Just a Cowboy

“Mostly.” She closed her eyes a bit, thinking back, trying to leave Dean out of the equation. It wasn’t easy. Her marriage to him had colored everything.

“Better question,” he said. “Would you like to do it again?”

“Maybe.” She let out a sigh and shook her head a little as she reached for her coffee. “That depends, I guess.”

“With what you feel like when you’re done traveling?”

“Pretty much.” That seemed as safe a way to put it as any. “I have time.” Two months, anyway. If she could make it that long. Once again, she assured herself she had covered her tracks. And once again some little corner at the back of her mind wasn’t so sure about that. Dang it, why couldn’t she put her finger on what worried her? Other than the fact that she hadn’t felt safe since that man tried to drown her in a canal.

Then he dropped the boulder that left her rattled to her very core. “What are you running from?” he asked.

She went hot and cold by turns as shock ripped through her. How had he known? What had she said? Had her most closely guarded secret been so obvious? When she managed to find her voice, she said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do,” he said quietly.

“You don’t know anything about me!”

“That’s true. And it’s none of my business, really.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“But the way you opened the door this afternoon, looking like a frightened gazelle, and renting this crappy place in a town in the middle of nowhere … Sorry. I don’t think you’re on a vacation.”

“It doesn’t matter what I am.”

“Maybe not.” He leaned back a bit in his chair, as if to give her more space. “I guess I’ve overstayed my welcome. I’ll be back as early as I can with the stove tomorrow, and after I get it in, I’ll probably work on the windows.”

He started to push back from the table, but she instantly felt bad. For the way she had just shut him out, for the rudeness she’d just displayed when he’d gone out of his way to be kind to her. But there was a bit of selfishness, too, because she didn’t want him to go. Didn’t want to rattle around alone in this house—not yet.

“Wait,” she said tautly.

He paused, the chair only an inch farther from the table than when he’d started to shove back.

“I’m sorry. I’m being rude.”

“Your business is your business.”

“I know but…you’ve been so kind, and you’re right—this is all crazy. And you’re probably wondering if I’m a criminal on the lam….”

He startled her by laughing. “By God,” he said, “that thought never entered my mind.” Still smiling, he cocked a brow at her. “Now that could be exciting.”

With all that had happened, with all she’d had to give up, she still had her sense of humor. A little giggle escaped her. “Are you that bored?”

“I don’t bore easily. But I have to admit, renting a house to a fleeing felon might be one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done. Not the kind of thing that happens every day.”

“No, it’s not,” she admitted, the smile still tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Sorry, I’m not running from the law.”

“No surprise there.”

She hesitated, then bit her lip a moment. Finally, she said, “I’ll tell you, but please don’t tell anyone else.”

“Gossip is far from my favorite thing. And you don’t have to tell me. I was just getting ready to tell you that I’m right next door if you need anything. Since you’re not a felon, I won’t even get in trouble for providing it. That’s very dull, you know.”

She liked the sparkle of humor in his eyes, liked it much better than the closed-off look she’d seen there before. Better than the man who had folded up his emotional tent because he’d just been told to mind his own business.

“Well, the truth is duller,” she admitted. She could tell him part of her story, she decided. Just part. And for some idiotic reason, it seemed to want to burst out of her for the first time since she’d tried to tell the police and her lawyer. As if she’d been sitting on a powder keg of feelings for way too long and needed just one person to listen. Just one. Even her lawyer didn’t quite believe her. And Hank might not, either. But the words still wanted to spill, as if she needed to vent them, regardless of the response.

“I’m getting divorced,” she said.

Hank hesitated, then leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. I don’t know how I endured the last eight years—honestly. Anyway, you’re right, I’m on the run.”

“He’s abusive?”

“He can be. But it’s not exactly him I’m hiding from.”

“Then what?”

“I think he paid someone to try to kill me.”

Chapter 3

Okay, Hank thought, this was like a movie. Only the woman sitting in front of him, much as she might look like a movie star, wasn’t sitting on a set reciting lines. She could be crazy, of course—always a possibility. But something about the way her eyes tightened as she spoke the words made him quite sure she believed what she was saying.

