“Drive on, Jeeves,” one of the triplets replied.
He couldn’t tell them apart, even though they all wore slightly different dresses in slightly different shades of blue or purple—or peri-friggin’-winkle as someone had corrected him earlier. The three were as alike as cookies from a mold, and they’d been dressing the same and confusing the hell out of everyone for two days now. Good thing they were sweet as chocolate and cute as baby lambs. Though they were hardly babies, he admitted.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Joely, you feeling safe enough with us?” A chuckle escaped. “Now that I have you out of the open I aim to get you to tell us about this would-be assassin from your childhood. You can’t get out of telling me anymore now that I’m within her sights.”
“For crying out loud.” She rolled her eyes but then smiled. “I should never have brought it up.”
“Are you talking about the Heidi story?” Another triplet giggled. “You have to tell him. It’s the stupidest funny story he’ll ever hear.”
“Darn right,” the first triplet said. “One thirteen-year-old attempting to kill another using a skunk? It never gets old.”
“I suppose,” Joely said. “It is the story of one of the world’s true masterminds. And in fairness you did ask if you needed to beware of her.”
Skylar Thorson leaned forward between the front seats. “What’s the Heidi story?”
“It’s ridiculous is what it is,” Joely said.
“It’s entirely book-worthy.” Laughter spilled from the third triplet, who sat in the far rear of the van. “I might just try my hand at a murder mystery where that’s the killer’s signature. When I start my next career as an author.”
Skylar tapped Joely’s shoulder, grinning already. “Tell me!”
“It was fourteen years ago.”
“It was her first beauty pageant.”
“It was not a beauty pageant, Kel,” Joely said adamantly.
Kelly—in the light blue dress. Alec made a mental note.
“It was a made-up competition to see who could be princess attendant of the high school rodeo team. Something extra between being junior and senior princess. Practically every junior high girl entered, so it wasn’t anything that cool. All you had to do was sell the most Rodeo Booster buttons. If you did, you got to ride your horse around the arena during the fall high school rodeo and then be the official helper to the senior princess and the high school rodeo queen.”
“Was it a big deal?” Skylar asked.
“I thought it was kind of ridiculous to tell you the truth. Sell buttons, be a sort-of-a-queen. It was so lame, as we used to say, but it was something to do for the heck of it. Heidi, on the other hand, wanted this more than anything and worked her butt off. She even semicheated by offering sales on the buttons and free gifts if people bought them—like mini candy bars and things. She’d been a junior princess in grade school and had been trying for three years to get this title, too. She had a step-by-step plan for her life: junior princess, attendant, senior princess, high school rodeo queen, Miss Rodeo America. As far as she was concerned, there was no other career track back then.”
“But you beat her, right?” Skylar clasped her hands beneath her chin as if praying for the happy ending.
“By thirteen buttons.”
“Thirteen was her unlucky number!” Skylar sat back in her seat. In the rearview mirror Alec watched her grin as if all of this was just unfolding. “I’ll bet you didn’t cheat.”
“It’s embarrassing to admit now, but I didn’t even really try all that hard. My dad just knew a lot of people, and we went into town a lot. I asked anyone I met, but I honestly didn’t expect to win. I don’t remember the details anymore, but when I did end up winning and Heidi had lost her last chance? I was shocked, and she was steaming mad.”
“So Heidi threatened to kill her,” Kelly said. “Nobody would have paid any attention, except she said it, screamed it really, right in front of the whole gymnasium full of kids and families. We were all, what, ten or so?” She looked from Grace to Raquel, who nodded as one.
“Seriously?” Skylar nearly choked on laughter. “If we said anything like that today, we’d get hauled out of school in handcuffs.”
“I don’t think it came out like ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ” Joely said. “It was something on the order of ‘You stink so bad Joely Crockett. You deserve to die like a stinky skunk, and I know where there’s a family of them. I should put them all in a room with you and kill you with their smell.’ ”
“The really ridiculous thing is, she actually did try,” Raquel-or-was-it-Grace said. “She had three brothers. The oldest one was a pretty creepy guy who’s long gone from Jackson, thank goodness. He was the one who helped her catch two juvenile skunks and sneak them in Joely’s open window.”
