Cowboy Sing Me Home

by Harris, Kim Hunt

  He studied the page for something that came in ‘their’ color, and jabbed a finger at it. “Personally, I really, really like this one.”

  She cocked her head and smiled. “Really?”

  “Oh, Good Lord, yes.” He prayed silently for some mild form of natural disaster that would get him out of here. “It says everything I want to say in a matchbook.”

  She studied the catalogue, then turned that dimpled grin at him, the one he’d used to think was so cute. “Luke, that is so sweet. You don’t know how much it means to me that you’re getting involved in all this. It proves to me you really do care.”

  He felt guilty then, and tried to remind himself that this was what he’d intended: to go through the motions and say all the right things, and eventually they would become real, and he wouldn’t have to pretend anymore.

  But not tonight. Tonight it was all he could do to put his arm around her shoulder when she snuggled up next to him. That was as close as he’d been able to bring himself to her, since she’d broken the news of her pregnancy to him. Their few attempts at a kiss had ended clumsily and awkwardly when he realized she made his skin crawl. He’d been able to bow out of anything more intimate by citing concern for the baby, although she assured him the doctor said it was perfectly safe, and tried to entice him with stories of pregnant women’s enhanced libido.

  She filled in her order sheet and then consulted her list. “Okay, all that’s left are the table arrangements and the music.”

  Thinking of music, of course, made him think of Dusty, and he decided he couldn’t take any more tonight. “Sounds great. Let me just run to the bathroom, and we’ll get started on that.”

  In his bedroom, he picked up the extension and called the sheriff’s office. Joanne, the dispatcher, answered. “I sent him home,” Joanne told him when he asked for Toby. “Nothing going on here, so I told him I’d watch the prisoner while he went home and had dinner with his wife.”

  Luke started to ask her to what he had planned to ask Toby, but decided that, since she was a woman, she might not have much sympathy for him. Instead, he thanked her, pressed the receiver, and then dialed Toby’s house. “You have to get me out of here, man. Call me in a minute and say you need me for some emergency.”

  “Had enough wedding plans for one night, have you?” Toby laughed.

  “I’m telling you, another fifteen minutes of this and I’m going to shoot somebody. Maybe her, maybe myself, I don’t know. But somebody.”

  “What should I say when I call?”

  “I don’t care what you make up, as long as it’s something bad enough that I have to leave immediately. And if you could think up something that would require me to leave the country for a few years, that would be good, too.”

  He could still hear Toby laughing when he hung up. And when Toby called back – twenty minutes later, the stinking rat – he was still laughing.

  “How’s this? We’ve got a car chase out west of town and we need your help.”

  “Uh-oh. No, you’re right, that’s not good. Not good at all.” Luke turned and offered an apologetic grimace to Melinda, keeping the phone tight to his ear so she couldn’t hear Toby cackling. “Well, we’re right in the middle of selecting place cards, but if you need me…”

  He hung up and did a frown and head-tilt number to Melinda. “I’m sorry. Something’s come up and I have to go. We’ll have to finish up later.”

  “That’s okay. I suppose I’m going to have to get used to this, if I’m going to be married to a law man.”

  Yeah, get used to it, Luke thought grimly. Because after we’re married I plan on working a lot of overtime.

  He drove around and gave Melinda enough time to get home. He was in no mood to go back home, so he drove down by Rain Fest. The booths were closed, for the most part, just a few vendors closing up shop for the night. He wandered the streets until he realized that what he really wanted to do was head his pickup north, for Trailortopia.