And there was no way on earth he could just walk away from that.

“What happened?” he asked her, knowing he was about to get involved one way or the other. He’d never been one to stand back if someone needed help. Unfortunately.

She shrugged. “It’s an old story. Dean mistreated me so I left. I got a lawyer. The lawyer figured I should get a lot of money and went hunting for all of Dean’s assets, at least the ones he hadn’t already sheltered. Then he notified Dean’s lawyer of the amount we were asking for as a settlement.”

She drew a long breath. “It was a lot of money. At least I thought it was. Apparently, Dean did, too, because one night he called me and told me I wouldn’t live to collect it.”

“You believed him.”

She shook her head. “No, honestly, I didn’t. I mean, that seemed extreme under any circumstances, even though he’d banged me around a bit. I didn’t figure him for a killer.” Her blue eyes lifted to his, looking so very sad. “It seems like a huge step from hitting someone when you get mad to actually killing her.”

“For most people it would be.”

She nodded. “So I didn’t even mention it to my lawyer. All I did was tell him I didn’t want so much money. But then Dean did this really odd thing.”

“What was that?”

“He agreed to the settlement. Without a fight.”

“Why do you think that’s odd?”

“You’d have to know Dean. He was all about money. But even my lawyer didn’t think it was odd. He said Dean had a lot to lose by the publicity from a messy divorce, and probably just wanted it over with.”

“That would have been my guess.”

Kelly nodded again. “Yeah. That’s how it seems. Except I kept remembering him saying I wouldn’t live long enough to collect it. But I couldn’t put the pieces together. Or maybe I didn’t want to put them together.”

She stood up suddenly and started pacing the kitchen, rubbing her arms as if she were cold. “I couldn’t believe he’d really hurt me, more than hitting and screaming as he’d done before, and while I couldn’t believe he’d part with all that money so easily, finally it seemed like my lawyer had to be right. Dean had more to lose by fighting, because it would come out that he’d hit me. And…I’d lived with the man for eight years. As hard as it was to believe he’d accept the settlement, it was harder to believe he would do anything that extreme. In all those years, he only gave me some bruises. That’s wrong, but it’s not murderous.”

She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. “Regardless…I guess part of me still wanted to believe he was the man I’d fallen in love with. That, after all those years, I really knew him, even his faults, and he couldn’t possibly be capable of murder. I believed that right up to the moment some guy grabbed me in the parking garage, stuffed me in his trunk and then tried to drown me.”

Hank swore. The kitchen was darkening at last, and now it felt darker with something more than the night. “How’d you get away? Did the cops get him?”

“I’m in good shape and I know some self-defense. I fought hard, and we splashed so much in the water I think he finally got afraid somebody would come. Or maybe that we’d attract an alligator. He gave up and ran.”

“My God.” He could too easily imagine her terror and desperation. Assuming it was true, of course. “And the police?”

“The cops decided it was a random crime. They didn’t think Dean had anything to do with it. Guys who are mad say things like that all the time, they said, especially ones who are being divorced. And I didn’t have any proof that Dean was behind it. Maybe he wasn’t. My lawyer didn’t even think so.”

“But you were scared enough to run.”

“Yes.” She looked at him from haunted eyes. “What kind of lunatic grabs a woman, drives her somewhere and tries to drown her? Without doing anything else? He didn’t even empty my wallet. I suppose people like that exist out there, but it just didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t risk the possibility Dean had put the guy up to it.”

He rubbed his chin, then said gently, “Have you considered that, by running, you might have made it easier for your ex?”

“What do you mean?”

“You already reported to the cops that you thought he was behind the attack. If someone tried to get you again, he’d be the first person they’d look at…unless you were halfway across the country.”

“Maybe, but they’d have to prove it. And it won’t matter to me if I’m dead, will it?”

He couldn’t argue that point.

She came back to the table and sat again. “I could be wrong. I know I could be. But the risk is too great. So I left town with the cash I inherited from my mother and I’ve been moving ever since. I don’t even know if I’ll go back for the hearing.”

