His face broke into a smile. “Good,” he said, but then he turned serious again. “With everything that’s going on back home, do you want to head for Bisbee after the reception is over? It probably won’t be all that late. If you want to, we can.”
That kind of offer, made in good faith, was exactly what made Butch Dixon so damned lovable, and it made Joanna remember her former mother-in-law’s advice about spending time with her husband.
Joanna got up, went to over to Butch, and let him pull her into a bear hug. “Thanks,” she said. “But I don’t think we have to do that. Jenny’s fine. Jim Bob and Eva Lou have everything under control. Besides,” she added, smiling up at him, “it’s too late to check out without being charged for another night. It would be a shame to waste an opportunity to be alone together, wouldn’t it?”
He kissed her on the lips. “It would be a shame, all right. Now let loose of me, so I can get dressed.”
CHAPTER NINE
Once Butch had left for the photo session, Joanna stripped off her clothes and took a shower. When she came out of the bathroom, the message light was blinking on the phone. “There’s a package for Mr. Dixon waiting at the front desk,” she was told. Dialing the front desk, Joanna asked to have the package sent up. When it arrived, the package showed a return address of a place called Copy Corner. Ripping off the wrapping, Joanna found an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch-sized box that was about as thick as a ream of paper.
With trembling fingers, she lifted the cover. Inside was a computer disk. Lifting that, she then read what was typed on the top page. “To Serve and Protect,” it said. “By F. W. Dixon.” Beneath the author’s name were the words “To Joey.” Seeing that simple dedication put a lump in Joanna’s throat.
Taking the open box with her, Joanna settled onto the bed and began to read. To Serve and Protect was a murder mystery, set in a fictional Arizona town, with a lady police chief named Kimberly Charles in charge of a tiny police department. That much of the story bore a certain familiarity to Joanna’s own life, but there the resemblance seemed to end. The story was told in a droll fashion that made what happened on the pages, complete with typical small-town politics, far more funny than serious.
Lost in the story, Joanna lost track of time. When she came up for air, it was twenty past four; there was just enough time to comb her hair, put on her makeup, dress, and make it to the wedding. She had brought along one of the outfits she had bought in Paris on her honeymoon. Next to her own wedding dress, the silk shirtwaist was the most expensive piece of clothing she had ever owned. She’d fallen in love with it on sight and had been forced to buy it because it came in her favorite color—the brilliant emerald-green hue of freshly sprouted cottonwood leaves, a color desert dwellers find hard to resist. It didn’t hurt that, with her red hair and light skin, that particular shade of green was, in Butch’s words, a “killer” combination.
The nuptials were scheduled to be held in one of the several ball-rooms on the Conquistador’s second floor. Joanna was already seated in one of the rows of chairs when Lila Winters entered the room. Blond and elegant, she wore a sapphire-blue suit. Watching her start down the aisle, Joanna couldn’t quite stifle the stab of jealousy that shot through her whole body. Watching closely, however, Joanna did detect the smallest trace of a limp as Lila made her way to a chair. That limp caused Joanna’s jealousy to change to compassion.
Only three people among the assembled guests—Butch, Joanna, and Lila Winters herself—knew that the strikingly elegant woman who looked so vibrantly alive was actually dying. What must it be like, Joanna wondered, to be given that kind of devastating diagnosis? Whom would I tell if that happened to me? In the end there was only one answer. Butch, she realized. He’d help me figure out what to do.
At that juncture the first strains of the “Wedding March” sounded. Joanna rose and turned with everyone else to watch the procession. Butch preceded the bride down the aisle, walking in the slow, halting manner dictated by the occasion. Catching Joanna’s eye as he passed, Butch winked. Tammy Lukins walked down the aisle on the arm of her adult son, who also gave her away. During the brief and joyful ceremony Joanna couldn’t help feeling a grudging respect for Lila Winters’s decision to keep her bad news away from the happy bride and groom.
After the ceremony, the wedding entourage moved to a second ballroom for the reception. While Butch was occupied with his attendant duties, Joanna sat down at one of the tables which offered a panoramic view of the entire reception. She was sipping a glass of champagne when someone said, “Mind if I join you?”
Joanna looked up to see Lila Winters in her sapphire-blue suit. “Sure,” Joanna said. “Help yourself.”
As Lila took a seat, Joanna noted the fleeting wince that crossed the woman’s face when her back came in contact with the chair. The expression passed so swiftly that only someone looking fir it would have noticed.
“You seemed upset earlier,” Lila began, once she was seated. “When Butch and I met up with you in the lobby, I mean. I didn’t want you to think anything untoward had happened.”
During that earlier encounter, Joanna Brady would willingly have scratched the woman’s eyes out. Now she simply said, “I know. Butch told me.”
They were interrupted by a roar of laughter from a group gathered across the room, where the groom had just tossed the bride’s garter high into the air, and several of the guests, graybeards all of them, scrambled to retrieve it.
“He told you about me, then?” Lila asked, once the laughter subsided. “About what’s going on?”
Joanna nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Please,” Lila said, cutting her off. “Let’s not discuss it. I’m still feeling pretty sorry for myself, and I don’t want to go into it here. Not now. Not yet. I just wanted to say that I think you’re very lucky—to have Butch, that is.”
“I know,” Joanna said. “Thank you.”
For the space of almost a minute they sat in silence while both sipped at their respective glasses of champagne. Across the room it was time for the bride to toss her bouquet.
“It doesn’t seem real,” Lila said quietly. “It wasn’t all that long ago when I was the one tossing the bouquet, and now ...”
Even though she had said she didn’t want to discuss her looming illness, Joanna realized that’s what they were doing nevertheless. “It must be very difficult,” she replied.
Lila nodded. “These are my friends,” she said, gazing around the room. “I’ve known these people for years. It was bad enough to have to come back and face them all at a wedding, of all things, after Jimmy walked out on me the way he did. But now that I know about—” She stopped short of naming her illness. “I don’t want to tell them, but . . . I don’t want to die alone, either.”
Law enforcement circles are full of heroes and acts of derring-do—the kind that make for newspaper headlines and for riveting television newscasts. Lila Winters’s courage was far quieter than that, and far more solitary. In her life-and-death struggle, she couldn’t reach for a radio and call for backup.
“It was very kind of you not to upset the wedding plans,” Joanna said. “If I had been in your place, I don’t think I could have done it.”
Lila gave Joanna a quick, self-deprecating smile. “Don’t give me too much credit,” she said. “I think it’s really a case of denial. As long as nobody else knows about it—as long as I don’t say the actual words out loud—maybe it’s all a big mistake and it’ll just go away. But that’s not going to happen, and now that I’ve told Butch, I’m hoping I’ll be able to work up courage enough to tell the others—in good time, that is. But talking to Butch helped a lot. Thanks for sharing him with me.”