Live Wire (Maggie #1)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  The pregnant mare somehow finds a higher gear, and the wind in Maggie’s face gives her the sensation that it’s driving all her troubles into the distance behind her.

  But then Hank and Wolf surge ahead, and it just feels like blowback in her face.

  Thirteen

  When Maggie trots Lily into the stable yard ahead of Hank and Wolf an hour later, Gene, Andy, and Paco are emerging from the main house. Her stomach growls. They’d missed lunch.

  The clop-clop of the two horses’ hooves is loud on the road. Gene turns toward it, sees them, and waves.

  “Look at you and Lily.”

  Maggie asks Lily to stop. She does, but manages a few cheater steps toward her paddock. “Yee-haw.”

  “Missed you this morning,” he says to Hank. “Minivacation?”

  “Yeah, right. I took Maggie on a tour.” Hank sounds defensive.

  Lily makes eager throaty noises that vibrate Maggie’s legs.

  Maggie holds her back. “My truck’s not ready.”

  “There’s fence damage again, out near Simon’s place. I need to check on Mom, but I can make repairs after.”

  Gene shakes his head. “A buyer called. He’s coming in to look at the three-year-olds.”

  Paco says, “Andy and I can mend the fence.”

  “Thanks,” Gene and Hank say in unison.

  A truck pulls up, a Rhodes Rough Stock magnet on the door.

  “What’s he doing here?” Gene asks, to no one in particular.

  Patrick Rhodes unfolds his large body out the driver’s-side door. He reaches back in the truck and first grabs his hat and jams it on, then retrieves a tissue-wrapped bouquet. Sunflowers with giant nodding heads. He nods at the men and walks up, spurs jangling, to Maggie and Lily. Paco and Andy exchange a knowing glance and hotfoot it for the barn.

  Patrick touches his hat brim. “Maggie.”

  “Hello, Patrick.” Maggie glances at a glaring Hank.

  “I saw these in town. They reminded me of you.”

  Maggie points at his left hand. “What does your wife think of you buying flowers for other women?”

  “I’m a widower.”

  “And a motherfucker,” Hank mutters.

  Maggie relishes the awkward tension. Serves Hank right. “Thank you. My favorite.”

  “Can I hold your horse? Or break your descent?” He reaches toward Lily’s face.

  She backs up with a snort.

  “Shh, girl.” Maggie pats her neck.

  Hank growls. “Lily stands for dismount on her own.”

  Maggie screws up her lip. Just what she wants—an audience as she tries to figure out how to get off. She swings her right leg over as she stands in the left stirrup. Then childhood memory takes over. She levers her upper body and stomach against the saddle for balance and kicks her left leg backward out of the stirrup. Free of the saddle, she hops to the ground.

  Which is much farther down than she expects, and she keeps going, right onto her fanny in the dirt.

  No one laughs.

  Maggie winces. “For my encore, I’ll dive off headfirst.”

  Patrick offers his left hand, the flowers clutched in his right. “Happens to the best of us.”

  “Liar.” She takes his hand.

  He lifts her to her feet and then some. She ends up closer to him than she likes and he keeps hold of her hand. She feels the eyes of Hank and Gene, and wonders how much of Patrick’s help is to irritate them, and how much is to woo her.

  She takes the flowers and her hand, then steps back. “Your jacket is in my cabin. I can run get it for you.”

  Patrick bows slightly at the waist. “Let me take you to dinner at the Wagon Box Inn tonight. You can give it to me then.”

  Maggie doesn’t remember Patrick as this courtly from yesterday. She stares into the bouquet. Hank has a date. She has no particular interest in Patrick, but why shouldn’t she go? It’s a free meal. She missed lunch. In affirmation, her stomach growls. And it seems like a good way to piss Hank off. “A girl’s gotta eat. What time?”

  “Six?”

  Lily bumps Maggie with her nose.

  “Whoops. I need to take care of my horse. See you then.”

  Patrick goes to his truck and drives away, leaving a heavy silence behind.

  Maggie tilts her chin up. She leads Lily to the hitching post by the tack room.

  “Just be sure to wear your new jacket tonight,” Hank calls after her.

