Midnight Cowboy Read online

  Jack’s soft breath fanned her face and Andy sighed. Their lovemaking flashed into her mind, but she willed the images away. As sweet as the distraction had been, as tempting as Jack was, the idea of Nightmare Man coming upon them in that vulnerable state terrified her. “Two hours, then.”

  “Three.” Jack relinquished the cover, stood and stretched. As Andy curled into the scant warmth of the quilt, he headed for the mine opening. The moon was high and full and offered a panoramic view of the surrounding terrain. He checked his watch and discovered, as he’d guessed, that it was nearly one. If Nightmare Man was coming it would be sometime before four in the morning.

  After that the sky would start to lighten again.

  Knowing Jack would be on guard, Andy felt her sense of calm returning. She rolled over onto her side again, snuggled into the quilt and was soon asleep.

  Every now and then Jack glanced down at her. He didn’t have to force himself to stay awake. The thought of Andy being taken from him was enough to do that.

  As his gaze swept back across the fields for the hundredth time, he cursed the rippling of the creek. Under normal circumstances he would enjoy its relaxing babble, but now he found it an annoyance that interfered with his ability to hear as clearly as he’d like. The first hour stretched into the second and then into the third. Only once did his heartbeat kick into high gear—when a dark shape lumbered across a nearby field. He stood frozen for several seconds before identifying the grizzly.

  As the third hour stretched toward the fourth, his eyelids grew heavy. Andy jerked up with a start at the touch of his hand on her shoulder. “He’s here?”

  “No sign of him, and if he was coming, he’d be here by now.”

  “What time is it?” Andy kicked off the quilt and stood.

  “Around four.”

  She nodded, handed him the quilt, stretched, walked to the adit and peered out. The cool night air helped chase the residue of sleep from her eyes and her mind. The moon had disappeared over the mountains, but the sky was more charcoal than opaque.

  Exhaustion claimed Jack within minutes.

  At the sound of his even breathing, Andy felt a sudden loneliness. She covered Gram’s bracelet with her right hand. How did I get to this point, Gram? Hiding in this mine as I once hid in the pantry—from the same awful man? It was as if her life had gone full circle and led her back to the beginning. Or was it the end?

  She glanced at the man lying mere feet from her-the one good thing in all this horror. The image of his lovemaking sprang into her head. But was tonight the only night they’d have together? Tears stung her eyes, and the dam she’d held back burst in a stream spilling down her cheeks. It wasn’t Jack Nightmare Man wanted—any more than it had been Virgil Cooper he’d been after.

  No one was more of a threat to him than she.

  But why was she crying? Tears wouldn’t help negate the hysterical amnesia that was keeping her from bringing the vile murderer to justice. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and scanned the terrain beyond the boulders. Nothing stirred.

  Anticipation kept her tense, and time seemed to move more slowly than the creek in August. The night grew colder. She rubbed her arms, then hugged herself in an attempt to sustain her body heat. She needed something useful to occupy her mind.

  Andy closed her eyes, willing the memories to come, the ones that had surfaced while she’d stood in the burned-out shell of her childhood home. Damn. She could see that night so clearly, every awful detail…all except him. She was well enough acquainted with their suspects by now that if she could only see the outline of his body, a movement, a gesture, she’d probably be able to guess Nightmare Man’s identity.

  But he might have been a ghost, so elusively did he haunt her mind.

  A moan from Jack jarred Andy, bringing her back to the moment, blinking. He didn’t snore, but he had a tendency to mumble in his sleep. She stifled a grin and once more inspected the terrain for human predators.

  An hour passed, then another. Her mind tended to drift to the feel of Jack’s hands and mouth on her. Time and again she forced the distracting thoughts away. She had to stay alert, to protect this man she had fallen in love with as he had protected her.

  Her back and leg muscles were growing stiff as the sun swept pale ribbons of light across the sky. She took one long, last glance out at the countryside, then turned around and gazed down at Jack.

