Big Sky Cowboy

by Jennifer Mikels

  He squeezed by her and reached for the coffeepot. “I want you to stop. I don’t want you to help anymore.”

  Was he serious? She’d yet to learn anything new. Possibly she never would. “We haven’t learned anything.”

  “We’ve learned that the killer is scared.” Facing her, he caught her chin to force eye contact. “I don’t want the person to get desperate. And we’re going to make sure everyone knows tonight that you’re not involved anymore.”

  It’s too late, she could have told him. Even if everyone believed that, she’d be unable to switch off her connection to Harriet. She might still see what happened. Tessa said nothing, thought it best for him to believe his plan. She hoped the killer would, too.

  Chapter Eleven

  After loading one of the horses on a horse trailer and connecting it to his truck, Colby drove Tessa into town. Not wanting her alone at the store, he didn’t leave until Marla arrived.

  He was on his way to Whitehorn when it hit him that he missed her. He knew what he was feeling went beyond desire or friendship, but he wasn’t ready to name it. He only knew that he felt as if his knees might buckle just from looking at her.

  Smiling at his thought, he maneuvered the truck onto a dirt road and toward the ranch of a doting father who was convinced his daughter was destined to be next year’s champion barrel rider.

  By late afternoon, Colby was back in Rumor. Before the police seal was removed from Harriet’s house and Parrish got access to the inside, Colby planned to share his news with the man. He detoured to the sheriff’s office to see Holt, but he felt impatience stir to find Parrish.

  “We’ll be taking the police seal off today. I don’t need any trouble, Colby.” Holt dropped on his desk a flyer about a man wanted for fraud. “Parrish has been hanging around your aunt’s place. Stay away from there until I tell Parrish.”

  “No trouble,” Colby assured him. This was the end of it. “But I’m seeing him.”

  Holt had been right about Parrish still being at the house. He’d planted himself on the top porch step. “I heard the sheriff’s getting rid of this seal today,” he said as Colby approached. “About time. Now I can get into my home.”

  Colby paused at the bottom step. “Don’t get too comfortable.”

  “I’m not planning to,” he answered, misinterpreting what Colby meant. “I’m selling it. This little bungalow is what Realtors call cozy.” He made a face. “I’d be cramped here. But I should get a good price. Then I’m traveling.”

  Seeing him leave town suited Colby just fine. “We finally agree about something.” Colby waved a paper at him. “We found this.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your walking papers. Did it slip your mind that you received annulment papers?”

  Parrish swayed slightly. “What are you talking about?”

  “Annulment papers,” Colby informed him.

  Parrish’s pained expression made the moment worthwhile.

  “You haven’t any rights to anything of my aunt’s, according to her will and trust.”

  Parrish released a resigned sigh. “I’d hoped she’d be more generous.”

  After what he’d put Harriet through, Colby was amazed he expected anything.

  “My plans to travel will have to be put on hold now. Cash is an important item for such a venture.”

  Colby could care less where he went.

  “Is this a celebration dinner of sorts?” Tessa questioned when Colby was steering her toward one of the booths inside the Calico Diner.

  “As good as. Parrish is out of my parents’ lives now.” He chose a booth in the station of the buxom redhead with the wagging tongue.

  Sitting across from him in the booth, Tessa returned his smile. “I’m glad for Louise’s sake.” She scanned the walls above the counter and around the diner, a long mobile home with 1950s decor. Walls were adorned with photographs of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and other favorites. “I’ve always liked the decor in here.”

  Materializing beside them, the waitress flashed heavily made-up eyes at Colby. “Want the special?”

  Colby didn’t miss the innuendo, just chose to ignore it. “Tessa?” he asked while he set his Stetson on the booth seat.

  She looked up from the menu. “The Golden Oldie Hamburger.”

  “I’ll have the pot roast,” Colby said. While the waitress scribbled on her pad, he played out a scene for her. “Tessa, this isn’t working. We both know that.”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to help.”