“Do you have to?”

“One of us has to show up. My lawyer thinks Dean won’t. So if I don’t show up, everything is left hanging out there unfinished. The whole divorce action might even be dismissed, and right now I don’t think that’s so bad.”

“You want to go back to him?” The idea shocked Hank, just from what little she had said.

“No. Never.” She sighed again and hugged herself. “I hate even thinking about this. I guess I’ve been doing it for too long, arguing with myself. The thing is, I already owe my lawyer a ton of money. If I don’t get at least part of that settlement, I’m going to spend years trying to pay him off. On the other hand, right now my lawyer isn’t willing to lower our settlement demand when Dean has already agreed to it. Apparently, that leaves it all but decided. Nothing left but to make an appearance in court and get the official seal. So I can see his point.”

“I can see that, too.”

“But if neither of us shows up for the court date, the case will probably be dismissed and we have to start over, and maybe I can persuade my lawyer to basically just bill me for his expenses.”

“I see.” He did indeed. “Do you feel you’re not entitled to some kind of settlement?”

She looked down. “I was mad enough when I left him to want to ruin him. Now I’m just scared. I just want to be free of him and not have to be frightened all the time.”

There was nothing Hank could say to that. But he was deeply disturbed by her story. The idea of a man hiring a killer to rid himself of a wife over money wasn’t unheard of, but it didn’t fit anywhere in the world he lived in. Those were stories you heard, and only rarely, on the news. Hell, as far as he knew, it wasn’t even as common as serial killers, although money was surely one of the leading motives for crime.

But what did he know? And her description of what had happened to her did seem strange enough. To kidnap a woman to drown her? Didn’t there have to be some kind of motive—even a sick one? Although maybe drowning people would be motive enough for one or two freaks out there.

If he was sure of anything, it was that her story was so squirrely he could understand why the cops hadn’t believed her.

She could be lying, she could be deluded or she could be right. All three meant he needed to keep an eye on her. And tomorrow he was going to give Ben what-for. Like he needed this?

But then he looked at the woman who sat hunched in the chair across from him and he realized that she needed help. Whatever was going on, she needed someone in her life right now. Someone to keep an eye on her.

He doubted he’d ever seen anyone quite as alone as she was. Coming to a strange town where she knew no one because she needed to hide from something real or imagined. That was pretty bad.

He had to find some way to come at this, a way that would reassure her and give him more information about what he needed to do, even if it was just keep an eye on her from a distance.

But how could he do that?

“Anyway,” she said finally, giving herself a visible shake, “I should be safe here while I decide if I’m even going back to Miami for the court date. This is the first time I’ve slowed down in weeks. I’ve been paying my way with cash. He shouldn’t be able to find me.”

If someone wanted to kill her, Hank thought, he wouldn’t be all that sure she’d covered her tracks well enough. There were a million things a person could do to leave a trail. It all depended on how determined someone was to find her. And he doubted she was very experienced in the kind of thing she’d been trying to do.

He reached for his coffee mug, trying to sort out his thoughts about the best way to handle this. It was possible someone had tried to kill her, strange as it seemed, given the details. He could find out if that was true just by talking to some friends in the Denver Police Department, an inquiry that wouldn’t draw any attention here to Conard County.

Looking at the way she was hunched, he felt pretty certain, deep inside, that she had been mugged. Regardless of whether she was correct about why it had happened, he found he did believe she’d been attacked. The cops might be right that it had nothing to do with her husband, but that was the question, wasn’t it?

Even she didn’t seem one hundred percent certain, but he could understand her unwillingness to take any risks: A threat had been made, and then someone had tried to kill her.

He’d heard lots of such threats in his life, often made in moments of anger or stress, that were meaningless. It was usually just a strong expression on the part of people who said it.

On the other hand, if the man—Dean, it was—had felt strongly enough about it to call her and tell her that … Maybe it would be a mistake to dismiss it. Most people said things like that in a moment of passion, not in calmer moments. Not by making a phone call.

