A Rendezvous to Die For (6 page)

One day, however, my personality
got a transplant. Whenever I got off the school bus, the kids’
jeers followed me as I shuffled toward home, my chin meeting my
chest. “Prairie chicken!” they taunted. “Cluck, cluck, cluck.”
And I suppose I did look like one. I was dressed that particular day
in an oversized flowered dress with clunky shoes and white socks—Mrs.
A’s idea of how an eighth grader dressed. “Cassandra is a
reject,” one of them shouted, singsong-style, while hanging out the
bus window. “Her parents didn’t want her. Her parents didn’t
want her.”

Mrs. A heard them. She brought me
into the house, sat me down, and forced me to tell her what was going
on. I tearfully related how I was continuously ridiculed me about my
clothes and my family. “My dear,” she said, “it’s my fault
about the clothes.” She wiped the tears from my face. “We’ll
shop tonight for some updated duds. Then we’ll talk about how
you’re going to defend yourself against these playground Nazis.”

The very next day, I
put her first lesson to the test. “Hey, look, it’s old sourpuss,”
Tommy the Tormentor taunted, approaching me on the playground with
two other boys in tow. “Hey, sourpuss, ain’tcha ever gonna
smile!”

Feeling more
confident in my newly purchased Levi’s and Lacrosse shirt, I sucked
in a deep breath, lifted my head, and spit out what I’d rehearsed
in front of my mirror. “I don’t know what makes you so stupid,
Tommy, but it really works!” The little bully opened his mouth to
retort, but before he could say anything more, I straightened up and
delivered the junior high equivalent of a
coup de grace.
“You’ve got the personality of a bowling ball!”

It wasn’t a David Letterman
comeback, but I had learned the power of verbal bravado, thanks to
Mrs. A. I have never forgotten her words of wisdom. “All you have
to do is utter courageous words, Cassandra. The courage itself will
follow.”

My smart mouth put
enough starch in my backbone to get me through the rest of my
childhood and teenage traumas and, by adulthood, I was as well
adjusted as the next person. Feeling the presence of Mrs. A and
hearing her guidance was as effective as any session with a
$200-an-hour psychiatrist. The only time a crack appeared in my
carefully constructed identity was when stress reared its ugly head
as the result of a conflict I was powerless to resolve.

That was the kind of stress I was
experiencing right now, in Colton Mills, Minnesota. It wasn’t that
I didn’t have confidence in my attorney. I was simply accustomed to
taking matters into my own hands. For some reason, I felt deep in my
bones that Sheriff Shaw would rather make me the hatchet murderer
than spend time searching for another possible suspect. I sensed he’d
stay on me like Velcro on wool. Circumstantial evidence is a powerful
convincer. I was the only one who knew for certain that I wasn’t
the bad guy. Even though it required skills that weren’t on my
résumé, I knew I’d have to play amateur detective. The best place
to start my investigation was with Marty.

That
was easier said than done. I had paid no attention to Marty’s
comings and goings. I hadn’t even seen him, from the time I moved
into the carriage house until our paths crossed at the Rendezvous. On
a normal day, I spent half my working time keeping appointments and
the other half in my office or darkroom. The activities of my
landlord never came to mind.

I examined the quality of the photographs I had been laboring over
and dumped them all into the trashcan. Trying to work, while worrying
about my future, had been a total waste of time and energy. It was a
good thing Heather was still on her honeymoon and wasn’t expecting
finished prints anytime soon. As I exited the darkroom, I snapped off
the red ceiling light and slammed the door behind me, thinking I
should become a reenactor myself and specialize in ‘hawk throwing.
The skill might come in handy.

Chapter
6

Tuesday
Evening

Since it was still early, I
decided to make use of the evening to fulfill another commitment. My
next wedding gig was to take place at Patriot Stables, and I needed
to check the layout. It would be fun to be around horses again. They
liked me and didn’t talk back.

