Ooh Baby, Baby Part 2

A nervous skitter slipped down her spine. The full moon splashed the vehicle’s hood, providing enough illumination to confirm that Peggy had never seen it before, and she was certain it had no legitimate reason to be there.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow duck around the side of the duplex. A large shadow. A man’s shadow. Someone was out there, a sinister presence creeping beneath her bedroom window. Peggy had never been more terrified in her life.

Chapter Six

The cat’s eyes gleamed feral in the moonlight. Back arched, the animal froze for a split second, then shot past the fence into the shadowed safety of the woods.

Crouched beside the porch, Travis flipped off his trusty penlight, blew on the lens, then spun it like a bone-handled revolver and tucked it into his jeans pocket. He sat back on his boot heels, rubbing his stiff neck. The startled cat was the third varmint he’d chased off since midnight, none of them two-legged.

Which suited Travis fine. A puny penlight was enough to frighten off raccoons and pussycats, but it wouldn’t provide much protection against an armed felon. If it came to that, Travis would rely on the element of surprise. The way he figured it, criminals were gutless cowards who preyed on the weak and would wet themselves if confronted by someone their own size.

At least, that was his fervent hope. Heroism wasn’t really Travis’s thing. He much preferred leaving valor to those whose palms didn’t sweat at swaying tree shadows. But a cowboy’s got to do what a cowboy’s got to do.

He stood slowly, bones creaking as he stifled a yawn. When he turned toward the street, light erupted all around him, a blinding brilliance that made his eyes water.

“Freeze. Police!” The command boomed from the core of the radiance. “Get down! Down on the ground. Get down now!”

Startled and confused, Travis raised a forearm to shade his eyes. Something leapt out of the light, grabbed his wrist and twisted him around.

It was a chaos of grasping hands, bellowing voices, an unintelligible din of pandemonium. Before he could take a second breath, he’d been flipped over the freshly chopped tree stump, bounced off the newly stacked woodpile and was sprawled on the ground, sucking dirt. His sore ribs shrieked at the indignity. Someone yanked an arm behind his back, shoved his wrist up to his shoulder blades. A knee bludgeoned his spine. A rock bit into his cheek. Rough hands dug through his pockets, emptied them. Cold metal wrapped his wrists, clicked tight.

Then, as quickly as the swarm had descended, it rose up, leaving Travis flat on his belly, winded, bulldogged and tethered like a thrown steer.

“Find a gun?”

“Nah, just his wallet and this.”

Twisting his head, Travis saw a uniformed police officer displaying the penlight to someone beyond his view. He felt the vibration of feet around his prone form, saw several pairs of shoes and estimated that he was surrounded by at least three, possibly four officers.

A moment later, two of the cops flanked him and hauled him to his feet. He swayed there, spitting grass, and cast a woeful glance at his beloved Stetson, which lay on the ground dangerously close to a pair of tromping feet. “My hat,” he managed to mutter. “Don’t step on my danged hat.”

The officer on his right gave his manacled arm a jarring jerk. “You won’t be needing it, pal.”

Not need his hat? Travis blinked up, alarmed by the heresy. Why, a cowboy without his hat was like, well, like a cop without a badge. He cleared his throat, tried to speak rationally despite a distracting film of wet grit on his tongue. “I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing whatever it is you think I was doing.”

The policeman who was grasping his shackled wrist shot him a cynical stare.

Travis tried again, more succinctly this time. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Sure, buddy, sure.” Clearly unimpressed, the policeman squinted toward the front porch, then turned toward a fellow officer who was using a massive flashlight to search the yard, presumably for evidence. “Hey, Charlie. Is that the RP?”

Charlie glanced toward the duplex. “Yeah, I imagine. Dispatch said the prowler report came directly from the resident.”

Travis frowned, followed the policeman’s gaze and saw Peggy Saxon’s horrified face peering out the front window. His heart sank halfway to his boots.

A moment later, the porch light flashed on and she dashed out, clutching her robe at the throat. “Travis?” Her eyes were huge. “Ohmigosh, Travis, is that you?”

He tried to smile, but his lips stuck to his teeth. “You oughtn’t be out here, ma’am. You’ll catch a chill.”

Peggy’s jaw drooped like a gate with a broken hinge.

Officer Charlie stepped forward. “Mrs. Saxon?” She closed her mouth, managing to nod. “You know this fellow?”

For a moment, she simply stared at Travis, stunned. Then her eyes narrowed into mean green slits. “It would serve you right if I told them that I’d never seen you before in my life,” she snapped.

Travis hung his head. “Yes’m.”

“What in the world are you doing here?”

“Well, thing is…” He paused, opting for a diversionary tactic and flashed his trademark grin. “So, how’d you and Sue Anne get on? She said those babies were cuter than a pair of big-eyed calves—”

“Cut the bull, Stockwell.” She folded her arms, glaring at him. “You were spying on me, and I want to know why.”

“Spying? Why, no, ma’am, I wouldn’t do any such thing. I was just, well, passing by and, ah…” Alerted by her furrowed frown, Travis realized that Peggy Saxon wasn’t the least bit fooled, and had no intention of buying a load of hooey, no matter how tempting the price. She wanted the truth, and if the angry wrinkle of her darling amber brows was any clue, she wanted it now.

But danged if she wasn’t pretty when she was mad. Those green eyes flashing, and that pert little nose all scrunched up—Peggy tapped an impatient foot.

Travis rolled his shoulders forward and sighed. “It just didn’t seem right, you being alone your first night home with those babies. And when I heard that there’d been, ah, some trouble around here, I figured I could catch a few winks in my truck so I’d be close by in case—”

“Trouble?” Peggy blinked once and spun toward the squat, ruddy-faced policeman who had a death grip on Travis’s left bicep. “What kind of trouble?”

Startled, the officer tipped his hat, his gaze darting to Travis, then back to Peggy. “There’ve been a few incidents, ma’am,” he admitted. “Some women have been, uh, assaulted.”

Even in the pale moonlight, Travis saw the color drain from her face. “Oh.”

An older officer with a bushy mustache loped back from the street clutching Travis’s wallet and the portable two-way radio he kept in his pickup truck. “The truck checks out,” the officer told Officer Charlie. “No wants, no warrants registered to Travis J. Stockwell. He’s clean, too,” he added, nodding at Travis.

The ruddy-faced policeman seemed disappointed. “Maybe he’s been using that scanner to keep tabs on the police.”

“It’s not a scanner,” the mustached officer replied. “It’s just a CB radio.” He glanced up at Peggy. “We can still take him in for trespassing, if you want, ma’am.”

To Travis’s horror, she pursed her lips as if considering the option. “Trespassing? Oh, no, Peggy, ma’am, I wasn’t trespassing.” He straightened, shaking his head so violently he could feel his hair vibrate. Words rushed out, nervousness accentuating his Texas twang until it was thick enough to hang a hat on. “Something was moving out yonder in those woods, heading straight for your backyard. I couldn’t rightly tell what it was, so I just moseyed over for a quick look-see—”

Peggy interrupted. “What was it?”

“Ma’am?”

“The ‘something’ that came out of the woods. What was it?”

“Oh.” He coughed and studied his boots. “It was, umm, well, a cat.”

Officer Charlie chuckled. The ruddy-faced officer snorted in disbelief.

“What color was it?”

Travis looked up, perplexed. “The cat, ma’am?” She gave an irritated nod. “It was orange, I think, and kind of striped.”

Peggy turned away, but not before Travis saw the telltale quirk of that sweet little dimple. At that point, he realized that she had no intention of having him arrested.