Lone Heart Pass Read online

“What kind of work did you do for my great-grandfather?”

  The man called Charley shrugged. “He ran about fifty head. I helped brand in the spring and round up in the fall. Last year I helped him plant his spring hay crop. By the time we harvested, he was too weak to climb into the cab of the tractor. I made sure the hay got into in the hay barn.”

  The good-looking man watched her. “You have any idea how to run a ranch of this size, Mary Poppins? It’s not big, but there’s plenty to do.”

  She shook her heard. “Nope. Why’d you call me Mary Poppins?”

  “It was either that or Paddington Bear. With a rain coat, an umbrella and those ugly socks, you could go either way on Halloween.” The slow grin came from a man who probably knew just how it might affect her. If he’d had new clothes and boots that weren’t scuffed, he could have been a cover model.

  She frowned back. Nice try, cowboy, but forget it. I’ve been vaccinated against good-looking men.

  His face became serious. “The work’s never done on a place like this. When you’re not farming to provide grain for winter or checking on cattle, you’re mending fences and repairing equipment. If you run cattle, they’ll need checking on every day. The fences need constant repair, and every time it rains part of them will wash out and your workload just doubles.”

  “I was afraid of that.” She scratched her wild hair, feeling as if something must have crawled into it and set up house while she slept.

  The guy just stared at her as if she was a baby kitten trying to walk on water. “You know, lady, you’re about four months behind already. You might want to think about selling the place and going back to the city. It would take a dozen men to get this place ready for spring in time.”

  “I’m staying.” Lifting her chin she met his blue-eyed stare. She didn’t have to tell this stranger she had nowhere else to go. He’d probably figured that out already.

  “Then I wish you luck, Miss Hamilton.”

  She shook the cobwebs out of her brain and took a step toward her only chance. “Would you work for me? I’ll pay whatever he paid you. To tell the truth, I’m not sure where to start but I’ve got to make this work.” Even if it cost her all her savings.

  “I don’t know,” he shook his head. “It’s a long way out here, and I only have one, maybe two days a week open. I don’t think one day a week would make much difference in this place and to come out on weekends I’d have to quit my bartending job. If I did that, I’d lose the free apartment that comes with it.”

  Jubilee’s mind cleared enough to realize he was negotiating, not turning down her offer.

  “There is a house over by the corrals. When I was a kid, a hired hand and his wife lived there. I don’t know what kind of shape it’s in now. If you’ll work for me five days a week, I’ll pay you five dollars more an hour than Levy did and throw in the house.” She knew she had to make it fair because no one else was probably going to take an offer to help farm on a place in the middle of nowhere.

  She didn’t know much about this man, but he was honest or he wouldn’t have brought the groceries and her credit card. He was a hard worker if her great-grandfather used him regularly, and he knew the place.

  “Does the school bus stop anywhere near here?”

  He surprised her with his question. “I have no idea. Do you have a family?”

  “A daughter.” He didn’t look happy about the offer. “If I worked for you, I’d take off time to get her to school, and when she’s here, I’d work around the headquarters so I could keep an eye on her.”

  Jubilee looked around the yard. There was enough work within shouting distance to keep him busy for months.

  “Fair enough.”

  “I’d need to stable my two horses in the barn.” He glanced over his shoulder. “At least it’s in good shape.”

  “No problem. There are a dozen stalls.”

  He studied her. “Make it ten dollars more an hour and you got yourself a foreman, not just a hand. I furnish my own horse and gear. I’ll charge for a fifty-hour week, but I’ll work until the job is done. I’ll also hire men when needed and you’ll pay them the going wage.”

  Jubilee thought of mentioning that ten more an hour seemed very high, but what choice did she have? Her savings were solid. Her car paid for. She might as well put it all into the pot. This chance was the only game in town.

  She nodded.

  He put his hat back on. “I’ll move in late this afternoon and be in for breakfast tomorrow morning. We’ll talk about where to start.”

