by SUE FINEMAN
Bo rubbed his sore elbow. It was starting to stiffen up again. The last time he’d been to the VA hospital to have it checked, the doctor recommended another operation. As if he wanted to give another doctor a chance to screw it up even more. Greg and Neen had offered to pay for an operation by a civilian bone expert, but the doctor would probably cut it off, and Bo didn’t want to lose his arm.
The cell phone rang and Bo handed it to Callie.
She talked with her son for a few minutes and then handed the phone to Bo. “Greg needs to talk with you.”
Bo sat up and took the phone. “What’s up? Did Tommy Ray show up again?”
“No sign of him.”
“Good.”
“The baby’s bones we found in the wall are at least seventy or eighty years old, so there’s not much hope of finding the mother. Mom wants to have a burial service when the cops are finished. The newspaper is having a ‘name the baby’ contest, so she’ll have a name for the service.”
“Weird. It’s a girl?”
“Yeah, newborn, part African American. She had a clubfoot and one leg was shorter than the other. The body hasn’t always been in the wall. They’re trying to track the dirt on the blanket to find out where it came from.”
“Why?”
“I think it’s mostly curiosity at this point.”
“Yeah, probably.” Bo glanced at Callie and asked Greg, “Did you have a chance to check into Tommy Ray’s background?”
“He came from the Dallas area. Worked as a cop there for five or six years before moving to Caledonia. He hired on as a deputy in Caledonia County and two years later, he ran for election as sheriff.”
“What happened to the previous sheriff?”
“He owns the Chevrolet dealership in town.” Greg paused for a second. “It’s interesting, because the man didn’t make much as sheriff, but he paid cash for the dealership.”
Bo froze. “Where did the money come from?”
“Good question. Look, I’m flying in tomorrow. Should be there in the late afternoon.”
“Aw, Greg, we’re leaving in the morning.”
“Business first, Bo. We need to use the time we have before the sheriff gets back to town.”
Bo disconnected and threw the phone on the bed. “Damn! Greg is on the way. Every time he gets involved in anything, there’s trouble, and if he gets shot again, it’ll be my fault.”
“No, sir. It’ll be my fault.” Callie ran into the bathroom.
He didn’t mean to upset her, but he had, and he felt like kicking himself for it. Why had he let himself get involved? Didn’t he have enough trouble with his arm and the business without trying to keep Snow White and Tiny Tim away from the Big Bad Wolf?
Maybe they could resolve this quickly without anyone getting shot, starting with that agreement her father signed. It must be here somewhere. Bo shoved his reading glasses on and carefully examined each one of the papers Callie had taken from the safe. He’d already read the wills for her parents and her grandfather, but he opened every one again to make sure another paper hadn’t gotten caught inside one of them. Like her grandfather, her parents had left everything they owned to their only child, Callie Winthrop Caldwell.
Bo found no agreement. Had there ever been one? If so, had someone taken it from the safe?
Knowing the combination, Callie could have opened the safe before, but if she had, she would have known about the money and her grandfather’s will. Bo considered himself a good judge of character, but with Callie, his instincts went haywire. She seemed genuinely shocked when she realized she owned the ranch and when she found the money. And if she’d known about the money, she would have left Tommy Ray long ago.
No, she didn’t take the agreement. She didn’t open the safe before today.
Tommy Ray could have figured out how to open the safe and taken the agreement himself, but if he had, the money and jewelry would be gone, and he would have destroyed her grandfather’s will. So Tommy Ray didn’t open it either. Nobody had been in that safe since before Callie’s parents died.
The maps caught his eye. The plat map had yellowed with age, but it looked newer than the hand drawn one with the X on it. That page was so old it was brittle. Dwayne and Leroy thought there was something buried out by the river, and the river was clearly marked on the map. If someone had buried something in that location and marked it on the maps, it had been there for years. Someone must have found it by now, whatever it was.
A nagging voice in the back of his mind said, Then why was the map in the safe?
