“Old home week,” Rye said.
Austin laid a hand on Pearl’s shoulder. “We’re going to find a table. I’m hungry and I just stayed on that bull for eight seconds. Come around the watermelon farm and see me sometime.”
“Aunt Pearlita told me you’d inherited the place and had given up your fancy job to run it. Tell the truth, I wasn’t even shocked. Is the phone number still the same at the house?”
“It is. Call me,” Austin said.
Rye led her away to a table with Maddie and Gemma right behind them. Colleen lingered behind with Pearl to play a few minutes of catch-up.
“Tomorrow night we eat before rodeo because I’m not riding and because right after Tracy Lawrence is going to perform and I’m dancing the leather off of a bunch of good lookin’ cowboys’ boots,” Gemma said.
“And what do we do all day tomorrow?” Austin asked.
Rye raised an eyebrow.
“Harry Hines Boulevard,” Gemma said.
Rye groaned.
“You can go play golf with your father or shoot the breeze with your buddies here at the club. We are shopping,” Maddie said firmly.
“What time and Harry who?”
“It’s this amazing string of stores where we buy purses, jewelry, and bling-bling clothes for the season. You can get anything from swords to lingerie,” Maddie said. “It’s actually a street, not a place but that’s what we all call it. You’re going to love it.”
Chapter 19
The elevator was full so Rye and Austin decided to take the stairs up to their hotel rooms. The kissing started on the stairwell. By the second floor Austin was backed up to the wall with her arms around his neck. He had a handful of jean-covered butt cheek in each hand and was wishing they’d taken the elevator. When they reached the third floor she was panting. By the fourth he was laughing and had her black silk bra hanging out of his hip pocket like a flag. His shirt was unbuttoned and pulled out of his jeans.
At the top floor her belt was undone and the top button of her jeans opened. They looked both ways for family traffic before they rushed into his room and tore the rest of each other’s clothing off. Austin had doubts that they could have sex anywhere but in Verline’s house but evidently it was okay in the hotel because no one called, the bulls didn’t get out, and neither Wil nor Ace needed a place to get in out of the rain. It was one of those fast and furious sessions like the night she’d wrapped her long legs around his body and he’d taken her up against the kitchen wall.
“Whew!” Austin exclaimed as she pulled the sheet up under her arms. The cold air coming from the ceiling right above the bed chilled her sweaty body.
Rye slipped one arm under her and one over her. “Which was better? The concert or this?”
“Oh, honey, there’s no comparison. Tracy Lawrence is good. Sex with you is damn wonderful.”
Before he could say another word his cell phone lit up and started ringing.
Got that one past you, didn’t I, Granny? she thought. You must’ve been planting watermelons out on heaven’s back forty and didn’t realize the rodeo and concert was over.
He looked at the clock. “If that’s Gemma at two o’clock in the morning, she’s in big trouble. Yes?” Rye answered the phone with one word that had ice hanging from it. He listened intently forever in Austin’s time then said, “I’m so sorry. I’ll take care of it. You take care of that child and call me tomorrow when you know more.”
Chill bumps popped up on her arms and she dreaded hearing the news. “What?”
“One of Kent’s boys fell out the window in his bedroom. They have no idea what he was doing but when he fell he hit his arm on a big rock right below the window. They took him straight to Nocona but it’s a compound fracture and they sent him to Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City. Kent was calling from there. They’re taking him into surgery and Kent won’t be able to do chores in the morning. I’ll have to leave really early,” he explained.
“I’m not sleepy but I will be at that time of the morning. Let’s go now. Besides, the traffic will be horrid early in the morning.”
“You sure?” Rye asked.
“Absolutely. I’ll leave a message for Gemma and your folks at the front desk. Without traffic we can be home in a couple of hours, maybe less.” She hopped out of bed and dressed as she talked.
“It makes sense.”
“I’m going back to my room. I’ll have my things together in fifteen minutes and meet you in the lobby. We can be home before daybreak.”
