The Last Wilder

by Janis Reams Hudson

  From where Dane stood he couldn’t see inside Stacey’s room, but he could see Stacey. He saw the color drain from her face, saw her waver on her crutches. Instincts honed by years on the streets of L.A. went on full alert.

  Drawing his weapon from the holster on his belt, he stepped into the room and around her, putting himself between her and whatever threat existed.

  “Get out,” he told her quietly. “Get in the truck and lock the doors.”

  “But—”

  “Do it!” He didn’t think whoever had trashed her room was still there. The only places to hide were under or behind the bed, or in the bathroom, and it was too quiet. No one else was breathing but Dane and Stacey, who was finally making her way out the door at his back.

  The room had been nearly totaled. Only the curtains and carpet, from what he could see, had been left undamaged. Everything else from the bedding, the mattress, and Stacey’s clothes, had been slashed or ripped.

  This was no case of random vandalism—this was personal. Someone had either been really, really ticked, or they wanted to send Stacey a message she wouldn’t forget.

  The message, he noted, was scrawled in what looked to be lipstick across the dresser mirror. But before he moved in that direction to read it, he checked first to make certain Stacey was out and safe.

  She was just climbing into his truck. He waited until he heard her shut the door, then checked beneath and behind the bed and in the bathroom. He’d been correct. The room was empty.

  In the bathroom he found the underwear Stacey had evidently rinsed out and left to dry. It was now in shreds. Her makeup and personal products were smashed and in the toilet.

  Yep. Personal.

  He moved back to stand before the dresser and read the message—“You didn’t see nothing. You can’t identify nobody.”

  Oh, yeah, Dane thought. Real personal. The rustlers had just upped the ante, and Dane’s blood chilled at the thought of what could and probably would have happened to Stacey if she’d been here when they had entered.

  But Dane had a hunch they had deliberately waited for her to leave. That meant they probably knew she was with him.

  But who knew about Stacey?

  Hell, any one of a dozen or more people. From the original few, word had probably spread all over the county that the sheriff had an eyewitness who could identify the rustlers.

  Damn. He holstered his weapon and went out to his truck. Stacey sat shivering in the front seat, but he didn’t think it was from the temperature.

  “I’m sorry, Stacey,” he said gently. “That’s not a sight anybody should have to see.”

  She swallowed hard. “What happens now?”

  Dane sighed and reached for his radio. “Now we gather what evidence there is, and make sure you’re safe from any more of this type of harassment.”

  “Harassment?” she cried. “Is that what you call it?”

  Having no answer for her, he keyed his mic and told Dispatch to notify the city police of the incident and to send John Taylor and the nearest deputy to the Hope Springs Inn.

  The Hope Springs Inn erupted with activity. Dane and his men ignored the onlookers who gathered to gawk at the sight of three county cruisers and two city police cars filling up the motel parking lot.

  The first problem was one of jurisdiction, but Dane and the local police chief had always worked well together and made a special effort not to step on each other’s toes. Technically the vandalizing of Stacey’s room came under the city’s jurisdiction. But because she was a witness to a crime under the sheriff’s jurisdiction, and this business was directly related to that, the local police offered to help if needed, but otherwise stepped back and let Dane run the show.

  Dane did use the help of the local cops. He had them go door to door at the motel and to the businesses across the street to see if anyone had heard or seen anything.

  Dane personally questioned the desk clerk, who was also the owner of the motel. When he learned what had happened, the man was beside himself.

  “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” he said, bewildered.

  “I know,” Dane told him. Then he proceeded with his questions.

  No one but the owner had been on duty since before Stacey checked in that afternoon, and no one had asked about her. The only strangers to enter the office had been the couple in room twelve, just down from Stacey’s room. It had been a slow day.

  In Stacey’s room John inspected the damage, took photos and dusted for prints. He would have to take Stacey’s fingerprints, along with those of the maid who’d cleaned the room.

  There was no sign of forced entry. Had they had a key? A lock pick? The motel still used keys rather than the newer magnetic cards.

  Just one more detail to ponder, Dane thought with disgust.

  “Well,” John said laconically, “at least we know the rustlers are close.”

  “Believe me,” Dane said with feeling, “as much as I’d like to arrest them personally, if I found out in the next ten minutes that they were in China, I’d be a happy man.”

  “What?” The police chief chuckled. “And miss out on the glory of making the capture?”

  “I’d be glad to let you have the glory,” Dane said. “I just want them arrested and put away. And they just upped the ante.”

  “You mean this?” the chief said, indicating the ransacked room.

  “Yeah,” Dane said grimly. “This. Stealing cattle’s a felony, but it’s generally not personal. This was personal, and I’ll tell you, I don’t like it, not one bit.”

  It proved impossible, even with all the law enforcement on hand from both the county and the city, to keep Stacey out of the room and away from the threat scrawled across the dresser mirror.

  “I thought you were going to wait in the truck,” Dane said, trying to steer her away from the dresser.

  “I waited,” she said. Finally she pulled her gaze from the mirror and looked at Dane. “How did they find me? And so fast?”

