Cowboy Fever

by Joanne Kennedy

  “Here.” She came over and stood beside him, too close, and held out a letter as he backed away. Reluctantly, he took it and looked it over. It was a bank statement, and if she didn’t understand what it said, she was even dumber than she looked. It said her father was overdrawn to the tune of eight thousand dollars.

  Teague shrugged and handed it back to her. “He’s overdrawn. But don’t worry, Courtney. He probably has money in another account to cover it.”

  Actually, he probably didn’t. The way he’d lit up and gone after Teague’s ten thousand dollars made Teague suspect the man had some kind of financial problem going on—and here was proof. But he didn’t want to know.

  He backed up a few steps toward the house. “But look, this is none of my business, even if I understood it.”

  She shook another sheet in his face. “Look at this one, though.”

  He thought about just turning away, walking off without a word. He’d had enough of the Skeltons, Courtney included. He didn’t want to be involved with them at all—not in any way. But what could he do? Lock himself in the house and refuse to let her in?

  Yeah, he could lock himself in with Jodi. He cast a longing look toward the house, then turned his attention back to the paper in his hand.

  “See? This account’s overdrawn too,” she said. She whipped out another piece of paper. “And then there’s this.”

  The paper she handed him next was the kind of paperwork Teague understood, and he couldn’t resist taking a look at it. It was a bill of sale for ten horses—for a total of ten thousand dollars.

  “Which horses are these? I thought he had some kind of expensive Argentinean breed.”

  “That’s what I thought too. Criollos, he said. But I gathered up everything I could find about the horses, and he never paid more than fifteen hundred dollars for any of them, except Dutch.” Her eyes started to mist over. “Dutch was expensive for real.”

  “So the horses aren’t what he said.” Teague wasn’t terribly surprised. The two horses he’d seen in training had hardly impressed him.

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded vigorously. “He was lying. And all the paperwork was in the box beside the shredder. He was going to destroy it.” She handed him the next paper with a flourish. “And he was going to send this to the insurance company.”

  She held out another sheet. It was a bill of sale for ten horses, valued at ten thousand dollars apiece.

  “Well, then those are different horses.”

  “No, they’re not. The descriptions match exactly. These are the thousand-dollar horses. Don’t you see what this means?” She tapped the paper with a crimson-tipped nail. “He set that fire on purpose.”

  Teague snatched the paper and scanned it rapidly, swearing under his breath. He didn’t want to get involved in this, but Courtney was right. These papers all but proved Skelton had set the fire himself—which meant they let his brother off the hook.

  “He killed them, Teague. And he killed Dutchy. I loved that horse. I loved them all, and I heard them dying. He let them burn to death so he could cheat the insurance company and cover his debts.”

  “Whoa,” said a voice behind them.

  Jodi had evidently read his body language and come to his rescue just in time to hear Courtney’s revelation.

  “Okay, Courtney.” Teague ran a hand through his hair as if he could stimulate thought that way. “You’re right. Now what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” She shifted to include Jodi in the conversation. Evidently, she didn’t care who heard the news. “If I turn him in, he won’t get the money from the insurance company. He might even be arrested—and then what will happen to me?” She worked her mouth, struggling not to cry. “I don’t want to be poor. I can’t be poor.” She looked down at the papers. “So I was thinking maybe I could use these as leverage.”

  Teague grimaced. “You mean blackmail?”

  “No. Well, sort of. I could make sure he spends the money on good things.” She glanced over at Jodi. “A donation to the clinic. Stuff like that.”

  “I don’t want that money,” Jodi said. “Not a dime of it. And Courtney, he’s trying to say Troy set that fire.”

  “Well, we’ll make him take that back. And you need the money.”

  “Not that bad. And neither do you. It’s dirty money, Courtney.”

  Courtney’s self-possession broke into a thousand pieces. Trembling, she clutched Teague’s arm.