By the time I reached the
stables, it was after seven in the evening. I strolled through the
barn, clipboard in hand, as I scouted places to effectively pose the
bridal party. I took my time, stopping now and then to inhale the
fragrant aroma of hay and listen to the comforting sounds of horses
placidly munching their evening meal. The peaceful ambiance took me
back to the Evening Star Stables in southwest Minnesota, where I had
first started my love for all things “horse” by mucking stalls at
the age of seventeen. By the time I was eighteen, I was exercising
the horses and, eventually, halter-training the owners’ colts.
Those hours in the stable brought a little sanity into my life.

I made notes on my clipboard and
stepped outside the stables, ready to head back home. Suddenly, a
familiar crackling sound caught my attention. Fire? I stepped toward
the noise and my nose immediately registered “smoke.” Within
seconds, I saw flames shooting into the air. I clutched the notes to
my chest and dashed back into the barn, falling into a crumpled heap
on a bale of hay. Frozen in place and with my eyes tightly closed, I
shivered uncontrollably.

Without warning, I felt someone
shaking me. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Stop screaming! The fire’s
out.” A man pulled me to my feet.

Still trembling, I pushed the
hair out of my eyes and composed myself. “I-I’m all right. I’m
all right,” I said, sucking in a huge breath of air and expelling
it through pursed lips.

“
All it needed was a fire
extinguisher,” the stranger said, sitting me down again on the bale
of hay. “Some ignorant cuss tossed a half-burned cigarette into a
pile of loose hay and didn’t stomp it out. I find out who and the
guy’s history. Wait here a sec and I’ll be right back. I want to
make sure there aren’t any embers left to do more damage.” He
strode over to the barn hydrant for a pail of water to throw on the
still smoking mess.

I stood up again and found my
knees were still wobbling. Frustrated, I shook them one at a time. I
wanted to leave, before I’d have to explain my reaction to the
easily contained fire.

The cowboy returned, with a
swagger and a grin. “Now that you’re better, we can start over,”
he said. Slimly built, he was attired in jeans, boots, and a
well-worn cowboy hat. His gaze traveled over me briefly, before
meeting mine. “I thought I’d met all the pretty gals around
here.” He looked me up and down again. “Yes, ma’am, you sure do
those jeans justice.”

The voice, the lame pickup line,
and even the swagger were familiar to me. I tilted my head and
studied him. “Jack?” I squinted and shaded my eyes from the glare
of the setting sun with a cupped hand. “Well, for . . . you’re
Jack Gardner!”

He pulled off his cowboy hat and
bowed. “The one and only. Am I lucky enough to know this lovely
lady?” He stroked his cheeks while thinking and closed his eyes.
They flew open and his grin widened into a dazzling smile. “Cassandra
Cassidy—all grown up, with short, curly hair?”

Our responses tumbled out in
stereo. “I thought you were in New York,” he said, at the same
time I said, “I thought you were in Texas.”

“
You go first.” I waggled my
fingers at him.

“
I’ve been stable manager and
trainer here for six months,” he said. “Wrangling cows was fun
for a few years, but I was getting busted up down in Laredo.”

Laredo. That explained the twang
he’d acquired since I knew him, and probably the slight limp, too.
I had noticed it, when he walked toward me. “I take it Texas ranch
horses aren’t like pampered Minnesota Arabians.”

“
You got that right.” He
sighed and lifted his finger to tip his hat off his forehead. “They
laid injuries on me too numerous to mention. But I didn’t get
too
busted up, if you know
what I mean.” He winked and rested an arm on one of the barn’s
vertical supports right behind me.

Still an incorrigible flirt, Jack
couldn’t help himself. The minor-league pitch he’d perfected
years ago was still working for him. At one time, it would have
landed in my strike zone, but, now, it wasn’t even in the ballpark.
I’d eaten up the cowboy lothario line when I was his fling
du
jour
one forgettable summer in our younger days. But . . . even
though the romantic attraction had worn off, I couldn’t help but
appreciate the figure he cut in his form-fitting Wranglers. “Exactly
what do you do here?” I asked.

“
I mostly train
Quarter Horses and teach some roping.”

