Wild Horse Springs

“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 to 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.

He should have kissed her that last time on the mouth. The way his luck was running right now, Dan might never see his wild, beauty again.

Tim’s loud lecture drew the sheriff back from his thoughts. O’Grady was overreacting as usual. If he wrote as fast as he talked, he’d have a dozen books out by now.

When Lauren glanced in Dan’s direction, he winked at her, silently letting her know that the world was not as dark as she thought it might be.

She finally realized that her father, not just a sheriff, was right beside her. She leaned close to him so he’d hear her over Tim’s rant. “Okay, Pop, what do we do now?”

Tim gave up talking and listened for a change.

“I tried talking Luther out of pressing charges,” Dan began. “I had no luck. But he used to give you free ice cream even after I’d already said no. Maybe you and Tim should go out to the truck stop and give it a shot. Since the stolen goods were found in the store, that charge won’t hold, but the assault might.” Dan was too tired to think of any other option.

“But—” Lauren started to argue.

Dan pushed his only option. “Talk to him. It might not change anything, but who knows, it might help.”

“What about Thatcher?”

“I’ll be right here.” Dan glanced at the kid. “He’s not going anywhere for a while. Charley Collins has already talked to him and is out trying to get him a lawyer. The Franklin sisters called to tell me I’d better not even think of feeding him prison food. They’re bringing his meals from the bed and breakfast.”

“You have prison food?” Lauren smothered a giggle.

Dan shook his head. “That’s not the worst of it. I’ve had half a dozen blankets delivered and threats called in that I’d better not let the boy freeze in a cold cell.”

“You let people threaten you?”

“Sure. One was Miss Bees. She has to be ninety, but she considers it her civic duty to call in a threat at least once a month. Another was Vern Wagner. I don’t think he knew what he was mad about, but Miss Bees probably told him to call in. A few others just dropped off threats with the blankets.”

Lauren tilted her head, looking in the cell. “I don’t see any blankets.”

“Pearly’s examining them now for hacksaws. She learned the word contraband from a TV show last year, and now her new word keeps bouncing around in the office.” Dan realized he was starting to sound like a Saturday Night Live skit. Big cities had gangs and major crime; he had senior citizens and do-gooders. Some days it seemed to Dan he had the roughest beat.

Lauren put her hand on her father’s arm. “Maybe I should come home to help you, Pop? I did study law, even if I did chicken out on taking the bar.”

“I thought you did come home to ride shotgun,” he said with a smile. “Any chance you and Tim could take the late shift, if Thatcher is still locked up tonight? You two are as close to deputies as I’ve got right now. Fifth Weathers is down in Austin for training, so I’m shorthanded. I’ve got something I have to do tonight, and Thatcher is in no danger other than being fed to death or smothered by quilts.”

“You got a date?” she teased.

“Yeah, with a wild, hot lady.” He told the truth, knowing she wouldn’t believe him.

“Sure, Pop.” She laughed. “Any way I can help. You look tired. Go home. Go to bed.”

“My plan exactly.” In his mind, his fingers were already moving into Brandi Malone’s mass of midnight hair.

* * *

FIVE HOURS LATER, Lauren was curled up next to Tim in the empty cell, watching a zombie movie on his laptop.

Thatcher had borrowed her phone and moved to the far corner of his cell. She guessed he was talking to Kristi, the only girlfriend he’d ever had, but Kristi must have been carrying the conversation because Thatcher hadn’t said a word in ten minutes. He just nodded now and then, as if Kristi could see him through the phone.

“This is not what I meant when I suggested spending the night together, L,” Tim whispered as he inched his fingers under her sweater.

“Look at the bright side. We’re almost alone.” Lauren gently shoved his hand away. She gave him a look that silently whispered, not here, not now.

“Yeah, but we’re both dressed and have a teenage jailbird watching over us.” Tim looked more resigned than frustrated. He never pushed, even when they were alone, even when she didn’t bother to give a reason for shoving him away.

She shifted out from under his arm. “We’ve got to do something to help Thatcher. I can’t stand just waiting around to see if something happens. This could go bad fast, Tim, and if Thatcher’s officially charged, it may be too late.”

“What can we do? It’s almost midnight.”

She didn’t look at him when she whispered, “We’ve got to call Lucas.”

Lauren didn’t want to chance Tim seeing how she felt about Lucas, so she glanced away. They’d all been friends in high school, which seemed like a lifetime ago. “If we call him tonight, he could be here by eight in the morning.”

“Lucas is big time, L. I read an article online that says he’s moving up in that fancy firm he stepped into right out of college. A few years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised if he runs for office or becomes a judge or a senator or something. He wouldn’t drop everything and come back home to maybe help a kid he’s probably never met. We might have all been friends years ago, but those days are long gone.”

Lauren closed her eyes, fighting back tears. The Lucas she once knew would come, but the Lucas who worked in Houston now hadn’t called once to check on her since she graduated college. That Lucas, if he came home at all, didn’t call friends from the past when he was in town.

