Rustler's Moon

by Jodi Thomas

  Of course, if they came for her, she’d swear she didn’t know anything. But would they believe her if her father had already confronted them with some illegal activity he knew about? Whatever her father overheard or found in the books must have been bad. A secret worth murdering for?

  She was letting her imagination run away with her again. The police said her father’s mugging was just one of a half dozen in the area that weekend. Probably drug related. The investigator hadn’t given her much hope that the killer would ever be found. Dark alley. No witnesses. He even said it looked as if her father had been struck with something or pushed, then fell backward hitting his head.

  Angela knew the police report didn’t tell the whole story. Her father knew trouble was coming. Whoever killed him must have known his habits. Whoever mugged him might have known it might trigger a heart attack. Something had kept him from going to the police with his information and that something or someone had to be the reason he wanted her away and safe.

  Only, she had no proof. No facts.

  Her only choice was to make a new start and never look back. She trusted her father. If he said run, she would.

  The sheriff, in the car in front of her, would be her first friend. This place would become her only home. In three months she’d be so much a part of this wild country she’d almost believe she was born to the land.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Wilkes

  Devil’s Fork Ranch

  WILKES WAGNER STARED at his aging uncle, wondering which of them had completely lost their mind. Common sense rarely ran in the Wagner family, but Great-Uncle Vern’s suggestion was ridiculous.

  “I’ve given it some thought, and this is the only answer, boy,” the crippled-up old cowboy repeated as if Wilkes were ten and not thirty-two. “Look at it this way, we breed cattle, don’t we? Why not just pick out a woman with all the right traits and mate with her? It shouldn’t take but a few tries before we got at least one offspring to claim the next generation. And there’s a fifty-fifty chance we’ll get a boy on the first try.”

  “You mean marry some woman, don’t you?” Wilkes was never sure when his uncle was kidding.

  “Of course! There’s an order to these kinds of things. You’d need to marry her first, get her pregnant and wait for a son.” The old man lit a pipe that looked as if it might have survived the Battle of the Alamo. “Look on the bright side, half your life is about over anyway. If you’re miserable at marriage, the last thirty or forty years will seem to move slower with a mean woman around the place and we’ll all work harder so we don’t come home early.”

  Wilkes rolled his eyes. He needed another drink. Or better yet give Great-Uncle Vern a few more and with luck he’d pass out.

  To humor the cowboy, Wilkes asked, “And what would those traits be that I’m looking for in this breeding-bride?”

  Vern smiled as if he’d won the argument. “Stout. You don’t want one of those skinny girls who only eats out of the garden. She’ll need to have a little meat on her bones. Ain’t nothing worse than trying to cuddle up to a skinny gal on a cold night. I did that once in Amarillo, and about midnight I decided driving home in a snowstorm would be warmer.”

  Wilkes grabbed a pen off the poker table and started writing on the back of his Western Horseman magazine. Not skinny.

  His uncle leaned back in an old rocker that had come to the Devil’s Fork Ranch in a covered wagon. “She’ll need to know how to cook and clean and sew, too, otherwise she’d be wearing out the road to town buying takeout, hiring housekeepers and replacing clothes she’s lost a button on.”

  “All that might be hard to find these days.” The only thing the four or five women Wilkes had stepped out with in the past six years could make for dinner was reservations. He considered them cooks if they knew how to use the microwave for popcorn.

  His aging uncle wasn’t paying attention. He was busy thinking. “And she needs to be rich. Not just have money coming to her, mind, but already have it in the bank. You don’t want to count on her father liking you, ’cause if he don’t he might cut her out of the will. Then you’ll be stuck with a poor wife with rich habits.”

  Rich. Wilkes scribbled.

  “And dumb.” Uncle Vern lit his pipe. “Ain’t no smart girl ever going to marry you, even if you are good-looking. If she’s got much schooling, she’ll want to work at something or sit around and read all day.”