“
Roping?”

“
Yeah, roping,” he said, “I
gained a pretty good roping reputation in Texas and have some belt
buckles and even a fancy saddle to prove it. How about you? You sure
haven’t changed much after all these years. The braids are gone,
but I’d know those blue eyes anywhere.” I had brown eyes. “I
heard you went off to New York to study art or something.” He
glanced toward the horse stalls and lowered his voice. “I heard you
got, you know, married.”

Since my circle of acquaintances
was small, I was very seldom confronted about my past. But here it
was. “I was in New York for a while. To study photography, not art.
As for marriage, well . . . .” I peered over his shoulder toward
the approaching darkness behind the opened barn door.

“
Well?” Jack prompted.

I shrugged. “Let’s just say
marriage to a musician isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“
So you ended it?”

I reached for my clipboard, which
had fallen to the floor of the stables and swept clinging straw with
my hand. “Sort of. He went on a tour out west and didn’t come
back.”

“
Geez, that’s too bad, Cass.
Then you came back to Minnesota?”

“
I missed the place.” I
smoothed my hair. Could my stomach be fluttering? Annoyed with
myself, I asked, “So how come you’re working here so late?”

“
I was practicing with the
Patrol and just got back.”

“
Patrol? That would be the—”

“
The Mounted Horse Patrol. I
rode with them years ago. They had an opening this spring and I
joined up again. Sometimes I serve as a reserve deputy sheriff.”

I pictured Jack as a county crime
fighter on horseback. My recollection of the Horse Patrol was that
most of the riders spent their time touring the county fairs in the
summer or searching for the occasional lost or missing person.
“Sounds like fun.”

“
It is. Actually, I’m at the
stables to play veterinarian. Midnight, one of the horses stabled
here, cut a big gash in his leg when he kicked out a piece of the
wood fence in the south pasture. I have to treat the injury a couple
times a day.”

“
That black gelding over
there?” I pointed to its stall. “I noticed him when I was
snooping around. Will he be okay?”

“
He’ll be himself again in a
week, ten days.”

“
How come you’re nursing him?
Where’s the owner?”

“
He belonged to a girl who died
not too long ago. Her father keeps up the board, but nobody has
ridden Midnight or paid him much attention in months.”

“
Bummer,” I said. Then I
remembered a conversation I’d had the previous week with one of my
wedding clients. “I might know someone who’d be interested in the
horse. Let me know if he’s for sale.”

“
Sure, I’ll check it out.”
He crossed his long legs and leaned his backside against the wall,
chewing the end of a hay stem. “Anything exciting in your life
these days?”

Anything exciting in my life.
Talk about understatement. I took a deep breath. “I’ll give you
the short version,” I said, and related the events of the past few
days. “You hadn’t heard about any of this?”

“
Not
a word. But I don’t have much time to follow the local news.” He
narrowed his eyes. “By any chance, does that bad experience at the
Rendezvous have anything to do with your reaction to the fire I just
put out?”

“
It’s a lifetime phobia,” I
said, massaging the scar on my neck. “Fires terrify me.”

“
That was pretty obvious.” He
walked beside me, as I headed for my car. “You know, Cass, Prairie
Township is my old stomping ground. For what it’s worth, some of my
buddies are deputy sheriffs there. Keep me informed about what’s
going on. You may need some help.”

When I didn’t respond, he
continued. “I’m holding a cutting clinic on Thursday afternoon.
Why don’t you stop by?”

Despite my reluctance to expand
our re-acquaintanceship, my “photographic opportunity” antenna
went up. Cutting cows was a regular chore at real working ranches and
catching on as a sport in Minnesota. I could pad my photo portfolio
with some horse-action shots that could eventually turn into “hay.”
Not one to turn down the thought of making more money, I nodded and
even managed to grin. “Thanks for the invitation, Jack. I might
stop by,” I said. I slipped under his arm, which was holding the
door to my Jeep, and slid onto the driver’s seat. “At any rate, I
may see you when I hold my next wedding photo shoot here.”