Page 14 of Reckoning with the Cowboy
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Max broke up with Goldie,” Amy Sue announced the moment Josie returned to the ranch with the news. “Again?What is wrong with him? Clancy called to say that she’d help Goldie get her things out of the house and now Goldie is staying in her cousin’s spare room. That poor woman. I can’t understand why she puts up with him.”
Josie nodded, upset with the situation, as well. “She loves him,” she said simply. Goldie had been in tears when she’d called. While upset with Max, Josie was more worried about the premonition that still swirled her like a storm cloud. “We should hold off on criticizing Max until we know what’s going on.”
Her sister made a rude noise followed by a curse word that would have sent their gram looking for a bar of soap to wash out her mouth. “This happened when Cordell left. Now he’s back. What a coincidence.”
Josie agreed this had something to do with Cordell and why he’d come back and said he couldn’t leave, but she didn’t share it with Amy Sue. Nor had she told her that she’d felt trouble coming. Her sister had always mocked her premonitions. Foolishly, it was probably out of jealousy. Josie only wished she would be blissfully unaware.
What worried her was the strength of her knowing had been so strong and had felt so personal. She should have known it had something to do with Cordell, the man who’d stolen her heart and broken it. What she hadn’t expected was that whatever trouble he’d brought back would sweep up Max into the maelstrom, especially this quickly.
It could only mean that Max was now somehow involved in whatever was going on. She thought about Cordell’s pickup and the enclosed small trailer that he’d brought back. They’d already had a call that he’d moved it from where it had been parked along Main Street. It was now apparently parked behind Max’s house. Max and Cordell had been the topic of conversation from the moment Cordell had driven into town.
“I suspect you know what’s going on,” Amy Sue said, squinting her eyes at Josie. “You spoke with Cordell at the jail earlier, right?”
“All he told me was that he was staying in town. He indicated he had something he had to do and couldn’t leave.” He’d wanted to talk more, but she hadn’t let him.
Her sister made another rude noise. “Well, I heard Max told Rance that he might be gone for a couple of days. Why would he tell his deputy that if he wasn’t leaving town? Come on, Josie, you know it must have something to do with Cordell. Everyone is blaming him since Max and Goldie were fine—until your old boyfriend shows up.” Her sister made the relationship Josie had with Cordell sound like puppy love. He was the love of her life. But after he left, she’d been afraid that he would never return.
Now she’d sensed something dark was still haunting both men and it was why neither of them had settled down with the women they loved. Seeing Cordell today in the jail, she’d known that he still loved her as passionately as she did him. It had broken her heart since while she was capable of getting him out of jail, she hadn’t been able to heal the wounded past inside him that made him want to run away.
“Everyone is blaming Cordell for whatever is going on,” Amy Sue was saying. “I can understand why you’re worried about Max. Who knows what his brother has gotten him into.”
Of course the town was blaming Cordell, Josie thought. He had been blamed for everything for years. Not that he’d made any effort to mend his ways. She smiled despite herself. There had always been that devilment of a twinkle in his eye from the first time she laid eyes on him. It had been his bad-boy persona that had attracted her like metal to magnet.
He and his older brother had just appeared in town as if blown in by the wind. They’d both just been boys with apparently nothing to their names. They’d moved into elderly Iris Mason’s boardinghouse on the edge of town. Iris had a habit of taking in strays and she and her sister, Esther, ran what today might have been called a bed-and-breakfast. With Iris’s help, the brothers started school and had been in Dry Gulch ever since—until Cordell had left six years ago. Max had stayed, gone to the police academy and come back to go to work as a deputy, then sheriff.
Josie often had forgotten that they hadn’t lived here their whole lives. She felt as if she’d always known the two of them. Maybe because she’d always sensed their pain. Fortunately, the community had taken them in just as Iris had. As far as she knew, no one had ever heard anything about their family—if they had any—or why they’d shown up, just the two of them, alone. Cordell had never been forthcoming about his life before Dry Gulch.
Amy Sue was right. It was Max’s behavior now that caused Josie the most concern. It wasn’t like him. Maybe worse, Cordell was involved. It spelled the worst kind of trouble and made her even more anxious than she had been. Had it been legal trouble, Cordell would have to come to her, and Max would have had no reason to break up with Goldie, her instincts told her.
She felt that darkness she’d sensed grow even heavier. What kind of trouble were the Lander men in? Something from their past.
“I’m sorry,” her sister said as if sensing how worried and upset Josie was. “At least you got to see Cordell before he leaves again. You know you’re right about him not sticking around long. Clancy Roberts called to say Cordell’s truck and trailer are no longer parked on the main street.”
She heard a told-you-so in her sister’s voice but ignored it. “I’m more worried about Max right now,” she said truthfully. Maybe Cordell was in more trouble than she knew and now he’d dragged his brother into it. She mentally kicked herself for cutting Cordell off when he’d tried to talk to her.
“How’s Goldie doing?” Amy Sue asked.
“She’s heartbroken and angry. She went to Max’s house, where she’d been living, and took what she needed to stay with her cousin for a while. Clancy has room and will see that she’s okay. I’ll help anyway I can.”
“She’s lucky to have such a good friend in you,” her sister said.
Josie glanced out the window at the mountains in the distance, wondering what was nagging at her. She knew how Goldie must feel since Josie had been left behind by the younger Lander brother. She considered what to do. Her workload was never very heavy even though she’d taken to doing pro bono cases from across the state. They kept her busier than the paying ones, which was fine with her. She had everything she needed or wanted. She thought of Cordell. Maybe not everything, she amended.
At the sound of a text, she checked her phone and froze. Max had sent her a message along with a mug shot of a man who turned her blood to ice.
“I know it’s late, but I’m going to go into town and check on Goldie,” she said as she reached for a bottle of wine from the cupboard. “I’ll probably stay the night there.”
* * *
By the timehis brother finished his meal and drove his truck and rented trailer out to the house, Max had searched the area, as well as inside. No Grimes. Yet he still felt jumpy.
He kept replaying the phone call. Was he really waiting for them down at the old homestead? With a sigh, Max knew he couldn’t take the chance that the man hadn’t been lying. He knew what his brother would have said, “Let’s go get him!”
With a shake of his head, he made the call to the Rawlins, Wyoming, Sheriff’s Department. He had to trust that the law wouldn’t fail them like it had when he and Cordell were kids.
“You have a BOLO out on a Roger Grimes,” he said to Deputy Hal Green. “I think I know where you can find him.” He gave all the information to him on how to get to the old homestead.