  He sat at the stop sign at Highway 9 and Main for five full minutes, letting the pickup idle and his mind wander. He wasn’t doing very well so far in his decision to put Dusty out of his mind and accept his future with Melinda. In fact, every minute in Melinda’s presence only made him think of Dusty more. He could imagine right now how it would be, walking up to Dusty’s door, her opening it and smiling down at him, that sultry smile, the light behind her casting her hair with a golden halo. He imagined stepping up and inside, taking her slim body in his arms, backing her up against her table and kissing her until she was limp and draped back over it. He would love her there, pushing aside her papers, pushing into her until she cried out his name. He imagined waking up next to her, curved around her body, hearing that smoky laugh in the dark, sharing the events of their day. He thought about Dusty in his house, in his life, on a daily basis. In short, he realized with a shock as he sat at the stop sign, so stiff and hard he hurt, he thought about forever. Forever. A concept he’d avoided like a man with a phobia.

  The irony of the situation was not lost on him. The joke was on him, now. He’d finally met the woman who made him think about forever, at the one time in his life when he was not free to pursue it.

  Too tired to even sigh, Luke turned south and drove to the office. Joanne had sent Toby home so he could be with his family; he might as well let her go home to hers. His mind was still on Dusty and Melinda and their unborn child, who was now no bigger than the matchbooks he and Melinda had just picked out. So when he first pulled up to the station he didn’t notice the car bumper that peeked out from the edge of the building, and he almost didn’t see it.

  Probably just a couple pulled back there to make out. But it wouldn’t hurt to check, just in case the girl was back there against her will. He grabbed his flashlight from its holder by the seat and headed to the back alley.

  He was almost to the corner when he heard two male voices.

  “Hold that box still and I’ll climb onto it.”

  “That box is not going to hold your weight. Here, put your foot in my hand.”

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t go through the front door. No one’s watching.”

  “Because, if we go out the front, we have to circle the building to get back here. And yes, these guys are a bunch of inbred Bubbas, but I still don’t want to give them any more chances than we have to. I took enough chances coming through the front door.”

  Luke plastered his back against he side of the building and pulled his gun. He craned his neck to see around the corner. Wayne stood with his feet spread, his knees bent and his hands laced together. Kenny was halfway out the window, his foot waving around in the air looking for Wayne’s hand.

  Luke rounded the corner, his gun braced in his clasped hands in front of him, and watched quietly as Kenny put his weight on Wayne, Wayne dropped him, and they both stumbled around, cussing each other and bumping into the garbage cans.

  Once they were upright and quieted down, they turned. To see Luke standing under the light, his gun drawn and pointed at them.

  “I can’t believe you’re trying to escape my hospitable jail. Have we not been good hosts? Did I not keep you fully stocked with reading material and soft drinks?”

  Wayne glared at him, his hands half up. Kenny made a high-pitched whining noise, choked, then fell into a coughing fit.

  “You should have stayed on the right side of the law, Kenny. You’re not cut out for a life of crime. What did you do to Joanne?”

  “She’s tied up inside. She’s fine.”

  “She’d damn well better be. All right, both of you down on the ground, hands behind your back.”

  Kenny hit the ground so fast he grunted on impact. Wayne bent his knees a little, but stayed upright. He looked at something over Luke’s shoulder.

  The hairs on the back of Luke’s neck raised. He whirled, just in time to see a wrench arc down, and crash into his skull above his right eye.

  Luke’s world exploded into brilliant colors and sickening pa
in. The earth tilted, and everything went silent.

  He didn’t think he was unconscious, but at the same time he didn’t remember lying down, and now he had a face full of gravel and couldn’t seem to lift his head.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Wayne yelled.

  “Is he dead?” Kenny shrieked. “Did you kill him?”

  Luke was strangely curious about the same thing. His face was cold, and he couldn’t feel anything except the gravel against his cheek.

  “We’d better make sure.”

  Luke didn’t recognize the voice, but it obviously belonged to the man who’d hit him. He struggled to get his gun back up, but his fingers were numb, and they felt like they gripped the gun through fourteen layers of cotton batting.

  He managed to get his head turned in time to see the third man standing over him. The streetlight was behind the stranger, so Luke couldn’t make out his features, but the cool way he studied Luke, the calmness with which he raised his own gun made Luke’s blood freeze in his veins.

