“Am I free to go?” Wil’s tone was as cold as the walls of the room.
“Yes, there’s a red-haired woman out there by the name of Pearl Richland who said there was no doubt you were in the motel all night. Besides, your truck has four flat tires this morning, and the forensic team that went over the room and your truck says that it was sitting right there all night from the sleet that’s piled up around those flat tires. Too bad we didn’t catch the mistake. We wasted several hours of time at the motel.”
“Not to mention several hours of my time. Did Red bring me some clothes?”
The detective nodded toward the window and a female officer brought his duffel bag into the room.
“My cell phone?”
“In the bag.”
Wil opened the bag and took out jeans, a shirt, and his boots. He was so tickled to see his jeans that he vowed to sleep in them the rest of his life.
“You know a William Marshall? About your age. Dark hair and eyes.”
Wil shook his head.
“He’s from over in your area and he’s a cowboy,” the officer went on.
“Don’t know him. Never met him. Never want to meet him. Don’t know a woman named Starla. Can I get dressed now?”
The detective nodded. “There’s a men’s room right outside in the hallway. When you are ready I’ll escort you to the front door. Your billfold and everything the team found in the motel is in your bag there.”
Wil left the jumpsuit on the floor when he changed into his own familiar clothing. He shoved his cell phone down into his shirt pocket. Four flat tires? How in the devil had that happened? Who would have flattened his tires?
Those little girls you didn’t play house with, his conscience said bluntly. Little hussies snuck out and let the air out of the tires. Betcha anything all you have to do is air them up and they’ll be fine.
“Women! Young or old!” he said to the haggard reflection in the mirror.
“Ready?” the man asked when he was out in the hallway again.
“I am.”
He led the way down one hall to the end and through another, finally ending in an almost empty room where Pearl Richland sat in a folding chair against the wall.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Well, I’m damn sure not here by choice. I had to leave my job to come convince these people that there wasn’t any way you left the motel last night. I’ll take you back with me or you can walk. I don’t give a damn what you do.”
Chapter 3
“Which way to your car or truck or horse and buggy?” Wil asked when they were finally outside the police station.
“Follow me.”
She led him to a 1959 Caddy Eldorado Seville. The light brown and ecru two-tone paint job looked like it had just rolled off the factory floor. She used a key to unlock the door and then reached across the white leather seats and undid the passenger’s door.
Wil had the urge to pinch himself to see if he was in the middle of a nightmare. First getting accused of murder and now being escorted home by a gorgeous redhead driving a vintage car. His world was upside down and inside out, but the cold door handle said he wasn’t dreaming.
“Where did you get this thing?” he asked.
“It was Aunt Pearlita’s. I’ve loved this old boat of a car since I was a little girl. Pretty, ain’t it?”
“Pretty? This thing is priceless. It should be in a showroom, not on the street.”
She fired up the engine and turned on the heater. “Aunt Pearlita said things weren’t worth shit if you didn’t use them. She took care of it but she used it. That’s what I’m going to do.”
It was an old boat of a car compared to modern vehicles and drank gas like it still cost less than fifty cents a gallon. It had tail fins sporting two extra taillights that looked like alien’s eyes. The backseat was wide enough to haul around half a dozen kids or four adults. And it was the first car Wil had ever sat in that he didn’t have to kiss his knees.
Pearl’s curiosity got the best of her when they were out of town and headed east toward Henrietta. “Why did they think you’d murdered that woman, and who is she?”
“It was a big mistaken identity. William Marshall is the one they are looking for. My name just happened to be close to his. Damn, this is a comfortable car. You want to sell it?”
“Honey, there ain’t enough money in the world or dirt in Texas to buy this car,” Pearl said.
“Well, if you ever change your mind, I want first bid on it. Did Rye come get my dog?”
Pearl nodded. “He’s back on your ranch, chasin’ rabbits or layin’ up on the porch waitin’ on you or whatever it is that dogs do on Christmas Day, and I won’t change my mind about the car.”