  His jaw was black with morning beard and his chest rose and fell in even intervals. His lashes were obscenely long for a man and, with his eyes closed, lay against his upper cheeks. He moaned again, and Andy could swear he’d said her name.

  Suddenly aware that she probably looked a frighthair unkempt, makeup smudged or gone—she found her red ribbon, finger-combed her hair and pulled it back as best she could without a mirror or brush, securing it at her nape as she had yesterday. Her eyes felt gritty. She popped out her contacts and folded them carefully in Jack’s handkerchief.

  “Jack, come on.” She knelt beside him and gently jostled his shoulder. “It’s daylight.”

  He opened his eyes and took in her face. “Morning, pretty lady.”

  “Morning, cowboy.”

  “I hope you got the license number of the truck that hit me.” He struggled up, his body aching from tension, from glorious sex and from want of food, but Andy’s bright smile gave him the energy to rise.

  He folded the quilt, donned his Stetson and leaned over for the flashlight, accidentally flicking it on as he lifted it. The bright beam landed on a sidewall deep inside the shaft and showed a new cut in the rock. His eyebrows lifted at the discovery. “Someone has been working this mine.”

  Andy stood at the adit, gazing out. She spun at this remark. “What?”

  He gestured for her to come to him. “See for yourself.”

  She followed Jack to the wall highlighted by the flashlight and stared in astonishment as he pointed out the areas where someone had been using the pickax. “Do you suppose this is what Gene and Duke were up to yesterday?”

  “Anything’s possible, but I don’t see anything here to get excited about. ‘Course, I’m no expert on precious metals.”

  Andy hugged herself. “Could we discuss this in the sunlight?”

  “Sure, sure.” Jack clicked off the flashlight and followed her outside, his mind drifting back to her question about Plummer and Mott. “I suppose it could explain the guilty looks on those two fellows every time I run into them.”

  Andy felt a flutter of excitement as strong as the ripple of the creek. They might finally—actually—be on to something important. “You think they’ve been conferring over this mine?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” With Andy at his side, Jack splashed through the creek. Although the air was still cool, the day promised to be another scorcher. “I’m not convinced that Gene has the use of his legs. That kind of secret would be impossible to keep in a town the size of Alder Gulch. And if he is paralyzed from the waist down, how could he possibly get in and out of this mine—off and on his horsewithout more assistance than Duke Plummer could offer?”

  Andy’s hope took a serious blow. “Who, then?”

  “The answer to that might well lie in whose name is on the title to this piece of property.” Jack kept a wary eye on the hillsides, looking in particular for any telltale flashes of light, like the reflection of the sun off a rifle barrel.

  She, too, kept alert as they strode to the alder grove. “That should be pretty simple to check out.”

  “Yeah, there are several things we can check out today. But first we need to get back to town in one piece.”

  Her nerves tensed, but she made light of her fears. “Food and a bath—in that order—the minute we hit town.”

  “Me, too,” Jack agreed.

  They left the protection of the alder grove only after checking the surrounding hills and the general area nearby. Andy strode purposefully to the burned-out foundation. She found the kettle and lifted it, feeling
more fortunate than ever—even with the tender bruise on her breastbone. “I think I’d like to keep this lucky charm.”

  As she turned to Jack, she caught sight of a dust trail coming toward them down the road, before she heard the motor of the car.

  “Head for the trees,” Jack said.

  She dropped the kettle and ran. Breathless, they crouched behind the trees, peering out. Soon the car appeared, an all-terrain vehicle with the Madison County sheriff’s office insignia on the doors.

  Jack said, “It’s Birdsill, or one of his deputies.”

  Relief swept Andy and she smiled and started to stand. Jack caught her by the hand. “Wait. Let them get out of the car before we show ourselves.”

  Minna Kroft’s familiar mannish figure seemed to spring from the front passenger side of the car. “Yoo, hoo. Andy. Jack, ya out here?”

  The driver’s door and one of the back doors opened more slowly, the occupants less frantic in their movements.

  “Birdsill,” Andy said. “But who is that other man with him?”

