Lone Star Hero Read online

  He dragged his backpack toward him and switched his flashlight on since the sun wasn’t as keen to wake up as he was. He unclipped a water pack and drank, deep and long. It took a lot of water to keep a six-foot-two, hundred-and-ninety-pound guy hydrated.

  He liked walking—taking his time and enjoying the solitude. He just couldn’t make up his mind where he was going. He pulled his topo map from an internal pocket where he kept his ID and his cash. The map was well worn but not so much he couldn’t read it. It was simply well used, like Saul had almost been with Sally-Opal. There was no accounting for how weird some people were but she had come from left field. For such a sweet-looking girly-girl, she wasn’t afraid to go after what she liked the look of. And she’d liked the look of Saul.

  She’d told him she wanted him for his height, his strength, the body beneath his uniform, and—worst of all—for his tool. He could hardly believe it. She wanted to get her hands on his man equipment. Said she had a use for it. Wanted a kid and she’d chosen him. But if he was going to use his tool—and he liked using it—it was going to be on his terms.

  As he unfolded the map, a newspaper clipping fell out. He picked it up, dusted it off on his hiking pants, and stared at it in the light from the sun, now shining dimly on the dusty earth around him.

  Wanted: builder with Spanish hacienda and adobe-roof renovation experience. Live-in. Full board. (Small wage.) Spend the fall in chilled-out Hopeless, Calamity Valley, Texas Panhandle. Bring your own equipment. Come straight to town and ask for Miss M. Mackillop (the youngest M. Mackillop).

  Saul sighed. It was seeing that word—equipment. It chilled his loins.

  The newspaper clipping had been wrapped around hot dogs he’d bought yesterday at some canyon picnic. He didn’t know why he’d shoved the clipping into his map. Some odd interest that made him think he might take a look. Except he wasn’t staying in Texas, but with every step, some gut instinct pulled at him, telling him to slow down and wait. This had been happening for twenty-four hours. He’d tried to ignore it, but the pull—an inner compass or something?—kept deterring him.

  He glanced at the clipping again. He’d heard of Hopeless. There were two other towns in Calamity Valley. Surrender and Reckless. Some place off the beaten path nobody ever visited. Usually his kind of place.

  His sat phone rang.

  With another sigh, he pulled it off the clip on his shirt pocket and checked the caller ID. Sally-Opal. The only person who should have this number was his commander. Had he given it to Sally? When had Saul forgotten not to trust anyone?

  “Saul!”

  He winced at the squeal and held the phone away from his ear.

  “Sweetie, I got us an appointment,” Sally said. “Can you make it back in time?”

  “In time for what?”

  She didn’t wait for the slight delay so he missed the first few words. “Couples therapy. Monday, four o’clock.”

  “Couples what?”

  “I know you’re mad at me. And I’m a little bit mad at you for leaving, but I’m trying my best to understand what’s bugging you.”

  He’d saved her from that rolled vehicle and she’d invited him out to dinner. He’d reckoned it was a nice gesture on her part, so he’d agreed. Biggest mistake of his life.

  “Sally-Opal, listen—no—yeah—listen—Sally!” He snatched a breath. “Sally-Opal,” he said again in a more resigned tone when silence reigned. He hardly ever got a turn to talk. “For the last time, we are not a couple. We had dinner once. It wasn’t a date. I left early.”

  He’d known five minutes into the evening that there were a lot of things not properly placed in Sally’s head. She kept touching him. His forearms on the table. His fingers. His thigh beneath the table, then his—yeah, his equipment, which hadn’t moved. Not a flutter.

  “You mean so much to me, Saul. You just need to come back for the appointment.”

  “I’m not coming back.”

  “I might be pregnant.”

  “Sally-Opal, you’re not pregnant.” Not by him at least. “We didn’t sleep together.” What is this woman on?

  “But imagine if we had. I’d be three weeks gone by now.”

