The Cowboy and the Lady Page 19

  Her grades put her at the top of the sophomore class, and she saw herself bound for college in less than three years. Lauren had no intention of getting pregnant, or doing drugs, or any of the other fearful situations Mrs. Patterson and her father had hinted might befall her. Her pop didn’t even want her dating until she was sixteen, and, judging from the boys she knew in high school, she’d just as soon go dateless until eighteen. Maybe college would have better pickings. Some of these guys were so dumb she was surprised they got their cowboy hats on straight every morning.

  Reid Collins walked out from the gas station first with a can of Coke in each hand. “I bought you one even though you said you didn’t want anything to drink,” he announced as he neared. “Want to lean on me while you clean your shoes?”

  Lauren rolled her eyes. Since he’d grown a few inches and started working out, Reid thought he was God’s gift to girls.

  “Why?” she asked as she tossed the stick. “I have a brick wall to lean on. And don’t get any ideas we’re on a date, Reid, just because I walked over here with you.”

  “I don’t date sophomores,” he snapped. “I’m on first string, you know. I could probably date any senior I want to. Besides, you’re like a little sister, Lauren. We’ve known each other since you were in the first grade.”

  She thought of mentioning that playing first string on a football team that only had forty players total, including the coaches and water boy, wasn’t any great accomplishment, but arguing with Reid would rot her brain. He’d been born rich, and he’d thought he knew everything since he cleared the birth canal. She feared his disease was terminal.

  “If you’re cold, I’ll let you wear my football jacket.” When she didn’t comment, he bragged, “I had to reorder a bigger size after a month of working out.”

  She hated to, but if she didn’t compliment him soon, he’d never stop begging. “You look great in the jacket, Reid. Half the seniors on the team aren’t as big as you.” There was nothing wrong with Reid from the neck down. In a few years he’d be a knockout with the Collins good looks and trademark rusty hair, not quite brown, not quite red. But he still wouldn’t interest her.

  “So, when I get my driver’s license next month, do you want to take a ride?”

  Lauren laughed. “You’ve been asking that since I was in the third grade and you got your first bike. The answer is still no. We’re friends, Reid. We’ll always be friends, I’m guessing.”

  He smiled a smile that looked as if he’d been practicing. “I know, Lauren, but I keep wanting to give you a chance now and then. You know, some guys don’t want to date the sheriff’s daughter, and I hate to point it out, babe, but if you don’t fill out some, it’s going to be bad news in college.” He had the nerve to point at her chest.

  “I know.” She managed to pull off a sad look. “Having my father is a cross I have to bear. Half the guys in town are afraid of him. Like he might arrest them for talking to me. Which he might.” She had no intention of discussing her lack of curves with Reid.

  “No, it’s not fear of him, exactly,” Reid corrected. “I think it’s more the bullet holes they’re afraid of. Every time a guy looks at you, your old man starts patting his service weapon. Nerve-racking habit, if you ask me. From the looks of it, I seem to be the only one he’ll let stand beside you, and that’s just because our dads are friends.”

  She grinned. Reid was spoiled and conceited and self-centered, but he was right. They’d probably always be friends. Her dad was the sheriff, and his was the mayor of Crossroads, even though he lived five miles from town on one of the first ranches established near Ransom Canyon.

  With her luck, Reid would be the only guy in the state that her father would let her date. Grumpy old Pop had what she called Terminal Cop Disease. Her father thought everyone, except his few friends, was most likely a criminal, anyone under thirty should be stopped and searched, and anyone who’d ever smoked pot could not be trusted.

  Tim O’Grady, Reid’s eternal shadow, walked out of the station with a huge frozen drink. The clear cup showed off its red-and-yellow layers of cherry-and-pineapple-flavored sugar.

  Where Reid was balanced in his build, Tim was lanky, disjointed. He seemed to be made of mismatched parts. His arms were too long. His feet seemed too big, and his wired smile barely fit in his mouth. When he took a deep draw on his drink, he staggered and held his forehead from the brain freeze.

