by Katie Lane
Lincoln’s hands tightened on the rake handle. “Dixie is leaving?”
Lucas nodded. “Talked to Gertrude this morning and she said she got it straight from the deputy’s daddy’s mouth. He and his wife stayed at the boardinghouse last night, but I guess they’re headed out today . . . along with their daughter.”
“Dammit!” Lincoln threw down the rake.
Chester squinted at him. “You seem a mite upset, boy. Almost as if the deputy leaving is your fault.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “It is my fault. All my fault.”
“I guess you were doing more than working on Sam’s case when you stayed in town these past few nights.” Lucas said. “You ready to tell us what’s been going on between you and the deputy?”
Lincoln didn’t want to bring the two old cowboys in on his drama, but for some reason the words just spilled out—more words than he had ever spoken in his life. He told them the entire story of being asked to watch out for Dixie and talk her out of being a deputy. And how he’d planned to do just that, but then realized she was a damned good deputy. And not just a good deputy, but a good person. When he was finished, he felt completely drained.
“I lied to her,” he said. “Now she thinks everything we had together was a lie. And that’s not true. What we had was real.” He paused as the truth hit him. “Dixie is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Then why are you here?” Chester asked. “If she’s the best thing that ever happened to you, why aren’t you in town telling that to the deputy and making her stay?”
“Because if I tell her, she’s going to think we have a chance together. And we don’t.”
“Why not?” Lucas asked.
Lincoln sighed and took off his cowboy hat to run a hand through his hair. “Because I’m screwed up.”
“That’s bullshit,” Lucas said. “You’re no more screwed up than all the rest of us. I know you’ve had some tough breaks, Lincoln. But lots of people have tough breaks. Just look at the rest of the boys. Their lives were far from perfect, but they found love.”
“They deserve it.”
Chester stared at him. “And you think you don’t, boy?”
The answer to the question came immediately. He didn’t think he deserved love. Good people deserve love. And he wasn’t nearly good enough. And never had been. Which was probably why he had spent most of his life trying to prove he was a good man—trying to prove he was worthy of love. But if he was truly worthy, his mama wouldn’t have killed herself. His wife wouldn’t have left him. And Dixie would have . . . fought for him.
People fought for people worth loving.
He pulled on his hat and picked up the rake. “I should get to that shed roof.” He hoped Chester and Lucas would let him go in peace. He should’ve known better. As soon as he stepped out of the paddock, Chester and Lucas cornered him.
“You’re wrong, boy,” Chester said. “You deserve to be loved, and you are loved. You’re loved by me and by Lucas. And by every single Double Diamond boy. I didn’t get to meet your mama or your daddy, but I got to talk to your grandmother on the phone. And that woman loved you too.”
“You talked with my grandmother?”
“You don’t think we’d let a sixteen-year-old kid come to the ranch without talking to an adult first, do you?” Lucas said. “She told me about your mama and about the abuse you suffered from her boyfriend. And we both figured that a summer at the ranch would do you good.”
It had done him good. It had changed him from a delinquent to a young man who wanted to do everything right. But now he realized good grades, excelling at sports, and becoming a lawman hadn’t fixed the real problem inside him. As a kid, he had tried to prove he was so tough he didn’t need a mom or a dad or his grandmother or anyone to survive. As an adult, he’d been trying to prove the same thing. He’d been trying to prove he was tough enough that he didn’t need anyone . . . until a beauty queen had proved him wrong.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew about my mom?” he said.
Chester spit a stream of tobacco to the ground. “Everyone has a right to their secrets.”
“Unless it hurts folks,” Lucas said. “And keeping your love for the deputy a secret is not only hurting her, it’s hurting you.”
“Tell her, boy,” Chester said.
Part of him wanted to listen to Chester and Lucas and hop in his truck and head straight into town. The other part was scared of confessing his love and discovering Dixie didn’t feel the same way. The fear won out.
He shook his head. “If Dixie wants to leave, that’s her choice.”
