Rustler's Moon (18 page)

“No one is looking for me,” she said again, no longer believing her own lie. Her father’s old ledger crossed her mind. Maybe it held a secret someone would travel half a continent to keep hidden.

Someone had broken into her father’s house in Florida. Someone had shattered his office window. Was it possible that someone might have tracked her here?

But why? She had nothing. She knew nothing.

When neither man could offer an answer, she walked out of her office and left them to think it over.

Fifteen minutes later the sheriff found her in the kitchen making more coffee for Uncle Vern and three shifts of volunteers who refused to leave the front desk.

Dan leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. “I didn’t mean to worry you, Angie. I’m sure you’re right. This may be nothing, but we need to take precautions nevertheless.”

“Wilkes doesn’t think so. He seems to want an around-the-clock guard on me, and I don’t think that is needed.” Her emotions were jumping around in her mind like hot popcorn but she didn’t want the panic to show.

Dan studied her and finally asked calmly, “What else besides the note and the call?”

Angie couldn’t lie and she couldn’t tell the whole truth. She had no proof. So, she stuck to the facts. “The day before I left Florida, my house was broken into.”

“Did you report it?”

She nodded. “My father died a few days before and my aunt told me his office was also broken into, but I don’t know if that was reported or if anything was taken. My aunt said the windows were broken and papers were scattered everywhere.”

“Any chance your fiancé did it?”

Angie almost laughed. Her imaginary ex-fiancé was getting a rap sheet all of his own. “No. It wasn’t him.”

Dan wrote down a few facts. “How did your father die?”

“He was mugged and suffered a heart attack.” She didn’t want to tell him her suspicions.

The sheriff was silent for a few heartbeats, then he lowered his voice and said, “I’ll check a few things out, Angie. In the meantime, let the Wagners watch over you. Wilkes is a good man. He seems easygoing, but near as I can tell he hasn’t cared about anybody in a long time. He’s been sleepwalking through this life, and for some reason he woke up and decided to care about you.”

Angie glared at the sheriff. “What are you saying, Dan? That somehow my stalker might be good therapy for Wilkes?”

“No, of course not.” The sheriff held his hands up in surrender. “But there is a chance this problem is real. This guy hasn’t committed a crime—yet. I can’t do much until he does. The bottom line is, I can’t be everywhere. All I’m saying is let Wilkes help. Let him care about something for once.” He lowered his hands and his voice. “Let him care about you.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Lauren

L
UCAS
R
EYES
HAD
BEEN
right about the rain coming in. Lauren could hear the tapping on her dorm window as she put new sheets on Polly’s bed.

“Rainy days and Mondays.” Lauren thought of the old song her pop sometimes played in his study. He’d said his mother used to dance with him in her arms to the Carpenters’ song, and he’d done the same with Lauren when she was a baby. For the first time since she’d moved into the dorm six weeks ago, she missed her father.

Maybe she’d go home next weekend and tell him she got the Thanksgiving dates mixed up. Knowing Pop, he’d probably order a turkey dinner for two.

Lauren finished dressing. She didn’t want to call and tell Lucas about the rain. The kiss they’d shared after midnight last night had changed her somehow. She’d tasted passion, if only a drop.

Lucas’s words still hurt. She needed time to think it all out, to cry, to decide if she wanted anyone, including Lucas, to chart her life.

All her problems could wait. She had Polly to deal with first.

By the time Tim picked Lauren up to go to the hospital, it was pouring rain as if the whole world were crying.

She’d packed Polly a bag of clothes and anything she saw that she thought Polly might need. As an afterthought, she added two pairs of socks and the shoes she’d cleaned the blood from earlier.

When Lauren climbed into Tim’s old Jeep, he asked, “You think she’s getting out today?”

“No. I called to ask what she wanted me to bring up, but a nurse answered. Polly locked herself in the bathroom when they said she had to stay at least two more days. Apparently, her steady diet of alcohol, no sun and pills has left her anemic. She’s got two infections. You don’t want to know where. And the nurse says Polly refused to call in any family. She told the hospital we’re all she has.”

“Me and you?” Tim wiped his face, but rain still dripped from his red hair. “We got a kid and I don’t even remember the sex?”