She’d never told anyone, not even Tim, how much she’d loved the young Lucas, the one full of dreams.

Tim would only be hurt if he knew another had been in her heart since she was fifteen. It was better that he didn’t know about what had happened between her and Lucas, the promises they’d whispered once, the few stolen moments they’d shared. As her best friend, Tim would be surprised she’d never told him. As her lover, he’d be crushed that she’d held someone else in her dreams all this time.

Lauren stood and walked to the window. Had anything really happened between her and Lucas? she wondered. Had she simply cobbled together a romance from a few kisses and wishes? At fifteen she’d been crazy about the boy who’d saved her from an accident. At eighteen she’d thought they’d be together through college, but he’d pulled away. At twenty-one they’d shared a passionate kiss that had gone nowhere. Maybe the Lucas she knew was more in her imagination than real.

Stick to the facts, she almost whispered aloud. How she felt about Lucas Reyes didn’t matter. Thatcher needed help, and Lucas was the most powerful lawyer she knew.

Lauren held her hand out toward Thatcher. “I need to borrow my phone back.”

He said a quick goodbye and handed over her cell. “No problem. We were into reruns of the argument anyway.”

Lauren felt sorry for him. “Everything all right with you and Kristi?”

Thatcher shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. She talked for a while and then got real mad because I asked her for the summary. I told her I was too tired to listen much longer.”

He dropped onto his cot, which was padded with several blankets. “I swear I don’t understand her. Every time I think I know where I stand with her, the world shifts and I lose my marker.”

Lauren knew how he felt.

Walking out into the hallway, she sat on the first step. All the offices were closed now, and the wooden steps descended into darkness below. Pushing the number that had been Lucas Reyes’s cell in college, she waited. If he’d changed his number, she had no way of reaching him. If he said no, she could think of nowhere else to turn.

One ring. Two, three.

She shouldn’t have called. Not this late. Not without having thought about what she’d say.

Four, five, six.

“Hello,” a deep, sleepy voice said.

“Lucas?” She couldn’t believe he was on the line. It had been so long. A thousand days, a million dreams.

“Lauren,” he whispered.

For a few moments, they just breathed as if they weren’t hundreds of miles apart.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “Is there some emergency?”

She could hear his voice hardening, becoming more formal, putting a distance between them that couldn’t be simply measured in miles. He’d whispered once when they stared up at the stars that she was his sky. Did he remember?

Lauren followed his lead. Talk about the problem at hand, not her own feelings. “I need some legal advice.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“No. It’s a friend. A kid in Crossroads. I was hoping you could come help.” She realized she wasn’t the right one to talk to a lawyer about Thatcher’s case. He obviously didn’t even want help, and her father might be mad that she hadn’t waited to see if he could figure things out.

She heard paper shuffling and a click like a lamp being turned on.

The voice that finally came back was cold, a stranger. “Give me the facts.”

She suddenly wished she hadn’t called. “It’s really only an assault charge. I thought you might be able to do something. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Give me the facts, Lauren.”

“I shouldn’t have called.” It dawned on her how Lucas probably made sure their paths never crossed. He’d never called. Never texted. She knew he was still on the other end of the phone waiting for her to make sense.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, as she fought not to cry.

Just before she ended the call she heard him say, “I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

The phone went dead before she could say no.

CHAPTER FIVE

Tuesday night

THATCHER JONES WALKED to the barred window in his cell and looked out at the snowy streets three flights below. Most folks thought of Crossroads as a wide spot in the road and had little reason to slow down as they passed, but he’d always viewed the tiny place as grand. When you’d grown up out in the Breaks where folk hunted their own meat and some did without electricity, the town felt like big time.

Few people who lived between the city-limit signs knew what it was like to check the house for snakes before you turned in at night, or wash your clothes on a board and hang them out to dry. They’d never had to eat a potato or a can of beans and call it supper. Or to grow up, not only without cell phones and computers, but without TV or microwaves or heat in more than one room.

He’d known that life and felt lucky for it, but Thatcher didn’t want to go back. He loved living in his own little place on the Lone Heart Ranch. He’d walk over to the main house for meals, or to work with Charley, or help Lillie, Charley’s daughter, with her homework, then the rest of his time was his. Thatcher heard someone say once that the measure of wealth was being in control of time. If so, he was a rich man at eighteen.

Or he had been, before he ended up here in jail.

He knew some of the people on the two floors below worried about how he was surviving being locked up. They didn’t understand this was a five-star hotel to him compared to living in the Breaks when he was younger. Great meals, company sitting up with him and being toasty warm. If he hadn’t had to give up freedom for the place, he might ask if he could stay awhile.

Crossroads might not have a movie theater or a Starbucks, but the town had stores and a clinic and churches, and, unfortunately, a jail with locked doors. Kristi told him she was ashamed of him because the whole town knew he was there. He guessed she was right. The window’s light reflected out on the crossing of the two main highways, so anyone who looked up could see him.

