The Last Wilder

by Janis Reams Hudson

  It was notes, an outline, really, of things the previous office manager felt needed to be tackled by her replacement. Suggestions for improvements that she’d never gotten around to implementing. Comments on their frustratingly limited budget and where to take shortcuts when necessary.

  Stacey itched to add suggestions of her own to the notes. She was, after all, an office manager by trade. But this wasn’t her office to manage, so she resisted the urge to hunt up an ink pen and get to work.

  Dane was having trouble concentrating on the paperwork before him. He’d been having this same problem ever since one Stacey C. Landers, aka Carla Smith, first appeared in the beam of his flashlight.

  Two days. Was that all it had been? It seemed incredible, impossible, that he hadn’t known her for weeks. Months. How could he feel so comfortable around a woman that fast, feel as if he knew her nearly as well as he knew himself?

  He shook his head and stared at the budget again. He hoped the sketch artist showed up soon. Of course, that wouldn’t make Stacey any safer. The rustlers still knew who she was.

  If circumstances were different, he would send her home to Cheyenne. She’d been right about the artist being able to get to her quicker and easier there, and they could immediately fax or e-mail him whatever they came up with.

  But he’d also been right when he told her it would be little trouble for someone to find where she lived. Particularly someone who’d found her motel room a few short hours after she’d checked in.

  And that bothered him. They’d either been watching his office and had seen him take her to the motel, or they had access to information that they shouldn’t.

  No, he couldn’t send her home yet.

  And if that made him feel more relieved than it should, he’d just have to get over it. Never, never again would he allow himself to get involved with a witness under his protection.

  Dammit, he thought, staring at the budget. There wasn’t a penny more money there now than there had been an hour ago. And there wasn’t a thing more he could do about his growing feelings for Stacey than he was already doing—namely, trying to ignore them.

  He pushed away from his desk and went for a fresh cup of coffee.

  She was standing before what he called the rogues gallery—the line of photos of past sheriffs’ department personnel—leaning on one crutch, putting a slight amount of weight on her right foot. Anxious for it to heal enough so she could drive home, no doubt.

  He took one step in her direction, then stopped. He’d come out here to get coffee and clear his mind. Of her. Cozying up beside her would be slightly more than self-defeating. He turned away and crossed the room to refill his coffee. She didn’t seem to notice him.

  He stopped and talked to Bates for a minute, then went back to his office. He barely had time to set his coffee down when Stacey shuffled in on her lone crutch.

  “Find something interesting?” he asked, nodding to the picture she had evidently taken off the wall.

  “Maybe.” She stopped before his desk and placed the framed photograph down. “You’re in this one. Who are the rest of them?”

  There was a tightness in her voice he’d never heard before. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  She kept her gaze on the picture. “Who are all these people? When was it taken? Do they all still work here?”

  “Stacey?” Dane tried to read her expression and couldn’t, other than to note she was drawn tighter than he’d ever seen her.

  “Just humor me, would you?” she asked, still without looking at him.

  “All right.” He turned the photograph so they could both see it. It was the regulation departmental photograph, the same as had been taken every year since the first sheriff was elected in Wyatt County more than a hundred and twenty years ago.

  “This was taken right after I signed on as undersheriff about two years ago.” He started with the front row of people and named them all. “Several of them no longer work here.”

  “What about these two?” She pointed to Ed Wilson and Farley James. “Do they still work here?”

  “No, they don’t. Why do you ask? Do you know them?” Her ex-husband was a cop in Cheyenne. Farley had two brothers and a cousin on the force there. It was possible Stacey had met him at some time or other.

  “We’ve never been introduced, but I’ve seen them.”

  “And?” There was more, he knew it. He wished she’d just spit it out.

  She glanced over her shoulder as if to make certain no one was listening. Then she leaned forward and whispered harshly, “Two nights ago.”

  Dane straightened in his chair. “Come again?”

  “At the Flying Ace ranch. Near sundown.”

  “What are you saying, Stacey?”

  “I’m saying you can call off your sketch artist.”

  Chapter Nine

  Stacey’s nerves were screaming. “What do you think I’m saying?” she hissed. “That’s them!” She jabbed a finger at the two grinning faces in the photo. “I can only identify two of the rustlers, but the two I can identify are right here in this picture.”

  Dane’s eyes narrowed. “How sure are you?”

  “Positive.”

  He stared at the picture, but Stacey could tell he wasn’t really seeing it.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “Hold on. I’m thinking.”

  “What are you thinking? I just told you—”

  “Wait. Sit down and take a load off that ankle. I’ll be right back.”

  “Never mind my ankle—” But she was talking to herself, because he had already left the office.

  She couldn’t sit. She’d just seen the faces of two cattle rustlers. The rats who had trashed her motel room and torn up her belongings. While the former was by far the bigger crime in the eyes of the law, the latter, for Stacey, was personal. They had threatened her, tried to intimidate her. She wanted the creeps behind bars. Why wasn’t Dane doing something about it?

