The Wrangler and the Runaway Mom

by RaeAnne Thayne

  It was exactly the kind of lead he should follow up on. He’d be a fool not to—a good undercover man capitalized on every advantage he could find. So why did the idea of using the kid make him feel so sleazy?

  “Maybe later,” he finally said. “I think you ought to just stick around here for now. Your mom might worry if you’re not here when she gets up. Moms can be funny that way, you know.”

  The boy nodded solemnly, glumly. “Yeah, I know. I’m supposed to stay with my mom or with Cheyenne all the time. Stupid, huh? I’m not a baby. Heck, I’ll be six in fifty-three days. Old enough to go plenty of places by myself.”

  The impassioned speech was punctuated by a loud, mansize grumbling from the vicinity of the little boy’s stomach that had Colt biting the inside of his cheek.

  “You take time for breakfast before you headed out this morning, partner?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “Nope. We got nothin’ but bran muffins over there. Bran muffins stink.”

  “I’d have to agree with you there.” He paused for only a moment, knowing he had no choice but to try to befriend the boy. The quicker he finished this job, the quicker he could return to the ranch to salvage what was left of his vacation.

  It still left a sour taste in his mouth, but he ignored it

  “I bought some doughnuts yesterday. Think you might be able to do me a favor and help me out by eating one or two?”

  “What kind?”

  “Powdered with raspberry filling.”

  Clearly tempted, the boy looked first at his own trailer then back at him, chewing on his lip. Colt could just imagine the internal debate whirring through his head. Dr. Rawlings probably had a typical maternal—and medical—prejudice against the kind of sugary treats that lacked any nutritional value. Powdered doughnuts likely placed pretty high up on that taboo food list, which should make them damn near irresistible to a boy who would be six in just fifty-three days.

  “Sure,” he finally said. “Raspberry filling’s my favorite.”

  Ignoring the twinges of a conscience he thought had withered away from disuse years ago, Colt walked inside the camper and grabbed the box off the table, then as an afterthought, poured a glass of milk from the little refrigerator. Maybe the calcium in the milk would redeem him in Dr. Rawlings’s eyes for the doughnut.

  Yeah, and just maybe before they rode tonight, Scout might up and decide to recite the Declaration of Independence.

  Colt handed the plate and cup to the boy. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks, mister.”

  “You can call me Colt. I figure a guy ought to be on a first-name basis with somebody he shares a jelly doughnut with, don’t you?”

  “Sure. I guess so.”

  “What do folks call you?”

  “My mom calls me Nicky, ’cept when she’s mad,” the boy said around a mouthful of doughnut. “When she’s mad, she calls me Nicholas Michael Prescott.”

  Prescott, not Rawlings, the alias the embezzler’s widow was using on the rodeo circuit. Either she hadn’t explained to her son that they needed to use a different last name for a while or he was too young to grasp the concept. If the boy chattered this freely with everyone, DeMarranville and his crew would have no trouble tracking her down.

  Maybe they already had.

  A vague sense of unease scratched between his shoulder blades and he scanned the cluster of campers and horse trailers. No one else was out this early in the morning, but that still didn’t make him feel any better.

  He turned back to the boy, shaking off the disquiet. “So you want to be a cowboy, do you?”

  “Yep. My mom says maybe someday I can get my very own horse. Not back in San Fra’cisco, but somewhere else.”

  “You lived in San Francisco? That’s quite a ways from here. You miss it much?”

  Nicky nodded and bit off another chunk of doughnut. “I had a race car bed and a great big tree house, with a trapdoor and a treasure box. My mom helped me build it. She says maybe we can build another one at our new house.”

  “Where are you moving to?”

  His thin shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Don’t know. My mom says we’ll know when we get there. We’re playin’ gypsies this summer, she said.” He paused for a moment. “Hey, what’s a gypsy?”

  “Somebody who travels around a lot.”

  “That’s what we’re bein’, all right.”

  “What about your dad? Did he help you build the tree house, too?”