  She wants to make a dramatic exit, but she remembers Bess and turns. “Crap. I have to call the dealership.”

  Hank rides over and hands Maggie his phone. To Gene, he says, “I’ll meet you at the outdoor arena in half an hour.”

  “Fine.” Gene shoots Hank a meaningful look that Maggie doesn’t understand. Then he walks to his four-wheeler and drives off.

  Maggie pretends she isn’t mulling over the look. She hits the number for the Ford dealership in Hank’s Recents. Hank and Wolf join Lily at the hitching post.

  When Maggie connects with the service department, the Southern mechanic says, “It sure ’nough looks like someone took a blowtorch to your driveshaft. It must have been holding on by a thread. Who’d you piss off?”

  “The list of people I haven’t pissed off is shorter. Are you sure it was sabotaged?”

  “Well, I wasn’t there when it happened, obviously, but that’s my guess.”

  “Do you have a replacement?”

  “No, ma’am. We don’t stock parts on those old-model pickups. You have to hunt down stuff like that.”

  “I don’t care where from, or what it costs. I just need it as fast as possible.”

  “We’re closed for the rest of the weekend, but I can get on it first thing Monday.”

  All the ma’ams are starting to grate on Maggie. He doesn’t sound that much younger than her. But between him and Andy, she’s starting to take the hint. Next thing she knows, someone will call her Grandma. “Can I pay extra for someone to stay late and do it? So it can be shipped today?”

  “Sorry, ma’am, it’s just me left in here. We actually closed fifteen minutes ago, and I gotta go.”

  “First thing Monday, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  After she thanks him, she hangs up and stomps in place double time for a few beats, shaking her fists. “They don’t have it. They won’t even start looking for one until Monday.”

  Wolf is already unsaddled and brushed out. Hank unbuckles Lily’s throat latch and removes her bridle. “Did I hear you say sabotage?”

  “That’s what the mechanic thinks. I don’t know.”

  “Shit. Do you know anyone who’d do that to you?”

  “Not in Wyoming.” Then she remembers the crazy chick who’d slapped Chet. Chet had said he’d seen his ex at the saloon. So she could have seen them together. Not appreciated it. Taken it out on Maggie’s truck. But with a blowtorch? It seems like a stretch. “At least, I don’t think so. Maybe a few in Texas.”

  “Wouldn’t necessarily have been here. Maybe someone wanted you to break down on the way here.”

  Gary? One of his exes? There was a Jenny last year. She’d shown up a few times at Gary’s when Maggie was with him. “Not out of the question.”

  Hank squeezes below his bottom lip. “I don’t like it.”

  The sabotage would bother her more if Maggie wasn’t most concerned about getting out of Wyoming. She paces in a tight figure eight, trying to come up with a solution that gets her on the road south today. Tomorrow at the latest. She doesn’t have one, and suddenly her eyes are hot. She’s screwed. Trapped in a front row seat to Hank’s relationship with Sheila.

  “I’ll check back into the hotel.”

  His voice is firm. “I want you here. It’s safer.” He disappears into the tack room.

  When he returns, Maggie says, “It’s not like it was a bomb. It’s just a part that fell out in the road. Even if it was sabotage, it wasn’t done to hurt me. I’ll be fine.”

  Hank’s voice i
s incredulous. “Someone took a blowtorch to your driveshaft. That’s not friendly, Maggie. Out here, you could break down where someone wouldn’t find you for days. Which I think could end real badly.”

  Hank has a point. Besides the sabotage, though—if that’s even a real thing—it’s going to cost an arm and a leg to get the part here. She’s not exactly cash rich. Which is ironic, since she inherited a ranch, a vintage Jaguar, a Warhol painting, and an extensive art collection from Gidget. But none of those jingle in her pocket. The money she’ll save on a hotel bill will go a long way toward fixing Bess.

  “If I have to stay here, then thank you.”

  “Think of it as a dude ranch vacation.” He grins at her with his damn dimples. She wants to poke them with a sharp stick. “Some people pay big bucks for a week at a place like this.”