Lauren laughed. “If you’re her dad, I have to tell you, we messed up. Our daughter is locked in the bathroom.”

Tim tried three times before he got his Jeep started. It finally rattled to life, sending rain through the rips in the canvas roof as the heater blew a blast of cold air. “Is it too late to put her up for adoption?” he asked. “I can’t afford a kid.”

Lauren leaned back in the worn seat. “You know, Tim, I think this is one of those ‘step in’ or ‘step out’ moments. My pop told me about them. When you see someone who’s sick or hurt or down, you can step in and help, or you can step out and send flowers.”

Tires splashed through puddles as Tim drove. “I think I’m a ‘step out’ kind of guy, but I know you, Lauren. You’ll step in.”

She nodded. “You’re right.”

He looked at her when he stopped at a red light. “Like you and Lucas, you know, when I was hurt. If it hadn’t been for you both dropping by all the time, I would have gone out of my mind. My leg was broke, but my mom would have spoon-fed me if I’d let her.”

Grinning, she offered her hand. “So we’re in?”

“We’re in.” He shook her hand and squeezed it as if making a silent bargain.

Lauren didn’t let go for a moment, and he held on, too.

Lauren almost didn’t recognize her roommate when they got to her room. A white bandage covered her arm, but nothing else looked like the girl who’d checked in twenty hours ago.

Polly had somehow managed a shower. Her hair was clean and braided into pigtails. No smeared makeup. No sexy clothes, only a white T-shirt that said Lubbock Rocks across the front. When she smiled up at Lauren, Polly looked about sixteen.

“Morning, roomie,” she said.

Lauren set down the clothes bag. “An hour ago they said you were locked in the bathroom.”

“I know. Turns out the nurse didn’t seem to care. I think she would have left me there. After ten minutes of standing around in that gown with the back gaping open, I took her up on her offer to help me take a shower. I called down and asked if the gift shop could send up a shirt.” She looked down. “This is what I got.”

Tim perched on the edge of her bed. “You look great, sunshine,” he lied.

Polly smiled. “No, I don’t.”

No one in the room argued. The dark lines under her eyes were still there, and her arms looked bone thin even though they were partly covered by the T-shirt.

Polly turned to Lauren. “Did they say I could leave? I’m dying of hunger. The food in here is worse than the dorm. Can you believe it—they bring the tray by at six? Who in their right mind gets up at six?”

Lauren didn’t want to tell Polly she might as well get used to it. She wasn’t leaving.

Thankfully, Tim jumped in. “The good news is they want to keep you a few days to fatten you up, Polly Anna. Make sure the wound is healing correctly, I’m guessing.” He took her hand. “The bad news is you’ve got me and Lauren to keep you company. And I’m wild about Star Wars movies. Once the nurses get finished poking on you, I’ll bring up my laptop and we’ll watch them all. If you’re still alive by dark, I’ll smuggle you in chili fries.”

Both girls looked at him as if he’d gone mad, but since it was the only plan presented, they went with it. Two hours later, with the laptop propped on her tray table, Polly and Tim were watching a movie, and Lauren was studying in the corner.

Every time Polly fell asleep and missed a part, Tim would rewind and she would groan. After dark, Tim ate her hospital dinner, then went out in the rain and bought the girls hamburgers and chili fries.

Lauren was used to Tim, she’d known him most of her life, but Polly had to adjust to his humor and his endless chatter about nothing. When he suggested another movie, Polly said she’d agree to it just to get him to stop talking, but the nurse had to give her a sleeping pill first. She didn’t want to take the chance of seeing the entire movie.

Half an hour later, Tim whispered, “Lauren?”

She looked up and saw Polly curled against his shoulder, her arms circling one of his as if he were her teddy bear.

“She’s not so bad when she’s asleep,” he whispered and smiled as he brushed a stray hair from her face. “The nurse said they may keep her until Wednesday. Apparently, even without the cut, she was one sick girl.”

“I didn’t think she put up too big a fight to get out. Maybe she doesn’t want to go back to the dorm. It’s a shame her family couldn’t come.”

“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” he whispered.