  “Sally-Opal—” He was beginning to feel sorry for her, but what could he do? How could he let her down gently? He sat up straighter as an idea struck him. “Look, I’m really sorry, but there’s something I didn’t tell you.” He took a breath. “I’m in love with another woman.” That had to do it.

  Silence, and it didn’t sound pleasant.

  “Since when?” she demanded, her voice hot, breathy fury.

  He winced. Now she was going to give him more grief, when he’d just wanted to get her out of his hair kindly. And how could he have met a woman to fall in love with in a few days while hiking the Palo Duro Canyon? He hadn’t met one in all of his thirty years. He held up the newspaper clipping still in his other hand and scanned the ad. “Eh... Since the other day. Love at first sight.”

  “What’s her name?”

  He checked the ad again. “Mackillop.” Miss M. Mackillop. What would the M stand for? “Moll Mackillop,” he said, thinking of his pony, Moll. He’d learned to ride on her when he was three-years-old. She’d been his best friend with four legs, apart from his dog, and man, if he didn’t still miss her.

  “Where does she live?” Sally-Opal squealed.

  “Idaho. So that’s it. We’re done. I’m really sorry. I’m sure you’ll find some great man who’s just right for you. Goodbye, Sally, you take care now—”

  “I’ve got your sister’s number.”

  His blood ran cold. The only way she could have gotten his pretty little sister’s number was if she’d taken it from his cell phone. The one he’d ditched when he bought the sat.

  “I’m going to call her and tell her what you’ve been up to!”

  “Don’t start anything you can’t finish,” Saul said, his annoyance boiling over the nicer part of his nature.

  “You lying cheat!” she said, and cut him off.

  He let his hand fall to his thigh. Sally could have snooped through his gear back in El Paso any number of times. When he’d left his cell and truck keys on the table and gone to pay for the dinner he hadn’t eaten. When she’d followed him into his commander’s office in the following days and just sat there, waiting for him to return from whatever rangering duty he’d been on. His gear had been in that office. And she was calling him a cheat.

  Five seconds later the sat beeped with an incoming message, and Saul almost threw it into the desert. But it was from his commander.

  Saul, I’ve been getting a load of calls about you. From that woman in the rolled vehicle. Not sure what you’ve done, but she’s pissed. She’s not the only one, either. Her father is on your case, and he’s an ex-cop. Might want to lose yourself for a couple of weeks. Don’t know what you’ve got yourself involved in, but keep your head on a swivel, buddy.

  Given the life-changing scenario and the lies he’d been given by another woman six years ago—lies that had left his life in tatters for a while—Saul didn’t want to be found. Sally-Opal’s father had nothing on him. The law had nothing on him. But his sister did.

  He threw the phone onto his backpack and contemplated his options. Ignoring disappointment came first. He’d been thinking it was time to stop messing around and find some place to open Wilderness Hiking—the business he’d been planning for the past few years. This nonsense with Sally had nudged the decision to move on—and maybe he ought to be thanking her. All he had to do now was find some place for Wilderness Hiking that wasn’t in Texas. It was a big state, but maybe not big enough for him and Sally. Where he’d set up this business, he didn’t know, but he hoped by the time he arrived, he’d have walked off his bad mood.

  He’d done nothing to hurt either Sally or her ex-cop daddy. But he did not want his sister on his back. So where was he going to head? Where was the best place to lie low for a week or so until Sally-Opal forgot all about this pregnanc
y, or found another man to hound? If he left Texas, he’d have to walk out, or hitch a ride, because if he flew out, her daddy would undoubtedly have connections and discover where he’d gone, which would only fuel Sally’s enthusiasm to find him.

  A sudden gust of wind rustled the newspaper clipping, then kicked up so strongly the clipping blew out of his hand, and up to his face.

  He peeled it off his nose and gave it his ranger glare. He was about to scrunch it up when he caught sight of—

  Wanted: ...

  Spend the fall in chilled-out Hopeless, Calamity Valley.

  He’d been brought up on a ranch in Colorado; everybody knew how to build something. Every man had some carpentry skills. He’d boarded with a Mexican woman and her teenage kids when he’d first joined the rangers in El Paso. She hadn’t had much so in his off-time he’d restored her adobe house and started a small sideline in reno jobs.

