Rustler's Moon Read online

  Maybe they thought she took something of value, but all she took was her father’s ledger and the picture of them on a fishing trip twenty years ago. Everything else she left with had belonged to her.

  Her logical mind began to list everything she’d packed. Her mother’s quilts, her father’s fishing gear, the ugly cat, her clothes, her small jewelry box with earrings she’d bought herself and her mother’s wedding band and the replica Greek necklace that her father had given her.

  The money her father transferred to her account was exactly the amount Uncle Anthony had borrowed years ago. Surely her uncle didn’t think that it was his now that her father was dead.

  Angela’s hands shook as she reached for her jacket. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was just a crank call. Maybe she had a stalker. There was no one from home who would take the time to follow her. Not for fifty thousand dollars and a few inexpensive pieces of jewelry.

  She’d thought she had a stalker once when she was in college, but her mother told her she wasn’t the kind of girl who men chase. Only now someone was watching her. The phone message was proof.

  The caller might be outside in the dark watching her right now. Maybe one of the thugs who drove the company trucks back home. Her uncle had never liked her, never trusted her with the family matters, and now he, or one of the hired thugs she’d always been afraid of, had tracked her down.

  She turned off her office light and stood in the evening shadows staring out at the night wondering if the man behind the message was out there in the dark, watching, waiting for her to be alone.

  The shadow of the old man with his walking stick was outlined in autumn’s pale grass. The sheriff had called him Carter something. He moved slowly toward the tiny RV he’d parked as close to the edge of the canyon as he could get. Somehow seeing Carter there was comforting. Maybe one person would hear her scream if the caller came after her.

  Slowly, she walked down the stairs. The voice on the phone could be anyone. Maybe her mother was wrong. Maybe someone was stalking her. She’d met several men from town already. She’d even waved at a few fishermen at the lake, and the kid at the grocery store had politely asked why she had moved to Crossroads when he carried her groceries to her car.

  When she entered the wagon room, she realized she knew only one thing for certain. The caller was not Wilkes Wagner. He had no phone.

  For the first time since she’d met the man, she felt safe around him.

  Wilkes introduced her properly to Yancy. The thin man was shorter, maybe a few years younger and not as educated, she guessed from his speech, but Yancy Grey and Wilkes shared an easygoing friendship. Maybe it was because they were both tinkers. They’d found wonder in the workings of an old wagon.

  “This belonged to the family who lived in an old house Yancy thinks whispers to him late at night.” Wilkes stepped over a wagon wheel and several boards. He must have seen her wide eyes, because he rushed to add, “We’ll put that back on, don’t worry.”

  He touched her arm in reassurance. This time his touch was gentle, reassuring, but she still felt the warmth of it.

  “Yancy reminded me that you don’t know the interesting part. How could you? You’re new in town. Everyone calls the place the Gypsy House, so it’s possible the Stanley family came in a vardo.”

  “Some folks think the house is haunted,” Yancy added as he dusted off the wagon’s window box. “Others swear it has a curse on it. But Wilkes says it’s just an old house.”

  “Those are just stories,” Wilkes said as if he thought they might frighten her. In a whisper, he added, “You all right, Angie?”

  She nodded even though she couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t tell him about the call, not in front of Yancy. She needed to think about what to do first. “I’m fine. Tell me the stories of the old house.”

  Yancy called out from somewhere behind the display. “Some kids got hurt there a few years back. Ask them if it’s cursed. We’ll probably be struck by lightning for just talking about it.”

  Wilkes shook his head and whispered, “I don’t believe in curses or blessings. It’s just the luck of the draw, that’s all.”

  “I agree,” she whispered. There was no way those long dead could cause any harm. The man on the phone had sounded very much alive.

  Yancy was taking apart an artifact and Wilkes was telling her not to worry. If she wasn’t already at worry overload about the phone call, she might have screamed at him. But Wilkes and Yancy’s crime was no more than a breeze in the tornado rolling around her.

  She picked out the first of his conversation to build her illusion of sanity on. “I’ve met lots of people who feel called to something in their past.” There, that made sense.

  “Once, I met a woman who found a rocking chair at an old secondhand store. She swore it hugged her as she rocked, as if welcoming her home. When she was buying it, I noticed her last name matched the name carved on the bottom of the rocker.

  “We discovered the chair had belonged to her great-grandmother. It had been sold in an estate sale twenty years before the woman was even born.” Now she was rattling, Angela decided. That was better than screaming.

  Since both men were still staring at her, she added, “As I helped her load it, she said she thought the spirit of her great-grandmother was rocking her.”

  “Great,” Wilkes said. “Angie is just as spooky as you are Yancy.”

  “I’m not spooky.” Yancy shook his head. “I’m hungry and the museum is almost two hours past closing. Maybe we should talk about this over coffee and pancakes. We owe the lady a meal for letting us stay late, and it’s all-you-can-eat at Dorothy’s tonight.”

  “I agree.” She smiled at Yancy, a silent thank-you for the offer. There was no way she was walking out of the museum alone, so her only choice was to go with Wilkes and his friend.

