Accidental Cowgirl (2 page)

The old cop’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You been drinking, young lady?”

“No.” She adjusted her skirt nervously. “Absolutely not. I just lost my balance.” She pointed to her right thigh. “I broke my leg last year. It’s still a little unsteady.”

He raised his eyebrows and smirked as he shook his head slowly. “Uh-huh.” He crossed his arms and widened his stance. “Let’s just check and see.” He walked by her and stood about ten feet in front of the car. “Step over here and put both feet on the white line.”

Seriously? He was going to make her do a sobriety test? For tripping? She stepped warily to the front of the car and put her feet on the line as best she could.

“You know the drill,” he growled.

“Actually, sir, I don’t. I’ve never actually been pulled over … for anything.”

He lifted his eyebrows in disbelief, shaking his head. He pointed at the white line. “Walk twenty steps thataway, then back. Try to stay on the line.”

Welcome to Big Sky Country
, Kyla thought as she took a deep breath and set out down
the white line. She was still uncoordinated on a good day, so acing a sobriety test after three hours of sleep, a trial, and a full day’s travel was likely to be a challenge.

“Where you from?” the cop asked.

“Boston.”

“When’d you leave?”

“This morning.” Was he just making idle conversation? Or had she somehow aroused his powers of suspicion?

The cop scratched his head. “Where’d you change planes?”

Apparently suspicion. “Philly. Why?”

“Kinda late to be arriving way out here all by your lonesome. Surprised you didn’t pick an earlier flight.”

She turned around, gingerly trying to maintain her balance. “I had a commitment this morning.”
In court, where I had to testify one last time against the man I thought I was going to marry. He’s enjoying a new six-by-ten cell and orange jumpsuit right now, but all the money he stole is still somewhere in the Caymans
.

“Look like you’re dressed for court.”

She jolted. “No offense, sir, but why are you so curious?”

“It’s my job.” He looked her up and down again. “So where ya headed? That newfangled spa up by Donovan’s Lake?”

There was a
spa
here? A spa?! And Hayley had
still
chosen a dude-ranch vacation, knowing Kyla was deathly afraid of horses? The Whisper Creek Ranch website must have been very, very convincing.

“I’m heading to Carefree. Am I close?” She got back to her car and stood ramrod-straight. “There. See? Totally sober.”

“I’m not convinced,” the officer mumbled. “Carefree’s another hour north, give or take. That’s if I decide you’re sober enough to drive there. Otherwise, you get a free ride in my cruiser.”

“Cruiser?” She felt her eyebrows hike upward as she glanced quickly at his truck.

“Cruiser,” he deadpanned.

Prickles took hold at the top of her head again, moving steadily downward. She was alone on a deserted highway, a woman in a suit and bare feet with a flat tire and no spare. Cripes,
she was a serial killer’s dream.

Maybe one posing as a cop, for instance.

“Do you … have a badge?”

He reached into his inside pocket and flipped open a badge holder that looked as official as all the others she’d seen this past year. Her shoulders relaxed a tiny bit as she stepped forward to look more closely, then tensed back up when he slapped it shut. She stepped back quickly, trying not to think about how easy it probably was to get one online.

“Do you have a Breathalyzer? That would prove I haven’t been drinking, right?” If she kept him talking, maybe she could stall until another car came along?

He stepped directly in front of her and put his hands out to the side. “Hands out like mine. Do exactly what I say.”

Kyla paused. Putting her hands up left her whole midsection exposed. What was he going to do if she complied? If she didn’t?

“You having trouble following my very simple instructions?” His eyebrows smushed together like a big, furry caterpillar.

Kyla shook her head and put her hands out to her sides like a T, backing up as subtly as she could.

“Okay, touch your left finger to your nose. No,
other
finger. No,
nose
.” Kyla did her best to comply, but he was trying to trick her by placing his right finger on his earlobe. She prayed desperately for the sound of another vehicle, any vehicle. This guy couldn’t be for real.

He shook his head. “You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me, young lady. Let’s see fifty jumping jacks. Go.”

“In my bare feet?” She’d avoid mentioning her still-healing femur, just in case he was trying to gauge her ability to outrun him.

“You think those shoes would be better?” He lifted his eyebrows toward the heels she’d kicked off.

