by Hebby Roman
“I don’t care what you say, that money belongs to me. I deserve it. I earned it!”
Elliott gave him a side-long glance. “How do you figure?”
“Night after night, I listened to that old man’s bedtime story of the armored truck and the buried treasure, and the men who got away.” He spat out a mouthful of mud. “A few years after he abandoned me and my mother, I figured out he was talking about himself. Shit, he even named me after one of the dudes he did it with.”
“Of course,” Ben said. “Richard Carter . . . Dickie.”
“So, see, if anybody gets the money, it’s me. What kind of grown man walks around with the name, Dickie?”
“I’m going to take a wild guess,” Elliott answered. “You?”
Ben put his hand up between them, “I probably should’ve stopped you a while ago—”
“I read him his rights, boss, and he waved his right to an attorney,” Charlie interrupted.
Ben smiled. “Follow me, then, Dickie.” He led them to the spot where they’d found the body, which was now in a black bag. He unzipped the bag and said, “Do you know anything about this?”
The man’s eyes narrowed with an evil glint. “You won’t believe this, but that old bastard threatened to turn me in if I so much as thought about diggin’ up that money.”
“Yeah? I guess he had a change of heart.”
“Fat lot of good it did him. When he laughed at me, I shot him and tossed him in the water.”
“Charlie? Will you and Elliott take him in and lock him up?”
“Sure thing,” Charlie said. “I’ll get started on the paperwork.”
“Wait, you can’t take me anywhere. That’s my money.” The suspect started railing again.
Ben tapped the man on the shoulder. “I offer this advice to you with all the respect I can muster. Shut-up.”
No sooner had Charlie shuffled the prisoner off than Dinah hit Ben like a ton of bricks. “Ben? Ben! I heard the shots. Are you hurt? Were you hit?”
“I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me that a bath won’t cure,” he assured her. Feeling good about their discoveries, and pleased at her worry over his safety, he pulled her close, and kissed her . . . mud and all.
At noon the next day, the armored truck was unearthed and everyone gathered around. Ben had called a locksmith, but it turned out he wasn’t needed, as the truck was unlocked. The air practically crackled with anticipation. But all deflated when he opened the rear doors.
Water poured from the interior, along with the water-logged cache. The agents involved in recovering and accounting for the money took over, leaving Ben and the others to leave them to their business.
Chapter Ten
Dinah awoke on the morning of July Fourth, stretched out the kinks, and then got out of bed. She had to finish putting together the potato salad and deviled eggs for the picnic lunch to be held after the nuptials between, Irene and Neville. He’d proposed after the happenings at Hard Luck Ranch, a few weeks ago. Turned out he’d been in love with her since her husband, Otis, had passed away.
She still lived at Maggie’s, but that needed to change before too much longer. Maggie was a month away from her due date, and she wanted to move before they kicked her out to make room for the twins.
Maggie stuck her head into the room. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” Dinah answered.
“I’ve set out the potatoes and the eggs. Are you using mustard or mayo, or both?”
“I’ll use both, don’t you think? I like a little zip.” She pulled on a tee shirt and shorts, and followed Maggie to the kitchen. “Is Ben here, yet?”
“Yes, he and Graeme are loading tables, chairs, and ice chests into the back of the pickup. You know we need to get there mid-afternoon, so we can have the best spot for the wedding, and then the fireworks later.”
“I’ll have the salad and eggs ready to go soon. Why don’t you sit at the table and keep me company while I mix?”
“Good idea.”
No sooner had Maggie sat in the chair, than Dinah wished she’d suggested a nap to her friend.
“Di, when are you going to give Ben an answer?”
She told herself to think before she popped back to Maggie. “I will, Mags, when I have an answer to give him. I don’t want to commit until I’m sure.”
Maggie sighed. “Oh, for crying in the mud, Di. No one’s ever sure. Do you think Graeme and I had everything figured out, or for that matter, Mom and Ed? Look at Neville and Irene . . . they’re just winging it, taking things day by day.”
“I’m so afraid I’ll disappoint him in some way, or hurt him. You know I have an acid tongue, at times.”
“So does he, sweetie. Ben’s no saint nor is he under any illusions as far as you’re concerned. You simply do the best you can and love each other.” She slowly got up from the chair, hugged Di, and waddled toward the hallway. “Keep working, I have to go pee!”
* * *
Ben parked the SUV in the lot close to the table they’d staked out earlier. Dinah sat in the passenger seat and hadn’t uttered one word, since they’d left the house. Graeme was in his truck with Maggie and the kids. Neville would be bringing the preacher, and Bridey and Andrew were picking up Irene. He’d wondered about Elliott, as he’d said he was coming, but time would tell. He’d been up to something lately.
He and Dinah set up the tables and chairs, put the table cloths on, and set out the plates, napkins, and plastic ware for later. She had streamers, white paper wedding bells and such for the ceremony, that he hung up. Lots of busy work.
After they had put out all they could, he grabbed Dinah by the arm and walked her to an area away from the table.
“Okay, Di,” he said. “What’s up your ass today?”