Alec turned his head and stared at Joely in disbelief. “That must have been ugly.”
“It was, although I only lost a fake bearskin rug, a pair of boots, and the dust ruffle on my bed. It didn’t kill me because even though they put a towel under my bedroom door, they forgot to close the window all the way.” Joely laughed. “It could have done a lot more damage. Fortunately, the animals were young and only had tiny stinks. Dad and Skylar’s grandpa, Leif, live trapped them and sealed the trap in an airtight container long enough to release the little guys.”
“I hope that Heidi person got into a lot of trouble,” Skylar said.
“She did. She never forgave me for that either.”
“And there was karma,” Kelly said. “Joely went on to win both the senior princess title and the high school rodeo queen competition. The year after that, she was homecoming queen. Every time, Heidi was first runner-up.”
“All right!” Skylar pumped her fist in the air.
“What about Miss Rodeo America?” Alec asked.
Joely shook her head. “I never competed for it. Someone talked me into participating in the Miss Wyoming pageant and then I won so—”
“I remember when you won!” Skylar said. “My whole family was there!”
“I remember that, too.” Joely looked back at the girl. “That was really special.”
“So did you become Miss America, too?” Alec asked. “Did I miss that?”
“It would have been Miss USA, but no. Thank heavens. Way, way too much pressure.”
“She was in the top ten, though,” Kelly said. “And she got to have a really big stage for her platform, which was preventing animal abuse. She shut down a half dozen abusive facilities throughout Wyoming that year.”
“I didn’t personally do it. I just told people about them. It’s true, that was a great vehicle for promoting something I felt strongly about.”
“Two small poultry operations, three super-awful puppy mills, a man who had fifteen or so starved and neglected horses, and one fox farm where they were electrocuting the foxes by—”
“Stop!” Joely cut Kelly off with a sharp order. “I don’t need to relive it—I saw it in person.”
“I’m impressed,” Alec said. “An animal rights advocate. Brave indeed.”
“I wasn’t affiliated with any organization,” she said. “I was generically for the rights of animals not to be abused. My platform was that we humans are supposed to be the smart mammals—but instead we can be downright cruel sometimes.”
“Is this a soapbox?” he teased.
She bristled visibly, and her ruffled feathers pleased him. She did have fight beneath the passive, slightly depressed face she presented in her wheelchair.
“And what if it is?”
“I say stand on it,” he replied. “Sounds like you know how.”
He could tell she was going to snap at him again—he already recognized the quick set of her lovely mouth and the storm settling in her eye. She apparently hated even oblique references to her standing or moving like a normal person, no matter that they were inadvertent and intended as compliments. Somebody, or several somebodies, had allowed her from the start to
assimilate with her wheelchair like a Star Trek Borg. She now considered using crutches an unpleasant way to move and barely considered standing as feasible, despite being able to manage both with help.
He didn’t see Joely as a diva, but clearly she’d gotten used to things being easy for her throughout her life, with her gorgeous face, beauty pageants she couldn’t lose, and her family’s overprotectiveness. She was stuck and wallowing in her circumstances now with no tools that would allow her to dig out of the defeatism. He wouldn’t pull rank on her yet, but he could see that others seemed blind to the fact she hadn’t accepted hard work as her only way forward. Maybe he’d be the one to give her an object lesson in fighting for herself. Maybe not. But somebody had to tell her that no crown was going to appear on her head and make this reality show all better. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like it would be her family. They clearly adored her too much.
“Didn’t you want to be a veterinarian?” Skylar asked, interrupting any words Joely had been going to let fly. “I remember that from your Miss Wyoming interview.”
“Do you have, like, an eidetic memory or something?” Joely asked. “That was five years ago.”
