Til Death Do Us Part (9 page)

Joanna noticed Elena staring at her, questioning her
silently with her eyes. She glanced over at Cliff, who seemed equally puzzled.

“I know how totally enamored you were with that diary of your great-grandmother's. I told myself when you decided to move all the way to New Mexico that it was a temporary move. You needed to get away from…after the…after what happened to you. I understood. And I even went along with your romantic notions about Annabelle Beaumont and that illicit love affair she had with some Indian. But I never thought you'd stay out there or that you'd actually become involved with…well, with one of those people.”

“One of those people? Native Americans? Is that what you mean, Mother?”

“I've had that Blackwood fellow thoroughly checked out,” Helene said.

“You did what? How dare you!”

“When it comes to your safety, I'd dare almost anything. Besides, the man seems to be the very best at what he does and the firm in which he's a partner is considered one of the top private security firms in the nation.”

“Then you have no reason to worry about me or want me to come back to Virginia, do you?”

“You didn't answer my question about you and Mr. Blackwood. Have you become personally involved with him? I know that he is Benjamin Greymountain's great-grandson.”

“My God, Mother, when you said you had J.T. thoroughly checked out, you weren't kidding. You must have spent quite a bundle on private investigators.” Joanna glanced back and forth between Elena and Cliff, and wished she wasn't having this conversation in front of an audience. Especially not Elena.

“If you won't come home to Virginia, I'm coming out there,” Helene said.

“No, Mother, don't do that!”

“I'll fly out tomorrow and see if I can't talk sense to you, face-to-face. At a time like this, you should be at home.”

“What are you so worried about, Mother?” Turning her back toward Elena and Cliff, Joanna lowered her voice. “What has you the most upset, the fact that Lenny Plott might find me and try to kill me, or that I might fall in love with J. T. Blackwood and ask him to marry me?”

“You're being irrational. There's no point in our discussing this anymore. You can expect me tomorrow.”

“No, Mother, don't come out—” The dial tone hummed in Joanna's ear.

Cliff Lansdell walked across the room and placed his hand on Joanna's back. When she turned toward him, he slipped his arm around her shoulders. She rested against him, glad to have someone to lean on.

“I take it that we can expect a visit from Senator Helene Beaumont,” Elena said.

Joanna nodded her head. “She'll be here sometime tomorrow.”

“Are you all right, Joanna?” Cliff asked.

Slipping her arm around his waist, she hugged him. “I'll be fine as soon as I cool off and calm down. I love my mother dearly, but she has always tried to run my life.”

Elena untied the apron she wore, folded it and laid it on the back of the sofa. “You never told me your mother was a bigot.”

Joanna laughed. “She certainly doesn't consider herself one, but she is. She's horrified at the idea I might—”

“Who's horrified at what?” J. T. Blackwood stood in the arched opening leading into the kitchen.

They hadn't heard him enter the house. All three of them turned and stared at the intruder.

“You left your back door unlocked,” J.T. said. “From now on, make sure it's locked.” He walked into the living room. His eyes focused on Cliff Lansdell's arm draped across Joanna's shoulder. “What's going on here? Who were you talking about being horrified at something you might do?”

“My mother just called,” Joanna told him.

“Mrs. Beaumont is worried about Joanna's safety,” Cliff said.

“She's horrified at the thought Joanna might be hurt.” Elena didn't look at her brother when she spoke.

“Are you worried about your safety?” J.T. walked up behind Joanna and glared at Cliff.

Cliff removed his arm from Joanna's shoulder and took a step away from her. Joanna watched the silent exchange between J.T. and Cliff, and couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for Cliff. At that moment, she realized few men would have the courage to stand up to J.T. and confront him. There was something powerfully intimidating about J. T. Blackwood; something other men obviously sensed instinctively. Cliff was a big guy, rugged and strong. She had seen him riding and roping and issuing orders in his duties as ranch foreman, but he hadn't dared make a stand against J.T.

