Wild Horse Springs Read online

  If her pop wouldn’t think she was a failure, she’d load up all she owned in a U-Haul and drive back home. She could be there in five or six hours. She’d cook her father’s breakfast and then follow him to the county sheriff’s office, where she’d work all day organizing his files. They’d eat lunch at Dorothy’s Diner across the street and pretend she was sixteen again with the world waiting on her to grow up, and not twenty-five, waiting for the world to realize she was a failure.

  Lauren pulled out her cell, thinking she could call her pop. It was almost nine. He’d probably be finishing up his day, heading home with his supper in a bag, looking forward to eating in front of the TV, which would be tuned to a football game. In an hour he’d be sound asleep in his recliner.

  Pop was so predictable. When she was growing up, he cooked the same meals every week. Chili dogs on Monday, pancakes with burned sausage on Tuesday, grilled chicken and baked potatoes on Wednesday, meat loaf or spaghetti on Thursday. They had take-out pizza on Friday and leftovers, if there were any, on Saturday. Sundays they ate out or warmed up cans of soup. Oh, she almost forgot, they usually had hamburgers if he got home late. If she hadn’t learned to cook early, he probably would have stuck to that menu until she left for college. She was twelve before she knew appetizers could be something besides potato chips.

  Now, their conversations were the same. For her, work was always great, yes, she was making friends, no, she didn’t need any money. For him, he’d tell her about the weather, talk about the folks in town who’d ask about her, and say no, he wasn’t lonely, he was doing fine.

  Lauren shoved her cell back into her pocket. She didn’t call. Tonight she wasn’t sure she could stand to hear him tell her one more time how proud he was of her.

  His Lauren was moving up, honing her skills as a writer. It wouldn’t be long until she finished a book and was on the bestseller list, he’d say. Crossroads just might have to open a bookstore in town with Lauren’s first book about to hit any day and Tim O’Grady working on his fourth novel.

  She’d heard Pop brag to everyone, and she hadn’t said a word. She’d had three jobs in a year, all ending in being laid off. None in publishing. She was not moving up or working on her book. The chance of anyone from Crossroads filling a bookstore shelf was highly unlikely, with her manuscript unfinished and Tim’s novels all ebooks.

  If the Crossroads Bookstore ever opened, the “local author” shelf would be empty.

  Lauren jumped out of her self-pity when her phone buzzed.

  Tim O’Grady’s name flashed along with his smiling face. She grinned and answered.

  “Hello, Hemingway, don’t tell me you’ve just finished another book.” Lauren tried to sound happy. He always called to celebrate over the phone when he finished anything. The outline. The edit. The final draft.

  She always acted excited, and she suspected he always tried his best to sound sober.

  “Hi, L.”

  For once he actually did sound sober.

  “You able to talk? Not on a date or anything?” He paused. When she didn’t answer, he added, “And no, before you ask, the book’s not finished. Tonight I’m dealing with real life.”

  “I’m home.” She dropped to the couch. “Alone. What’s up? Talk to me.” She needed a little bit of home, and talking to the boy she’d grown up next door to might help.

  “I don’t know what you can do about it, but I need help. We’ve got a real mess here, and I don’t know how to handle it.”

  “What’s happened?” She could feel bad news coming and wished someone would invent an umbrella that could protect her for just one breath so she would be ready.

  “Thatcher Jones is in jail.” Tim said the words fast, as if he had to get them out of his mouth. “He’s eighteen, so no juvie for him. He’s locked upstairs at the county offices.”

  “What! Does Pop know? What happened? Is he okay?”

  “Slow down, L.” Tim’s laugh didn’t have much humor in it. “Of course your pop knows. He’s the one who arrested him. Which was lucky for the kid. Thatcher’s easygoing, but when he gets mad, he blows up. Your pop can handle him.”

  “Facts, Tim, give me the facts.”

  “You know that truck stop on the Lubbock Highway? The one where we used to stop because you couldn’t make it all the way home from college without a potty break, then you’d complain about how dirty it was?”

