Climbing in his truck he forced his thoughts toward problems at the ranch. He needed to hire men; they’d lost three cattle to rustlers this month. As he planned the coming day, Staten did what he always did: he pushed Quinn to a corner of his mind, where she’d wait until he saw her again.
As he passed through the little town of Crossroads, all the businesses were closed up tight except for a gas station that stayed open twenty-four hours to handle the few travelers needing to refuel or brave enough to sample their food.
A quarter mile past the one main street of Crossroads, his truck lights flashed across four teenagers walking along the road between the Catholic church and the gas station.
Three boys and a girl. Fifteen or sixteen, Staten guessed.
For a moment the memory of Randall came to mind. He’d been about their age when he’d crashed, and he’d worn the same type of blue-and-white letter jacket that two of the boys wore tonight.
Staten slowed as he passed them. “You kids need a ride?” The lights were still on at the church, and a few cars were in the parking lot. Saturday night, Staten remembered. Members of 4-H would probably be working in the basement on projects.
One kid waved. A tall Hispanic boy named Lucas whom he thought was the oldest son of the head wrangler on the Collins Ranch. Reyes was his last name, and Staten remembered the boy being one of a dozen young kids who were often hired part-time at the ranch.
Staten had heard the kid was almost as good a wrangler as his father. The magic of working with horses must have been passed down from father to son, along with the height. Young Reyes might be lean but, thanks to working, he would be in better shape than either of the football boys. When Lucas Reyes finished high school, he’d have no trouble hiring on at any of the big ranches, including the Double K.
“No, we’re fine, Mr. Kirkland,” the Reyes boy said politely. “We’re just walking down to the station for a Coke. Reid Collins’s brother is picking us up soon.”
“No crime in that, mister,” a redheaded kid in a letter jacket answered. His words came fast and clipped, reminding Staten of how his son had sounded.
Volume from a boy trying to prove he was a man, Staten thought.
He couldn’t see the faces of the two boys with letter jackets, but the girl kept her head up. “We’ve been working on a project for the fair,” she answered politely. “I’m Lauren Brigman, Mr. Kirkland.”
Staten nodded. Sheriff Brigman’s daughter, I remember you. She knew enough to be polite, but it was none of his business. “Good evening, Lauren,” he said. “Nice to see you again. Good luck with the project.”
When he pulled away, he shook his head. Normally, he wouldn’t have bothered to stop. At this rate he’d turn into a nosy old man by forty-five. It didn’t seem that long ago that he and Amalah used to walk up to the gas station after meetings at the church.
Hell, maybe Quinn asking to kiss him had rattled him more than he’d thought. He needed to get his head straight. She was just a friend. A woman he turned to when the storms came. Nothing more. That was the way they both wanted it.
Until he made it back to her porch next Friday night, he had a truckload of trouble at the ranch to worry about.
Lauren
A MIDNIGHT MOON blinked its way between storm clouds as Lauren Brigman cleaned the mud off her shoes. The guys had gone inside the gas station for Cokes. She didn’t really want anything to drink, but it was either walk over with the others after working on their fair projects or stay back at the church and talk to Mrs. Patterson.
Somewhere Mrs. Patterson had gotten the idea that since Lauren didn’t have a mother around, she should take every opportunity to have a “girl talk” with the sheriff’s daughter.
Lauren wanted to tell the old woman that she had known all the facts of life by the age of seven, and she really did not need a buddy to share her teenage years with.
Reid Collins walked out from the gas station first with a can of Coke in each hand. “I bought you one even though you said you didn’t want anything to drink,” he announced as he neared. “Want to lean on me while you clean your shoes?”
Lauren rolled her eyes. Since he’d grown a few inches and started working out, Reid thought he was God’s gift to girls.
“Why?” she asked as she tossed the stick. “I have a brick wall to lean on. And don’t get any ideas we’re on a date, Reid, just because I walked over here with you.”
“I don’t date sophomores,” he snapped. “I’m on first string, you know. I could probably date any senior I want to. Besides, you’re like a little sister, Lauren. We’ve known each other since you were in the first grade.”
She thought of mentioning that playing first string on a football team that only had forty players total, including the coaches and water boy, wasn’t any great accomplishment, but arguing with Reid would rot her brain. He’d been born rich, and he’d thought he knew everything since he’d cleared the birth canal. She feared his disease was terminal.
“If you’re cold, I’ll let you wear my football jacket.” When she didn’t comment, he bragged, “I had to reorder a bigger size after a month of working out.”
