Cowboy Alibi

by Paula Graves

  “I don’t want to take the most direct route, in case anybody’s figured out where we’re headed.” He threaded his fingers through hers and led her down the alley toward the coffee shop where he’d left the Chevrolet.

  “SO, TELL ME about Rita,” Jane said as they crossed into Wyoming just after sundown the next day.

  Joe glanced at her briefly before returning his gaze to the highway. She’d been napping in the passenger seat since Pocatello, but he should have known he wouldn’t make it back to Canyon Creek without the subject of Rita coming up again. She’d been too hyped about the close call with Clint Holbrook on the long overnight drive to Twin Falls, and by the time they found a dingy motel where they could rest a bit before continuing on to Wyoming, her adrenaline rush was long gone. She’d been asleep before she hit the covers of the sagging queen-size bed in their motel room.

  “That bad?” she murmured, shifting in the passenger seat to look at him.

  “Rita was-briefly-my wife.”

  “Oh.”

  He slanted another look at her, taking in her furrowed brow and narrowed eyes. “It didn’t last a year. I really should have known it wouldn’t, but a man in love-”

  “So you were in love with her?”

  “I wouldn’t have married her if I weren’t.”

  “Are you still in love with her?”

  He hadn’t expected that question. “I suppose once you love somebody, there’s a part of you that always will. But Rita taught me a good lesson about love.”

  “What’s that?”

  He looked at her again. “Sometimes it’s not enough.”

  She turned her gaze back toward the windshield, falling silent. The darkness hid the craggy hills they were traveling through, as well as the towering grandeur of the Grand Teton Mountains to the north. It was a shame; Jane had loved the mountains, thrived on the harsh demands of the wilderness. She’d have enjoyed seeing them again.

  Unlike Rita, who’d scampered back East after the first big snowfall, Jane had helped his brother, Tommy, keep the ranch running through a rough Wyoming winter without complaint. It had been her grit that had convinced Joe that what he was coming to feel for her might last longer than a few short months.

  “Rita was a photographer,” he said aloud. “She freelanced. Fashion shoots, mostly. Some magazine pieces. She came to Canyon Creek on location for a big men’s clothing designer who wanted a Wild West theme for his next line. She came to city hall with the production manager to check on permits for the shoot.”

  “And you were there?”

  “I was there.” His voice softened in memory. “She was beautiful. Like something out of a magazine herself. Long blond hair, eyes the color of the Wyoming sky, trying to dress like a native and not quite pulling it off…”

  “Love at first sight?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “For her, too, or so she said.”

  “Did you follow her back East or did she stick around Wyoming?”

  “She said she loved it here, and I’d already done my time away from Wyoming. She decided to stay, see if she could get some work in the Jackson Hole area. She had a good portfolio. Folks in Jackson Hole were happy to give her work. We got married a month after we met.”

  “That fast?”

  He smiled at her surprise. “That fast. And you know, the first few months were wonderful. The first flush of love always is.”

  “What happened?”

  “It snowed.”

  Jane looked at him. “What?”

  “It snowed. Wyoming-style.” He could laugh about it now, with some time and distance. “She was from New Jersey, spent several years living in New York City. I tried to warn her about the snow, but she laughed at me. She knew about snow, she said.”

  “But not Wyoming snow.”

  “She didn’t understand how much there’d be. How it could limit life in a lot of ways for weeks at a time.”

  “So she left because of the snow?”

  “Well, that and the rich guy she met up at one of the Jackson Hole resorts. He offered to take her back East and make her forget her rash decision to marry a cowboy cop, and she took him up on it.”

  “Bitch,” Jane muttered.

  Joe laughed again. She’d said the same thing the first time he’d told her the sad story of Joe and Rita, almost a year ago. “She’s not. She just made a mistake. So did I. We were lucky to get out of it as easily as we did. We could have had kids to deal with.”