  A sad look crossed the little boy’s face. “No. I asked him to, but he never had time. He died.”

  Before Colt could answer, the door to the trailer across the way banged open, hitting the aluminum skin, then ricocheting closed. It was instantly shoved open again and a frantic voice resounded in the morning air.

  “Nicky? Nicky!”

  Maggie stood barefoot in the doorway in an oversize T-shirt that just skimmed her knees. Her wheat-colored hair looked soft and crumpled, in direct contrast to her terrified gaze scouring the surroundings in every direction and her chest heaving in panic like she’d just outrun the meanest bull on the circuit.

  Colt could tell exactly when she spied them, because a vast relief poured into those deep brown eyes, followed quickly by the beginnings of anger.

  “Nicholas Michael Pres—” she faltered for just a moment “—Rawlings. What are you doing out here?”

  “Eatin’ breakfast with my pal Colt.” The boy mumbled, taking another bite.

  She sent a scathing look in Colt’s direction, whether at him or at the box of doughnuts in his hand he didn’t want to hazard a guess.

  He nodded politely, deciding an aw-shucks demeanor might be the best course of action. “Mornin’, Doc.”

  “Good morning,” she snapped, then turned back to her son. “We have talked about this, young man. You know the rules. I have to know where you are all the time.”

  Nicky, in the middle of a swallow of milk that left a white mustache on his upper lip, sent her a bewildered look. “You know ’xactly where I am. Right here.”

  “I didn’t know where you were when I woke up. All kinds of terrible things went through my head.”

  A mischievous gleam appeared in his eyes. “Like that big ugly aliens came down in a UFO and grabbed me and took me back to their planet so I could be their slave and wash their dirty socks and stuff?”

  “Something like that. A little less dramatic, maybe.” Her stern expression softened, and she pushed a lock of hair out of her son’s eyes. “You really scared me, bud. Don’t do that again, okay? Wake me up before you go outside next time.”

  “Okay. Can I finish breakfast with Colt? He said maybe sometime he’d let me ride his horse. His name’s Scout.”

  “I’m sure Mr. McKendrick has things to do this morning,” she said, her voice coated with a thin, crackly layer of frost.

  “Not really. If the boy wants to see the horse, I’d be glad to take him down to the pens.”

  “Please, Mom? I’ll come right back, I promise.”

  “Not right now. Maybe I can find time to take you down to see the horses later.”

  “But Mom... ”

  “Later, Nicholas. You’re still in trouble for breaking the rules. Now go inside and wash your hands and face.”

  The boy opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again at the implacable look on his mother’s face, a look even Colt could recognize. Smart kid, he thought, then grinned when Nicky trudged up the three metal steps of their trailer with his bottom lip jutting out in a pout a rock star would have envied.

  As soon as her son was out of sight, Maggie turned back to Colt. She looked about eighteen years old in that T-shirt, he thought. That didn’t stop him from being curious about what was beneath it.

  “How is it?”

  He blinked at her. “How’s what?”

  She looked at him like he’d taken a hard spill from a horse and landed on his head. “Your shoulder. I asked how your shoulder is feeling this morning.”

  “Oh
. Good. It’s good. I was thinking maybe I’d ride tonight after all, since I’m feeling just fine this morning. What do you think?”

  “I think it would be extremely foolish, unless you want to reinjure your shoulder.”

  “Maybe I’ll see how I’m feeling later.”

  “That’s your decision, of course.” She paused for a moment, as if weighing her words, then spoke stiffly. “Look, Mr. McKendrick. Colt. I don’t want you to take this wrong, but I would appreciate it very much if you would stay away from my son.”

  He stared at her. Where the hell did that come from? “I just gave him a jelly doughnut and told him he could take a ride on my horse some time, Doc. It’s not like I offered him a fifth of Jack Daniels and some smokes.”

  She frowned. “I realize that. It’s just that he’s at a vulnerable stage right now. He—he lost his father recently.”