  She limped her way to the door and looked out into the main office, but saw no sign of him. She limped across his office to the window beside his desk, but the view of the small parking lot lit in the pale glare of a street lamp was not enough to hold her attention. She turned, ready to go in search of Dane, and there he was. He stepped into his office and closed the door.

  “Here.” He turned the group picture facedown on his desk, then laid out six individual photos, all the same size. Four were of uniformed deputies, two of men in street clothes. All of the men were approximately the same age, with similar coloring. “Do any of these men look like the ones you saw?”

  Stacey rolled her eyes. He thought she didn’t know what she was doing. Okay, she would humor him. She knew he was only trying to make certain. “This one and this one,” she said, tapping two photos.

  Dane picked up those two and pursed his lips.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  He was silent for a long moment, but when he finally spoke, it was more to himself than to her. “It makes sense. They know every road and cow path in the county. Sublette County, too, which is where they started their little enterprise.”

  Stacey couldn’t keep quiet. “Why would two former deputies suddenly start stealing cattle?”

  Dane’s eyes narrowed. “Money. Mischief. Revenge. I fired them, so they’d be glad to do anything that makes me look bad, such as not being able to solve the case. And they’ve always had it in for the Wilders, so it makes sense they’d hit the Flying Ace.”

  “What about the other county? Practice?”

  Dane shook his head. “After I fired them they tried to get on with the Sublette County sheriff.”

  “He wouldn’t hire them?”

  Dane let out a sarcastic chuckle. “He didn’t need to check their references—I’d have given him an earful if he had. No, he’s known them for years. He knows they’re both a couple of bullies who like to throw their weight—and their badges—around. Damn.”

  “What?”


  “You know that car I stopped last night, the one with no tail or tag lights?”

  “What about it? You don’t mean…”

  “Farley James was driving it.”

  Stacey let out a swearword that had Dane raising his eyebrows. “On the other hand,” he said, “it’s a good thing I didn’t send you home, the way you wanted me to.”

  “Why is that?”

  “One of them’s got two brothers and a cousin on the Cheyenne P.D. and the other’s got a cousin on the highway patrol. They could have found you in a heartbeat. They probably already know where you live.”

  Stacey swallowed. “I think you’re scaring me.”

  “Then maybe you’ll listen this time when I tell you that the safest place for you is at the Flying Ace until these two are in custody.”

  “Then go out and arrest them,” she cried.

  “There’s a little matter of evidence,” he said. “Or lack thereof.”

  “Since when is an eyewitness not good enough?”

  “Since it’s one eyewitness who saw two men, at dusk, while she was trespassing on private property. Even if a judge would give me a warrant—which he wouldn’t without something more to go on—I can guarantee you Ed and Farley will have airtight alibis.”

  “So, what? You just let them run around stealing more cattle while I stay hidden in your spare bedroom for the rest of my life?”

  “Not that having you in my bedroom doesn’t have a certain appeal,” he said, then got a funny look on his face as if perhaps he shouldn’t have said that.

  But it was too late, the words were out. For a long minute Stacey forgot about rustlers and ranches and everything else.

  Dane cleared his throat. “The thing is, Ed and Farley don’t necessarily know you’re all I’ve got. Maybe there’s a way to make them think I have more. If I can do that they might trip themselves up and make a mistake. But first I have to put you someplace safe.”

  Someplace safe, she thought, away from him. Where she couldn’t see him or talk to him or…oh, damn, she didn’t want to be separated from him. Not yet. She wanted more time to get to know him, to hear him laugh, to watch him frown.

  And she was a fool for wanting those things, had no business wanting them. Just because he wasn’t a jerk and didn’t have a nasty temper didn’t mean he wasn’t still an opinionated, macho know-it-all. He was a cop, after all. It was a job requirement.

  Still she didn’t want to be separated from him just yet, even if she could see the sense in it. But she would not, under any circumstances, put herself within the power of anyone named Wilder. “I told you before,” she said heatedly, “I won’t—”

  “Stacey, there is no place safer than Ace Wilder’s house. He’s a nice man, an honorable man, with a wife, three young boys, and a housekeeper all to keep you company.”

  “I don’t see why you’d think his place is so safe,” she muttered. “He can’t even keep his cattle from being stolen.”

  “His cattle,” he said with narrowed eyes, “were out on the range, not in his house. Anyone coming to his house can be seen two miles away, at least. Dammit, Stacey, I wouldn’t trust your safety to anyone else, not even my own deputies.”

  “Is it because he’s your brother?”

  Dane felt as if been sucker punched. He wasn’t sure that his breath hadn’t completely left his body. Damn her, she’d promised. “Who’s the man in the grave? Who sent you here with that bottle of whiskey?”

  “All right, you’re right. I was out of line.”

  “Damn right you were.”

  “If you took me to the Wilders I’d be intruding on strangers.”

  Dane could understand her feeling that way, but there was something else going on in that head of hers. He could see it in her eyes. “Not,” he said, “if they agreed to it. And they would.”

  “It’s an unreasonable idea.”

  “It’s not unreasonable at all. It’s the only way to make sure that Ed and Farley can’t get to you. Dammit, Stacey, I’m only trying to keep you safe.”