  Dane shook his head. “It’s a small town, Stacey. They must know someone around here, or they wouldn’t have known where to hit the Flying Ace last night. Somebody probably said something to somebody else, and it just went from there. I’m sorry.”

  He was sorry, and he was angry. She was his witness, in his care, and someone had done this to her. He felt responsible, and there was no help for it.

  “I’m going to make sure they don’t get this close to you again, I promise.” As soon as the word promise was out of his mouth, he wanted it back. He’d made a promise like that once before…

  Stacey was shaking her head. “You can’t guarantee something like that, Dane, and we both know it.”

  “Come back outside with me.” He wanted to talk with her, but he didn’t want everyone overhearing what he had to say, and there were plenty of ears to hear and tongues to wag in the tiny motel room and just outside the open door.

  He steered her toward the Blazer. “Get in.”

  “I’m not going to sit out here by myself like a good little girl. Or like someone too silly to be let loose on her own.”

  Dane leaned close and lowered his voice. “I want to talk to you, and the truck is as private as we can get right now.”

  “Oh.” Stacey felt foolish for her comment. He only wanted to talk to her. “Okay.” She let him help her into the vehicle.

  He circled the hood and climbed into the driver’s seat. After starting the engine to get the heat running, he turned sideways and braced his arm on the back of her seat. “I’m going to call out to the Flying Ace. I want you to stay with the Wilders until—”

  “No way. I’m not asking them for any favors. They have no reason to trust me. They’re strangers, and that’s the way I plan to keep it.”

  “Stacey, be reasonable,” Dane said. “They’d love to have you stay with them so they can ask you about the grave, but you don’t have to tell them anything. They’ll respect your privacy, I swear. And no one can get to you out there.�
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  Stacey shook her head again, more vehemently this time. She would not stay with the Wilders. Absolutely not. Not with what her grandmother suspected them of. “No,” she said to Dane. “I won’t go.”

  “I could always lock you up.”

  She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “You could try, but it wouldn’t be pretty.”

  “They call it protective custody. It’s perfectly legal, and it’s for your own safety.”

  “I know what it’s called, and you can forget it, copper. I’m not staying with the Wilders, and I’m not staying in a damn cell.”

  “You’re not staying on your own.”

  “I’ll go home. They won’t find me there.”

  Dane snorted. “They found your motel room without asking for directions. They know about you, they probably also know your name. It’s a simple matter to find your address. Since the Internet, there’s no such thing as privacy anymore.”

  The thought that they might find her at home threatened to unnerve her. “Great. That’s just great.”

  “If you won’t stay with the Wilders, there’s only one other option left.”

  “Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like this?” she demanded.

  “You’ll be staying with me.”

  Stacey paused. For a minute there she thought he’d said she would stay with him.

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight until I can assure your safety.”

  Good God, he had said…“Define ‘out of my sight.’”

  “Just what it sounds like,” Dane said. “Where I go, you go, and vice versa. If anyone wants to get to you, they’ll have to go through me.”

  An icy shiver ran down Stacey’s spine, just one of many that had chilled her to the bone since opening the door to her room more than an hour ago and finding it and everything in it destroyed. Right then she wanted nothing more than to curl up in Dane’s arms, which was the one place on earth she instinctively knew she would be safe. He was a man to protect a woman.

  But he wasn’t offering to hold her. Only to stand between her and trouble, which was his job. “Do you really think it’s necessary?”

  Dane could see how scared she was and could have kicked himself for making it worse. He intended to keep her safe, but he didn’t have to terrify her in the process. “Probably not, but wouldn’t you rather be safe than sorry?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No. You don’t.”

  Dane might have said more, might have tried to make the situation sound more palatable, but John tapped on the hood of the Blazer to get his attention.

  “Sit tight,” Dane told Stacey. “I’ll be right back.”

  With her arms wrapped around herself for warmth, Stacey watched Dane climb out and talk to John.

  She felt helpless, as if her entire world were spinning out of control. And she felt frightened. She hadn’t felt either, not seriously, since childhood, and she didn’t care for them rearing their ugly little heads again.

  As Dane spoke with John, Stacey watched the confident movement of Dane’s hands, the almost arrogant tilt of his head. Here was a man not easily intimidated. She would go along with him, because she didn’t see any viable option. She only wished that deep inside, behind the fear and helplessness, she didn’t detect a slight stirring of…anticipation.

  They returned to the sheriff’s office where Dane and John wrote up their reports. Too restless to sit, and fearing their paperwork might take a while, Stacey swallowed a couple of ibuprofen—she’d had enough of the prescription painkiller, thank you very much—and paced the main office.

  There wasn’t much to see other than desks and file cabinets, except for the snapshots and wanted posters on the walls. She studied the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, deciding she didn’t know any of the losers staring back at her.

  There was a long line of framed photographs and citations on one wall. She decided to start with the oldest. It was easy to spot, as the sheriff and his deputies were on horseback.

  On second thought, considering there had been a cattle rustling last night, Stacey decided that deputies on horseback did not necessarily mean the picture was from the distant past. It could have been taken yesterday.