He stole a long glance at her. Damn she was pretty, but he’d always been a sucker for red hair. Those freckles across her nose begged to be kissed, and he could swim in her green eyes. “I’d buy you breakfast to say thanks for getting me out of this mess if there was a place open.”
“You hungry?” she asked.
Just sitting beside him sent off a string of electrical jolts that she had only felt one time before. She and Vince had gotten together after he’d dived into his rebellious stage. He had a motorcycle, tattoos, and a diamond earring as big as a butter bean. Her mother said he had been a good boy his whole life until his senior year in high school. And then he’d done a three-sixty and was nothing but trouble.
And that was one time Tess Richland had been totally right.
After graduation night, they’d spent a night in a motel celebrating being real adults. They’d both lost their virginity that night and she had visions of a diamond ring after a couple of years of college, followed by a white wedding dress. But he kissed her good night at the door and she never saw him again. Last she heard he was in Africa. She’d cried for a week and her mother didn’t even gloat, bless her heart.
She shook the memory out of her head and glanced over at Wil.
Oh, shit! This ain’t fair! Even with scruff on his face and dressed in yesterday’s jeans and shirt, he was sexy as hell and made her hot as… What was it that Mark Chestnut said in that song about being hot? Oh, yeah, hot as two rats in heat inside an old wool sock. Well, those two varmints don’t have any idea about heat.
He yawned. “Pardon me. I’m starved. They brought me a bottle of water, but no one offered breakfast.”
“The Valero station in Jolly is open. I saw folks going in and out on my way over to Wichita Falls. You can get a donut and some coffee, and it’s the next exit,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Did that hurt?” she asked.
“What?”
“Sayin’ thank you to me?”
“Yes, it did, but I do appreciate what you’ve done.”
“Good. I want it to hurt because I’m wasting my time. I had a full house last night and every room has to be cleaned. Don’t look like that. I really, really want to lay a guilt trip on you.”
“Well, Red, you’re doin’ a fine job of that. I am sorry that I’m taking you away from your job.”
She shook her finger under his nose. “I told you not to call me Red! I hate that nickname.”
He grabbed her hand and put it back on the steering wheel. “It takes both hands to drive a car like this. I bet it doesn’t even have power steering.”
The touch of his callused hand wrapped around hers made her suck air. “You don’t know jack squat about my ability to drive or this car, and you better not call me Red again or you are going to be using the old boot leather express to get your sorry ass the rest of the way home.”
“Whew! You got a temper to go with that hair, don’t you?” He chuckled to cover up the sizzle bouncing around in the car. He had the sudden desire to grab her hand again just to see what kind of reaction he’d get.
“And don’t you forget it!”
She was careful to keep both her hands on the steering wheel. She’d left all three washers and dr
yers loaded and running, but it wasn’t a deep desire to fold sheets and towels that made her threaten to throw him out on the side of the road. And calling her Red wasn’t the reason either. It was the visual she got when he crawled into her vintage Caddy, with his dark hair tousled back with a fingertip combing, scruff on his sexy face, and those damn tight fittin’ jeans. She’d had to blink away the urge to reach across the front seat and run her fingers through his hair and to see up close and personal just how hot those lips were. His touch on her hand did not throw ice water on the vision but took it to the next level.
She made herself erase that picture from her mind and think about the motel. Six rooms had been cleaned and were ready to rent. That left nineteen to do and she’d lost two hours driving to Wichita Falls, swearing on Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as well as her great-aunt Pearlita’s good name, that there was no way in hell that Wil had gone to Wichita Falls the night before.
The sun had come out and the roads were wet and slushy instead of slippery. In the median and off to the sides, grass still sparkled with sleet in shady places but the rest was melting fast. Texas might have ice or even snow on occasion but it didn’t last long, and for that Pearl was grateful. The few times she’d had to drive on icy roads gave her an acute case of the hives, but it wasn’t driving in hazardous conditions that made her jumpy; it was the steaming hot cowboy in the seat beside her.
