Lone Heart Pass (8 page)

Lauren's head was starting to hurt. “If he lived out in the middle of nowhere alone, then who killed him? Someone wrapped him in the bags. Someone took him to the canyon. Someone killed him.”

Tim stood and began to pace, reminding her of her father. Pop could never think or lecture unless he was on the move.

“He's a local. He has to be.” Tim pointed at her as if he was expecting her to write his words down. “But we're not looking for one man. We're looking for at least two. The ID of the body and the man who wrapped him up.”

“And probably killed him,” Dan added. “And when did this investigation become a ‘we,' Tim?”

“Deputize me, Sheriff. I can help. I've spent the last year doing research. I've read every detective book in print. I'm starting to solve mysteries in my sleep.”

Dan shook his head.

“I can dedicate twelve hours a day digging through files and county records. Driving back roads. Talking to people. The folks out there in the Breaks will identify with me. I'll grow the beard longer and paint on a few tats.” Tim took a deep breath. “I'll even go by every tattoo parlor within a hundred miles. I got nothing else to do.”

Pop glanced at Lauren and she knew he could read her mind.

He turned back to Tim. “All right. I've got a secretary job open at the county office. You can have it for a month, but you're not a deputy and don't even think you can carry a gun or interfere with police business. You're just there to help with research. I have a feeling we'll be digging a long while to solve this case.”

“I'll be in the office at dawn.” Tim put his hand over his heart as if he were being sworn in.

Pop smiled. “I'll be there at eight with the key. Try to get some sleep, Tim, and shave that beard. Believe me, it won't help people trust you and if it gets any longer, folks will think you probably have fleas.”

Tim saluted and Pop swore as he headed for the kitchen.

Lauren walked out on the deck with Tim. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“This is what I need. Reality.” He pulled her close. “Thanks, Lauren.”

Without hesitation, he leaned down and kissed her soundly on the lips.

A moment later when he straightened, he shrugged. “That wasn't bad, L. Maybe we should do that again, sometime. I'll let you know when it's about to happen so you can react next time.”

She pushed hard on Tim's chest. “I'll think about it when you save yourself, Tim O'Grady. You're lost right now and I miss my friend.” She scrubbed her lips. “Pop's right, you need to shave. Give up kissing till you do.”

“Sounds like a promise.” He winked and turned toward the back steps. “I'll keep you in the loop on the investigation. What I'm allowed to divulge to nonprofessionals, of course.”

Lauren rolled her eyes, but it was too dark for him to see. Her father may have just created a monster. With Tim's imagination, there was no telling where this investigation might be headed.

She walked inside and found her father eating a tomato and cheese sandwich. “Why'd you give Tim a job, Pop?”

“The kid needs a direction,” he muttered between bites.

“He's not a kid. He's a man.”

“Yeah, but he doesn't know it yet,” Dan answered. “He doesn't know who he is and sometimes heading in a direction, even the wrong one, can help a man figure it out.”

Lauren laughed. “When did you get so smart?”

He smiled. “About the time your mother left me. Before that I was an idiot. Just ask her.”

CHAPTER NINE

Charley
March 3

T
HE
FEED
STORE
loaded his farm supplies in half the time Charley thought it would take. Today was his day to pick up Lillie from school. If he drove back to the ranch and delivered the grain, it would be time to turn around and come back to town to get her, so he decided he'd stop in for a cup of coffee at the Evening Shadows Retirement Home.

Everyone in town knew they had an “open door, coffee pot's always ready” policy. The retired teachers welcomed former students as friends.

In the two weeks he'd been working at the Lone Heart, he was surprised how quickly the place had changed. The days were hard and long but he liked seeing progress. Working for a day or two on ranches didn't give him that chance. He also had to admit he liked the fresh air and the silence when Jubilee wasn't trailing behind him asking questions.

His family had settled this part of Texas over a hundred and fifty years ago. The sandy soil and open sky had mixed in the Collinses' bloodline. Managing a ranch, even if it wasn't his own, made him proud. He was helping Jubilee, but he was also improving the ranch, and that mattered. The land mattered.