She stared at him like she didn’t know where he was coming from. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
He still maintained his grip on her upper arm, and added, “I swear, if you say nothing is wrong, I’ll turn you over my knee.”
“There’s less wrong now than there was this morning when I woke up.” She looked down at his hand on her arm and glared at him until he let her go. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” If he survived this relationship . . . “Now, will you explain what you said? I’m a guy, Di, I don’t do cryptic.”
“But I’ve seen you solve mysteries,” she stated with a grin.
He softened somewhat at her attempt to joke and lighten the tension between them. “Honey, you are so far out of my league, it isn’t funny. But I love you and want you to marry me. What can I do?”
“For starters, I’m afraid, I’ll disappoint you or perturb you when I’m not home due to work or if I don’t cook or clean when you think I should, or something like that.”
“That’s it?” He wanted to laugh, but that would send her spiraling out of control, so he managed a straight face.
She put her hand to his chest. “That’s a lot, Ben. You deserve a better wife than I can be.”
He bracketed her shoulders with his hands, and looked into her eyes. “Baby, there is no other woman for me. You’re it. So, let’s negotiate this deal.”
“O-kay.” She looked at him like he’d slipped a cog.
“Okay,” he said. “We both have jobs that can go sour at a moment’s notice, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, we’ll schedule the late nights when we can, and the early one cooks or brings something home, and if we both are late, we’ll meet at the Dine Inn.”
“Good, and we’ll share the laundry and cleaning?”
“It’s only fair.”
“Negotiating is fun,” she stated and laughed.
“Wait a minute, I’m not finished. I have one more thing I absolutely won’t compromise on.”
Her head snapped up and she lost her smile. “What the hell, Ben, and we were doing so well.”
“I insist, for your business purposes and personal esteem, that you keep your own name.”
“Really? You’ll do that for me?”
He backed her up to the nearest tree and kissed her. “It’s a deal-breaker.”
Maggie called over to them, and Dinah scooted out of his embrace to join the group.
“Di?” he called after her. “Wait a minute. Do we have a deal?”
* * *
Half an hour later, the preacher pronounced Irene and Neville, husband and wife. They were congratulated, fed, and cake was cut in celebration. As the darkness approached, and everyone settled down to wait for the Fourth of July fireworks show, Dinah got an idea.
She talked to the bride and groom, and then approached the preacher. When she had all her ducks lined up, she sidled up to Ben, who’d been pouting since the afternoon.
“Say, handsome, are you busy?”
“I suppose not. What do you want?”
“Ooh, slightly grumpy,” she teased. “I suppose I’ll have to learn to deal with that.”
He huffed out a sigh. “What, Di?”
“I’m saying, yes, to your proposal, but I have two conditions, and I’m afraid they’re a deal-breaker.”
He shook his head, but asked, “What?”
“I’d like my last name hyphenated. I’d like to be Dinah Marie Horne-Hammond.”
“Deal-breaker, huh?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay. Done. What’s number two?”
She looked him straight in the eye without a hint of a grin. “We have to get married right here, right now.”
“I’m afraid that one’s out of my hands, babe.” He took her hand and said, “We don’t have a license and there’s a three day wait.”
“Oh, I know. We can take care of the legalities tomorrow.” She looked up at him and smiled. “But our marrying today shows our commitment to each other, me more than you, and God doesn’t need for us to have a piece of paper.”
“Okay. Done.”
The preacher stood a short distance from them, holding his Bible. Their friends gathered around them in a semi-circle waiting for them to stand side-by-side.
After they said their vows, fireworks popped and boomed overhead.
Dinah looked up, and said, “Well, Sheriff, you’ve gone and done it now.”
“I thought I was going to live a quiet life, on my ranch, with my obedient wife.” He ducked his head when she raised her arms, but she only rested them on his shoulders.
“One of these days, Ben Hammond, you’re going to stop making these wild-ass speculations.”
“I am?”
“Yes.” She pulled him toward her and said, “Now, shut up, Sheriff, and kiss me.”
Thank you for reading The Legend of Bad Moon Rising by Amazon Best-Selling Author Carra Copelin! If you'd like to read more of Carra Copelin’s books you can find them on Amazon and on website.
City Boy, Country Heart
By Andrea Downing
Contemporary Western Romance
Copyright © 2017 by Andrea Downing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author except where permitted by law.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Acknowledgment
My thanks to Page Lambert for giving me guidance on the subject of Eminent Domain in the state of Wyoming. Any mistakes regarding this are purely my own.
About City Boy, Country Heart
In this stand-alone sequel to Bad Boy, Big Heart, rodeo star and rancher Chay Ridgway has left Wyoming to follow his girlfriend, K.C. Daniels, to New York. Leaving behind all he knows for a small bite of the Big Apple, Chay discovers the canyons of city streets may be too claustrophobic for this cowboy. As K.C. continues her two years of study for her Master’s degree, can she also keep a rein on Chay’s heart? Will this cowboy become a city boy, or will the wide-open spaces of Wyoming call his country heart home?
Chapter One
He was riding.
