The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “This better be worth dragging me out—”

  Stern gestured toward the computer with the red end of his cigarette. “Someone’s been messing with your kinky screensaver.”

  Peter stalked around the desk and dropped into his chair. The benign desktop looked normal and unthreatening. “What?”

  “Just wait.” Stern nudged the mouse to take the monitor out of energy saver mode.

  A soft hum from the clock on the desk was the only sound that broke the silence until the screen flickered, went dark, then glowed again as a picture formed of a naked young girl sprawled on satin sheets. She went into her routine and sweat broke out on Peter’s forehead.

  The program featured a varied menu, but this was his favorite. The camera moved in closer and her lashes lifted. She licked red lips. “You like this, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he muttered, tugging at his top shirt button. She rolled onto her back again, but here the familiar sequence took a strange turn. The video cam homed in on her mouth, moving in tighter and tighter until her crimson lips filled the whole screen.

  “I know all about you, Peter,” she said. “I know…all…about…you.”

  “What the—” He started up out of the chair, but Stern’s hand came down on his shoulder, forcing him back down.

  “She’s not done.”

  The camera zoomed out again as she rolled back onto her stomach and gave him a sultry smile. “And soon everyone else will, too.”

  Then the screen went blank.

  Peter looked at Stern.

  He blew smoke out his mouth and nose. “Was it worth it?”

  * * * *

  Jake rubbed the back of his neck. His other hand was wrapped around a waist so small, his fingers reached past her spine. He needed time to figure out what had just happened. He didn’t get time. She was in his arms, in his face. And she smelled great. Like really fresh flowers.

  Almost as tall as he was, the body brushing against his went in and out where it was supposed to and did it with extreme prejudice. Something red hugged her breasts. A brief bit of denim played second skin to her hips. Bare flesh above and below. Long legs disappearing into boots. Smooth dark hair, except for the crease from her hat. Face done up to look cheap, failing to look anything but classy. Her features were too cleanly cut, her dark eyes too intelligent. Her mouth—

  Better not go down that road, Kirby.

  He blinked and took a mental step back. His body wasn’t responding yet.

  “Sorry,” Phoebe said, staring into eyes a cool blue drink of water. Eyes that gave but also took. An intriguing sleight of eyes if you had nothing to hide.

  She had plenty to hide.

  She spread her hands defensively across his chest, feeling heat push through the soft cotton of his shirt as she applied enough pressure to put a little air between their bodies. Instinct had her curving up the edges of her mouth and putting on her bedroom look, the way a wild thing donned protective cover. Adrenaline did a rising scale along her nerve endings as her hands did a slow slid down cotton and muscle, then dropped clear.

  “I’m not.” The grin he followed this with managed to be both wicked and little-boy innocent. It also packed about a thousand watts of charm.

  “Phoebe?”

  Earl’s plaintive whine cut between them with all the delicacy of a chain saw. Instead of relief, she felt regret as their eyes broke contact. Earl had her hat in hand and a mournful expression pulled down his face.

  “Thanks, Earl.” She took the hat, rammed it on top of her head and adjusted the angle. The brief respite gave her confidence to look at the stranger again. “Sorry bout almost mowing you, cowboy.”

  “You can mow me anytime you want, Reb.”

  Against her design, her smile lost its provocative edge, and the shadows in her soul retreated, leaving a girl looking at guy looking at a girl.

  Damn the boy was cute—looked good enough to eat, drink and be merry with.

  If only—

  If only every single thing in her life were different? Who was she kidding? Guys came to the bar looking for a slam, bam, thank you, ma’am. Just because this one looked like a heart wouldn’t melt in his eyes didn’t make it so.

  She made herself turn away from his might-have-been eyes and tasty mouth, made her heart turn away from the dangerous promise of safety he gave off like after-shave. “If you boys’ll excuse me, I got a set to play.”

  Jake watched Phoebe slip into the crowd, then looked at Earl. Dogs looked like Earl when they begged. He looked in the mirror behind the bar and saw the same expression on his face.