  At his first sight of the stocky man with the thick gray crew cut, Jack’s grip on her went slack and he lurched to his full height, dragging her to her feet. “Wally Lester.”

  Andy felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from her chest.

  They left the shelter of the trees, calling out as they showed themselves. Wally and Birdsill came on the run.

  “Junior.” Wally grasped Jack and grinned in relief. “Praise the Lord, you’re all right. You are all right, aren’t you?”

  “Hungry. but otherwise A-okay.” Jack clasped Wally on the shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just wanted to see if you were making any progress.” Wally gave him a look that said the truth could wait until they didn’t have an audience. “When I arrived at your motel, Mrs. Kroft said you’d taken Ms. Woodworth for a picnic and she didn’t expect you back anytime soon.”

  With this last Wally turned to Andy and extended his hand. “I’ve waited a long lot of years to lay eyes on you.”

  Andy wasn’t certain if this was good or bad, but there was a warmth in Wally’s brown eyes that reminded her of Gram’s and she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. She shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”

  Wally grinned, but his expression wavered between relief and anxiety. “I have to tell you, when you didn’t return—”

  Minna cut him off. “I told Birdsill ‘twasn’t likely you’d’ve spent the night out here. Not with a perfectly good bed—” She broke off, her face flaming. “Well, now, I mean to say, something must’ve caused yer horses to run off back to the stable.”

  At this, Jack wheeled to Birdsill, who had been listening with a solemn expression in his yellow eyes. “If the horses came back to the stable, why didn’t you send help last night?”

  “No one told me about any of this until this morning.”

  Minna humphed. “And I didn’t know till then, neither. I don’t do bed checks on my lodgers, ya know.”

  “And I didn’t know who to awaken in the middle of the night,” Wally said in an apologetic tone.

  The long hours of worry had taken their toll on Wally, and Jack, conscious of his old friend’s high blood pressure, hated adding to his distress. But it was unavoidable. “Someone tried to kill us yesterday, Sheriff.”

  Minna gasped. Wally paled. Birdsill swore under his breath, and anger danced into his feral eyes, anger Jack would swear was directed at Andy and him. Curbing his own temper, Jack produced the kettle, pointed out the dent and related the story from the first gunshot to the last shouts of rage to their discovery of the obscured hoofprints.

  Birdsill wrote it all down in his notepad, then lifted his head and scanned the hillside behind them. “He would have to have had a high-powered scope to draw a bead on you from there. And why risk it if he was such a poor shot?”

  Minna shook her head, her fluffy hair flapping. “Don’t make sense. A man smart enough to brush out his horse’s prints wouldn’t try shootin’ two sittin’ ducks—easy kills, ya might say—if he wasn’t damned sure he’d hit his targets. Yet he missed ya both?”

  Andy and Jack exchanged a glance. Jack thought about the shooting trophies on Minna’s bookshelf, and his old suspicions of her not being what she seemed breathed new life. “It was dumb luck.”

  “Don’t discount the will of God,” Wally added.

  Birdsill studied the kettle. “Neither of you saw the shooter?”

  “No.” Jack swallowed the frustration this question invariably brought. He heaved the cast-iron kettle and it sailed through the air, landing with a clank in the burned-out foundation, lifting a tiny cloud of sooty dust.

  Birdsill frowned. “Did you at least recognize his voice?”

  Andy heaved a disheartened sigh. “Not that, either.”

  The sheriff gave her a sympathetic smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve remembered who he is?”

  She shook her head, feeling the weight of her burden pressing down on her like an avalanche of snow.

  “Well, now, that’s too bad. Without something more concrete, we’re still at square one.” He put his notepad into his pocket and poked a finger at Jack, then Andy. “Coming out here was damned foolish. You’re lucky it turned out as well as it did. So keep your noses out of this investigation.”

  “Really, Sheriff,” Wally interjected.

  Birdsill rounded on him. “I mean it, Mr. Lester. I’ve got no objection to a free press. But I won’t tolerate amateurs doing my job.”

