by Joanna Wayne
“What kind of change? If it’s a move out of Homicide, we can—”
“I’m moving back to Texas,” Wyatt said, hopefully ending the discussion.
Dixon looked skeptical. “To go into ranching with your family?”
“I doubt I’ll live on the ranch,” Wyatt explained, “but I’ve got unsettled business in Mustang Run and it’s time I take care of it.”
“Does this have to do with your mother’s murder?”
“That’s a big part of it,” Wyatt admitted.
“Are you sure you’ve thought this through?”
“I’m sure,” Wyatt assured him. He’d thought of not much else for most of his life. It was the reason he’d become a cop. He’d put it off as long as he could.
The chief shook his head, his expression making it clear he thought the move was a big mistake. “You said once that your brothers are all convinced of your father’s innocence. I doubt they’ll appreciate you stirring up trouble. And he’s served seventeen years of a sentence. That’s more than a lot of convicted perps serve when there isn’t the slightest doubt that they’re guilty.”
“I’m not going after my father. I’m going after the man who killed my mother. If my father is innocent, I’ll prove that beyond a doubt. If he’s guilty, then I’ll just have to deal with that. My brothers are grown men. They’ll have to do the same.”
“I hate to say it, but I can see where you’re coming from, Wyatt. And I don’t doubt for a second that you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.”
“I hope that confidence is justified.”
“Keep me posted. And as long as I’m heading up the force, there’s always a place for you if you decide to come back.”
“I appreciate that.”
“When do you plan to leave?”
“My caseload is as caught up as it will ever be, so I’d like to clear out as soon as you replace me.”
Dixon nodded. “The department will miss you.”
“I’ll miss being here.”
Talk went back to the Whiting case, but the celebratory tone of the meeting had shifted. Wyatt, usually the first to make a wisecrack to alleviate the tension, could think of nothing to say. He loved his job, but he had to do this.
And he could use a change of scenery. His apartment walls were starting to close in around him. He needed a taste of wide-open spaces, hilly pastures and the quiet fishing spots Dylan, Sean and now Dakota were always talking about.
That didn’t make going back to Mustang Run and Willow Creek Ranch any easier.
As soon as they stepped into the hallway, Alyssa poked him in the ribs. “When exactly did you plan to hit me in the head with this?”
“At the last possible moment, so I wouldn’t have to listen to you whine and lecture,” he teased. “And don’t poke me with those bony fingers.”
She poked him again. “You’ll go crazy in the Podunk town of Horse Run.”
“Mustang Run. And I don’t plan to be there forever.”
“No, just long enough to cause trouble,” Alyssa quipped.
“And I’m talented at stirring the pot, so that shouldn’t take too long.”
“Your dad’s already spent seventeen years in prison before being released on a technicality. He’s reunited with four of his five sons, even Tyler who’s still on active duty in Afghanistan. He’s a beloved grandfather. Have you ever considered just leaving well enough alone?”
“I’m not planning to go down there and string him up from the nearest tree. Troy claims he’s looking for Mother’s killer. I aim to help him.”
“Oh, right, the good son. You can’t even call him Dad.”
Wyatt stopped walking and made eye contact. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t feel the same if your mother had been murdered?”
“Okay, point made. But I’ll miss you, partner. Worse, I’m selfish. Now I have to adjust to someone new. I’ll probably get one who sweats profusely or passes gas in the car, or heaven forbid, treats me like a woman.”
“He won’t make that mistake but once.”
She smiled as if that were the ultimate compliment. “Do me a favor while you’re out there with those rattlesnakes and cow patties, Wyatt.”
“Send you a snakeskin?”
“Don’t even think about it. But if on the off chance you find a woman who can put up with you, don’t push her away like she’s been living with a family of skunks, the way you did everyone I tried to fix you up with.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You know what’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t like skunks.”
“You’re afraid of falling. As soon you think you might like some woman, you make up excuses for why it won’t work. She’s too smart. She’s not smart enough. She has cats. She has kids. She doesn’t like cats or kids.”
“You should get better friends to fix me up with.”
“You may as well admit it. You’re afraid of relationships.”
“Shows how smart I am. Do you know the divorce rate among cops?”
“One day you’ll meet a woman who’ll knock you for such a loop you won’t be able to walk away. I hear Texas is full of women like that.”
“Could be.” But a woman was the last thing he needed now. Texas and reuniting with Troy Ledger would be challenge enough. And now that the decision was made, he needed to move on. With luck, he’d be on the road by the middle of January.
He traveled light. That was just one of the advantages of never putting down any deep roots or acquiring things like mortgages or a wife.
He had no intention of changing that.
“IT’S THE FUEL PUMP, Mrs. Burger. It’s going to have to be replaced.”
Kelly groaned. She had another four hours to drive and it was already after three. Plus, the weather forecast for tonight was a line of severe thunderstorms preceding a cold front moving in from the northwest.
The mechanic yanked a red rag from his back pocket and rubbed at a spot of grease on his arm that defied his removal efforts. “I can get to it first thing in the morning. And I’ll be glad to give you a ride now to the nearest motel.”