Before he could blink, Lucas had him by the shirt. “Now you listen to me, Lincoln Hayes. I know what happens when a man lets his pride get in the way of love. I did it with my sweet Gertrude and wasted decades of my life. I won’t let you do the same thing. You get your butt into that town and you talk to that girl. You hear me?”
Before Lincoln could answer, his cellphone rang.
Lucas released his shirt. “That’s probably the deputy now. Don’t screw this up, Lincoln.”
At just the thought of talking to Dixie and confessing his love, Lincoln’s insides started to shake.
Chester patted his shoulder. “You can do this, boy. Come on, Luc, let’s give the man some privacy.”
The two old cowboys walked away as Lincoln pulled the phone from his breast pocket with a shaky hand. But as scared as he was of talking with Dixie, he was twice as disappointed when he saw it wasn’t Dixie calling. It was a number he didn’t recognize. He thought about not answering. But the spark of hope that maybe Dixie was calling from another phone had him tapping the accept button.
“Lincoln Hayes.”
“Hey, Linc. It’s Cal Daily.”
He tried to disguise his disappointment. “Hey, Cal. What’s up?”
“You told me if I remembered anything about the night Sam disappeared to give you a call. It’s probably nothing, but I did remember something. While I was closing up the bar that night, one of the bouncers brought in a cowboy hat he’d found in the parking lot. I recognized it immediately as the sheriff’s. So I called him and left a message telling him that I’d found his hat in the parking lot. But he never called me back. When I saw him in town the next day, I tried to give it to him. But he still claimed it wasn’t his. And since he had on a hat just like it, I figured I’d made a mistake and it belonged to someone else.”
“Do you still have the hat?”
“I did until it got burned up in the fire. Damn, I loved that hat too. Wore it almost every day.”
“You kept it?”
“Yeah. No one claimed it and it was a damn fine hat . . . after I had the stains removed.”
“What kind of stains?”
“I don’t know what they were. It looked like something got splattered on the brim. Probably mud from Cotton-Eyed Joe’s parking lot.”
Or blood.
“And Sheriff Miller said it wasn’t his?” Lincoln asked.
“Miller? Oh, sorry, my mistake. I thought you knew I was talking about the sheriff we have now. I guess back then he was a deputy.”
Lincoln’s muscles tensed. “Willaby was the one you called that night?”
“Yeah. Sheriff Miller always took off to go fishing with his brother the second week in June—wait a minute! It was the second Saturday in June. It had to be if Sheriff Miller was fishing. You were right, Lincoln. The more you talk about something, the more you remember. Does any of this help you out?”
It did help him out. It helped him out a lot.
The cold case had suddenly gotten warm.
Or more like sizzling hot.
Chapter Nineteen
Dixie woke from a horrible nightmare. Except when she finally came fully awake, she realized it hadn’t been a nightmare at all. Everything she’d had with Lincoln was nothing but a lie. No matter what he had said when he left her apartment, she didn’t believe for a second that any part of their relationshi
p had been real. All the kisses, all the caresses, all the lovemaking nothing but a pack of lies. And she had fallen for them. She had fallen hard. He must really think she was a ditz.
“Urghhh!” She rolled to her back and drummed her feet against the mattress, causing Queenie to lift her head from the pillow next to her and give her a disdainful look. “What?” Dixie snapped. “I can throw a hissy fit in my own bed if I want to.”
“So I guess my sweet mild-mannered daughter is awake.”
Dixie glanced over at the doorway to find her mother standing there holding a tray. As usual, Winona looked perfectly put together from her styled blond hair to her designer heels. Even that annoyed Dixie.
“Don’t you ever look messy, Mama?”
Winona walked into the room. “Now what kind of a question is that, Dixie Leigh? Of course I look messy at times. All women do. I just hide my mess better than most. Now quit feeling sorry for yourself and sit up. I made you some breakfast.”
She sat up and stuffed her pillow behind her back. “This should be good since you don’t cook, Mama.”
