Christmas with My Cowboy

by Diana Palmer

  “Nice work.”

  He smiled, if that faint drawing up of one side of his mouth could be called a smile. He laced his fingers on his chest. “The other suspect is a friend of the one we fingered,” he added. “He only got a couple of thousand. His friend, the one with the rap sheet, stole thirty thousand from his client. We can put together all the information you need to prosecute them, and I’ll testify in court if you need me to.”

  “Thanks,” she said sincerely. “I’ll get back to you on that. Right now, I have to do some interrogations.”

  “The first suspect, Russell Harris, served time for assault,” he returned. “If you interview him, don’t go alone. The victim was a woman.”

  She felt her heart jump, but she smiled. “Thanks for the advice.”

  “We heard about what happened to you in the Bureau,” he said, surprising her. “We’ll look out for you here. If you can’t get a deputy to go with you, I’ll go. I’m licensed to conceal carry and I’m not afraid of men who hit women.”

  The smile grew bigger. He was nice. “Thanks.”

  “It’s a small community, Raven Springs,” he commented. “We don’t have many newcomers, so when we do, we start asking questions. In a nice way,” he added. “We don’t really pry, but we like to know who our neighbors are. I’m sorry for what happened to you,” he added. “They should have sent a male agent with you on that interrogation. When I was with the Bureau, I made sure that female agents had backup.”

  “You were with the Bureau?” she exclaimed.

  He nodded. “For five years. They were good years. But I wanted roots. I have a wife and two young sons,” he added, chuckling as he turned a photo to face her.

  It was a good-looking group. She noticed that his wife was blond and young and pretty. “Your sons look like you,” she said.

  “They do,” he said with a sigh. “I wanted a pretty little blond girl like my sweetheart there.” He indicated the photo. “But God really doesn’t take orders.” He laughed.

  “There’s always hope,” she pointed out.

  “Always.” He got up. “Whatever you need, just ask.” He frowned. “Why did you leave the Bureau after just a year?”

  “They had me filing and typing up reports,” she said sadly. “It wasn’t what I thought I’d be doing. At least here, the sheriff lets me do investigations and talk to people who don’t wear guns.”

  “I’m sure he’s grateful for the help,” he added. “The job doesn’t pay much, but it comes with a certain amount of prestige, just the same. Welcome home, Miss Dawson. You’re going to like living here. Your dad was a fine man.”

  “He was. Thanks.”

  “If you need help during the winter, you can always ask Dal Blake,” he added. “His place is right next door to yours, and he’s a good man. He’ll do what he can for you.”

  “I’m sure he would,” she said without feeling. “Thanks again, Mr. Jones.”

  “No, thank you.”

  She turned, curious. “What for?”

  “Well, for one thing, for not asking if I retired from a singing career.” He burst out laughing at her expression. “I can just imagine what Jeff told you about me. Tell him that the next chess game is mine by forfeit.”

  “I’ll tell him.” She grinned. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, too.”

  * * *

  Jeff was grinning when she got back to the office with the printed documents she’d obtained with a court order, just so everything was legal.

  “Did you ask him if he sang?”

  “He said you forfeited the next chess match.” She laughed.

  He sighed. “Well, I guess I should. But he’s a good sport. Good security man, too. He was Army intelligence overseas, and he’s been both a policeman and an FBI agent.”

  “He told me. I’ll bet he was good at it.”

  “He was, but he had a girlfriend—now his wife—who informed him that she wasn’t lining up to be a widow with him in that sort of work. He had to make a choice, and she won. I don’t think he ever regretted it. If you ever see them together, they’re like two halves of a whole. Still deeply in love after two kids.” He shook his head. “Surprised a lot of people when he married her. There’s a fourteen-year age difference. She said love doesn’t have an age limit and ignored the gossip.” He laughed. “I guess love does triumph.”

  “I guess so.” She was thinking of the age difference between herself and Dal Blake and hated herself for it.

