33. Arizona
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Arizona
I sit on the top rail outside the tack room with my notebook balanced on my knee, staring at the half-finished lyric I’ve been trying to fix for the better part of an hour while Dusty Spur carries on around me.
Red is replacing fence boards along the south pasture, Emmett is helping Sadie brush Cinnamon beneath the cottonwoods, and Willy moves between the barn and tack room with an armful of saddle blankets, a cup of coffee, and a bag of trail mix he keeps reaching into every few steps.
The page in front of me still isn’t getting any better.
“What’d that notebook ever do to you?” Willy asks as he drops the blankets onto a bench. “You’ve been glaring at it since breakfast.”
“I can’t focus on the pages. They’re too… white.”
He laughs, chews another handful of trail mix, and leans against the fence beside me before following my gaze across the yard. “You’re watching Beau.”
“I keep trying to write, and he keeps distracting me.”
I snap the notebook closed.
Across the yard, Beau hauls the last feed sack into the flatbed and laughs with another ranch hand as though Sheriff Hank didn’t spend half the morning digging through inventory records after fuel, tools, and equipment disappeared under Beau’s watch.
“I still don’t buy his story,” I say.
Willy follows my gaze, tossing another handful of trail mix into his mouth before shrugging. “Then quit waiting for him to confess and watch for him to screw up.”
“Funny thing about liars. They usually get impatient.”
Across the pasture, Sadie waves the guitar pick I gave her before running back to her dad. Last night, she went to bed heartbroken after her mom canceled again, yet today she’s running around the paddock while Emmett laughs behind her.
The slam of a tailgate pulls my attention back across the yard.
Beau climbs into the truck.
I straighten on the fence rail. “Red said he was hauling that trailer after lunch.”
“He was.”
Instead of parking beside the barn, Beau drives through the front gate and turns onto the back road. “He isn’t heading into town.”
Willy watches the truck disappear between the trees. “That road only goes to the practice arena, the rodeo grounds, or Miller’s pasture.”
“And Beau doesn’t have business at any of them.”
He looks at me and sighs. “You’re going after him.”
“Nothing he’s done has made sense for weeks. I’m done telling myself it’s coincidence.”
“I’ll come.”
“If he spots both of us, he’ll know we’re following him.”
Willy gives me an exasperated look. “And if he spots you?”
“I’ll keep my distance.”
His jaw tightens before he shakes his head. “You already made up your mind.”
“I did when he pulled out of the yard.”
He rubs the back of his neck, then gives in. “If this goes sideways, you leave. Don’t try to be a hero.”
“I won’t.”
He studies my face long enough to decide I’m telling the truth, then steps aside. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“So do I.”
I hop down from the fence, glance toward my truck, then veer for the side-by-side parked outside the equipment shed instead. Beau would spot my beat-up pickup long before I got close enough to see where he was headed.
I climb behind the wheel and turn the key just as Willy crosses the yard toward me.
“If this turns into more than curiosity,” he says, resting a hand on the roll bar, “you call one of us before you get creative.”
I look over at him. “You’ve got a pretty low opinion of my decision making.”
“I’ve watched you long enough to know curiosity usually wins.”
I can’t argue with that, so I nod instead. “I’ll call.”
He searches my face, then steps back and jerks his chin toward the road. “Good. Now go find out why Beau’s acting like he’s got a secret.”
I nod, start the engine, and follow Beau’s fresh tire tracks onto the back road.
A few minutes later, I pull beneath a stand of pines before the rodeo grounds come into view, kill the engine, and climb out. Beau has enough of a lead that I don’t bother waiting.
I lock the steering wheel and follow the fresh tracks through the dust until they curve behind the practice arena and disappear into the trees.
Nobody parks back here unless they don’t want to be seen.
The office, barns, and maintenance sheds all sit closer to the entrance. Anyone with legitimate business would park there.
I slip into the tree line and circle until the arena disappears behind the trees, weaving from tree to tree until Beau’s truck comes into view, hidden beneath the pines where nobody driving through the front gate would spot it.
I crouch behind a cedar and scan the area.
The truck sits empty.
Then voices carry through the trees.
I ease farther into the woods. Every dry twig suddenly sounds loud enough to give me away, until I reach a moss-covered log overlooking a narrow clearing.
Beau stands with his back to me.
The man facing him wears a dark baseball cap pulled over his eyes, but I don’t need to see his face to recognize him. His shoulders fill out his jacket, one boot angles outward, and I just know.
The mugshot Sheriff Hank showed me flashes through my head, spread across Red’s kitchen table beside a stack of incident reports.
Travis Mercer.
Every instinct tells me to turn around.
Every other instinct keeps me rooted where I am.
My grip tightens on the tree trunk as I watch Travis Mercer stand a few yards from Beau like they meet out here all the time.
“…getting impatient,” Travis says.
Beau shakes his head. “You need to disappear for a while. Everybody’s watching the ranch.”
“They’ve been watching from the start.”
“They found the missing inventory.”
Travis shrugs. “So they found it.”
“They’re asking questions.”
“We’re too close now.”
The breeze steals part of Beau’s reply, but I catch enough to hear, “…getting too risky…” before Travis cuts him off.
“You’ve lost your nerve.”
Beau closes the distance between them, throwing his hands out in frustration. “I’ve done my part.”
“You don’t quit now.”
I edge around the log, trying to catch the rest of the conversation, when my boot snaps a dry branch beneath the leaves.
The crack echoes through the trees.
Both men go still.
Beau turns toward the woods. “You hear that?”
Travis doesn’t answer. His gaze sweeps the tree line before he starts walking in my direction, and Beau falls in beside him.
“I saw movement,” Beau says.
I press myself flat against the trunk and stop breathing.
I slip behind the next pine just before Travis reaches the edge of the clearing and press myself against the rough bark, willing my heartbeat to settle before it gives me away.
He sweeps his gaze across the trees while Beau hangs back a few steps behind him, then Beau glances into the brush and says, “Probably a deer.”
Travis keeps looking long enough to make my stomach knot before he finally tears his eyes away and jerks his head toward the truck.
“Forget it.” Beau nods, and they turn back toward the clearing together.
“Yeah.”
They walk back to the truck.
I stay hidden until both doors slam and the engine fades down the trail. The second the truck disappears, I run.
Branches whip at my sleeves as I run for the side by side, my mind racing faster than my feet.
Beau never covered for Dusty Spur.
He covered for Travis.