  He pocketed the clipping and made a decision. Standard ranger practice. Keep your eyes and ears open, maintain situational awareness, and stay safe.

  He wasn’t going to run, although he wanted Sally and her daddy to think he had. He was going to stay close, holed up in some place off the beaten path nobody ever visited.

  A town called Hopeless.

  Chapter Two

  Half an hour after seeing Alice, Molly back-kicked the pedal on her bicycle and took off from the courtyard, leaving her partly Spanish, partly Mexican, but oh-so-Texan hacienda to bake the midmorning sun.

  She tried to get her mood in tune with the day, but almost didn’t see the cornflower-blue sky or sense the beauty around her. She had to get into town now and see her mother, before this stranger arrived. He knew things about her. He was dangerous and on the run—why else would he be protecting his equipment? What was his equipment? What did roof builders cart around with them?

  And she’d thought the thing a problem.

  She rode the downward slope of the rough track driveway, nothing but fine Calamity land surrounding her. The tassels on the handlebars twirled in the windrush as she freewheeled beneath the crumbling white arch that denoted the entry to her property.

  By the time she’d cycled the twenty minutes to Hopeless the heat from her exertion had bled her concerns to a trembling muscle fatigue.

  She’d sold her own vehicle when she dumped the fiancé, and had put that money into the first pressing renovations, such as making the lodge house she was living in habitable. If she needed to haul goods home, she borrowed Momma’s pickup.

  If the thing would just send her the twenty thousand he owed. What an idiot. Molly, that was, not the ex-fiancé. Jason was a scumbag and everybody knew scumbags were smart. She should have seen him for what he was. Instead, she’d succumbed to the lure of not being lonely. Mrs. Molly Birling. How normal did that sound? No “Crazy Molly” or “Wacky Mackillop” title. But all that time she’d thought Jason Birling was expanding his motel chain while she plowed through his books and took the photographs for his motel brochures, he’d been working the new girl in the empty rooms.

  She slowed to cruise-speed, passing the buildings she’d grown up with. “Morning, Mr. Jack,” she called to the town’s upholsterer. Not that he had any business in the upholstery area, but he did clothing alterations and that kept him more or less occupied.

  “You tell that Mrs. Wynkoop to stay out of the co-op plot, Molly,” he called from the doorway of Jack Upholstery. “I’m getting tired of patching up the knees on her denim.”

  Mrs. Wynkoop ran the library, which was more of a book swap place than a library, and when she wasn’t busy dusting the books nobody read, she tended the co-op garden.

  “Will do.” Molly didn’t slow down or she’d be kept chatting all day.

  Most buildings in town were basic flat-fronted with more or less flat roofs. The meeting hall and the old market courtyard where the co-op garden was housed gave off a Spanish flare with whitewash and terracotta tiles.

  A few cabins had sprung up twenty years ago. They were painted pale greens and light blues and were cared for on the outside but empty on the inside.

  Like the hacienda. Empty. For more decades than the town dwellings. But not for much longer. Not when Through the Lens was up and running.

  Start your day early with breakfast at the hacienda where we’ll develop your ideas.

  She’d need a new stove, not to mention a roof.

  Expose the real you. Choose the tone and I’ll take care of the ambient light.

  Light was a wonderful thing, in all its forms. Daybreak, midday, late afternoon, and evening. The valley was an idyllic painting for any photographers she might cater for.

  Zoom in on Calamity Valley. Visit the town of Hopeless and pick up some traditional art, or a slice of the famous Hopeless sponge cake. Lunch at the hacienda—

  More catering. She hadn’t decided how to handle that part yet, but some great idea would hit her. She already had a few townspeople in mind for specific jobs. She’d be employing people. The valley would have a chance. Which should keep the developers off their backs.

  “Oh, heck!” She swerved the front wheel of her bicycle to the curb.

  “Head in the treetops again,” Davie said, moving his bulk to the sidewalk.