Staring out over the sleeping town, the porch lights shining like tiny stars and the shadow of a half-finished bandstand right in the middle of it all, he tried to figure out where his life had taken a wrong turn. All he was trying to do was help out, and somehow it ended him up here.

He’d seen a frightened little girl no bigger than Lillie, Charley’s daughter, had been when he’d met her. The girl had on an old red coat that was way too large for her and was trying her best to lug a big backpack along the muddy side of the road.

“Who wouldn’t help?” he murmured to himself. But somehow it had all turned bad, and he couldn’t figure out how to get out of trouble without bringing harm to the little red riding hood.

Lauren and Tim took turns lecturing him after the sheriff left last night, but nothing they could say was as bad as what he was yelling at himself inside. He had his future all planned out. He was focused. He’d saved enough for the first year of college, even though Charley Collins had said he’d pay.

Thatcher had Kristi waiting for him to get to Texas Tech. He figured if he got to Tech and studied hard, she’d plan the rest of their lives. Marriage, a couple kids, maybe a farm.

He looked around, hoping Lauren would bring her phone up and he could call Kristi back. Man, she was mad at him. Like this was all his fault.

The sheriff’s daughter was still somewhere beyond the doors of his prison, and Tim seemed busy writing notes. He’d mumbled that he had to get inspiration down when it hit. Thatcher had read a few of his books, and apparently inspiration came to “Hemingway” more as a dribble than a solid hit.

Maybe they’d left him alone to think, but Thatcher had given up on that, too. What good was it doing him? He might as well become an outlaw. Too bad it wasn’t the Wild West, where a man lived by a code and his Colt. Where right was right and wrong was wrong.

He wished it were that simple now. When he’d stopped to help the little girl, she’d run away from the truck stop, and he knew she’d stolen the food in the old backpack that looked like it weighed as much as she did. It took him ten minutes to get her to trust him enough to talk. He’d taken her to not much of a home, parked way back in a junky trailer park. The run-down model home was in a cluster of others that looked to be in the same shape. She said she lived there, but it didn’t look like any kind of place a child would stay. No toys or bikes. Only old loading crates and empty beer cans.

He talked the girl into letting him take the canned goods back, even gave her a twenty to buy food. But as he stood to leave, a man inside spotted him looking in the trailer window and threatened to kill him for trespassing. A few of his drunk buddies spilled out behind him, offering to help with the murder.

Thatcher took off with them yelling what they’d do if they ever saw him again. The leader even threatened to hurt the kid if Thatcher ever spoke to her again.

The worst part of it all for Thatcher was the shame he felt. There might have been five or six of them and only one of him, but he felt like a coward running and leaving her there. She wasn’t his kin. He had no right to interfere. But somehow it didn’t seem right leaving her there.

Then, when he was thoughtful enough to take the stolen food back, Luther accused him of stealing the cans. Like he’d drive two miles out of town to shoplift beans probably two or three years out-of-date.

Thatcher had had enough and he’d swung, not so much at Luther, but at the whole world.

Now, he stared into the night as if he could find an answer. So much for being a Good Samaritan. He knew how it felt to be hungry. He’d wanted to help. Now one good deed might just screw up his whole life.

He’d told people that he wanted to major in criminal justice. Maybe be like the sheriff. Only that was a pipe dream now.

Word was that there was a real hero living around the Panhandle of Texas. A Texas Ranger who’d survived a gun battle on the border. He’d been dealing with genuine bad guys and not some bum smoking pot in a trailer with his buddies while his little girl had to shoplift to eat. Thatcher wanted to fight for right, but yesterday he’d had his chance and ran.

Why couldn’t his life be exciting like the ranger’s? It must have been something to be in a real fight against drug runners. Thatcher guessed he already had most of the skills to be a lawman. He was fast, and much stronger than most gave him credit for. He’d been shooting game for food since he was nine.

Only, people with a criminal record didn’t become rangers or sheriffs. They didn’t become anything Thatcher wanted to be.

Tim must have finished writing his thoughts because he walked to the other side of the cell, the free side, and joined Thatcher.

“I think it’s creepy out on nights like this,” he said, as if he thought Thatcher would welcome conversation. “Town’s growing so much it seems brighter than it used to.”

“Tim, stop talking like you were born before electricity. You’re twenty-five.” Thatcher hated how Tim—and Lauren too—both thought they were so much older than him.

“I know, but the town’s growing. There are two whole new blocks of houses behind the church and half a dozen new cabins out by the lake.”

Thatcher decided he must be brain-dead, because he started talking to Tim. He pointed toward the building project in the empty space between the two main streets. The city council said it would look like a grand town square when they finished, but the land was cut by roads into a triangle and who ever heard of a town triangle? “Does that look like a bandstand or a gazebo to you?” he asked Tim, hoping to avoid talking about jail for a while.

“Nope.” Tim tilted his head one way, then the other, as if the question would make more sense that way. The framed-out bandstand was covered in snow. “It reminds me of a ten-foot-high white spider now, with legs that stretch out thirty feet.”