Sure enough, when he stepped out of the elevator she was at the front desk checking out and leaving a note for Gemma. Traffic was light and they were through the congested part of Dallas in record time. When they turned back to the west in McKinney it thinned out even more. They were on the south side of Montague with home about half an hour ahead when Rye saw the red, white, and blue lights flashing in his rearview mirror.
He immediately checked the speedometer but he was barely going the limit. He looked over at Austin who’d already spotted the lights. Her seat belt as well as his was firmly fastened. He eased off the gas and pulled into a parking spot right beside the courthouse thinking that the officer would breeze on past them. But he nosed into the parking spot right beside them and a policeman came running down the sidewalk from the courthouse in front of Rye’s truck with a drawn gun. The one in the car got out slowly, gun in his hand, and pointed at the driver’s side window.
“Roll down the window. Put both hands outside the window and open the door with your right hand.”
“You too!” the other one said to Austin.
“What is going on, Officer?” Rye asked.
“Do what I say. You and the woman with you. Get out easy and don’t make any sudden moves. Now put your hands on the truck and spread your legs.”
“What did I do?”
“Do what I say right now!” the officer barked.
Handcuffs came right after a frisk job. Then they marched them across the lawn and into a cell together.
“Now back up to the bars and I’ll take off the cuffs. You have the right to remain silent…” He read them their rights as he unlocked the cuffs.
When he finished he said, “You are both under arrest for drug trafficking.”
Rye couldn’t believe his ears. “What!”
“We’ve got you both dead to rights. The drug dog has already hit on your truck. Get comfortable. Come daylight we’ll book you formally in front of the judge.”
“Who do you think I am?” Rye asked.
“You’ve got a dozen names that you go by but your real name is John Jones. That’s the one your fingerprints match. Tall, dark-haired, green eyes, cowboy dresser, black truck with Oklahoma tags. Numbers match. Drug dogs don’t lie. Tomorrow we’ll have the Bureau down here to tear that truck apart for drugs.”
Rye pulled out his billfold. “This is my driver’s license. I am Rye O’Donnell. I own a ranch in Terral, Oklahoma. This is Austin Lanier who operates a watermelon farm in Terral.”
“John has lots of identities.”
“Bring a fingerprint kit in here. I can prove I’m not John Jones.”
“Who am I supposed to be?” Austin asked calmly.
The fact that she wasn’t screaming and yelling surprised her. Two months before she would have been mortified, but she’d ridden a bull for eight seconds, spent two wonderful nights in Rye’s bed, and been shopping on Harry Hines Boulevard. Jail was just another candle on the cake.
“You are his wife, Loretta.”
“Actually, I like that name, Rye. Can I keep it?”
He shot her a look that made her laugh harder. “You got Loretta’s fingerprints on file too?”
“Oh, yes, and yours are going to match hers perfectly. Tall, dark-haired, good lookin’ broad with big blue eyes.”
“And what did I do?”
“You’ve been running drugs with your husband up and down I-35 from Dallas to Wichita, Kansas, for five years.”
&n
bsp; “Then why are we in Montague and not on 35?”
“Thought us backwoods cops wouldn’t catch that tag number, I suppose. Little detour cost you though. Now we’ve got you.”
Austin sat down on the bench and pulled out her cell phone.
“You have to surrender that to me.”
“I’m entitled to one phone call,” she said.
“Not until you are formally arrested. Give it.” He stuck his hand through the bars and she handed it to him. “Now give me everything in your pockets and all your jewelry. Both of you.” He turned to the other officer and said, “Get me two envelopes and a pen. We should’ve done this before we put ’em in the cell.”
They put their valuables into the envelopes and watched the officer label the outside.
“If you lose that necklace you will be very, very sorry. I just bought it on Harry Hines Boulevard and if one silver bead is damaged I’m taking it out of your hide,” Austin said.
“Darlin’, where you will be spending the next forty years, they don’t let the ladies wear necklaces,” he said seriously.