  A week? She’ll flay herself alive if she has to spend that long suffering through the Hank-and-Sheila show. And that would just be more time for people to figure out she was the woman in Chet’s hotel room the night before his murder. Neither are things she wants any part of. Surely it won’t be that long. She can’t let it be. She needs to spend some time coming up with a Plan B, ASAP. Maybe look at plane tickets for her and shipping costs for Bess. To do that, she needs connectivity.

  She rubs Lily between her eyes. “I don’t mean to be a fussy dude guest, but can I get the Wi-Fi password and some lightbulbs?”

  Hank uncinches Lily’s saddle and hefts it off her back. Holding it in one hand, he removes her blanket with the other. “Wi-Fi password is Buffalo2002. Capital B.”

  Buffalo . . . which could be the town, the animal, or the Buffalo Inn where they’d spent their one night. In 2002. Which makes it pretty clear which it is. “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s an old password. Don’t make it into a big thing.” He won’t meet her eyes and rushes on to say, “I’ll bring you some lightbulbs after I check on my mom.”

  Dammit, she doesn’t want to feel this flicker of hope again. A smile threatens to break out. Ridiculous. She’s being ridiculous. “I’ll put Wolf and Lily up.”

  “Brush the sweat off her first. Check their water, too.”

  “Yes, sir, Sergeant, sir.” She salutes. It’s strangely satisfying to be asked to help. “I’d feel better about staying if you put me to work, actually.”

  “Aren’t you the eager beaver?”

  He has no idea. Maggie smiles. “I’m serious.”

  “What? Doing laundry? Chopping vegetables? Mucking stalls? We don’t have much call for a picker, of guitar strings or old junk.”

  “Any of those. Or I could refresh the cabins with stuff I find around here. Even pull a few items from my haul this week.” Maggie is surprised at herself. Where did that idea come from?

  He purses his lips. “Might be wasted on us guys. I’d say you could tackle the main house, but my mother’s been known to pepper unwanted visitors with buckshot. Or worse.”

  “I prefer my ass without holes. But think about it. I’ve got time on my hands.”

  Fourteen

  At the cabin, Maggie stops with her hand on the screen-door pull, Louise beside her. The front door is slightly ajar. She knows she closed it, because she’s paranoid in the land of single men and predators. Especially after her nightmares and Louise’s growling episode.

  “Inside, Louise.”

  The dog stares at Maggie but doesn’t move.

  “You’re no help.”

  Maggie pushes the door open further with her toe. Her neck prickles, and she rubs it with her hand. The sensation of eyes on her skin makes her feel exposed, naked. She turns slowly, her eyes darting and scanning for movement. Nothing. She feels foolish. Maybe the latch on the door is sticky. Or maybe someone brought her supplies and didn’t shut the door well.

  But as she steps into the cabin, her skin feels itchy all over. Like someone or something is watching. She leaves the big door open, and Louise darts in just before the screen door slams behind her. Maggie examines every item and surface, opening drawers, cabinets, and closet. Nothing appears disturbed.

  Then she kneels at her suitcase and rifles through it. Her hands feel hot and her chest cold. She knows instantly someone has been in her things.

  And her belt and buckle are missing.

  “No, no, no.” She paws through the suitcase again, searching for the hard metal that should be impossible to miss.

  It’s been her most prized possession all these years. She’s never misplaced it. The thought of it being gone is like losing Hank all over again. Louise whines and flops down against her leg. Maggie drops her head in her hands. She didn’t cry in Texas when she sent Hank packing. She didn’t cry when she learned about Sheila the other night. But now the tears come, ever so slowly, but they come. Once they start, they build and build until she’s sobbing, her back rising and falling, her breaths choking gasps.

  When the worst of it subsides, Louise licks her leg with darting tongue movements.

  “Stop it. No. Gross.”

  Louise withdraws a few inches. Maggie wipes her cheeks and stares into her messy suitcase. The tears dry up, but she’s in a trance of sorts, mulling over how much like this suitcase her life has become in such a short period of time. She had her shit together. She really did. Until six months ago. Now? She’s just as messy as it is.

  After what seems like an eternity, there’s a tap on the wooden frame of the screen door behind her.

