Rustler's Moon (22 page)

She thought her mother didn’t want the lake house, but it turned out after a few years of lies and excuses that Margaret Brigman didn’t want them. Lauren decided Margaret didn’t want to be a mother, but Lauren feared her pop thought she left because she didn’t want to be a wife.

Logic would have predicted that she and Pop would have been miserable, but it wasn’t that way. They kept each other’s spirits up. All her childhood memories were of the two of them living life in the small house. Now that she’d been away from home she realized how precious those years were.

She never, not for one minute, doubted his love.

Like now, Lauren thought. Pop had complained about her bringing her roommate home on such short notice, but he’d stocked the kitchen with snack food. He’d been angry when he found out Lauren was skipping class to come in Thursday, but then called back to tell her to check her tire pressure and make sure she had plenty of gas.

They pulled in and Tim immediately found the kitchen and announced they were having lunch on the deck. He wrapped Polly in a quilt and carried her to the deck despite her protests, then lugged out a card table of snacks.

In the cool shade of autumn leaves, they watched sunlight dance over the water, and Lauren smiled. She was home.

A little after five her father showed up wearing his uniform and a huge grin.

“Your dad’s a hunk,” Polly whispered as they saw him heading toward them.

“No, he’s not,” Lauren whispered back.

Dan Brigman shook hands with Tim and smiled warmly at Polly as he told her she was welcome to stay as long as she liked.

When he excused himself to lock up his service weapon, Polly whispered again, “Hunk.”

“No way,” Lauren answered.

Tim broke into the argument. “Since I’m the deciding vote, I stand with Lauren. To me he just looks like a sheriff, and if you knew how strict he was, Polly, you’d stop staring at him like he was puppy-cute.”

They all laughed.

The rest of the evening was cooking hot dogs on the grill and telling old stories about people in town. Lauren knew all the stories, she was even in the one Tim told about the Gypsy House, but she loved listening anyway. Tim had a way with words. He was a natural storyteller.

While Tim and her pop cleaned up, Lauren took Polly for a walk along the lake. She introduced her to a few of the neighbors and even met the woman who had just moved in a few weeks before. Polly seemed fascinated that Angie Harold was a curator. She even asked if she could take a tour of the museum later.

“Of course,” Angie said. “Drop by anytime.”

“I will.” Polly smiled. “When I was a kid, babysitters used to drop me off at the museum by our house and pick me up at closing time. I loved wandering the place and picking my lunch from the vending machines.”

The curator was busy loading up her car, so Lauren didn’t want to take up too much of her time. “We’d better go,” Lauren said. “You look like you’re busy.”

“I’m just loading up a few supplies. I’m house-sitting for a few days and want to use my own pots to cook in.”

Lauren wanted to ask why, but didn’t. First, no one in Crossroads hired a house sitter. They just told their neighbors to keep an eye on the house. Second, what did it matter which pot you used. She’d met two curators in her life and both seemed odd. This one who only cooked with her own pots and the old one at the Ransom Canyon Museum who never stopped talking. Anyone who went in the museum found out he followed them around like a living portable headset.

As they walked back in the dark, Polly thanked her for bringing her to such a quiet place.

“I needed this,” Polly whispered.

“I know,” Lauren answered as they picked their way along the path between boat docks. She waited for her roommate to say more.

Finally, Polly added, “I wish I’d grown up in a place like this. My house is more like a war zone when my folks are home, which isn’t often. They travel all over the world on photo shoots for magazines. I’ve heard coworkers say they never fight on the job, but the minute the day is done, the yelling begins.”

“So who looked after you?”

“Babysitters when I was little. A housekeeper once I was in school during the day. It was a revolving door. I got to where I called them all Betty. No one stayed long. Once, when I was six, the old lady my folks had hired to stay a month died before the first week was out.”

“What did you do? Call the police? Go to the neighbor’s house?”

Polly shook her head. “I was afraid I’d get in trouble. I lasted almost a week on cereal and popsicles. But the old lady’s sister kept calling to check on her. After about a dozen times of me saying I didn’t know where she was, the sister called child welfare.”

“Oh, my god! How terrible that must have been for you. Your parents had to come back early?”

