Death Rides Again (A Jocelyn Shore Mystery) (13 page)

Pushing by us, she stalked into the house, slamming the door behind her for emphasis. It would have been a very nice display of 1950s prudishness if she hadn’t ruined it by giving Colin’s backside what could only be described as an appraising look as she passed.

He gave a wry laugh, then looked down into my face. “We have got to work on our timing,” he said.

“Yeah.” I pulled myself away from him with a sigh, feeling and matching the reluctance with which he let me go.

His smile was warm, filled with promise and something far more. A look that a woman dreams of seeing in a man’s eyes. It was almost certainly my own fault that it was a look that scared me to death.

“Now I’m willing to believe that you’re glad I’m here,” he said, his voice low.

“You have your good points,” I said lightly. “For one thing, I’m not cold anymore.”

The hurt in his eyes was more than I could bear. “Colin…”

“It’s all right,” he said abruptly. “I’m rushing you. I know it, and I just don’t seem to be able to stop myself. I’ll back off.”

“Not too far,” I said quickly, feeling a sharp pang of fear. What if he decided all the mixed signals were the sign of a neurotic mind, and that I just wasn’t worth the effort? What if he decided he didn’t want me anymore? I could hardly blame him if he did.

He slipped on his sunglasses and gave me an imitation smile. “Not too far,” he agreed.

The words were right at least, but I still felt like the world’s biggest idiot as I watched him walk away. Had my divorce and then my unsuccessful attempt at a long-distance relationship made me a coward? Was I willing to give up before I’d even started, just to avoid possible future heartache? I hated myself, but I did not run after him.

Chapter 4

BARS AND BOYFRIENDS

Colin did not return that afternoon, not even for Thanksgiving dinner. Considering the circumstances, I thought he’d made a wise choice. Kel and Elaine had fallen into a grim silence that spread a pall over the company. Uncle Herman, on the other hand, seemed to be preparing for battle. He’d appeared at the table wearing a pressed shirt and dress pants with a crease that could be used to slice bread. It was true that the pants were held up by both a belt and suspenders, but he’d left his walker in his room, a fact that had caused Aunt Elaine some alarm. She’d hurried to his side, but he just glared from under bushy eyebrows and she backed off. I hadn’t seen him so upright since the days when he’d still been running the ranch himself, and wasn’t sure what to make of it. On the one hand, I liked seeing him so much like his younger self, but on the other, I suspected he was making plans that would almost certainly bite one or more of us in the butt.

However, as the afternoon wore away, my fears seemed groundless. After we’d finished the turkey and all the fixings, Elaine produced an enormous birthday cake with enough candles to trigger a smoke detector. Uncle Herman ate his cake with pleasure, told an off-color story about his visit to Paris after the war, and then retired to his rooms for a rest. With a collective sigh of relief, Will, Sam, Christy, and Uncle Scotty returned to the living room for more football, and Gladys suggested a game of Monopoly for the rest of us. Kyla met my eyes with a look of panic. Both of us would rather chew broken glass than play Monopoly.

“We’ll do dishes!” I announced, and urged Elaine to join the game.

Kyla gave me a sour look, then with a philosophical shrug joined me.

Half an hour later, the dishes were done, and I started thinking about Colin again.

“Where do you think he is?” I asked, rinsing off a plate and placing it in the dishwasher.

“Your boyfriend? Who knows. I don’t know why he has to stick his nose in around here anyway.”

“Sheriff Bob needed the help. Besides, it’s probably better to have Colin keeping an eye on what’s going on. I can just see Bob getting it into his head to arrest Kel.”

“You could hardly blame him. But I still don’t think it’s any of Colin’s business. He should be here making eyes at you.”

“Yeah. Well.”

“You did it again, didn’t you? Told him to back off?”

I didn’t answer. I did begin pacing.

Kyla, with her usual tact, said, “You’ve gone batshit crazy, and you’re trying to take me with you. Let’s go see what’s happening in town.”

“Nothing’s happening in town. It’s Thanksgiving and it’s after six. Even on a weekend, the streets would already be rolled up. Today they’re rolled up and watching football.”

