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  Crissy told her, surprised by the woman’s efficiency. She was bathed off with the washcloth, her dirty gown deftly removed and replaced by the clean one.

  “Oh, I’ve spent years taking care of my little brother, and then a man I cared...very much for,” Tippy said. “My brother’s nine, now, and in military school.” Her eyes were haunted. “I spent a fortune getting custody of him from my mother and her latest lover, but I wouldn’t put it past them to try and kidnap him for more money. Nobody knows where he is except me.”

  Crissy was fascinated by this glimpse of the woman’s private life. There was a haunted look about her. “You must care about him a lot.”

  She nodded. “He’s my whole life.” She picked up the towel and washcloth and gave the other woman a long, sad look. “I’ve made a lot of trouble for you with Judd. I want you to know that I’m sorry for all of it. I felt safe with him. He was the best man I’ve ever known and I got possessive. But if I’d had the slightest idea you were married, I’d never...!”

  “It’s all right,” Crissy said, embarrassed. “You can’t help how you feel about people.”

  Tippy sighed. “Isn’t that the truth,” she murmured, thinking about Cash Grier and his coldness, despite her attempts to revise his opinion of her.

  Crissy, predictably, thought she meant Judd and was even more depressed.

  “I gave Judd back the ring,” she added firmly. “And I’m sorry about letting him buy it for me, too. I never realized how bad things were around here.”

  “They won’t be for much longer,” Crissy told her. “We’re working on a new deal with an overseas market. If we can pull it off, I’ll move out after we get the divorce, and he’ll have everything he wants.”

  “Without you?” Tippy asked, astonished. “Can’t you see how he feels?”

  “He feels guilty,” Crissy told her flatly. “That will wear off, given time.” She lay back with her eyes closed. “I’m tired of being married to a man who thinks of me as an albatross. I just want out.”

  Tippy didn’t know what to say. She stood there with remorse eating at her. Finally, she went out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her. She’d caused enough trouble for one day, with only the best of intentions.

  15

  Judd reluctantly returned to Victoria when Christabel was able to get around the ranch comfortably. He’d gone back to work the week after she’d come home, after the second shooting investigation that cleared him of any wrongdoing. But he’d commuted from Jacobsville to Victoria, to be on hand if he was needed. He and Nick had outlined new plans for the ranch, bought new materials, hired on a full-time man, and organized work schedules for maximum efficiency.

  Christabel, who’d tried but failed to get so much work out of the part-time help, stood in awe of Judd when he set his mind to a problem. Nick just grinned and did what he was told, watching with amusement the way the part-timers jumped on projects and carried them through with no coaxing or argument.

  The ranch was looking up, with the new infusion of money from the film project. Another film company, in fact, had targeted the ranch for a setting the following year. Christabel had groaned, but Judd had dangled promises of a new barn and improving the house even more, and she’d given in. Besides, it wouldn’t happen until autumn next year. A lot could happen in that length of time, she told herself. In fact, she might not even be here then.

  Meanwhile, the Japanese company had been in touch and arrangements were made for Judd and Christabel to fly over to Osaka for meetings. She’d tried to get out of going, pleading work, but Judd knew better. She couldn’t even argue about not having a passport, because he’d had plenty of time to get her one. Nick was perfectly capable of overseeing what needed doing here at home, and it wasn’t time for calving yet, either. She had no excuse, unless it was being reluctant to leave Cash Grier, he’d added with bitter coldness.

  Cash had become her security blanket. She kept him between her and Judd, because she didn’t want Judd making her any declarations out of gratitude or guilt. She knew he wanted to. She read him very well. He was still awed at the fact that she’d tried to sacrifice herself to save him. He couldn’t get past that, no matter how hard he worked at it. She couldn’t have made her feelings for him plainer if she’d worn a sign.

  But she couldn’t talk her way out of going to Japan. Even Maude jumped on the bandwagon and started insisting that she go.

  “I’m still weak from being in the hospital,” she argued with Judd the day before they were leaving out of the Houston airport.