  The men agreed to meet at Dorothy’s place. Angie wasn’t sure she was part of the gang, but when she locked the museum and walked out, Wilkes was waiting at his car with his passenger door open. “Ride along with me, and I’ll bring you back.”

  She hesitated. “Where’s your old red pickup truck?” The Tahoe didn’t look like something a poor farmer would drive.

  “That old piece of junk belongs to Uncle Vern. He usually won’t let me borrow it. Still blames me for wrecking his last one fifteen years ago. He claims if I hadn’t rolled the thing in a bar ditch, it would have lasted another hundred thousand miles.”

  She slid into the leather seat, guessing that an SUV like this probably cost more than her annual salary.

  As they drove away, she thought she saw the outline of a black car parked near the tree line.

  It looked exactly like a Mercury her uncle had once issued to his top employees years ago.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Wilkes

  Dorothy’s Café

  WILKES WASN’T SURE how to handle Miss Angie Harold. If she’d been more his type, he might have flirted. After all, she was single and so was he, and despite her wild hair and boring clothes, she was cute in her short, shy kind of way. He was drawn to her as he could never remember having been drawn to a woman. She was unique in a one of a kind way that fascinated him.

  He told himself flirting didn’t require any commitment. He would keep it light until she made the first move. Then, when he knew his advances were welcome, he might move things along fast or do what he usually did when he let a woman get close...run.

  If she were beautiful, model thin and black-haired, he would have slept with her without promising anything. He’d found it was easier to walk away when his own lies weren’t slowing him down. Only, the last tall, dark-haired woman he’d slept with after the Houston rodeo last year said that he called out another woman’s name twice in his sleep. Wilkes didn’t want to sleep with a ghost from his past. And for once here was a woman wh
o didn’t remind him of Lexie. Nothing about Angie was the same and yet, for some reason, he couldn’t stop wanting to get closer to her.

  Wilkes wondered how long he’d have to live to outlive Lexie’s memory. She hadn’t been what he’d thought she was. She hadn’t loved him as he loved her. He didn’t want to see what she was today. He didn’t care. But he still couldn’t let go of a dusty memory of what might have been.

  Damn, he thought, I’m a man mourning something that never was.

  Logic told him that he should find someone else. He could be happy. Move on with his life. Problem was, no other woman felt right.

  Angie was the first woman he’d bothered to talk to in a long time and she wasn’t his type. She didn’t seem to be any type. She was pretty, headstrong in a scary kind of way and intelligent to the point he’d never be able to keep up with her. She was also far too short for him and talked way too fast.

  He liked being around her when she was yelling at him, though. Then she was cute as a baby rattler. And he loved the way she fired up at the slightest touch. Angie Harold would never be a woman easy to handle, but damn if a part of him didn’t want to try.

  To cool down, he started listing things wrong with the woman. If they were going to be friends, just friends, he needed to change his direction of thought.

  She had the irritating habit of writing everything down in a little notebook she carried in her purse. That was another thing. Her purse was big enough to double as a sleeping bag.

  Wilkes hated women who carried big purses. First, there was no telling what they had in them: makeup, lunch, a gun. And second, at some point every woman with a big purse asks the man with her to carry it for her. To Wilkes there was nothing dumber than a man standing in the mall with a purse. He looked as ridiculous as a bull in ribbons.

  Now, thanks to Yancy’s suggestion, here he was heading to dinner with bossy little Angela Harold next to him. Sunset lights danced in her hair. Folks called her color strawberry blond, but it was really the color of a dying sun. Golden, brown and rich red. She had it tied back but several curly strands were free brushing across her face and curling along her neck.

  When they parked in front of the café, he made it around to her door before she got her seat belt undone. “You don’t have to do that,” she said as he slammed the car door closed behind her.

  Just get through this, he thought. Maybe she could be some help to Yancy? Angie wasn’t his type. She didn’t even let him be polite about opening a door. He hated that. Yet right now, walking into the café, he was fighting the urge to reach for her hand.

  He told himself he wasn’t attracted to her, but he knew he was lying. Having her within touching distance was strong temptation. What surprised him even more was the realization that she didn’t seem to like him. Hell, everyone liked him.

  * * *

  YANCY SLID INTO the other side of the booth from them and started making small talk with her almost as if he were flirting. Yancy had lost his longtime girlfriend to a doctor in Abilene and he struck Wilkes as the type of guy who needed a woman in his life.

  Unlike me, Wilkes thought. He’d proved he didn’t need a woman. Hadn’t said “I love you” to anyone in years.

  When Angie asked about food on the menu, Wilkes touched her shoulder while he explained how chicken fried steak didn’t have chicken in it. He decided he was sacrificing himself so Yancy would think they were a couple and not get involved with her, but Wilkes had to admit that he did like touching her. It didn’t matter what she wore when he touched her, the feel of her was all woman.

  He let his fingers brush a loose strand of her hair off her shoulder while Yancy talked to the waitress.

  “Does everyone in your family have red hair?” He kept his voice low.