  Jane fell silent after that, her gaze turned back to the winding highway unfolding in the beams of the Chevrolet’s headlights. A light wind had kicked up as night fell, and to the east, the lights of Jackson cast a faint gray glow on the low-slung rain clouds gathered over the horizon. By the time they crossed the Snake River, rain had begun to fall in fat, sporadic drops. If they were lucky, it wouldn’t begin turning to snow before they reached their destination.

  Jane broke the silence a couple of minutes later. “Were you in love with me?”

  Joe tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He had figured this question would come sooner or later, once it became clear she was beginning to remember things about her life before Idaho. He’d just thought he’d have more time to think about it.

  “I thought I was,” he admitted.

  Just before his brother’s murder, he’d been thinking about asking her to marry him. It had been a big step, emotionally, to let himself think in terms of forever again. His first thirty-odd years hadn’t exactly taught him to believe anything could last a lifetime.

  But the woman he’d known as Sandra Dorsey had seemed to understand him. She’d appreciated his love of the land, had been patient with his emotional reserve. Time and again, she’d shown pluck and grit, two traits he admired. She’d been a good friend to Tommy and a tender, passionate lover to Joe. He’d wanted to believe that the secrets he saw in her eyes couldn’t hurt them.

  But they had.

  “Did I love you?” she asked.

  “You seemed to.”

  “But I’d told so many lies.” Regret tinted her voice.

  “Yeah. You had.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” Despite the dangerous circumstances-or perhaps because of them-being with her again had reminded him of everything that had attracted him to her the first time around. Her tough-mindedness. Her quick wit. Her kind heart.

  “How far to Canyon Creek?” Jane asked.

  “Another hour.” The ranching town nestled in a grassy valley southeast of Grand Teton National Park. Almost everyone in the area raised some sort of livestock-horses, cattle, some sheep. Many of the working ranches surrounding the town had added guest-ranch facilities for tourists looking for the authentic cowboy experience.

  “We’re not going to your place, are we?”

  “Not unless we want to get caught.” He eyed the thickening clouds overhead. “We’re going to see Canyon Creek’s deputy chief of police.”

  “ARE YOU sure we can trust him?” Jane asked as she huddled close to Joe for warmth. The wind had picked up, swirling under Jane’s collar and dotting her flesh with goose bumps, but luckily, the rain had held off so far, leaving them cold but dry on the walk to Riley Patterson’s sprawling ranch house from where they’d hidden the rental car in the woods a half mile down the road.

  “With our lives.” Joe slid the key into the backdoor lock and let them into the kitchen. A lone light over the stove shed a soft gold glow over the neat, old-fashioned kitchen. A gas heater hissed softly in the corner, drawing Jane to it like a moth to flame. She warmed her hands in front of it, emitting a soft moan of relief.

  Joe rested his hand on the back of her head for a moment, the touch gentle and affectionate. A rush of pleasure moved through her, warming her as surely as the heater. “Get out of that jacket. I’ll see what Riley has in the way of food.”

  Over a dinner of microwaved soup, she asked him more about his friend. “You said you grew up together?”

  “Our fat
hers were both members of the same cattlemen’s association. We both worked on our family ranches and took part in cattle drives to the summer grazing lands together. When I decided to be a cop, Riley thought it sounded like a good idea, too.” He chuckled. “His daddy never has forgiven me for that.”

  Jane finished her soup and took the bowl to the sink. Joe joined her there, drying while she washed. He put the two bowls on the dish rack by the sink, where they joined a couple of plates and three coffee mugs. His hand rested for a moment on one of the mugs, his brow furrowed.

  Jane glanced at the clock on the microwave. Almost 8:00 p.m. “Isn’t Riley working kind of late?”

  “He likes working late. Keeps his mind off-”

  “What?” she asked when he didn’t continue.

  “His wife Emily was a nurse-worked two twelve-hour shifts every weekend at a big hospital over in Casper. She didn’t come back one weekend. The Natrona County Sheriff’s Department found her car still parked in the hospital parking lot. A few weeks later, they found her body in a nearby lake.”

