“Yes, I have a 2000 Ford Focus that was in a fender bender. My taillight was broken.”
“I can help you with that,” he offered, stepping out from behind the counter. “What kind of cover do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it a rear light?”
“Yes.”
“Two door or four door?”
“Four door.”
“Right this way,” he said, starting down one of the aisles. After slipping his glasses on, he ran his gaze over the shelves and found the correct lens. “Here we go.” He handed her the box. “And you need the bulbs, you say?”
“Yes. They were smashed, too.”
After he selected a box of bulbs, she followed him to the front to pay. “Thanks. I had no idea what to get.”
He scanned the items and told her the total. “You’re welcome. That’s what I’m here for. Do you know how to replace the broken cover and bulbs?”
She shook her head. Cole, she knew, would probably be more than happy to do it for her, but she didn’t want to feel obligated to him. She was used to handling things on her own and not depending on someone else. However, even though changing a taillight lens was probably a simple job, she didn’t want to deal with it today. “Is there someone in town who might have time to replace it for me?”
“I know just the person,” the man said, picking up the telephone. “My son is a mechanic, and he lives right down the street. Let me see if he has a few minutes to spare.”
She smiled, thinking how friendly and accommodating people in small towns were. After a couple of minutes of discussion, the man said, “My son would be glad to help you out.” He scratched the name and address on a slip of paper and then verbally gave her directions. “You’ll see his name on a sign outside the garage.”
“Thanks so much.” Lindy exited the store and drove the three blocks down the street to find Tanner’s Body Shop. A man wearing a T-shirt and jeans, with brown hair to his shoulders, stepped out of the garage wiping his greasy hands on a rag.
“Are you the lady who needs a taillight cover replaced?” he asked, strolling toward her.
She slammed the car door shut and decided not to shake hands since his still looked dirty. “Yes. I’m Lindy Grainger.”
“John Tanner.” He reached for the boxes she’d purchased at the auto parts store. “This won’t take but a few minutes. Pop the trunk for me, and I’ll grab my tools. You can have a seat over there if you’d like.” He pointed to a hardback chair sitting under a tree. “It’s my makeshift reception area.”
“Thanks. I appreciate your squeezing me into your schedule like this without an appointment.”
“No problem.”
She unlocked the trunk. John Tanner walked into the shop to collect his tools and she took a seat under the tree. A small table was next to the chair with a few magazines stacked on top. Beads of perspiration dampened her brow, and her legs stuck to the seat. The temperature was probably in the lower nineties, but, hopefully, she wouldn’t be here long. The shade of the tree would keep her comfortable enough while she waited.
The mechanic walked to the back of her car and began removing the screws that held the broken light cover. “What happened?” he hollered over his shoulder.
“Fender bender at the grocery store,” she answered. When it seemed that was to be the extent of their conversation, she picked up one of the magazines and began thumbing through it.
Several minutes later, Lindy’s heart plummeted to the bottom of her stomach when she heard someone yell, “Joy!”
Her head snapped up, and the blood in her veins froze. It was a man who had hollered, but not Mr. Tanner. His hands were inside the trunk of her car, evidently changing out the bulbs and not paying attention to anything but his task.
“Joy!” The voice shouted a second time.
Lindy jumped up from the chair and the magazine slid from her lap into the grass. Her head pivoted. Who was calling her name? Had Steven Neal’s people found her again? Terror clawed at her insides. What could she do? In a split second, she could be dead. She glanced in all directions and made the snap decision to run into the body shop. It was her best hope for finding a tool she could defend herself with. But for some reason, her feet refused to move, as if they were lead blocks cemented to the ground. John Tanner looked over at that moment and their gazes connected. She prayed he wouldn’t get caught in the crossfires if shooting began.
“Miss Grainger, are you okay?” he asked. His brows winged down with apprehension.
