Ransom Canyon (24 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

S
TATEN
DROVE
BACK
to headquarters, feeling as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. His shoulder and arm ached, but he refused to put the sling back on. He could handle the pain. First, he needed to check on his men.

He found most of them in the bunkhouse having breakfast, as if they hadn’t been up all night. After half a pot of coffee and half an hour of talk, he told them all to sleep in shifts and run a lean crew for what had to be done.

The foreman and Jake took over, making assignments, and the cowhands groaned as they moved away from the table.

Staten headed back to his truck. He had one more errand to do before calling it a night. Dan Brigman had been by his side all night, and the sheriff’s work probably wouldn’t be done for hours. Staten wanted to help any way he could.

He wasn’t surprised to find Dan toiling in his office. Without wasting time with small talk, they went to work putting down every detail for the report. The three men who’d tried to rob him needed to go to jail for a long time. No telling how many times they’d attempted smaller operations.

Two hours later Dan offered to buy Staten breakfast, and they walked down to Dorothy’s Café.

Once they were settled and the specials were ordered, Staten said, “You mind if I ask you something, Sheriff?”

“Go ahead.”

“Well—” he’d talked to the guy most of the past twenty-four hours, but this was hard to say “—I was wondering if you’d consider being my best man. I’m thinking of getting married.”

Brigman laughed. “To who?”

“Damn it, who do you think?” Now, after he’d risked his life beside Dan Brigman, Staten found out the man was a nitwit. “Hell, forget I asked.”

The sheriff simply laughed. “Of course I’ll be your best man, but Quinn’s not going to say yes to you. Not even if you ask her real nice like you just did me.”

Staten grumbled over his coffee. “You’re probably right. But she sees a better me than I am, so I can always hope.”

“Most women do. Except my wife. I think a wife sees the worst every chance she gets or at least mine does.”

As Sissy set the platters on the table, both men gave up talking in favor of eating.

“When you going to deliver, Sissy?” Dan asked as she refilled their coffee.

“Ellie says I’m two weeks overdue. So who knows.” The little waitress laughed. “Half the retirement home is eating either breakfast or lunch here every day. Mrs. Ollie said she’s seen the birthing film they show in Child Development a hundred times. She thinks she can deliver in a pinch.”

Dan shook his head. “When you get that first contraction, call me. I’ll be here before you get your apron off.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. I’ll consider the offer.”

Staten just kept eating as if he wasn’t listening to the conversation.

Finally, when most of the six-inch stack of pancakes was gone, Dan said, “Ask Quinn to marry you, Staten. The worst she can say is no, and I’m guessing, saying no to you won’t be an easy job.”

Staten stood and grabbed his hat. “I think I’ll go home and clean up. You’re right, maybe it’s time I went courtin’.”

As he walked out the door, he heard Dan yell, “Long past time, Kirkland!”

* * *

T
EN
MINUTES
LATER
as headquarters came into view, the first thing he noticed was his grandparents’ old place setting back in the breaks of trees. It always shone in the dawn light. For a moment he wished they were still there. They’d built their place exactly like a ranch house should be, blending into the landscape, not perched on a rise, cutting the view up.

Every time he looked that direction, he smiled. They’d been happy in the house that had birthed generations.

As he watched, his granny stepped out on the front porch and began sweeping.

For a second Staten thought he must be dreaming. Granny was in town at the retirement community. She’d never even mentioned coming back to the old place.

But there she was. Older, thinner, but standing looking at him just like she’d been all those years while he’d grown up.

Staten turned his pickup toward the old house. If this was a mirage, he might as well find out now. It had been more than twenty-four hours since he’d slept. Seemed right he could be losing his mind.

By the time he reached the front porch she’d gone inside, but he could smell pies baking.

Impossible. No one had lived in the place in twenty years. Three months after his grandpa died, his grandmother had moved to town. She’d said the place had too many memories.

His spurs jingled as he stomped up the steps, waiting for his granny to come out. The windows on the old place were clean, and a few were even open to the sweet spring air.

The old screen door creaked as Quinn stepped out, wearing jeans and an old flannel shirt. “About time you came home,” she said.

Staten thought his heart might explode. “You’re moving in with me?”

