Chapter 3 #2
“Don’t back talk your mamma.” Taylor handed the thermos and empty mugs to Willow.
“Take those, will you? I’ll pick ‘em up later.” And then she was waving, turning, and walking away along the bank of the creek where it cut the meadow in two.
She vanished into some trees, leaving Willow all alone with Jeremiah Thorne, the Gringo, her adopted cousin’s half-brother.
Lord, the Brand family tree was more like a briar-patch tangle.
He took his foot out of the stirrup, and reached down for her. She grabbed his forearm and the reins, put her foot in the stirrup, and swung her leg forward and over the mare’s neck, so she mounted in front of him.
“Did they even introduce you?” she asked, patting the horse’s neck. “This is Starlight. She’s a three-year-old rescue. You could count her ribs when they brought her to us.”
“I didn’t know you took on rescues here,” he said.
“More and more,” she replied. “I don’t think it’s responsible or ethical to breed animals into existence when there are so many alive being abused.
I’ve been arguin’ since I was ten that if you do one, you’re obligated to do something about the other.
Well, my folks never could win an argument with me, so that year they took in a rescue just to shut me up.
It went so well, they took in a few more the followin’ year, and a few more the year after that.
Now a quarter of the herd are rescues. We heal ‘em, rehab ‘em, train ‘em, and then re-home ‘em someplace where they’ll be cared for proper.”
She squeezed with her heels and clicked her tongue, and Starlight started off at a bone-jarring trot.
Jeremiah was behind her in the saddle, right up tight. And the bouncing motion of the horse…
She eased the mare into an easy walk, but that was almost worse, that slow, rhythmic rocking. Her breath stuttered out of her and she relaxed back against Jeremiah’s chest without even meaning to.
“I’m sorry about all that,” he said. His voice was deep, and she felt it resonating inside his chest, because her back was resting there. “I’d have never used you as an alibi like that, but I figured your mom already knew, so—”
“I’d have told them if you hadn’t, whether my mother had seen us or not,” she said. “It stinks, you having to account for yourself like that just because you’re an ex-con.”
“You don’t believe Garrett about the anonymous tip?” he asked, and he sounded surprised.
She twisted in the saddle to look back at him. “Oh, I totally believe him. He wouldn’t lie about somethin’ like that. Besides, he likes you.”
“Then it wasn’t because I’m an ex-con,” he said.
She shrugged. “The anonymous tip might’ve been. Somebody in town might be jumpin’ to conclusions, judgin’ you, maybe even to the point it fools their own eyes.”
“Or they just don’t like me and are setting me up.”
She looked back again, frowning this time. “Nobody in Quinn would do that. You’re Ethan’s brother.”
He shrugged. “Maybe to some, that loose link to the exalted Brand clan doesn’t outweigh prison time.”
“I don’t think most folks in town know you did a year at Huntsville, Jeremiah.”
He was quiet for a beat too long. Then he said, “You checked up on me.”
She realized she’d given it away. He’d never told her which prison. “Yeah, I did. I admit it.”
He sighed. She felt the wind exit his chest. Then he said, “You could’ve just asked me whatever you wanted to know.”
“And you would’ve told me the truth?”
“Maybe. Maybe not, but that would be up to me, wouldn’t it?”
She didn’t like that answer. It wasn’t the one she wanted. “I’m sorry I went behind your back. But I’m going to make it up to you.”
He bent his head a little, so he spoke close to her ear. “I’d really like that—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Then he nibbled her ear.
The jolt of sensation arrowed from where his teeth nipped, straight to her core. She kicked the mare’s sides and launched her into a full-on gallop toward home. It had been reflexive, like he’d hit her in the knee with a hammer.
He held on tight, and that felt great. When they arrived at the stables, she slid off the mare’s back before he could. He dismounted right after.
Able, their stable foreman took the reins from her. “I’ll rub her down, Miz Willow. You’ve got comp’ny.” And then he nodded toward Jeremiah, touching his hat brim. “Mr. Thorne.”