  Not good. He’d learned to read eyes and body language, but Phoebe shape-shifted like a kaleidoscope, the changes so fast his impressions were disjointed and laced with lust. Only thing he was sure about: there was a great huge well of sadness at her center. Even when she smiled her eyes were shadowed, as if she already knew that life sucked and always would for her.

  He saw Bryn watching him. It helped him find his focus. Reminded him he wasn’t here to feel desire or pity. Phoebe Mentel was connected to JR’s. JR’s was connected, somehow, to Phagan and Dewey Hyatt. That’s all that mattered.

  “Looks like we’ll have to postpone further contact till after the show,” Bryn said when he rejoined her.

  Jake nodded, lifted his beer to take a real drink and felt a change ripple through the crowd. He looked up, turning to face the stage. Without ceremony, the band launched into their first number, a fast-paced piece about small towns on a Saturday night that made the rowdy crowd theirs even before the chorus.

  The band members were a good looking bunch of people, the guys as poster pretty as Phoebe, but it was more than that or the audience’s level of intoxication, Jake decided, that lifted their competent musical rendering into something damn near mesmerizing.

  It wasn’t easy to hang on, to focus, with Phoebe so easy on the eye and the music pushing out thought for feeling, but after a time Jake found the group’s interaction interesting enough to mute the call to the senses they sent out as they worked their way through songs, slow and fast, old and new, mixed with the occasional request.

  The men were cocky, but seemed able to table ego when they changed lead singers to get the right sound. They constantly interacted with the audience to keep it pumped. Jesse, the eldest appeared to be in charge. Phoebe stayed toward the back of the stage, so it took him a while to realize she was the one running the show.

  Throughout the set, Earl stayed front and center before the stage, paying bizarre homage to Phoebe with his doughy body. Sometimes he sang along, his voice both loud and bad. In his tight jeans, greenhorn boots and too new hat, he sweated until the thin wisps of his hair plastered to his white skin.

  Toward the end of the set, Jesse Mentel, a big, shaggy man with a huge white smile, stopped the music with a gesture. He leaned into the microphone, said with easy confidence, “Everybody having a good time?”

  The audience responded with enthusiasm.

  “Good enough. Time to introduce us to you. Have to before I get too drunk to remember who the hell we are.” Egged on by the stamping of many feet, he took a long drink from his beer. “On keyboard—damn it, boy, where—” He turned in a listing circle, “oh, there you are. How’d you get back there? Never mind, this here’s my little brother, Leg.”

  Leg waved from his keyboard, then did some fancy stuff on the keys. He was young, lean and blond, with a cocky mustache and matching attitude. His smile lit his green eyes and beamed good will all the way to the back of the hall.

  A young woman answered its siren call. “He single?”

  “Totally single and alone only when he has to be. You can leave your phone number and vital statistics in the tin cup here at the front of the stage, little darlin’.”

  The guys groaned, and the girls laughed.

  “On bass guitar is my other little brother, Mert—who also has needs.”

  Mert touched his hat, his smile sweet and hopeful. His long f
ingers moved in an intricate riff across his guitar strings.

  “On drum is my cousin, Toes. And let me assure you, ladies, he didn’t get his nickname for playing drum with his feet.”

  Toes grinned wickedly from his place behind the drums. His hair was blond, too, and reached half way down his back. Like those of his cousins his eyes and his smile were unashamed come-taste-me. He flipped his hair off his face, bent over his drums, and pounded out a short, pagan, mini solo that had the women rocking and stamping up puffs of dust from the floor.

  “I’ll take one of him,” a girl called out.

  “Nothing he likes more than being taken—unless it’s taking, sweet thing,” Jesse assured her with a good-natured leer. He took another swig of beer, wiped his mouth and said, “I’m, uh, oh, yeah, Jesse. I sing and play a little fiddle when called for.” He played a few clear notes. “All together we’re Cattle Call.”

  “Uh, you forgot Phoebe Ann again,” Toes said into his mike, giving his hair another flip.

  Jesse turned to Phoebe with a start, then swept his hat off and over his heart. “Damn, girl, I’m sorry—”

  “Sorriest man I know,” Phoebe said, leaning into her mike.