  Wilkes had humored his old uncle long enough. Vern was the dumbest and the youngest of four children, and all his brothers and sisters claimed he’d been dropped on his head one time too many when he was a baby. He had lived on the Wagner family ranch all of his seventy-seven years. The rule was whoever ran the Devil’s Fork also had to keep an eye on Vern. Wilkes’s father and grandfather had done it, and now it was Wilkes’s turn. The few other relatives, who’d been smart enough to move to the city, never wanted to come back and take over the job.

  This crazy idea Vern had tonight was the worst one yet.

  Wilkes leaned forward until Vern’s whiskey-blurred eyes focused on him. “I’m real busy with the calving right now, uncle. Do you think you could keep a lookout for a possible wife? She shouldn’t be too hard to find. She’s chubby, eats beef and is rich and dumb. She’ll be wearing a homemade dress and probably have freshly made jam dripping down her chins. Oh, I forgot, she needs to be easy to impregnate, ’cause I won’t be visiting her often.” Wilkes fought down a laugh. “Only, that trait might be hard to prove on sight.”

  Vern didn’t get the joke. He rocked back so far that the forward swing, a moment later, shoved him out of the chair and onto his wobbly legs. “I’ll do my best for you! I promise. Might go into Crossroads tomorrow and put up a few signs. I don’t think I’ve been to town since spring and the Franklin sisters always say they miss seeing me.”

  Wilkes laughed. “You do that, Uncle Vern.”

  The broken-down cowboy headed toward the massive double doors of the ranch house muttering, “I hated to have this talk with you, son, but you ain’t getting nowhere in the breeding department and ’fore you know it you’ll be past your prime or dead. Who’ll run the ranch? You had a gal once and let her go, so we got to act fast before you get any older and end up sleeping alone the rest of your life.”

  Wilkes saw it then. The reason his uncle had insisted on drinking tonight and talking. He was afraid he’d outlive Wilkes and no one would take over Devil’s Fork. Vern had spent his life living on the ranch, never worrying about money or where his next meal was coming from. He’d hated school so much his mother had let him quit after the seventh grade. He loved working with horses, living alone and driving his pickup until the odometer circled twice. He was afraid of being left out here on his own.

  Following his uncle to the porch, Wilkes watched Vern limp toward his cabin a hundred yards away. Light from the second-floor windows of the main house illuminated the old man’s path. The massive home had been built fifty years ago to hold a dozen kids. It now held one. Wilkes.

  Vern had watched his brother, Wilkes’s grandfather, take over the ranch. When he died, Wilkes’s father became the manager. Vern said all he wanted to do was cowboy. The job of boss wouldn’t suit him.

  Uncle Vern had been around all of Wilkes’s life, working cattle with the ranch hands, training horses with his father and eating supper every night at the family table in the big house. This life was all he knew. All he wanted to know.

  Wilkes shook his head as his heart ached for Vern Wagner, who’d lived long enough to go from being Wilkes’s hero and teacher, to friend, to responsibility. His uncle had taught him to ride, cussed him out when he left the pasture gate open and bought him fireworks every year, even when Wilkes’s mother said she wouldn’t allow them on the ranch. The old guy may have danced with a few girls in his day, but he had never married. He was loyal to the family, loyal to the Devil�
��s Fork brand.

  Wilkes watched the lights flick on in Vern’s cabin. “I better start looking for a fat, rich wife so I can start breeding Vern’s next guardian angel,” he mumbled as he downed the last of his whiskey, knowing he was only half kidding. Then he climbed the stairs and slept in the second room off the upstairs landing. The first bedroom was bigger, the master, but when Wilkes had returned home to take over the ranch, he hadn’t felt as if he deserved the master suite. He still didn’t.

  The next morning as he drove into town to pick up fencing supplies and eat breakfast with a friend, Wilkes thought about the conversation the night before. Vern was right about one thing. Wilkes had had a lady once. The perfect one. He’d loved Lexie Davis the minute he first saw her, chased her through high school and college; but she’d never really been his. When he’d left for the army a month after they both graduated, she promised she’d wait, and she had... Only, she’d counted her time in hours. Sixty-three days into his deployment, she’d written him one letter. It said simply she’d met someone else. She’d added five words below Love, Lexi: don’t bother to write back.

