Excerpt of Rogue Stallion by Diana Palmer

There was a lull in Sheriff Judd Hensley's office, broken only by the soft whir of the fan. It sometimes amused visitors from back East that springtime in Whitehorn, Montana, was every bit as unpredictable as spring in the southeastern part of America, and that the weather could be quite warm. But the man sitting across the desk from Hensley was neither visitor nor was he amused. His dark, handsome face was wearing a brooding scowl, and he was glaring at his superior.

"Why can't the city police investigate? They have two detectives. I'm the only special investigator in the sheriff's department, and I'm overworked as it is," Sterling McCallum said, trying once more.

Hensley toyed with a pen, twirling it on the desk absently while he thought. He was about the same build as McCallum, rugged and quiet. He didn't say much. When he did, the words meant something.

He looked up from the desk. "I know that," he said. "But right now, you're the one who deserves a little aggravation."

McCallum crossed his long legs and leaned back with a rough sigh. His black boots had a flawless shine, a legacy from his years in the U.S. Navy as a career officer. He had an ex-military mind-set that often put him at odds with his boss, especially since he'd mustered out with the rank of captain. He was much more used to giving orders than to taking them.

In the navy, the expected answer to any charge of dereliction of duty, regardless of innocence or guilt, was, "No excuse, sir." It was still hard for McCallum to get used to defending his actions. "I did what the situation called for," he said tersely. "When someone tries to pull a gun on me, I get twitchy."

"That was only bravado," Hensley pointed out, "and you knocked out one of his teeth. The department has to pay for it. The county commission climbed all over me and I didn't like it." He leaned forward with his hands clasped and gave the younger man a steady look. "Now you're the one with the problems. Dugin Kincaid found an abandoned baby on his doorstep."

"Maybe it's his," McCallum said with smiling sarcasm. Dugin was a pale imitation of his rancher father, Jeremiah. The thought of him with a woman amused McCallum.

"As I was saying," the sheriff continued without reacting to the comment, "the baby was found outside the city limits—hence our involvement—and its parents have to be found. You're not working on anything that pressing. You can take this case. I want you to talk with Jessica Larson at the social-welfare office."

McCallum groaned. "Why don't you just shoot me?"

"Now, there's no need to be like that," Hensley said, surprised. "She's a nice woman," he said. "Why, her dad was a fine doctor…."

His voice trailed off abruptly. McCallum remembered that Hensley's son had died in a hunting accident. Jessica's father had tried everything to save the boy, but it had been impossible. Hensley's wife, Tracy, divorced him a year after the funeral. That had happened years ago, long before McCallum left the service.

"Anyway, Jessica is one of the best social workers in the department," Hensley continued.

"She's the head of the department now, and a royal pain in the neck since her promotion," McCallum shot right back. "She's Little Miss Sunshine, spreading smiles of joy wherever she goes." His black eyes, a legacy from a Crow ancestor, glittered angrily. "She can't separate governmental responsibility from bleeding-heart activism."

"I wonder if it's fair to punish her by sticking her with you?" Hensley asked himself aloud. He threw up his hands. "Well, you'll just have to grin and bear it. I can't sit here arguing with you all day. This is my department. I'm the sheriff. See this?" He pointed at the badge on his uniform.

"Needs polishing," McCallum noted.

Hensley's eyes narrowed. He stood up. "Get out of here before I forget you work for me."

McCallum unfolded his six-foot-plus length from the chair and stood up. He was just a hair taller than the sheriff, and he looked casual in his jeans and knit shirt and denim jacket. But when the jacket fell open, the butt of his .45 automatic was revealed, giving bystanders a hint of the sort of work he did. He was a plainclothes detective, although only outsiders were fooled by his casual attire. Most everyone in Whitehorn knew that McCallum was as conservative and military as the shine on his black boots indicated.

"Don't shoot anybody," Hensley told him. "And next time a man threatens to shoot you, check for a gun and disarm him before you hit him, please?" Hensley's eyes went to the huge silver-and-turquoise ring that McCallum wore on the middle finger of his right hand. "That ring is so heavy it's a miracle you didn't break his jaw."

McCallum held up his left hand, which was ringless. "This is the hand I hit him with."

"He said it felt like a baseball bat."

"I won't tell you where he hit me before he started ranting about shooting," the detective replied, turning to the door. "And if I didn't work for you, a loose tooth would have been the least of his complaints."

"Jessica Larson is expecting you over at the social-services office," Hensley called.

McCallum, to his credit, didn't slam the door.

Jessica Larson was fielding paperwork and phone calls with a calmness that she didn't feel at all. She'd become adept at presenting an unflappable appearance while having hysterics. Since her promotion to social-services director, she'd learned that she could eat at her desk during the day and forgo any private life after work at night. She also realized why her predecessor had taken an early retirement. A lot of people came into this office to get help.

Like most of the rest of the country, Montana was having a hard time with the economy. Even though gambling had been legalized, adding a little more money to the state's strained coffers, it was harder and harder for many local citizens to make ends meet. Ranches went under all the time these days, forced into receivership or eaten up by big corporations. Manual labor, once a valuable commodity in the agricultural sector, was now a burden on the system when those workers lost jobs. They were unskilled and unemployable in any of the new, high-tech markets. Even secretaries had to use computers these days. So did policemen.

The perfunctory knock on her office door was emphasized by her secretary's high-pitched, "But she's busy…!"