  “Please, can we go inside? I need to talk to somebody. You’re the only friend I have here. The only person I can trust.”

  “Damn straight,” Jodi said. “’Cause you sure can’t trust me.”

  Courtney whirled. “What do you mean?”

  Jodi shrugged. “After what you just said, I’ve got an obligation to call the police—unless you’re willing to do it yourself.”

  “No,” Courtney said. “It would backfire. I don’t want my father to go to jail. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe…”

  “Maybe your father will put Troy in jail. Courtney, we’re giving this to the police.”

  “No. Please.”

  “Look, Courtney.” Teague grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look him in the eye. “You heard those horses die. You’ll never forget that, will you?”

  Courtney’s lower lip trembled and her eyes brimmed over.

  “We can’t let him get away with that.”

  “Or with what he’s trying to do to Troy,” Jodi said.

  Courtney looked from Teague to Jodi and back again, anger and desperation flickering across her face as if she couldn’t decide whether to attack Jodi or plead with Teague. She finally settled on the pleading. Flinging herself at Teague, she wrapped her arms around him and wept into his shirtfront. He stood stoically, his mouth set in a grim line. He knew she expected him to bring his arms up to hold her. He knew she expected him to comfort her, but he was done taking care of Courtney. She was selfish, she was manipulative, and she was nothing but trouble.

  “You won’t tell, will you, Teague?” Courtney sobbed. “I can’t be poor. I just can’t.” She looked up at him, her face wet with tears and streaked with mascara. “You won’t tell, will you? And you won’t let Jodi tell either. I can trust you, right?” She twisted her fists in the fabric of his shirt. “Right?”

  Chapter 34

  “Wrong.” Jodi set a hand on Courtney’s shoulder, trying her best to radiate firmness and sympathy with her touch. It must have worked, because the girl gradually released her grip on Teague and slumped her shoulders in defeat.

  “We’ll help you, Courtney,” Jodi said in what she hoped was a soothing tone. “Come on inside. Let’s talk.”

  “They’ll arrest my dad.” Courtney choked back a sob. “I never should have told you. I’ll have nothing. Nothing.”

  “You’ll have us,” Jodi said soothingly, patting her shoulder. “Me and Teague. We’ll do everything we can to help you.”

  “I don’t have Teague,” Courtney said. “You have Teague. He doesn’t care about me.”

  “Yes he does,” Jodi said. “Teague’s your friend.”

  She guided Courtney up the porch steps into the kitchen and led her to the table.

  “Come on,” she said. “Sit down, and we’ll figure out all our options.”

  She took Courtney’s elbow and pretty much forced her into a chair.

  “There are a couple ways we could take care of this,” she said. “We could call the police.”

  “No!” Courtney clutched at her arm. “Please, no. They’d arrest Daddy and take him to jail! I’d lose everything!”

  “Not necessarily,” Jodi said. “But I agree that might not be the best solution.”

  Courtney’s face brightened and she sat up straight. “So you think it might be okay to kind of, like, hold these papers over his head? Make him do the right thing, or
we’d turn him in?”

  “No,” Jodi said. “I don’t think that would be right. Do you—really?”

  Courtney looked down at her hands, twisting them in her lap while she bit her lower lip.

  “No,” she said. She sounded like a sulky child.

  “The other thing we could do is make copies of these documents, and send them to the insurance company,” Teague said. “We don’t even have to say who’s sending them. We could do it anonymously. That way Courtney’s dad would never know it was her that turned him in.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Jodi said. “But what about Troy? It’ll take the insurance company a while to react. Meanwhile, Troy’s under suspicion.”

  “Troy?” Courtney looked from Jodi to Teague, and back again. “What about Troy?”

  “I told you, your father accused him of setting the fire. I just got back from the sheriff’s office.”

  “What?” Courtney shoved her chair back from the table and leapt to her feet. “That—that—that—oh, I don’t know what to call him! How could he do that to someone like Troy?”