The Gringo nodded back.
“Thanks, Able. Mom’s thermos and coffee mugs are in the saddle bag. Will you set ‘em aside someplace safe for her? Come with me, Jeremiah.”
His eyebrows shot up as she led the way from the stable back up the long twisting, forked driveway toward her little cottage on the ranch.
Every part of Jeremiah from his follicles to his toenails lit up when she said she had something for him and led him back to her cabin.
Her long, energetic strides told him she was in a hurry.
He hadn’t expected her to be so obvious about it in front of the hired man, though.
He was still a pace behind her, and he didn’t rush to catch up, first because he enjoyed watching the swing of her hips in those jeans, but only for a second.
It was the wind whipping her hair to one side that was more interesting.
She almost always had it up for work. He didn’t think he’d fully appreciated how long it was until just then.
She glanced back at him. “Are you lookin’ at my butt?”
“I was. Then I got tangled up in your hair.”
“Well, don’t get too tangled. I told you, this ain’t about that.” They followed the flagstones to the front steps.
“It ain’t about your hair?”
“Or my butt,” she said, swinging open her door and walking inside. “C’mon in.”
He followed her in, pulled the door closed behind him. It looked the same as it had before. Neat and tidy, small and compact. Her sofa was a loveseat, with a matching chair and a rocker.
“Have a seat,” she said, with a nod at the overstuffed chair.
She kept walking, though, straight through to her bedroom.
He knew it was her bedroom because she left the door open when she went through.
He could see part of her unmade bed, and something lacy hanging from the nightstand.
She took a cardboard box off that same stand, causing the lacy thing to fall to the floor. It was a bra. His throat went dry.
She came out, pulling the bedroom door closed behind her, brought the file box to the mini-couch where he was already sitting, having ignored her suggestion of the chair, and dropped it on the table.
“What’s this?” He knew exactly what it was. He just hadn’t expected to get it this fast or this easily.
“This is everything Uncle Garrett has about the last time your father was in Quinn.”
“Wow, I can’t believe…” He opened the topmost folder and glanced through a few of its pages. “How did you get it?”
She didn’t answer right away so he glanced up. She was frowning at him.
“I asked him, how do you think?”
“And he just…gave it to you?”
She nodded. He was already letting the boxful of information pull him in.
There’d been some cattle rustling, apparently.
Tearing himself away, closing the folder for good measure, he focused on his benefactor.
She was watching him, her eyes sharp, like she was watching for something, or trying to see inside him.
“I appreciate this, Willow. And don’t worry, I won’t let on that you showed it to me.”
She tipped her head to one side. “He knows it was for you,” she said.
“You told him?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Her eyebrows came together just a little bit, forming a crease at the top of her nose.
It was the first time she’d looked at him as if not completely impressed. Had he blown it? “People aren’t as…open where I come from,” he said.
“Prison, you mean.”
Ouch. Was she reminding him or herself? “Even before. I was raised by…employees. There was a live-in nanny, teachers, and household staff. Every one of them worked for my old man before and after me. You know?”
“They were criminals?” Her voice had gone soft.
He nodded, but he was itching to get into those files.
And yet, he couldn’t afford to be rude to Willow.
And he didn’t want to be. He told himself it was because he might need her help again before this was over, so it was best to keep this fire kindled.
But deep down, he knew that wasn’t the reason.
He pushed the file box aside. “I don’t like talkin’ about those times.”
“I don’t suppose I blame you.” She frowned at him. “But I have to shower up and get into the office. I have paperwork before my shift tonight.”
And all of the sudden, he wasn’t in such a hurry to get away from her. The file box would keep. “You haven’t had lunch,” he said. “Tell you what. I’ll head into town and order sandwiches to go at the WTD. We’ll have time to eat together if I go right now.”
She tipped her head sideways, glanced at the file box again, then nodded. “Sure. Thanks. Lunch at the West Texas Diner would be great, actually, I’ll have a—”
“I know what you like,” he said. “And how you like it.”