The officers left and Austin started to giggle.
Rye slumped down on one of the two narrow benches and put his head in his hands. “What a mess!”
Austin sat on the bench right next to him and grabbed his hand. “You really know how to give a girl an exciting weekend. Rodeo, bull riding, concert, two fantastic nights of passion, and now jail.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
“Sarcastic, hell! I can’t wait to tell my mother. I was just about to wake her up from a dead sleep and tell her I’m sitting in a tiny little town’s jail because you and I just became the new Bonnie and Clyde. That we are going to rob the bank in Nocona soon as we can chew our way out of this jail cell. I bet that hickey wouldn’t look so damned bad anymore if I could’ve made that call.”
“You are amazing.”
“Why? Just think of the stories I can tell Molly and Greta this week. I’m calling Molly first thing when we get out of here before you can tell Kent.” She threw a long leg over one of his legs and one over the other and straddled his lap.
He brushed a soft, sweet kiss across her lips. “What?”
“Here’s the way it goes. Whatever you tell Kent he tells Oma Fay who calls Pearlita and then she tells Molly and Greta. They feel like shirttail kin since they never get any firsthand news so they can lord it over Oma Fay and Pearlita, so this time I’m giving them the whole jail story before you have time to tell Kent. It’s a hell of a lot better than anything Oma Fay knew first about us before now.”
“Austin Lanier, I’m in love with you.” There, he’d said it and she could never say that it wasn’t a memorable night when she first heard the words.
She smiled and her blue eyes sparkled. “Rye O’Donnell, I don’t only love you. I’m in love with you too.”
He pulled her face to his in a long, lingering kiss. His heart was thumping around like he’d been on a bull eight seconds. She’d said that she loved him, that she was in love with him. Hell, he didn’t mind being in jail. He could spend the rest of his life with her in his lap and her lips on his.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“I can think of lots of things,” she murmured in his ear. “I’m wearing black lace underpants. Want to see if you can get them off before the guard comes back to check on us?”
“You are killin’ me again. Look up there. Even in a town this small there’s a camera on us,” he said.
“Think Mother would disown me if we made a porn film right here with nothing but a bench?”
He laughed and hugged her tightly. “If she took the dealership away from you because of a hickey, I reckon she might.”
“I do love you, Rye, and I don’t really give a damn if they can see us making out.” She pulled his face down for a long kiss.
“I love you too, Austin,” he murmured.
“Greta and Molly will have to know that you told me you loved me the very first time in a jail cell. I have to share.”
“Honey, I’ll stand on top of the water tower in Terral with a bullhorn and tell the whole world.” He laughed.
“Okay, kiss me again and hold me while I rest my eyes a little bit.”
He gave her one that came close to steaming up the camera lens and she could have sworn she heard Verline giggling as she cuddled down into his shoulder and shut her heavy eyelids.
Rye tried leaning back but the wall was too hard, so finally he leaned to one side and rested his cheek on the top of her head and fell asleep. There was going to be some almighty embarrassed police officers the next day when they found that they did not have John and Loretta Jones in their jail cell.
An hour later the police officers rattled the jail cell door and Austin jerked awake with such force that she butted Rye’s forehead.
“We’re going to fingerprint you both now.” The tall bald one had an apparatus in his hand.
“How do you want to do this?” the other shorter, rounder one asked. He was probably the one who fed the dog powdered sugar donuts.
“Make her stick her hand out the bars. She was talking about escaping and whispering so low we couldn’t hear it on the cameras. She’s probably got a plan.”
“I demand my phone call or I’m not giving you jack squat,” Austin said. “This has gone beyond funny into ridiculous. So if you want to avoid a court scandal, you’d best give me a cell phone and let me have my call.”
“Ah, give her the call,” Tall man said.
“You are the senior officer.” Short fellow pulled his own phone from his shirt pocket and handed it to her.
