Rustler's Moon (26 page)

“This is the strangest bargain I’ve ever heard of. You’re not going to touch me, but I can kiss you or do whatever I want to you.” She hid her smile with her fingers. “That might give me a wild idea or two.”

“Do you agree, Angie?” If she said yes, he’d just signed up to be tortured.

She tilted her head first one way and then the other. Curly hair bounced. “All right. I think I like this plan. And when we are alone I might just take you up on your terms. I think it might be nice to be in control for once in my life.”

She turned to go inside, then paused and faced him. “I’ll be by to pick up Doc Holliday tomorrow.”

“All right.” He watched her, feeling as if this one bargain might keep him from rushing for once in his life.

She followed him to the edge of the porch. “Take one step down,” she ordered.

He backed up.

“Another one,” she added.

He moved down one more step. Now her face was even with his.

“Did you mean it? I set the pace? You’ll not advance, but only welcome my kiss.”

“I meant every word.”

Without another moment’s hesitation, she leaned slightly and pressed her mouth to his. The kiss was quick, but it was a real kiss.

When she took a step back, she smiled, obviously proud of herself for being so brave.

“Good night, Angie,” he said with a grin.

“Good night, Wilkes.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Lauren

S
MILING
AND
STUFFED
with ice cream, Lauren kissed her pop good-night. It was late, but they’d had so much fun pigging out on banana splits that they’d stayed in the booth at Dairy Queen and talked for over an hour.

She told him about her date with Reid Collins, leaving out the part about Polly’s meeting with Reid in the hallway at the frat house. She’d told him all about what it had looked like when she got back to the dorm and found Polly bleeding. Only, she left out any hint that it might not have been an accident. She talked about Tim and Lucas and all the other kids from Crossroads who were also at Tech, leaving out how Lucas had kissed her wildly and then broken up with her, even though he probably never thought they were a couple anyway.

Strange, Lauren realized as she walked out onto the midnight deck and stared at the moon dancing in the water. She had a feeling that for the rest of her life she’d be leaving out parts of every story she told her pop. There was a time she’d rattled on about everything that happened at school. Now he was getting the PG version of her almost R-rated life.

Everything in her life seemed to be changing, like sand shifting beneath her feet. For the first weekend in years, she didn’t know if Lucas was in Crossroads or still at Tech. He hadn’t called.

She saw the light go off in her father’s bedroom and knew she was the only one still awake. The decision to come home had been a good one, not just for Polly, who seemed to be coming back from the dark side, but for her, too.

She walked along the shore and spotted Tim sitting on a rock that jutted out almost into the lake. When they’d been little, they would climb up on that rock and make up stories. Since both were only children, Tim was probably as close to a brother as she’d ever have.

“Evening,” she said as she climbed up on what they called storyteller’s rock. “It’s too cold to be moon-bathing tonight.”

“No kidding. I’m afraid to try to stand up. My butt’s frozen to the rock.”

Lauren laughed.

“It’s not funny, L,” he complained. “In the morning some fisherman will come along here and notice my butt left out here frozen. He’ll say, ‘Wonder who lost their bottom out here overnight? Must have been a left-behind.’”

Fighting down a giggle she said, “That’s about the saddest joke I’ve ever heard.”

They sat in silence for a while, not really needing to talk. Finally, she asked, “How did you get on with Polly tonight? Sorry I disappeared on you guys. I ended up spending some time with my pop.”

“We made out,” Tim answered, giving only the facts.

“What? Tim!” Lauren found that hard to believe. Oh, not about Polly, she had sex in hallways and elevators, but about Tim. He’d had very few dates and usually woke her up when he got home just to tell Lauren how bad it was.

“Don’t worry, we didn’t go all the way, but it might have happened if I hadn’t stopped.”

“Let me guess, Polly has no stop button?”

Tim nodded. “Right. She was built to go full throttle. I don’t even think she comes with brakes. Before I could even think about what to do next to her, she was already doing it to me.”

“And did you like it?” Lauren asked.