  “I remember. It has a little grocery store on one side. Carries two cans of everything, including motor oil.”

  “Well, I don’t know why Thatcher was out there. It’s the opposite direction from Charley Collins’s place, and he said he was heading home from school. You’d think Charley would be a good influence on him. But I guess some people are just destined to cross with the law.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes. Charley Collins had been as reckless as they come when he was in high school. His own father disowned him, but Charley was a good man and so was Thatcher. “Tim, stop sounding like a line from a book. Get back to what happened to Thatcher.”

  She swore she could almost hear Tim nodding. “Right. Thatcher was in the store out at the truck stop with a backpack full of groceries that hadn’t been bought. He said he was bringing them back, but old Luther, who owns the place, didn’t believe him. Called Thatcher nothing but a lying thief. Said he’d known three generations of his people, and they were all trash.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Thatcher swung. Knocked Luther out, I heard.”

  Lauren closed her eyes, almost able to see the scene in her mind. “Go on,” she whispered into her phone.

  “Thatcher was the one who called 911. When the sheriff and medics got there, Luther said he was pressing charges for assault and robbery. The medics took Luther to the clinic to be checked, and your dad took Thatcher to jail.”

  “No!”

  Tim swore. “Believe me, L, your pop wasn’t happy about it. He looked like he was thinking of strangling the kid for making him do it.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “A couple hours ago. When I heard the sirens, I drove over to the county offices thinking whatever was happening might give me a plot idea. I could hear Thatcher yelling the minute I walked in the door. He was mad and scared and all wrapped up in nervous energy.”

  Tim finally paused. When he spoke again, his words came slowly. “We can’t let him go to prison, L.”

  She thought of mentioning that they were not his parents, but in a strange way the whole town was. Thatcher Jones had been over a year behind in school and living on the fringes of right and wrong when Charley Collins at the Lone Heart Ranch took him in. Anyone could see that the kid had a heart bigger than Texas, but he was proud and had a stubborn streak.

  “What do we do?” Tim asked in a dull tone, as if he really didn’t expect her to answer.

  “You’re right. We have to fix this. Thatcher saved Pop’s life once. He might have been only fourteen or fifteen then, but he ran through gunfire to get Pop to safety. Pop will do his job, he’s always played by the book, but he’ll help where he can, too.” Her logical mind began to put all the pieces she knew together. “Why would Thatcher steal food? I’ve heard Charley’s place is going great.”

  “He swears he didn’t. Says he was just bringing the canned goods back, but he says he doesn’t remember who he got them from. Wouldn’t even tell the sheriff if it was a man or woman who must have stole them in the first place. Just says he can’t say.” Tim laughed. “While Luther was out cold, Thatcher put the food back on the shelf, so there is some confusion as to exactly what was taken.”

  “So there is no evidence of a crime?”

  “Right, unless you count the shiner on Luther’s face.” Tim hesitated. “L, you were in law school once. You’ll figure out something.”

  “I never took the bar,
remember. I decided to be a writer. Only that doesn’t seem to be working out so well for me. I don’t think taking customer complaints at the mall counts as training.” She didn’t want to go into all the reasons she was failing. Part of her wanted to simply say she was failing to thrive out in the real world.

  “Come home.” Tim ended the silence, his voice already pulling her. “Thatcher needs you and I miss you.”

  “I’ll see if I can get off by noon tomorrow. I’ll be there by five.”

  “Great.” Tim hesitated. “How about staying with me this time? I’ve completely remodeled my folks’ old place on the lake. You’d like it. Plus, your pop knows you’re an adult. He’d understand. You could just say we’re having an adult sleepover.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she answered. Tim had asked before, but she wasn’t ready for any commitment between them. Staying over at his place meant sleeping together. “I’ll call when I’m close to Crossroads so you can meet me at the county offices.” She hung up without saying goodbye, then sat very still thinking of Tim, not Thatcher.