“No.” Skylar scoffed at her. “I remember because I used to want to be a vet, too, but I can’t do math, so I’d never get into vet school. Say, can you learn how to have an eidetic memory? Then I wouldn’t suck at math, and I could be a vet.”
Laughter broke the last of the tension that had started to form. Out of the mouths of babes, Alec thought, often came logic so warped it made sense.
“I wanted to be strictly an equine vet,” Joely said. “But my dad made me see that horse and small animal veterinarians didn’t have much use around here. When you live in cattle country on a cattle ranch, you need to concentrate on cattle—even take a public health or food production specialty. That wasn’t my thing at all, so I gave that idea up and went for saving all animals with a soapbox instead of with medicine.” She sent Alec a sideways micro-glare. “It’s all for the best. I suck a little at math, too.”
“You do not!” Kelly said.
“Okay. Maybe it was organic chemistry.” Joely scowled and turned back to stare out the window.
“You’re hilarious.” Kelly snorted. “Harper was the artsy fartsy one, you and Mia were the scientists. You even studied animal science. I figured you just changed your mind about vet school.”
“Let’s go with that.”
There was something in Joely’s tone—a weak undercurrent of anger, a note of resignation—that told him she was done with the whole subject of vet school, even though her answer was clearly sarcastic. The woman was growing more intriguing with every passing mile.
ALEC STOOD ON the expansive, multi-tiered back deck at Rosecroft and couldn’t help the sense of amazement that hit every time he visited. All a person had to do was walk into the little foothills town of Wolf Paw Pass adjacent to Paradise Ranch lands, and the reputation of the Crockett’s legacy crashed into him. Whether it was the picture of Eli Crockett in the general store he’d started, the map of the area with Paradise boundaries outlined in red hanging in the post office, or talk of the new, successful windmill farm on the enormous spread’s southeastern border, Alec had heard enough about the fifty-thousand-acre spread by the first time he’d visited to be awed.
It was impossible to truly get the scope of the place, Gabe had told him, until you went on a fence-checking mission that required days in a pickup or on a four-wheeler, or got a view of the endlessly varied landscape from the seat of a plane or helicopter. Seventy-eight square miles of grassland, wooded foothills, mountainscapes, and beautiful creek bottoms were deserving of all the reverence they received.
Alec had neither ridden the fence lines nor seen Paradise from a plane, but he partially disagreed with his old army buddy. Just looking toward the Grand Teton massif sixty-five miles distant, his jaw dropped knowing the space in between had been privately owned for almost a hundred years by the family surrounding him. He couldn’t fathom the freedom or the responsibility such ownership offered and required. His childhood on the streets of Minneapolis had been the exact opposite of free until he’d gone to live with an uncle and cousin in Wisconsin at age fourteen.
He’d learned the value of hard work on his uncle’s small dairy farm and had gotten his only freedom when his cousin had introduced him to local rodeos. He’d been as shocked as anyone to learn a skinny kid from a big city had a natural talent for roping and riding bucking horses. The rest, as the cliché went, was history. He’d run away to the professional rodeo right after high school and loved it. From Wyoming to Texas he’d lived in wide-open spaces just by moving around.
Just until 9/11 had changed the world for everyone.
He stood now on an impressive multiple-level deck at the back of Rosecroft, the name of Paradise’s main house, two glasses of wine in hand, and stared at Grand Teton. For all his travels, he’d never been to the national park. He’d always intended to take his favorite horse and spend several weeks exploring the countryside in each of several parks—he’d had a list. But the list was long lost—along with his favorite horse. He hadn’t dared bring up the lost horse subject with Joely. From what he’d heard that was a taboo subject, but it was something they had in common.
“Hi there, cowboy.”
He turned at the sound of the sweetly pitched voice and came face-to-face with Skunk Girl. With a swift mental kick and a quick bite to the inside of his cheeks to stop a laugh, he managed a friendly smile.
“Hi back. It’s Heidi, if I recall.”