  Wilkes told himself a hundred times that he was over her. Maybe not everyone was meant to find that forever love. Vern hadn’t. But something broke inside Wilkes the day Lexie walked out of his life and he feared he would never mend.

  Hell. Vern was right. Maybe he should start thinking about finding a wife, but it wasn’t exactly a scavenger hunt. He should make a real list. It’d be pretty much the opposite of Vern’s. He liked long-legged women with midnight hair that dropped down to their waist and laughter dancing in their eyes. Women like Lexie.

  Lexie, the woman he was over, Wilkes reminded himself.

  While he waited for the supplies to be loaded, Wilkes walked along the wide main street. The business district of Crossroads looked as if the stores must have been bought from a clearance rack. All different sizes, ages, styles. Nothing matched. Crossroads was a town more likely to be called quirky than quaint.

  He noticed a few new stores since he’d last been in town. Businesses that had filled in where empty gaps had stood. Shiny as new teeth in an old mouth, he thought. The change made the little town look a bit more prosperous.

  One empty hull had become the Forever Keepsake Shop. In his opinion, the only folks who bought knickknacks to sit around gathering dust must be orphans, because every time one of his relatives died, he inherited another crate of “treasured” family keepsakes. Sometimes he wondered if his great-great-grandparents had hauled their junk from the old country to Texas in a wagon train and not just one wagon. All the old trunks and lanterns and dusty quilts came back to Devil’s Fork like ugly buzzards coming home to roost.

  Wilkes walked into the new shop hoping he might offer to supply the place. Old tools, butter churns, wall telephones, he had them all in supply.

  Two women in their forties giggled when he stepped inside and closed the door. He knew them by last name. The Franklin sisters. They probably had first names, but years ago when his mother would point them out to him, she always said simply, “There’s the Franklin sisters. Poor things. Bless their hearts.”

  He’d been twenty before he found out why they were poor things. Apparently, in the late seventies or early eighties, they’d both fallen for the same boy—a good-looking Gypsy kid with bedroom eyes and the last name of Stanley. He ran off with a girl from another Gypsy family in town, and both the Franklin sisters were brokenhearted. They swore over an ocean of tears that he was the only man either would ever love and they would never marry.

  Some thought that sad; others just thought it was their escape, because the two weren’t likely to marry anyway. By eighteen, they both tipped the scales at over two hundred pounds, and at twenty-five, they’d gained another fifty or sixty. By thirty, they both sported faint mustaches.

  Even on a dark night no one would mistake them as pretty. But they were sweet as warm toffee. Every few years they took up a new business in town. As far as he could remember, they’d had the Sweet Shop, the Quilting Bee and a used bookstore called the Book Hideout.

  Wilkes smiled at the two sisters. “Morning, Miss Franklin and Miss Franklin.” Even round and hairy, there was something about the ladies that was adorable.

  Both giggled. “How can we help you, Wilkes?” they said at once.

  Wilkes didn’t want to seem the village idiot, so he said, “I’m looking for a keepsake to give a friend who is visiting.”

  “Do you know him well?” the shorter Miss Franklin asked.

  Wilkes lied again. “No. He’s just someone stopping by for a cup of coffee. He’s thinking about going into ranching.” Dumb lie, Wilkes thought, but he was too far in now to back out.

  “We know just the thing.” Each woman grabbed a box from the stacks behind the counter.

  Wilkes didn’t care what was in the boxes. He picked the smallest and thanked them. Handing them a twenty, he wasn’t surprised to get only coins back. They managed small talk about Uncle Vern’s health while one sister bagged his purchase.

  When they passed it to him, one Miss Franklin started mentioning every relative she had who was still unmarried. “Fran’s newly divorced, you know, but she’s a treasure.”

  The other sister chimed in. “Avis is a little older than you, but she’s real pretty, and then you know Molly and Doris. I think you went to school with them. Both were engaged last year, but it didn’t work out.”

