Well, he knew she was downhearted, but it couldn’t be helped. Betty would have to resign herself to losing at love.
On Almond Grove Avenue, just past the offices of the Grazer Gazette, Agatha Flintstone emerged from the Book Nook. Since she owned the place, she often went in during her lunch hour to check on the clerk and sort through the latest romance novels.
Romance novels! Moose thought with a mental snort. He was glad his Kate wasn’t the sort of addlepated female who expected a knight in shining armor to sweep her away.
Across the square, Jeanie Jeffrey trotted out of town hall carrying a cordless phone. “Yoo-hoo!” she yelled. “Mr. Harmon! I need you!”
Moose’s chest swelled. He’d gone from being Big Man on Campus at Grazer State to Big Man in Town, and it felt good.
He set out down the block at a trot, picturing a football tucked under one arm and a herd of bruisers heading in his direction. Instinctively, Moose put his head down to cut the drag, and barely looked up in time to avoid smacking into Agatha.
“Well!” She took a quick step backward, clutching her pile of paperbacks.
“My apologies, Miss Flintstone.” He felt like a schoolboy caught smoking in the rest room. “I was just—”
“Moose! I really need you to take this call!” Jeanie shouted from the opposite comer.
“Okay, coming.” He hurried to her and snatched the receiver. “This is Bledsoe Harmon, mayor of Grazer’s Comers. To whom am I speaking?”
The response was a burst of static, then silence.
“You took the phone out of range!” he accused Jeanie.
Her square face crumpled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Harmon. It was the police chief from Gulch City, Texas, and I didn’t know what to tell him.”
Grumbling, Moose followed her through the town hall courtyard to the sheriffs office. “I suppose he’ll call back.”
“Oh, and I needed to ask you something.” Jeanie picked a string off her dress and tossed it onto the floor. “See, I was supposed to take my vacation next week. I made the reservations and bought my tickets to Hawaii already. I know Kate will be back, but then you’ll go on your honeymoon, and without Sheriff Brockner...”
“Don’t you worry,” Moose said. “You go ahead and take your vacation. I’ll make sure somebody covers for you.”
“Thanks!” She beamed at him as she dialed the phone. “I’ll try long distance information—maybe we can get a number for the Gulch City police.”
He was about to point out that if she tied up the line, the chief couldn’t reach them, but just then his cell phone rang.
Moose whipped it from the pocket inside his jacket. “Yes?”
“It’s me.” That was Kate. “Moose, I’m going to be gone a little longer than I thought.”
His neck started getting hot. “Why is that?”
“You remember Loretta Blaine, who sings at church?” He nodded, then remembered that she couldn’t see him. “Well, she’s Mitch’s cousin and she’s in a lot of danger, and it’s because of my advice. So we have to go to Santa Fe.”
“Santa Fe?” he roared.
“We’ll stop in some place south of Flagstaff, I think it’s called Oak Creek Canyon, to see someone who might be able to help Mitch—see, his ranch was stolen—and then we need to reach Loretta before they do.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“Those men who shot up the church,” she said. “The Tiny Wheeler Gang.”
He couldn’t believe this. Sure, he’d seen those bandits, and there were bullet holes in the church walls to prove the guns had been real, but the name Tiny Wheeler Gang sounded as if it came from a Wild West movie. “What kind of rubbish is this?”
“I know it sounds strange,” Kate continued in her maddeningly level voice. “But I couldn’t be the woman you love if I didn’t fulfill my duty.”
“Your duty is to me!”
“And I intend to fulfill that, too,” she said, as if she were referring to a speaking engagement instead of a marriage. “We can’t get the church again on a Saturday for two or three weeks anyway, and I absolutely promise I’ll be back by then.”
“Three weeks?” He nearly strangled over all those long-E sounds. “Kate!”
“Just think what a great story this will make to tell our children!” she said cheerily. “Bye, Moose.” And hung up.
He wanted to yank the phone out of the wall, but he couldn’t. That was the darned problem with cell phones.