“No,” she answered. “I’m moving in here. Granny told me I could have the place.” She smiled. “I was kind of hoping you might move in here with me.”

He fought from grabbing her and holding her so tight she’d never leave, but he had to do this right. “I can’t do that, Quinn, not unless you’ll marry me. This is no fling or affair between us. This is forever. If you live in this house, you’ll take my name.”

She smiled. “I could agree to those terms.”

He pulled her close, lifted her off the ground and began swinging her around and around.

Granny leaned out one of the windows. “Put her down, Staten, you’ll make the baby dizzy.”

He stopped but didn’t turn loose of her. “You know about the baby?”

“Hell,” Granny Kirkland, who’d never cussed in her life, said. “Half the town knows about the baby. Several of us have been planning the wedding and the baby shower for a month or more. Do you two really think anything happens in this town without me knowing about it?”

He kissed the top of Granny’s head. “You know, I don’t think I ever need to sleep again. I’m dreaming right now.”

Then he turned, and right in front of his grandmother, he asked Quinn to marry him.

And as he knew she would, Quinn said yes to the man she’d always loved.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Lauren

“H
ELLO
, L
AUREN
.
Did you hear the news?”

“About the capture of the rustlers?” she whispered into her new phone. “Everyone is talking about it. Are you all right, Lucas? I heard you were in on the fight, and you weren’t at school today.”

He laughed. “I slept all day, and it wasn’t much of a fight. We kind of walked softly and carried a big stick.”

She giggled into the phone. “You sound like Reid quoting Teddy Roosevelt.”

“I felt like a Rough Rider last night.” He was silent. “I’ve decided what I’m going to major in.”

“What?”

“Law.”

“Me, too,” she said.

Lucas laughed then whispered, “Good night,
mi cielo
.”

Yancy

A
FEW
MILES
AWAY
, Yancy Grey stepped from his room to the office. All the aging dwarves were gone from their usual spots in the sunny area. Mr. Halls had forgotten to wash the coffee cup he always drank cocoa from, and Miss Bees had left one of her bats by the door.

He felt like the den mother picking up after a meeting. Despite being tired, they’d all been talkative tonight. Several said the sheriff told everyone at the café that Yancy had been a hero during the capture of criminals last night.

He smiled. The sheriff had kept his secret. No one would find out how he’d known that the crime was about to be committed. When he’d gone to the sheriff’s office yesterday morning, he wasn’t sure if he would live to see another day. Cowboy and Freddie had been his nightmare for years. But, sometimes a man has to face his fears before he can have any hope of living a normal life.

As he walked back to his room, Yancy noticed something propped against his bedroom door.

An old backpack. The one he’d carried with him from prison.

Slowly he picked up the pack that had been missing for almost three months.

It felt heavier than it had the day he arrived in Crossroads.

Yancy dumped out all he’d owned a few months ago on the bed.

Then for a long while Yancy just stared at the contents. Brand-new underwear and socks. The bloody shirt he’d worn when he’d been arrested more than five years ago had been washed and folded neatly. His initials had been embossed onto the leather shaving kit. A brand-new wool coat and gloves, the tags still on them. The three hundred dollars he’d lied about having was in a wallet.

Who
, he wondered. Someone had stolen his pack and then returned it with all he’d dreamed of having in it.

A tear ran down his cheek. He’d achieved his goal. He was rich.

Walking out into the night he smiled out at the midnight sky and knew there was only one thing left to do in his life.

Set himself some new goals.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
RUSTLER’S MOON
by Jodi Thomas.

“Thomas sketches a slow, sweet surrender.”
—Publishers Weekly

If you loved
Ransom Canyon
,
don’t miss the prequel:

Winter’s Camp

“Jodi Thomas is a masterful storyteller. She grabs your attention on the first page, captures your heart, and then makes you sad when it is time to bid her wonderful characters farewell.”
—Catherine Anderson,
New York Times
bestselling author

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Rustler's Moon

by Jodi Thomas

CHAPTER ONE

Crossroads,
Texas
September

Angela

D
RIED
WEEDS
SCRATCHED
against Angela Harrell’s bare legs as she walked the neglected grounds behind the Ransom Canyon Museum. Rumbling gray clouds spotted the sky over this tiny town called Crossroads. Wind raged as though trying to push her back to the East Coast. She feared any rain might blow all the way to Oklahoma before it could land on Texas soil. But the weather didn’t matter. She’d made it here.