She pulled off at the next exit and nosed her car into a prime parking space right in front of the store. Her stomach growled and she bit back a string of cuss words that would have scalded the paint off her Caddy. If she’d have listened to her mother, she would have been in Savannah, Georgia, that day with the rest of her family at her grandma’s place. She would have been eating turkey and dressing, candied yams, baked beans, and her grandma’s famous hot rolls. Afterwards she would have gone out and had a long walk in the gardens behind the old plantation house, and if the sun was out, she might have even stretched out on a blanket and read one of those sinfully thick romance books for a couple of hours.
“Can I get you something? Coffee? Coke? Candy bar?” He reached across the seat and laid a hand on her arm, unconsciously making lazy circles with his thumb.
How in the devil could a single square inch of skin build such a big old bonfire in her gut? If his thumb on her arm could make her tingle, then what would it feel like to… she quickly shook the notion from her head.
He swallowed hard and said, “I’ll only be gone a minute.”
If he was gone much longer than that she intended to leave him at the station. He could thumb a ride the rest of the way home. He’d already kept her up half the night with his dog and problems with young girls. But when he shook his jeans down over his boot tops and swaggered toward the door, she forgot all about the dog, the girls, and even Georgiana’s spider. Her pulse kicked into a higher gear when she looked at his backside. He filled out his jeans very well, and his broad shoulders left no doubt that it was hard muscles filling up that jean jacket and not air. The wind whipped his hair into his face and he pushed it back away from his eyes.
“The devil has brown eyes like that,” she mumbled as he disappeared into the store. “And probably wears blue jeans and boots just like that too. And I bet he’s got a thumb with pure fire in it too!”
Wil bought a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts in a box, two cups of coffee, and a bag of potato chips. If he’d had to wait in line he might have purchased a few candy bars and a couple of packages of peanut butter crackers too. Everything he looked at made his mouth water.
“Not a very fancy Christmas dinner,” the lady checker said.
“Looks like the food of the gods to me this morning,” he said.
She winked. “Wife done threw you out?”
“Something like that.”
She smiled and flirted. “Well, I get off at one. You want to hang around I’ll take you home and make you a proper Christmas dinner.”
He handed her a bill and she made change. “Thanks but I got someone waiting in the car.”
“No wonder your wife throwed you out in the yard if you been cheatin’ on her.”
“Stuff happens,” he threw over his shoulder as he picked up his purchases and made his escape.
“You must be hungry,” Pearl said when he’d settled back in the Caddy.
He handed her a cup of coffee and brushed her fingertips on purpose in the transfer. “It’s hot. Be careful.”
She sipped the coffee gingerly. “Thank you.”
“I bought plenty. Help yourself to a couple of donuts.”
Her cell phone set up a ringtone with Zac Brown Band singing about having his toes in the water and his ass in the sand. She fished it out of her purse, smiled when she saw the name, and said, “Hello.”
Wil wasn’t two feet from her so there was nothing to do but eavesdrop. The man on the other end was talking so loud that he could even hear that end of the conversation if he paid close attention… which he did.
“My sweet Pearl. Where were you last night? I went to Emily’s Christmas party and you weren’t there. Damn thing fell flat without our Pearl to make us laugh. Were you slow makin’ the rounds? You always end up at Em’s party last. Tell me where in the hell have you run off to?”
“Brett, darlin’, I’m in Henrietta runnin’ a motel and I couldn’t leave. I missed all you guys. I’m glad y’all missed me too,” she said.
“Well, if you’re in town over the holidays, call me. We’ll run down to Dallas and maybe catch a play,” he said.
“I won’t be this year. Just got things up and going. If you’re ever over here give me a call,” she answered.