“Joy!” A third time the loud voice bellowed. That’s when Lindy saw a young woman step out from behind a privacy fence across the street. A burly man with a beard stumbled after her. “Come back here, Joy!” he called, grabbing at her shirt. She twirled and slapped him hard across his face and then jumped into the car parked along the curb. When the car engine roared alive, the tires squealed as she peeled away leaving the man standing in a cloud of red dust.
With her body as cold as ice, Lindy watched dumbly as the man spit on the ground where the car had been parked. He then turned and staggered into the house and slammed the door behind him.
“Miss Grainger.” Someone was shaking her arm. Lindy snapped out of the fog of fear she’d been swept into and looked into the mechanic’s face. His mouth was drawn into a thin line. Maybe he thought she was having a seizure or an attack of some kind. “You okay?” he asked.
He was standing so close to her face she could smell on his breath the peppers and onions he must have had for lunch. When she realized she was not in danger, Lindy swallowed her dizzying nausea and collapsed onto the chair.
“Yes,” she managed to say. She pushed hair out of her face. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”
“It’s okay,” John replied. “I’m fine, but what about you? You’re as pale as a ghost.”
“Am I?” She felt sweaty and hot. She continued to stare across the street. “Will that young woman be all right?” she asked, hoping John would chalk up her strange behavior to being concerned for the woman’s safety and nothing more.
He glanced over his shoulder and then relief filled his face. “Oh yeah. Don’t worry about her. The two of them fight all the time. She leaves him about once a week. It’s always the same. I guarantee she’ll be back before suppertime.”
“Oh. Her name is Joy?” Lindy said, trying out the name on her tongue. Saying her real name out loud after years of using different monikers sounded strange.
“Yeah. It’s a pretty name, but I don’t think it fits her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“With a brute like him for a husband, how could she have much joy in her life?”
Lindy sighed, and John returned to her car to finish up. When she asked how much she owed him, he told her it was on the house.
“Please. I insist on paying you.” Her wallet was out, and she was prepared to give him cash.
He pulled the dirty rag out of his back pocket and wiped his hands again. “It was nothing, ma’am. It hardly took any time at all. But I’d appreciate it if you’d remember me the next time you have any car trouble. Or if you want that dent in your bumper repaired.”
She shook his hand this time when he extended it. “I promise to do that. Thanks again.” She climbed into the Focus, and he closed the door for her and leaned into her open window. He’d probably noticed her hand was still trembling when they’d touched, because his voice was thoughtful when he said, “Don’t worry about Joy. She knows how to take care of herself.”
Lindy nodded, imagining his compliment was for her, too.
Twenty-Three
As Cole sped down the highway toward White Oaks later that day, he breathed in the sweet perfume that was tickling his nostrils and felt needles of awareness pricking his skin. Too bad Lindy was sitting over in the passenger’s seat instead of by his side. The urge to squeeze her thigh and give her a little kiss was fierce.
He was glad she’d made it back from town and
had still wanted to go on the outing to the ghost town. He’d been looking forward to spending time with her.
His hope had begun to dwindle when the guests loaded onto the hay wagon and there’d been no sign of Lindy. But he’d breathed a sigh of relief when he’d seen her Ford puttering up the drive ten minutes after the boys had departed the ranch towing the wagon behind the tractor.
“The others aren’t taking the highway?” she asked now, having missed their departure.
“Dalton’s driving the tractor and towing the hay wagon, so they have to take the back roads. Even though we started after them, they’ll probably be thirty minutes behind us.”
He wanted to change the subject and ask her about the conversation she’d had with Hunter. But if he did, she’d know he’d eavesdropped. That was probably not a good idea.
“Did you give Tony and Bobby the rest of the day off?” she asked, laying her arm across the window ledge for some sun.
“No. Quitting time isn’t for another couple of hours.”
“But you left early.”
“There are benefits to being the boss,” he reminded her, shooting her a grin. “Did you install the new taillight yourself?” he wondered, figuring she had not, and wanting to keep the conversation light.