  Luke lurched up with all his strength, but only managed to get his leg raised. The bullet exploded and hit him with the force of a punch from King Kong. His leg dropped back to the ground.

  “Now I’ve killed him.”

  Luke wasn’t sure, but he thought the man might be right.

  The man strolled to the car as Kenny and Wayne screamed, “Come on. Come on!”

  Just before he lost consciousness, Luke realized the song the man was whistling was “I Shot the Sheriff.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dusty put down the book she was pretending to read. She hadn’t turned a page in half an hour.

  She glanced at the clock again with a sigh of disgust. It was only 10:15. It was too early to go to bed. With her schedule, she was used to staying up until 3 or 4 am. And she didn’t want to get out of her routine just because…

  Just because she’d seen Luke holding a pair of baby shoes? And had been unable to stop replaying the scene in her mind since?

  “This is stupid,” she said out loud, and then, because it felt so good, she said it again. “Stupid!”

  So he was getting married. Big deal. What possible difference should that make to her? Yes, they played beautifully together, and she knew it wasn’t easy to find someone who fit her like that. That was important to her. No harm in admitting that. She was, after all, a musician, first, last and always. And sure, she enjoyed his company. That hadn’t changed. She was still going to be around him, no less now that he was engaged and about to become a – a father.

  Nothing had changed, she told herself. Nothing at all.

  So why did she have this feeling like she’d lost something very precious? Why was she sitting in her chair, sagging under the weight of a disappointment she couldn’t name?

  “It’s just the sex,” she said. Maybe if she said it out loud, the rest of her would agree. “I was prepared for a physical relationship and she interrupted it, that’s all. If she’d waited one more week, everything would have been fine.”

  Someone knocked on her door. Dusty was startled enough that she jumped in her chair and dropped her book. Her heart pounded painfully, and she stared at the closed door for a moment, wondering at the wisdom of opening it.

  It was Luke. She knew it was, could feel it. And if he looked at her like he had last night, she didn’t know if she’d be able to turn him away this time.

  He knocked again.

  She hesitated a moment longer, then reached for the knob, angry with him for putting her in the position and irritated with herself for being rattled.

  Except it wasn’t Luke on her step, when she opened the door. Stevie stood there looking up at her, his head at shoulder level.

  “Oh, good grief,” she said. Now that he knew Luke was out of the picture, he’d come chasing after her. “What is it?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  He looked sincerely so, and she felt guilty for being such a crab. “It’s okay.” Might as well get it over with. “What’s up?”

  “My dad has a police scanner in the garage, and we were listening to it while we looked at Mom’s carburetor.”

  Fascinating. She forced herself to nod as if she was interested.

  “So we heard when they called for the ambulance, and I called Corinne to see if it was true, and she said it was.” He swallowed and nodded.

  Ambulance. She didn’t want to hear any story that started with someone calling an ambulance, especially if the story was making Stevie look like he’d rather hit himself in the head repeatedly with a hammer than be here.

  She didn’t want to know, so she waited a full ten seconds before she finally said, “What was true?”

  “Luke got shot. At the jail. That guy was trying to break out and he shot Luke. I thought you’d want to know.”

  Dusty knew Stevie was still talking because his mouth kept moving and his hands gestured, but her world went silent when he said the word ‘shot.’ She stood and watched, but didn’t see, until finally he quit talking and looked at her like he was waiting for an answer.

  “Is he…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word. “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know. They were taking him out to the hospital when I talked to Corinne. I knew you’d want to know, so I thought I’d see if you wanted to ride out there with me--”

  He cut off when she shut the door behind her and marched past him down the steps.

  “Well?” She said over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Let’s go,” he repeated, and jumped down the steps to follow her.

  Dusty rode with her hands clenched. She kept hearing a tapping noise, and was surprised when she realized it was she, tapping her foot. She planted her feet on the floorboard and locked her knees, as if they would get there faster if she pushed.

  “How fast are you going?”

  “Almost seventy,” Stevie said.

  “Go faster.”