“You got it but don’t hold your breath. Merry Christmas, sweet Pearl,” he said.
“Old boyfriend?” Wil asked.
She shook her head. “Just an old friend that I date sometimes.”
“With benefits, sweet Pearl?”
“None of your business.”
“Want a donut?” He chuckled.
“The coffee is enough. And to think, I could have been in Savannah for dinner.” She wished she could reach out in the air, grab the words, and put them back in her mouth. She had no intentions of spilling her guts to this man, whether he was a killer or not.
“Savannah, Georgia?”
She nodded.
“Who lives there?”
“My grandmother. Where are you going for Christmas dinner?” She steered the conversation away from herself. She might be pouting but she was bound, damned, and determined to prove her mother wrong about the motel and her decision to leave her cushy bank job.
Wil ate a donut in three bites and took a sip of coffee. Pearl Richland was one of those fast women who lived for the next good time. Not surprising with her looks, build, and sass.
“I had the big dinner thing yesterday down in Bowie with my family. I got sisters older than me with enough kids to outfit two or three orphanages. My momma and daddy are retired and live down south of Bowie. My sisters live in Chico so they’re all close. We all go home on Christmas Eve and do the big traditional thing with food and presents. Then on Christmas they can do whatever with their own families and Momma and Daddy usually go to my grandma’s place down in Decatur. She’s ninety years old but she still expects her only child to come see her on Christmas. They load up the leftovers and have dinner with her.”
“She lives alone?”
“Yes, ma’am. Ain’t a nursing home that would have her, she’s so cantankerous.” He polished off a second donut and licked his sticky fingertips. “Sure you don’t want one? I’ll feed it to you while you drive.”
“No thank you.” Pearl shivered at the thought of him putting his fingers anywhere near her mouth.
“Granny still runs a few head of cattle. Says she’ll retire when she’s a hundred. Us Marshalls have a long life. My grandpa was just shy of a hundred when he passed last year. Kind of like your Aunt Pearlita.”
Pearl giggled. “She’d roll over in her grave if she he
ard you say such a thing. I’m not sure you could get into heaven after such vile words spew forth from your mouth. She was eighty-three and always claimed to be ten years younger than that.”
“She did have spunk. I only knew her the few times my electricity blew and I had to come into town for either heat or air conditioning, but I could tell she was full of spit and vinegar.”
A helluva lot like you! he thought. Did anyone ever tell you that you are cute as a button when you smile and those green eyes light up?
“Yes, she was. You want me to take you to your ranch or back to the motel?” she asked as they neared the outskirts of Henrietta.
“Ranch please. I’ll bring a truck with extra tires and an air pump later and get my vehicle out of your parking lot. I’ll have to get someone to ride along with me to bring my truck home. I gave my foreman a couple of days off to spend with his family so it could be until he comes back.”
She glanced at the donut box and wished she had one, but there was no way that she’d let him feed her, not when the touch of his thumb turned her inside out. “Tell me when to turn.”
“My ranch is north of Henrietta, going toward Petrolia. So turn left at the Petrolia sign.”
She slowed down and looked at each sign closely, making the turn while he was tearing into the bag of chips. He held them toward her and she shook her head.
“I know you took a chunk out of your day to help me. Could I take you to dinner to repay you for it?” One little dinner date to pay for the favor and then he’d be out of Miss Richland’s life so fast it would tilt the world off its axis.
“Hell, no!”
He dropped the chip bag in his lap. “That was pretty damn quick.”
“Quick and honest. Dinner wouldn’t come close to repaying me for the time I lost.”
He’d never had a woman turn him down flat before. Looking back, he’d never had a woman turn him down at all. “Make a right at the next section line.”
She turned into the lane and saw the two-story house at the end of the lane. It was painted white with a wide front porch that would offer shade in the summer. Digger gave a few yips and bounded down the three steps and ran around Wil’s legs when he got out of the car.
Red's Hot Cowboy Page 4