  “I’m sorry.” What emotion triggered those shadows in her eyes, those lines around her mouth? Grief for the husband she had lost or fear of the men who had killed him?

  He was willing to bet it was the latter. According to the dossier Lane had provided him with, she and the late accountant had been at the starting gate of what had been shaping up to be a nasty divorce.

  She looked away for a moment, and when she turned back, the clouds were gone. With a cool nod she acknowledged his condolences. “Even though his father wasn’t very... involved in his upbringing, Nicky has taken his death hard. I’m afraid he’s looking for a male role model.”

  “Lots of boys dream about being cowboys. I don’t see that there’s any harm in that.”

  “I’m afraid I do. He’s an impressionable little boy and he doesn’t need a—a saddle bum filling his head with all sorts of nonsense about the Code of the West and a cowboy’s honor.”

  So much for trying to ingratiate himself with her through a friendship with her son. He opened his mouth to defend himself but she went on as if she didn’t notice.

  “He’s been through enough. Please don’t compound a little boy’s pain by encouraging a friendship that will only end in heartbreak when you move on to the next rodeo.”

  With that she turned and walked into her trailer, leaving him frowning behind her.

  She had sounded like an absolute idiot.

  Later that night—after she’d taped a couple of bruised ribs, set a broken arm and bandaged a nasty gash from the wrong end of a bull on the final night of the rodeo—Maggie lay in her narrow bed in the trailer and replayed her conversation with Colt McKendrick.

  Please don’t compound a little boy’s pain by encouraging a friendship that will only end in heartbreak when you move on to the next rodeo.

  Okay, so she’d overreacted when all he had done was show a little kindness to a lonely little boy. He’d offered to let Nicky ride his horse, that’s all, not move in with him.

  He was probably exactly as he appeared—a down-on-his-luck cowboy searching for glory in the arena. Older than most of the wranglers she treated, true, with a maturity in those lines around his eyes, in the confident set of his shoulders, most of them lacked.

  So he was older than the norm. That didn’t mean anything. Maybe he was escaping a bad relationship, or, God forbid, the law.

  He was certainly attractive, in a raw, wild sort of way. Maybe it was that dark brushy mustache that made him look like one of those outlaws Nicky had become so enamored of. Butch Cassidy, maybe, or Jesse James. Dangerous and fascinating at the same time.

  Maggie rolled her eyes at herself. Didn’t she have enough to worry about without her hormones suddenly waking up from whatever internal cave they’d been hibernating in for the past few years? It was all she could do to take care of her son and perform her job each day without giving in to the panic always lurking around the edges of her mind. She didn’t have energy left to indulge in even a harmless flirtation.

  He had been awfully sweet with Nicky, though. She smiled at the picture the two of them had made this morning, sprawled out on the back step of McKendrick’s old camper: two satisfied males eating their empty-calorie breakfast in the morning sun.

  Nicky needed that in his life. Maybe not the empty calories, but the guiding influences of an older man. Even before she left Michael and moved them to their little apartment, he had been starved for male companionship. Michael had been too busy with his deals and his clients—and his other women, she later discovered—to pay much heed to his son.

  If Colt McKendrick wanted to give Nicky a little of the attention he needed so desperately, was she wrong to stop him? No. She wasn’t wrong. She didn’t even know the man. Until she did, she couldn’t trust him. Couldn’t afford to trust him.

  It was up to her to keep her son safe until she could earn enough money to help them settle somewhere.

  Once she could be certain the men who killed Michael had given up searching for her, she could find a job somewhere, get an apartment for them. With her medical experience, she should be able to find work anywhere. Maybe by fall, before the new school year began.

  Maggie gazed up at the dingy, water-stained ceiling of the trailer, suddenly struck by a powerful craving for her old life back. For the safety, the security she’d always taken for granted.

  She hadn’t been happy, married to Michael. Oh, she had loved him once. Or thought she did, anyway. She had been vulnerable when she’d married him, she now admitted—had been in her last year of residency when her mother introduced them, just a few months before Helen died after a long battle with cancer.