  Lauren laughed as he danced around like a puppet with his strings crossed. Timothy, as the teachers called him, was always good for a laugh. He had the depth of cheap paint but the imagination of a natural-born storyteller.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten an icy drink on such a cold night,” he mumbled between gulps. “If I freeze from the inside out, put me up on Main Street as a statue.”

  Lauren giggled.

  Lucas Reyes was the last of their small group to come outside. Lucas hadn’t bought anything, but he evidently was avoiding standing outside with her. She’d known Lucas Reyes for a few years, maybe longer, but he never talked to her. Like Reid and Tim, he was a year ahead of her, but since he rarely talked, she usually only noticed him as a background person in her world.

  Unlike them, Lucas didn’t have a family name following him around opening doors for a hundred miles.

  They all four lived east of Crossroads along the rambling canyon called Ransom Canyon. Lauren and her father lived in one of a cluster of houses near the lake, as did Tim’s parents. Reid’s family ranch was five miles farther out. She had no idea where Lucas’s family lived. Maybe on the Collins Ranch. His father worked on the Bar W, which had been in the Collins family for over a hundred years. The area around the headquarters looked like a small village.

  Reid repeated the plan. “My brother said he’d drop Sharon off and be back for us. But if they get busy doing their thing it could be an hour. We might as well walk back and sit on the church steps.”

  “Great fun,” Tim complained. “Everything’s closed. It’s freezing out here, and I swear this town is so dead somebody should bury it.”

  “We could start walking toward home,” Lauren suggested as she pulled a tiny flashlight from her key chain. The canyon lake wasn’t more than a mile. If they walked they wouldn’t be so cold. She could probably be home before Reid’s dumb brother could get his lips off Sharon. If rumors were true, Sharon had very kissable lips, among other body parts.

  “Better than standing around here,” Reid said as Tim kicked mud toward the building. “I’d rather be walking than sitting. Plus, if we go back to the church, Mrs. Patterson will probably come out to keep us company.”

  Without a vote, they started walking. Lauren didn’t like the idea of stumbling into mud holes now covered up by a dusting of snow along the side of the road, but it sounded better than standing out front of the gas station. Besides, the moon offered enough light, making the tiny flashlight her father insisted she carry worthless.

  Within a few yards, Reid and Tim had fallen behind and were lighting up a smoke. To her surprise, Lucas stayed beside her.

  “You don’t smoke?” she asked, not really expecting him to answer.

  “No, can’t afford the habit,” he said, surprising her. “I’ve got plans, and they don’t include lung cancer.”

  Maybe the dark night made it easier to talk, or maybe Lauren didn’t want to feel so alone in the shadows. “I was starting to think you were a mute. We’ve had a few classes together, and you’ve never said a word. Even tonight you were the only one who didn’t talk about your project.”

  Lucas shrugged. “Didn’t see the point. I’m just entering for the prize money, not trying to save the world or build a better tomorrow.”

  She giggled.

  He laughed, too, realizing he’d just made fun of the whole point of the projects. “Plus,” he added, “there’s just not much opportunity
to get a word in around those two.” He nodded his head at the two letter jackets falling farther behind as a cloud of smoke haloed above them.

  She saw his point. The pair trailed them by maybe twenty feet or more, and both were talking about football. Neither seemed to require a listener.

  “Why do you hang out with them?” she asked. Lucas didn’t seem to fit. Studious and quiet, he hadn’t gone out for sports or joined many clubs that she knew about. “Jocks usually hang out together.”

  “I wanted to work on my project tonight, and Reid offered me a ride. Listening to football talk beats walking in this weather.”

  Lauren tripped into a pothole. Lucas’s hand shot out and caught her in the darkness. He steadied her, then let go.

  “Thanks. You saved my life,” she joked.

  “Hardly, but if I had, you’d owe me a blood debt.”

  “Would I have to pay?”

