Buch lesen: «Wild Horse Springs»

Wild Horse Springs

Jodi Thomas

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Midnight

Friday

DAN BRIGMAN HAD been sheriff for half his life. He knew the county, the people and the potholes for miles around Crossroads, Texas. Now that his daughter, Lauren, was grown, being a lawman filled his time. He’d settled into a comfortable aloneness and counted himself lucky.

When he turned onto the county road on the third Friday in November, featherlight snow circled in the cruiser’s headlights as if the beams caught winter’s breath dancing in the dark along the silent stretch of highway. The first freeze of the season was whispering across the flatland, but Dan feared a storm would rage in a few hours.

He smiled. He loved this time of year. Most folks complained about the cold, the short days, the colorless landscapes, but he liked coming inside after a long day and warming by the fireplace. He loved napping through football games and craved all the food that came with the season. Green chili enchiladas, Hopkins County Stew, spicy pork ribs simmered all day in a slow cooker.

The sheriff laughed out loud. He was starting to sound like an old man. True, there was a brush of gray along his temples, but inside he felt like he was still young. In twenty years, if he kept getting reelected, he’d retire and have time to fish off his dock at the lake house. If he got bored, he’d drop by his old office to tell the next sheriff how to run the county. He’d never run with the bulls or climbed Everest or seen a foreign country, but he’d had a rich life.

Something bright blinked in his headlights just in front of him.

Dan hit the brakes.

With his beams on high, he climbed out of the cruiser, a flashlight in one hand and the other on the butt of his service weapon. The county road might be silent tonight, but this was 111, the stretch of highway where he’d been ambushed four years ago.

That day flashed through his mind more in sounds than pictures. Bullets pinging against the sides of his cruiser like hailstones. Tires popping as they went flat. Brakes squealing while he fought for control. Glass shattering across the windshield and raining onto the pavement.

Then, when all the noise stilled, all he’d felt was pain.

Three bullets were dug out of his body a few hours later. The six months of recovery seemed endless. Four years of peace since, and yet he could still hear the sounds of that one day. He’d watched his blood snake across the highway like a tiny river and pool into the dirt. He’d counted his heartbeats as if needing to know how many were left.

If it hadn’t been for one kid pulling him away from the gunfire, he’d be buried in the Ransom Canyon Cemetery, his grave covered in snow tonight.

Dan pushed the memories aside as he focused the flashlight’s beam on a sparkly blue object in the road.

A boot. One tall blue woman’s boot stood proud on the center stripe. The kind of fancy boot with rhinestones and stitching in the leather from the ankle up. One like cowgirls wore to dance in until the bar closed. One that would never be worn to work cattle.

Dan relaxed as he stared down at the boot. County Road 111 was mostly traveled by locals, and none of the ranch folks wore fancy footwear like this.

“It’s a mystery,” he said aloud. Dan was fully aware that he was talking to himself, but then who was around to object?

He picked up the boot and walked back to his car. If someone had tossed it out, which wasn’t likely, it probably wouldn’t have been standing straight up on the center line. No one would have thrown away just one even if they hated wearing them. A pair like this probably cost five hundred dollars or more.

By the car light he examined his find. Deep blue, like the sky turned just before it rained. The sole was worn. No other scrapes. Whoever wore this never shoved it into a stirrup.

Dan put the boot in the passenger seat and pushed the car into gear. “Well, pretty lady,” he said with a laugh. “How about riding along with me tonight?”

Any woman who wore a boot like this one would show it off. She’d have on tight jeans tucked into the top. She’d be outgoing, maybe wild. She’d laugh easy and probably yell when she argued. She’d take big gulps of life.

That kind of woman would never be attracted to him. Dan was as solid as the canyon walls, probably borderline boring if he thought about it, and as his daughter often reminded him, predictable.

Dan never allowed himself to daydream. He was always serious, a man who was his job, not one who just wore the uniform. But tonight, cloudy starless skies made the world seem more fantasy than real, and the rich blue leather sparkled in the dashboard lights.

“I guess I better start looking for Cinderella, because some cowgirl princess has lost her slipper.”

He remembered how Lauren was always telling him he needed to go out now and then. Maybe he could text her a picture of the boot and tell her he’d made the first step. Lauren had probably meant he should date one of the church ladies who asked him for favors, such as judging the jams competitions for charity, or invited him to the Wednesday-morning breakfast because they “needed more men.” His daughter had not meant for him to step out with the kind of woman who’d wear a rhinestone boot.