  Minna cleared her throat. “Let’s get these two young people back to town, Sheriff. I’ll bet they’re hungry as baby birds.”

  “Yes.” Andy gave Minna a grateful smile. “And I’d like a bath as soon as possible.”

  “Got hot coffee in a thermos.” Minna hooked arms with Andy and started for the car.

  “I mean what I say, gentlemen. Interfere one more time and I’ll throw you all in jail.” Birdsill tugged the bill of his hat down. “Now, let’s go.”

  As soon as Jack, Andy and Wally were settled in the back seat, Jack gave Wally a look that told him anything he wanted to know would have to wait until the three of them were alone.

  Two hours later, fed, showered, wearing clean clothes and running on caffeine, Jack and Andy sat at the table in his cabin. Wally refilled their coffee cups and retook his seat. “Now, Junior, what didn’t you tell that sheriff?”

  Jack rubbed his tired eyes and sighed. “I’m not sure it would interest him, but this morning we discovered someone has recently been working the mine.”

  Wally pulled on his nose. “And the significance of this is…?”

  Jack shrugged, but Andy leaned forward on the table. “Could the mine have been the motive behind the murder of my parents?”

  Wally considered, then shook his head. “I doubt it. Twenty years have gone by. If the mine had been the motive, whatever was to be gained by it would have been taken long ago. No, the crime was too violent.”

  Frowning, Andy glanced at Jack. “I don’t—”

  Jack interrupted. “Violence denotes passion—a sudden eruption of emotion, like unleashed fury.”

  “Besides,” Wally continued, “the mine wouldn’t explain the murder of Karen Bradley—a young woman who looked strikingly like your mother.”

  Andy sat back, her fingers curling around her coffee mug. “Then maybe what Minna said about the young studs in town lusting after my mother is the right motive?”

  “I believe it is. To my way of thinking, whoever did this took a shot with your mother and when she turned him down, maybe even laughed at him, he snapped.”

  “Daddy must have come in from the fields right after it happened.” Andy swallowed over the lump in her throat.

  Jack touched her arm, rubbing it comfortingly.

  Wally raised an eyebrow at this. “Which of your suspects do you fancy, Junior?”

  Jack made a noncommittal grunt. “Why don’t you regale us with what you’ve fo
und out about them? How about Duke Plummer?”

  A manila envelope lay near Wally’s elbow. He opened it and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Let’s see. He’d returned home after a four-year stint in the army just months before the Woodworths were married. His father had recently passed away from cancer. He moved in with his mother and took over her job of assistant at the museum, while mom took over her husband’s job as curator. When she retired, the job passed to Duke.”

  “A mama’s boy?” Jack asked.

  Wally lifted his eyebrows. “No proof. He never married, but he has a married sister living in Virginia City.”

  “Can he handle a rifle?”

  “He received the expert marksman badge while at Fort Bliss.”

  Jack took a swallow of coffee. “How about Red Yager?”

  “By all accounts he’s an upright citizen. He played the rodeo circuit throughout his teens and garnered several state rifle championships. Turned a penchant for rare guns into a profitable hobby. Inherited the hotel from his parents and remodeled it into what you see today.”

  “Ever married?”

  “Not that I could find out. But rumor is he’s fond of young blondes—like Karen Bradley.”

  “And we know either Duke or Red lied to us about the number of scorpions Duke brought into Alder Gulch.” Jack sighed. He’d hoped Wally’s information would allow them to eliminate someone from their list, but that hope was sinking fast. “Gene Mott?”

  “The official story is that he fell off a horse and broke his spine, leaving him a paraplegic.”

  “The official story?” Andy frowned.

  “Press releases,” Jack explained. But something in Wally’s voice stirred his interest. “Everyone I questioned about it when I first arrived here told me the same story. Are you saying it isn’t true?”

  “No. What I’m saying is that a few years back a couple of the tabloids ran stories about a drunkdriving incident. Mott sued both times and won both times.”

  Jack tapped the rim of his coffee cup. “I was hoping you were going to tell me the stories claimed the injury was faked.”