  “I wish you’d reconsider the dance,” Jeff said solemnly. “You could wear a pantsuit. Nobody would gossip about you.”

  She drew in a long breath. “Let me think about it for a day or two, okay? I’m not really a party person. And Dal Blake will probably be there,” she added darkly.

  “You really don’t like him, do you?” he asked, and looked pleased.

  “No. I really don’t. He’s arrogant and blunt and impolite . . .”

  Jeff held up a hand. “No time for that now. We have to get back to work. I’m sending Gil with you to interview Russell Harris. He works part-time at the Bar K Burger joint. He’ll be on his lunch break in ten minutes. I’ve already alerted his boss that you’re on the way.”

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Nobody’s slugging you around here. Not on my watch,” he added, and looked imposing.

  “Thanks, Sheriff.”

  “Jeff.”

  “No. During working hours, you’re the boss. So it’s Sheriff. Or boss.”

  “I like boss better,” he commented.

  “Okay. Boss.”

  “Gil!”

  “On my way,” the other man replied, sliding into his thick coat as he joined them. “Snow’s started again.”

  “We have chains on the patrol cars,” Jeff pointed out.

  “I think we’re going to need them. Weather forecast looks messy for the next few days.”

  “It’s Colorado,” Jeff sighed. “Snow is sort of a way of life.”

  “So it is. You ready to go?” he asked Meadow.

  “Yes, I am.”

  She followed him out to the patrol car, pulling up the hood of her parka as snow peppered down on them.

  “That’s painful snow,” she commented.

  “It’s sleet mixed with snow. Stings like a bee, doesn’t it?” he replied.

  “Yes.”

  He pulled out into the road and drove a mile to the small hamburger joint that sat just off the highway. There were several cars in the parking lot, but Jeff found a vacant parking spot and pulled into it.

  “That’s quite a crowd in this weather,” she commented.

  “I recognize four of those cars.” He chuckled. “They’re EMA.”

  She frowned.

  “Emergency Management,” he said. “They’re always out if people are lost, and we’ve had a hiker go missing in the back woods.”

  He opened the door for her and followed her inside. Four grizzly-looking men were hunched over the counter drinking coffee and eating pancakes.

  “How’s it going, Brad?” Gil asked the man in the shepherd’s coat.

  A broad, unshaven face with heavy eyelids glanced at him. “Badly,” he said. “We found some tracks, but the snow covered them up along with most of anything else. Jerry’s gone home to get his bloodhound. He’ll find the trail.”

  “Yes, he will. Old Redhide is famous locally,” Gil told Meadow. “He can track over anything.”

  Brad laughed. “He sure can. Found the Candles’ little girl when she wandered into the woods after a fawn she saw, last summer. Her parents bought him what looked like a lifetime supply of chewy toys and treats for Redhide.”

  Meadow grinned. “I’ve got a husky. She loves those, too.”

  “A husky. Is she an escape artist?” Brad asked.

  She sighed. “She is. I keep her inside, but she has a doggy door for nighttime emergencies. I haven’t had to go looking for her for a long time, though. Except at my neighbor’s. She l
oves him.”

  “Dal Blake.” Brad nodded. “He sure misses his old Lab. Hard thing, losing a pet.”

  “It is,” Meadow agreed.

  “You here to buy us all breakfast, on account of the great job we do?” Brad teased.

  Gil chuckled. “Nope. It’s lunchtime, you reprobate, and we’re here on another matter.”

  Brad’s face tautened. He glanced toward the last booth, where an unkempt light-haired man was lounging arrogantly, still in his apron. “He’s over there. My second cousin was the woman he assaulted. I hoped he’d never get out. But he got lucky on public defenders.”

  “Some do,” Gil said nonchalantly. “See you later.”

  “Keep safe.”

  “You do the same.”

  * * *

  Meadow disliked Russell Harris on sight. He was the sort of man she’d seen far too often in lockup. He still had prison tattoos on both arms, and huge biceps. He was wearing a kerchief tied around his forehead.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” he drawled, glaring at them. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not about to break the law. I don’t want to go back inside.”