“No. The man at the auto parts store referred me to his son, John Tanner. Do you know him?”
“Sure. I went to school with John.” He and Tanner had played high school football and basketball together. John had been every bit as much of a ladies’ man as Cole had been. But these days, he was married with a couple of kids and working like a dog trying to make ends meet. Cole cut a glance toward Lindy, but it seemed she had nothing more to say about the man or her car.
When Cole turned off the highway and they began the long winding drive to White Oaks through the isolated valley, he heard her inhale. She straightened her spine, gazed out the window, and seemed entranced by the mountains that rolled across the landscape on both sides of the narrow road.
“This valley is beautiful, and so off the beaten path. I feel like we’ve gone back in time,” she said.
He took in the scenery as if he were seeing it for the first time, like her. “It is pretty, isn’t it?” The notion struck him that he was starting to see things in a different light since meeting Lindy. What he took for granted, having grown up in the area, was beginning to look transformed through her eyes.
“How far is it to White Oaks?”
“A few miles down this road.”
“I can see why it became a ghost town. This would be a remote place to live.”
“Technically, White Oaks isn’t really a ghost town,” he informed her. “There are still a few families residing there. But there aren’t any businesses that cater to visitors except the saloon and dance hall.”
“Of course,” she chuckled. “A saloon would take priority over, say, a grocery store or a doctor’s office.”
Once they entered the town limits, Cole parked the truck at the miner’s cabin and museum. Lindy exited the pickup without waiting for him to open her door and stretched when she stepped outside.
“This became a mining camp in the late eighteen hundreds after three prospectors discovered gold,” Cole told her.
Her gaze extended down the dirt road where the box-shaped saloon stood, as well as the ruins of the Exchange Bank building, the jailhouse, and blacksmith shop. Foundations of other structures could be seen along both sides of the street. A panoramic view across dusty, cactus-dotted terrain offered a view of the four-room brick schoolhouse, the famed Hoyt House, and a few other residences that were scattered at the foot of the Patos Mountains.
“Pat Garrett was the sheriff here in the eighteen eighties, and Billy the Kid tried to sell some stolen horses in town,” Cole said. He pointed to a two-story home with a widow’s walk in the distance. “That house over there was supposed to have been the crown jewel of White Oaks. It was built by a miner named Hoyt for a lady from back east that he’d hoped would become his bride, but she turned him down and never came to New Mexico.”
When Lindy nodded politely, Cole raked a hand over his mouth. Why was he prattling on like an overzealous tour guide? “I sound like a blathering idiot,” he mumbled. Once again, he was acting like a kid with his first crush.
She shot him such a lovable smile his heart began to hammer against his ribs.
“I think you’re cute,” Lindy said.
“You do?”
She nodded again and began walking toward the miner’s museum. “And sweet.”
Cute and sweet. He wasn’t a puppy, but he’d take whatever compliments she wanted to throw at him. The painful throbbing between his legs would definitely not be described as either cute or sweet, however. Being near her worked him up.
Sooner than he expected, Cole heard the echoes of laughter drifting into his ears, as well as the grinding and grating noises of the tractor and hay wagon rolling into town.
“The rest of them are here,” he said, rushing to Lindy’s side. She was already traipsing up the stairs of the museum.
“Let’s sneak in here before they see us,” she said, tugging on his arm and pulling him into the small house.
Gladly, he followed.
Displayed inside each of the small rooms were period pieces of furniture, clothing, toys and dishes that showed the way people had lived during the boom time. Cole silently followed Lindy’s footsteps as she quickly padded from room to room. “This is interesting,” she said, obviously forcing interest into her voice.
The tractor and hay wagon ground to a shuddering halt outside. A few minutes later, they could hear the Painted Pony wranglers giving instructions to the guests as they disembarked the hay wagon. “Isn’t that Cole’s truck?” someone asked.
“Looks like it,” Sandy replied.