  “Of course. It would be a point of honor. You’d have to save me or be doomed to a coward’s hell.”

  “Lucky you just kept me from tripping, or I’d be following you around for years waiting to repay the debt.” She rubbed her arm where he’d touched her. He was stronger than she’d thought he would be. “You lift weights?”

  The soft laughter came again. “Yeah, it’s called work. Until I was sixteen, I spent the summers and every weekend working on Reid’s father’s ranch. Once I was old enough, I signed up at the Kirkland place to cowboy when they need extras. Every dime I make is going to college tuition in a year. That’s why I don’t have a car yet. When I get to college, I won’t need it, and the money will go toward books.”

  “But you’re just a junior. You’ve still got a year and a half of high school.”

  “I’ve got it worked out so I can graduate early. High school’s a waste of time. I’ve got plans. I can make a hundred-fifty a day working, and my dad says he thinks I’ll be able to cowboy every day I’m not in school this spring and all summer.”

  She tripped again, and his hand steadied her once more. Maybe it was her imagination, but she swore he held on a little longer than necessary.

  “You’re an interesting guy, Lucas Reyes.”

  “I will be,” he said. “Once I’m in college, I can still come home and work breaks and weekends. I’m thinking I can take a few online classes during the summer, live at home and save enough to pay for the next year. I’m going to Tech no matter what it takes.”

  “You planning on getting through college in three years, too?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know if I can. But I’ll have the degree, whatever it is, before I’m twenty-two.”

  No one her age had ever talked of the future like that. Like they were just passing through this time in their life and something yet to come mattered far more. “When you are somebody, I think I’d like to be your friend.”

  “I hope we will be more than that, Lauren.” His words were so low, she wasn’t sure she heard them.

  “Hey, you two deadbeats up there!” Reid yelled. “I got an idea.”

  Lauren didn’t want the conversation with Lucas to end, but if she ignored Reid he’d just get louder. “What?”

  Reid ran up between them and put an arm over both her and Lucas’s shoulders. “How about we break into the Gypsy House? I hear it’s haunted by Gypsies who died a hundred years ago.”

  Tim caught up to them. As always, he agreed with Reid. “Look over there in the trees. The place is just waiting for us. Heard if you rattle a Gypsy’s bones, the dead will speak to you.” Tim’s eyes glowed in the moonlight. “I had a cousin once who said he heard voices in that old place, and no one was there but him.”

  “This is not a good idea.” Lauren tried to back away, but Reid held her shoulder tight.

  “Come on, Lauren, for once in your life, do something that’s not safe. No one’s lived in the old place for years. How much trouble can we get into?”

  Tim’s imagination had gone wild. According to him all kinds of things could happen. They might find a body. Ghosts could run them out, or the spirit of a Gypsy might take over their minds. Who knew, zombies might sleep in the rubble of old houses.

  Lauren rolled her eyes. She didn’t want to think of the zombies getting Tim. A walking dead with braces was too much.

  “It’s just a rotting old house,” Lucas said so low no one heard but Lauren. “There’s probably rats or rotten floors. It’s an accident waiting to happen. How about you come back in the daylight, Reid, if you really want to explore the place?”

  “We’re all going, now,” Reid announced, as he shoved Lauren off the road and into the trees that blocked the view of the old homestead from passing cars. “Think of the story we’ll have to tell everyone Monday. We will have explored a haunted house and lived to tell the tale.”

  Reason told her to protest more strongly, but at fifteen, reason wasn’t as intense as the possibility of an adventure. Just once, she’d have a story to tell. Just this once...her father wouldn’t find out.

  They rattled across the rotting porch steps fighting tumbleweeds that stood like flimsy guards around the place. The door was locked and boarded up. The smell of decay hung in the foggy air, and a tree branch scraped against one side of the house as if whispering for them to stay back.