It was almost one o’clock when the sheriff pulled into the Two Step Saloon’s dirt parking lot. The bar was outside the city limits of Crossroads, but Dan swore he could hear the bass beating some nights from his office a few miles away. Most Friday nights he would have already had at least one call from the bartender before now. But since the Nowhere Club opened thirty miles south of Crossroads, business had dropped off along with arrests in Dan’s county.

Grabbing the boot, Dan walked into the Two Step. Maybe, if the place wasn’t too loud, or the folks too drunk, someone would remember seeing a lady wearing blue boots.

He relaxed. The main room was only half-full and most of the crowd looked far more interested in talking than fighting. Ike Perez, the owner, had put in a big-screen TV. If a game wasn’t on, he played reruns. The drunks didn’t seem to care. They cheered and bet as if they hadn’t seen the game before.

“Evening, Sheriff,” the bartender said as she reached for a cup and the coffeepot. “Wondered if you’d make it in tonight.”

Dan stood at the corner of the bar, his back almost touching the wall. It was the only spot in the room where he could see the whole place. “Evening, Kimmie.” The bartender might have been in AA for ten years, but she was still working making drinks. She reminded Dan of an old bull rider who walked among rough stock on the night before a rodeo. Kimmie might not take the ride anymore, but she stayed near the noise and the excitement.

When he set the fancy boot next to his cup, Kimmie winked at him. “If that’s your date, I’d say you lost a bit of her on the way in.”

Dan shrugged. “Story of my life. I start out with a woman and end up with a boot.”

Kimmie crossed her arms and leaned against the railing of the bar that was just right to be boob-resting height to her. “It might help, Sheriff, if you didn’t wear your gun and uniform on a date. You’re one fine-looking man, tall, lean and just enough gray to tell a lady that you probably know what you’re doing, but, honey, all that hardware around your waist won’t encourage any woman to cuddle up.”

Dan took a gulp of the coffee. He never added any comment when Kimmie started telling him how to live his life. She might be in her late thirties, which made her dating age for him, but she’d never be his type.

In truth, Dan had decided he must not have a type. Near as he could tell, any women he liked usually ran the other way. The first and the noisiest being his wife twenty years ago. When he’d refused to move to Dallas, Margaret packed a bag and left him with their only child. He’d raised Lauren and kept loving his wife for a long while, hoping she’d come back, but she only called monthly to lecture him on all the things he was doing wrong with his job, the town and most of all with raising their daughter.

It took him years to try even talking to a woman other than to ask for her driver’s license. And then, none seemed right. Some never stopped talking; others expected him to carry the conversation.

Finally, when he decided to date a little, no woman felt right in his arms on the few occasions he managed to stay around long enough to hug her. Or, worse, she didn’t seem that interested in him. At first he’d thought it was because he was divorced and raising his daughter or because of the career he loved, but lately, there just didn’t seem to be a woman in the state he wanted to go out with.

Dan got to the point of his current problem. “I found the boot out on 111. Thought you might have seen someone wearing it.”

Kimmie shook her head. “I found a cowboy boot under my bed once. Worn and muddy. Never did remember who it belonged to.”

Dan didn’t want to hear more of the bartender’s love life. If she ever got around to writing down just the facts she’d been sober enough to remember, she’d have a shelf full of steamy encounters. Since she’d quit drinking, talking about sex had become her favorite pastime.

“Where’s Ike?”

“He went over to check out that new bar. They call it the Nowhere Club like it was something fancy. What kind of name is that for a bar? Someone said they got a real singer over there. Can you imagine someone trying to sing to a bunch of drunks?”

Dan picked up the blue boot. “Maybe I will go check it out sometime.”

Kimmie cleared his empty coffee cup and wiped down the bar. “I’ll keep my eye out for a woman hobbling around on one boot. If I spot her, I’ll send her your way.”

“Thanks.” Dan left thinking about what the owner of the boot must look like. Tall, he’d guess, to wear this high a boot. And wild as the West Texas wind. His imagination filled in the rest of her through the night when he should have been sleeping.

* * *

MONDAY MORNING HE carried the boot into his office and set it on the corner of his desk, still thinking about what kind of woman would own it. It might be nice to meet her when he wasn’t in uniform. Maybe, halfway through his life, it was about time he did something unpredictable.