He frowned, looking down at his mug because it was easier than looking at her. Looking at her, much as she wasn’t his type, reminded him that he was a man with a man’s needs, something he had been trying not to think about for a while now.

But looking at the mug didn’t help a whole lot, either. It wasn’t as if it held any answers.

“What are you thinking?” she asked finally.

“I’m thinking that I’m not quite as prepared to dismiss what you’re saying as the police were.”

He saw her lift her head, and a flicker of hope appeared on her face before it disappeared.

“That’s nice of you,” she said finally. “I’ve been feeling kind of … Well, it’s hard to explain. When nobody believes you, you start to wonder if you’re losing your mind. It’s a very lonely feeling.”

He could well imagine it would be. God knew he’d had plenty of reason to second-guess some of his own decisions, and his own interpretations of things.

He still planned to check on whether her mugging story was true, but if it was, he couldn’t afford to dismiss the rest. Not when she was living right next door to him.

Not when she apparently didn’t have anyone else.

He could almost hear Fran laughing, as once she would have laughed, Count on you, Hank, to be the one to get the kitten down from the tree.

“Crap,” he said.

“Crap?” Kelly asked.

“Crap,” he repeated. Then he regretted it, because she began to shrink in on herself again. “Look, relax. I was just remembering my…a friend. She used to tease me about my inclination to get involved in things, so if you think I’m getting more involved than you want, just tell me to get lost.”

“I don’t want to do that,” she said swiftly. “But you don’t have to get involved. Really. I just told you my story. There’s no reason for you to give it another thought.”

Yeah, there was. Because it might be true. All of it. And that was worth a million reasons right there.

“What were you remembering?” she asked when he said nothing.

Ah, hell. “At the fire department we used to joke about rescuing cats. We did it sometimes—we weren’t heartless. But the joke was that you never saw the skeleton of a cat in a tree. Somehow they’d find their ways down, even if we never came to help. Fran, my friend, used to say that I’d always be the first one up into the tree.”

“Is that how you see me?”

He saw a spark of anger in her gaze, which was an improvement over her haunted look. “No, actually I don’t. It was a comment about me, not you. Not at all about you.”

A couple of seconds ticked by, then she relaxed. “Well, it doesn’t have to concern you at all. I just told you what happened and why I’m here. I don’t need a keeper. Or a rescuer.”

“I don’t remember saying that you did. You seem to have done all right so far.”

At that she seemed to shrink again, and all of a sudden he felt frustrated. “What now?” he asked. “What the hell did I say this time?”

She winced a bit, shaking her head. “It’s not you. I just got sick of hearing how I’d done all right for myself by marrying Dean.”

“Oh.” Kind of an echo. He could understand that. Still, it seemed to him that he and this lady weren’t going to get along very well. She seemed to be a walking land mine. Understandable, but not something he especially wanted to deal with. No, he could just keep a general eye out and keep his distance as much as possible. Other than some essential stuff he needed to do around here, there was no need for them to hang out together or anything.

She seemed to have grown fascinated by her coffee mug, both hands wrapped tightly around it as she stared into it. He felt again that sizzle of surprise and attraction he’d felt when first he’d laid eyes on her.

It wasn’t just that she was too damn pretty. He ordinarily was drawn to brunettes with warm dark eyes, yet here he was staring at a pale blonde with blue eyes. And yes, she looked like she’d stepped out of Central Casting, or whatever they called it. But there was something else about her, something very real and not plastic at all.

It called to him, to his feelings as a man. Kind of like a chest-beating response, he thought wryly. Well, he was long past those days, thanks to becoming pretty well crippled.

Leaning forward, he lifted his cup to sip coffee, trying to find a way to wrap up this conversation that wouldn’t leave her feeling abandoned once again. Because whether she was right or not about what had happened, she’d been abandoned by the cops and even by her lawyer. All she had left was herself.

And now him. He sighed, sipped and rose. “Cold,” he said by way of explanation. He went to the sink, ignoring the glassy splinters of pain in his hips, dumped the coffee and poured a fresh cup. Then he returned to the table, trying to feel his way.