  The old place didn’t look like much. It might have been the remains of an early settlement, built solid to face the winters with no style or charm. Odds were, Gypsies never even lived in it. It appeared to be a half dugout with a second floor built on years later. The first floor was planted down into the earth a few feet, so the second-floor windows were just above their heads, giving the place the look of a house that had been stepped on by a giant.

  Everyone called it the Gypsy House because a group of hippies had squatted there in the seventies. They’d painted a peace sign on one wall, but it had faded and been rained on until it almost looked like a witching sign. No one remembered when the hippies had moved on or who owned the house now, but somewhere in its past a family named Stanley must have lived there because old-timers called it the Stanley house.

  “I heard devil worshippers lived here years ago.” Tim began making scary-movie-soundtrack noises. “Body parts are probably scattered in the basement. They say once Satan moves in, only the blood of a virgin will wash the place clean.”

  Reid’s laughter sounded nervous. “That leaves me out.”

  Tim jabbed his friend. “You wish. I say you’ll be the first to scream when a dead hand, not connected to a body, touches you.”

  “Shut up, Tim.” Reid’s uneasy voice echoed in the night. “You’re freaking me out. Besides, there is no basement. It’s just a half dugout built into the ground, so we’ll find no buried bodies.”

  Lauren screamed as Reid kicked a low window in, and all the guys laughed.

  “You go first, Lucas,” Reid ordered. “I’ll stand guard.”

  To Lauren’s surprise, Lucas slipped into the space. His feet hit the ground with a thud somewhere in the blackness.

  “You next, Tim,” Reid announced as if he were the commander.

  “Nope. I’ll go after you.” All Tim’s laughter had disappeared. Apparently he’d frightened himself.

  “I’ll go.” Lauren suddenly wanted this entire adventure to be over with. With her luck, animals were wintering in the old place.

  “I’ll help you down.” Reid lowered her into the window space.

  As she moved through total darkness, her feet wouldn’t quite touch the bottom. For a moment she just hung, afraid to tell Reid to drop her.

  Then she felt Lucas’s hands at her waist. Slowly he took her weight.

  “I’m in,” she called back to Reid. He let her hands go, and she dropped against Lucas.

  “You all right?” Lucas whispered near her hair.

  “This was a dumb i
dea.”

  She felt him laugh more than she heard it. “That you talking or the Gypsy’s advice? Of all the brains dropping in here tonight, yours would probably be the most interesting to take over, so watch out. A ghost might just climb in your head and let free all the secret thoughts you keep inside, Lauren.”

  He pulled her a foot into the blackness as a letter jacket dropped through the window. His hands circled her waist. She could feel him breathing as Reid finally landed, cussing the darkness. For a moment it seemed all right for Lucas to stay close; then in a blink, he was gone from her side.

  Now the tiny flashlight offered Lauren some much-needed light. The house was empty except for an old wire bed frame and a few broken stools. With Reid in the lead, they moved up rickety stairs to the second floor, where shadowy light came from big dirty windows.

  Tim hesitated when the floor’s boards began to rock as if the entire second story were on some kind of seesaw. He backed down the steps a few feet, letting the others go first. “I don’t know if this second story will hold us all.” Fear rattled in his voice.

  Reid laughed and teased Tim as he stomped across the second floor, making the entire room buck and pitch. “Come on up, Tim. This place is better than a fun house.”

  Stepping hesitantly on the upstairs floor, Lauren felt Lucas just behind her and knew he was watching over her.

  Tim dropped down a few more steps, not wanting to even try.

  Lucas backed against the wall between the windows, his hand still brushing Lauren’s waist to keep her steady as Reid jumped to make the floor shake. The whole house seemed to moan in pain, like a hundred-year-old man standing up one arthritic joint at a time.

  When Reid yelled for Tim to join them, Tim started back up the broken stairs, just before the second floor buckled and crumbled. Tim dropped out of sight as rotten lumber pinned him halfway between floors.

  His scream of pain ended Reid’s laughter.

  In a blink, dust and boards flew as pieces of the roof rained down on them and the second floor vanished below them, board by rotting board.