  He studied her with that brooding, almost painful scrutiny that had been so evident lately. “I know that,” he told her gently. “But it will be a new experience for you. You need to get away from here for a while.”

  She gave him a long look. “Away from Cash, don’t you mean?”

  His jaw clenched. Just the sound of the man’s name was like waving a red flag at a Texas longhorn bull. “You do live in his pocket since you came home,” he pointed out.

  She turned away from him, tired of the fighting. She and Cash were friends. That was all it would ever be. But it kept Judd from wallowing over the debt he owed her.

  “If it had been me, in the same circumstances, you’d have done what I did, and you know it,” she said quietly, her eyes on the pasture out the window. “You’re making such a big deal of this, Judd, and it isn’t necessary.”

  She felt his warmth at her back, felt his breath stirring the hair at her temples.

  “You took a bullet that was meant for me,” he said curtly. “How, exactly, should I take it?”

  His big hands caught her shoulders and turned her around, very gently, so that he could look down into her eyes.

  “I move one step closer and you move two steps back,” he said broodingly. “Are you the same woman who couldn’t get close enough to me on Christmas Eve?”

  She flushed. “How dare you bring that up!” she raged.

  “And you hadn’t even been drinking,” he added with amused indulgence.

  She looked everywhere except in his eyes. “It was a mistake. You said so.”

  “I said a lot of things,” he murmured evasively.

  “Yes, and now you’re saying a lot more, and you shouldn’t,” she tried to explain, pulling away from his hands. “Listen, you want a divorce. No problem. I’m not even arguing about it. You can marry Tippy Moore and I’ll go around with Cash until he decides whether or not he can live in Jacobsville for the rest of his life.”

  He wondered if she had any idea how much it hurt him when she made offhand remarks like that. He had no interest in Tippy Moore. But her fascination with Cash had caused him to pretend one, out of wounded pride. Cash was everything most men wanted to be. He was handsome, charming, cultured and absolutely fearless. There wasn’t a peace officer in Texas who didn’t recognize his name. Judd had a cursory education and some college, but he wasn’t in Cash’s league intellectually and he was keenly aware of it. He wasn’t cultured, either, and he didn’t speak half a dozen impossible foreign languages.

  Worse, he knew how Cash felt about Christabel, and that, given the least chance, he’d marry her out of hand, without a second thought.

  Judd began to see how his indifference and rejection had wounded her all these long years, when he’d been so determined to keep his distance from her. He’d told himself it was for her good, so that she’d be heartwhole and innocent, so that she could pick up the threads of her life when their marriage was annulled. But it wasn’t. He didn’t want ties, roots, a family. He couldn’t help remembering his own childhood when his mother left his father for another man. She’d been like Christabel, innocent and married in her teens, with no experience of the world or other men except her husband. It wasn’t surprising to him, now, in manhood, that she would have been tempted by other men.

&n
bsp; He’d had visions of Christabel doing as his mother had, running into some other man’s arms out of curiosity after years of marriage, and it had frightened him. He’d turned away from her hungry eyes, her dreams of a life with him. Now he wanted those things back again, but she didn’t. She was as remote and unresponsive as he’d ever been. With greater cause, he had to admit. He’d given her no encouragement whatsoever. Now, it seemed, it was too late. And the competition was fierce. Even he, with his massive self-confidence, felt uncertain around the threat of Cash Grier.

  “I’ve told you until I’m blue in the face that I never intended to marry Tippy,” he said through his teeth. “But you won’t listen.”

  Because he’d said he was going to marry Tippy continually until Christabel was shot, she thought, but she was through arguing. “If I can’t get out of going, I guess I’ll pack,” she said heavily. “Thirteen hours on an airplane. I’ll be foaming at the mouth before we even get to California.”

  He gave her a worldly look. “We could do the initiation for the Mile High club.”

  It took a minute for her to realize what he was talking about. She glared up at him. “I am not having sex with you in the washroom of an airplane!”