“Guess I'd better be going,” Cliff said. “If you need me for anything—”

“She won't need you,” J.T. interrupted.

Cliff nodded, then made a hasty retreat out the front door.

“That show of machismo wasn't necessary.” Joanna whirled around to face J.T. She placed her hands on her hips and glared at him.

“She's got you there, big brother,” Elena said. “All Cliff was doing was giving her a little comfort.”

“If you two will excuse me, I'm going into the bedroom for some privacy.” Joanna patted Elena on the arm when she walked past her. “I'll call Mother back and see if I can persuade her not to fly out here tomorrow.”

The moment they were alone, Elena turned to J.T. “You didn't hide your feelings very well.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about your proprietary attitude toward Joanna. If you could have seen the look on your face. I thought for a few minutes you were going to rip Cliff's arm off.”

“You're talking nonsense.”

“Am I?” Elena smiled. “I don't think so. Cliff got the message. Everyone in this room got the message, including Joanna.”

“What message?” J.T. asked.

“You've staked a claim on Jo and were sending out No Trespassing signals, loud and clear.”

“You're reading too much into what happened.”

“Look, Joanna doesn't need you acting like some macho jerk right now. She just had a rather unpleasant conversation with her mother. Senator Beaumont wants Jo to come home to Virginia, and she wants to hire another bodyguard. She's afraid her daughter might be getting a little too personally involved with the wrong sort of man.”

“The wrong sort…you mean me?”

Elena shook her head. “Joanna really let her mother have it. She disagrees with the way her mother thinks. Joanna isn't like that.”

“Senator Beaumont doesn't want her daughter to become seriously involved with a half-breed. That's it, isn't
it? Well, the woman has nothing to worry about. Whatever happens between Joanna and me won't be serious. Her mother doesn't have to worry about her marrying—”

“I couldn't get through to Mother.” Joanna stood across the living room, staring at J.T., her face pale, her eyes glazed with a fine mist of tears.

Damn, he hadn't meant for her to overhear his conversation with Elena. Joanna looked as if he'd slapped her. He had hurt her with his careless words. Why hadn't he been more cautious? The last thing in the world he wanted to do was cause Joanna any more pain.

“Jo, we need to talk,” J.T. said.

“No, we don't need to talk.” Joanna glanced at Elena. “I'd like to be alone for a while. Please.”

“I'm not going to leave like this, not until we've talked.” J.T. took a tentative step toward Joanna.

Elena grabbed him by the arm. “Call me later, okay?” she asked Joanna, then tugged on her brother's arm. “We're leaving now,” she told him.

J.T. hesitated, but when he saw the anger and pain etched on Joanna's face, he turned around and walked out of the house with Elena.

Joanna went back into her bedroom, sat down on the edge of the bed and covered her face with her hands. The tears were trapped inside her, choking her, restricting her breathing.

Whatever happens between Joanna and me won't be serious. Won't be serious. Won't be serious.

She'd been a fool to think that just because J.T. wanted to make love to her, he might actually care about her. Maybe her mother had been right all along. Hoping to find the kind of love Annabelle Beaumont had found with Benjamin Greymountain was a fool's fantasy.

Joanna twisted her great-grandmother's ring around
and around on her finger. Sometimes she wished she'd never found the old diary and the leather pouch containing the ring. Maybe it would have been better if she'd never come to New Mexico, searching for a new life and dreaming of finding true love.

One thing was certain—J. T. Blackwood most definitely wasn't the man Benjamin Greymountain had been. But then, maybe she wasn't half the woman Annabelle had been.

J.T.
NODDED AT
Tim Rawlins when he stepped up on Joanna's front porch. Standing at the door, he hesitated before knocking. He'd given Joanna a couple of hours to be by herself and calm down, but he'd waited as long as he could. His patience had run out.