She hated to, but if she didn’t compliment him soon, he’d never stop begging. “You look great in the jacket, Reid. Half the seniors on the team aren’t as big as you.” There was nothing wrong with Reid from the neck down. In a few years he’d be a knockout with the Collins good looks and trademark rusty hair, not quite brown, not quite red. But he still wouldn’t interest her.
“So, when I get my driver’s license next month, do you want to take a ride?”
Lauren laughed. “You’ve been asking that since I was in the third grade and you got your first bike. The answer is still no. We’re friends, Reid. We’ll always be friends, I’m guessing.”
He smiled a smile that looked as if he’d been practicing. “I know, Lauren, but I keep wanting to give you a chance now and then. You know, some guys don’t want to date the sheriff’s daughter, and I hate to point it out, babe, but if you don’t fill out some, it’s going to be bad news in college.” He had the nerve to point at her chest. “From the looks of it, I seem to be the only one he’ll let stand beside you, and that’s just because our dads are friends.”
She grinned. Reid was spoiled and conceited and self-centered, but she was right, they’d probably always be friends. Her dad was the sheriff, and his was the mayor of Crossroads, even though he lived five miles from town on one of the first ranches established near Ransom Canyon.
Tim O’Grady, Reid’s eternal shadow, walked out of the station with a huge frozen drink. The clear cup showed off its red-and-yellow layers of cherry-and-pineapple-flavored sugar.
Where Reid was balanced in his build, Tim was lanky, disjointed. He seemed to be made of mismatched parts. His arms were too long. His feet seemed too big, and his wired smile barely fit in his mouth. When he took a deep draw on his drink, he staggered and held his forehead from the brain freeze.
Lucas Reyes was the last of their small group to come outside. Lucas hadn’t bought anything, but he evidently was avoiding standing with her. She’d known Lucas Reyes for a few years, maybe longer, but he never talked to her. Like Reid and Tim, he was a year ahead of her, but since he rarely talked, she usually only noticed him as a background person in her world.
Unlike them, Lucas didn’t have a family name following him around opening doors for a hundred miles.
Reid repeated the plan. “My brother said he’d drop Sharon off and be back for us. But if they get busy doing their thing it could be an hour. We might as well walk back and sit on the church steps.”
“We could start walking toward home,” Lauren suggested as she pulled a tiny flashlight from her key chain. The canyon lake wasn’t more than a mile. If they walked they wouldn’t be so cold. She could probably be home before Reid’s dumb broth
er could get his lips off Sharon. If rumors were true, Sharon had very kissable lips, among other body parts.
“Better than standing around here,” Reid said as Tim kicked mud toward the building. “I’d rather be walking than sitting. Plus, if we go back to the church, Mrs. Patterson will probably come out to keep us company.”
Without a vote, they started walking.
Within a few yards, Reid and Tim had fallen behind and were lighting up a smoke. To her surprise, Lucas stayed beside her.
“You don’t smoke?” she asked, not really expecting him to answer.
“No, can’t afford the habit,” he said, surprising her. “I’ve got plans, and they don’t include lung cancer.”
Maybe the dark night made it easier to talk, or maybe Lauren didn’t want to feel so alone in the shadows. “I was starting to think you were a mute. We’ve had a few classes together, and you’ve never said a word. Even tonight you were the only one who didn’t talk about your project.”
Lucas shrugged. “Didn’t see the point. I’m just entering for the prize money, not trying to save the world or build a better tomorrow.”
“Hey, you two deadbeats up there!” Reid yelled. “I got an idea.”
Lauren didn’t want the conversation with Lucas to end, but if she ignored Reid he’d just get louder. “What?”
Reid ran up between them and put an arm over both her and Lucas’s shoulders. “How about we break into the Gypsy House? I hear it’s haunted by Gypsies who died a hundred years ago.”
Tim caught up to them. As always, he agreed with Reid. “Look over there in the trees. The place is just waiting for us. Heard if you rattle a Gypsy’s bones, the dead will speak to you.” Tim’s eyes glowed in the moonlight. “I had a cousin once who said he heard voices in that old place, and no one was there but him.”
“This is not a good idea.” Lauren tried to back away, but Reid held her shoulder tight.
“Come on, Lauren, for once in your life, do something that’s not safe. No one’s lived in the old place for years. How much trouble can we get into?”
“It’s just a rotting old house,” Lucas said so low no one heard but Lauren. “There’s probably rats or rotten floors. It’s an accident waiting to happen. How about you come back in the daylight, Reid, if you really want to explore the place?”