“Watch your mouth, young lady. You aren’t too old to get a bar of Dial shoved down to your tonsils. I cook when I need to. And this morning my baby needed me to.” She set the tray on Dixie’s lap. “Although I did burn the toast slightly and undercook the scrambled eggs. But the coffee is just the way you like it. Plenty of sugar and cream.”
“That’s the way you like it, Mama. I like it with cream only.”
“Oh. Well, then I guess I’ll have a second cup.” She picked up the cup and sat down on the edge of the bed. She took a sip and sighed. “Perfect.” She glanced at Dixie. “Are you going to eat? A lady never skips the most important meal of the day.”
Dixie had always lived by her mama’s sayings. But not today. Her stomach was too upset to put anything in it. She moved the tray to the side. “Thank you for making me breakfast, but sometimes a lady is just not hungry. Where’s Daddy?”
“I left him at the boardinghouse. At breakfast, he got into quite the political discussion with the little old woman who owns the place.”
Dixie couldn’t help but smile. “Miss Gertie.”
Winona took another sip of coffee before she placed the cup on the tray. “She’s quite the character and made it clear how lucky we were to get a room on such short notice. She also told us how proud she was of the deputy you’ve become.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I wish I could’ve witnessed your progression. One of the hardest things I’ve done as a mama was to stay away from here these last few months and let my baby grow up.”
“I’ve been grown up for a long time, Mama.”
“No, honey. You might’ve look like an adult, but inside you were still a little girl. And your daddy and I were the reason for that. You’re our only child; we didn’t want you to grow up. We wanted you to stay our baby forever. I wanted to dress you up in fancy dresses and show you off on a big stage and your daddy wanted you to follow in his footsteps so he could be right there with you all the way. I didn’t realize our mistakes until you threw your little tantrum when your daddy wouldn’t give you the money for your business.”
“It wasn’t a tantrum. It was a calculated plan.”
“Tantrum or calculated, it was pure foolishness.” Winona paused. “Or at least I thought so at first. You had me worried sick, Baby Girl, that some criminal would shoot you. But now I realize God had a plan all along.”
“Yeah,” she said dryly. “He obviously wanted to punish me for trying to manipulate my daddy.”
“It was wrong to lie to your daddy and me, Dixie Leigh, but God didn’t punish you, honey. He blessed you by getting you out from under your parents’ rule and putting you in this perfect little town.”
It was a perfect little town. And it wasn’t only the town that was so perfect, it was the people who lived there too. People who had welcomed Dixie into their hearts and homes like she was family. A day didn’t go by that she wasn’t asked to dinner or some birthday or special celebration. She usually had to work, but she had accepted a few offers. Like Luanne’s offer to join the Simple Book Club and Cheyenne’s invitation to her middle school graduation.
The thought of missing both made tears fill her eyes. “It is a perfect little town. And I’m going to miss being their deputy so much.”
“Then why did you turn in your resignation?”
“Because Simple deserves a better deputy than me.” The tears leaked out and ran down her cheeks. “A smarter deputy.”
“Smarter? No one is as smart as my baby girl.” Winona picked up the napkin from the tray and handed it to her.
Dixie blotted her cheeks. “Please don’t tell me you forgot how much I struggled in school, Mama. You wanted me to keep my dyslexia from Daddy, but you were there in the teacher’s meeting.”
Her mother’s eyes widened. “I told you to keep the secret from your daddy? I believe you were the one who cried and begged me not to tell him, Dixie Leigh. I agreed at the time because I didn’t want you throwing a fit in front of your teachers, but later I told your father everything.”
Dixie stared at her. “Daddy knew I was dyslexic? Then why would he push me to go back to law school?”
“Because he knew you could do it. You can do anything you set your mind to, Dixie Leigh. You’ve proven that time and time again. You never have let a little disability keep you from what you wanted. Which means you’re stronger and smarter than most people.”
