Texas! Lucky (7 page)

"But, Mother, he's got to find out sooner or later."

"Sage!"

"You're suspected of setting it, Lucky."

Chapter 5

L
ucky's gaze swung toward his brother. "Did she say 'setting it'? The fire was set?"

"It was arson. No question."

"And somebody thinks I set it?" Lucky snorted incredulously. "Why in hell would I do that?"

"For the insurance money."

Lucky's disbelieving gaze moved around the room, lighting briefly on all four faces, which were watching him closely to gauge his reaction. "What is this, April Fool's Day? This is a joke, right?"

"I wish to hell it was."

Chase leaned forward and folded his hands around his coffee mug as though he wanted to strangle it. His light gray eyes shone fervently in his strong face. He was as handsome as his younger brother, but in a different way. While Lucky had the reckless nonchalance of a cowboy of a century ago, Chase had a compelling intensity about him.

"I couldn't believe Pat would even suggest such a thing," he said.

"Pat! Sheriff Pat Bush? Our
friend?"
Lucky exclaimed. "I saw him yesterday evening at the place."

"And that was the last anybody saw of you."

"We heard all about your fight with Little Alvin and that scummy Patterson character," Sage said. "People said you were fighting over a woman."

"Exaggeration. They were moving in on her. She didn't welcome their advances. All I did was step in." He gave them a condensed version of the altercation. "You would have done the same thing, Chase."

"I don't know," he remarked dubiously. "It would take some kind of woman to get me in a tussle with those two."

Lucky sidestepped the reference to Dovey. "Jack Ed got me with his knife. That's how my shirt got ripped."

"He came at you with a knife!"

"Don't worry, Mother, it was nothing. Just a scratch. See?" He raised his bloodstained shirt, but the sight of the long, arcing cut across his middle didn't relieve Laurie.

"Did you have it seen to?"

"In a manner of speaking," he grumbled, remembering how badly it had stung when Dovey poured whiskey along the length of the cut.

"Who was the woman you fought over?" Sage asked. Her brothers' escapades with women had always been a source of fascination to her. "What happened to her?"

"Sage, I don't think that's significant," her mother said sharply. "Don't you have something else to do?"

"Nothing this interesting."

Lucky was unmindful of their conversation. He was watching his brother and gleaning from Chase's somber expression that the situation wasn't only interesting, but critical.

"Pat can't possibly believe that I started a fire, especially in one of our own garages," Lucky said, shaking his head to deny the preposterous allegation.

"No, but he warned me that the feds might."

"The feds? What the hell have the feds got to do with it?"

"Interstate commerce. Over fifty thousand dollars' worth of damage," Chase said, citing the criteria. "A fire at Tyler Drilling qualifies for an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Pat stuck his neck out by warning me what to expect. It doesn't look good, Lucky. We're in hock at the bank. Since Grandad Tyler started the company, business has never been as bad as it is now. Each piece of equipment is insured to the hilt." He shrugged. "To their way of thinking, it smells to high heaven."

"But to anybody who knows us, it's crazy."

"I hope so."

"Why me?"

"Because you're the family hothead," Sage supplied, much to the consternation of everyone else present.

"So far," Chase said after directing a stern frown toward his sister, "we can't account for your whereabouts after you left the place last night, Lucky."

"And that automatically makes me a suspect for arson?" he cried.

"It's ridiculous, but that's what we're up against. We've got no problem if we provide ironclad alibis. The first thing they asked me is where I was last night. I was home in bed with Tanya. She confirmed that."

"Do you think they believed me?" she asked.

Chase smiled at her. "You couldn't lie convincingly if you had to." He dropped a light kiss on the tip of her nose. Then, giving his brother his attention again, he said, "You didn't spend the night at home. They're going to ask where you were all night."

Lucky cleared his throat, sat up straighter, and cast a guilty glance toward his mother. Sensing his discomfort, she resorted to her standard cure-all "Would you like something to eat?"

"Please, ma'am." His mother could make him feel humble and ashamed when no one else could. She turned toward the stove and began preparing him a meal of eggs and bacon.

"Naturally the first person we called this morning was Susan Young," Sage informed him, dropping into a vacant chair at the table.

"Oh terrific," Lucky mumbled.

"She was mighty p.o.'d when—"

"Sage," Laurie said warningly.

"I didn't say it. I just used the initials."

"It still sounds so unladylike."