The blue of the Wyoming sky is so pure, unlike any other, the blue of clear water, the blue of lakes you want to sink into, lose yourself in, and the blue of K.C.’s eyes right before I make love to her. And the air of the Tetons is so clean, invigorating, fresh, energizing; it fills my lungs and makes me able to do anything, ready for the day, able to face whatever comes my way.
He shook awake.
The stench hit him.
As the subway car rattled through the menacing tunnels, Chay Ridgway tried to stop himself from either heaving or dozing off again at this ungodly, late-night hour. He kept a close eye on the drunk laid out across from him, a whiff of urine emanating from the man’s filthy clothes. He had no idea whether the stinking creature might rise and attack him. At least that’s what he sensed might happen. K.C. had assured him it was unlikely; drunks slept in the subway, that was all.
Not that he was frightened. He just, pure and simple, could not get used to this environment: the closed carriages, being underground, the smell of dirty hot iron, garbage, and rats. At least if you met a skunk out on the road in the wide open spaces of Wyoming, it was in clean air. Not here. Everything closed in on him. It felt as if he were on a different planet.
For all he knew, the drunk might be dead and he was sitting opposite a rotting corpse. The few other passengers ignored the body. Weary from long days, they glared bleary-eyed at phones or dozed over newspapers, kept their glances averted some other way, any way. But Chay’s curiosity still won out. He studied people, he took in his surroundings. A mix of inquisitiveness and uncertainty—was he safe? He never felt like this at home. Doors left unlocked, a life where everyone knew everyone who lived nearby, dropped in, looked out for you as his elderly friend Breezy was doing now. This world he had entered in moving to New York was as an apocalypse, some dystopian vision of hell. What had he done?
Just what the hell had he done?
* * *
K.C. Daniels heard the key turn in the lock. She smiled at the attempt to tiptoe across the living room, and watched the door handle to their bedroom turn with careful determination.
“You know I’m awake,” she whispered.
As Chay sidled into the room, tapping the door closed with slow deliberation, she could gauge his mood by the set of his mouth. Tonight his lips turned down in a slight frown, and she caught the brief slide of his gaze over to her, and back to the door. He stood for a moment waiting to hear if their housemate, Daphne Baker, would charge out of her room as she often did with a complaint.
All quiet.
Chay waited, leaned back against the door, opened his mouth to speak and then jumped at the scream:
“You did it again, Ridgway! You woke me up! This has to stop!” Daphne’s voice was shrill, a piercing siren, and K.C. knew that what had to stop was Daphne’s tyranny. Either that or they had to move. The soft thud of a pillow hitting the wall preceded the flap, flap, flap of Daphne’s slippers before she swung open her door.
Chay stood statue-still, his head bent to listen.
A moment passed, and the door slammed shut followed by more flapping as her mules slapped wood.
K.C. caught Chay’s look and grimaced, listened as his breath came out in a huff of fatigue, then smiled up at him as he approached the bed and sat down. He didn’t have to speak; she knew what he was thinking and didn’t want to hear it again.
He leaned in to brush her lips with his, pulled back to look at her and ran his thumb along her chin line before his hand drifted to her shoulder and slid her nightdress strap down.
“Chay.”
“Ummmm.”
“Chay.”
“That’s my name, want my number?”
“Chay.” K.C. kept the pitch of her voice moderated and tapped his forehead with her own. “It’s late. I have class
es in the morning.”
“Uh-hmmmm.”
“And you smell of garlic and tomato sauce.”
“From one of the best chefs in town.” When she didn’t reply, he added, “I’ll go wash.” He stood up and looked down at her, gave her a smile that was more questioning than affirmation, and which didn’t reach his eyes, and he headed to the bathroom, yanking off one boot after the other as he went.
Smiling to herself that he still wore his cowboy boots in New York City, K.C. watched as his belt hit the floor, followed in some haste by the jeans meant to sit a horse, and the shirt that had covered the pronounced muscles of a man who worked cattle. The muscles were still there but K.C. wondered if they’d soon disappear, though she supposed not with the time he spent in the gym, running, and on his skateboard.
A sense of responsibility hit her and she flipped her book shut, shoved it on the night table and stretched to dim the light. He had given up so much to be here with her, to let her complete her American History M.A. course as she wished. And there was no going back for him at the moment: the folks from the next ranch—the Bantries—had leased his north pasture, the house was being fixed up, and Breezy was seeing to paying guests with a long term tenant possible for the winter. And, yes, K.C. was responsible for all of it, answerable for his happiness, accountable to him.
* * *
Chay slouched in the bathroom doorway, his boxers signifying he had given up any idea of love-making for the night, sympathetic to K.C.’s wishes and cognizant of the fact he might not be in top form. As he stepped forward and slid between the sheets next to her, he gave the thought one more consideration, let it go, pulled her over to his chest and clutched a handful of her lustrous brown hair, cradling her head and guiding it to turn toward him.
He slithered down lower in the bed, gathered her into his arms, and kissed her long and deep before rubbing noses with her and giving her a final peck on the forehead. As K.C. twisted to switch off the light, he stretched to turn her face to him once more, take her in.