Lauren shrugged. No one had helped Polly move in. No calls, no letters, not even any emails that she knew about from family.

“We could take her home,” Tim whispered. “Not the dorm, home-home. I could skip my Friday lecture. I usually sleep through it anyway. You could join her after class Friday if you don’t want to skip.”

“But...”

“My mom is well trained at smothering the sick, and your pop has an extra room if she wants to stay at your house. A few days away from here would do her good, and from what I hear her grades couldn’t get much worse.”

Lauren thought that was a terrible plan, but she couldn’t think of another one. “You know, Tim, she’s not a stray kitten we’re taking in.”

He carefully tugged his arms free and covered Polly’s shoulders with the blanket. “Step in or step out, Lauren. Make up your mind.”

She tugged on her coat and answered. “I’ll pack her books. If we take her to the lake, there will be nothing for her to do but study. I’ll see if I can’t get her professors’ permission to help her with her work online for a few weeks.”

Glancing back at Polly, Lauren thought about the haunting possibility that she’d tried to kill herself. Polly had told everyone it was an accident that the mirror fell on her. Everyone believed her.

Everyone except Lauren and Tim.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Wilkes

T
UESDAY
AFTERNOON
IN
the museum dragged by for Wilkes. He had a dozen things he needed to do at the ranch, but he didn’t want to let Angie out of his sight.

Grinning, he admitted watching her move wasn’t a bad way to spend his time. She looked great in a dress. This was the second day she’d worn one. He hadn’t commented, but he thought of suggesting she burn all her other clothes. The dress she’d worn yesterday had been the colors of fall, but today’s dress was dark blue, almost black, and he liked the way it swayed around her legs like midnight water.

They’d postponed the dinner party to Tuesday night after all yesterday’s excitement. Angie had insisted on going back to her cabin. She said she couldn’t leave Doc Holliday alone. Wilkes thought it would be safe with the sheriff near, but when he’d seen her, he could tell she hadn’t slept.

By noon when Wilkes took over watching her, she was wound up on coffee and doughnuts.

Keeping up with her turned out to be harder than following a rabbit in the middle of a wildfire. She, unlike he, was working. He finally gave up trailing her from room to room and set up a desk by the open door of the records hallway. At least he could search old newspapers for any mention of the Gypsy House, which he now knew had been owned by a man named Stanley.

From just outside the archive’s door, he could hear her high heels tapping across the hard floors downstairs and see her circling through the foyer as she rushed from one project to another.

He liked her heels. She still didn’t come up to his chin, but she didn’t seem so short, and the dress was far easier to look at than those baggy pants she must have stolen off a street performer. The sweaters had made her look boxy. The dress showed off her curves.

Wilkes frowned. If he didn’t stop thinking about the way she looked, Dan would probably arrest him for being some kind of pervert. Lusting after a curator was bound to be a crime.

Finally, when he realized he’d read the same page three times, Wilkes packed up and asked her if she’d consider leaving early. “I’ve got a dinner party to get ready for,” he added, “and you look like you could use a little rest.”

To his surprise she didn’t argue. Maybe the caffeine and sugar were winding down.

Vern agreed to watch over the museum, and the six white-haired ladies at the desk swore they’d be his backup if trouble came calling.

“Who’s watching the ranch with both of you here?” Mrs. Butterfield asked.

Vern answered before Wilkes had a chance to explain about the four ranch hands who always worked this time of year. “We got a rule.” Vern winked at Mrs. Butterfield. “When we’re gone, the cows promise to watch themselves. If one steps out of line, the others butt him into submission.”

All the ladies giggled and batted their eyes at him.

Vern paced in front of them like a rooster impressing the hens. “While there are no visitors in the museum, we got work to do, ladies. I want you all to call your families and tell them to be on the lookout for a black Mercury. Crossroads will never need the FBI to investigate anything. We’ll watch out for each other. People like the Franklin sisters know everything that happens in town as far back as the sixties. Someone call them and ask about cars.”

Wilkes took Angie’s hand and rushed out the front door. Vern was having way too much fun and they needed to escape before he gave them an assignment.

He walked close beside her to his car. “Did you sleep at all last night?”