The Maverick

“Joey!” Sophie said in relief when her son made the mistake of poking his head out the door. “Join us. Please.”

Joe rolled his eyes, but he came outside and sat on the porch railing. The golden-pink light of the setting sun washed across his narrow face and baggy white T-shirt. To Sophie he was beautiful—not that she dared say so out loud when he’d become so touchy about expressions of affection. Silently she ached with her immense love for her son. Too much, she sometimes thought, for one heart to hold.

When Joe had been born she’d known with a protectiveness so fierce it scared her that she would do anything to keep her baby from suffering the kind of upbringing that she’d had—one that had become essentially homeless, parentless and loveless after her mother had died when she was only five. Right from the start, though, she’d denied Joe a father, even if it hadn’t been entirely by plan. Could she continue to deny him the truth as well, especially now that Luke was back home and the can of worms had been opened again?

Listening to his grandfather’s diatribe, Joe cocked his head in such a way that Sophie was reminded of Luke so explicitly that she wondered why no one else noticed. Or commented.

Probably some of them did, but only behind her back.

The Lucas brand, she thought, growing doleful as she twisted a thick curl of hair around her index finger. She’d always worried about what Mary Lucas, the dominating family matriarch, might do if she knew for sure that Joe carried her blood. As of yet, her eldest grandson Heath hadn’t produced an heir. For a long time now Sophie had watched and waited, knowing more about Heath’s personal life than she cared to because she was friendly with his wife, Kiki. It was Sophie’s greatest fear that one day Mary Lucas might began to look elsewhere for her heir.

And there would be Joe Ryan, hidden in plain sight.

The Lucas brand was more trouble than it was worth, in Sophie’s estimation. Joe wasn’t one of their heads of cattle, mineral mines, or uncut trees. He wasn’t their property.

She would never let that family stamp their brand on him!

If that meant she had to deny his parentage, so be it.

“TELL ME ABOUT SOPHIE RYAN,” Luke said when the deputy came to collect the hard plastic supper tray. For fifteen minutes he’d been standing at the high, narrow window of his jail cell, looking out at the sky, thinking of Sophie and her amazing statement of innocence regarding the criminal investigation. She hadn’t uttered one world of explanation to defend, or prove, herself, only brought him in silence to the station, booked him, fingerprinted him and locked him up.

And Luke believed her.

It remained true that someone with inside knowledge had dropped a bug in Ed Warren’s ear. But that someone had not been Sophie, despite the incriminating words that Luke had overheard and somehow misinterpreted.

Of course it hadn’t been Sophie. He was a jackass for doubting her on that count. He’d been so blinded by jealousy over reports of Sophie’s swift recovery from their love affair that he’d believed without proof the gossip that claimed she’d served up the Mustangs to the authorities.

He cursed. Even if she had cracked under interrogation, could he blame her? She’d been seventeen, alone and abandoned—by him. The fault had been his, no other’s.

Face it, man. He stared at the lacy upper branches of a tall cottonwood tree, the only thing he could see from the window besides the sky. The leaves shook like coins in the gilding rays of the setting sun. You acted like a first-class heel. A selfish hothead. A coward.

It was no big surprise, then, that Sophie wanted nothing to do with him aside from his arrest.

Deputy Boone Barzinski was absently studying the uneaten dessert on Luke’s tray. “Sophie Ryan…” he mulled in response to Luke’s request. The redheaded deputy scooped up a dollop of bread pudding with his forefinger.

Luke made fists around the iron bars of his cage. “How long has she been a deputy?” He was beginning to wonder how much of Heath’s secondhand information was accurate.

“Oh, well, now…” Boone licked his finger. He seemed good-natured, but not the sharpest tack in the hardware store. “Maybe four years. No, five. Or six?”

“She’s unmarried?”

“Yep. I mean, nope. She’s not married.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “Boyfriend?”

Boone colored; Luke discerned that the deputy had a crush on Sophie. “Uhh, I think she’s…unattached,” he mumbled.

“She’s got a son.”

“Well, you know.” Boone’s glance skipped across the congealed contents of the supper tray. He lowered his voice. “An unwed mother. Nowadays these things happen even to good girls, am I right?”

“Good girls?” Heath—Luke’s main contact in Treetop for more than a decade—had said that Sophie’s inclinations had leaned rather drastically in the opposite direction.

“Saint Sophie—that’s what some of the guys in the department call her. Because she doesn’t…you know. Uh, share her favors. She hardly even dates.” Boone’s brows arched up a high forehead bisected by a horizontal tan line. “They say she’s practically a nun, even though there’s, well, her son and all as evidence of, uh, whatever. I dunno. I was hired only last year, so I couldn’t actually say…”

Luke stared—hard. His knuckles were stark white. “How old is Sophie’s son?”