Rolling her eyes, Sage turned back to her brother. "Susan wasn't too thrilled to find out you'd stood her up at dinner to go tomcatting."

Lucky muttered a curse, careful to prevent his mother from hearing it over the sizzling sound of frying bacon. "I forgot to call her."

"Well," Sage said importantly, twirling a tawny strand of hair around her finger, "you'd better be thinking up a sympathetic story, because she is steamed." Pinching her light brown eyes into narrow slits, she made a sound like steam escaping the tight lid of a kettle.

"We have much more to worry about than Susan's jealousy," Chase said.

"Besides," Laurie added, carrying a plate of food to the table, "Lucky's affairs are no concern of yours, young lady."

Lucky attacked the plate of food. After a moment he realized that the sound of his fork scraping across his plate was the only noise in the kitchen. He raised his head to find them all staring at him expectantly.

"What?" he asked, lifting his shoulders in a slight shrug.

"What?" Chase repeated more loudly. "We're waiting for you to tell us where you were, so that if the badge-toting guys in the dark suits and opaque sunglasses come asking, we'll have something to tell them."

Lucky glanced back down into his plate. The food no longer looked appetizing. "I, uh, spent the night with a lady."

Sage snorted as derisively as Lucky had when Pat Bush had called Dovey that. "A lady. Right."

"What lady?" Chase asked.

"Does it matter?"

"Ordinarily not. This time it does."

Lucky gnawed on his lower lip. "Y'all don't know her."

"Is she from out of town?"

"Yeah. She was the, uh, the one Little Alvin was hitting on."

"You picked up a stranger at the place and spent the night with her?"

"Well, who are you to get so righteous, Chase?" Lucky shouted, suddenly angry. "Before Tanya came along, you weren't above doing the same damned thing."

"But not on the night one of our buildings was torched!" his brother shouted right back.

Tanya intervened. "Chase, Lucky didn't know what was going to happen last night."

"Thanks, Tanya," Lucky said with an injured air.

"Oh, Lucky, that's such a foolhardy thing to do these days."

"I'm not stupid, Mother. I took the necessary precautions."

Sage grinned, her eyes twinkling wickedly. "Aren't you the good Boy
Scout.
Do they give merit badges for taking 'the necessary precautions'?"

"Shut up, brat," Lucky growled.

Thanks to Tanya, Chase had reined in his temper. Sparks often flew between the two brothers, but the grudges lasted no longer than the temper flare-ups. "Okay, all you need to do to clear yourself is get the woman to vouch for you."

Lucky scratched his stubble-covered jaw. "That might be tricky."

"Why? When she tells the authorities that you spent all night with her, they can eliminate you as a suspect and start tracking down the real arsonist."

Chase, believing their dilemma had been resolved, started to stand. Lucky pointed him back into his chair. "There's a slight problem with that, Chase."

Slowly Chase lowered himself back into his seat. "What problem? How slight?"

"I, uh, don't know her name."

* * *

"You don't know her name?"

"No, sir."

This day would go down in Lucky's private annals as one of the worst in his life. His head still felt as though it had a flock of industrious woodpeckers living in it. His vision was blurry in the eye that had connected with Little Alvin's fist. Every muscle in his body was screaming at the abuse it had taken. He was suspected of setting a destructive fire to his place of business. Everybody, including members of his own family, was treating him like a leper because he'd spent the night with a woman he couldn't identify.

And he had thought yesterday was bad. According to their expressions, neither the sheriff and his deputies nor the federal investigators believed him any more than his family had that morning.

One of the investigators turned to Pat Bush. "You didn't get her name at the scene of the fight?"

Pat harrumphed. "No. It occurred to me later that I had failed to, but there didn't seem any need for it at the time. She wasn't interested in pressing charges."

A skeptical 'hmm' was the agent's only response. He turned to Lucky again. "Didn't you think to ask her her name?"

"Sure. She told me it was Dovey, but—"

"Would you spell that please?" The request was made by another agent taking notes in a spiral notebook.

"Spell what?"

"Dovey."

Lucky blew out a breath of exasperation and looked toward Pat Bush for assistance. The sheriff's terse nod merely indicated that Lucky should go along with the ridiculous request. Lucky succinctly spelled the name.

"At least I think that's right. She registered at the motel as Mary Smith of Dallas." He snapped his fingers and raised his head hopefully. "Listen, the clerk there will remember me."