“We’re all going, now,” Reid announced as he shoved Lauren off the road and into the trees that blocked the view of the old homestead from passing cars. “Think of the story we’ll have to tell everyone Monday. We will have explored a haunted house and lived to tell the tale.”
Reason told her to protest more strongly, but at fifteen, reason wasn’t as intense as the possibility of an adventure. Just once, she’d have a story to tell. Just this once...her father wouldn’t find out.
They rattled across the rotting porch steps fighting tumbleweeds that stood like flimsy guards around the place. The door was locked and boarded up. The smell of decay hung in the foggy air, and a tree branch scraped against one side of the house as if whispering for them to stay back.
The old place didn’t look like much. It might have been the remains of an early settlement, built solid to face the winters with no style or charm. Odds were, Gypsies never even lived in it. It appeared to be a half dugout with a second floor built on years later. The first floor was planted down into the earth a few feet, so the second floor windows were just above their heads, giving the place the look of a house that had been stepped on by a giant.
Everyone called it the Gypsy House because a group of hippies had squatted there in the Seventies. No one remembered when the hippies had moved on, or who owned the house now, but somewhere in its past a family named Stanley must have lived there because old-timers called it the Stanley house.
“I heard devil worshippers lived here years ago.” Tim began making scary movie soundtrack noises. “Body parts are probably scattered in the basement. They say once Satan moves in, only the blood of a virgin will wash the place clean.”
Reid’s laughter sounded nervous. “That leaves me out.”
Tim jabbed his friend. “You wish. I say you’ll be the first to scream.”
“Shut up, Tim.” Reid’s uneasy voice echoed in the night. “You’re freaking me out. Besides, there is no basement. It’s just a half dugout built into the ground, so we’ll find no buried bodies.”
Lauren screamed as Reid kicked a low window in, and all the guys laughed.
“You go first, Lucas,” Reid ordered. “I’ll stand guard.”
To Lauren’s surprise, Lucas slipped into the space. His feet hit the ground with a thud somewhere in the blackness.
“You next, Tim,” Reid announced as if he were the commander.
“Nope. I’ll go after you.” All Tim’s laughter had disappeared. Apparently he’d frightened himself.
“I’ll go.” Lauren suddenly wanted this entire adventure to be over with. With her luck, animals were wintering in the old place.
“I’ll help you down.” Reid lowered her into the window space.
As she moved through total darkness, her feet wouldn’t quite touch the bottom. For a moment she just hung, afraid to tell Reid to drop her.
Then, she felt Lucas’s hands at her waist. Slowly he took her weight.
“I’m in,” she called back to Reid. He let her hands go, and she dropped against Lucas.
“You all right?” Lucas whispered near her hair.
“This was a dumb idea.”
She could feel him breathing as Reid finally landed, cussing the darkness. For a moment it seemed all right for Lucas to stay close; then in a blink, he was gone from her side.
Now the tiny flashlight offered Lauren some much-needed light. The house was empty except for an old wire bed frame and a few broken stools. With Reid in the lead, they moved up rickety stairs to the second floor, where shadowy light came from big dirty windows.
Tim hesitated when the floorboards began to rock as if the entire second story were on some kind of seesaw. He backed down the steps a few feet, letting the others go first. “I don’t know if this second story will hold us all.” Fear rattled in his voice.
Reid laughed and teased Tim as he stomped across the second floor, making the entire room buck and pitch. “Come on up, Tim. This place is better than a fun house.”
Stepping hesitantly on the upstairs floor, Lauren felt Lucas just behind her and knew he was watching over her.
Tim dropped down a few more steps, not wanting to even try.
Lucas backed against the wall between the windows, his hand still brushing Lauren’s waist to keep her steady as Reid jumped to make the floor shake. The whole house seemed to moan in pain, like a hundred-year-old man standing up one arthritic joint at a time.
When Reid yelled for Tim to join them, Tim started back up the broken stairs, just before the second floor buckled and crumbled. Tim dropped out of sight as rotten lumber pinned him halfway between floors.
His scream of pain ended Reid’s laughter.
In a blink, dust and boards flew as pieces of the roof rained down on them and the second floor vanished below them, board by rotting board.
Copyright © 2015 by Jodi Koumalats
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Teresa Southwick for her contribution to the Montana Mavericks: What Happened at the Wedding? continuity.
ISBN-13: 9781460386958
An Officer and a Maverick
Copyright © 2015 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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