Boone blinked nervously under the scrutiny. He waggled his head back and forth, as if silently counting with each nod. “Junior high age, I guess. Joe’s a good boy. Plays guard on the basketball team. Sophie’s awful proud of him.”

“Twelve?” Luke asked sharply. “Thirteen? That old?”

“Maybe.”

“And what about the father?”

Remembering his professional capacity, Boone drew back, squaring his sloping shoulders in the taupe deputy’s uniform. “Uh, say, what do you care anyhow?” His color deepened, turning even the pale half of his forehead pink. “Sophie doesn’t put up with loose talk. She’d have my hide if she knew I’d gone and blabbed—”

“No harm done.” Luke stepped back from the bars. “Sophie and I used to be friends. I was wondering how she’s been doing, that’s all.”

“Oh. Right.” Recognition—and something more—flared in the deputy’s eyes. “You’re the one who—” Boone slammed shut his mouth. “Er, uh, okay. You set for the night? Sure you don’t want to make a phone call? We got lights out at ten.”

You’re the one who— The unfinished statement was jangling in Luke’s head like a fire alarm, but he nodded and drew further back into his cell. When Deputy Barzinski returned an hour later to put out the lights Luke was still standing in the same place, silent but alert, his eyes on the narrow rectangle of indigo sky.

Sophie, he repeated to himself. Sophie…

He was the one who—what?

JUDGE HARRIET ENTWHISTLE prided herself on being eccentric and independent, as well as tough. She ran her court her way and hang what the judicial review board had to say. There were cases where a woman’s good sense had to overrule the guidelines thought up by city folk who, when it came right down to it, knew beans about country-style justice.

The particulars of the bail hearing of Mr. Lucas Salinger—fugitive, notorious hometown boy, grandson of the judge’s favorite canasta partner—had convinced Harriet that this was such a case. Her quandary was how to adequately satisfy what was one of the participants’ most unusual need for personal justice with what the law demanded.

“Let me see if my poor ole brain’s got this straight,” the judge said, glaring from the bench at the assorted players, not out of any actual ire, but just on general principles. “The injured party in this case, Sampson and Devore, Attorneys-at-Law, have been out of business for eight years, and they never wanted to press charges in the first place. Oddly enough.” Lucas money had passed hands there, she’d wager. “Mr. Salinger—” the judge regarded the leather-clad defendant sourly “—skipped town before he could be fully questioned. Our good sheriff seems disinclined to reopen the investigation.” Sheriff Ed Warren bobbed up, smiling like a politician. “For reasons that fail me,” Judge Entwhistle intoned, and the sheriff dropped down again, his smile gone stale as day-old doughnuts. “However, the charges against Mr. Salinger were never officially dropped, leading Deputy Sophie Ryan to make an arrest when Mr. Salinger reappeared in town.”

Judge Entwhistle paused to scan the arrest report, neatly filled in by Deputy Ryan, whom the judge was prepared to favor above the rest of the yahoos standing before her. Sophie Ryan had testified in the circuit court many times. She was always respectful, well-prepared and honest, unlike some of the law enforcement personnel, who were so puffed-up with machismo they thought a starched uniform and a sidearm were enough to persuade even a judge to their point of view. Nevertheless…

Mary Lucas had asked for leniency, and Mary did know how to play a mean game of canasta.

The judge looked up. Every eye in the courtroom was trained on her face, which put her in a better mood. “And finally, we have the prosecutor—” the fresh-out-of-law-school pipsqueak brightened expectantly “—who also is disinclined to prosecute the case, considering the time span and Mr. Salinger’s clean record and gainful employment thereafter. Is that right?”

The prosecutor agreed.

Judge Entwhistle addressed Luke Salinger. “I’m of a mind to see that you get what you have coming to you, young man, fourteen years too late or not.” She scrutinized the defendant, trying to decide if he was as lawless as the case signified or merely temporarily misguided, as according to Mary Lucas.

After a nice, lengthy silence, the judge cleared her throat. “Which leads to my ruling. I’ve decided to continue this case indefinitely. In the meantime, Mr. Salinger, you’re free to go.” The judge tapped her gavel at the sudden rise of chatter. “However,” she said heavily, silencing the courtroom, “I also intend to keep you under close supervision, Mr. Salinger.” She twitched a scolding finger, deciding to take a left turn off the rule book. “As a matter of fact, I do believe it would be wise to appoint a watchdog to see that you behave yourself. By order of this court, I place Mr. Lucas Salinger under the charge of—”

Mary Lucas set her cane and rose from her seat in the first row, a proud, tall, gaunt figure in a Western-cut business suit.

“—Deputy Sophie Ryan,” the judge finished with a flourish.