Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
JD
Dan is already waiting for me on the steps of his porch, the baby perched on his knees.
This morning, I was about to load my tools in my truck to head over to Janey’s when I remembered I’d loaned Dan a few things I might need. He’s close to being done with the horse barn he decided to build behind his house. He already bought Aspen a pony. The kid just turned one a couple of months ago, gonna be a while before she’ll ride, but when Dan gets an idea, there’s no stopping him.
“Morning, JD,” Sloane calls out when I get out of the truck. “Coffee?”
“Don’t get up on my account,” I try to stop her when I see her struggle to get out of the porch chair.
Sloane looks about to pop, pregnant with kid number two, who is due in about a month, I believe.
She waves me off. “If I don’t move regularly, my ass’ll get glued to that chair. Besides, I need an excuse to sniff the coffeepot again.”
“In that case, sure, I’ll take a coffee.”
I wasn’t going to stay long, just pick up my tools and go, but I’m not going to deny Sloane that small pleasure. She groans as she stretches, one hand pressing the small of her back as she shuffles inside. Pregnancy looks fucking uncomfortable, but I’m happy for them.
“So what are you working on?” Dan asks, gesturing for me to sit on the steps with him.
“Fixing a few things.”
My evasive response isn’t enough to brush him off. In fact, it only seems to pique his interest as his eyes narrow on me.
“At your trailer?”
“Nah, I’m giving Doc a hand at her place.”
I feel his eyes on me so I keep mine fixed on the view in front of me, which is prime. Dan picked a perfect spot to build his log home, with a view of the Fisher River and Kenelty Mountain beyond from his front porch. I’ve spent plenty of time here, drinking a beer while watching the sun go down.
My little patch of land backs onto Libby Creek, and although the view isn’t bad from my trailer, it pales in comparison to this.
“You’re making a move,” Dan states.
I turn my head and briefly lock eyes with him. Then I return my gaze to the river.
“Good for you,” he adds in a low voice, setting Aspen, who is getting restless on his lap, down on the ground.
She takes a few steps on unsteady feet before plopping on her butt in the grass. She immediately grabs for a clump of harmless dandelions under Dan’s watchful eye. Some of the wildflowers here can be quite toxic.
“Here…”
I quickly get to my feet when Sloane tries to bend down to hand me my coffee.
“Thanks. How’s that little one?” I ask, pointing at her substantial baby bump.
“A gymnast,” she shares, wincing. “And real estate is getting sparse in here. Makes for restless nights.”
I hadn’t noticed until now how tired she looks. Dark circles curve under her blue, red-rimmed eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, not sure what else to say.
“Don’t be.” She smiles, patting her belly. “We’re excited. One more month to go. And I catch up in the afternoons with naps, although I’ll be working for a bit today.”
“You’re still working?”
Sloane is a deputy with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department.
“I’m supposed to be on bed rest,” she clarifies. “But lying in bed, doing nothing, is driving me insane, so I check in with the office and help out if I can. But after you guys found Maggie Aldridge, it’s been all-hands-on-deck.”
Immediately an image of the woman’s sprawled body flashes in my mind. I shake to dislodge it.
“Any developments on that?”
“Yeah.” Her face turns serious. “Junior just called twenty minutes ago. They found another one.”
As I’m heading out to Janey’s fifteen minutes later, I’m trying to visualize the barista at Bean There, a coffee shop in town I sometimes pop into.
According to Sloane, she was the victim found at the Cabinet View Golf Club this morning. A groundskeeper discovered her body in the trees by the water feature on the third hole. Jennifer Wilson was found partially stripped, likely raped, and even though cause of death looked to be blunt force trauma in this case, the similarities suggest this is the same perp. Apparently, the women even looked alike.
As I come up to the turnoff to the veterinary clinic, I notice a billboard for the golf club up ahead. It’s only a couple of miles up the road.
The driveway to Janey’s place curves through a strip of trees shielding it from the road, but then it opens up with the Big Cherry Creek on the south side of the property and woods and mountains to the west. It’s a nice piece of land, a little closer to town than I am and in a more populated area, but still fairly private.
Janey is just stepping out of her door with Ginger on a leash when I pull up in front of her house. The moment she sees me, a smile spreads on her face. That’s a pretty damn good welcome, if you ask me.
“You don’t mess about, do you?” she states as I get out of the truck.
I notice her hair is haphazardly piled on top of her head, held in place with what looks like a pair of chopsticks, and she’s wearing a pair of striped, men’s pajama bottoms. When I get closer, I see sleep creases from her pillow still imprinted on her cheek.
“I’m sorry if I’m early,” I apologize, feeling guilty.
Nine thirty seemed like a decent time to show up, but in hindsight, I should probably have checked. For all I know, she was trying to catch up on sleep she missed during the week, or maybe she got called out after I left last night.
“No, don’t apologize.” She waves me off. “I couldn’t get to sleep. I ended up reading until the wee hours of the morning when I finally dozed off. Ginger woke me up in desperation a few minutes ago, so it all works out. I just need to hop in the shower real quick, but go ahead and make yourself a coffee.”
Great . Her mention of a shower immediately calls up an image of Janey, water sluicing down her naked body, and my body’s response is instantaneous.
It doesn’t help when she turns to head back inside and I catch the enticing jiggle of her ass in those threadbare pants. That good morning kiss I’d planned to lay on her is going to have to wait until I can get my body back under control.
I’m determined to take things slow to show her I’m not in this for a quick lay.
But damn , it’s getting hard. No pun intended.
Janey
“You must be Doc Richards.”