She raised her eyebrows at him and he winked. But he left it at that and rose to his feet. “I’ll get us a picnic table by the creek, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
Then she walked into her bedroom again.
Man, this was going better than he had ever expected. He grabbed the box and hurried out the door. His Jeep was at the head of the driveway, off to one side, since he’d followed Garrett there to prove his alibi.
It bothered him that someone had named him as the vandal who’d busted out the drug store window. He assumed it must’ve been someone who resembled him. Still, calling it in anonymously seemed odd. It had really bothered the clan patriarch to question him, though, he could tell.
That Garrett Brand was strange. Sometimes it seemed as if his decent, upright citizen persona was real. But he couldn’t’ve been a lawman for twenty-some odd years if it was, could he?
He’d been raised to believe lawmen were as corrupt as anyone, that people were the same on either side of the badge. It was just that the ones behind it got away with shit the ones in front of it didn’t.
He could not wait to delve into the files.
He wanted every detail he could get about his father’s time in Quinn, everywhere he’d gone, everywhere he’d stayed, everyone he’d met.
Somewhere in the files was a clue to a half million bucks, tax-free.
Whatever was going on with his old man’s will wouldn’t matter if he found the gold.
He sped to the diner, a small square building with a flat roof higher in the front than in the back. There were seven picnic tables outside, four of them a few yards away, near where Burr Creek thundered through one of its narrow, rapid passages.
He parked the Jeep, and slid his police band radio out of its slot in the dash to stick it in the glove compartment.
He kept the thing out of habit. Knowing what the cops were up to at all times could save a criminal’s freedom or even his life.
The radio was a tough habit to break, but he didn’t think the deputy or her family would understand that, so he tucked it out of sight whenever they were around.
He locked the glove compartment, then walked up to the window with a file box tucked under this arm.
He ordered Willow’s grilled tomato sandwich with pickle on the side, extra potato chips, and a Diet Coke.
For himself, he ordered a burger and fries, then asked the teenage boy manning the window if he’d have someone bring the food down to his picnic table when it was ready, and whether he could borrow a pen.
Then he headed around behind the building and across its grassy lawn to one of the tables near the stream, sat down, and began flipping through the topmost folder.
He was going to read every word of it and study every smudge on every page, but first he’d skim through it to see what jumped out at him.
He used the pen to underline anything that looked promising. Red ink. He hadn’t realized when the kid had handed him the pen. Oh, well.
He heard someone coming and looked up, but it wasn’t Willow.
A noisy family, two little girls who must’ve been twins, three or four years old, and a slightly older boy carrying a long, leggy pup who couldn’t stop licking his face.
Hey, wait, that was the kid he’d met at Two Lilies getting tacos to surprise his grandma.
Frankie. That must be the pup the kid had been so excited about.
He waved, and Frankie recognized him, grinned, and waved back.
The smaller kids converged on a table way too close to his, with a couple who must be their grandparents. The man used a walker, the woman a cane, and neither moved very fast.
He glanced out at the parking lot, but there was no sign of Willow yet. The teenager came down with their meals in baskets, set them on the table, and headed back. Jeremiah returned his attention to the folder.
De Lorean spent time at the Bluebonnet Inn, 27 Brackle Rd.
I spoke to the owner, Sara Lopez. She claimed she barely spoke to de Lorean during his time there.
He mainly just slept there and didn’t interact with her or her teenage daughter, Juanita.
She seemed upset when I told her he was a criminal on his way to prison for murdering the mother of his baby son, among other things.
Jeremiah underlined that section and kept reading, but the kids were so noisy it was tough to concentrate. And then one of the twins, yelled, “Doggy SWIM!” and Jeremiah looked up just in time to see one of the little girls hurl the gangly pup into the fast-running creek.
He swore in a way that was not appropriate around kids, lunged off his bench, and ran to the water’s edge. The pup was caught in the current, dunking and emerging while speeding downstream.