He'd hired several men to work fences with him the past few days so he'd barely seen Jubilee. Since she'd felt the need to tell him never to touch her, their meetings at breakfast had been cold. Which was fine with him. This was just a job, he kept telling himself. The last thing he wanted was to get involved with any woman.

Someday, he'd have his own place. Thanks to the free rent and the fact he'd talked her into paying him almost twice what he usually made at odd jobs, his dream didn't seem so far away. From the time he'd come back to Crossroads, he'd decided to work five days a week to pay the bills, but if he worked Saturday or the weekend nights tending bar, that money was stake money. He'd put it away to buy his own place.

Working the extra time didn't seem so bad when he thought about how his savings were slowly growing.

Lately that was the only dream he allowed himself to believe in.

Now the barn was stocked with hay, and he'd contracted to stable four more horses. Folks on the edge of town loved keeping a horse or two for their kids, but when the animal needed extra care or doctoring, the big pet became way too much trouble. The vet had recommended him, and Charley hoped the extra money coming in would buy her a few more months to make Lone Heart Ranch pay.

As he pulled in front of the village of little bungalows Charley couldn't miss the new sign. Evening Shadows: a planned community for retired teachers. The place used to be an old motel called Canyon View Cabins. The cabins had long ago been turned into one-bedroom bungalows. Each of the twelve residents had their own little front porch, but most walked to the office lobby and spent their afternoons visiting or napping in the sun.

The old name had always bothered him because there was no view of the canyon. The cabins were in the center of town and faced the main highway through Crossroads. The lack of canyon view or the traffic never seemed to bother the retired teachers.

The place didn't look much like it had when he was in high school, thanks to the manager, Yancy Gray. He'd fixed up the original tiny houses and built four more bungalows, plus, he'd made the office an inviting all-glass activity room with a front seat view of the town.

Over the past year of delivering groceries as one of his odd jobs, Charley had gotten to know most of the teachers well. He'd even been a pallbearer when the retired principal, Mr. Hall, passed on. The much-respected teacher and principal had wanted only former students to carry him on his last journey.

Mr. Browning, the newly retired AG teacher, had bought Mr. Hall's small house at Evening Shadows. He had a daughter a few hours away in Amarillo, who wanted him to live with her, but he wanted to stay with his friends. Charley thought maybe it was the fact that these people had taught together for so long, they were like veterans of a war civilians didn't understand.

Unlike some places in town, Charley was welcomed by all at Evening Shadows. As he walked into the sunny activity room, Cap Fuller stood to shake his hand. He didn't let go until he'd pulled Charley to an empty chair beside Mr. Browning.

Charley knew them both well and had loved being in their classes years ago.

Before the men could start talking, Mrs. Ollie rushed over with a cup of coffee for him. She leaned close and Charley thought she'd smelled like apple pie all his life.

“Morning, Charley Collins,” she whispered. “You getting into any trouble with the girls lately?”

“No, Ma'am. I've sworn off women.” He felt fifteen again, remembering when she'd caught him kissing some cheerleader behind the stage one afternoon. She'd given him “The Talk” that day about how a young person's body can head down the wrong path and refuse to listen to his brain.

Looking back, Charley decided he should have taken notes on that lecture.

Mrs. Ollie straightened. “I'm glad to hear that. A good-looking man like you needs to be careful. Watch out for the girls.”

Cap Fuller laughed. “I know what you mean. I've always had the same problem.”

Everyone within hearing distance laughed. Cap was short, old, bald and almost toothless.

Mrs. Ollie waddled off and Charley began asking questions. He needed advice and the retired teachers were a brain trust. Within twenty minutes they'd not only answered questions he had about exactly how much land to farm, how to build onto the barn and where to put a new well, they'd offered to drive out and orchestrate the jobs.

As he walked away, he was feeling as if he might just be able to make Jubilee's plan work without having to sell gravel off the east slope. Gravel was always good for fast money, but once it was gone, it was gone.

When he glanced up toward his truck, he frowned. Lexie leaned against the right fender of his pickup. For once, she looked a little wilted. Her hair didn't seem so perfect and, in the sun, he could see lines around her heavily made-up mouth and eyes. The wind must have brushed away some of her beauty-queen polish. Before long she'd only be a barroom beauty where the lights were low and the men looked at her through a whiskey glass.