I’m not sure what I expected a former bull rider to look like, but it sure wasn’t this well-dressed silver fox. This man clearly doesn’t care he’s standing ankle-deep in mud, with rain teeming down. Wishing I’d grabbed my slicker on the way out, I tug my ball cap low over my eyes and get out of the truck.
“Phil Jericho? Nice to meet you,” I lie, shaking his hand.
I’m not exactly happy he called me out here a day early to go over some things , which is what he indicated when he called earlier. It had already started coming down good outside and I was happy to putter around the house, sneaking peeks at JD, who is currently ripping apart my en suite bathroom. He discovered a soft spot in the floor between the toilet and the bathtub, and since the bathroom was near the top of my list of things to do, I told him to go for it.
I glance around the rodeo grounds, noting a couple of trailers and some fencing which is already being put up. I assume those are for pens for the livestock, although the guys working on it are currently huddled under a shelter. We’re still standing out in the open and I’m fast becoming drenched.
“What are we doing here?” I ask, a little annoyed.
“Why don’t we go into the trailer and I’ll tell you.”
He starts walking to one of the trailers and I follow behind, my shoulders hunched against the miserable rain. Inside the trailer, Jericho takes off his hat, and hangs it dripping on a coatrack by the door before running a hand through his thick, gray, impeccable hair. Then he walks over to a large desk and takes a seat in the leather chair behind it.
For a temporary office at a rodeo, the furnishings are a little over-the-top fancy, if you ask me.
Still, my ball cap stays firmly on my head, because I know the hair underneath is a disaster. I feel—and most likely look—like a drowned cat, while this man looks like he came straight off the pages of GQ .
Life can be so unfair.
“Have a seat.” He gestures to a visitor’s chair across the desk from him.
I perch on the edge of the small club chair, not wanting to ruin the leather upholstery by dripping all over it. Jericho steeples his hands together, the fingertips pressing against his lips as he observes me silently. It gets uncomfortable real fast, so I try to move things along.
“What did you call me in for, Mr. Jericho?” I prompt him.
“Please, call me Phil,” he corrects me immediately. “We’ll be working closely together these coming days, so no need to stand on formalities. I thought we could have a quick walk-through of the days to come, and then, if the rain allows, I can show you around the site. A bit of an orientation so you’ll know what to expect.”
“Sure.”
“As you know, tomorrow Mackey will start bringing in livestock. They’ve got trucks coming Monday through Wednesday. Some of his stock is coming in from Alberta, which is why all the trucks aren’t arriving at once. That’s the reason we need you here most of the week. I want to make sure each load is checked.”
“How many animals are we talking about?” I inquire, suddenly nervous about the potential scope when I hear him talking about three days of trucks arriving. It sure sounds like a lot.
“A fair number. We’ve got bucking stock, calves, some steers, horses, and whatever Mackey has going on auction. Those are the main ones I want you to worry about. A few other ranchers are trucking in livestock for the auction as well, but those will come with paperwork required for inspection. Then there’ll be the rodeo contestants’ own horses, but those aren’t your concern either, unless they get injured.”
I’m glad I asked Logan to come with me, it sounds like we’re going to have our hands full.
“And every animal needs to be cleared beforehand?”
“For the rodeo, yes. The herd for auction will have to be signed off on, as well, before the livestock agent gets here Thursday morning, but a random sampling might do for those.”
I don’t like the idea of signing a clear bill of health based on the random sampling of a herd, but if we have a chute to run the animals through it can be a fairly quick process. I may need a little more help than just Logan for that though.
“Do you have a plan for the layout of the grounds? So I’ll know where to go tomorrow?”
“Over here.”
He gets up from behind the desk and moves to a couple of folding tables along the far wall, pictures of aerial views and site drawings spread out on top. Jericho points out where the stockyard will be, and the network of gates to move the cattle to the corral where I’ll be working. I’m glad to see they already have a cattle chute planned.
It’s amazing, the logistics to fit a large number of animals, and people, on a relatively small patch of land.
“So the auction is on Thursday afternoon and will be held here.” He points to a larger fenced-off section, two-thirds of it flanked by spectator bleachers. “Also on Thursday, we’ll have vendors setting up here.” He indicates a large open field on the other side of the parking lot. “You’ll want to get here early that day because it’ll be hell trying to get in here later. A lot of the contestants will be showing up then as well.”
“Auction is the only event on Thursday though?”
“Yes. Friday morning the gates open to the public at eleven. We’ve got a fair on the grounds of Airfield Park for the kids. Pony rides, petting zoo, food vendors, that kind of stuff. The rodeo doesn’t officially start until two. I’ll print you out an itinerary.”
We forfeit the tour—it’s still coming down hard outside—but I’ve got a pretty good idea of the layout from those drawings when I get ready to run for my truck half an hour later. While we fruitlessly waited for the rain to abate, Jericho recounted a few amusing stories from his days as a bull rider and, surprisingly, had me laughing more than once, but I was eager to get back home.
“Are you sure I can’t convince you to join me for an early bite in town?” Jericho wants to know as he opens the door for me.
He’s already asked once and I turned him down but, apparently, the man isn’t used to hearing no for an answer. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice enough guy, is handsome and charming, even funny, but I’m more interested in the man who is currently at my house, gutting my bathroom.
“Quite sure. It looks like I’ll be spending quite a bit of time here this coming week, and I have a pile of things left to do at home.”
He flashes me a grin. “Understood. Maybe we’ll find an opportunity in the days to come.”
It’s not very likely, but to say so now would seem unnecessarily rude.
Instead of responding, I shoot him a friendly smile and dart out the door, yelling, “See you tomorrow,” over my shoulder.