If Greg were here, he’d go look for it. Bo wanted to do that himself, but he and Callie had other things to take care of first, like make sure the ranch belonged to her. He didn’t want to get shot for trespassing on the sheriff’s land. Then again, Tommy Ray might shoot no matter who owned the ranch.
Bo called, “Callie, can I look at that money again?”
She opened the bathroom door. “Sure, okay. It’s in the tote bag.”
Barefoot, wearing her nightshirt, with all her makeup scrubbed off and her eyes sad, she looked like a lost little waif. “I don’t mean to be so much trouble, Bo. I surely don’t.”
“If you want trouble, wait one more day. Greg always manages to stir things up. Last time and the time before he got shot, before that he was stabbed, and the time before that... I don’t want you caught in the crossfire, Callie, and with Greg around, there’s bound to be gunfire.”
Bo flipped through the papers again. “Callie, did you ever see this agreement?”
“No, I didn’t even know about it until after I married Tommy Ray.”
“There’s no agreement here, Callie. I’ve looked through all these papers, and it’s not here.”
She grabbed the tote bag and sat at the table with him. “Did you look through the jewelry boxes? Maybe Daddy put it in there.”
“Not yet. Let’s look at that money again. I want to see the dates on those bills.”
While Bo examined the money, Callie carefully packed the other papers in the tote bag and pulled out the jewelry boxes, but she didn’t see anything she hadn’t seen before. Fingering the jewelry, she remembered Granny and Mama wearing it to church. With the money they’d found, she could repay Bo and Greg for what they’d spent on the trip, and she wouldn’t have to sell Granny’s jewelry.
She owned the ranch. If Daddy had told her the truth about Granddaddy’s will, things might have been different the past few years. It might have evened the playing field between her and Tommy Ray. As it was, he had all the power. And she had none.
“Just as I thought,” said Bo. “There’s nothing here more recent than twenty years ago. Some of the bills are sequential, but not all of them.”
She sat at the table. “What does that mean?”
“Most of the ones dated twenty years ago look brand new, so I assume that’s how long your father had the money. If he’d invested it for ten of those years, he could have made it work for him.”
She leaned on the table. “Daddy didn’t know anything about investing. To him, the stock market was selling a few head of cattle.”
Bo gazed deeply into her eyes, his gray eyes darkening as if he had something else on his mind, but a second later, he asked, “Why didn’t you open the safe when your parents died?”
“I didn’t want to do it in front of Tommy Ray, so I told him I didn’t know the combination. I knew Granny’s jewelry was in there, and I didn’t want him to take it. He sat on the closet floor for three days straight, trying to get that darn thing open. He was so mad he almost tore it out of the wall.” Instead, he took his anger out on her.
“He put black powder on it, so he’d know if I messed with it. I decided to open it anyway, but before I could get it open, he came home. He beat me so bad I couldn’t hardly move the next day, so I didn’t try again.”
She paced to the bathroom and back. “You know what I feel like doing? I feel like going back to the ranch and packing all his things and putting
them all out by the road. If I put a lock on the gate, he couldn’t drive back to the house.”
Bo groaned and rested his forehead on the heel of his hand. “Sounds like something Greg would do.”
“First, I need to find myself a lawyer and see about that warrant. Then I’ll have to make sure the ranch really is mine.”
“Excellent idea. One thing at a time.”
Callie walked around the room, putting things in order, and turning down the beds. Walking up behind Bo, who sat at the table, she gently ran her hands over his shoulders and leaned down to hug him. “If they put me in jail, will you bail me out?”
He twisted to face her and put his hands on her waist. “In a heartbeat.”
She stepped closer until his head rested on her breasts. She was a married woman and knew she should stay away from this man, but she couldn’t. Running her fingers lovingly through his hair, she said, “Thank you so much for coming with me, Bo. I don’t know how I could have done this by myself.”
“My pleasure.” He reached up for a kiss.