Angela had meant to stop long enough to clean up before she took her first look at the museum, but she could not wait. So, in sandals, shorts and a tank top, she explored the land behind the boarded-up building on the edge of Ransom Canyon. Monday, she’d dress in a suit and accept the position as curator, but now simply walking around the place would be enough. The back grounds had been left untamed, just as it must have looked a hundred and fifty years ago when settlers came to this northern patch of Texas.

Since the day she’d read about the job opening, Angela had learned everything she could about this area. Its history was interesting, but the people who founded this frontier town were different than she had expected. They were hardy. Stubborn. Independent. Honest. All things she’d never been. But the first settlers were also broken, desperate and lost. Somehow they’d managed to work together to build not just ranches and a town, but a future.

She didn’t know if she belonged here. She fainted at the sight of blood. Gave in at the first sign of disagreement. Would probably be living with her parents, still, if her mother hadn’t moved back to New York after Angela’s father died.

That left honest. She didn’t want to even think about how dishonest she was. She carried a criminal’s lies inside her, even though she had never committed a crime.

Standing near the edge of the canyon that dropped a hundred feet straight down, she let the sun’s dying rays warm her face. Everything about her had to change. She had to make it so. If she didn’t, she might not live to see her twenty-eighth birthday. Somehow, after being raised in New York and living in a Florida beach house for ten years, she had to figure out how to fit in here.

Taking the curator job was the first step. This time her title didn’t have “assistant” attached to it. She would be the boss. This time she would have no family to help, or haunt, her.

Angela had been desperate for a job away from home, and when Crossroads posted the opening six months ago, her plan to escape Florida took shape. By the time she got her resume together, the museum board must have been frantic and they hired her sight-unseen.

When she accepted, she hadn’t said a word to anyone at work. She’d simply turned in her resignation to the university office knowing she would be gone before they got the paperwork passed to her boss at the campus museum. For two weeks she packed everything she needed in a small, two-wheel trailer hidden in the garage. Three days before her job ended, she called in sick, left the key to her rental house in the mailbox and drove away before dawn. No friends or family notified. Any mail concerning her life on Anna Marie Island just off the western coast of Florida would be forwarded to her mother in New York.

Angela had even canceled her phone service and tossed it off the Bradenton Bridge as she crossed onto the mainland. She had to disappear, and her very life might depend on her doing just that.

She wanted no ties. No baggage. She needed to start over, and here in Crossroads was just the place to do it. Tomorrow, her uncle would notice she didn’t show up at the family antiques store where she had worked every weekend since high school. By dark he would have called around and learned she had vanished. In a week he would be searching for her, not because he was worried about her, but because of the secrets she carried with her.

Glancing toward the gravel drive that wandered from the main road, she watched a white-and-blue sheriff’s car pull into the parking lot. Her heart stopped.

Trouble had found her halfway across the country. Somehow her uncle and his partners had already figured out her plan. But how? She had returned the rental car she’d left home with before she crossed the Florida state line. She’d bought a junker of a car using cash. In Georgia she’d traded that car and her old two-wheel trailer for a van. The guy said he’d mail her the title, but she had given him a fake name and address.

Angela stared at the patrol car. Her freedom had lasted less than four days. Maybe her uncle had put out a missing person alert? Maybe the van she bought was stolen. That wouldn’t surprise her.

A man in a uniform unfolded himself from his car. She expected him to pull his gun as he walked toward her. After all, she’d run away from home at twenty-seven. Something all her relatives would swear quiet Angela would never do.

“Good afternoon, miss,” the man said as he neared. “Pardon me, but this place has been closed for months. We got a no trespassing sign at the turnoff, but you must have missed it.”

In her shorts, wearing no makeup and her strawberry blonde hair in a day-old ponytail, she must look more girl than woman. The echo of her mother’s familiar speech about how Angela was too old, too chubby, too squat to wear shorts circled through her tired mind.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t notice the sign.” She straightened, trying to look at least five-foot-five, though she knew she missed her goal by an inch.

She moved toward the lawman, trying her best to look like a professional. “I’m Angela—”

Hesitating, she scrambled to remember the last name she’d used on the application. It slipped her mind completely. “Smith.” Angela mentally shook her tired brain awake. “Smithwood.”

