Cowboy Secrets

by Alice Sharpe

  “I was wrong,” she said, darting a glance up to his eyes. “I don’t want it to end like this. I don’t know, I think I got scared. I think I started worrying that I was getting in over my head and that you and I—”

  He took a step outside to cup her face and draw her to him. He kissed her into silence and then he kissed her again. She grabbed his shirt at the shoulders and pulled him closer. For a moment it was LA revisited, the sensation of her body pressed into his, the sweet smell of her skin, heated desire overwhelming everything.

  “Come inside,” he finally said, and pulled her though the door, where he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again and again.

  She finally pushed him away. Her lips were hot now, her eyes filled with the same lust that swelled in his body. And then she said, “What’s that noise?” and reality flooded back.

  He stepped aside to reveal Daisy lying on her dog bed, the proud mother of nine tiny, snuffling, mostly yellow puppies, although there were a couple of brown ones, as well. Sinbad had flown up to the mantel when Sierra knocked and now surveyed the proceedings with his superior yellow gaze.

  “Oh, my gosh,” she said. “When did this happen?”

  “During the wedding. Daisy had to usher her family into the world all by herself.”

  “Maybe Sinbad offered emotional support,” Sierra said.

  He smiled. “Somehow I doubt it.”

  Sierra released his hand and walked over to sit down next to the dog bed. “Look at you with your babies,” she said to Daisy, who appeared a tad bewildered. Sierra touched one tiny ear with the tip of her finger. “So soft!”

  “Go ahead, pick one up,” Pike said as he kneeled beside her and rested his butt on his heels.

  “They’re too tiny! I might hurt it.”

  “You won’t hurt it,” he said gently.

  She carefully lifted the plump puppy with both hands and cuddled it against her chest, under her chin. “It’s so sweet, Pike,” she said and her voice held a note of tenderness that raced through his veins like a shot of whiskey. Daisy’s ears perked up when Sierra put the baby back where she’d found it. The dog immediately began licking away all the human cooties.

  “I was just about to go to bed,” Pike said, curling a tendril of Sierra’s hair around his finger. “It’s been an awfully long day.”

  “May I stay here for the rest of the night?” she asked, looking up at him.

  “It depends. Where do you want to sleep?”

  “With you,” she said. “I want to sleep in your bed with you.”

  He stood, then reached down and grabbed her hands, pulling her to her feet. He slowly lowered the zipper on her jacket and peeled it away from her sweater, dropping it onto an armchair, then he lifted her into his arms. The master bedroom was at the far end of the barn, a huge room filled with his grandmother’s antique furniture. He set her down in front of the four-poster bed.

  “We didn’t turn off the house lights,” she said, gesturing toward the hall.

  “To hell with the lights.” He pulled her sweater over her head and discovered she hadn’t worn a bra. The sight of her beautiful skin and the perfect globes of her breasts shot heat into his groin. “Let them burn all night,” he whispered as he lowered his head to taste each pebble-hard nipple.

  * * *

  SIERRA’S RINGING PHONE woke her the next morning and she sat up straight like a shot, yanked from yet another bizarre dream. It was still dark outside, but a houseful of lights shone through the open door into the bedroom, and she dug her phone from the pile of discarded clothes on the floor.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” Tess said. “I saw that you texted in the middle of the night on Pike’s phone. Where are you?”

  “I didn’t want you to...uh, worry about me,” Sierra stammered. It was cold standing naked outside the covers. “I’m at Pike’s house. His dog had puppies and I wanted, well, to see them.”

  “Oh,” Tess said, and if she saw through the flimsy lie, she kept it to herself. “Well, Dad says to tell you we’re leaving in one hour.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  She clicked off the phone and prepared to turn to face the bed, but before she could move, Pike grasped her from behind and tugged her back under the blankets. Both of them laughed until the blazing awareness that flared between them stole the smiles away.