Jeanie, on her line, scribbled down a number and hung up. It rang again immediately.
“Hello?” she said. “Oh, hi, Chief. I’ve been trying to get your number, that’s why it was busy.... There’s no need to shout....I’ll just let you talk to the mayor now, sir.” She rubbed her ear and handed Moose the receiver.
“Mayor Harmon here!” he snapped.
“This is Chief Norris Novo in Gulch City, Texas.” The man’s softly accented voice carried an edge of irritation. “I am trying to track down a lead from one of our citizens, a Mr. Billy Parkinson, who says a wanted murderer may have been seen in your town.”
“Are you referring to Mitch Connery?”
“You’ve seen him?” said Chief Novo.
“Yes, sir, I have.” Finding himself a key witness soothed Moose’s ruffled feathers slightly. “He disrupted a church service and took off with...” How could he admit that his bride had been stolen? And if he said the sheriff had been snatched, it would make the whole town look like Podunk Station. “...with our elementary school principal. I believe he conned her with some story about being framed.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s a smooth talker,” said the chief. “Got any idea where they’re headed?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Moose relayed the information about Flagstaff and Santa Fe.
“Thank you very kindly,” said Chief Novo. “By the way, how come I’m talking to the mayor? Don’t you have some kind of law out there?”
“In Grazer’s Corners?” retorted Moose. “Nothing ever happens here.”
“Other than shoot-outs in church?” drawled the chief. “In any case, I do appreciate your help.”
“You’re welcome.” Moose handed the receiver to Jeanie.
Then he realized he’d forgotten to mention that the Tiny Wheeler Gang was hot on Mitch’s tail. But he supposed Chief Novo already knew that.
“You did a great job! Thanks for taking the call,” Jeanie said. “Grazer’s Corners would be lost without you, Mr. Harmon.”
He smiled in gracious acknowledgment. Then his expansive mood evaporated as he remembered that Kate wasn’t coming back for a while.
Doggone it, what was a man supposed to do, eat frozen dinners and watch reruns on TV when he should be enjoying his honeymoon? It would serve her right if he did ask Betsy out to dinner.
In fact, he thought as he went out the door, he was going to do exactly that.
THE SAN BERNARDINO Mountains were noted for their scenic vistas and for the ski resorts of Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear. In Kate’s memory, however, they would always be associated with long steep grades on which the pickup whined and groaned like a mammoth on the verge of extinction.
Was this, she wondered, where the Donner Party had gotten stuck during pioneer days and spent a terrible winter, eventually sinking to cannibalism? No, she remembered with a twinge of relief, that was further north in the Sierra Nevada.
“Is something making you nervous?” asked Mitch.
Kate glanced at her hands and saw that her nails had cut half-moons into her palms. “I guess I don’t like heights.”
“Going up or coming down?” he asked.
That brought up another, even more frightening thought. “How good are your brakes?” .
“Well, they made it west okay,” he said. “Frankly, I never gave it much thought. The landscape’s pretty flat around Gulch City and this old beast’s been real reliable for hauling calves.”
“You haul a lot of calves in the lawyer business?”
She tried to ignore a zillion-foot drop into forested depths, just inches from the road’s shoulder.
“Not for the past ten years,” Mitch conceded. “I never bothered to buy a car because I always figured I’d be getting the High C back. Besides, I couldn’t afford to.”
“The camper looks almost new.” She winced as a car with peeling paint and a souped-up engine screeched uphill past them.
“I got it cheap because the inside was trashed.” Mitch rested one forearm atop the wheel. “I made the cabinets myself.”
That did impress Kate. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
“A cowboy needs woodworking skills,” he explained. “You’ve got to be able to fend for yourself if you get cut off from town. Throw up a fence, fix the roof, whatever.”
“Do you really get cut off?” The image she formed was not an unpleasant one, of a picture-postcard farmhouse with lights glowing against the snow. On the other hand, in these days when you could contact someone on the other side of the globe in seconds via the Internet, isolation seemed like a relic from another century.