Mama would roll over in her grave if she knew Callie had stayed in a motel room with a man other than her husband, but she no longer cared what her mother would think. She’d been a good daughter and devoted Christian, and where did it get her? Mama and Daddy gave her to the meanest man in town and then looked the other way when he beat on her. She was a woman, and she deserved to be loved like any other woman. She wanted to know Bo that way, yet she couldn’t bring herself to take the next step.
“Bo, I haven’t... With Tommy Ray... He never let me see him or touch him, and he did awful things to me in the dark.”
“You can look at me and touch me all you want, Callie, and we won’t do anything you don’t want to do. I don’t have to force women to have sex with me.”
Of course he didn’t. Women had stared at him on the plane and in the airport. If he’d flown here alone, he could have had the pretty stewardess on the plane or the sexy blonde with the dimpled smile who sat across the aisle from him. It didn’t matter that he had a bad arm or that he couldn’t hear out of one ear. His body moved with confidence, and his eyes looked at a woman as if she were the only woman on the planet who mattered. She never thought she’d ever think of a man as sensitive, but Bo was, and it didn’t in the slightest take away from his masculinity.
Why couldn’t she have married a man like Bo Gregory? Bo brought her pleasure just by looking at her, and the touching... The touching made her feel so alive.
She could almost forgive Chet for what he’d done to her, because he’d given her a son. Forgiving was the Christian thing to do, but forgiving Tommy Ray would take time, if she could ever bring herself to forgive him for the awful things he’d done to her and Brady.
Callie didn’t realize she was crying until Bo pulled her closer and whispered, “It’s all right, honey. It’s all right. You’re safe with me.”
Her heart felt so full she thought she’d burst, because she’d finally found a man she could trust. One she could love.
The pastor of her church and Mama’s friends would shun her for sure if they knew she was here with Bo, and she didn’t care. What she did with Bo was between her and God. Callie had wasted eight long, painful years in a loveless marriage, and she wouldn’t waste another.
Surely, God would understand.
<>
After breakfast the next morning, Bo packed his bag. He didn’t know where they’d stay tonight, but it wouldn’t be here. “Callie, what exactly did your father say when you asked him about the agreement? Who told you about it, Tommy Ray or your father?”
“Tommy Ray said Daddy gave him the ranch, that it belonged to him now, and when I asked Daddy about it, he said, ‘What you want is in the safe.’ I thought for sure he meant he’d put a copy of the agreement in the safe.”
“I’ll bet there’s no written agreement at all, and if there is, we’ll never find it.”
“Unless Tommy Ray has it.” Callie checked the bathroom and zipped up her suitcase.
“It doesn’t matter what your father signed, since he didn’t own the ranch.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“What kind of business did your father run?”
“Oh, we ran some cattle. Mama kept chickens and some folks bought eggs and chickens from us, but most of Daddy’s income came from leasing out the grazing lands. After Mama and Daddy died, Tommy Ray wouldn’t renew the leases. He sold all the animals, including the chickens, what was left of them, so the ranch didn’t bring in any money at all. I don’t think he wanted anyone else to have a reason to come out to the ranch.”
“What did Tommy Ray do with his free time?” Bo waved his hand. “Aside from beating on Brady and torturing you.”
“At first, he tore the house apart and tried to open the safe, and then he went out on Buttercup every day after supper.” She finished packing her tote bag. “Buttercup was my mama’s horse. We lost Daddy’s horse in the storm, but Buttercup and Betty Grable were both still in the barn, and the tornado didn’t touch the barn.”
“Betty Grable? You named a horse after a movie star?”
“She was so pretty, Daddy said she had legs like Betty Grable and the name kinda stuck.”
Bo tried to visualize a horse with movie star legs and couldn’t. He changed the subject. “We need to see that lawyer your father talked about in his letter. Why don’t you call and make an appointment to see him today, if he has time.”