“I really need to get back on the road today. I’ll pay extra if you can fix it this afternoon.”
“I’m not sure how quickly I can get the part. I might be able to just run over to Mac’s Garage and pick it up or I might have to have one shipped in.”
Just her luck to have her car break down in a small town. “Can’t you have someone drive to the nearest town with a Honda dealer and pick one up? I’ll pay his overtime and buy his gas.”
Jaci tugged on Kelly’s skirt. “Can we go now, Momma?”
“Not yet, Jaci.” She struggled to keep the frustration from her voice. She couldn’t expect a five-year-old to understand why they were just standing around waiting instead of off on the adventure she’d been promised. Jaci had been such a trooper over the last twelve months when their lives had been in serious upheaval.
“Let me see what I can do,” the young mechanic said.
He returned to the small waiting area ten minutes later, this time smiling.
“I found a fuel pump that I can have here in under an hour. If we don’t run into problems, you can be on your way just after dark.”
“Super.” They’d arrive in Mustang Run too late to accomplish anything tonight, but at least she’d be at the new house when the moving van arrived in the morning. Not actually a new house—just new to her. Actually it was older than her grandmother who’d willed it to her. But it would offer Kelly a new start after her year from hell.
Not that she had a clue what shape the house would be in. It had stood empty for over a year now and the man who’d been managing the property was visiting his son in California.
All he’d told her over the phone was that the house would need an ample application of soap and elbow grease and paint. She’d decided to move in and fix it up one room at a time as she found the time and the money.
She h
ad some savings but not enough for major repairs. Her husband’s medical bills had taken most of it before he died three years ago. And last year, she hadn’t earned a dime.
“I’m hungry, Momma,” Jaci said, though Kelly suspected she was more bored than anything else.
“There’s a McDonalds’s out on the highway,” the mechanic offered. “I can give you a lift over there if you’d like and pick you up when your car’s ready. It’s got a nice play area.”
Jaci jumped around excitedly. “McDonald’s. Please, Momma. Please.”
Hours at a McDonald’s surrounded by squealing kids and the odor of fries—or sitting here rereading for the twentieth time the two storybooks Jaci had brought with her in the car.
That was a no-brainer.
“That would be terrific,” Kelly agreed. Jaci could play off some of her energy, have the chicken nuggets she loved and then she’d likely sleep all the way to the Hill Country. They’d be back on track and hopefully to Mustang Run before the predicted thunderstorms set in.
Surely nothing else could go wrong today.
Chapter Two
Large drops of rain splattered the windshield as Wyatt pulled off the highway and next to one of the gas pumps at a 24-hour truck stop. Eighteen-wheelers lined the truck parking area off to the right, the drivers no doubt sleeping soundly in their fancy cabs.
He was the only gas customer and the parking lot in front of the café was empty except for a motorbike that looked as if it had seen its best days years ago, and a snazzy new Corvette.
Wyatt climbed from his brand-new double-cab pickup truck, his going-away present to himself for trading a job he loved for a reunion with his father.
All he owned was either tossed into the backseat or stored in the truck’s bed beneath the aluminum cover. That included the fancy rod and reel the other homicide cops had presented him with as their going-away memento.
Stretching to relieve the kinks from his muscles, Wyatt massaged the stiff tendons in his neck. The beers he’d enjoyed with his buddies last night had left him with just enough headache pain to dull the fun of hitting the road.
The splatters became a pelting downpour as he filled his gas tank. A gust of icy wind almost blew his black Stetson off his head. He tugged the hat lower with his free hand.
Just as he was returning the fuel handle to its cradle, a late model Honda Accord pulled up across from him and a woman stepped out.
The wind was blowing so hard now that the sheltering canopy above them did little to keep them dry. She pulled a denim jacket tight and glanced around nervously.
He tipped his hat. “Rough night for traveling.”
“Yes. I was hoping the rain would hold off for another hour,” she said, cautiously avoiding eye contact as she unscrewed her gas tank.
There was no one in the passenger seat, but he spotted a little girl in the backseat. Her face was pressed against the window as she peered at him. She opened the door for a better look.
“Don’t get out of the car, Jaci. It’s cold and you’ll get wet.” When the girl closed her door, the woman quickly locked it with the remote on her key.
“You’re getting wet, too,” Wyatt said. “Why don’t you let me finish gassing up for you and you and the kid make a run for the café before it gets any worse?”
“We’re not going in. And thanks for the offer, but I really don’t need any help.” Her tone and stare clearly told him to back off.
Smart woman. He was harmless, but plenty of men weren’t. And a woman and a kid traveling alone would make an easy target for some of the perverts he’d dealt with.
If he was still carrying his APD identification, he could probably reassure her, but he was no longer a cop, at least not officially.
“I’d give the rain a few minutes to slack off before I hit the road again. Just a suggestion,” he said, tipping his hat again.
He headed inside for a cup of coffee as the wind and rain picked up in intensity. He was less than thirty miles from Mustang Run but in no hurry to get there. He’d decided about forty miles back that he’d check in to one of the town’s two motels for the night and then drive out to the ranch in the morning.