  “I know you’ve tried, but you haven’t had any visions or anything. Why don’t we forget about this? I’ll tell the sheriff you’re off the investigation.” Colby sent an expectant look at the waitress, who hadn’t budged from her spot beside their table. “Was there something else?”

  “Uh—” She delivered an embarrassed smile as if unsure they’d been aware of her eavesdropping. “Uh, do you want extra onions?”

  Tessa responded with a smile. “No, thank you.”

  “Coffees?”

  “Fine,” Colby answered.

  “It appeared she bought our act,” Tessa said when they were alone.

  Colby noticed that the redhead had whispered something to two customers and another waitress since she’d left them. As he’d expected, the diner was jammed. Even Holt and the sheriff were there. Across the room, Holt nodded to him. Dave seemed more engrossed in his dinner than the happenings in the diner.

  “That’s good,” Tessa murmured while setting the menu in its chrome holder.

  Not so good for her, Colby decided. A woman at the counter stared over her shoulder and smirked. A man near her sneered. He muttered something to Henry, who’d been a regular every Friday for the fish fry since his divorce. Even a stranger at the counter wore a skeptical, snide grin.

  Colby read the body language of the people around him. They thought she’d failed, and had expected it. So he got her out of danger but weakened her reputation as a psychic, hindered her acceptance among them. The crowded diner buzzed with conversation. In their eyes, if she failed to find Harriet’s killer, that meant she was a fake. He’d brought her more trouble, hadn’t he?

  “Don’t worry so,” she said suddenly.

  He met her stare. How did she know he was feeling concern for her at that moment? “I wasn’t thinking about the backlash that you’d feel when I said you couldn’t help.”

  “You haven’t made anyone change their mind about me. The ones who are whispering never believed.”

  “Tessa! Tessa!”

  Along with her, Colby swiveled a look toward the door. A girl of about seven scurried around tables, then threw her arms around Tessa’s neck.

  “Oh, Rachel.” She hugged the girl. “What a wonderful surprise. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m with my grandma,” she said, drawing back to look at a heavyset, gray-haired woman who beamed at them as she approached.

  Tessa ran a hand over the girl’s shiny brown hair and stood to hug the woman. “Mrs. Saires, it’s so nice to see you.”

  “And you.” Her eyes slid with curiosity to Colby.

  Tessa made the expected introduction.

  Everyone shifted as the waitress delivered food.

  “Well, I won’t keep you.” Mrs. Saires motioned toward their plates. “You don’t need your food getting cold.”

  “Why are you in town?” Tessa asked.

  “I have a sister living nearby. We’d hoped we’d see you, but when we went to your store, you were gone. I’m so glad we ran into you. Rachel wanted to see you so badly,” she said, wrapping an arm around her granddaughter’s shoulder.

  “I hope I’ll see you both again soon,” Tessa said.

  “Us, too.” Lovingly the woman ran a hand over her granddaughter’s head. “Now we’re going to try the claw game by the door.”

  “Let me go with Rachel,” Tessa said.

  The woman’s smile widened. “She’d like that.”

>   Tessa took the girl’s hand and crossed to the game. The glass box was half-filled with stuffed animals.

  “She loves children, doesn’t she?” the woman said to Colby.

  Colby gave the expected nod, but he didn’t know a lot about Tessa. Despite their intimacy, she’d kept her past to herself.

  “Every time I look at my granddaughter, I know she’s a miracle. And without Tessa, I wouldn’t have her today.”

  That caught Colby’s attention. “What do you mean?”

  “Our family is so grateful to her. We were staying at my sister’s in a neighboring town when Rachel disappeared. Without Tessa and her gift, we might never have found her.” Distress wrinkled her brow. “I hate how badly she was treated for helping us.”

  Colby wanted to know more, but Tessa was returning to the table.

  “We won the purple pig,” she said on a laugh.