  “Breakfast?”

  “That was the routine with Levy. We planned over breakfast and I worked until the job or the day was finished. Any problem?”

  “No.”

  “You can cook?”

  “No, but how hard can it be?”

  He smiled, and she realized how young he was. Maybe a year or two younger than she. But she didn’t miss the steel in his stare. He hadn’t had an easy life and she guessed he wouldn’t trust easily. That was fine with her, since she felt the same.

  “I’ll bring a few boxes of cereal and milk,” he said as he moved off the porch. “You make the coffee. Tomorrow we’ll set a plan.”

  She met his stormy blue eyes again. “Will you help me make this place work? It’s kind of my last chance.”

  He nodded once. “I’ll help you, but you got to wear normal clothes, lady. Folks around here might cart you off to the hospital for dressing like that.”

  “I’ll remember that, Mr. Collins,” she said, trying not to react to his insult. She thought of adding that she didn’t do friends, so don’t even try. Maybe they should keep the relationship formal? She wouldn’t tell him too much and he wouldn’t try to advise her on wardrobe choices.

  What would be between them would be purely professional. She had a feeling he wanted it that way, as well.

  As he drove away, Jubilee went back to bed, remembering how early her great-grandfather had served breakfast. Her last hope, before she fell asleep after eating half a dozen pieces of fruit and the entire bag of cookies, was that she wanted breakfast to be closer to brunch when they talked each day. Surely he’d agree to that; after all, she was the boss. She should be able to set a few rules.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Thatcher Jones

  February 23

  THATCHER JONES RACED down the neglected dirt road as if he was an IndyCar race driver and not still too young to get his license. A rusty old sign marked the beginning of a ranch called Lone Heart. What had once been a heart-shaped brand hung lopsided on the marker.

  He eased his boot off the gas a bit. He and his 1963 Ford pickup just might make this run before the rain hit. No one was at the ranch anymore; it should be easy to get in and out without anyone noticing.

  Thatcher had been keeping an eye on a nest of rattlesnakes under the back cattle guard on this ranch for four months. Now there were new folks moving in near the pass and he was about to lose two hundred dollars if he didn’t act fast. To add hell to fury, a storm was blowing in from the north even though the day was hot for February.

  The sheriff’s cruiser pulled out in front of him from nowhere. Thatcher cussed a streak of swear words.

  He slammed on the brakes, leaned out the window and yelled, “Hell, Sheriff, get out of the way. My brakes are no good.”

  Sheriff Dan Brigman didn’t budge and, judging from Thatcher’s experience with the law, he knew that Brigman wouldn’t change or move no matter how much he yelled.

  He pushed on the brakes with both feet but had to pull off into the bar ditch to avoid a collision.

  Once the beat-up old Ford finally clanked to a stop, Thatcher piled out of his truck with a stranglehold on the top of a grain sack.

  “You trying to kill us both, Sheriff?” Thatcher shouted, challenging the l
awman, even if he barely came up to Brigman’s shoulder. “I ain’t lived fourteen years just to die in a fiery crash with a cop.”

  The sheriff crossed his arms and said calmly, “What you got in the sack, kid?”

  Thatcher had been told a dozen times not to hunt snakes off his own land, but listening wasn’t one of his talents. Neither was honesty. “I got cow chips. The Boy Scouts are doing a demonstration down in the canyon about how folks used to burn the dry ones so they could keep warm in the winter. This ain’t nothing but fuel for their fire.”

  Brigman glanced at the bag and Thatcher prayed it didn’t start wiggling.

  “I’ve told you, son, hunting rattlers is not something for a kid to be doing.”

  “It’s cow shit, Sheriff. I swear.”

  Brigman shook his head. “It’s shit all right. Tie that bag off and put it in the bed of your pickup. You’re not old enough to drive, and you’re out here in the middle of nowhere hunting rattlers in an old truck that might not even make it back to your place. I can think of a dozen ways I might find you dead.”