All morning he worked on the paperwork that always piled up over the weekend like leftovers from Sunday dinner.

The blue boot kept crossing his line of vision as if whispering to him.

Pearly, the county secretary, came in a little after eleven with the mail. She spotted the boot. “You thinking of cross-dressing, Sheriff?”

Dan simply stared at her. Pearly hadn’t asked a question worth answering in years.

“I have to leave.” He stood. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“Might as well eat lunch while you’re out, Sheriff.” Pearly started planning his day. “It’s already almost lunchtime, and you know when you get back you’ll have calls to return, and by the time you’re finished it’ll be too late to catch a lunch special. Next thing I know, Lauren will be home from Dallas complaining about how thin you look and telling me I should take better care of her father, like she left you in my charge.”

“And the point of this discussion, Pearly?”

She puffed up. “Eat!” she shouted as if he needed to be addressed in single syllables.

Dan dug his fingers through hair in need of a cut and put on his Stetson. “Thanks, Mom, I’ll remember that.” He grabbed the boot and walked past Pearly. Dan hated being mothered, but some women had that gene wired in them.

He was two miles out of town when he glanced at the boot and grinned. “Where you want to go, babe?” he asked as if a woman were beside him.

Funny. Something about the boot riding shotgun made Sheriff Dan Brigman feel reckless.

CHAPTER TWO

Noon

Monday

BRANDI MALONE WATCHED a sheriff walk into the Nowhere Club as she worked in the shadows of the small stage. The place wouldn’t be open for hours. She’d planned to rehearse for a while, but now she couldn’t do that until the sheriff left. Somehow having someone watch her work out the kinks in her performance seemed like singing to a voyeur.

She liked this time of day in the bar when all was quiet and the air felt almost clean.

Growing up in a big family was noisy, and living close to them as an adult always made her feel like she was being watched. Her two brothers’ and sister’s families had settled within sight of the house they grew up in. But even when Brandi had moved back in her twenties, Malone Valley wasn’t where she’d wanted to be, and when she’d left the second time, she’d sworn, as she had once before, that she’d never return.

The road had been her home for fourteen months. Brandi didn’t have a house, an address, or anyone to report in to, and that was just fine with her.

Gig after gig on the road was her living room, and at night she stepped out onto her front porch, which was her stage. Brandi Malone was butterfly free and wanted it that way.

She stood perfectly still, no more than a shadow, and waited for the man in uniform to vanish from her world.

The sheriff disappeared down the hallway to the owner’s office. She wasn’t curious. Her job was to be onstage for three sets a night. That was all. This was a bar; of course lawmen would drop by now and then. The sheriff was probably only checking the new liquor license, same as another sheriff did last week, or maybe he was looking for an outlaw, though this place didn’t seem much like an outlaw bar.

She moved the mic closer to the piano, where she’d lined up her songs for tonight. Though she knew them all by heart, she always kept the sheet music close, just in case her mind wandered.

Brandi didn’t worry about much, not where she lived or what she ate, or even what town she was in, but she wanted every performance to be perfect. It had to be. It was all she had left that mattered in her world.

Maybe she wanted, if only for a few minutes, for all those who were sober enough to listen, to forget about their problems and just enjoy. She wanted them to step into the music and dance on the sawdust floor or in their minds. That’s what she did. For a few hours, if her songs were just right, she forgot all about the cavernous hole in her heart and swayed to the music. Her thoughts would slow to match the beat those nights, and for a short time she’d drift. She’d breathe deeply and almost believe life was worth living.

“Brandi!” Hank, the owner, yelled. “Sheriff’s got something for you.”

The tall man in a tan uniform moved toward her, and for a moment she considered running. But he was between her and the door, and the guy’s face, framed in the shadows of his hat, looked like he operated strictly by the book.

She had no outstanding bills or fines or tickets. She hadn’t committed a crime. There was no reason the law wanted her, so the sheriff must have questions about the bar, or maybe her old van parked outside...

Brandi stood and waited as the sheriff neared. She was stronger than she’d been months ago. She didn’t have to run from questions.

When she’d first hit the road, she hated strangers asking where she was from or anything about her family. She didn’t want to talk about anything but her music. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed.

Only, when this stranger in a uniform raised his eyes to look up at her standing on the small stage, he smiled as if he was happy to see her. “Morning, ma’am,” he said.