  Colby waited while the women shared a goodbye. As the woman and her granddaughter headed for the exit, he slid into the booth. “The grandmother sang your praises.” When she made much about smoothing out her napkin in her lap, he persisted, “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  “As you can see, everything worked out well.”

  Colby gave her the time she seemed to want. He cut his meat and took a bite. “She said that people treated you badly.”

  Head bent, she concentrated on pouring a puddle of ketchup on her plate. “People always doubt me. I had a vision about the little girl and went to the police, told them what I’d seen.” She picked up her hamburger. “They laughed, said I must have heard about her, dreamed that I thought I saw her.”

  “Rachel?”

  “Yes, Rachel. Helping is rarely easy.”

  Her eyes met his, carried a sadness. In that second, he sensed she’d endured an enormous amount of rejection.

  “I know they didn’t understand,” she went on. “But I was frightened for her and hounded them to look in a nearby cave. They found her.”

  “So you saved her?”

  Tessa set down her hamburger and wiped a napkin across her greasy fingers. “That’s not what they thought. They assumed that I only could have known where Rachel was if I was involved in her disappearance. And they arrested me.”

  Instinctively his stomach churned with anger for her. He cursed silently the unfairness she faced. He’d witnessed her concern for others like Marla, the children at the hospital, that little girl. She put her heart in front of her to be broken. She gave to others even knowing she might get hurt. “What happened then?” Whatever he believed didn’t matter. She believed in her gift, took risks for it.

  “I was booked. I spent the night in a holding cell. In the morning when the police were able to talk to Rachel, she said she’d gotten lost after chasing a butterfly. She got cold, so she went into the cave.”

  He hated what she’d been put through even as he tried to explain how she knew where the little one was, but he couldn’t stop himself. He looked for a logical explanation. She’d walked by the cave and considered it dangerous, and with the publicity about the missing little girl, she dreamed about her, remembered the cave. “Rachel cleared you?”

  “Yes. And they released me then. They apologized, but said I had to understand that they couldn’t figure out how I could know so much about her disappearance unless I was involved. That made sense to me, but I could never know something that might save someone and keep quiet.”

  Across the room, the man watched. The latest news about Warren Parrish and an airtight alibi got Parrish off the hook. Too bad. He’d looked like the perfect fall guy.

  What about the fortune-teller? The gossip in the diner minutes ago was that she hadn’t seen anything. No one believed she really could do any of that supernatural nonsense. Not really. A phony. Everyone called her that. No one believed in her.

  Through dinner, Tessa fretted. After their little act in the diner, the reason she and Colby had begun seeing each other no longer existed. Would all she’d found with him be over with the swiftness of someone snapping fingers?

  As they stood on the back stairs outside her house, she decided to take control of the moment. They’d been lovers. It made sense that she’d invite him in. “Stay the night,” she said, facing him. She sounded sure, but her heart thudded with her uncertainty.

  For a moment, as if he needed time to think about it, he was silent. “If I do, people will know.”

  Tessa shifted her stance. Did he really care? People already knew he was involved with her. What did he really mean? Did he want to say good-night, tell her it had been fun and walk away? Feeling suddenly young and vulnerable, she wished the ground would open and swallow her before she made a complete fool of herself. You always expect too much, Tessa, even when you know better. “Okay. It’s okay if you don’t want to come in.” She was rambling, making more of a mess of the moment. She swung away, thinking that a quick exit was best.

  Before she started up the stairs, he caught her arm, whirled her to him. “Now I think you are crazy.” Humor colored his voice. Their faces were close, their eyes level. “Hell, yes, I want to come in.”

  Her heart pounded even harder. “But you said—”

  “If you’re not coming home with me, I’m staying.”

  “I thought when I asked you in and you—”

  “Did I say no?” He placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Even more now, I don’t want you to be alone. We don’t know if the person heard yet about what we said in the diner and will believe that little act.”