  He put his hat back on and grinned. “Ah, hell, you know I was just fooling. I couldn’t never forget the shining light of Cattle Call, our lead guitarist, my wife—”

  Jake’s hand tightened involuntarily around his beer.

  “Ex-wife,” she inserted.

  Jesse’s grin was loaded for bear. “I keep forgetting, honey. It was such a friendly divorce.”

  She rested her arms on her guitar and looked reflective. “True. You got friendly with that waitress—and I got a divorce.”

  The crowd whooped and hollered their delight.

  Jesse rubbed the back of his neck and looked rueful. “But you still love me, don’t you, darlin’?”

  “Course I do, honey—now that I don’t have to live with you.”

  “Ouch!” He threw up his hands in a mock surrender. “Lead guitar, the lovely—shrew, uh, sweetheart—Phoebe Ann.”

  Phoebe laughed, then bent to play her solo riff. She was good, better than her companions were, her fingers plucking the strings with a technical precision that pleased without quite satisfying.

  It might be imagination, Jake thought, that she seemed to hold something back. The riff was, after all, just a bit of flash to take the dull out of the introductions. But it wasn’t imagination that Jesse’s smile was edged with intimacy when he held out a hand to Phoebe and said, “Let’s sing, girl.”

  She took his hand and let him draw her into the spotlight next to him, her answering smile affectionate. Her hair fell across her face when she bent over her guitar, plucking the strings with a haunting delicacy as she led off. Jesse started the vocal, his deep, soothing bass perfect for the wistful song about love spurned. At the refrain, Phoebe’s voice blended neatly with Jesse’s, sweetly husky, strangely familiar, as if Jake had heard her sing this song before.

  On the next verse she started the vocal, her lightly Southern phrasing a pleasing underpinning to the melody line. On the dance floor, lovers leaned into each other, swaying in place amid the smoke and dust making eddies on the plank flooring. Caught up in the thrall of her wistful stage presence, Jake didn’t find Earl quite as pathetic. The music, her voice, her sad eyes, all made her performance seem personal and intimate, as if she sang only to him.

  Jake turned his back to the stage, to her, and leaned on the bar. He wrapped his hand around his cold bottle and wished he could apply it to his face. Wouldn’t his brother Matt hoot if he could see Jake trying not to moon over a honky-tonk singer who was also a suspect? In fact, his gut had just moved her to the head of the line.

  He lifted the bottle and drank because he needed something cool and wet running down his dry throat. Behind him Phoebe started singing a song about taking it like a man. Jake downed half the bottle, but it didn’t near do the job. He set the beer down just as the bar keep thrust a plastic cup filled with electric pink fluid at him.

  “I didn’t order that.”

  “The lady bought it for you.” He pointed down the bar to a barely dressed blonde. She lifted a matching cup to him and wet her pouting lips. Beside him Bryn choked. Behind him the husky sex in Phoebe’s amplified voice hit him in waves. Jake swallowed and said to the keep, “What is it?”

  The keep grinned. “A Hot Damn.”

  Jake looked at the blonde who leaned on the bar, her upper arms squeezing the sides of her breasts until they nearly popped out of her shirt. Bryn turned away, her shoulders shaking. Phoebe repeated the refrain about taking it like man.

  Jake rubbed the back of his neck and wished for a cold shower.

  * * * *

  Phoebe left her guitar for the guys to stow and jumped off the stage, moving fast to avoid another encounter with the incoming Earl. She ducked through a door marked Management Only, circling the storage room to her office. Inside, she flicked on the light, closed the door and leaned against it.

  Her blood still hummed, her heart still pounded with the buzz of performing. The guys used the buzz as foreplay for sex, but she couldn’t afford to let her motor get so revved that it took over her thinking and had her acting on her impulses. Celibacy kept things simple. It kept her safe. Until tonight, she’d never been tempted to change that.

  She pushed away from the door and reached for her water bottle, but it was empty. She threw it at the trash can, circled the desk and sank onto the stool in front of a spotted mirror hanging over a small shelf. Instead of her reflection, she saw the cowboy with the high-voltage smile and might-have-been eyes.