He hadn't meant for her to overhear his conversation with Elena. He could have kicked himself when he'd seen the look of hurt and disillusionment in her eyes. But who knows, he told himself, maybe it's better this way. At least now, she knew exactly where they stood. He wanted Joanna, wanted her in the worst way a man could want a woman. But if she was expecting love and “forever after,” she had the wrong guy.
Love
wasn't a word that existed in his vocabulary. And there was no such thing as “forever after.” He lived his life a day at a time.

Joanna opened the door, took one look at J.T. and started to close the door in his face. He stuck his foot over the threshold and grabbed the edge of the door.

“May I come in?” he asked.

She glared at his hand, then down at his foot. “Doesn't look like I can stop you.” She stared directly at him.

“I'd like to come in and talk to you, but I won't crash my way in if you say no.”

“Come in.” Turning her back on him, her spine stiff as a board, she marched into the living room.

J.T. followed her over to the easel supporting Elena's portrait. “You're capturing my sister's earthy beauty.”

“We didn't get a chance to do much work today,” Joanna said. “I need only a couple more sittings to be able to finish it. Elena wants it for Alex's birthday present.”

“Well, it'll certainly be something he'll treasure.”

“I hope so.”

J.T. stared at the unfinished portrait. “Elena looks a lot like my mother. The way I remember her from my early childhood. When I saw her again after so many years, she was dying and had aged terribly.”

“You and Elena resemble each other some, enough to recognize the fact you're brother and sister.” Joanna covered the portrait.

“Elena was fifteen before I ever met her, before I even knew I had a half sister. One of my mother's relatives called and told me my mother was dying.” J.T. strolled around the living room, surveying the changes Joanna had made in the old bunkhouse. She'd turned a ramshackle old building into a warm, comfortable home.

J.T. glanced at the portrait of Annabelle Beaumont hanging over the mantel, and wondered if he should show Joanna the picture he had of Benjamin. His gut instincts told him that Annabelle had been the artist who had drawn his great-grandfather's likeness in a stark, totally male black-and-white sketch. Suddenly J.T. noticed a small fire burning in the fireplace.

“It's too hot a day for a fire,” he said.

“I needed to burn some trash.” She sat down on the leather sofa. “Is there a reason you came over here to see me?”

J.T. took a closer look at the “trash” she had decided to burn. A tight knot formed in his throat when he recognized the notebook she had half-filled with sketches
of him. Dammit! She must hate him. And he didn't want her to hate him. All he wanted was for her to accept this thing between them for what it was. Lust. Good old plain lust. Nothing less, but nothing more.

“Maybe you should go back to Virginia the way your mother wants you to,” he said.

Snapping her head around, she frowned at him. “Why?”

“Why? Well, you'd be better off without my being involved in the case. I think it's pretty obvious that things aren't going to work out between us. Our expectations are different.”

“Oh, I see. So, you're saying that if I return to Virginia and get a different bodyguard, I won't wind up making a total fool of myself over you.”

“Dammit, Jo, that's not what I said.” J.T. slumped down in the overstuffed plaid chair across from the sofa. “If you go back to Virginia, neither one of us will wind up making fools of ourselves. I want something from you that you're not willing to give, and you want something from me that isn't in me to give. It's as simple as that.”

“Nothing's ever that simple.”

“If you want to go home to Virginia, I'll call Simon Roarke and have him fly out here tomorrow and go back to Virginia with you whenever you're ready to go.”

“Who's Simon Roarke?”

“He's been an agent with Dundee's Private Security for several years. He's top-notch. You'd be safe with him.” J.T. grinned, but there was no mirth in his smile. “Besides, your mother might approve of him. He's pure Scotch-Irish all the way back to Adam. Not a drop of impure blood in him that I know of. But his folks were poor Southern farmers. Think that will disqualify him?”

“It might disqualify him as husband material,” Joanna
said, “but I think Mother would approve of him being my bodyguard.”