  “I have to get back to the ranch house,” she said as he covered her body with his own. His strong arms pinned her in place and she rubbed her hands over his muscles.

  He looked down into her eyes. “Do you have ten minutes to spare?”

  “I can give you five,” she murmured with a slow smile, distracted by the way their bodies melted together.

  “Then we’d better get to it,” he said, burying his face in her neck.

  * * *

  PIKE STOOD ON the ranch road and watched Doug’s rental turn onto the highway and speed off toward Boise. He thought he saw Sierra wave through the back window, but he wasn’t sure. He got back in his truck and headed to the main house.

  He’d wanted to drive her to Boise himself, but she’d refused. Better they should say goodbye at the ranch, she insisted, and besides, she had to talk to Tess about Raoul. She had a point.

  The best antidote for the uneasiness that just wouldn’t go away was work, and that was why he’d made plans with Frankie to help pack up the film crew, who were also leaving today. First he went home, fed Sinbad, checked on Daisy and her brood, saddled Sierra’s mare and rode her back to the ranch. When he got there, he found the crew still eating breakfast. He went out to the barn and helped Chance clean up from the night before, until Lily asked him to drive Charlie to his school bus. For a few moments, Pike stood alone.

  He and Sierra had made no big promises, no vows of undying love, no plans to ever see each other again, and yet he knew he wouldn’t last long before he needed to hold her in his arms. However, there was a very real concern in his heart that she would get home, that her life would consume her and that as the days and weeks passed, she would write him off as a fling she once had with a cowboy.

  The crew eventually started hauling their equipment out into the yard. Once again as Pike joked around with them and helped them with their things, he could not wrap his head around one of them feeding information to that disgruntled former employee. He asked a couple of semileading questions as he helped stow their gear, but no one rose to any kind of bait.

  After they’d left, it was Pike’s turn to drive out to distribute hay to the cattle with Frankie and his dad. By the time he got back to the ranch, the day was getting old and he checked his phone. One text from Sierra since her phone had obviously started working once she got back to “civilization.”

  Caught an early plane. Thank goodness. Have stopovers in every little Podunk city between here and home.

  Not in the mood for company, he declined dinner at his dad’s house and drove home. He hadn’t seen Gerard and Kinsey all day—hadn’t expected to. This was their honeymoon, after all, or the only one they would get until a break between calving and summer chores would take them to Hawaii for two weeks. He envied them and not just for the warm weather.

  The barn was very still. Daisy roused from a nap as he built a fire and contemplated the evening ahead. A knock on the door served as a poignant reminder of a similar knock in the middle of the night, and he opened it with his heart in his throat. Officer Robert Hendricks stood on the threshold.

  “Come on in. I’ll get you a beer while you admire Daisy’s new family,” Pike said.

  “I’ll take water instead,” Robert said. “I’m still on duty. Hey, look at all of these cuties. Do you have homes for them yet?”

  “Nope.”

  Pike handed Robert a glass of water and took a swallow from a beer bottle while Robert peered
at each of the babies. “Save me one,” he said. “The girls have been clamoring for a puppy.”

  “Maybe you should take two, one for each of them. They’ll be ready to go in eight or nine weeks. Bring the kids over anytime to choose which ones they want.”

  “Deal.”

  “What do you want to talk about?” Pike asked. “I assume it has something to do with the attack in the mine.”

  “Yeah. I went by the ranch house hoping to see Sierra Hyde.”

  “She left this morning.”

  “That’s what I heard. Did she mention we found a matchbook in the mine?”

  “From The Pastime on Seventh, right?”

  “Wrong. Techs were able to lift the area code from the phone number on the back cover. The place is in New Jersey.”

  “New Jersey!” Pike said. His throat closed and he set aside the beer.

  “It turns out The Pastime is a popular name for a drinking hole. Without the rest of the phone number it leaves three establishments as possibilities.”

  “Was one in a place called Dusty Lake? Sierra was there recently.”