  He ought to be required to wear a bag over his head, she decided. He ought to have to register his mouth as a lethal weapon. She traced her own mouth, thinking of his. Guys shouldn’t be allowed to have mouths that yummy. It wasn’t as if he didn’t already have the advantage in the battle of the sexes with his good-guy face and tousled dark hair. Her throat went tight with longing. Not good. She gave herself a shake.

  She’d have to turn her thinking down less inflammatory paths or she was gonna burn to ash and blow clean away. Think about the game, girl, only the game.

  It had got her through worse things than an attack of lust.

  * * * *

  Peter’s computer went dark. Having spewed its poison, it subsided back into a state of indifferent neutrality. Peter wasn’t as lucky. His face ashen, he looked at Stern.

  “Don’t sweat it,” Stern said. “If they had anything, they’d have used it by now. They’re gas-lighting you to try to shake your past loose.”

  “They? Or she?” Peter rubbed his face. Was it possible, after all these years?

  “Nadine?” Stern shrugged. “Maybe. Or could be that guy you told me Kerry Anne was dating.”

  “The geek. Makes sense. He was into computers big-time even way back then.” Peter’s expression turned ugly. “I shouldn’t have let him get away.”

  “Shit happens.” Stern crushed his cigarette out in an ashtray.

  “Not to me,” Peter snapped. He rubbed his face again. “Can you fix this computer?” Stern had a bit of geek in him, too.

  He flexed his fingers. “It’s only a screensaver, and you were going to get rid of it anyway, weren’t you?”

  Peter avoided his gaze. “Of course.”

  THREE

  The bar emptied soon after the last set ended, a whining Earl nudged out by the bar keep. Bryn homed in on Jesse, who finished stowing their equipment and headed for the door to one side of the bar. She plucked him off course with one bat of her lashes, then let him lead her through the door marked for management. This left Jake alone with the bar keep.

  Jake leaned companionably on the bar and sipped his soft drink, watching the guy clean up with quick, practiced movements. When the guy moved into range, Jake held out his hand. “The name’s Jake.”

  He got a wary look with the reluctant shake. “Chet.”

  “Pleased to
meet you. Since I’m driving, how about a Coke for the road?”

  Chet found one and shoved it toward Jake. “Two dollars.”

  “Thanks.” Jake paid and popped the top, taking a drink before asking, “So, is JR in?”

  Chet looked up. “JR isn’t in much. You looking for work?”

  “You got any?” Music still filtered through Jake’s mind. His fingers tapped the beat on the wooden surface of the bar.

  “Phoebe does all the hiring and firing.”

  “Really? She’s the guitarist in the band, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How is she to work for?”

  “Phoebe’s okay, but the pay isn’t great. JR’s a tight-fisted Texan.” Chet looked morose as he polished the bar.

  “What about bands? You book them?”

  Chet shook his head. “JR takes care of that. He manages Cattle Call, too. When they tour, usually in the summer, he books in replacements. They’ve stuck close to home this year though.”

  Jake nodded, holding back a yawn, as he made a mental note to compare the band’s past tours with Phagan heists. This kind of chat was the lifeblood of an investigation, but it was also boring. “I appreciate the info, man. Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Sure.” Chet found himself a beer. “You want anything else?”

  “I’ll just finish my Coke. But how about something for Phoebe? Whatever she usually drinks.”

  Chet looked at Jake. “You want to buy Phoebe a drink?”

  “It isn’t against the law, is it?”

  “You gonna ask her about a job?”

  “Maybe.”

  “She don’t screw around.”

  Jake looked up from his wallet. “I don’t screw around either.”

  “If I was you, I’d tell her that right away—” Chet slid a Diet Coke to Jake and took his money.

  “Tell me what right away?”

  Jake and Chet turned together. Phoebe stood at the end of the bar with her hands on her hips.

  “That I bought you a drink.” Jake popped the top on her can and held it out with a friendly smile. “Chet here seems to think that’ll piss you off.”