“Oh, we can get a helicopter to fly in if there’s a medical emergency,” he admitted. “But that’s not much help if a horse kicks a hole in your corral. Plus we get twisters now and then. You can’t be calling out a carpenter all the time.” His tone implied that a real man would always exhaust his own resources before summoning help.
“You’re not going to turn macho on me, are you?”
He regarded her in surprise. “What do you mean by that?”
“Toughing everything out by yourself.” Kate wriggled in the seat, wishing she’d changed back to jeans and jogging shoes before they left Pasadena. “I figured you were an equal opportunity cowboy.”
Mitch’s gaze swung back to the highway. “Taking care of your own business isn’t what I call macho. That’s just the way people do things when they live close to nature.”
“What would you call macho?”
“Throwing your weight around,” he said promptly. “Strutting like a peacock, getting jealous for no reason, starting a fight because some fellow looks at you cross-eyed.”
“I guess you’re right,” Kate admitted. She’d simply assumed that masculine independence and self-sufficiency were signs of machismo.
Specializing in the education field, she was accustomed to teamwork and committees and deferring to accepted authorities. But a man or woman who lived on a ranch would need a different mind-set, tougher and more individualistic.
Those were qualities she was coming to appreciate more and more since she’d met Mitch. He didn’t see any need to show off; he just quietly went about getting things done, even when those things involved danger.
Unlike Moose, he would certainly never cower in safety while his fiancée was abducted from their wedding. Not that she’d been abducted, exactly. And Moose, she reminded herself, hadn’t cowered. He’d fled with the minister in tow.
They were in the Victorville area, past the turnoff to the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum, when the truck heaved a long sigh that developed into a steamy hiss. They barely managed to limp along to the next gas station.
How would they ever make it Flagstaff, let alone Santa Fe, if the truck kept breaking down?
“Probably needs a new thermostat,” Mitch advised as he pulled alongside the station’s repair bay. “Might take an hour or so.”
Kate peered unhappily at the sky. The sun was sinking and darkness moving in fast. Clouds formed a high canopy.
The last weather report on the radio hadn’t mentioned rain. She took some comfort in that, at least.
By the time Mitch diagnosed the problem, bought the proper part and fixed the truck, darkness had descended. The first campground they saw had a No Vacancy sign, and the second was little more than a parking lot. There was no place for Mitch to sleep outdoors.
Kate didn’t want to press on in the dark, not in view of the steepness of the terrain and the fragility of the truck. Neither did she want to find herself crammed into close quarters with Mitch.
“We could go on,” he said. “Or we could make the best of things and share the camper.”
A few years back, Kate and Moose had gone fishing with friends and ended up sharing a tent. A small tent, at that. After a few hopeful glances and a sloppy kiss, Moose had left her alone, and she’d slept like a baby.
She didn’t think she would sleep like a baby in the same room with Mitch. And she didn’t want to go down the mountain in the dark.
“Drop me at a motel,” she said.
“You sure?” There was no criticism in his tone, only concern. “You use a credit card, somebody could trace you.”
“I’m not wanted for anything,” she said. “And I don’t think Moose is going to fire up his Lincoln and come charging after me.”
“I would,” Mitch said quietly. “If you belonged to me.”
The words sent a quiver up Kate’s spine. Rather than try to figure out what it meant, she teased, “You mean you’d rope me and lasso me and carry me home?”
“I’d make sure you were all right.” The truck turned onto the highway. “And if you needed my help, I’d come with you.”
“Even to clear another man’s name?”
“If you believed in him, I’d give it serious consideration.” They drove for another mile or so, then pulled into a motel lot. “This place look okay?”
“Just fine,” Kate said.
“I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.” He indicated the motel’s restaurant. “That way you can enjoy a civilized breakfast.”
“Thanks.”
After retrieving her suitcase, Kate watched the truck pull away with an unfamiliar sense of loss. She hardly knew the man, yet she missed him already.