  Teague shrugged and looked away. Courtney and her father obviously hadn’t been close, but finding out what kind of man he really was had to be tough. It was as if he’d been raised thinking his father was a normal dad, and then found out about the drinking and the meanness all at once.

  “I’ll get him. I’ll go to the police,” Courtney said.

  “We could maybe do that for you somehow,” Jodi said. “I mean, he is your dad and all…”

  “No.” Courtney clenched her fists. “I want him to know it was me.” She was shaking from head to foot. Jodi was worried she’d keel over from an overdose of raw emotion. “I want him to look me in the eye while I twist the knife in his no-good rotten gut. I want him to suffer like Dutch did.” She stamped her foot and clenched her fists so hard they shook. “I want to burn him alive, the way he did my horse.”

  Jodi jerked backward, stunned by the intensity of Courtney’s emotion. Maybe she’d feel the same way if she was in Courtney’s situation. What if someone killed Eightball—killed him in the most horrible way imaginable? What if someone made her horse suffer like that?

  She’d probably want him dead too. And she might even want to do the deed herself. But twist the knife? Burn him alive? That was heading into psycho territory.

  Bursting into tears, Courtney collapsed into her chair and covered her face, her shoulders heaving. Jodi edged her chair closer and rubbed Courtney’s back as the girl curled into her, sobbing like a two-year-old.

  “But I’ll be poor,” Courtney sobbed. “I won’t have any money, and I don’t know how to… how to live like that. I’ll have to get a…” she sucked in a deep breath, as if preparing to say the unspeakable, “a job.”

  “We could help you find something,” Teague said. “Maybe you could… ummm…” He glanced over at Jodi, looking for help.

  She already had that one figured out. “Court, my mom needs somebody to help in the boutique,” Jodi said. “I was doing it, but the clinic’s getting busier. You’d be perfect. I’ll bet you’d be really good at selling clothes out front, and then my mom could concentrate on the Internet end of the business.”

  Courtney sat up, wiping her eyes, and gave Jodi a hopeful look that was almost a smile. “You think she’d hire me?”

  “Oh, are you kidding?” Jodi gestured toward the girl’s Cowgirl Barbie outfit. “Look at you. You look great in those clothes.”

  “I do? But I’m not a real rodeo queen like you,” Courtney said, suddenly shy. “I don’t really know much about this stuff.” She fingered the fringe that dangled from the yoke of her shirt.

  “You don’t have to. You just have to make it look good.” Jodi slung an arm around Courtney’s shoulders. “We’ll go talk to her tomorrow, okay? And meanwhile, you’ll go show those papers to the sheriff.”

  Courtney nodded uncertainly, her eyes glistening. “Okay,” she said. “All right.”

  Chapter 35

  The spring-loaded bell over the door to the Brand Boutique tinkled as Jodi and Courtney walked in. Peggy Brand looked up from the rack where she was rearranging elk-tooth earrings.

  “Hi, honey,” she said.

  “Hi.” Jodi felt a flash of guilt, remembering how much she still owed her mother.

  She hadn’t been spending much time at the boutique.

  “Mom, I know I’ve been really busy lately, and I haven’t been here when you needed me,” she said.

  “Oh, that’s okay.” Her mother waved a dismissive hand. “You need to stop this nonsense about making things up to me, hon. We’re fine. I know you’re busy with your clinic. And I suspect you’re busy with some other things too.” Her smile was a little tight, but considering she was referring to Teague, it was wonderful that she could smile at all.

  “Well, okay. But I still owe you. So I brought Courtney over. She’s interested in working here, and I think she’d be perfect.”

  Her mom looked up from the rack for the first time and gave Courtney a sunny smile. “Courtney.” She turned to Jodi. “We’ve already met. Courtney is one of my best customers.” She looked Courtney up and down and her smile widened. “And one of the best dressed.”

  “Why, thank you, Mrs. Brand,” Courtney said in her tiny, breathy voice. “That means so much, coming from you.”