  Stevie pushed the accelerator further to the floor.

  “Who shot him?”

  “All I know is, they had a prisoner, and he broke out and shot Luke. The dispatcher got hurt, too. I don’t know how bad, for either of them.”

  “Did they catch the guy?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  Dusty pushed harder with her feet. It felt like they were crawling through the night, but eventually she saw the lights of the hospital up ahead. Stevie swung his pickup around to the back, where the entrance to the emergency room was. The lights of the waiting area were like a beacon, and Dusty was out of the pickup before Stevie had it completely stopped.

  She yanked open the door and headed for the first person she saw, Luke’s mother.

  “How is he?” Dusty asked.

  Helen Tanner shook her head. “We don’t know anything yet, we’re waiting for the doctor to come in and tell us. I just got here myself.” Her voice broke and she twisted her hands together.

  Instinctively Dusty reached out for her. The contact was awkward for Dusty; she wasn’t accustomed to any physical contact with another person. But Helen wrapped her arms around Dusty and seemed to draw some comfort from it, so Dusty hugged her back.

  Corinne came through the door with Cade on her hip. “How is he?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Helen said again. “They took him back there, and we’re waiting to hear.”

  “I just talked to Toby on his radio.” She shifted Cade to the other hip. “They’re trying to track down the kid who shot him, but he said it looked like they’d gotten a good ten minutes head start. He said they’d tied up Joanne too?”

  “Joanne’s got a bump on the head, but she’s going to be okay,” Helen said, sniffing back tears. “Geralyn Thompson came out a few minutes ago and said she was okay. She didn’t know anything about Luke. Does Toby know who shot him, or why?”

  Cade struggled in Corinne’s arms, and she put the toddler down. “He just said their prisoner had escaped. Eviden
tly he had some help, but Toby didn’t know from whom. But either the prisoner or whoever helped him escape shot Luke.” She moved forward and hugged Helen, and the three women stood in the middle of the floor, locked together.

  Cade stepped up to them, his big eyes anxious, and Helen managed a smile for him. “It’s okay, sweetie.”

  Corinne smoothed Cade’s hair, her eyes on Helen. “He’ll be okay, Helen. He’ll be fine.”

  “He has to be,” Dusty whispered, and didn’t realize she’d said the words out loud until Corinne wrapped an arm around her waist and hugged her tightly.

  Stevie came in with Claude Tanner.

  “How is he?” Claude asked.

  Helen took a step forward, and Dusty could feel her straining to move toward him, before she drew herself back. “We don’t know.” Helen frowned at him. “Where have you been?”

  Claude ignored the question. “What happened? Who shot him?”

  Melinda explained the situation again, and Helen grabbed Dusty’s hand. Together, the group stood in the small waiting room, wondering what had happened, when they would know something, and whether or not Toby had caught the men who had done this. Dusty stood silently, acutely aware that she had no real business being with this group, but grateful they allowed her here, anyway.

  She studied the dynamics of the group. Claude and Helen Tanner each took a side of the room, and Corinne and Stevie went back and forth between the two. Cade provided enough distraction to keep the tension in the room from exploding.

  Helen paced and chewed her lip, her brow furrowed. As she passed by Dusty, she turned to her, her face intent. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Caught off guard by the fervor in her voice, Dusty could only nod. Where else would she be? she thought inanely.

  “Luke cares about you, more than even he realizes. He’ll be very glad to know you’re here. When he finds out. When I go back there and talk to him and see him and tell him all his friends were here, he’ll be very happy to know…”

  Dusty hugged her again, and this time didn’t let go. When Colt and Becca came through the door – and more people Dusty recognized but didn’t know – Dusty stayed with her arm around Helen, two women who waited with their hearts in their throats and their nerves on edge. Dusty thought again of how she didn’t belong here, but none of these people seemed to notice that, and she wasn’t going to be the one to point it out. She stood with Luke’s friends and family and willed him to be okay with every ounce of strength she had.