"It's all right, Candy," Jessica called to the harassed young blonde. "I'm expecting McCallum." She didn't add that she hadn't expected him a half hour early. She tried to think of Sterling McCallum as a force of nature. He was like a wild stallion, a rogue stallion who traveled alone and made his own rules. Secretly, she was awed by him. He made her wish that she was a gorgeous model with curves in all the right places and a beautiful face— maybe with blond hair instead of brown. At least she was able to replace her big-rimmed glasses with contacts, which helped her appearance. But when she had allergies, she had to wear the glasses… like right now.

McCallum didn't wait for her to ask him to sit down. He took the chair beside her desk and crossed one long leg over the other.

"Let's have it," he said without preamble, looking unutterably bored.

Her eyes slid over his thick dark hair, so conventionally cut, down to his equally dark eyebrows and eyes in an olive-tan face. He had big ears and big hands and big feet, although there was nothing remotely clumsy about him. He had a nose with a crook in it, probably from being broken, and a mouth that she dreamed about: very wide and sexy and definite. Broad shoulders tapered to a broad chest and narrow hips like a rodeo rider's. His stomach was flat and he had long, muscular legs. He was so masculine that he made her ache. She was twenty-five, a mature woman and only about ten years younger than he was, but he made her feel childish sometimes, and inadequate—as a professional and as a woman.

"Hero worship again, Jessica?" he chided, amused by her soft blush.

"Don't tease. This is serious," she chided gently in turn.

He shrugged and sighed. "Okay. What have you done with the child?"

"Jennifer," she told him.

He glowered. "The abandoned baby."

She gave up. He wouldn't allow anyone to become personalized in his company. Boys he had to pick up were juvenile delinquents. Abandoned babies were exactly that. No names. No identity. No complications in his ordered, uncluttered life. He let no one close to him. He had no friends, no family, no connections. Jessica felt painfully sorry for him, although she tried not to let it show. He was so alone and so vulnerable under that tough exterior that he must imagine was his best protection from being wounded. His childhood was no secret to anyone in Whitehorn. Everyone knew that his mother had been an alcoholic and that, after her arrest and subsequent death, he had been shunted from foster home to foster home. His only real value had been as an extra hand on one ranch or another, an outsider always looking in through a cloudy window at what home life might have been under other circumstances.

"You're doing it again," he muttered irritably.

Her slender eyebrows lifted over soft brown eyes. "What?" she asked.

"Pigeonholing me," he said. "Poor orphan, tossed from pillar to post…"

"I wish you'd stop reading my mind," she told him. "It's very disconcerting."

"I wish you'd stop bleeding all over me," he returned. "I don't need pity. I'm content with my life, just as it is. I had a rough time. So what? Plenty of people do. I'm here to talk about a case, Jessica, and it isn't mine."

She smiled self-consciously. "All right, McCallum," she said agreeably, reaching for a file. "The baby was taken to Whitehorn Memorial and checked over. She's perfectly healthy, clean and well-cared for, barely two weeks old. They're keeping her for observation overnight and then it will be up to the juvenile authorities to make arrangements about her care until her parents are located. I'm going over to see her in the morning. I'd like you to come with me."

"I don't need to see it—"

"Her," she corrected. "Baby Jennifer."

"—to start searching for its parents," he concluded without missing a beat.

"Her parents," Jessica corrected calmly.

His dark eyes didn't blink. "Was there anything else?"

"I'll leave here about nine," Jessica continued. "You can ride with me."

His eyes widened. "In that glorified yellow tank you drive?"

"It's a pickup truck!" she exclaimed defensively. "And it's very necessary, considering where I live!"

He refused to think about her cabin in the middle of nowhere, across a creek that flooded with every cloudburst. It wasn't his place to worry about her just because she had no family. In that aspect of their lives they were very much alike. In other ways…

He stood up. "You can ride with me," he said, giving in with noticeable impatience.

"I hate riding around in a patrol car," she muttered.

"It doesn't have a sign on it. It's a plainclothes car."

"Of course it is, with those plain hubcaps, no white sidewalls, fifteen antennas sticking out of it and a spotlight. It doesn't need a sign, does it? Anyone who isn't blind would recognize it as an unmarked patrol car!"

"It beats driving a yellow tank," he pointed out.

She stood up, too, feeling at a disadvantage when she didn't. But he was still much taller than she was. She pushed at a wisp of brown hair that had escaped from the bun on top of her head. Her beige suit emphasized her slender build, devoid as it was of any really noticeable curves.

"Why do you screw your hair up like that?" he asked curiously.

"It falls in my face when I'm trying to work," she said, indicating the stack of files on her desk. "Besides Candy,

I only have two caseworkers, and they're trying to take away one of them because of new budget cuts. I'm already working Saturdays trying to catch up, and they've just complained about the amount of overtime I do."

"That sounds familiar."

"I know," she said cheerily. "Everyone has to work around tight budgets these days. It's one of the joys of public service."

"Why don't you get married and let some strong man support you?" he taunted.

She tilted her chin saucily. "Are you proposing to me, Deputy?" she asked with a wicked smile. "Has someone been tantalizing you with stories of my homemade bread?"

He'd meant it sarcastically, but she'd turned the tables on him neatly. He gave in with a reluctant grin.

"I'm not the marrying kind," he said. "I don't want a wife and kids."

Her bright expression dimmed a little, but remnants of the smile lingered. "Not everyone does," she said agreeably. The loud interruption of the telephone ringing in the outer office caught her attention, followed by the insistent buzz of the intercom. She turned back to her desk. "Thanks for stopping by. I'll see you in the morning, then," she added as she lifted the receiver. "Yes, Candy," she said.

McCallum's eyes slid quietly over her bowed head. After a minute, he turned and walked out, closing the door gently behind him. He did it without a goodbye. Early in his life, he'd learned not to look back.