  She’d grown up with Tim O’Grady, gone skinny-dipping in the lake with him when they were ten. Spent a thousand hours talking with him. He was her best friend.

  A friend with benefits, she thought, though she could count their nights together on her fingers. Of course she loved him, but not in the way he wanted her to love him. When they occasionally slept together, it was more out of a need not to be alone than passion. She hated that she thought of his loving as vanilla, but somehow she wanted more. Everyone said they were right for each other, a match. Only everyone was wrong.

  Tim loved her, really loved her, but she couldn’t love him back. They never talked about it, but somehow they both knew the truth, and that one silent truth broke both their hearts.

  She’d go home. She’d find a way to help Thatcher. But this time she wouldn’t sleep with Tim. Even though it felt good for a while. Even though they both understood the silent rules.

  She wouldn’t sleep with Tim because she couldn’t bear the look he’d give her when she had to walk away. Every time. Always.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tuesday

  WEAK AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT filtered through the blinds, reminding Dan Brigman another hour had passed without sleep, and the day was only getting worse. He’d barely had time to hug his daughter before she was storming up the steps toward the third floor of the county offices. The tapping rain off and on all afternoon had already given him a headache, and having Lauren show up to interfere with his job wasn’t helping.

  He’d left the sexy singer yesterday after lunch, looking forward to seeing her again before midnight, but a call came in an hour after he got back to the office that ended that possibility. Since four o’clock yesterday, he’d had to arrest a kid he cared about for assault, then field a dozen calls from people telling him how to do his job. Midnight passed with him sitting up in the third-floor lockup with a teenager who refused to talk about what he’d done. Now, after he’d had no sleep for nearly thirty hours, his daughter arrived, demanding to know if he’d lost his mind.

  At this point, Dan wasn’t sure his ears still worked. The whole town could take turns telling him how to be sheriff, and he still wouldn’t let Thatcher Jones out until the judge set bail. Once he knew how much it would take, Dan had already decided he’d pay it himself.

  His daughter was running through facts he already knew about the crime, so Dan simply followed one step behind as she headed upstairs.

  “Now calm down, Lauren,” he finally commented when she breathed. “We’re doing all we can. The judge says he can bail out if he’ll give a statement, but Thatcher isn’t cooperating.”

  “Did you offer him a lawyer?”

  Dan huffed. “I did. He said he didn’t need a lawyer to tell me that he’s not talking. He can do that himself.”

  She wasn’t listening, and he didn’t blame her. If they were doing all they could do, Thatcher Jones wouldn’t still be locked up in the first place. His daughter always thought the world had to be balanced and fair, but it just wasn’t.

  If it had any fairness at all, he’d be sleeping off a wild memory and not putting in a forty-hour workday.

  He almost swore. If the world were fair, he would have picked up that singer, Brandi Malone, last night like he’d planned, and not be stuck babysitting Thatcher. The kid was so wild he probably would have gnawed through the steel bars if he’d been left alone.

  Dan unlocked the third-floor door, deciding that Lauren’s anger was all his fault. He’d raised her. “We’re working on it. We’ll figure this out,” he said as she stormed past him.

  Before he opened the second door to the county lockup, he waited for his daughter to calm. The sound of Tim O’Grady tromping up the stairs echoed through the building. Tim was like the Ransom Canyon County Offices’ resident ghost. He came, night or day, if he thought something was happening. He claimed it helped him with his writing, gave him ideas, but since his last two books were postapocalyptic thrillers for hormone-crazed teens, Dan didn’t see that his research at the sheriff’s office was doing much good. The young writer was interesting, though, and he’d been Lauren’s friend since they could both walk, so Dan tolerated O’Grady even if it did irritate him that Lauren called him Hemingway.

  Of course, Dan wasn’t the least bit surprised that Tim was with her today. He’d probably called her to notify her about Thatcher.

  Finally, Lauren turned and faced him. “Why is he in jail, Sheriff? Give me the facts.”

  Lauren only called him that when she was too angry to remember he was her father.