“Ooh, very good!”
She was a stunner, he had to admit—the kind of platinum bombshell he’d practiced all those pickup lines on years ago. Taller than Joely by a solid four inches and leggy even in her red strapless dress that came, sort of modestly for her personality he thought, to her knees, she looked like she would still knock the socks off a pageant judge in a swimsuit competition.
“You came through the receiving line at the end—made it easier to remember.”
A slightly crestfallen shadow flit through her eyes, as if it bothered her he hadn’t simply remembered her for being fabulous.
“Is one of those for me?” She leaned a hip provocatively against the deck rail and lifted the corner of her full, red-as-her-dress lips in a flirty tease as she eyed the wine glasses in his hands.
Alec kept a sardonic smile from his face with effort.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, these are spoken for. Another has caught my bartending affections, I’m afraid.”
“So sad.” She sighed. “Well, perhaps your drink card will have an opening a bit later in the evening? I’m a big fan of yours. It would be a treat to get to know you better.”
“I’m honored to have you say so, but I believe the evening is pretty full. If things change you’ll be the first to know.”
A good pickup man also learned how to fib smoothly.
“Who’s the lucky girl? Your wedding partner I presume?”
As if it was any of her business, he thought. On the other hand, nothing could really be hidden at a wedding reception, so no point in making a scene over her forwardness.
“No.” He leaned closer and whispered as if imparting a huge secret. “As a matter of fact I scored the matron of honor. I understand she’s an old friend of yours.”
Heidi’s features went through a complicated set of emotional contortions, and she ended up, somehow, with sympathy.
“Isn’t it just so, so sad about Joely? The poor girl. She used to be so attractive.”
“You don’t think she is any longer?” The hairs on the back of his neck stood up in defensive annoyance.
“Goodness no, I didn’t mean it like that.” Heidi backpedaled with easy composure. “I just know she’s had a difficult time coming out in public, and I can understand. She looks so different.”
“Oh?”
“She was cute as a bug’s ear, let me tell you.” Heidi shook her head. “But I’m glad s
he’s doing better. It’s so good of you to try and make her feel comfortable. The perfect wedding date. I’d say she is a lucky girl.”
“Or I’m the lucky man. Heidi, it was nice to see you again. Enjoy the rest of the wedding.”
“And you be sure to come and find me if you have a free moment. I’d love to hear about your rodeo days, Mr. Morrissey.”
A sure-fire way to make certain he never shared that drink with her, he thought, as he faked a friendly wink and headed away from the scenery, mountain, and woman to find Joely.
She was seated not in her wheelchair but at one of the tables set in the spacious yard, close to the rented dance floor and DJ table. She watched him approach, mild amusement in her eyes.
“I see you had a chance to formally meet Miss Heidi,” she said, when he set the glass of Chardonnay in front of her. “I have to say, you two would make beautiful babies.”
He nearly knocked the glasses over as he stumbled into a chair. “Excuse me? What the hell?”
She laughed. “Okay, that was a test. If you had agreed with me, I was planning to slug you.”
“I don’t think we know each other well enough for that.”
She shrugged. “True that. I think I would have enjoyed it, though.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more accommodating.”
Her smile warmed him. He liked seeing her relaxed and comfortable rather than defensive and reclusive.
“I’ll get over it,” she said.
“Whose seat am I taking?” He looked around the table at four purses scattered on the denim-colored table cloth, and a few shawls on chair backs.
“Nobody who’ll care. Mom, Grandma Sadie, Russ Wainwright.”
“Which purse is his?” Alec grinned.
She didn’t acknowledge the ridiculous line with more than a long-suffering glance. “Everyone is off getting drinks. Thanks for the wine.”
“My pleasure.”
“Look.” She straightened in the chair. “I know you’ve been asked to act as my personal guardian angel and slave tonight, but I don’t need you to babysit me. I’m just fine. You’re free to go hang out with your friends.”
The Bride Wore Starlight Page 6