“Of course. It was wild. Remember the last girl I went out with? I politely asked if I could kiss her and she said, ‘Do I look that desperate?’ Nothing gets a guy over that kind of hit like a girl climbing all over him. Polly even ripped two buttons off my shirt.”

“Are you interested in her?”

“I was. I am,” he admitted. “But I don’t want it to be that way between us, at least not all the time. If there is ever going to be an ‘us,’ I want more out of it than just make-out sessions. I get the feeling, that for Polly, relationships are measured in hours, maybe minutes sometimes. I don’t want that with any girl.”

“What
do
you want, Tim?”

He was quiet so long, she didn’t think he was going to answer. Finally, he said, “I want someone to hang out with, to talk to, to fall asleep with during a late movie and to have sex with. I want to know that sometimes it’s making love and not just sex. I want the whole package deal. I want to grow into loving someone so much that I can’t imagine spending my life without them. When I’m old, I don’t want to just remember the wild times I had in college, I want to talk about them with the person sitting next to me.”

“You’re one in a million, Tim. How could any girl not love you?”

He laughed. “I can think of one. Polly took ‘slow down’ for goodbye. When we head back tomorrow, she’ll probably be riding with you. I don’t think she wants to ever see me again.”

He leaned back and put his head on her outstretched legs. “I did enjoy it tonight for a while. Polly’s breasts are small, but...”

Lauren covered his mouth with both her hands. “TMI, Tim!”

“Sorry, L. I thought we could talk about anything with each other.”

“Not my roommate’s breasts, okay?”

“Okay, but you don’t have any problem with me thinking about them, do you?”

Lauren kicked him off her legs and stood. “I think you and your frozen butt had better head home.”

He stood and offered a hand to help her off the rock. “All right. See you in the morning. My mom’s sending over cinnamon rolls for breakfast. The plan is to help Polly study until it’s time to head back to school.”

Lauren walked home thinking how Lucas had put his hand over her breast last weekend and wondered if he’d told anyone about it. She doubted it.

If she ever saw Lucas Reyes again, maybe she’d ask him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Carter

D
AWN
BROKE
THROUGH
a web of gray clouds, and Carter Mayes knew he wouldn’t be walking the canyon today. He was too old to get wet this time of year when the wind blew cold from the north and any moisture rested against his bones. Reason told him it was about time to head back to Granbury and his daughters. Before he could get settled in there, it would be Thanksgiving.

The holidays were always painful in a good way. He missed his wife’s pumpkin pie and the way Bethie always got excited about putting up the old Christmas tree as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes were put away. He missed how she talked about what to get her daughters and how she always watched everyone else open gifts and forgot her own. Each year was just as painful as the first one he’d had to go through without her, but it was a good pain. He wouldn’t have missed the memories even if he had to live another ten years with the loss.

Mostly he liked the winter months when he had time to read and play cards with friends at the trailer park, but he usually spent the afternoons napping and waiting for spring. His hunt for the white stick figures on the wall of a cave far northwest of Granbury had long ago become his only mission. The hollow-eyed bony skeletons no longer frightened him as they had when he was a boy. And the nightmares he endured in ’Nam, where the stick figures managed to come with him, were long gone. Now his goal was simply to find a memory, a slice from his childhood.

Funny, how one little thing follows you all your life, he thought as he stared out the café window at the rain falling. Now and then a drop shattered on the sidewalk as if it were made of crystal. The first hint of snow moved in with the rain, but he wasn’t ready to leave just yet.

He hadn’t told anyone about what he’d seen as a kid until his wife died. Got too busy living life to worry about the stick men painted hundreds of years ago.

When he’d told his daughters, they’d been all for him spending a summer searching, but as the years passed, they’d tried to delay his trip each spring and always called wanting him home sooner.

Carter didn’t know how to tell them that he felt more alive searching one day than he felt all winter waiting.

“Howdy, partner,” Vern Wagner called over when he came in the front door of the café. He took off his hat and shook like a dog coming out of the rain. His skinny, tough body reminded Carter of a thick slice of wet jerky.