She didn’t miss that the lawman’s eyes ran the length of her body before he reached her face. Could he have been checking her out? Surely not. Not if he called her ma’am.

“Morning,” she managed to say. “What’s the problem?”

“No problem.”

He smiled again, and she had the feeling that he was a man who didn’t smile often. Brandi relaxed slightly. He had honest blue eyes.

“This wouldn’t happen to be yours?” he asked as he lifted a boot. “It kind of looks like something you might wear.”

Brandi exploded. “Yes! Someone stole them out of my van two weeks ago. In their hurry, they dropped the left one in the parking lot.” She bounced down from the two-foot-high stage. “I loved those boots. I thought I’d lost this one forever, but I couldn’t bring myself to toss the other one away.”

The sheriff stood as stiff as a mannequin while she hugged him.

“Thank you. Thank you.” She reached for the boot.

He pulled it away. “Now wait a minute. I have to have proof.” He was smiling again, obviously enjoying himself. “Maybe you need to try it on. The slipper needs to fit. I think it’s the law, or maybe just a rule.”

She looked down at the tennis shoes she was wearing. “I have to have that boot. I own the match. One boot’s no good without its mate.”

“I’ll need to see the left one first before I hand this one over.”

“Follow me.” She shifted and straightened as if planning to march, playing along with his game.

Her long legs made it easy to make the step onto the stage. She rushed behind a black curtain and opened an almost invisible door. She hoped the sheriff carrying her boot was following her. Guessing that he was watching her every twist, she slipped quickly into a narrow hallway, then left toward her dressing room.

He was right behind her.

The sheriff was in his forties, maybe five or six years older than her, and definitely interesting. She’d always liked talking to men with honest eyes. They were rare.

Brandi grinned as she tried to guess what the sheriff might be like out of uniform. He was that kind of handsome most women didn’t notice. There was something so solid about him he seemed hard, except maybe for his mouth. The man had kissable lips, she decided, but she’d bet he’d never had an irresponsible thought.

And he wasn’t for her. Forget that “attracted at first sight” thing. She no longer acted on impulses. Brandi had not only sworn off men, she’d sworn off family and friends, as well. For months she had simply drifted in the emptiness and the music, telling herself there was no future or past, just now. If she worked hard on just getting through one day at a time, she could survive and almost forget that her reason for living had gone.

Fourteen months and counting. Now wasn’t the time to break her streak even to make one friend or take a lover. The very thought of having a lover after all these years made her smile. If she ever did take another lover, he would have blue eyes like the sheriff’s. True blue.

She opened the door to a small room that doubled as her dressing room and the paper storage for the bar and bathrooms.

The sheriff followed her in.

“Leave the door open,” she ordered.

“Of course,” he answered, as if it were a rule he already knew.

He seemed to take up half the space in her small quarters as she tossed clothes around looking for the other boot.

“I’m not very organized,” she admitted.

“I’ve seen squirrels better at it.” He crossed his arms and waited.

“The boot is here somewhere.” She was loaded down with clothes and still saw no sign of it. “Maybe it would be easier to try on the one you have.” She plopped down on the room’s only chair and tugged off her tennis shoe. The leggings she wore were warm and fit like second skin. “If it fits, I get to keep it, right?”

To her shock, he knelt on one knee and helped her with the boot. His hand slid along her calf as he pushed her foot gently into the leather.

Brandi couldn’t move. His hand glided ahead of the boot until his fingers rested just above her knee. She could feel the warmth of him through the material as he pressed gently into her flesh as if he was testing to see if she were real.

“It fits perfect,” he said. “I guess I’ve found Cinderella.”

“Thanks for bringing it back. I’m really grateful, Sheriff.”

“You’re more than welcome. Just part of the job.” He stood and offered his hand. “Dan Brigman.”

She took his hand and stood, noticing he was only a few inches taller than her as she balanced on the one boot. “Can I buy you a drink, Sheriff, to say thank you?”

“No, thanks.”

He hadn’t turned loose of her fingers, and she wondered if she should ask for her hand back. When she looked down, she spotted the blue toe of her other blue cowboy boot and squealed as she jerked her hand away from him. She dropped to the floor so she could crawl under the card table that served as her dressing table.

He tried to step out of the way, but her bottom bumped into him several times before she backed out from under the flimsy table. Then she hopped around trying to tug on the second boot while accidentally bumping into him again.

He gripped her waist and steadied her as she finally got the boot on.