There, she’d gotten it out. After not talking for three days, words didn’t want to form in her brain.

While she stared at his name tag, Sheriff Brigman looked as if he easily read the lie that lay in her mind like oil slush. He pulled off his Stetson as if stalling for time, but she didn’t miss the way he looked her up and down from ponytail to sandals.

“Welcome to town, Mrs. Smithwood. I heard you were coming.”

A hint of a smile lifted the corner of his mouth. He reminded her of a sheriff from the Wild West days. Well built, a touch of gray in his sideburns and stone-cold eyes that said he’d finish the job, no matter what it took, whether it was catching the outlaw or satisfying his woman.

She mentally slapped herself. No time to flirt or daydream. Angela had to think of how to reply. Was it too early to ask for a lawyer? Should she start confessing? But to what? She wasn’t even sure what crimes she’d committed. Running away at her age didn’t seem to be illegal, and she’d read somewhere that you could go by an alias if you were not doing anything wrong.

When she didn’t offer any comment, the cop in the Stetson added, “Guess you couldn’t wait to see the place. Did you just get in?”

She nodded, thankful he didn’t remark that she was dressed like a fifteen-year-old.
With luck he hadn’t noticed she couldn’t remember her own name,
or maybe he thought she had early onset Alzheimer’s.

“I’ve been driving for twelve hours. I wanted a quick look at the canyon before dark. It’s beautiful out here near the edge.”

Brigman watched as the last bit of sunlight running over the canyon walls turned the rocks gold. “I like to check on the museum this time of day. It kind of reminds me of a great painting. No matter what kind of day I’ve had, all is calm out here.”

“I can see that.” She’d feared she would miss the ocean and the beautiful sunsets around Anna Marie Island, but this place had its own kind of wonder. She had a feeling the canyon would grow on her.

“You know, Mrs. Smithwood, your office has a great view.” He pointed to a huge window on the second floor of the big barn of a building.

Angela smiled. “No one told me that, or I might have driven all night to get here.”

They both started walking back toward the parking lot.

“Your husband driving the moving van in?” Sheriff Brigman had an easy way of asking questions as if he were just being friendly.

“I’m not married,” she said, then remembered the application listing her new name as
Mrs
. Smithwood. Other than that, every document from transcripts to degrees had her real name, Angela Harrell.

The sheriff studied her again. She swore he looked at her the same way a cat stares at a fishbowl.

“We didn’t work out. My husband didn’t want to move.” She shrugged as if fighting back tears. “When we broke up, I thought a clean getaway would be best.” Since
Mr.
Smithwood never existed, it wasn’t really very painful to walk out on him.

Brigman raised an eyebrow. “But you kept his name?”

Angela fought down a nervous giggle. “I’m sentimental about names. Turns out his name was the only thing I loved about the man.”

Thank goodness they had reached her car. A few more lies and the sheriff would probably figure out she was on the run and have her arrested or committed.

“You know where your house is?” he asked as he opened her door.

“Do you?”

“Sure.” He grinned, looking younger. “This is a small town, Mrs. Smithwood. When you wrote wanting to rent a two-bedroom, furnished place that allowed cats, half the chamber of commerce started looking. I could show you the one we picked for you and the runner-up. I got keys to both.”

“Please call me Angela, Sheriff.”

He touched two fingers to the brim of his Stetson in a salute. “All right, Angela, then why don’t you call me Dan? Which do you want to see first—a nice little house between the two churches in town, or a cabin down on the lake? The church house has more room, but the lake house backs onto the shoreline.”

“I’ll take the lake house.” She almost hugged him. Water! She’d be near water. That was the one thing she knew she’d miss most about her home on the island.

“Follow me.”

As she drove behind the sheriff’s car through the small town of Crossroads, Angela fought down another wave of panic that seemed to be coming over her as often as hiccups. This open country where anyone could see for miles in every direction didn’t seem like a very wise place to hide. Probably half the people in town would know where she lived. How could she have ever thought she’d be safe here?

If her uncle came after her, if he found her, Angela knew her life would be over. He wouldn’t let family ties stand in the way of protecting a secret worth millions.

Her only choice was to disappear.