  “My God.” Jane’s forehead creased in sympathy.

  “They never solved the case. Drove Riley crazy for a while, but he’s back to himself now. Mostly.” Joe folded the drying cloth and laid it on the counter by the sink.

  He led her down a narrow hallway to a small room on the right. Joe turned on the light to reveal an iron-spindle bed covered with a colorful wedding-ring quilt.

  “I feel like Goldilocks,” Jane murmured.

  He looked at her, his lips curving in a half smile. “You remember Goldilocks?”

  “I think so. Little blond girl? Three bears? Porridge?” She chuckled when he nodded. “Amazing that I can remember fairy tales but I can’t remember what brought me to Wyoming in the first place.”

  He motioned her toward the bed. She sat on the edge and looked up as he turned off the light, plunging the room into darkness relieved only by the faint glow of the kitchen light. He sat next to her on the bed, his weight shifting the mattress, making her slide up against him. He put his arm around her shoulders, keeping her close.

  “I think we both know what brought you here.”

  She sighed, resting her head against his. “Clint.”

  “Clint,” he agreed.

  “Do you think he was telling the truth about being my husband?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Marriages can be ended. I should know.”

  She reached up to thread her fingers through his where they lay on her shoulder. “At first I thought he was here to take me back with him, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “Why?”

  “I was thinking about something he said that first day, when he was waiting for me in my apartment.” She shivered, remembering the sight of Angie’s bloody body sprawled across the kitchen floor.

  Joe turned his face, brushing his lips against her temple. “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘You have something I need.’”

  “You didn’t tell that to Hank Trent when he was questioning you. Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know that it really registered with me until now.”

  “What could you have? I saw the police reports from when you first showed up in Idaho. They found you with nothing but the clothes on your back. No identification, only a few bucks in your pocket.”

  “What if-” She stopped short as Joe put his hand over her mouth. Then she heard it.

  A door opening in another part of the house.

  Joe pulled her quietly to her feet and led her into the hallway. They had gotten about halfway to the kitchen when they heard a male voice, answered by another.

  Jane didn’t recognize the first voice, but the second voice was as familiar as a recurring nightmare.

  It was Clint Holbrook.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Joe froze, pulling Jane to him, as he heard Clint Holbrook’s voice in the kitchen. “You haven’t even heard from your boss?”

  “I told you about the call from Idaho,” Riley Patterson answered. “If I hear from them again, you’ll be the first person I contact.”

  Their voices seemed closer. Joe glanced across the hall at the closet door. What did Riley keep in there? Coats? Cleaning supplies? He couldn’t remember, but he didn’t have time to think it through. He eased the door open, breathing a sigh of relief to find the tiny space mostly empty except for a couple of suede work coats and a small table piled high with extra blankets.

  It was a tight fit, but it would do. He pushed Jane into the cramped closet and pulled the door almost closed.

  A sliver of light from down the hallway was all the illumination they had, but it was enough for Joe to see the terror in Jane’s eyes. He stroked her hair, pressing his lips against her forehead to calm her, even though his own heart was galloping wildly. The scent of her filled the small space, spicy sweet and feminine. A shudder of pure masculine need ripped through him in response, but he tamped it down, his need to hear what Riley and Clint were saying taking precedence.

  In the kitchen, Riley’s voice had taken on a note of frustration. “I’m sorry the trail went cold in Nevada, but I’m telling you, Joe hasn’t contacted me since he and the woman were in Boise a few days ago.”

  “Would you tell me if he had?” Clint asked coolly.

  “Are you suggesting I can’t be trusted?”

  “Clint got to your friend,” Jane whispered, her voice little more than breath against his throat.

  Joe shook his head, though the first glimmer of doubt was nagging at the back of his mind. Riley hadn’t been the same since Emily’s death, had he? He’d been working late, eating poorly, losing contact with all his old friends-

  “It’s been a long day, Mr. Holbrook. I’d like to eat a little dinner and get some shut-eye. I’ll be in touch.” Riley’s boot falls rang on the tile floor. A moment later, the back door creaked open. “Good night.”