  “He won’t talk. No one believes he stole food from Luther’s old truck stop, and nobody believes his story about not remembering how he got the backpack full of can goods obviously from the store.”

  Thatcher must have heard them because he yelled from twenty feet away, “I ain’t telling who I got the stolen groceries from, and that’s final. I took them back, isn’t that good enough? I’ll rot in this place before I talk. And I didn’t attack Luther. He insulted me and my whole family. I’m not arguing that my no-name dad and run-off mother were trash, but that don’t give him the right to remind me.”

  Lauren stormed into the next room, which had one cell on either side of a wide-open space in-between. “Stop talking like an idiot, Thatcher. We’re trying to get you into Texas Tech this fall, and you’ll never make it talking like that.”

  Dan left the doors open for O’Grady as he leaned against the opposite cell and enjoyed watching his daughter yell at someone besides him for a while.

  Tim O’Grady and Lauren might not be more than six or seven years older than Thatcher, but they’d thought of themselves as his substitute parents since they’d all three worked together one summer. Thatcher had been painting the county offices, working off fines. Tim was collecting ideas for his writing. Lauren was organizing her father’s office, something she’d done every summer since she was ten.

  Thatcher might be four years older than he’d been that summer, but his respect for Lauren was obvious as he stood and gripped the bars. He’d grown a few inches since Lauren had been home, but he was still bone-thin. His hair was as wild as prairie grass, and he was tanned so deep his skin hadn’t lightened even if winter was settling in for a long stay.

  Part of Dan hoped no one ever changed the kid. He was a blend of Tom Sawyer and Billy the Kid with a little bit of a young Abe Lincoln mixed in. He’d been born two hundred years too late to be understood and damn if the kid cared.

  Thatcher smiled suddenly, that easy smile that would melt hearts someday, but Lauren didn’t smile back.

  He lowered his voice. “Hell, look at me, Lauren. I’m in jail. The chances of any college taking me are not looking too good right now.” He bumped his forehead against the bars. “But double damn. I got to make it t
o Tech for Kristi’s sake. If I don’t get there and save her, she’ll find some brainiac like O’Grady and start hanging out with him. They’ll probably marry and have a dozen little redheaded kids with not one of them having a lick of common sense.”

  Tim finally caught up with the sheriff and Lauren. “What’s wrong with red hair? And what makes you think my kids wouldn’t have common sense?”

  Thatcher sighed. “You superglued your fingers together that summer I met you. You hooked your ear the last time we tried fly-fishing. You—”

  “I’m not in jail,” Tim interrupted.

  Lauren slapped at Thatcher’s knuckles and flashed Tim a dirty look. “Shut up, the both of you. We’ve got to get organized and get you out without some kind of record hanging over you. If we just knew who did steal the food, maybe we could clear this up.”

  “I already told you I ain’t telling. Not even if you torture me.”

  The sheriff leaned over Lauren’s shoulder. “Don’t give me any ideas, kid.”

  Tim swore as he paced the space between the cells. “I’ve already tried getting him to talk, Sheriff. Nothing works. We always end up back at square one. The kid is tormenting me. Maybe I should file a complaint. I’ve been here all morning talking to him, and all that’s happening is my red hair is falling out.”

  Thatcher reached out and almost grabbed the front of Tim’s sweatshirt. “I’m not a kid, O’Grady. Call me that one more time, and you’ll be swallowing teeth. The sheriff’s the only one who can call me that. I’m eighteen.”

  “What are you going to do?” Tim shouted. “Knock me out, too, like you did Luther when he accused you of stealing? At the rate you’re going, you’ll have to do double time in prison to ever see daylight.”

  Lauren shook her head. Her long, straight blond hair waving down her back reminded Dan of how Brandi Malone’s dark hair had seemed to come alive when she moved. Had it only been noon yesterday when he’d touched those dark curls and thought he’d see her by midnight? It seemed like a lifetime since he’d kissed the singer on the forehead and left the Nowhere Club.