  “But surely you’re not looking for work.” Jodi’s mom eyed Courtney thoughtfully. “Unless—oh, I know. You’re bored, aren’t you, and need something to do?”

  Courtney started to nod, then squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “No, we’ve had a setback,” she said. “I’m afraid I really do need the job.”

  Jodi smiled. Courtney had almost gone for the lie, but she’d found the strength to tell the truth. Considering the way the girl was raised, she’d somehow developed a pretty good backbone. Jodi felt proud of her.

  “Well, when would you like to start?” Jodi’s mother asked. “Can you come by in the morning? We can figure out salary and all the details before we open.”

  “Am I hired?”

  “Oh my, yes. I think you’ll be perfect.”

  Courtney gave a little hop of happiness. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “A real job. I can’t wait.” She turned to Jodi, her expression suddenly serious. “I have to go now, though. I have something to do.”

  The sheriff, Jodi thought. She’s going to see the sheriff.

  “Do you want me to go along?”

  “No.” Courtney set her jaw. “I can do this on my own.”

  Jodi watched her walk out with her trademark hip-swinging walk. She turned to her mother.

  “Well, there you go,” she said. “She’s perfect, isn’t she?”

  “She really is. Thank you, honey.”

  “This place really is ‘her,’ I guess.” Jodi pulled a pair of earrings off the rack and fingered them thoughtfully. “I’m sorry I can’t be like that, Mom. I wish I could help more. I really do.”

  Her mother cocked her head and gave her a sharp, birdlike glance. “Oh, I’m not sorry.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Her mother stepped closer and took the earrings out of her hand. Setting them on the counter, she pulled Jodi into a quick hug.

  “I’m not sorry at all,” she said, pushing her out to arm’s length. “Jodi, you take after your dad, that’s all. You love all the things he did. When he—you know…” She swallowed hard and Jodi realized she still couldn’t say that her husband had died.

  “You’re all I have left of him,” her mother said. “And I treasure that. It’s why I missed you so much, when—you know.”

  “When I wouldn’t talk to you. I’m so sorry, Mom. It wasn’t right, that you lost us both at the same time.”

  Her mother shrugged. “I lost him long before he died. After the accident, he couldn’t d
o any of the things he loved, and he just burrowed inside himself and stayed there. You know he did.”

  Jodi nodded. It was true. Her father had withdrawn from the world when he’d wound up in that wheelchair. Once in a while she’d been able to get a smile out of him, but it was only skin deep. He was like a hollow shell.

  Jodi nodded, blinking back tears and staring down at the toes of her boots.

  “You’re a good daughter, Jodi. The best I could ask for.”

  Jodi nodded again, but she could hardly agree. She’d never put herself in her mother’s shoes. Never made an effort to see the situation from any point of view but her own.

  “I could be better,” she said. “I’ll try to be better.”

  “You’re fine,” her mother said. “How are things with Teague? Have you decided what to do?”

  Decided? Jodi blanched. She hadn’t actually made a conscious decision. She’d just charged full steam ahead into the relationship, following her heart and a few other bodily organs that were even less trustworthy.

  Maybe she should be questioning things more. Thinking things through. After all, Teague lit her up like a tiki torch. How could she trust herself?

  She’d slow down, she told herself. She’d slow down and think about what she was doing before it was too late.

  Chapter 36

  Teague turned away from his kitchen counter and dove for the phone, reaching it an instant before Troy. They’d raced to answer the phone since high school, when Troy would tease Teague about the girls that called.

  “’Lo?” Teague tucked the phone between his shoulder and his chin while he finished the sandwich he’d been making for Troy. Slicing it in quarters, he handed it to his brother and waved him away.

  “Teague. ’Fraid I’ve got bad news.”

  “Sheriff?”

  “I just got in, and it seems Mitch Skelton was down here this morning. He’s decided to press charges against your brother.”