  “I’m old enough to drive. I don’t have to sit on the blanket anymore to see out, and hunting ain’t dangerous. I’ve been doing it since I was ten. You just got to jitter when you reach for them so you’re a blur to the snake and not a solid target.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My grandpa. He was a jittering fool, he’d been bit so many times.” Thatcher winked, giving away his lie.

  “Get in the cruiser.” Brigman didn’t crack a smile. “I’m taking you home. But Thatcher Jones, I swear this better be the last time I see you on any road in this county.”

  The boy walked toward the officer’s car. “You said I could drive the back roads out past County Road 111.”

  “Yeah, but I’m guessing you had to cross at least four other county roads and one highway to get this far from your place.”

  “You ain’t got no proof of that, Sheriff.” He knotted the sack, tossed it in the pickup bed and climbed into the front passenger seat of the cruiser, hating that it was starting to feel familiar. “You can’t arrest me unless you see me do somethin’.”

  “That’s why I’m taking you home.”

  Thatcher ran his dirty fingers through even dirtier brown hair. He hadn’t even made it to the Hamilton ranch. Hell, the snakes would probably be six feet long before he could get back. He sighed, knowing Brigman wouldn’t change his mind. “We stopping at the Dairy Queen before you drop me off back home, Sheriff?”

  “It’s standard police procedure, kid. Double meat, double cheese.” Brigman started his car. “How’s your mom?”

  “She died again last week.”

  Brigman glared at him but didn’t say anything.

  “She was at the tent revival over the Red into Oklahoma. Preacher pays her a hundred dollars every service to keel over and let the Holy Spirit save her. Not a bad gig. She only gets twenty-five for talking in tongues and fifty for coming in on crutches.”

  The sheriff frowned.

  “It ain’t against the law, Sheriff.” Thatcher saw it more as a sideshow and his mom did the entertaining. He changed the subject before the sheriff started asking more questions about his mom. “If somebody steals my truck, Sheriff, I’ll have you to blame.”

  Brigman smiled. “If they do they won’t be hard to find. They’ll be dead on the road after they open that sack you got in the pickup bed. Bitten by cow chips is an odd way to die.”

  They drove in silence all the way to Crossroads. Thatcher figured if he said anything the sheriff would start another lecture. Brigman could lecture the wheels off the fiery chariot.

  Just as the lady handed them burgers through the drive-up window, lightning flashed bright and thunder rolled in on the wind. “Storm’s coming in early,” Thatcher said more to himself than the sheriff. He, like most farm folks, lived his life by the weather. It always surprised him that town kids woke up like chickens and headed outside without knowing or caring what was happening in the sky above. If rain or snow started, they took it personally, as if it was their individual plague and not the way of things.

  “How about we eat these in my office, son?” Brigman turned toward Main Street.

  “Not a bad idea, Sheriff. I seen the way you drive in the rain.”

  A few minutes later, they raced the storm to make it into the county offices before they were both soaked.

  They moved past Pearly Day’s front desk in the wide foyer to Brigman’s two-room office. Pearly’d gone home and apparently left her candy bowl unguarded.

  She was the receptionist for all the offices housed in the two-story building and also passed as the dispatcher in Crossroads. When she left at five she patched all 911 calls to her cell. If anyone had an emergency they didn’t yell “call 911,” they yelled “call Pearly.”

  Brigman cleaned off a corner of his desk for Thatcher and set the food in front of him. “I need to check my messages. Go ahead and eat.”

  Thatcher attacked his hamburger while the sheriff listened to his messages. Nothing much of interest. A lady’s voice shouted that her dog was missing and she thought someone had stolen it while she was at bingo. A man left a message that he thought the bridge south of Interstate 40 exit near Bailey might flood if it rained more than two inches. Some guy called saying he’d locked his keys in his car and complained that the only locksmith in town wasn’t answering either his office number or his cell.