  “Not even if I bought you a red negligee?” he asked softly.

  Maude stopped in the doorway with one foot raised. She cleared her throat, put her foot down, and almost ran for the safety of the kitchen.

  Judd didn’t say anything. He was laughing too hard. Christabel made a rough sound in her throat and beat a hasty retreat to her room as fast as she could walk.

  * * *

  The trip was long, and a little frightening to Christabel, who’d never been on an airplane in her life. It was noisy in the economy section, but she and Judd had both refused to let the company pay for business class tickets. They felt bad enough about having to take the tickets in the first place. The seats were cramped and it was difficult to relax, but just thinking about the wonder of being in a foreign country fascinated Christabel.

  They were fed and soon afterward the sleepless nights caught up with Christabel and she fell asleep. It seemed like no time before Judd was kissing her awake.

  The feel of his mouth on hers was electrifying, and she had to fight not to return the tender caress. “Are we there?” she whispered.

  He smiled. “Look out the window, honey.”

  She opened the shade. She knew that, for the rest of her life, she would remember that first incredible glimpse of the Japanese coast. All the reading and travelogues on television hadn’t prepared her for the impact of such glorious beauty. There were green mountains going up into the clouds. The coastline had sharp rocks standing right up out of the ocean. It was like looking at something out of a paradise fantasy. The joy of the unexpected sight hit her right in the heart.

  “Oh!” she whispered, wordless.

  “That was how I felt, the first time I saw it,” Judd told her quietly. He’d gone to Japan on a case, years before, when the Texas Rangers were working with Interpol. “I could never manage to describe it. You have to see it.”

  “Yes.” She sighed with pleasure. “It’s so beautiful.”

  He was looking at her profile, drinking in the sight of her. “So beautiful,” he whispered, thinking painfully that she could be dead now, so easily.

  “They’re going to meet us at the airport, right?” she added, worried. “I wish one of us spoke Japanese, like Cash.”

  He froze over. Just once, he thought, just one day he’d like to get through the whole without having her refer to the damned man.

  She knew what she’d said, and she grimaced. If only he’d get over his resentment of Cash! After all, he had Tippy, a beautiful and famous woman that any man would be proud to call his own. When he came to his senses, he’d realize that Christabel was no longer part of his life. Surely he would.

  The Kansai Airport was huge, a symphony in metal and glass, but difficult to make their way around. Christabel was uneasy as they went through passport control. Everything was so different.

  But her worries came to nothing. They were met at customs by Mr. Kosugi himself and his business partner, Mr. Nasagi, and several colleagues.

  “I trust you had a pleasant flight?” Mr. Kosugi asked, all smiles, nodding to an associate to get their bags as he joined them.

  “It was wonderful. But my first sight of your beautiful country will last me all my life,” Christabel said huskily, returning the smile.

  “Your wife is a diplomat, Mr. Dunn,” the other man laughed.

  Judd slid an arm around her and tugged her close. “My right arm,” he murmured, and smiled back.

  * * *

  The manager of the hotel and the assistant manager came out to meet the Dunns and escort them, along with Mr. Kosugi and his staff, up to their room. It was such flattering treatment that Christabel didn’t know how to react.

  “You make us feel so special,” she told the businessman.

  “As you are. It is our pleasure to welcome you to our country. We hope your room will be adequate,” the hotel manager added, opening the curtains to reveal the river and bridge just below, and the city of Osaka spread out beyond it.

  “How incredibly beautiful,” Christabel said, aghast.

  Mr. Kosugi chuckled. “We will come by for you about 6:00 p.m., if that is acceptable and you will eat at our main restaurant here in Osaka.” He hesitated. “Of course, if you would prefer American cuisine...”

  “But I want sushi,” Christabel said at once. “And I read about freshwater eel, and I’ve had miso soup and I love it...!”

  “Same here,” Judd said with a grin. “You’ll find that Japanese cuisine suits us very well!”

  The surprised, and pleased, looks of their hosts said everything.

