Tall, Dark and Cowboy

by Joanne Kennedy

  “Lady, get out of the way. You come on over here and we’ll talk, but he’s cooling his heels in the car for now. After the call we got, he’s got some explaining to do.”

  “Who called?” Krystal demanded.

  “We should go tell them it was us,” Annie whispered. “That lady said I did a good job.”

  Lacey shook her head.

  “We’re not sure.” The officer pointed toward another pair of cops, who were leaning against the trunk of another cruiser, arms folded, ankles crossed, casually watching Krystal’s antics. “But those guys are about to go find out. Check out that motel across the street, guys. Call probably came from there.”

  Lacey jerked away from the window. Good. If they checked the motel, they’d find her room empty. Once they figured out the call came from the café, they’d probably assume Pam had called. She was off the hook.

  But not with Annie. “Look, they’re going inside. I want to tell them I was the one who gave the description, okay?”

  “We’d better wait,” Lacey said weakly. “It might be a dangerous situation.”

  She didn’t want to tell Annie they weren’t going over there at all. Introducing herself as the reporting caller would only lead to questions.

  Questions Lacey simply couldn’t answer.

  “The police have a job to do, honey.”

  “I know. And I want to watch them do it.”

  Annie jumped off the chair and ran out of the room. Lacey followed her, pausing at the top of the steps.

  “Annie, no. Come back here.”

  The only answer was the tattoo of slippered feet skipping down the staircase.

  Lacey swore under her breath. Pam had trusted her with Annie. She had to follow. But going outside would put her square in the glare from the police cars’ whirling lights.

  If Wade had declared her missing, she was about to get found.

  ***

  Chase’s phone buzzed just as he pulled up to the ranch house. He and Fletcher Galt had shared a silent but surprisingly companionable dinner. He’d even started to think about bringing Annie over to see the guy on Saturday.

  “Dude.” It was Cody. “We just got back from the rally, and something’s going on at the lot.”

  “It’s about time,” Chase said. “Nothing’s gone on there for days. No sales. Not hardly a nibble since Krystal sold that harrow.”

  “Is that what that was? Guy who bought it said it was an antique.”

  “It was junk. So what did she sell?”

  “Nothing.”

  Chase swallowed. Judging from the repressed excitement in Cody’s voice, something bad was happening.

  “It’s that girlfriend of yours.”

  Chase pressed the phone to his ear. He could barely hear Cody over the static and noise in the background.

  “Where are you? Pam’s?”

  “Nope. I’m out front. We didn’t even go in yet. Well, I didn’t. Pam ran up to check on Annie. I hung out here when I saw the cop cars pull up. Three of ’em.”

  “What?”

  “I told you, that girlfriend of yours finally went batshit crazy. I think she got herself arrested.”

  “What?”

  Chase tossed the phone on the passenger seat and peeled out of the driveway. He could hear Cody’s voice squawking from the speaker as he took the corner at the end of the driveway, and the phone slid sideways and fell to the floor.

  “Chase, what the hell?” shouted Cody.

  Chase ducked down and picked up the phone as he straightened out the truck. He could barely see over the dashboard for a second, but he knew the road to town well enough to drive it with his eyes closed.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Dropped the phone. So what happened?”

  “Your girlfriend almost got herself arrested. I think they actually did arrest Jeb. It was like an episode of Bad Boys: Redneck Edition around here. She was throwing herself all over the place, screeching, and Jeb looked like the last of the red-hot losers. No shirt, no shoes, no smarts.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Chase said. Because he needed to make that clear—to Cody, and to himself. No matter how viscerally he responded to Lacey, she wasn’t likely to forgive him for what he’d done.

  “Good thing, ’cause she was yelling about how much she loves Jeb,” Cody said.

  Okay, this was just bizarre.

  “Sounds like she’s changed her mind about chasing you and gone back to her old fiancé.” Cody pronounced the word “fee-ancy.” Four-wheeling, gum-smacking Cody calling anybody a redneck was definitely a case of the pot calling the kettle names.