Dixie was too stunned to speak. She just sat there as her mama continued.
“And what makes you think you’re not a good deputy? Miss Gertie certainly thinks you are. So does her niece Reba and her husband. And so does Lincoln. I guess he went on and on about what a good deputy you are to his boss.”
“Lincoln was just hoping word would get back to daddy and he’d get his promotion.”
Winona smiled. “Funny, but Lincoln didn’t strike me as a brown-noser. In fact, when he answered the door and your daddy asked him what exactly had been going on, he told him it was none of his business.” She smiled. “Just like you did. I knew the second you walked in the door that you had found yourself. I’ve always told you that you can tell a lot about a person by their walk. And you didn’t walk in the door as much as strut. A confident strut that said you were a woman who knew who she was and what she wanted.”
Dixie blew her nose in the napkin. “I thought I did.”
“And now you don’t? I never took you for a fickle female, Dixie Leigh Meriwether. Once you make up your mind about something, few things can change it. Now you’re sitting there telling me that just because a man told a little fib, you’re starting to doubt who you are and what you want?”
All the anger and hurt of the last twenty-four hours welled up inside her and gushed forth like Yellowstone’s Old Faithful. “That liar took my virginity, Mama!”
At her outburst, Queenie jumped up and leaped off the bed. But her mama didn’t even blink her long eyelash extensions. “He took it or you gave it to him?”
“I wouldn’t have given it to him if I had known the type of controlling, manipulative man he was. And I refuse to spend my life being controlled and manipulated like—” She cut off, but her mama knew what she had been about to say.
“Like me.” Winona didn’t look hurt. She just smiled sadly. “Oh, Dixie Leigh, I did you a grave injustice. My mama taught me that a lady never argues with her husband in public. Marital arguments were to be kept private.”
“You argue with daddy?”
“All the time. We get into some whopper fights. Why do you think I placed your bedroom on one side of the house and ours on the other?”
“I thought it was because you didn’t want me hearing you have sex.”
Winona laughed. “Well, that too. But mostly it was because I didn’t want you hearing us fight. And with a stubborn, controlling man like your father, I had to fight to get anything through his thick skull. But eventually, he saw things my way.”
/> Dixie’s eyes widened. “So when he acted like he’d changed his mind about something it was you who had changed it.”
Winona smiled. “I didn’t care if I got the credit. I just wanted the results. Just this morning, we had a doozy of a fight because I had to convince him that we’re not taking you home. This is your home now.”
“But I can’t stay here with Lincoln.”
“He’s exactly why you should stay here. He might have lied to you about being your bodyguard. But he’d been given an order, and as a deputy, you should know all about carrying out orders. You think he wanted to spend his days making sure some spoiled senator’s daughter stayed out of trouble?”
All kinds of images popped into Dixie’s head. Lincoln taking her off the mechanical bull. Helping her stumble drunk to her door. Carrying her to bed. Staying the night when her deadbolt was broken. Shooting the snake. Teaching her to become the best deputy she could be so she wouldn’t get hurt. So she would be able to take care of herself. She wanted to put him in the same category as her controlling father, but Lincoln hadn’t tried to control her at all. He’d taught her that she could accomplish anything she put her mind to. He had made her believe in herself.
“No,” she said. “Taking care of me wasn’t an easy job. In fact, he probably hated it.”
“I doubt that. The man I saw walk out of this apartment yesterday didn’t look like he was happy to be released from his duties. He looked exactly how you look now. He looked like he’d just lost the only thing he ever wanted.” Winona took her hand and squeezed it. “Do you love him, Dixie Leigh?”
It was time to quit lying to herself and accept the truth. “I do.”
“Then go get what you want.”
“But what if I can’t get him? He’s pretty afraid of love.”
Winona’s perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted. “Can’t? What did I teach you about the word can’t?”
Dixie didn’t even have to think. “’Can’t is just a word people use when they’re too scared to try.’”
“Exactly. Now are you telling me that you’re too scared to try?”