  “I’m safe with you.”

  “I thought you would be, but that was before I knew who we were dealing with. Your ordinary, run-of-the-mill cattle rustler probably wouldn’t come after a witness who was in the company of the sheriff. But we’re not dealing with ordinary, run-of-the-mill criminals on this one. The two men you identified are mean and vicious. Nothing is beyond them. Nothing. With me you’d be out in the open too much. A sitting duck. We might as well stand you out in the middle of Main Street and paint a target on your chest.”

  It wasn’t his words that shook Stacey as much as the look in his eyes. How could she have been so wrong about him? She had thought a lot of tacky things about him that had, she’d decided, turned out to be false. But never in her wildest dreams had she expected to see fear in the eyes of this strong, competent man. The sense of loss that fell across her shoulders nearly devastated her. She had been building fantasies in her mind about him, and they were all wrong. He wasn’t the man she had thought he was. And that hurt more than was reasonable.

  And because it hurt, she lashed out. “If you’re afraid they’ll harm you to get to me, just say so.” The instant the words were out, she wanted them back.

  Dane reeled as if she’d struck him.

  “I didn’t meant that,” she said in a rush. “Not the way it sounded. It’s natural to be afraid. It’s what keeps us alive. I don’t blame you, honest.”

  Dane closed his eyes and forced a breath into his lungs. He should let her think just what she was thinking, that he was a coward. If she thought he was afraid, maybe she would agree to stay with Ace. But dammit, he wasn’t afraid, not for himself, and it stung that she thought he would be.

  The only alternative would be to tell her the truth. He wondered if that would be tantamount to placing a weapon—another weapon—in her hands. She would be able to use it against him, that was for certain. But his ego was bruised enough right now that he didn’t care, as long as she would stop looking at him with that mixture of disappointment and pity.

  He was good at his job, dammit. He didn’t want anyone, much less a woman he was growing to like more than was wise, thinking otherwise.

  “Yes,” he told her. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid that you’re enough of a distraction to me that I’ll miss something. That I’ll move a fraction of a second too slow. That I’ll be thinking about things I’ve got no call thinking about instead of concentrating on the business at hand.”

  Eyes wide, Stacey stared at him. “What…what are you saying?”

  Dane heaved out a breath. “I’m saying that if you were a hulking, three-hundred-pound farm boy with acne and body odor, I wouldn’t think twice about personally protecting you.”

  This time she stared at him so long Dane was tempted to fidget.

  Finally she blinked. “Body odor?”

  If she teased him, Dane thought, he might just choke her. He had to convince her she wasn’t safe with him. Because she wasn’t. Right now, in the situation in which she found herself, she was the embodiment of Dane’s worst nightmare—that she would need him, and he would be too slow, too distracted by his growing attraction to her. And she would pay the price.

  “It might be distracting,” he said, “but at least I wouldn’t keep turning toward you hoping to get another whiff.”

  She swallowed. “Are you saying…you like the way I smell?”

  “I thought I was clear enough,” he grumbled.

  “Clear.”

  “What part don’t you understand?”

  She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t think I understand any of it, except that you like the way I smell. Maybe.”

  “I like the way you smell. I like the way you laugh. I like the way the light touches your hair.”

  Stacey felt everything inside her go still. His name left her lips on a breath.

  “When I’m around you I think more about all the things I like about you than I do about what I’m supposed t
o be thinking about.”

  His words made her go all soft and warm inside. Again she said his name. “Dane.”

  “Right now,” he said, “I’m thinking I want to kiss you, when I should be figuring a way to catch Wilson and James.”

  Stacey’s heart knocked against her ribs. Her palms grew damp. She opened her mouth to tell him that kissing her wouldn’t be a good idea, for either of them. But what came out was, “Why don’t you, then?”

  “Why don’t I what?” he asked quietly.

  She swallowed hard. “Kiss me.”

  He moved in closer, lowered his voice. “I shouldn’t.”

  “Why? I’m awake this time.”

  The blue of his eyes seemed to deepen. “It’s not smart.”

  “Probably not,” she managed. “Unless you just, you know, wanted to…get it out of your system. So you could concentrate on your job. After.”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  Stacey’s pulse turned thready. If he didn’t do something soon she thought she might scream.

  But he merely continued to look at her, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  “You don’t have to,” she offered.

  “Don’t have to what?” But he looked as if his mind was on something other than what she’d said.

  “Don’t have to kiss me.” Stacey hadn’t dated much since her divorce, but with the men she had gone out with, if she had stood around waiting for some of them to make the first move, she might have stood around forever.

  Dane had shown no evidence yet that he was even remotely shy, but he had been, at times, reserved. That was fine with Stacey. That he wasn’t quite as pushy and take-charge as she had first thought was a point in his favor, as far as she was concerned.

  She didn’t mind, in this instance, being the one to take charge. After all, she’d done it before, hadn’t she? In her sleep. This time she intended to stay awake and remember every second of the experience. She pulled her crutch from beneath her arm and handed it to him. “Hold this. I’ll do it.”