  Was this about protecting her, about guilt for putting her in danger? “I have locks now. Courtesy of you.” She needed him to declare feelings, she realized. “You don’t have to watch over—”

  “You’re funny.” He cut in. A hint of a grin lifted the edges of his lips. “Watching over you is not what I had in mind.”

  Tessa returned a semblance of a smile. She’d been so prepared for him to stop seeing her. “Does that mean you do want to come in?”

  “An understatement.” Lightly he stroked her spine. “But people will see me leave in the morning.”

  Gossip. Was he really worried about it? “I don’t care.” She meant that. As much as she wanted to belong, she’d never let others dictate how she’d live her life. In a way, she was the free spirit he believed she was because of her vagabond lifestyle. “Do you care?”

  On a laugh, he kept an arm at her waist and urged her up the stairs. “Tessa, you should know better. Do you have the keys?”

  “In my purse.” She hadn’t known better. Childhood memories still haunted her, she realized, aware her insecurity stemmed from others breezing in and out of her life without a look back.

  “You’d better find those keys.”

  His light spirit reached her with the sensuous play of his mouth around the shell of her ear. Looking down, she fished in her shoulder bag for the keys. “They’re here somewhere.”

  “Hurry up.”

  “I’m trying.” At the door, she stopped, leveled a look at him. “You’re not helping me.” She dug around in her purse until her fingers curled over the keys. “Here.” She dangled them at him before turning to unlock the door.

  “Give them to me.” He reached around her. “Whose dumb idea was it to put a lock on this door?” he quipped, slipping the keys from her fingers.

  Enjoying herself, she deliberately chose a way to distract him. Angling a look at him, she captured his lips with her own. With satisfaction, she heard his groan before he pulled his mouth from hers.

  “Tessa, jeez.” He fumbled with the lock. “I have it,” he murmured against her cheek.

  She thrilled at his breathless sound. With his palm, he pushed open the door. His mouth on hers again, he nudged her to back up, to step inside.

  They stood in the moonlit living room. She didn’t care where they were. She wanted to touch. She was eager. She knew his body now, the muscles, the scars from years of rodeoing.

  With a kiss that was hard and meant to
never be forgotten, as he tugged down the zipper of her dress, she pulled at the buttons on his shirt. Bending away, he cussed to get off his boots. When he straightened, when his mouth closed over hers, she took control. She reached down, brushed the thin line of hair that disappeared into the waistband of his jeans, then yanked at one of the buttons.

  Together they worked at them. He murmured something, but words seemed unimportant. He stepped out of the jeans, then in a sweep of movement, he unsnapped her bra. His hands moved to her hips. Slowly he peeled her panties down.

  She didn’t speak, could barely think when his lips pressed against her navel. She felt the silk brushing her thighs, the warmth of his lips at her groin. Eyes closed, Tessa heard a moan, her own with his mouth’s descent to reach her inner thigh.

  Emotion flooded her. As she swayed, she clutched his shoulders for support. His lips again sought her belly, then he drew her down to the carpet, to him. She was a creature of sensation, lost to the mouth closing over a nipple, tugging and sucking at it.

  There was nothing beyond this moment. Whatever stood in their way during daylight vanished beneath the glow of moonlight. Passion’s heat slithered over her. She caressed the grooved plane of muscle at his stomach, reached for the waistband of his briefs. She shoved at the fabric until it curled at his hips. Then his hands replaced hers to push the cotton down the rest of the way.

  Breathless, she opened her eyes to see him ripping open the foil packet. Another moment that seemed like an eternity passed before his mouth came back to hers, before she felt the length of him against her. She needed no enticement, no languid pace.

  As he hurried her, she rushed him. Only sensations mattered when his hand skimmed her body, when his fingers reached the delicate skin between her legs. Hot kisses ran over her breasts to her tummy. His touch didn’t stroke or soothe, it urged, tempted, enticed.

  With his mouth heating her, she thought he might drive her insane. She grabbed at air. As a swift head-to-toe shudder swept through her, she whispered his name. She waited a second, then wrapped herself around him.