Kyla shook her head. “Guess not.”

Fine. She’d do the jumping jacks and pretend she was compliant, but that was it. She put her hands at her sides, feet together, and started jumping, trying not to show how much it hurt. If he tried to make her do one more thing, she was making a run for the car. She should be able to get the window up before he could catch her.

And then what, Kyla? Where do you think you’re going to go on three wheels?

“You thinkin’ about makin’ a run for it?” he growled.

“No, sir,” she huffed.
At least not until you look the other way
.

He reached his right hand to his gun belt. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Oh, holy hell. Did he have a gun after all?

“Cole! How many on the guest list this week?” Decker leaned back in his office chair, spinning it around to look out the picture window behind him. He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back, glad to be done with his L.A. work for the day. Low clouds cruised around the bright blue sky, framing the northern Rockies in the distance. He sighed, realizing just how much he’d missed the stunning Montana landscape.

“We’re down to seven, looks like.” Cole peeked his head in the doorway, shuffling pieces of paper. His dark brown hair, perpetually in need of a haircut, poked out from beneath his ball cap. Later today he’d switch back to the customary Stetson the guests expected from ranch-owning brothers. “Two gals from Ohio, a couple from North Dakota, and three ladies from Boston.”

“What happened to the bachelor party crew?”

“Groom broke his leg doing something stupid. They canceled.”

Decker spun back around to face the desk. “Did Ma enforce the cancellation policy?”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t know. She knows we have to if we’re gonna stay afloat here.”

“I bet she didn’t.” Decker frowned.

“Ahem.” Both Cole and Decker jumped as Ma bustled through the doorway in her typical jeans and flannel shirt, flipping mail onto Decker’s desk. “Not only did I enforce the policy, I told that moron if he was too stupid to know better than to drink and get on a dirt bike, then I didn’t want him on my ranch anyway.” Ma shook her head. “I got no tolerance for drinkin’.”

Cole put his arm around her shoulder, leaning down affectionately. “Good for you, Ma. Glad you put them in their place.”

Ma cuffed him on the shoulder. “Well, I might have been a little more polite than that, but it’s what I
wanted
to say. We got a small crew for this week now. I gotta call and back off the bakery order.”

“Aw, Ma. Don’t do that.” Cole winked.

“I know the both of you could eat enough to order twice as much as usual, but we got a
budget to keep around here, as
someone
keeps remindin’ me.” She slanted a glance at Decker, who put his hands up in mock surrender.

“Hey, I’m just trying to help. We’re finally headed in the right direction. This cockeyed dude-ranch plan of yours seems to be working, Ma.”

Ma sat down in the conference chair opposite Decker’s desk. “Well, I didn’t have a lot of choice but to come up with some
cockeyed
plan, now, did I?”

“Don’t even get me started.”

Ma raised her eyebrows in silent warning. “Deep down, your daddy was a good man, Decker. You remember that.”

He frowned. That
good man
was the same guy who’d almost gambled away the ranch, then smacked into a tree with a whiskey bottle still in his hand, leaving Ma with a dying property and debts she didn’t even know about yet.

That
good man
was also the guy who’d told a seventeen-year-old Decker to leave and never come back. And he hadn’t … for ten long years.

Cole shifted his weight to the door frame. “Well, if we’re looking for the silver lining, Ma, it did get Decker home from L.A.”

“For now, Cole. For now.” The only reason he’d come was because Decker Senior was finally dead, and Ma had finally been able to ask for help, but he knew it was temporary. As soon as things were under control again, everyone would remember he wasn’t welcome here, so he didn’t want them harboring any delusions that
he
had any delusions about staying. He’d head back to his life in L.A. and try to forget, once again, how much he loved it here.

First, though, he had work to do. Getting the ranch profitable enough to pay the mortgage notes was one thing. Paying off his dad’s bookies was quite another.

“Well.” Ma bounced up from the chair. “I got things to do. Can’t sit around chitchatting with you hens in here. Cole, go check on Jimmy and Pete. I sent ’em out to check fence lines, but they came back quicker than they should’ve. I went out and snipped a little one myself yesterday. I want to know if they found it.”

Decker’s eyes widened. “Ma! You cut the fence?”