“No. My parents were working and apparently didn’t want to be bothered. They refused to take the call. I had nowhere to go and the cops wouldn’t let me stay at the house alone.”

“What, no friends or relatives?”

Polly didn’t say a word.

Lauren had her answer.

“Welfare put me in a group home. It wasn’t so bad. Kind of like the dorm. When my folks came back, I talked them into putting me in boarding school so they could do as they pleased.”

“How’d that work?”

“Fine. I got in trouble a lot. Finally, I just ignored everyone. Once you’re marked as a troublemaker, you learn to go with the flow.”

Lauren took in everything Polly had said. The girl was right about one thing, Lauren had been very lucky to grow up here with her dad. “Polly,” she said as they neared the steps up to the deck. “You’re welcome here anytime. My pop said it and he means what he says.”

In the low glow of the porch light Lauren thought she saw a smile from Polly.

“Don’t tell Tim,” Polly whispered as she nodded toward Lauren’s dad and Tim cleaning up the grill. “He already feels sorry for me.”

Lauren thought of telling her Tim felt more than just sorry for her. She’d seen it in his eyes. Tim cared for Polly, even if he didn’t know it yet. At first he might have been just helping Lauren out with her troubled roommate, but it had grown to something else. Something between them that had nothing to do with her.

When Tim finally crashed out in the living room and Polly was sound asleep in her room, Lauren heard her pop playing his old CDs.

She walked into his study and leaned against the door frame. For the hundredth time, she said, “You need to buy some new music.”

“I always feel at home with the music my mom used to play.” He switched to the old Carpenters’ song she’d thought about Monday when it was raining.

Without a word she moved into his arms and danced to “Rainy Days and Mondays.” When she was little, he used to carry her when they danced. When she grew tall enough, she would stand on his boots as they danced. When she was finally in her teens, he taught her how to twirl and dip as if the living room was a ballroom.

As the music circled round them, he said, “I’ve missed you, kid.”

“I know, Pop. I’ve missed you, too.”

“You know any rainy day you ever have, you can always come home no matter how old you get and tell me your problems.”

“I know, Pop.” She hugged him tighter, wishing she could tell him about how scared she’d been when she saw Polly bleeding, and how hurt she was when Lucas backed away from even trying to love her.

But maybe she didn’t have to tell him. Maybe his just being there and offering was enough.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Austin
Wilkes

W
ILKES
FELT
AS
IF
he and Yancy had been chasing ghosts since early Wednesday morning. As he drove through the streets of Austin, Wilkes tried to put it all in order.

He hadn’t been able to sleep the night Angie moved in. About four, he’d given up trying and gone downstairs to work on his computer. He wanted to find out more about the Stanley House that drew Yancy. If the wagon at the museum had been owned by the Stanley family and they had arrived with the first cattlemen, then they were like family. They stood with the Kirklands and the O’Gradys and the Collinses and his ancestors, the Wagners. Now that he’d seen the wagon at the museum, it made sense that the Stanley family might have been called Gypsy.

About six o’clock a link blinked on that Wilkes hadn’t noticed before. A family named Stanley joined with another family to form a blacksmith and farrier business in early Texas. They’d even put an ad in the Austin paper in 1872 saying they’d be willing to travel for employment. That same year Kirkland drove his herd onto this part of Texas. Surely he would have brought both a blacksmith and a farrier along, and as fast as the population grew they’d be in demand.

Sweat broke out on Wilkes’s palms when he saw the second family’s name:
Grey
.

He picked up his cell and dialed Yancy Grey.

“Hell,” Yancy said after four rings. “Do you have any idea what time it is, Wagner?”

Wilkes didn’t waste time. “Do you have any living family?”

Yancy grumbled a few seconds and answered, “None that I know of. My mother’s family all died off, and she never bothered to tell me my father’s name. Just said they ran off when they were still kids, never mentioned marriage. Mind telling me why we’re uprooting my family tree at six o’clock in the morning?”

“Because—” Wilkes tried not to yell “—the Stanley family who built that old house you keep saying calls to you were once partners with another family, and their last name was Grey.”

“You kidding?”