He needed a good night’s sleep before he faced Troy.
Troy Ledger, convicted of murder, but still claiming his innocence. Wyatt hoped to God he was, but he’d read and reread the trial notes so many times he knew every last detail. If he’d been on that jury, he’d have come to the same conclusion they had. Guilty of murder in the first degree.
That was the Troy he’d be facing. But it was the other Troy he had been thinking about ever since he’d crossed the Texas line.
The father who’d chased monsters from his bedroom, taught him to ride a horse and a bike. Given him his first pony. The father who’d stayed with him all night when that pony had been so sick they thought they might have to put her down.
Wyatt stamped the water from his worn Western boots and made a stop at the men’s room before entering the café proper.
“C’mon in,” the waitress welcomed when he finally stepped into the main area of the café. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, blonde, with heavy, smudged eye makeup.
“You made it just in time,” she said. “Sounds like a whopper of a storm kicking up out there.”
“Is this your usual January weather?” he asked.
“No, but nothing about the weather’s predictable in this part of Texas. One day you’ll be in shorts, the next day you’ll be wearing sweats. Where are you from?”
“Texas originally, but I’ve lived in Georgia for most of my life.”
“Welcome back to the Lone Star State.”
“Thanks.” He shed his jacket and dropped it to one of the counter stools.
She handed him a plastic-coated menu. “You looking for dinner or just coffee and a warm, dry spot to wait out the storm?”
“Both.” He checked out her name tag. “I’ll start with a cup of black coffee, Edie.”
“The cook’s already gone for the night,” she said as she poured the coffee and set it in front of him. “I can fix you a burger or a sandwich and fries. I can do most of the breakfast items, too. There was chicken tortilla soup, but a couple of truckers finished that off about thirty minutes ago.”
“Whatever you’re cooking now smells good.”
“I’m making the guy in the back corner a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich. I recommend it.”
“Then I’ll have that.”
“You got it.”
Wyatt glanced at the only other customer. He was bent over a road map that he’d spread across the narrow table. His hair was shaggy and looked like it hadn’t been washed in days. His jeans were faded and frayed at the hem. Heavily tattooed muscles bunched beneath a wife-beater T-shirt, and there was a wicked scar at his collarbone.
He might be a perfect gentleman with a spotless record, but he was the kind of guy who always courted a cop’s attention.
But Wyatt was no longer a cop. He turned his attention back to the front of the café. The rain slashed against the huge front windows now, and he thought of the woman in the Honda again. If she was trying to drive in this deluge, she was in for trouble. Visibility would be reduced to a few feet.
The bell above the front door tinkled. Wyatt looked up as the woman who’d said she wasn’t coming in herded the kid inside and toward the restrooms on the right. Hopefully that meant she’d decided to sit out the storm here.
A loud clap of thunder rattled the doors and the lights blinked off and on.
Edie leaned over the counter in front of him. “I’m sure glad you stopped in. I get spooked if I’m alone or with only one customer when the power goes off. Normally if I yell, any number of truckers would come to my rescue, but they’d never hear me in this storm.”
“Is the guy sitting in the back a regular?” Wyatt asked.
“Never seen him before.” She leaned in closer. “Hope to never see him again. The way he looks at me gives me the willies. That
’s another reason I was glad to see you walk in. You look like a guy who can handle trouble.”
“Only when trouble throws the first punch.”
She smiled and stuck a paper napkin at his elbow. “Storms lure in lots of strangers, especially when the rain is falling so hard you can’t see to drive.”
Wyatt kept his gaze on the front of the café until the woman and kid came out of the restroom area. The woman looked around and met his gaze for one quick second before leading her daughter to a table at the front of the café.
The waitress sashayed over to them, starting up a new conversation about the storm.
“Just black coffee for me and a glass of milk for my daughter,” he heard the woman say once they got around to the order.
“Sure thing. Are you traveling much farther tonight?”
“Just to Mustang Run. I thought I had enough gas to get there, but then the gauge dropped so low I was afraid to chance it.”
“Good that you stopped and came in,” Edie said. “One of my regulars ran his truck off the road last time we had a gully washer like this.”
“We’re moving to my great-grandmother’s old house,” the kid said excitedly. “It has a big yard.”
“Lucky you. Is your daddy going to work in Mustang Run?”
“My daddy got sick and he’s in heaven,” the little girl said. “But I have a gramma Linda Ann in Plano. She’s a schoolteacher. At a college.”
So the woman was a widow, Wyatt considered. And she and her daughter were moving to the same small town as he was, on the same night.
Alyssa would claim it was serendipity and that he should go right over and introduce himself. But then Alyssa also believed that throwing pennies in the fountain in the courtyard of her favorite restaurant would help her meet the perfect man. If not, Facebook would.
“You’re going to love Mustang Run,” Edie said to the little girl. “I live about thirty minutes in the opposite direction, but I go into Mustang Run every year for the Bluebonnet Festival Dance. The locals are really friendly.” She turned to the woman. “And the cowboys are sooo cute.”