  “Her… oh.” Chase slumped with relief, and the knot in his belly loosened up. “You’re talking about Krystal.”

  “Yeah. You thought I was talking about that little piece of action from the truck, didn’t you? Pam said there was something going on there.”

  “No, I…”

  “Sly dog. No wonder you don’t care if Krystal goes back to Jeb.”

  “Krystal and I were never anything,” Chase protested. “She just kept kind of following me around.”

  “Man, you’re a player, you know that?” Cody chuckled. “Hey, something’s happening. I’ll call you back.”

  Chase tossed the phone aside and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The phone slid across the seat and crashed to the floor as he careened around a corner. What was he in such a hurry for, anyway? Lacey was at Pam’s. She was safe.

  This was some kind of shenanigans on Krystal’s part. For all he knew, she was just trying to get his attention. He slowed the truck to a safer speed as the phone rang again.

  “Got the scoop,” Cody said. “I guess old Jeb snuck in the back of the trailer to make things up with Krystal, and somebody saw him and thought he was a crook. Cops came and arrested him and Krystal both. Or maybe she just went along to explain. Judging from how she’s carrying on, she’s not about to let anybody mess up her booty call.”

  “Please,” Chase said. The image of Krystal and Jeb together wasn’t pretty. “You say he went in the back?”

  “Yep. And I hate to be the one to tell you, but they had to be getting down to business in there. He was barely dressed when he came out, and Krystal looked like she’d stuck her finger in an electric socket.”

  Chase blanched. There was nowhere in the trailer Krystal could have taken Jeb but his office. He’d never look at his desk the same way again. He made a mental note to grab some disinfectant from the cupboard under the kitchen sink and take it to work the next morning.

  “Well, I guess now you’re free to take up with the trucker girl,” Cody said.

  “I’m not taking up with anybody. Especially not Lacey. And she’s not a trucker girl. That lady’s fresh from the trophy-wife circuit.”

  “Really? She sure looked at home in that mud bath to me.”

  Chase rocked with the truck as the tires lurched off the dirt road onto the blacktop town road. “She’s having some hard times.”

  “Well, if I didn’t have Pam, I’d try and rescue her.” Cody laughed again. “Have at it, man. You don’t have to marry her.”

  Chase felt an involuntary tug at his vitals at Cody’s phraseology. If only “having at it” was as simple as it sounded.

  “Meanwhile, the trailer’s standing open. I’m out in the lot, but I need to get back to Pam. Unlike you, I’m a man with a happy, healthy relationship with the opposite sex, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “Good. And you might want to talk to the cops after all, because they just marched Trucker Girl out to their car.”

  Chapter 19

  The minute Lacey stepped out the door of the café, a policeman turned and pinned her to the wall with the beam of a flashlight. She tried not to look guilty.

  ���My—my daughter.” She pointed at Annie, who was watching wide-eyed from the sidewalk. “I mean, my friend’s daughter. I just came to get her.”

  The cop’s eyes met hers, then m
oved down her body to her feet before flicking back up again guiltily. “We had a call from 911 about an incident here, ma’am. The little girl informed us that she made the call. Are you the woman who spoke to the operator?”

  Lacey swallowed and nodded. She flicked her tongue out to lick her dry lips.

  “And me,” said Annie, coming up beside her. “I was the one who gave the description.”

  “Well, thank you, miss.” He turned back to Lacey. “I’m sorry to trouble you, ma’am, but the dispatcher informed us you neglected to identify yourself.”

  She blinked again, doing her best imitation of a woman roused from a deep sleep. “What?”

  A blast of static blared from his radio. “I talked to a witness over here in the motel office. There’s a transient woman staying at the motel. ’Round thirty, dark hair.”

  Transient woman? That certainly wasn’t a compliment, but for some unaccountable reason, Lacey felt a swell of pride at the description. She turned the word over in her head. Transient. Loner. Desperado. Any way you looked at it, she’d come a long way from being a kept woman.