“We’ll go for a drive then. Look, for all you know, Monkey Boy’s been trying to call you. We can at least drive up to the top of the hill to see if we can get some bars on the phones.”

“Monkey Boy? Why Monkey Boy?”

“He dances for you,” she answered.

“No, he doesn’t. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Come on, let’s go for a drive.”

I considered. I was so used to my cell phone being useless near the ranch house that I’d forgotten to check it, but there were several places on higher ground where reception was possible. Maybe Colin had been trying to call after all.

We slipped out of the house quietly as we could to avoid detection. Outside, the temperature had dropped noticeably. The sky was a black void and outside the warm glow of the house lights, the darkness seemed immense.

“It’s a lot darker out here than it is in the city,” observed Kyla, holding out her hand to me.

I looked at her. “No shit. And what do you want?”

“Keys. I’m driving.”

“It’s my car,” I protested. “It could have been your car, but you insisted we take mine so yours wouldn’t get dirty.”

“Yeah, well I’m tired of opening gates. So gimme.” When I didn’t immediately hand them over, she added, “This way you can check your phone while I drive.”

I dropped the key ring in her hand and went to the passenger side. She slid in and immediately adjusted the seat position, the lumbar support, the rearview mirrors, the side-view mirrors, and the heater controls. I stared.

“What the hell are you doing? We’re the same height. My settings would work perfectly for you.”

“This is better. You’ll probably thank me later.”

At the top of the hill, I opened my phone. A single green reception bar flickered halfheartedly at the top of the display. Kyla glanced at it as we bumped up the uneven road.

“A flip phone? Are you kidding me?”

“Hey, it works. And it was free.”

“I bet it was.”

“It’s a phone. It makes phone calls.”

She shook her head, but decided to let it go. “So any message from Monkey Boy?”

“And no, I don’t see a message, but I’m not convinced I’ve really got reception.”

“Dig mine out of my purse. It was made in this century, so it might work better.”

“Yeah, but he’s not calling you.”

“So seriously, what’s up? You guys are crazy about each other. Why aren’t you doing something about it?”

“We haven’t been dating long enough to know if we’re crazy about each other.”

“Really? And how long do you have to date to know that? Is there a magic timer somewhere, and you’re waiting for the big ding?”

She pulled up to a gate, and I took the opportunity to hop out without answering. I glanced back the way we’d come, wondering just how long it would take me to walk back, but it was cold so I reluctantly abandoned that idea. Instead, I unlatched the chain and swung the metal gate wide enough to allow the car to pass through.

She appeared to still be waiting for an answer when I got back in.

I said, “So where are we going?”

“To town and don’t try to change the subject. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, so I know the problem isn’t him. What’s up with you? Is it because he’s a cop?”

“What? No.”

She shrugged. “Scary job. You might have concerns about it.”

“No, that’s not it. Although thanks for putting that in my head.”

“Then what?”

“Look, I don’t know, all right? Leave it alone.”

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “He’s not Mike. He’s not going to transform into a giant douche and leave you for some blond bimbo.”

Mike Karawski, lawyer, asshole, ex-husband. “Kyla, you’re driving me crazy. I know he’s not Mike.”

“Then what? Is it the Ranger thing? Are you worried he’s going to transform into Alan and get too busy to see you?”

Yes, I was, but I wasn’t going to talk about it with her when I hadn’t even discussed it with Colin. I gritted my teeth and stared out the windshield into the wedge-shaped glow cast by headlights into the inky blackness. Visibility to either side of the car was almost zero.

“Or is it that you’re still wanting to make it work with Alan?”

“I’m dating, all right? Dating. That means you spend some time with someone so you can get to know them. I’m dating Colin because I don’t know him yet.”

“What about Alan? You know him by now, right? You’re keeping him dangling, too.”

Alan. That was far more complicated. I thought I’d loved him. No, if I were honest with myself, I was absolutely sure I had loved him. And then somehow we’d started drifting apart. I blamed the distance at first. Dallas was three and a half hours away, close enough to spend weekends together, but too far to be spontaneous. And over time, the daily or twice daily phone calls had dwindled to a couple a week. Every weekend had become every other weekend, then even less. It was as though the relationship had run out of fuel. But I still had feelings for him, didn’t I? And now he was doing everything in his power to make things work between us. Should I discard a man like a used tissue because circumstances made seeing him inconvenient? Or because I’d met someone else who made me want to jump on him every time he walked into the room?