“Then I'll call him and have him catch the first flight—”

“There's no need to call Mr. Roarke. I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here in Trinidad, New Mexico, on the Blackwood ranch, and I'm holding you to your promise to stick around as long as I need protection.” She smiled, just barely turning up the corners of her mouth. Her green eyes glistened with triumph.

“Your mother isn't going to be happy.”

“I really don't care. I'm just sorry that you and Elena and Alex will have to endure her visit. She's a charming Southern lady on the surface, but beneath that Virginia-belle facade, beats the heart of a born politician. She's not above saying or doing whatever she thinks is necessary to get her own way.”

“And that includes taking potshots at me.”

“I'm not worried about you.” Joanna stood. “Your hide is pretty tough. I'm worried about Elena. She's very protective of you, and she'll jump to your defense if Mother casts aspersions on your ethnic heritage.” Joanna walked toward the front door. “I think we've discussed everything we needed to, don't you?”

J.T. stood. “Here's your hat. What's your hurry?” he said jokingly. “One question before you kick me out.”

Shrugging, she nodded agreement. “All right. One question. Then you'll leave.”

He glanced at the notebook, now almost totally consumed by the blaze in the fireplace. “Why did you burn the sketch pad?”

Every muscle in Joanna's body tensed; her nerves jangled like a zillion tiny bells. She couldn't bear the way J.T. was looking at her, as if accusing her of something sin
ful. How could she possibly answer him without lying? His thoughtless remark that nothing serious would ever happen between them had cut her to the quick. She didn't want to admit to him how much he had hurt her. But he already knew. The burning sketch pad was all the evidence he needed to know the depth of her anger.

“I understand exactly where we stand,” she said. “We are not our great-grandparents. There is no grand love affair in our future. You don't want a serious relationship with me, and I don't want any type of relationship with you, other than in a strictly business capacity.”

“You're a hard woman, Joanna Beaumont. You want all or nothing, don't you?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“I'll keep a guard posted outside around the clock, and I'll check in with you from time to time.” He walked over to her, hesitated momentarily; then, when she didn't respond to his gesture, he opened the front door and stepped out on the porch.

Just as she started to close the door, the telephone rang. She rushed across the room, grabbed the receiver and said hello. J.T. stood in the doorway and waited.

“Hello,” she said again.

“Hello, Joanna.”

“Who is this?”

“Don't you recognize my voice, baby doll?”

“No—no, I don't.” But she did. She would never forget that cultured Southern drawl, that soft, effeminate voice or the “baby doll” endearment.

“I've already talked to Claire and Libby. I told each of them that I'd be paying them a little visit anytime now. I didn't want you to find out about all the attention I'm giving them and get jealous.”

J.T. stepped back inside and closed the door behind him
slowly. He watched Joanna. Her face paled. She clutched the telephone fiercely.

Joanna glanced over at J.T. He mouthed the words, “Who is it? Plott?”

She nodded her head. J.T. cursed softly under his breath.

“What's the matter, baby doll?” Lenny Plott asked. “Surely you're not surprised to hear from me. After all, you knew it would be only a matter of time before I'd look up all my old friends. I suppose Lieutenant George told you what happened to poor little Melody.”

“You strangled her.”

“Is that all he told you?” Lenny Plott laughed—that shrill, diabolical laugh Joanna would never forget. “You know what else I did to her before I strangled her, don't you, Joanna?”

There was no way Joanna could keep Plott on the phone long enough to run a trace. From everything he'd found out about Leonard Plott III, J.T. knew the man might be deranged, but he wasn't a fool.

“I'll be seeing you,” Lenny said. “But you don't know when. You don't have any idea who I'm coming after next. Will I go to Missouri or Texas or New Mexico? Who knows, maybe I'll throw darts at a map.”

“If you come after me, you'll be sorry,” Joanna said. “I'll kill you before I'll ever let you touch me again.”