  “Guy at the desk says he saw her go over to the café earlier, and she never returned to her room. Hold on.” The radio hushed a moment, then crackled back to life. “Yeah, he says that’s her you’re talking to. Room’s registered to the owner of the car lot. Caldwell. Guess she’s his girlfriend or something. He paid for a week, guy says.”

  Lacey felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. Chase paid for the room? Damn. She was a kept woman after all. No wonder the desk clerk hadn’t bothered her. The room had been paid for the whole time.

  The thought should make her angry, or at least nervous. If Chase had paid for the room, chances were he had a key. But her visceral response to that thought was a not-unpleasant twist in her belly and a mental picture of Chase in her bed.

  He looked good there.

  She rubbed her eyes, trying to erase the picture. She’d told him she didn’t want his money, and he’d gone and paid for the room anyway, behind her back. She couldn’t trust him. Men were always trying to own women so they could control them.

  Of course, she’d probably be a real transient by now if he hadn’t paid her bill.

  “Miss,” the cop said.

  “Sorry.” She struggled to return to the here and now. She needed to be alert and aware.

  He narrowed his eyes. “I need some ID.”

  “Is she under arrest?” Annie asked.

  The cop looked startled. “No.”

  Annie stepped up to Lacey, her fists on her hips. “Then she doesn’t have to tell you anything.”

  The cop’s lips tipped up into a grin. “This your lawyer?”

  “Um, no.” Lacey felt a dull thud in the pit of her stomach. Her friend had trusted her with her daughter for one night, and now they were being questioned by the police. Hopefully Pam would see it as healthy civic involvement.

  “What’s your name, honey?” The cop bent his knees so he was eye level with Annie, who crossed her arms over her chest and jutted out her chin.

  “I refuse to answer any questions except in the presence of my attorney.”

  The cop flashed Lacey a questioning glance. “You had trouble with the police before?”

  Lacey waved her hand, dismissing the notion. “She watches a lot of TV.”

  “Law & Order,” Annie said. “So I know better than to get railroaded by the good cop, bad cop thing.” She peered through the doorway past him. “Where’s the good cop, anyway?”

  “That’s me,” he said indignantly, then flinched as if he’d just noticed he was arguing with a kid and turned back to Lacey. “Ma’am, you’re not under arrest, but it turns out the call was unsubstantiated. We just need to establish whether you have any kind of personal relationship with the parties involved.”

  “I can assure you, I don’t.” Lacey backed toward the café, but the cop stopped her with an upraised hand.

  “We just need to see some identification so we can confirm that,” he said kindly.

  “I-I don’t have anything.”

  He arched his brows, looking pointedly at the purse slung over her shoulder.

  “I think you’d better come with me, ma’am,” he said. “I’m starting to think the parties involved may be able to identify you.”

  ***

  Chase pulled into the car lot just in time to witness a standoff. Krystal stood a few feet from a police car, feet planted wide apart, fists on her hips, top-heavy torso tilted forward so that she could more effectively berate Lacey, who was sitting on the edge of the cruiser’s backseat. He rolled down his window to hear his employee’s shrill voice raised above the noise of the radio and the faint murmur rising from the small crowd that had gathered. He could see Cody standing on the edge of the knot of spectators, along with Pam and Annie.

  “You bitch,” Krystal was saying. “You did this on purpose. You saw Jeb come over here, and you called the cops so Chase would find out. You want him all to yourself, but I’ve got news for you. He’s not interested. He told me. He said he wasn’t interested in high-maintenance women.” She paused for a breath, then started in again an octave higher. “You know what that means? He’s not interested in a woman who wants to dress nice, or go out to dinner once in a while. He wants some dumb bitch he can keep down on the farm.”

  “I’m not interested in Chase,” Lacey said. “We’re old friends. I thought we still were, but we’re not. End of story.”