  * * *

  They smiled tolerantly at Christabel’s struggle with the chopsticks. She didn’t want them to know that Cash had tried to tutor her, but she’d failed miserably. Judd used them like a native, and took the opportunity to show Christabel how to hold them properly and get them to work.

  “See?” he chided gently. “It isn’t hard at all.”

  “Thanks.”

  His eyes lingered on her face while she picked up a piece of grilled eel and took it into her mouth. She was wearing a new silver dress with spaghetti straps that Judd had insisted on buying for her before they left Jacobsville. Her blond hair was down around her shoulders and she was wearing tiny white high heels with an ankle strap. She looked beautiful to Judd, who could hardly bear to take his eyes off her.

  “Tomorrow we will take you to one of our branch restaurants in Kyoto,” Mr. Kosugi said, “and to the farm where we raise our beef, so that you can inspect the premises. While we are there,” he added, “would you like to see a castle, perhaps?”

  She laid down her chopsticks. “A real samurai fort?” she exclaimed. “With ‘nightingale’ floors?”

  It was Mr. Kosugi’s turn to be surprised. “You know about ‘nightingale’ floors, Mrs. Judd?” he asked.

  It thrilled her to be called by her married name. She grinned. “I love foreign films. I guess I’ve seen every samurai movie there is! I’d love to see the fort!”

  He was impressed. “Then we shall go and see Nijo Castle, which dates from 1603. I will come for you after breakfast tomorrow. Shall we say 9:00 a.m.?”

  “That would be perfect,” she said on a sigh, and Judd nodded, smiling at her enthusiasm.

  * * *

  She and Judd shared the same hotel room, with its double beds, but she hardly thought about the intimacy of it. She was so tired that she barely got into her cotton gown before she was sound asleep. The next morning, Judd, already dressed, woke her and waited for her to get her casual clothes on so that they could go downstairs for breakfast.

  Mr.
Kosugi and his party arrived right on time to pick them up. Christabel was surprised at how much energy she had, despite the unseasonable warmth. They were going to ride the famous bullet train to Kyoto, and the station at Osaka where they got on it fascinated her. It had several levels and included the shopping mall where a scene from the Michael Douglas film Black Rain had been shot. She delighted in each new experience, from the warmth of the people and the joyful custom of smiling and bowing at each opportunity to the high tech tools the Japanese took so much for granted. Mr. Kosugi’s wife showed her a phone which was also a music player, an Internet link, a camera, a television screen and a portable library, with a database and even a word processor. Judd was equally fascinated with it.

  Their tickets were obtained by one of the staff. They had to be inserted in a slot in a long metal counter next to the turnstile, and reacquired at the end of it. The train was crowded, but they found seats and enjoyed the speed and the company.

  When they arrived in Kyoto, Christabel watched Judd surreptitiously. He looked more relaxed than she’d ever seen him in her life. He strolled along among the fascinated Japanese with long, rangy strides, his boots catching as much attention as his Stetson. One cheeky teenager winked at him and said, “Howdy, partner!”

  Their party walked out of the station and were picked up in a neat van which took them to the Kosugi farm, where they toured the facility and became acquainted with the very high-tech methods of beef production. Christabel and Judd liked what they saw, and said so. When they returned to the van, they were given wet white cloths rolled up in plastic to remove the sweat. They were overdressed for the unusual heat. The van driver took them to Nijo Castle, seat of the Tokugawa shogunate, and they walked around the graveled courtyard where sculptured gardens led to the castle itself, a one-level collection of rooms within sliding doors around which a long wooden walkway passed. The walkway made a sound like a bird singing when walked upon. They were shown the underside of it, where strategically placed nails and metal made contact to produce the sound. The nightingale floor as it was called, was a melodic way to ensure that enemy soldiers or ninja could never sneak up on the samurai! Christabel had a camera with her, and Mrs. Kosugi took picture after picture of Christabel and Judd together. Christabel was happy to have the shots—it might be the last she’d see of Judd after he divorced her.