“Stop that, Vern Wagner,” Dorothy yelled from the pass-through. “You’re getting water all over the floor. At your age I can’t tell if you’re trying to get dry or having a stroke.”

“Coffee!” Vern yelled back as he limped toward Carter. “When it gets cold, my joints start to rust up.”

By the time he made it to the table, a waitress was pouring him a mug of hot coffee.

“Pour an extra cup. Jake Longbow is climbing out of his truck.”

The new waitress who’d replaced Sissy last year glared at Vern as if she thought she might be wasting a cup. “You gentlemen just having a cup or planning to wait out the rain?”

Vern grinned. “I’ve been waiting out the rain all my life. Make a fresh pot, darlin’. We’re going to be here awhile.”

Carter tried to figure out if she thought Vern was lying about needing the extra coffee or if the old man climbing out of a huge truck might not live long enough to drink it. He’d seen the trucks before, huge Dodge Rams with a Double K brand. The Kirkland Ranch.

Jake Longbow walked slowly in the rain, enjoying the stroll. His Comanche blood showed in his high cheekbones and long nose. He’d tanned over a dark complexion for so many years his skin looked more like bark. Vern might be a cowboy who loved the land, but Jake Longbow was different. He seemed more a part of the land, a part of all around him, even the storm.

While Jake hung up his hat and coat on the rack by the door, Vern pulled out an old map wrapped in plastic and spread it out on the table in front of Carter.

“Longbow and I have been talking, and we think we can find that rock corral you talked about. The road heading out in that pasture was fenced off fifty or so years ago, but we could get close to it on a four-wheeler.” Vern stopped long enough to down half his steaming coffee.

Carter decided Vern’s lips hadn’t just thinned out over the years. He must have burned them off drinking coffee. Carter cleared his throat as Longbow sat down. “I want to thank you two for agreeing to meet me here. It means a lot to me. I’m not even sure which canyon around here the cave might be in. But I do remember that I saw rocks in a square the next morning.”

“No problem,” they both said at once.

Three gray heads leaned over the old map and began to talk. Their knowledge of the land and the history of the canyons blended with their familiarity of maps.

Carter could feel his goal almost within reach. If the first snow would hold off until after Halloween, he’d have time for one last search before winter.

Vern downed the rest of his coffee and motioned for the waitress to bring more. “One thing we’ve decided, Carter,” he said. “Me and Jake are going down with you. Three sets of eyes, even my nearsighted ones, are better than one. If we find the rock corral, we’ll know we’re close to the cave and, if you’ve no objection, we’ll climb down with you.”

“I’d be honored to have you along on this crazy journey.”

All three smiled. For a moment they weren’t three old men in their seventies. They were wild boys looking for an adventure.

That night Carter dreamed of the stick men dancing. In his dream he imagined that they’d be as excited to see him as he was to see them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Angie

T
HE
FOLLOWING
M
ONDAY
, Agent Dodson called Angie at work. He told her the case against her uncle was progressing. The ledger helped them follow the movement of money through her uncle’s company. Apparently, her uncle was only one link in the chain, and they planned to pull several people in with the net they’d cast.

When Angie hung up, she thought of calling her aunt back in Florida, but she decided they weren’t really part of her family anymore. They’d proved that by sending someone to track her down and harass her. The ledger her father kept wasn’t part of the official books and if her uncle hadn’t been doing something wrong he wouldn’t have worried about it.

She had the feeling that her aunt and uncle would try to blame everything on her father. After all, he was dead, he couldn’t defend himself. Maybe they’d planned that from the first and deep down her father knew if he exposed what was going on he’d be the one to take the fall. If so, his getting killed must have messed up their great escape plan if the smuggling was discovered.

All her life Angie had wondered if there was a place she could find where real people lived who cared about one another. A place where being related wasn’t an obligation, but a blessing and a true friend.

She’d found it here. There was no need to look back. Dan, Wilkes, the volunteers, even Uncle Vern, didn’t have to help her, they just did.