  One call sounded official; it was about drug traffic suspected on the interstate. That was no big news, Thatcher thought, there was drug traffic going on in the back hills where he lived. Folks called the rocky land that snaked along between the canyons and flat farmlands the Breaks. The ground was too uneven to farm more than small plots, too barren to ranch in most spots. But deer and wild sheep lived there along with wild pigs and turkey. And, Thatcher decided, every crazy person in Texas who didn’t want to be bothered. Outlaws had once claimed the place, but now it was populated by deadbeats, old hippies and druggies. If the sheriff even knocked on trailer and cabin doors in his neighborhood he’d need a bus to bring in the wanted.

  Thatcher watched the sheriff making notes as he finished his burger. Rain pounded the tin porch beyond the office windows, making a tapping sound that was almost musical.

  He saw the sheriff open a letter, then smile. It couldn’t have had much written on the one sheet of paper because after a few seconds Brigman folded it up, unlocked his bottom drawer and shoved the letter inside.

  Thatcher decided it must be some kind of love note because if it had been a death threat then Brigman wouldn’t have smiled. Only who’d write a man like him a love note?

  The sheriff was single and would probably be considered good-looking in a boring, law-abiding kind of way, but Thatcher still didn’t think the note was a love letter. Sheriffs and teachers in a little town were like the royal family. Everyone kept up with them. So maybe the note was a coupon or something.

  Brigman glanced up as if he just remembered Thatcher was there. “Your mother will be worried about you. Wish she had a phone.”

  Thatcher nodded, but he knew she wouldn’t be worried. His ma had a rule. The minute the first raindrop fell, she started drinking. When he got home, she’d either be passed out or gone. One of her boyfriends worked road construction, so any time it rained was party time for him.

  While the sheriff made a few more calls, Thatcher unwrapped the second double-meat, double-cheese burger. After all, greasy hamburgers were no good cold. He’d be doing the sheriff a favor by eating it while it was still warm.

  About the time he swallowed the last bite, the main door in the lobby flew open. Thatcher leaned back in his chair far enough to see a man and three kids rushing in past Pearly’s desk.

  Brigman stood and stepped out of his office, but Thatcher just kept leaning
back, sipping his Coke and watching.

  “Sheriff,” the man said, his voice shaking from cold or fright, Thatcher couldn’t tell which. “We’re here to report a murder.”

  The three kids, all wet, nodded. One was a boy about eight or ten, the other two were girls, one close to Thatcher’s age.

  “Bring the blankets from behind my desk,” the sheriff yelled toward his office.

  Thatcher looked around as if Brigman might be ordering someone else into action, but no such luck. He let the front legs of his chair hit the hardwood floor and followed orders.

  By the time he got the blankets and made it to the lobby, the man was rattling off a story about how he and his kids were walking the canyon at sunset and came across a body wrapped in what looked like old burlap feed bags.

  Thatcher grew wide-eyed when Brigman glanced at him. “Don’t look at me,” he said in a voice so high Thatcher barely recognized his own words. “I’m just collecting cow chips. I didn’t kill nobody.”

  The sheriff rolled his eyes. “Pass out the blankets, kid.”

  While the man kept talking, Thatcher handed every dripping visitor a blanket. The last one, he opened up and put over the girl who was probably the oldest. She was so wet he could see the outline of her bra.

  He tried his best not to look, but failed miserably. Her breasts might be small, but she was definitely old enough to fill out a bra.

  “Thank you,” she said when the blanket and his arm went around her.

  “You’re welcome,” he answered as he raised his gaze to the most beautiful green eyes he’d ever seen.

  Until that moment, if you’d asked Thatcher Jones if he liked girls, he would have sworn he never would as long as he lived. When you’re the poorest and dumbest kid in school, no one has anything nice to say to you and most girls don’t even look your direction. During grade school he’d been kicked out several times for fighting, but now, since he was no longer in grade school, he’d decided to ignore everyone and skip as many classes as possible.

  But this girl just kept smiling at him like nothing was wrong with him.