Cole peeked out one of the wavy glass windows and saw Sandy gazing around. He placed a finger to his lips and gently pulled Lindy away from the window so they couldn’t be seen. He had no desire to join the group today and hoped Lindy didn’t either. With their backs pressed flat against an interior wall, he listened as Dalton began giving the Reader’s Digest version of the history of White Oaks.
“You’re a much better tour guide than Dalton,” Lindy whispered, reaching for and finding his hand. Their fingers entwined, and she tilted her head up. He could practically feel her body humming as her deep brown eyes gazed into his, singing a siren song. When she flicked her tongue over her bottom lip, heat crawled up his neck and sent him shivering with lust.
Without thinking—only reacting—Cole wheeled her in front of him in one fluid move. He put his arms around her narrow shoulders and drew her into the solid muscle of his chest. When he claimed her lips, she answered him back passionately, greedily. Soft as butter, her breasts and pelvis melted into him, and it was hard to feel where her body began and his ended.
They parted to breathe. Cole stroked her hair under his palm. “Lindy, you’re beautiful.” The words flew from his mouth without thought.
Dalton’s deep voice shattered the magical moment. “Step to your left, folks, and we’ll enter the miner’s museum first.”
Lindy’s gaze widened. “I don’t feel like hanging with the group today,” she whispered.
“Me either. Let’s go out the back,” Cole said, dragging her behind him. He rattled the knob. The door was locked, but for some reason, the window next to it was unlocked. Cole calculated the sill to be about two feet above the ground. It would be easy to crawl out without getting injured. Making quick time, he shoved the window up, hunched over and heaved his weight outside, nearly falling in the process.
Lindy giggled and leaned into his open arms. He pulled her out of the window just as the group entered through the front door. Holding hands, Cole led her to the corner of the house where they quietly waited until all the guests and wranglers had entered the house.
“This isn’t much of a ghost town,” Lindy murmured. “I’ve already seen enough. Is there so
mewhere we can go to be alone?” That word was emphasized. Her eyebrows arched, and her lips curved into a clever smile that hinted at an invitation.
What was she suggesting? Cole’s mind swirled with endless possibilities. He nodded and squeezed her hand tight and jerked his head, indicating for her to follow him. On his signal, they dashed to the truck, jumped in, and he stuck the key in the ignition as she slammed her door. The engine roared, and he turned the pickup in a semi-circle and pushed hard on the gas pedal.
“Whoo-hoo!” Lindy laughed, as the wind whipped her hair into her face.
As Cole aimed the truck for the road, he glanced to his left and saw T.J. and a few other faces staring out the windows of the miner’s museum. Laughter erupted from his throat, and he smacked the steering wheel gleefully with his hand.
Running off like a couple of kids up to no good might have seemed juvenile to most people. After all, he and Lindy were in their thirties. But Cole didn’t care what people might think. It was all in good fun. And for the first time since meeting Lindy, she looked to be having the time of her life. Her hand was pressed to her stomach as she tried unsuccessfully to suppress her own laughter.
He depressed the gas pedal and tore down the road. To where, he had no idea. Should he propose going back to his place? Or was he reading more into her suggestion than he should? Maybe she only wanted to sit and talk in a quiet place. He turned his head and their gazes met. She winked. Or had dirt flown in her eye?
Nah. Definitely a wink. His mouth grew as dry as sandpaper. Was she implying she wanted to have sex? Right now, in the middle of the afternoon? His jeans tightened around his crotch and he gunned the engine.
Perhaps he could take her to the Rio Tularosa waterfall. The spot was picturesque and cool, and hidden among an enclave of boulders. But would it be private? Sometimes tourists went there. No good. Cole racked his brain as he raced down the road to the highway.
Did Lindy really want to have sex? Or just fool around? Some women were teases without trying to be. Maybe she did only want to talk. But her lifting her eyebrow in a provocative manner, the “you know what I’m talking about” smile, and the wink were absolute come-ons. How could he not think she wanted to make love?
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