  But the photograph she was looking at was definitely old, if the hair and clothing styles were anything to go by, not to mention the muddy street lined with false-fronted buildings and the occasional tent.

  The small brass plate read Wyatt County Sheriff Bass Rogers and his Deputies, September 12, 1887.

  Each and every man in the shot looked, as Gran would say, tough enough to wrestle a grizzly and come out on top.

  While Stacey admitted to having a negative attitude toward cops, it wasn’t what they did for a living that irritated her, it was the type of man the job tended to draw. Not just the tough and the fair-minded, which the job needed, but the bullies, like her ex and his buddies, men who thought the gun on their belt made them bigger men, and they didn’t mind acting like it.

  However, despite her negative feelings, she acknowledged the need for men and women to step forward and stand between the honest citizens and those who would take advantage of them and do them harm. Some did it for the thrill, and it was those she detested. Others did it because it was their way of making a difference in the world. Those were the ones she admired.

  Dane Powell, she decided, was one of the latter.

  Stacey moved slowly down the line of photos, studying each one, noting the slight differences in clothes, hair and scenery as the years advanced. Trying to pick by appearances alone which men where the bullies, the thrill seekers, the do-gooders, and the ones just trying to make life better for the people in their community.

  She was looking at the 1952 shot when Dane finished his paperwork and emerged from his office.

  “Ready to hit the road, partner?” he asked.

  Stacey rolled her eyes. “Are you going to deputize me, Sheriff? Do I get to wear a badge and carry a gun?”

  Dane grinned from ear to ear. “In your dreams, Ms. Landers. In your dreams.”

  The night was dark and long as Dane and Stacey cruised the highways and back roads of Wyatt County. They rode in what turned out to be a comfortable silence for nearly an hour before Stacey spoke.

  “Why do you do this?”

  She’d been so quiet that Dane had nearly forgotten she was there in the seat beside him. Nearly, but not quite. “Do what, specifically?” The scent of her, something sweet and flowery, but soft and subtle, had been teasing him since he’d picked her up for dinner hours earlier. His Blazer, he feared, would never smell the same.

  “Drive around in the middle of the night while everyone in the county is asleep,” she said.

  Dane shrugged. “So they can sleep without having to worry so much.”

  “Why not let your deputies do it?”

  Now that she’d decided to talk, he almost wished she’d kept quiet. Her voice was too soft, too silky. Too intimate in the enclosed confines of the dark vehicle with nothing but the occasional crackle on the radio to break the silence.

  “Yoo-hoo,” she said. “Earth to Sheriff Powell.”

  “Sorry. I was thinking about something.” And if he didn’t stop thinking about it, about her, he was going to get himself in deep trouble. He’d do better to pay attention. “Why do I work all night?”

  “Yes. It seems to me the sheriff would be needed in the office during the day.”

  “That’s where I usually am. But with these rustlers running around, my undersheriff and I split the difference. He’s manning the day shift and I’m prowling around at night.”

  “But you’re the boss. Why not make him drive around all night?”

  “Because he’s got a wife and three little kids. There’s no sense completely disrupting his family life when I can take this shift with no bother.”

  “Mr. Nice Guy, huh?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Did you grow up here?” she asked.

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p; Dane slowed for the four-way stop ahead and glanced at her. “Are you writing a book?”

  “I’m just curious,” she said.

  “And bored?”

  “Sleepy.”

  With no traffic coming, he crossed the intersection to drive past several small farms. “You can sleep if you want,” he offered.

  “Maybe later. Did you grow up here?”

  Dane chucked. “Persistent, aren’t you? No, I moved here from California.”

  “That’s a long way from Wyoming. How’d you end up sheriff of Wyatt County?”

  “Like you said, I’m the guy who got the most votes.”

  “You don’t like to talk about yourself much, do you?” she asked with a smile in her voice.

  “About as much as you do,” he said. “Except I generally tell the truth.”

  “You got me there.”

  “Okay, I answered your questions,” he said. “Now it’s your turn. What do you do in Cheyenne?”

  “These days, not much.”

  “Earlier tonight you said you were unemployed. Is that by choice?”

  “No, it’s not. The company I worked for got bought up by a European conglomerate who moved our offices to their U.S. headquarters in New York. They didn’t need another office manager, so I wasn’t invited along for the move.”

  “That’s tough,” Dane said. “But I’d think a good office manager would be able to find a new job without too much trouble. Heck, I’m looking for one myself right now. Wanna move to Hope Springs?”

  She chuckled. “You’re assuming I’m a good office manager.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I am.”

  They were quiet for a while. Dane glanced up the driveway of every farm and ranch they passed, and watched the fence lines for breaks. The chances of his running across the rustlers in the act of stealing cattle were slim to none, even if they did decide to hit the county two nights in a row, which he seriously doubted. He probably had a better chance of being struck by lightning than spotting them tonight. And there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  Eventually Stacey spoke, warming his blood with her silky voice. “You never did tell me how a California cop—you were a cop before you came here, weren’t you?”