  If he was already on probation, Meadow thought, a bad check case would most likely send him straight back to prison. She hated the pleasure the thought gave her.

  “We want to talk to you . . .” she began.

  “I’ll talk to him,” Harris interrupted sarcastically. “I don’t answer to women for nothing!”

  “No, you just hammer them into submission, don’t you, Mr. Harris?” she asked sweetly.

  His body tautened.

  “If you make one move toward her,” Gil said softly, his arm at an odd angle, “you’ll go back in stir by way of the emergency room. Care to look under the table?” he added.

  Harris knew without looking that a .45 Colt was cocked and aimed at his belly. He sat back in the booth. “I didn’t pass no bad checks.”

  Meadow pulled out two sheets of paper. She had to wait until her hands stopped shaking to put them on the table.

  “The sheet on the left has your signature on a check from your employer. The sheet on the right has the forged name of the victim in a check forging case. The signatures are the same. Yours.”

  “I’m not going back!” Harris said, and jumped up.

  Gil had him before he could run, spun him around, tossed him down like a feather, and cuffed him so quickly that Meadow was barely on her feet before the suspect was in custody.

  She noticed then that the rescue party had gathered close by in case they were needed. She smiled at them. Nice to know that law enforcement had that sort of backup from other members of the community.

  They smiled back and sat down.

  “You can’t prove I did that.” Harris was raging all the way to the patrol car. “That paper don’t prove nothing!”

  They ignored him. They stopped by the drive-in window to get burgers and fries and tell the boss that he was going to be short one employee for a while.

  * * *

  Russell Harris went into a holding cell to be processed. Meadow and Gil went back to the office with food.

  The sheriff joined them for lunch.

  “We should arrest cooks more often,” Jeff commented between bites of his burger and fries. “Especially at lunch time. I don’t guess the other suspect works at a restaurant?”

  Meadow chuckled. “He works at a feed store. I don’t think alfalfa sprouts would taste quite the same.”

  Jeff grinned.

  “That was really good police work,” Meadow told Gil. “Gosh, the way you took that guy down was awesome! I had an instructor at the academy who could do it like that. I never could,” she confessed. “I’m too clumsy.”

  “I’ve been in law enforcement since high school,” Gil confessed. “And I did a tour of duty in the Army where I was an MP. I guess I’m used to violent people.”

  “Good thing,” Meadow commented, “because I really thought he was going to come over the table at me.” She moved restively. It had brought back painful memories. “Thanks for saving me,” she added.

  “You’d have done okay,” Gil told her. “You don’t learn how to do a job unless they let you do it, mistakes and all,” he said seriously. “Your bosses did you no favor by sticking you behind a desk.”

  She smiled warmly. “Thanks. But they did have just cause,” she told him. “I have two left feet. Balance issues.”

  “Ever seen a doctor about them?” Jeff asked.

  “Not really. I had a concussion, but it was mild.”

  “I saw this show about head injuries in football players,” Jeff replied. “It showed graphically what happens to them over time. It was sobering. Even a slight head injury can do permanent damage.”

  “There was that wrestler, you remember him, who killed some people, and they said he had the brain of an eighty-year-old from all the years of being in the ring,” Gil commented. “Tragic case.”

  “That’s why football players wear helmets,” Jeff said.

  “Yes, but the injuries happen in spite of helmets,” Gil returned. “And wrestlers don’t wear helmets.”

  “I used to love to watch the Rock on Monday Night Raw,” Meadow confessed. “Now I watch him in movies instead.”

  “Race to Witch Mountain was one of my favorites,” Gil said.

  “Oh, mine’s Central Intelligence,” Jeff added. “Nobody like the Rock. He’s got a heart the size of a mountain to go with all that talent.”

  “And he’s dishy,” Meadow added with a grin.

  They just laughed.