“Morning,” he said as he walked past her, heading straight for the driver's door.

“Wait,” she snapped. “I want to talk to you about something.”

“I'm in a hurry.” He could think of nothing they might have in common.

“I just have one question.” She did her best to look pouty.

He was trapped. All the old folks were probably watching. He couldn't be rude to her. “All right. One question, and then I have to go pick up my daughter.”

Lexie walked around to his side of the pickup as she talked. “You may know that my aunt died last year, leaving me her huge old house here in Crossroads.”

Charley didn't know, or care. Lexie was years older than he, so he hadn't known her in school, but then everyone in town knew her as Homecoming Queen and runner-up for Miss Texas. He knew of her just as she probably knew all about him.

“What's your question?”

She shot him an irritated look that wilted even more of her beauty. “Well, my soon-to-be husband wants me to redo the place as a kind of weekend getaway. I thought you might be the man to handle the job. I'll be dropping in and out, but I need someone to oversee the makeover.”

Charley opened his pickup door and turned to find her as close as a shadow behind him. “Not interested, but thanks for the offer.” With one hand on the door and the other on the steering wheel, he had nowhere to go.

She rested her perfectly manicured fingers on his arm and leaned close. “Drop by any time and I'll show you the place. There are eight very empty bedrooms. You might change your mind. If I don't find someone fast I'm going to sell the place.”

She drew in a breath and her blouse brushed his chest.

Charley just stood there like a man hypnotized by the rattler on a snake.

Without warning, she struck. Closing the distance between them, she pressed her mouth against his. Then, just as suddenly she stepped away and laughed. “We'll finish this talk later, cowboy. I always get what I want in the end.”

He climbed in and slammed the truck door. If he didn't get out of sight quickly, Mrs Ollie would be out to give him “The Talk” again.

He had a feeling a weekend getaway home was not what Lexie was talking about getting when she mentioned him dropping by. The idea of having her for a boss made him rethink his relationship with Jubilee, who looked like an angel compared to Lexie. If all Jubilee asked for was a hands-off policy, it was fine with him. Even having her following him around didn't seem so bad compared to Lexie.

By the time Lillie came out of her school, Charley had already written down a dozen things he needed to talk to Jubilee about tomorrow. He had to wash any thought of Lexie or the kiss from his mind. He didn't want it there. Everything about the woman bothered him. Even the way she called him “cowboy,” as though he was a breed she was inspecting to buy.

While his daughter told him about her day, Charley silently swore to make more of an effort to get along with his boss. Jubilee Hamilton might be crazy and quick to anger, but at least she wasn't a pariah. He could work with crazy. Maybe even forgive her for yelling at him when he'd touched her. Who knows, maybe she had a guy like Lexie always trying to handle her.

He and Jubilee shared a common goal. She paid him good money, was nice to Lillie and didn't ask personal questions. Everything he learned on her ranch would serve him well when he started his own place. Plus, if he screwed up this job he might have to work for Lexie.

Charley rubbed his knuckles across his mouth, wishing he could wash away the taste of lust from Lexie's lips.

As the afternoon waned, he stayed near the house. Fixing the fence in the corral, walking the boarded horses as Lillie rode each one. While he worked on the barn door, Lillie played with three baby rabbits she'd found by the back of the barn. Something must have killed the mother. They were wild at first, but by nightfall she almost had them eating out of her hand.

About sunset he spotted Jubilee walking in her invisible garden. She didn't look up at him, but he had a feeling she was aware he was near.

Funny, he thought, how now and then he had the urge to simply hold her. It wasn't passion or love. Charley felt as if his boss was probably as lonely as he was. He knew all the signs. She never got any mail, though she insisted on going to check it every other day. As far as he knew no one had called the house since she'd arrived. She didn't even carry her phone most of the time and the light in her office burned late every night as if she didn't want to go to bed.

Jubilee had no one on her side. No one fighting for her to win.

She tried so hard to learn everything as if she expected him to disappear any day. If he could just hold her for a while, he'd tell her he would stay. He'd help her build her home.

But she wasn't open to a single touch.