“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly as he sat again. “I didn’t mean to cause you so much trouble.”

He felt startled. “Trouble? What trouble?”

She hesitated. “Well, renting this place. You obviously weren’t ready for a tenant. Now on my account you’re rushing things. I’ve made work for you. And then I went and dragged you in with my story. I could just be crazy. Maybe I should move on.”

“I was going to do the work anyway. Speeding it up a bit is no problem. As for you moving on…well, I don’t have anything to say about that, but I doubt Ben’s going to part with his fee, which is the first month’s rent.”

“Oh no!” She clapped a hand to her cheek.

“Oh no? That’s standard.”

“No, no. It’s just that I can’t believe he rented this place to me knowing I’d only be here a couple of months when he was going to get the first month’s rent.”

“I can.” Hank laughed, relaxing again. Her consternation struck him as cute. “It’s okay, really. I just got all worked up about safety issues, but you’re a grown-up. You can avoid the stuff I was worried about. And things like the stove can be fixed quickly. Nothing’s changed, except the order in which I was going to do repairs.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” He waved at the floors. “I was going to get to these next, but since you’re here, I’ll just rearrange my schedule. No big deal. First the stove, then the electrician.”

“Why were you going to do the floors first?”

“Because they annoy the hell out of me.” He was still smiling. And because they sometimes tripped him, when his leg was acting up and he didn’t lift his foot high enough. But he didn’t want to bring his disability up. Bad enough living with it, without having buckets of sympathy ladled his way.

“Well, can I help with them? I need something to do besides sit around all day worrying about what might never happen.”

And that, he thought, was a healthy attitude. He felt his last reservations about her start slipping away. “Sure. I’d like that. Help is always welcome.”

From the way she beamed, he realized how much she wanted to feel useful again.

But even as he watched her, he saw her smile start to slip, and a look of horror began to replace it.

“Kelly? Kelly, what’s wrong?”

“I just realized something. I can’t believe I was too stupid to think of it before.”

“What’s that?”

“The place where the guy tried to drown me? It was in one of the canals around Miami.”

“So the gators would get you?”

“Maybe.” But then she shook her head. “No, it just suddenly struck me it was a canal where I went jogging a lot of mornings. Not too far from Dean’s house.”

He wasn’t sure where she was leading. “That would seem stupid. It could link it to Dean.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you see? He would have made it look like I might have fallen while I was out running. And there are gators in those canals. Lots of them. Bull sharks, too, in some places. There wouldn’t be much evidence for long. But the important thing is, how likely is it that someone who didn’t know me would know where I liked to jog?”

She had him there. Hard. All of a sudden, no matter how wacky it might have sounded at first, he believed her husband wanted her dead.

“Okay,” he said quietly, feeling his jaw tighten. “I’m buying it. All of it.”

She lifted her gaze, questioning without words.

“I wasn’t sure at first. It seems so far-fetched that the guy would want to kill you. I mean, I know it happens, but it doesn’t happen that often, does it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me, either. But to me it seems a helluva lot more likely that you were mugged by some stranger, odd as it seems, than that he’d carry you out some place just to drown you. But if he took you to a canal where you liked to jog…”

“He could just have been watching me,” she said tautly.

“Sure. Then why not go for you while you were out for a run? Why stalk you to your parking garage, then take you back there to kill you? Did he try to rape you or anything?”

She shook her head. “He just hit me over the head.”

“And you said he didn’t rob you, either. That fits with trying to make it look like an accident.”

Much to his dismay, he watched one lone tear roll down her cheek.

“Why are you crying?” he asked. “Isn’t this what you already thought was going on?”

She drew a shaky breath. “I guess,” she said sadly, “that some part of me wanted to believe I was wrong. Somewhere deep inside, I wanted to believe I was wrong about Dean. I wanted to believe I was making a mountain out of a molehill. I wanted to believe it was just random. Dammit, Hank, I didn’t want to believe, really believe, that the man I married is capable of murder.”