  She swivels toward the sound and falls on her rump, vulnerable. Again. Then embarrassed.

  Hank sees her and pulls the door open a few inches. “I don’t remember that as a favorite position of yours.”

  “Whatever.” She rolls to her knees, then stands. Can he see her ravaged face in the dim light of the cabin? She’s glad for all the burned-out bulbs.

  “I brought you some stuff.” Under his arm is a package of lightbulbs and another box. In his left hand is a long gun.

  “There’s no need to shoot me.”

  Hank extends the rifle to her. “More like don’t shoot me. I thought maybe having this would make you feel safer. At night. With the critters and sabotage and all.”

  And the theft of the buckle. His buckle. She almost blurts it out. But if she tells him, he’ll see how it has gutted her. She’s not open to more humiliation a la Hank right now. So all she says is “Thanks,” and she takes the rifle.

  “This is a .300 Win Mag. A good all-around rifle for around here. Do you know how to shoot it?”

  Maggie’s father had the same gun when she was a girl, for deer hunting in the mountains, something he made a pilgrimage to do every year he could afford the trip. “Well enough.”

  He sets a box of ammunition on a low coffee table then holds up the lightbulbs. “I’ll just put these in your fixtures and be on my way.”

  Maggie sets the rifle in the corner near the head of the bed, butt to the ground. “I’ve got it.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  She reaches for the lightbulbs.

  He pulls them back. “Are you okay? Really.”

  She hesitates. Again, she almost tells him about the missing buckle, the open door, and the sensation of being watched. But she doesn’t want it to seem like she’s using drama to keep him around, and she can’t prove anyone was here, that she didn’t leave the door open, or that she hadn’t just misplaced the buckle. Hank has another life. One that doesn’t involve taking care of her. He’s had every opportunity since she arrived to express an interest in rekindling their relationship, and he hasn’t. She needs to get the hell out of Dodge with what’s left of her pride, not cry to him that she’s scared and ask him to fix it. Besides, since when has she admitted to being afraid of anything? Never, that’s when.

  “Really. I’m fine.”

  He points at her eyes, his hand brushing the skin of her cheek every so softly. “You’re kinda, um—”

  His touch is like fire.

  A gasp erupts from her. All her resolve, all her rationality is at ris
k in an instant. She chokes out an answer. “Allergies. It’s nothing.”

  The air between them grows thicker, and her vision turns hazy. Can he feel it, too? Electricity builds. She moves an involuntary step closer to him. He licks his lips. Yes, he feels it. She leans in until her lips graze his.

  He crushes his mouth against hers. She comes at him like a hungry lioness.

  Then his phone buzzes. He trips over his own feet jumping back from her, then swallows and pulls the phone from his pocket. Glances at it. His face falls.

  She grasps the lightbulbs and wrests them from him.

  He lifts the phone. “I shouldn’t have done that, music girl.” He uses the nickname he’d given her fifteen years ago. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  They stare at each other for a few seconds, then like smoke in the wind, he’s gone.

  Maggie’s brain is scrambled from the kiss. Did it mean anything? Does Hank regret it? She hates having to go out with Patrick in this state, but she’s hungry enough to eat her arm. If she just had some Miracle Whip to slather on it she probably would. What she should have done earlier is go in search of snacks at the main house, but she’d fallen asleep in the cabin dreaming of Hank with her laptop open, before she’d even tried out the Wi-Fi password, much less followed up on her plans to research travel options.

  So thank God she’d said yes to dinner.

  She sees Patrick’s truck roll past her window at one minute past six. She hadn’t told him which cabin is hers. She downs a shot of her dwindling Balcones before grabbing her bag and his coat. The sun is descending behind the mountains and the temperature has fallen twenty degrees since her ride with Hank earlier. She’s glad for the Double S jacket over her jeans and thin Johnny Was top. She touches her waistband. It feels barren without her signature buckle. Hank’s buckle. She touches her fingertips to her lips.

  Maggie exits the tape gate to the cabin’s yard. She waves at Patrick. He doesn’t see her. In the opposite direction, Hank’s truck appears, heading toward the main gate. He passes Patrick without either man raising a hand.