He wanted to finish up here and get back to Tacoma before the Big Bad Wolf got home, but Callie needed to get this business with the ownership of the ranch settled before they left. And Greg was on the way. As if they needed someone to stir up more trouble.
Where in the hell was Tommy Ray?
While Callie made her phone call, Bo packed the car and checked out. She met him at the car. “Mr. Houser said to come right on over. He’ll be there all morning.”
She pulled on her seatbelt. “I hope no one else in town sees us.”
Chapter Six
Minutes later, Bo drove around the town square in Caledonia, Texas. Lush shade trees lined the streets and shaded the benches and statue in the park in the middle of the square. A fancy gazebo and flowering bushes made the park an inviting place to sit and visit or play a game of catch with your kids. Pretty little town.
Callie pointed out Stan Houser’s office, and Bo parked in front. “Is this guy the only attorney in town?”
“Oh, no, but he’s the one who handles the Caledonia family’s business, all except for my divorce. He doesn’t handle divorces. Mr. Houser is a member of my church, and the pastor is his brother-in-law, and they don’t hold with divorce, no matter what the reason.”
“Did you give him a reason?”
“No, sir, I didn’t even talk to him about it. I went to somebody over in Austin. He took care of things for me.”
Bo walked around and opened Callie’s door. “Callie, if he’d taken care of things, your divorce would be final by now.”
“But I was afraid to come to the courthouse.”
Bo looked up to see a deputy walking toward them. “Trouble on the way. Do you know that cop?”
She groaned. “On, no. It’s Randy Woford, Tommy Ray’s deputy. I won’t even get in the door to talk with my lawyer.”
“I’ll run interference. As soon as I step in front of him, run like hell and don’t look back.”
The cop spotted Callie and started to run toward her when Bo stepped in front of him. The cop grabbed Bo’s arm and tried to shove him out of the way, and Bo screamed, “Don’t touch my arm, dammit.”
Randy Woford twisted Bo’s arm, and Bo snapped. He shoved the deputy so hard, Caledonia’s version of Barney Fife fell to the sidewalk and pulled his gun. Several people stood watching, including Callie and a man Bo figured was her attorney. Bo held his left arm and fought the waves of pain. “Callie, can you find my pain pills?”
The man with Callie walked over to say, “Randy, this man n
eeds a doctor. I don’t know what you did to him, but he’s obviously in a great deal of pain.”
Bo leaned back on the hood of his scorching car, gritting his teeth from the pain in his arm. He couldn’t delay that operation the doctor talked about much longer. Damn thing hurt all the time, and now the excruciating pain threatened to bring him to his knees.
Callie opened the trunk. “Would somebody please get him something to drink,” she called to the growing crowd of people on the sidewalk.
Someone handed her a bottle of water. Callie put two pills in Bo’s mouth and tipped the bottle up so he could drink. She said, “Thank you, Miz Dickinson.”
Sweat beaded Bo’s forehead and it wasn’t from the heat. The pills would take time to work. What he wouldn’t give for a shot of morphine right now.
Randy stood watching, his eyes round in his narrow face.
Mr. Houser opened his office door wider. “I’m taking these folks into my office, where it’s cooler. Is that all right with you, Deputy?”
“No, sir. He assaulted me and he’s going to jail. Right now.”
“You idiot,” yelled Callie. “If you hadn’t hurt him, he wouldn’t have touched you. This is all your fault.”
Mr. Houser lifted his chin and looked down his nose at Randy. “Looked like police brutality to me.”
“Callie, you’re under arrest,” said Randy. “There’s a warrant out on you. You’re both coming with me.”
“I’ll come down to the jailhouse as soon as I make sure Bo is all right.”
The deputy held his gun with both hands and yelled, “Hold it right there.” The guy’s gun wobbled in his shaky hands. Bo knew he had to do something before that gun went off and someone else got hurt. Still holding his left arm, he whipped around and kicked the gun out of the deputy’s hand. Before Randy could get to it, Bo and Callie ducked inside Mr. Houser’s office.