“It was just a little cut.” Ma smiled wickedly. “Nuthin’d get through it. But a good hand would notice it. If they didn’t see it, we’re gonna have words.”

Decker shook his head and rolled his eyes at Cole. “I think we’re just ancillary here,
Cole. Ma doesn’t really need us to help run this place.”

“I been runnin’ this place a long time longer than you ever knew, boys.” She swatted Cole with the dish towel she’d been carrying. “Off with you. Go earn your keep and do somethin’ useful, wouldja? And get a haircut.” Cole laughed and headed out of the office.

Ma turned toward Decker, peering at him for a long moment. “You good?”

Decker nodded. “I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“I’m good, Ma. Why are you asking? And why that tone?”

Ma sighed. “I saw Marcy trolling around yesterday, giving you those puppy-dog eyes she thinks she’s so good at. What’d she want this time?”

“Wants me to train her horse.”

“You going to?”

Decker squinted up at her. “She said I’m the best there is, Ma.”
And I might have been, if Dad hadn’t kicked me off the ranch
.

Ma crossed her arms. “We both know this isn’t about a horse. That girl’s not right for you, Decker.”

He turned toward his desk phone as it beeped, relieved at the excuse to discontinue the conversation. “I should take this.”

Ma swung the dish towel at him and scooted out of the room as he answered the call. Two minutes later he was grabbing his keys and heading out the front door.

“Where you going in such an all-fired hurry?” Ma yelled from the kitchen.

“Roscoe’s gone missing again.”

“He’d better not be messing around with his old blue light this time.”

“Well, if he is, I’d better find him before the state cops do. Bess is terrified they’ll pick him up again.”

Decker shook his head as he ran down the front steps and jumped into his black pickup. Poor old Roscoe was losing his mind, slowly and painfully. At least once every few weeks, he’d disappear in his rattletrap Chevy, thinking he was still on duty for the state of Montana. On a good day, he’d fall asleep sitting in one of his favorite speed traps. On a bad day, he’d use his blue light to pull over some unsuspecting tourist or other.

He was at that scary point in his Alzheimer’s where he could be as lucid as could be for
hours or even days at a time, and then
bam
. He’d fall into that pit where ancient memories were clear as day, but this morning’s breakfast was a complete mystery. For an ex-cop, that was the dangerous part.

Decker just hoped this time he hadn’t unearthed his old gun, too.

* * *

“Twenty-seven, twenty-eight …” Kyla huffed. She winced every time her legs parted, her right thigh aching with every jump. She studied the cop, ready to run if he made a move toward her.

“Are you …”
Huff!
“… a sheriff?” Maybe that’s why he was out of uniform, in an unmarked car?

“Trooper.” He raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Are you …”
Huff!
“… a plainclothes trooper?”

“We don’t all wear uniforms, young lady.” His lips tightened and she realized she’d annoyed him. Bad idea, since it was just her, him, and the tall grass out here. She closed her mouth and continued jumping, but her stomach was making some frightening noises.

As she got to forty jumping jacks, she heard a low hum in between her labored breaths. Could it be? She strained her ears toward the sound. Oh, thank God! There was another vehicle coming. She kept one eye on the road behind her car, and was elated when a black pickup came into view. When it pulled to a stop on the shoulder and a man slid out of the driver’s seat, she gulped and stopped jumping.

Oh, my. Now
this
was a proper cowboy rescuer. Beige Stetson, weathered green chambray shirt, and just-tight-enough blue jeans made her wonder if Hayley and Jess were on to something with this whole cowboy-vacation plan.

“Roscoe, buddy, what do we have here?” The cowboy hooked his thumbs on his belt as he strolled toward Kyla and the cop.

Roscoe turned toward him and poked a thumb in Kyla’s direction. “She’s drunk.”

“I see.” He turned to look at Kyla. Dark brown hair peeked out from under his hat, and his blue eyes looked like they were trying not to show their amusement. “Ma’am, are you drunk?”

Was
he
the real cop around here? Just a guy passing by? She crossed her arms. “No.” The
cowboy glanced at his watch, then looked back at her. “Roscoe, buddy, it’s been a long shift. Why don’t you let me take over here? I bet Bess has supper ready.”