Austin poked in the numbers and waited. It was still an hour before daybreak. She hoped that Molly wasn’t asleep.
“Hello, Greta. I’m ready. Just honk when you get to the front yard.”
“Molly, it’s not Greta. It’s Austin and I need your help.” She went on to tell Molly what had happened.
When she finished she handed the phone back to Barney and cooperated while they fingerprinted her. They wouldn’t know who she was but they’d damn know who she wasn’t when they ran them.
“Okay, Loretta, why did you call Molly?” Rye wiped at the blue ink on his fingers with a wet toilette.
“Well, John, darlin’ it’s like this: if anyone can get us out of the joint, Molly can. She’ll bring one of those automatics that shoot a million bullets an hour and bust us out. They don’t call her Mugsie for nothing, you know. Call me Loretta Bonnie from now on. And you are John Clyde.” She resumed her earlier position curled up in his lap. “I figure I can get about thirty minutes before Mugsie busts in here and breaks us out. Go to sleep. We’ll need it when we’re on the run.”
The end was rather anticlimactic. Half an hour later Molly and Greta hit the police station with enough force to give two policemen weeklong migraines, demanding that they let them see Austin, who could hear the commotion through the shut door into the jail’s front office.
By then the fingerprints had shown that they definitely did not have John and Loretta Jones in custody. And a more careful investigation of the truck showed the only place the drug dog would hit was the license tag. They’d pulled a single print from the bumper that matched Loretta Jones’. When they checked the VIN number of Rye’s truck against the truck tag it came up wrong, proving that someone had switched car tags with them in Texas.
They put out a “be on the lookout” warning on the real truck tags only to hear back in five minutes from a hotel owner in Duncan. Police surrounded the room to find an elderly couple who owned the black truck and had been to the rodeo in Mesquite with their grandchildren.
Molly and Greta were so excited to be there when the officers finally let Rye and Austin go that they insisted on treating them to breakfast at the Dairy Queen in Nocona, only nine miles up the road.
“I’m so sorry I had to call you this early. Other than my mother’s and Rye’s I couldn’t remember another phone number except yours
and I figured you’d find me a lawyer,” Austin said when found a booth in the Dairy Queen.
“Honey, this is the best day of our week. We can’t wait to call Oma Fay when we get home,” Greta said.
“Hell, I got to yell at a policeman. I almost made him wet his britches,” Molly said.
Greta threw an arm around Molly. “We done good for a couple of old women.”
“You sure did,” Austin said.
Under the table, Rye gently squeezed Austin’s thigh.
“Did Austin tell you that she’s thinking of changing her name to Loretta and she’s going to start staking out banks to rob?” Rye asked.
Molly’s eyes glittered. “I’ll drive the getaway car and Greta can be the watchdog.”
“Don’t call me a dog.”
“It’s better than calling you a bitch.”
Rye burst out laughing.
Austin couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so much at something that should’ve made her mad enough to burn the watermelon farm and catch the next flight to Tulsa.
Chapter 20
After the jail incident Austin settled into a busy but comfortable rut where she worked hard all week, watched watermelons grow, and went to Mesquite on weekends. She talked to her mother several times a week, to Rye every day, and to Molly and Greta on Fridays. Summer was wetter than normal so the melons were full and ripe by the end of June and that weekend the harvest was so busy that she could not get away to go to the rodeo.
Rye caught up to her on his way out of town that Thursday evening at the watermelon shed just east of town. She’d been driving the converted old school bus back and forth from the fields all day to the shed. Dust and sweat beads had combined to give her a dirt necklace. Her hair hung limp with the humidity and her cut-off overalls looked as if they’d been dusted with red powder.
He gathered her into his arms, planting kisses all over her face.
She giggled. “I’m so dirty. You’ll be filthy when you get to the hotel.”
“I don’t care.” He kissed her eyelids, the tip of her nose, nibbled on her neck, and ran his hand up her sweaty back. “I hate to go without you. I love you so much.”
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