“Would I call you while it’s still dark to kid about something like that? Get dressed. I’ll pick you up in an hour. I found a few Stanleys living in Austin, and it might be worth a trip to find out if they were related to anyone who lived in the house.”

Wilkes had wanted to wake Angie before he left, but after the way he kissed her that night, he figured she’d shoot him through the door if he came knocking. She had to know how much he wanted her. One kiss and he couldn’t sleep. If they ever did make love, he’d probably self-combust.

Besides, with luck, he might be back in a day or two. Once he calmed down, maybe the feeling would cool. He’d had it happen a few times before with women he swore he wanted but by dawn he couldn’t get away from fast enough.

Only, Angie wouldn’t be like that. Once wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted more.

As he tossed a bag in his car, he decided to worry about other things for a few days. Get his mind off her.

But his mind didn’t want to budge.

A little after seven he and Yancy hit the road. Wilkes called and asked Dan to pick Angie up and take her to work.

“Look out for her, would you, Dan?”

“I’ll watch over your girl,” Dan promised.

“She’s not mine.” Wilkes almost wished she was his. It had been a long time since he’d thought of anyone as his even for a night. The one girl he thought would be his forever hadn’t been. Lexie hadn’t waited for him and Wilkes had been trying to shake the feeling that he wasn’t worth waiting for ever since.

When he explained to Dan where they were headed, the sheriff didn’t seem too excited. “You two do realize that this is an old trail you’re trying to follow?”

“I know,” Wilkes agreed, “but for Yancy’s sake we have to see where this leads.”

The sheriff added, “Tell Yancy that relatives you don’t know are usually relatives you don’t want to find.”

Wilkes ended the call already wishing he was headed back home but knowing he had to give it a try.

Only, when they got to Austin, they ran into one dead end after another. Frustrated, Wilkes booked them both rooms at the Driskill Hotel and, after a good night’s sleep, they began again the next day and the next.

He checked in with Dan daily. No sign of the black Mercury. No more phone messages and nothing else left on Angie’s van. The sheriff seemed to think that there was a good chance that whoever had been watching her had left town. But Wilkes wasn’t so sure. If the stalker wanted something from her, he was taking his time.

When Dan mentioned that someone had messed with Carter Hayes’s brakes, Wilkes couldn’t stop asking questions. The sheriff didn’t know much about the brake problem, but Carter’s reasoning made sense. Either it was kids playing around and hoping to push the little travel trailer off the side of the canyon, or someone was simply hoping Carter would leave.

The old man swore he’d heard a car pull up near his camper one night, but he’d thought it was probably just kids parking or a drunk sleeping it off out by the museum.

“Did he leave?” Wilkes asked. “I’ve got another reason someone might want Carter gone. He’s a natural lookout for what’s happening at the museum.”

“Might be,” Dan agreed. “But he’s safe now.”

“Where?” Wilkes didn’t like the idea of the old guy being in danger.

“He took his trailer into the shop and is staying out at your place.” Dan laughed. “Seems Uncle Vern is running a bed-and-breakfast now he found out Angie can cook. I’ve even picked her up early the past few mornings. Best omelets I’ve ever had.”

Wilkes frowned. For Angie’s safety, he couldn’t tell Dan to back off no matter how much he’d like to. “I’ll be home tomorrow. And I’m betting on your second theory. It wasn’t kids. The man stalking Angie doesn’t want the old man around. I’m guessing he’s near, just waiting for his chance to catch her alone.”

After Wilkes ended the call, he thought about Angie’s bodyguards. One sheriff with way too much to do as it was. One old broken-down cowboy who loved flirting with the volunteers. One retired car salesman who was probably unarmed and believed stick figures were chasing him.

“We’re heading home as soon as we can,” he told Yancy.

“I agree. This can wait.”

Wilkes drove back to their hotel, lost in thought.

The way Angie kissed made a man lose all common sense. Hell, at the rate he was going, Wilkes might be Angie’s next stalker. He couldn’t get her out of his head. Every moment he wasn’t trying to find a Grey in Austin, he was thinking about her. Listing things he didn’t like about her and things he liked. After two days without her the “didn’t like” list began to get shorter.