Chapter Four
E mily lifted her feet up to her coffee table, still looking at the frozen image on her laptop screen. Lobo’s head came up as she moved, but when no command came the dog went back to his rest. The night was quiet, as was her tidy little town house, but her emotions were still roiling a bit.
She hadn’t meant to spend over an hour digging into old history, but she hadn’t been able to resist. And so she’d just watched several videos in a row, all with only one thing in common.
Tucker Culhane, at the height of his rodeo career.
He rode not just with skill and coordination, he did it with flair, like a man doing what he loved most.
She had stopped the feed before it got to the next video, or rather the next half-dozen. All of that final ride. There was apparently a morbid fascination with it, and the site had collected video from every angle. And from what she’d read in the descriptions, also close-ups.
Like I want to watch someone nearly crushed to death, up close and personal.
Especially someone she had always thought pretty cute, the guy who was at least part of the reason she’d made it a habit to attend the finals every year since she’d turned sixteen.
She’d never admitted it, mind you. Never wanted to be known as some kind of rodeo groupie.
But Tucker Culhane had been her idea of a true cowboy, Texas born and bred, just as she was.
And a good guy to boot, without the oversized ego so many developed at his level of success.
Now that she’d actually met him one-on-one, she was amazed to find she’d been right, back then. He really was a nice guy.
And darn it, way beyond pretty cute.
Of course, he was Jackson Thorpe’s stand-in.
And there was enough resemblance there that he could carry it off in stunt-focused scenes.
He might be a hair shorter—gee, only six feet to Thorpe’s six-one—but he had the same muscular build, same dark hair, and blue eyes although they were a lighter shade than Thorpe’s famous dark blue orbs.
Twice she stopped her finger from clicking on the last string of clips. But it was an urge she couldn’t seem to suppress, and finally she gave in. It started as the others had, slick, skilled, expert. Until the moment when the bull decided if he couldn’t throw the human off, he’d scrape him off.
She chickened out at the last moment. That moment when the huge, bucking animal went sideways instead of up. That moment when Tucker Culhane had been smashed between the proverbial raging bull and an unmoving fence post.
She got up, went to the kitchen, and made herself some hot chocolate. She figured with as chaotic as her thoughts were just now, it would take two mugs to settle her, so she made twice her usual amount. She waited for it to heat, trying not to let her mind back onto that path.
She didn’t succeed. Because that final video kept playing in her head.
She didn’t have to watch the thing to remember.
She’d been there. She’d been there, had heard the gasps of the crowd, had seen his limp body as he slid down into the dirt as the bull triumphantly went after the two clowns who had risked themselves to draw him off.
She had seen the utter stillness of him, and the exclamations of those around her.
“Oh, my God!”
“He’s not moving!”
“He’s dead. I just know it!”
Tucker Culhane, dead? This brilliant light in the rodeo world, a champion at nineteen, and still a champion five years later?
It wasn’t possible. Her brain had simply been unable to process the idea.
But when they’d carried the still-unmoving rider out of the arena, she’d left, not wanting to see them go on with the show.
She’d gone home and locked herself in the small apartment she’d moved into a few months before, on her twenty-first birthday.
She’d spent a couple of hours fighting the urge to glue herself to the news, to check the rodeo websites, which she knew would be buzzing.
But if she gave in, she would know. She would know he was dead.
If she didn’t, she could pretend, at least for a while longer, that he was okay, that it hadn’t been as bad as it had looked.
She’d made it until it was time to go to bed.
She had her police academy classes the next day, and she needed to rest. But sleep was the furthest thing from her mind, which meant her body wasn’t getting any cooperation.
So finally she gave in and grabbed her phone off the nightstand.
She began to search, working out in her head as the first site loaded where she would go next, and then next if she had to. She didn’t have to. It was everywhere.
He was alive. Barely.