  Throughout her last days her mother had dropped not-sosubtle hints about what a fine young man he was—wealthy, successful, handsome—until Maggie agreed to go out with him more to make her mother happy than because she was interested in dating him.

  After Helen died, Michael had been a constant, supportive presence. He had been charming and attentive, and she had soaked it in like a flower starved for rain.

  She had known almost from the first that she had made a grave mistake, but by then she was pregnant with Nicky, so she’d done her best to make the marriage work.

  For all the good it did her. All that had changed six months ago when she’d found out about the lies, the women. And the safety of her life had been destroyed forever when she had watched Michael topple to the floor of his office with a bullet hole in his forehead three weeks ago.

  She didn’t want to think about that night, the night when everything she thought she could count on had crumbled to ashes. She had rushed to the house of Rosie Vallejo, her former housekeeper and Nicky’s long-time care provider, and her first thought had been to call the police to report the murder.

  She remembered waiting, shivering in delayed reaction, in Rosie’s humble living room, for the officer to arrive. But when the car pulled up, some latent survival instinct prompted her to look out through the curtain. To her horror, the men climbing out of an unmarked late-model sedan in the driveway were the two she had seen from the elevator after the murder.

  The only explanation she could come up with for their presence at Rosie’s house was that they must have found out where she was from her call to the police.

  She’s a loose end. You know how much I hate loose ends, the older man had said in that cold voice.

  She had barely managed to grab Nicky and flee out the back door. Maggie frowned now, remembering the terror. She still didn’t know who the two men were. Maybe this DeMarranville person the two killers had talked about had sent them as some sort of backup to Carlo and Franky. A grim contingency plan.

  Regardless, she had rushed back to her apartment to grab some belongings and had discovered a message from Peg on the answering machine. Rawlings Stock was providing the animals for a show a few hours away from San Francisco, and Peg wanted to come to visit.

  The call had seemed heaven sent. Peg wielded a great deal of influence in the rodeo world, and Maggie had no doubt she could help her find work on the circuit, even mucking out stalls.

  She hadn’t had to resort to t
hat, fortunately. Peg had known of an opening in one of the rodeo sponsor’s sports medicine program, and her years of experience working at the clinic had qualified her for the position.

  She had jumped at the chance. It was the perfect opportunity for her and Nicky to hide from DeMarranville’s men until she could earn enough money to make a new start somewhere safe. Amid the transient life of the rodeo circuit, she could become anonymous, with a new assignment in a different town every week.

  She hoped it would be the last place anyone would think to look for her, since Michael had insisted she keep that part of her past—the summers she spent on the road with her rough-and-tumble father—a secret. It didn’t gel with the image he wanted his wife to portray, of quiet, wealthy elegance.

  He didn’t even like to talk about her work at the clinic, preferring instead to focus on her mother’s world of country clubs and society teas. The world where Maggie had never belonged.

  She shifted in the narrow bed as familiar shame pinched at her. She allowed Michael to completely dominate her present when she was married to him. How could she have let him so completely take over her past, as well, rewriting it to meet his own expectations?

  She had loved those times with her father. Maybe she had turned to the rodeo circuit as an escape now because it represented the best part of her childhood. A safe haven, even then. She had looked forward to her summers with Billy Joe with as much excitement as a prisoner handed a three-day pass to the outside. It was worlds away from the coldness, the studied politeness, of her life with her mother.

  She rolled over and punched at her pillow. The reasons weren’t important. The only thing that mattered was Nicky’s safety. If it meant keeping him safe, she would dress up like a rodeo clown and go head-to-head with Corkscrew, Peg’s nastiest bull.

  She yawned and glanced at her little travel alarm clock. Nearly 1:00 a.m. and they would be leaving early in the morning for the long drive to Butte, Montana.

  She needed sleep. Needed it and feared it at the same time. During the day she could forget, could block from her mind the memory of Michael’s death. But in sleep she was powerless against the terrors that stalked her subconscious.