  The door closed and for a moment there was only silence in the kitchen. Then Joe heard his friend mutter a string of curses he hadn’t heard since Riley broke his collarbone in a football game their senior year.

  Now was the time he should open the closet and go tell his friend he was there. But he didn’t move, except to pull Jane’s body closer to his, tightening his arms around her to ease her wild trembling.

  If he were the only person at risk, he’d take the chance that there was a good explanation for Riley’s involvement with Holbrook. But he wasn’t going to risk Jane’s life that way. They’d have to stay put, keep quiet and wait for Riley to settle down for the night. Then they could get out of here and figure out someone else who could help them work through the mess they were in.

  He heard Riley’s footsteps on the kitchen tiles, restless and heavy. Then the sound of water running in the kitchen sink, followed by the clink of glass against metal. Riley was probably getting a glass of water-

  The bowls, he realized with a start.

  “We left the bowls in the dish rack,” Jane whispered.

  Riley would notice. No matter how strangely he’d been acting over the past couple of years, he was still a good, observant cop. He’d know he hadn’t left a couple of extra bowls drying on the dish rack. Or the damp drying cloth on the sink counter.

  Maybe he’d think they’d come and gone. Their bags were still outside Riley’s house, hidden behind a small clump of juniper bushes near the dilapidated storage shed behind the house.

  He heard Riley’s boot steps moving down the hallway, getting closer. He held his breath until Riley passed, his footsteps fading as he entered the bedroom. The creak of bedsprings and twin thumps of his boots hitting the floor caught Joe by surprise. Maybe Riley hadn’t noticed the bowls in the dish rack after all.

  Jane’s fingers curled into the fabric at the back of his shirt, pulling it tight. A soft twinge of pain in his side came and went quickly, eclipsed by the pounding pulse of adrenaline flooding his body. He listened carefully fo
r further sounds, but beyond another soft creak of bedsprings, he heard nothing for several minutes.

  Carefully, he pushed the closet door open a few inches, praying Riley had oiled the hinges recently. It moved noiselessly, to his relief. He stepped out first, Jane following. He closed the closet door again, stopping it just before it latched.

  A faint light from the kitchen still glowed-not unusual, given the depth of darkness out here in the sticks so far from the lights of town. He usually left a light glowing somewhere in the house himself, to keep from banging a shin or stubbing a toe in the dark.

  He kept one arm around Jane as he looked back toward the two bedrooms. The door to Riley’s room was open, but Joe couldn’t see the bed from his vantage point in the hallway, and he didn’t want to risk walking down the hall to check. He and Jane needed to get out of there now.

  Walking on the balls of his feet to minimize the noise of his footsteps, he led Jane down the hall to the kitchen. They made it a few steps inside the warm room when the overhead light came on.

  “Going somewhere?” Riley Patterson asked from behind them.

  Joe whirled around, putting Jane safely behind him. Riley stood with his back flattened against the wall next to the refrigerator, his service weapon in his left hand and his right hand still on the light switch.

  “I’m a careless housekeeper at best,” Riley drawled, “but even I know when there are extra dishes stacked up by my sink, Joe.” He looked behind Joe, his lips curving in a half smile. “Hey there, Sandy. Long time no see.”

  Jane stepped out from behind Joe, keeping her fingers tightly twined in his. “I go by Jane now.”

  Riley’s half smile widened. “So I hear. Still with the amnesia?”

  “Some things are coming back,” she answered with a deliberate composure that almost hid the tremors Joe could still feel rippling through her body.

  He tightened his grip on her hand. “We’re going now, Riley. Nobody has to know we were here.”

  Riley’s eyes narrowed. “Are you afraid of me?”

  “Well, I might feel better if you put the gun down.”

  Riley looked down at the Glock still held at the ready in his left hand. He lowered it, tucking it into the back of his jeans. “Better?”