“So brave, aren't you, darling girl? Well, just remember this, you won't recognize me when you see me. I've changed my appearance. I doubt my own mother would recognize me.”

The line went dead. Joanna replaced the telephone receiver. J.T. grabbed her by the shoulders.

“What did he say?”

“He said he had changed his appearance enough that
I wouldn't recognize him, and that he knows where all three of us—Claire, Libby and I—are. We don't know which one of us he'll come after next.”

“Look, Jo, he just told you that to try to frighten you even more than you already are. Our boy Lenny sounds like the type who likes to play head games.”

“Phone Lieutenant George and let him know about this call,” Joanna said.

“I'll phone from the main house.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, soothing her. “Will you be all right here by yourself until I get back?”

“Tim Rawlins is still outside. And I have my gun.” She pulled away from J.T. “There's no need for you to come back over here.”

“You're wrong about that, honey. Plott knows exactly where you are now. I'm moving in here with you. It's time for me to start acting as your private, around-the-clock bodyguard.”

“No!” She backed away from J.T. “That's not necessary.”

“This isn't up for discussion. We're not taking a vote. From now until Lenny Plott is arrested, I'm not leaving your side. Do you understand?”

Reluctantly, she nodded her head. Dear God, how had her life come to this? Lenny Plott had escaped from prison and was threatening her life. And J. T. Blackwood, a man she both desired and despised, was moving in with her.

 

J
OANNA STARED AT
the shaving kit sitting on the left side of the vanity in her bathroom. She had never shared a bathroom with a man. Even when she'd been engaged to Todd, they hadn't lived together. Having J.T. sleeping in the room next to hers, the two of them together twenty-four hours a day, seemed far too intimate. She might not
like the idea, but she wasn't going to ask J.T. to leave. In the sea of fear and uncertainty her life had become, J.T. was her lifeline—the one person standing between her and a deadly enemy.

Dragging her gaze away from the leather kit, Joanna picked up the jar of cleansing cream, unscrewed the lid and delved her fingers into the solution. Smearing the cream on her face, she glanced in the mirror. Her green eyes stared back at her, mocking her, telling her she was a fool. Although her body longed for J.T. and her romantic heart cried out for his love, she knew they were all wrong for each other. She was a permanent type of woman; he was a temporary kind of guy. She believed in love; he didn't. And to complicate matters further, she could not bring herself to fully trust J.T. She didn't doubt his sincerity when he promised to protect her from Lenny Plott, but she didn't dare trust him with her love. Of course, it didn't really matter. He didn't want her love. All he wanted was her body.

She wiped off the face cream, washed her hands and lifted her silk robe from the wooden wall peg. She had thought about going to bed early, but had decided she would not stay in her room to avoid J.T. She had work to do, a life to live, an orderly routine to her days. She'd go crazy if she couldn't maintain some semblance of normalcy in her life. She'd just have to get used to J.T.'s presence.

Before leaving the sanctuary of her bathroom, she glanced back at the shaving kit.

She found J.T. standing in front of the fireplace in the living room, gazing up at Annabelle Beaumont's portrait. Joanna sucked in her breath. The sight of him, partially disrobed, left her breathless. He had removed his boots and socks, leaving his big feet bare. His unbuttoned shirt
hung loosely about his hips. In that one brief moment before he turned and looked at her, Joanna saw a glimpse of what she thought might be the real J. T. Blackwood. Pensive, brooding and yet somehow vulnerable. And in desperate need of love.

“I have something to show you,” he said. “Something you can have, if you want it.” He reached down in the plaid chair, picked up a large yellowed, frayed piece of paper and held it out to her.

“What is it?” she asked, noticing that it seemed to be a sketch of some sort.

“Here. Take a look.”

He handed it to her. Holding the sketch by the edges, she gasped when she saw the strikingly bold features of a handsome Navajo man. Obviously the drawing had been done years ago. Over seventy years ago?