  Davie Little was the valley bouncer. He’d been born here. His Mexican grandmother had known the philandering great-grandfathers. Molly adored him. He was the father she’d never had. As he was to her cousins, Lauren and Pepper. The grandmothers had their own protection with their ability to see what was right and what was wrong with people, and Momma didn’t need protecting from anybody but herself.

  “Morning, Davie. ¿Cómo estas?”

  Davie spoke Spanish and English and frequently mixed the languages—especially when confusion was necessary, like that time with Donaldson’s Property Developers, a special Hopeless sponge cake, and the laxatives.

  “Hope you’re not up that ladder again,” Davie said. “You stay off that roof, Molly.”

  “Haven’t been up there for ages.” What he didn’t see he didn’t know about.

  An eerie chill crept over her shoulders and trickled down her back. She looked down the near-deserted street.

  “Um... Davie, don’t suppose you’ve seen any odd-looking strangers this morning?”

  “Lost, or tourist?”

  “When did we last see a genuine tourist? No—this stranger’s not lost but he might be hauling some equipment. Make sure you check his equipment.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

  The sudden chill vanished and the warmth of the sun was back on her face. “Thanks.” This was another great thing about Davie. He never queried the oddities of a question. He was also handy to have around in a bar fight. Although they had to go to Surrender for one of those.

  “Catch ya later,” Davie said.

  Molly took a moment to look at her town when Davie made his way back to the art gallery he looked after. Momma had started it way back when Bling was first given a capital “B” but had gotten bored and handed it over to the generous-hearted valley bouncer, whom, she’d said, was far more deserving, being a Mexican craftsman.

  The main street—the only street actually, but still known as Hopeless Main Street—was paved, and wide enough for the most careless driver to cruise through without knocking somebody over or crashing into another vehicle—of which there were few.

  Nobody lived in town now, except for those who worked the lonesome businesses. They lived out of town, in houses dotted around the valley, and worked in Amarillo or traveled an hour to Lubbock. If someone wanted gas, they had to drive to get it. But if they wanted a slice of the famous Hopeless sponge cake or an updo hairstyle or to post a postcard and maybe buy some of Davie’s sculptures or paintings, Hopeless was their place. If they got lost enough to find themselves here.

  Molly set off again toward Momma’s salon, taking in the serenity of Hopeless and trying to let the gentle colours and queit ambience settle her worries.

  Three
minutes later she pushed through the swinging plastic blinds on the salon doorway. “Morning, Momma. What a day I’ve had already. You won’t believe it!” She didn’t want to frighten anyone, so decided to ease into the dangerous stranger subject.

  “Take a seat in the hair-chair, baby. Momma’s going to do your hair.”

  Molly groaned. “It’s out of the way in a ponytail.”

  Momma pulled the hair-chair from the salon counter. It was pink, her favorite color—she wore something pink every day and today she was head to toe in pink. “Let your mother fix you up.” She slid her arms into her bright pink salon apron, covering her curvy, narrow-waist figure.

  Molly walked toward the hair-chair Momma only used when she was about to embark on serious beautification, knowing she’d be stuck in town for close to two hours. “No makeup. I haven’t got time to be your practice model today. There’s a lot going on.”

  Momma grabbed her hand and studied it. “You need a manicure and a polish.”

  Three hours...

  “Is that a new style?” Molly asked as she checked her mother’s updo. Molly had inherited Momma’s shiny chestnut hair, but her mother’s was streaked with lighter tones, teased to her height requirement.

  “Just my morning ’do, honey. I’m going for gilt slides this afternoon.”

  “Looks great.” Molly sat. “Any chance of coffee? Maybe some cake?”

  In between hairstyling for those in need of specialty styling—women traveled far and wide for one of Momma’s updos—Momma had opened the Hopeless Takeout next door to her salon. Although the only takeout on offer was coffee and Momma’s famous Hopeless sponge cakes, which she sold to visitors. The lost ones and the many who visited the grandmothers hoping to hear good fortune was about to find them.