The list of injuries was stomach-churning—they called it a “flail chest injury” which she’d later found out meant three or more ribs broken in at least two places—and those ribs had punctured a lung and pierced his liver, yet he wasn’t dead.
The hospital spokeswoman sounded a little amazed herself, as if she was thinking that with that list, he should be dead.
But he wasn’t. Yet.
Emily remembered that night of horrors all too well, dozing off and having it replay in her head, fighting for more rest but knowing if she slept again she’d likely dream about it again.
And sitting upright in bed at three in the morning, telling herself this was ridiculous, she didn’t even know the guy, didn’t seem to help at all.
There was something about having seen it herself that made it different than just hearing about it secondhand.
And during that long night it struck her that, considering the way she was handling—or not handling—this, maybe she hadn’t made the best career choice given what a police officer could encounter on the job.
But she was finally started on that long-awaited trail, and she wasn’t going to quit now.
She would just have to, as Sergeant Cowell said during their physical training, toughen up.
Tucker had made it. So had she. But she had no doubt as to which of them had had the tougher battle. And the fact that he looked so…normal now, was amazing.
Normal, hah! He’s as good-looking now as he was then. More so, even.
Lobo’s head came up and a warning but not threatening sound rumbled out of him.
That and the sharp, rapid knock on her door startled her out of her meandering thoughts, just as she’d filled the mug.
She set it on the counter, then crossed to the door for a look through the peephole.
She recognized Mr. Keppler from two doors down.
The man was hardly a threat, and appeared to be alone, so she didn’t go for her weapon in the lockbox next to the door.
She gave Lobo the command to stand down, that this wasn’t a threat, and the dog relaxed.
Chance Rafferty had done one heck of a job with a dog who had been so tightly wired the military had given up on him.
When she opened the door Mr. Keppler didn’t bother with a hello. “I’m so glad you’re home, Emily. I don’t know what to do.”
He sounded beyond worried. She knew that most of the residents in the short cul-de-sac were happy to have a police officer living there, and this wasn’t the first occasion her time off had been broken up by a neighbor knocking on her door with a problem.
She gestured him inside and closed the door.
Lobo watched the visitor alertly but calmly.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Keppler?” She kept it formal out of respect for the considerably older man.
“It’s Angela,” he said.
Emily nodded at the reference to his wife, whom she often encountered out for a walk when she went out for her morning run. “What’s wrong? Is she all right?”
“That’s just it, I don’t know. She had a meeting tonight, you know, the Daughters of Last Stand, and she should be home by now, but she’s not answering her phone.
And I don’t have the phone numbers of the others who would be there.
” He shook his head, a pained expression on his face. “So stupid,” he muttered.
He was so visibly upset Emily walked over to the kitchen and picked up the mug of hot chocolate and handed it to him. “Here. Drink this. It’s good, I promise. And we’ll get this sorted out.”
She’d been a cop long enough now to recognize the relief in his demeanor. This was why she did what she did, to give people that feeling that they weren’t alone, that they had help.
She picked up her phone from the counter near where the mug had been, and called the dispatcher at the PD.
She knew Jessica would have info on the officers of the organization who so often helped out when the town needed it.
Jessica gave her the first three names and numbers, but Emily started with the first person she knew and had dealt with.
Last Stand powerhouse Maggie Rafferty had been at the meeting and spoken with Mrs. Keppler, in fact they had left at the same time.
More than enough time for her to be home by now.
At this information Mr. Keppler’s tension grew palpably, and she tried to calm him. “Do you know what route she usually takes?” She knew they held their meetings in the multipurpose room at the back of the library.
“It depends on whether she’s going to stop somewhere on the way, like if it’s her turn to bring snacks. It was tonight, but I don’t know where she planned on stopping.”
She called up some patience for the approaching frantic gentleman, and asked more specifically, “After the meeting, what route does she take to come home?”
“Oh. Oh of course. She’d probably head south on Hickory then east on Honeysuckle at the park. She likes the park.”