When she straightened, he let go of her, but one hand rose to brush her hair from her face.

“You have a mass of long hair, pretty lady. It seems to fly around you like a midnight cloud. I’ve got a daughter who has hair as long as yours, but hers is straight and the color of sunshine.”

“Sorry.” She shook her head back. “My hair’s always had a mind of its own. I not only kicked you while I was trying to pull on the boot, you probably got a mouthful of curls.”

“I’ll survive.” He laughed.

“Sure you won’t take that drink? I feel like I owe you one, Sheriff.”

“No, but I might let you buy me lunch. The best Mexican food place for a hundred miles around is right across the street.”

Brandi wasn’t looking to be picked up, and she couldn’t tell if the sheriff was trying to start something. If so, he was so far out of practice with this switch from a drink to lunch thing. She needed to cut this off quick. “Wouldn’t you rather go home and have lunch with your family?” The last thing she needed was to get involved with a married man.

He hesitated but didn’t back away like a man who’d been trying to flirt might. “My wife left me twenty years ago, and my daughter is grown and now lives in Dallas. If you don’t want to come along, I’m still planning on eating Mexican food. Pearly, my secretary, told me to eat lunch before I came back, and she’s not an easy woman to cross.”

Brandi felt like a fool. The sheriff wasn’t using a line on her. If he thought he was, it came pretty close to the worst one she’d ever heard. He’d given her the facts of his life as small-town people did. As people who have nothing to hide did.

“My name’s Brandi Malone.”

“I guessed that. Saw it on the board out front.” He backed a few steps to the door. “It was nice to meet you, Miss Malone. Maybe I’ll come hear you sing sometime.”

“Do that,” she said, noticing neither bothered with goodbye.

After he disappeared, she decided that the sheriff was shy. She’d embarrassed him by insinuating that he was trying to flirt, or maybe he felt like he’d dumped too much information on a total stranger.

She dug through her pile of clothes and pulled on her leather jacket with fringe. It wasn’t warm enough for today’s weather, but she didn’t have time to find another coat.

Five minutes later she stepped out of the Nowhere and walked across the street. One car, the sheriff’s cruiser, was in the café’s parking lot. The lunch run was long past being over. She wasn’t surprised he’d kept to his word.

Brandi was shivering when she made it to the table in the back where he sat alone. “This place still open?” she asked.

He looked up from his cell phone. She caught the surprise in his eyes before he glanced away.

“I’m buying your lunch, Sheriff. You have a problem with that?”

“No.” He stood and moved his hat off the empty chair. “You think you could call me Dan? I don’t think of myself as on duty while I’m eating.”

She slowly slipped into the place across from him and stared at the menu. Most men, including her father, were liars or manipulators. But this one had something about him that said he could be trusted, at least as long as lunch, anyway. All she had to figure out was if Sheriff Dan Brigman was what he seemed. Not that she planned to stay around long, but at least if those honest eyes were true, she might start to believe in people again.

It might be fun to eat a meal with someone for a change. She could pretend to be happy, and interested and normal.

She glanced at the menu for a few seconds more, then ordered the lunch special when the waitress appeared. The girl looked tired, or maybe bored, and wasn’t overly concerned with the last two customers in the place.

When the waitress went back through the kitchen door before it stopped swinging from her arrival, Brandi was suddenly aware that she was alone with the sheriff.

“You look exactly like the woman I pictured would be wearing that boot,” he said, as if trying to start a conversation.

“How’s that?”

“Wild and free. Beautiful.” He glanced down, twirling a chip in the tiny bowl of hot sauce.

There was that shy smile again, she thought. Another hint that the sheriff might be one of the real people in this world of marionettes. “You don’t mind if I’m wild, do you? I’d think a thing like that might make a sheriff nervous.”

“Nope. I don’t mind. You’re the kind of beautiful that could haunt a man’s dreams, Brandi Malone. Being wild just adds spice to perfection.”

No one had said such a nice thing to her in years. He seemed to be seeing her as she wanted to be. Wild and free, she almost whispered aloud.

To prove him right, Brandi leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.

When she pulled away she whispered, “You taste like salsa, Sheriff.”

He just stared, and she swore she could be hypnotized by those steel-blue eyes.

Brandi ate one of his chips dipped in the hot sauce, then took a drink of his iced tea. He just kept watching her. No one had accused her of being wild and free for years, and she loved it. She loved the version of herself she saw in his eyes.