  “No.” He rattled off three towns Pike had never heard of. “We’re looking into it. Should know more tomorrow. I sure would like to speak with Ms. Hyde. Do you expect to talk to her?”

  “She’s flying standby. She could be anywhere. I’ll phone her and leave a message.”

  “Do you have any idea at all who would wish her harm or who had all that information about her and her sister?” Robert asked.

  “None,” Pike said. “Did the Seattle police have anything to say about the LOGO crew?”

  “Clean as a whistle. The local police apparently weren’t aware the company had a continuing problem with their former employee, who is currently interviewing for a job in Alaska, by the way. It doesn’t rule him out entirely, but I have a feeling what happened here is out of his league.”

  Pike’s gut told him the same thing. He shot to his feet and paced up and down the room. He’d told Sierra last night that with Raoul Ruiz off the list of suspects, he thought it possible the attacks had been centered on her. She’d dismissed the whole idea.

  What exactly awaited her when she stepped off that plane?

  Chapter Twelve

  As soon as Sierra hit the influence of the airport cell tower, she found a new string of texts from clients and friends, but nothing from Savannah.

  As she waited for a flight, she checked the news on her phone. Yardley had gone on the attack, swearing to anyone who would listen that he was an innocent man being framed by the Jakes camp. He threatened lawsuits. The picture of him this time showed an enraged red face behind a sea of microphones. There were no photographs of the two women.

  Sierra had written Pike that her flights were taking her to every pit stop between Boise and New York, but it was actually only three. For the final leg, she had to run between terminals and arrived out of breath. Anxious to relax, all she wanted for the next hour or two was to close her eyes, but her seatmate was a real chatterbox. His only redeeming quality, as far as Sierra was concerned, was his accent. It was pure Jersey shore, and reminded Sierra of Rollo Bean and summers with her father.

  After the plane finally landed, she turned her phone back on to discover that Pike had left her a voice mail. The thrill of hearing his voice was followed by alarm at the urgency of the message. She dialed his number while the plane still taxied down the runway. “Sierra, Robert—Officer Hendricks came by. The matchbook from The Pastime is from New Jersey!”

  “Where in New Jersey?”

  He told her the three towns.

  “They’re close to Dusty Lake but I’ve never been in any of them,” she said.

  “He’ll keep me updated and I’ll get back to you.”

  “Try not to worry about me, okay?” she said.

  “I’m afraid worrying comes with caring,” he replied as they hung up. By now, she longed for the peace and quiet of her own four walls, where she’d installed the requisite two locks on her door and bars on her windows.

  She caught a cab and gave her home address. The driver was from Bangladesh; his English was minimal, but his musical voice fascinated her. What was with her and accents lately? She’d always liked them, had always been good with voices. That’s why Spiro’s spoken demand to the bartender that night had surprised her, or maybe more accurately, that’s why learning he could turn off his Greek accent, and do it so completely, came as a shock. In her experience people had trouble doing that. On the other hand, Savannah said he was an actor.

  She warily let herself into the locked lobby of her apartment building, looking around for ne’er-do-wells with murderous intent. The only ones in attendance were the two candidates for mayor in the form of campaign posters plastered to the foyer’s walls. Someone had drawn a mustache on Max Jakes’s face and someone else had sketched devil horns and a pitchfork on Yardley’s leering visage.

  She pulled the suitcase up two flights of stairs instead of taking the elevator, because it had a habit of stalling and she wasn’t in the mood. The familiar sounds of crying babies and televisions came from behind her neighbors’ closed doors. She’d been looking forward to returning to her real life, and here she was and it all fell kind of flat.

  But that was because Pike wasn’t here and suddenly she understood he would never fit into this world; he could never be more than a visitor. What would he do in an apartment? Where would he put his horses and his dogs and that impossible cat? The man was busy just about every minute of the day and from what she could see, every day of the year. She’d never even seen him watch television or check email. City life would never suit him.