She checked in, walked up a flight of stairs and let herself into Number 25. Plopping her suitcase on the bed, Kate stared around the motel room as if she had just arrived in a foreign country. After the busy last few days, it felt peculiar to find herself alone.
Well, it wasn’t as if she’d never traveled before. She attended education-related conferences several times a year, and basically all hotel chambers looked alike. She pulled a few items from her suitcase and went to take a long, hot shower.
After she dried off, she noticed there was a telephone in the room. She could call Moose and have a private chat. But she didn’t want to.
To her surprise, Kate didn’t miss Grazer’s Comers. She didn’t wish she was having a night of wedded bliss with Moose and she didn’t miss the books that usually surrounded her at home.
In fact, when she thought of home, she kept picturing the warm cedar-scented interior of the camper, with Mitch cooking pasta at the stove. That must be the problem: she was hungry.
Retrieving an education journal to read while she ate, Kate dressed and went to the restaurant.
THE SKY HAD TURNED a relentless slate gray by morning. Suitcase packed and bill paid, Kate finished a leisurely breakfast by the coffee shop window where she could watch for Mitch.
Outside, a highway patrol car pulled in. Kate’s heart thudded into her throat.
The cruiser slotted itself between a motor home and a minivan. At this angle, she doubted Mitch would see it when he arrived.
Kate checked her watch. It was 7:28. She hoped Mitch would be late.
It was even possible that he wouldn’t come at all. Last night, she’d given him the perfect opportunity to go his own way unfettered.
A yearning tightened her chest. She didn’t want the adventure to end yet. Besides, for all his resourcefulness, Mitch needed her help.
The door jingled open and the highway patrolman entered the nearly empty restaurant. He was of average height and slightly stocky.
“Coffee?” asked the hostess.
“Sure.” He followed her past Kate to the next booth. As he went by, he gave her a pleasant nod, which she returned.
There was still no sign of the truck. Kate hoped the patrolman would drink quickly and leave
.
Her hopes faded as the waitress sauntered to his booth and, after setting down the coffee, flipped open her pad. “What’ll it be? The usual?”
Kate couldn’t see the man, but she could hear his deep sigh. “No, thanks. I’ll take some cereal. That high-fiber stuff. The kind with no taste.”
A low rumble from outside startled Kate. But it was just a kid on a skateboard, hitting every crack and bump in the pavement with bone-crunching determination.
“You can’t give up on doughnuts today!” teased the waitress. “We’ve got some fresh made.”
“I’m trying to cut down.” After a moment, the patrolman said, “Got any jelly?”
“Sure.” Even without looking, Kate could hear the smile in the waitress’s voice.
The patrolman groaned. “Give me two, will you?”
“Two?”
“Make that three.”
“You got it.” The woman moved away.
The man was sitting behind Kate, hidden by the booth divider. But whatever she could view out the window, so could he.
So he probably saw, as soon as she did, the battered pickup with a camper on the back as it turned into the lot. Texas plates. And the number, she remembered, was listed on the APB.
Mitch rolled past the restaurant. Kate waved through the window, and saw his answering signal.
She tried to gesture him to go on and park, but he stopped directly in front of them. The patrolman couldn’t help seeing him.
Fighting down a wave of panic, she picked up the check, grabbed her suitcase and moved to the cash register. Mitch, move the truck. Drive on past and you’ll see the patrol car.
Maybe he would realize the danger and just keep going on to Flagstaff without her. It would be better than getting caught.
As she stood at the counter, fishing her wallet from her purse, she listened for the patrolman to call in a report. Surely he had a portable phone or radio with him.
The hostess appeared and took Kate’s money. It was such a relief, her knees wobbled. Now all she had to do was walk slowly out of here and they’d be safe....
Then she remembered that she hadn’t put down a tip. She couldn’t walk away and leave the waitress empty-handed.
The Cowboy & The Shotgun Bride (The Brides of Grazer's Corners #1) Page 9