  “No,” she said. “I have no family. My mother died a few years ago and my father passed last month.” Tears floated in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall.

  “I’m sorry.” If he hadn’t been cramped in a booth, he would have hugged her.

  She blinked away tears. “I’ll be all right.”

  He fought to keep from pulling her closer. They weren’t friends, maybe never would be, but this woman made him feel more alive than he had in a long time.

  Wilkes wished she’d share more, but he could put the pieces together. Her dad died, she broke up with her fiancé. There must have been nothing left to keep her there. She was a woman on the run from her life.

  “Where did you say you came from?”

  Her sadness turned to alarm. “I didn’t.”

  Wilkes swore silently. So much for casual conversation.

  “None of my business,” he said as he mentally moved away even if he couldn’t leave physically.

  “Right. I just don’t want to talk about me.”

  This woman’s emotions were wired with so many land mines he’d be lucky to survive long enough to understand her.

  “Keep it professional. No personal questions.”

  “I agree.”

  Something about the way she straightened and nodded made him want to kiss her senseless, but every brain cell shouted that kissing her might not be a good idea.

  “How about we start as friends?”

  She finally seemed to relax. “I can handle that.”

  When Yancy turned back to them, he seemed totally unaware that they’d been talking while he’d been flirting with the waitress.

  They continued in casual conversation like old friends. Wilkes was still confused why he liked being near her and, worse, why he didn’t want Yancy flirting with her. Yancy flirted with every woman in town under fifty.

  Then, probably just to mess with his brain, Angie acted as if she didn’t notice he was sitting two inches away from her. If he touched her any more often, she’d think he had a twitch.

  She’d spent most of the meal ignoring him and asking questions about the old house. Yancy didn’t know much, and Wilkes handed over all he knew. When he went for more coffee, he came back to find Yancy and Angie staring into each other’s eyes.

  “You’re right,” she said. “One of your eyes is gray and the other green.”

  “I told you. Someone said that means I could have Gypsy blood in me. Maybe that is why the house calls me. It knows I’m blood.”

  Angie laughed. “How exciting.”

  Wilkes didn’t want to look in Yancy’s eyes and he wished he could think of something about his Wagner ancestors that was interesting.

  By the time he paid the bill, Wilkes was frustrated. He was used to women playing up to him but Angie made no attempt. It was as though she didn’t care if he was there or not. He told himself he would turn her down gently anyway, but it was a shot to his pride that she didn’t even try.

  Several times during the meal she’d glanced out the window. He had the feeling she was watching for something. But what? She hadn’t lived in town long enough to make an enemy.

  The wind had turned cold by the time they left the café. Wilkes pulled his hat low as the first hint of rain splashed across the windshield of his Tahoe.

  Yancy waved goodbye and darted across the street to his apartment in the front of the retirement community.

  Wilkes walked close to Angie and opened the door for her.

  “I told you, you don’t have to do that.”

  “Do what?” he asked innocently.

  “Open doors for me. No one does that anymore.”

  “We do here,” he said. “Where did you say you came from?”

  “I didn’t, but I...I was born in New York, and I grew up in Florida. If everyone stopped to open doors in New York, the whole city would come to a standstill.”

  “So, you liked living in New York?” He was finally making progress. She’d told him something about her background.

  “
S-sure.”

  She had hesitated just long enough to make him wonder if she were telling the truth. She seemed so innocent, almost newborn to the world, but there was a shadow following her. The lady had a past.

  “I’m just being polite when I open doors.” He fought the urge to touch her again, just to make sure she was all right. “All you have to say is thank you.”

  “Oh, I see. I have to say thank you for something I didn’t ask for.”

  There it was again. That smart mouth just under her shy act. Once she lost her fear of him, she’d probably cut him to shreds. Damn if he didn’t find the lady’s attitude sexy.

  Wilkes circled around his car thinking he needed to get in as fast as possible. If she started arguing without him, he wouldn’t have a chance at keeping up. Maybe his mind had been sharp enough to handle a woman like her when he’d been in college, or even right after he got out of the army, but not now that his brain had been rusting for years.

  An old memory danced across his thoughts. When he’d been in college, his steady girlfriend, Lexie, used to talk on and on about nothing. At the time he thought it was cute. She even talked during sex.

  Thinking about it now, Wilkes decided that wasn’t cute.

  He used to think that he knew every thought in Lexie’s head. Obviously not. She dumped him within two months of his deployment. Friends claimed she’d already roped a new guy before he was out of United States airspace. Some commented that she did the same between husband number one and husband number two.

  Angie was a totally different kind of woman. She didn’t flirt, or play silly games when she talked. He decided maybe she was the never-marry type, or maybe one of those women who marry someone years older and wiser so they can have long evenings of conversations. He figured he was out of luck if that were the case. First, he wasn’t that much older than her, and second, he’d always thought his communication skills were more on the nonverbal side.

  Wilkes had a feeling she’d love one man if she ever decided to love at all, and he wasn’t ready for an all-out kind of love. Maybe he could talk her into being just friends. No, better yet, friends with benefits.