  * * *

  Meadow couldn’t find the second bad check suspect, although she did trace him to a local motel. He was registered there weekly and had gone away for the weekend. Meadow told Jeff she’d try again on Monday, and he said that was fine but Gil or one of the other deputies would go with her. Just in case. She didn’t argue. It might not be politically correct, but having a tough man for backup didn’t bother her pride one bit. Not after she’d almost been killed by a suspect.

  She went home weary and eager for a quick meal and bed. But when she got there, in driving sleet, she couldn’t find her dog.

  She went all around the house, calling Snow over and over again. Her voice echoed down the hills, but the dog didn’t answer.

  She knew that a nearby neighbor trapped animals in the woods. It worried her that Snow might have followed a rabbit or squirrel and been caught in a trap. There were bears in the forest, wolves, God knew what else. On the way home, she’d passed a huge elk carcass just off the road. It looked as though it had just been killed. It had probably been hit by one of the huge semi trucks that passed through on the highway.

  That brought another possible tragedy to mind. She got into her car and drove up and down the road until she was satisfied that Snow wasn’t lying, hurt, just off the highway. But that didn’t solve the problem of where she was.

  Then she thought of Dal Blake. If Snow had gone to his house . . .

  She pulled out her cell phone and called him. The phone rang and rang. She was about to give up when he answered it, curtly, as if it had irritated him to be interrupted.

  “It’s Meadow Dawson,” she began.

  “Your dog isn’t here,” he said shortly.

  “Oh.”

  There was a question in a soft, feminine voice.

  Meadow recognized it, and now she knew why the interruption had bothered Dal. He and the florist . . . She cut off the thought.

  “Sorry to bother you,” she said, and hung up.

  She put the phone in her pocket and trudged down to the barn, where one of the older cowboys was sitting.

  “Have you seen Snow, Harry?” she asked hopefully.

  He looked up. “No, ma’am. Well, not since this morning, anyway. She was playing in the snow. Loves the outdoors, don’t she?”

  “Yes, she does.” She fought tears. “I can’t find her. I thought she might be at Dal Blake’s place, but he hasn’t seen her eit
her.”

  “Suppose we saddle up a couple of horses and go looking?” he asked gently.

  She almost fell on him in gratitude. “Could we?”

  “Gonna be hard on your legs, you not used to riding and all.”

  “I wouldn’t care if it broke them, if I can just find my dog,” she said, and had to fight tears.

  He saw that anguish and understood it. “She’ll be all right. Probably just wandered off after a rabbit.” He got up. “I’ll saddle the horses.”

  “Harry, thanks,” she said huskily.

  “Ma’am, any of us would do anything we could for you,” he said gently. “We’ll find your dog.”

  He went off to saddle the horses. Meadow stood in the snow that was up almost to the top of her boots and shivered in her thick coat. She was wearing a wool hat that should have repelled the wetness, but it seemed to soak it up. She’d even forgotten her gloves. Well, she’d manage. She had to find Snow!

  Harry led out two horses, both geldings. He gave the older of the two to Meadow by the reins. “He’s old and gentle. He won’t throw you. His name is Mickey,” he added with a grin.

  “Hello, Mickey,” she said, patting his mane. “Don’t toss me, okay?”

  The horse lifted his head and looked at her with big, brown eyes.

  “He’s sweet,” she said.

  “Yes, he is. Let’s go.”

  She mounted up and rode behind Harry as they started down the ranch road that led past the sheds where the pregnant cows were kept in bad storms, past fenced pastures where huge round bales of hay were protected from the elements in plastic bags.

  “They look like giant marshmallows,” she commented.

  “So they do. It keeps the hay from rotting, though,” he replied. “Not a bad thing.”

  “Not at all.” She rode up beside him. “Harry, doesn’t Mr. Smith trap animals for fur?”

  “Yes, he does.” That thought had occurred to him, too. “Want to ride down by his place?”

  “I would.”

  “Okay then. It’s this way.”