  Wilkes never knew what to say. He’d been tricked into a dozen meet-the-single-relative dates, and they’d all turned out bad.

  The taller Miss Franklin must have gotten the message, but she wasn’t ready to toss in her matchmaking wand. “I guess you heard Lexie Davis is moving back.”

  He hadn’t heard. He didn’t care, but that didn’t stop the conversation.

  “Her second marriage didn’t work out, you know, and her aunt is poorly. Lexie is hoping to get on at the high school. She can teach both drama and English, she claims, though she’s never had to work. Married well both times, you know.”

  Wilkes had to get out of the store. He didn’t want to hear more about Lexie. Not in this lifetime. Besides, how “well” are marriages that don’t last two years?

  “I wish I could visit, but I’ve got my hands full this morning.” Wilkes had a death grip on his box as he backed toward the door.

  They both looked sad.

  Wilkes couldn’t talk about Lexie. One goodbye letter while he’d been away in the army had been enough to kill any hope of love.

  She hadn’t waited. He wasn’t interested. End of story. Wilkes didn’t want to reread that chapter in his life. He’d been home six years and hadn’t run into her. She was just a memory now.

  He stormed out the door not even remembering if he said goodbye.

  With no thought but to escape, Wilkes darted into the next business. The welcome sign clanged like a gong. The smell of hair spray and bleach almost knocked him back outside.

  A beauty shop. Wilkes swore. Why couldn’t it have been a bookstore, or a Laundromat or better yet a bar?

  He looked around at women with aluminum foil in their hair and took a step backward. Alien invasion came to mind.

  The gum-chewing girl with green-striped hair darted around the counter and caught up to him. “May we help you, mister?”

  “No, thanks,” Wilkes managed. “I was, uh, just looking for my aunt.”

  One of the aliens in the back yelled, “Your last aunt died five years ago, Wilkes Wagner.”

  Wilkes pulled his hat down and answered, “Then I guess she’s not here.”

  He ignored the laughter and walked out, head high, keepsake box in hand. Thank goodness the next place down the road was a café he knew. Dorothy’s Café had been around for as long as he could remember, and the food served was exactly the same. Fried grease with a side of st
arch. He might be a half hour early to meet his friend, but the café seemed a safe place. He knew it would take a little time to wash Lexie out of his mind.

  As he sat down at the first booth, he saw a sign across the street that said Puppy Paradise, Dog Grooming and Training.

  No doubt about it, Crossroads, Texas, was growing. Wilkes couldn’t wait to show Uncle Vern the new place. Maybe he’d suggest grooming the cattle.

  He ordered coffee, then opened the box he’d bought. To his shock, he’d paid twenty dollars for a mug that looked to be about the same as the one the waitress delivered with his coffee.

  Only, the mug in the box was obviously worth far more because it read, “You are at the Crossroads of your life.”

  Wilkes laughed. Nothing had changed in his life in six years. It was hard to see a crossroads when he knew he was born with only one way to travel. He had played four years of college football without managing to pick up much education and served three years in the army without collecting any bullet holes, but by twenty-six, after drifting across the United States and back, he’d come back home to do what he always knew he’d do. Run the ranch. It wasn’t as if he’d given up on his dreams; he’d never really had any to begin with.

  His folks weren’t dead. They were simply absentee landlords. Never around to help or fix things, but calling in now and then to check on what he was doing. They must have started packing the day they’d called Wilkes and found out he hadn’t even bothered to look for a job after he got out of the army. He was drifting and they had the solution to his no goal, no direction life.

  His mother’s folks were aging and needed help downsizing and selling several small businesses. So Wilkes’s parents moved to Denver claiming Wilkes would run the ranch while they were gone, since he seemed to have nothing else to do.

  He’d agreed, thinking they’d be gone a few months. Six years later his dad looked like an aging hippie and his mother was taking meditation classes so she could teleport. They took cruises with Wilkes’s eighty-year-old grandparents and showed no sign of coming back to the work of ranching.