chicken and dumpling. “She got into a relationship with another married man, but this time the wife didn’t go after her husband, she went after the mistress. She had her arrested for car theft.”
They all stopped eating and looked at her.
“See, the husband gave her a Mercedes, but when his wife accused him of it, he denied that he’d given it to her. His name was still on the title, so his wife called the police. The mistress had a good attorney, paid for by the husband, so she got off. But his wife sued for divorce. She had a really good lawyer—my brother—and she got everything, and I mean everything, in the divorce. The mistress deserted him immediately, because the real money in the family was his wife’s, an enormous inheritance including land, stocks, bonds, you name it. So the cheating husband was left with absolutely nothing. Which was what he deserved.”
Cody smiled at her indignation. His expression was hard to read. He was thinking about Debby and her affair with a married man. Her lover had lost everything, too.
Hannah cleared away the dishes and Lucy took the puppy outside for his walk, leaving Cody and Abby alone at the table.
“I’m sorry,” Abby said softly, laying a hand over his big one. “Bad memories?”
He nodded, turning his hand so that he caught her fingers in it. “I was thinking about Debby’s married lover,” he confessed. He drew in a long breath and looked straight into Abby’s eyes. “I felt sorry for him. Can you imagine that? He helped my wife cheat on me, carried on a deception for years, and I felt sorry for him. He really loved her. I think she loved him, too, as much as she was capable of loving anybody.” He studied Abby’s face. “She wasn’t like you. She was all business, about everything. The only thing that mattered to her was prestige and wealth. She didn’t really care what she had to sacrifice to get them. She told me one time that if I hadn’t come up on her blind side, she’d never have married me. It was an impulse. Now I know why, years too late. She was making sure that she and the doctor wouldn’t be suspected of ongoing infidelity.” He smoothed his fingers in between Abby’s and looked down at her hand. It was small, and the nails were done with clear polish. It was a good hand. “I never cheated on her,” he added bitterly, “and there were a few temptations.”
“Never?” she asked softly.
He cocked his head and his dark eyes twinkled. “Never. Which means that I went without sex for two years.” He pursed his lips at her scarlet blush. “And in fact, Abby, I’m still going without it, six years later.”
Her breath was caught somewhere deep in her throat. “Still?”
He nodded. His fingers moved against hers, very sensuously. “I have no plans to change that, either.”
“Oh.” She looked suddenly crestfallen.
He looked down at her hand. “I could be persuaded, of course,” he mentioned without lifting his eyes. “Men are so easy when a determined woman puts on the heat. Like those two pretty women who came in the office recently,” he added with a mischievous look in his eyes as he lifted them to Abby’s. “And that little blonde trooper...”
“Oh, you...!” She hit him with her free hand.
“Assault on a peace officer,” he began.
“I’d love to assault you,” she started, the memory of those women making her livid with feelings of possession and jealousy.
“Would you, really?” he asked. He stood up, drawing her close. Then he spread his arms and closed his eyes. “Go ahead,” he invited. “I would love for you to assault me!”