  Ouch. Once again, Chase’s insides balled up in a knot. He’d handled everything wrong that first day Lacey had come to town. He should have just helped her. And then he’d made matters worse with those shenanigans on the test drive. What kind of used car dealer made out with his customers in the vehicles? He’d lectured Krystal about being professional, but he wasn’t any better.

  “You came out here thinking you’d start something. I’ll bet you two dated in high school.”

  “No,” Lacey said, still sounding cool and detached. “We never did. We should have—he was the nicest guy in the whole school—but we didn’t.”

  “See?” Krystal straightened in triumph. “I knew it.”

  Chase felt like standing up a little straighter himself. He’d never known Lacey thought so highly of him. He thought she’d seen him as another loser adoring her from afar—just one of the crowd.

  “But he’s changed. He’s not the nice guy I used to know,” Lacey continued. “He’s—hardened. Bitter.”

  Chase winced. He was bitter and hard—but he had good reason. Couldn’t Lacey see that? He’d lost everything when his dad had lost the farm. His future. His family.

  Well, he still had Pam. And Annie. He remembered Lacey’s expression when Annie had hugged her hours before. She’d obviously had a lot less love in her life than he did. Maybe he should quit feeling sorry for himself.

  “You ladies can discuss your gentleman friend some other time,” a second policeman said, stepping between the two women. “Right now I need to talk to this one.” He gestured toward Lacey, then turned to Krystal. “You can go.”

  Krystal turned on her high heel, stumbled a little, and flounced off with her nose in the air. The blue and white strobes flicked off as she departed, but Lacey’s eyes glinted in the mercury lights of the car lot as she looked up at the policeman.

  “Are you going to arrest me? I swear, I never meant to call in a false report. I just saw something, and I thought she was in danger. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I was honestly worried about Krystal.”

  “Was that your little girl that called Officer Nelson the bad cop?” He could barely suppress a smile, and Lacey grinned back, meeting his eyes. Chase felt a stab of envy. He’d never wished for a career in law enforcement before, but he’d ace the police academy to have Lacey look at him like that.

  “My friend’s daughter. Guess she watches too much Law & Order,” she said.

  “Well, I guess if I let you off with a warning, you’ll know I’m the good cop,
right?”

  Lacey nodded. “I sure will. I knew that anyway.”

  Chase could swear the cop was melting in front of his eyes. He knew the guy—Rick Platt. He lived in Wynot and had a wife and two little boys—and he had no business flirting with Lacey.

  But Rick appeared to have forgotten his family and pretty much everything else besides the woman standing in front of him.

  “How’d you know?” he asked.

  She shrugged, lifting one shoulder gracefully and tossing a smile over her shoulder while she turned to walk away. “You look good,” she said.

  The guy grinned. “Thanks. But I’ll still need identification to complete the report.”

  Lacey slumped, and Chase realized her flirtation was a ploy to get the cop to move on. He stepped up beside her.

  “I know her, Rick,” he said. “I’ll vouch for her.”

  “Caldwell? What have you got going on here?”

  “A mess.” Chase stepped away and tilted his head to one side. Officer Platt got the signal and walked around to the back of the car with him, leaving Lacey in the shaft of light from the cruiser’s open door. She stood poised to flee, glancing nervously at the knots of people on the sidewalk.

  “Look,” Chase said to the cop. “I know this lady. She’s got issues, but she hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “Then what’s the problem? All I need is her name and some ID.”

  “She can’t do that. She’s left an abusive relationship, and she’s terrified her husband will find her.”

  “We’re not going to put her on the news, for God’s sake. And if her husband’s abusing her, she needs law enforcement. There are things we can…”

  “He is law enforcement,” Chase said. He wasn’t a liar, and he doubted he was good at it, but the story came easily enough that he might persuade the cop to believe him. “He’s the chief of police in her hometown in…” He paused. “In Virginia.”

  The cop turned and almost collided with Lacey, who was standing right behind him. She was looking at Chase like he’d sprouted antennae and turned green. The policeman took a step back and nearly tripped over Chase’s boot. Steadying himself on the trunk of his car, he scowled at both of them.