  She unlocked her door at last. The relief at being safely home disappeared when she switched on the lights and saw the mayhem her apartment had become in her absence. For a second she just stood in the open doorway and stared at the mess. She examined the locks: they looked perfect... This B&E was the work of a pro.

  It didn’t appear the intruder had overlooked one item in his or her search for...well, for what? She didn’t have expensive art or jewelry. Her television was so old her friends made fun of it. The only thing she had that was worth money was in her head, the gun cabinet or on her computer...

  Stepping over and around overturned boxes and emptied drawers, she hurried to her office. Her dad’s big, old, wood desk sat where it always did, but the desktop computer was gone and the file drawers were empty. She stood there with her heart in her stomach. Almost everything on the desktop was also on her laptop. It wasn’t that she’d lost much besides sentimental files she hadn’t transferred, but the scope of the information about herself and her clients the robber now possessed made her queasy.

  And the email. Every communication she’d sent or received not only recently, but also going back years, was accessible on that computer. Luckily she used passwords. The opened drawers and ripped books instantly chided her smugness—why else had the thief ransacked things if not to find the passwords? She made her way to her bedroom, intent on pulling the double bed away from the wall and securing the envelope of passwords she’d taped to the wood frame. The bed was already moved aside and the envelope was gone.

  Even without the passwords, someone with enough expertise could get what they wanted, but with them it wouldn’t even be a tactical feat. And that meant, depending on when this robbery took place, someone knew about Tess and Danny and all the rest.

  And Savannah. Face it, Savannah’s quietness nagged at her. After checking to make sure the revolver was still where it belonged in the gun case, she opened her laptop and plugged it in, then looked up Savannah on the search engine. There was a recent photo taken of her at a theater opening and a couple as a former Miss Georgia. Her life was summed up in a couple of paragraphs. There was also a link to Spiro Papadakis, the man Savannah had married, and Sierr
a went to that.

  She hadn’t realized he’d been such a successful businessman in Greece. She guessed she’d just assumed Savannah had all the money. Then she read that he lost everything and soon after married Savannah and it began to make sense. There were all sorts of further links, but there was absolutely no mention of him being an actor in any capacity. Even his time in New York as a relative nobody was detailed, but again, no mention of acting.

  Something didn’t add up.

  After reporting the break-in to the police, she found the TV remote on the floor among the scattered contents of an upended box of memorabilia. She sat wearily on the sofa, flipped on the television and turned down the volume as she began recollecting the bits and pieces of her dad’s campaign souvenirs littered around her feet.

  A flyer from 1999 had been crumpled beyond repair, but she did find the big button imprinted with his smiling face and the words “Jeremy Hyde for Mayor.” She put that back with a few of his books; he’d been partial to Robert Service poetry. There were several loose photographs scattered about, as well. She was in a couple, either with her dad or sitting at a table stacked with posters. Rollo Bean and her dad were in another. She’d forgotten how tall and straight her dad stood and how overweight Rollo was. There were other differences, too—some obvious, like Rollo’s baldness and her dad’s thatch of graying black hair, and others internal. Her dad was a peaceful, listening man who cared about people as people. Rollo was a plotter, a born politician.

  As she started to set aside the photo, she caught a glimpse of a ten- or twelve-year-old boy standing by a tree behind the two men. It appeared he was eavesdropping. She looked closer and smiled to herself as she recognized Rollo’s son, Anthony, who was doing exactly what she’d told Pike he did. There he was, caught on film being, well, creepy.

  The past kept surfacing in the form of a half-dozen small items that brought back memories: a menu from Jersey Dog, another from Bee’s Fish and Chips, a pennant from the Dusty Lake Bullfrog Labor Day Race and a paper coaster embossed with a line drawing of a building. With some surprise, she realized she’d seen this building recently. The big fish over the door gave it away. She knew it as Tony’s Tavern, but The Pastime was printed on the coaster.