“All right. Does she ever stop anywhere on the way home?”
“No, she’s usually tired and in a hurry to get here.” He gave a shake of his head, wearing a rather disgusted expression. “I’d be out there looking for her, but we sold my old car when I retired, because we thought we’d only need the one.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing I have a car,” she said with the widest smile she could manage. “Let’s go.”
“Bless you, Emily.”
And so she found herself heading back into town in her personal vehicle, with her neighbor as passenger and Lobo in his favored spot in the way back, where he could see out both sides and the back.
She didn’t want to call in a missing person to the PD just yet—she’d check the route first. And not mention the idea of making this official to Mr. Keppler, because she had the feeling it would scare him to death.
But that possibility began to loom as they covered the route he’d mentioned with no sign of his wife.
She drove through the library parking lot to be sure, but the car was not there.
She pulled back out onto Hickory, pondering stopping at the station, which was at the south end of the block from the library. But then something caught her eye.
A pair of flashing yellow lights, from the far driveway of the community park the next block down.
She hadn’t seen them before because they were on the other side of the park and facing this way.
She made the turn on Bluebonnet Lane and headed toward the lights, and soon was close enough to see the vehicle was the right size and shape.
She pulled into the lot, and the moment he saw where she was headed, Mr. Keppler let out a relieved breath.
“It’s her,” he said, and jumped out of the car the moment she came to a halt, and moved more quickly than she would have thought he could toward his wife, who gave a startled jump when he rapped on the driver’s window. She got out and they hugged each other rather fiercely.
“My silly phone went dead. And you know there’s no such thing as a pay phone anymore, so I couldn’t call.”
“I told you, you needed a car charger,” he said, but there was nothing but love in his tone.
She liked these two, Emily thought as Angela Keppler turned to greet her.
“I’m so sorry we bothered you when you’re off duty—”
“No bother. What are neighbors for? Now,” she went on, having already noticed the awkward angle of the back end of the small SUV, “do you have a spare tire?”
“Yes. I can’t change it myself, so I called our garage, but they were already closed.”
“Well let’s get that done.”
Mr. Keppler had the jack and the spare out in a couple of minutes. She wasn’t sure how strong the older man was, but he surprised her and between the two of them they got it done.
“That spare is just a temporary,” she warned them as she wiped her hands on a cloth she kept in the back of her own vehicle, “so get that tire replaced as soon as you can.”
“We will,” he promised.
“Any idea what you ran over?” she asked. “That slice looks pretty clean.” And if there was something in the road that could do that to a fairly new tire, they needed to know and get it out of the way.
“I think it was a broken glass or bottle,” she said, waving vaguely up toward Main Street. “Probably some drunk tourist threw it out the car window leaving the saloon.”
Emily smothered a smile, both at her assumption it of course had to be a tourist, and at the idea that Slater Highwater, who ran the Last Stand Saloon, would let anybody that drunk loose with their car keys.
She supposed it was one of the ways the Highwater brothers co-existed, with one running the saloon that was also a Last Stand historical monument and the other being the Last Stand Chief of Police.
When she’d first started on the force here, the tension between the two had been palpable, and some of the old hands had warned her to tread carefully.
Even their other brother Sean Highwater, the department’s premier detective and a man of few words, had taken the time to say simply, “Don’t get between ’em. ”
But times had changed, and the Highwater brothers had, too. She supposed falling in love, getting married and having kids did that to you.
Not that you’ll ever know.
After a command to Lobo to guard the car, she started walking in the direction Mrs. Keppler had indicated. Tried not to think about what it must be like, to have been with the same person, to still love them, after some fifty years.
You’ll never know that, either.
She grimaced at her own thought and kept going. Found the broken glass, which looked more like a broken soda bottle than alcohol, a rarity these days except for some specialty versions. With a sigh she started to clean it up so no one else would run over it.
And wished she could fix up her life as easily.