Kyla grew impatient. “Fine. Don’t talk about it. But I’ll tell you one more thing, and then I’ll shut up.”

“Good!” I interrupted.

She ignored this. “You’re going to lose him. How long do you think he’s going to hang around with all the mixed signals you’re giving him?”

“You’re the expert on successful relationships,” I snapped. “Dating Sherman one minute, out with T. J. Knoller the next. My role model.”

Her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, but to my surprise she didn’t bite my head off. “I’ve never dated anyone I wanted to keep. The guys I go out with are interesting or fun or nice, but never all three at the same time. And not one of them has ever looked at me like Colin looks at you. I’m not saying you won’t get hurt, but if you drive him away without giving him a chance, then you’re even dumber than I thought.”

I swallowed hard. Hearing my own worst fears put into words made them all too real. I said, “Maybe I’ll just dump them both and learn to like cats.”

Kyla snorted. “Terrific. We can become the creepy spinsters living together in an old mansion on a hill with thirty cats and no litter box.”

“Maybe in our spare time, we can take in boarders and kill them while they sleep,” I suggested.

“Well, yeah. We’ll need a hobby.”

“Excellent.”

We both grinned, then Kyla punched on the radio and hit scan. The radio eventually picked up a crackling San Saba station and started belting out a Brad Paisley song. Kyla’s finger darted out to hit scan again, then froze an inch from the button.

“Did he really just say ‘I’d like to check you for ticks’?” she whispered in horror.

“Romantic, huh?”

Then we were both laughing and trying to sing along, with me pretending I didn’t know the words by heart and the awkward conversation behind us. At least for now.

*   *   *

As I’d predicted, Sand Creek was closed up tighter than an oyster. Most of the empty little shops twinkled with early Christmas lights, but the courthouse and the decorated hanging tree were dark, waiting for the official lighting to take place the next day. Kyla drove slowly around the square, then made a right onto the road that eventually connected to the highway to Austin.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Just looking around. Isn’t Colin’s hotel out this way? We could see if he’s there.”

“He said he’d back off. What’s he going to think if I follow him to his room a few hours later?” I protested.

“He told you he’d back off, and you’re letting him do it?” Her voice squeaked with indignation. “Anyway, it’s Thanksgiving. Nobody should be sitting alone in a hotel room.”

That made a pang of guilt shoot through my chest. It didn’t help when I heard her mutter under her breath, “You really will be living with cats.”

But when we drove into the parking lot of the seedy little motel wedged between a gas station and the John Deere franchise, we saw no sign of his Jeep.

“I wonder if he changed motels after all,” I said.

Kyla wrinkled her nose. “Let’s hope so. Otherwise you’ll have to delouse him before you jump his bones.”

She pulled back onto the road and drove slowly back toward town. A pickup truck, the only vehicle in sight, signaled right. Kyla followed him.

“What are you doing?”

“Just seeing what’s what. Hey, look at that! Civilization,” she said, then added, “Of a sort.”

Just off the main square, lights streamed from R.T.’s BBQ and Sports Bar. The “and Sports Bar” had obviously been added as a marketing afterthought at least a decade after the original sign had been painted and which probably meant that someone had mounted a TV on the wall next to the dartboard. About a dozen vehicles, most of them pickups, parked on the gravel lot beside the building. Kyla guided my little Civic between a mud-spattered Suburban and a red extended-cab pickup and turned off the engine.

“We’re going in?” I asked her. I actually liked R.T.’s, or at least I had before it had become a sports bar. The barbecue was excellent, and they had a decent selection of beer. The thought of Kyla voluntarily entering was another thing.

“Why not? It’s the only game in town. Besides, we’re still looking for Ruby June, right? This is somewhere she might be.”

I thought it highly unlikely Ruby June would be sitting in R.T.’s. For one thing, by now everyone in town knew she was missing, and someone would have called Elaine if she’d been spotted in a public place. On the other hand, our only other choice was to return to the ranch and spend the rest of the evening playing Monopoly or watching football. I shrugged and followed her.