Wild Horse Springs

A friend with benefits, she thought, though she could count their nights together on her fingers. Of course she loved him, but not in the way he wanted her to love him. When they occasionally slept together, it was more out of a need not to be alone than passion. She hated that she thought of his loving as vanilla, but somehow she wanted more. Everyone said they were right for each other, a match. Only everyone was wrong.

Tim loved her, really loved her, but she couldn’t love him back. They never talked about it, but somehow they both knew the truth, and that one silent truth broke both their hearts.

She’d go home. She’d find a way to help Thatcher. But this time she wouldn’t sleep with Tim. Even though it felt good for a while. Even though they both understood the silent rules.

She wouldn’t sleep with Tim because she couldn’t bear the look he’d give her when she had to walk away. Every time. Always.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_79a81d6d-a845-5c64-b3e2-44aab38f6217)

Tuesday

WEAK AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT filtered through the blinds, reminding Dan Brigman another hour had passed without sleep, and the day was only getting worse. He’d barely had time to hug his daughter before she was storming up the steps toward the third floor of the county offices. The tapping rain off and on all afternoon had already given him a headache, and having Lauren show up to interfere with his job wasn’t helping.

He’d left the sexy singer yesterday after lunch, looking forward to seeing her again before midnight, but a call came in an hour after he got back to the office that ended that possibility. Since four o’clock yesterday, he’d had to arrest a kid he cared about for assault, then field a dozen calls from people telling him how to do his job. Midnight passed with him sitting up in the third-floor lockup with a teenager who refused to talk about what he’d done. Now, after he’d had no sleep for nearly thirty hours, his daughter arrived, demanding to know if he’d lost his mind.

At this point, Dan wasn’t sure his ears still worked. The whole town could take turns telling him how to be sheriff, and he still wouldn’t let Thatcher Jones out until the judge set bail. Once he knew how much it would take, Dan had already decided he’d pay it himself.

His daughter was running through facts he already knew about the crime, so Dan simply followed one step behind as she headed upstairs.

“Now calm down, Lauren,” he finally commented when she breathed. “We’re doing all we can. The judge says he can bail out if he’ll give a statement, but Thatcher isn’t cooperating.”

“Did you offer him a lawyer?”

Dan huffed. “I did. He said he didn’t need a lawyer to tell me that he’s not talking. He can do that himself.”

She wasn’t listening, and he didn’t blame her. If they were doing all they could do, Thatcher Jones wouldn’t still be locked up in the first place. His daughter always thought the world had to be balanced and fair, but it just wasn’t.

If it had any fairness at all, he’d be sleeping off a wild memory and not putting in a forty-hour workday.

He almost swore. If the world were fair, he would have picked up that singer, Brandi Malone, last night like he’d planned, and not be stuck babysitting Thatcher. The kid was so wild he probably would have gnawed through the steel bars if he’d been left alone.

Dan unlocked the third-floor door, deciding that Lauren’s anger was all his fault. He’d raised her. “We’re working on it. We’ll figure this out,” he said as she stormed past him.

Before he opened the second door to the county lockup, he waited for his daughter to calm. The sound of Tim O’Grady tromping up the stairs echoed through the building. Tim was like the Ransom Canyon County Offices’ resident ghost. He came, night or day, if he thought something was happening. He claimed it helped him with his writing, gave him ideas, but since his last two books were postapocalyptic thrillers for hormone-crazed teens, Dan didn’t see that his research at the sheriff’s office was doing much good. The young writer was interesting, though, and he’d been Lauren’s friend since they could both walk, so Dan tolerated O’Grady even if it did irritate him that Lauren called him Hemingway.

Of course, Dan wasn’t the least bit surprised that Tim was with her today. He’d probably called her to notify her about Thatcher.

Finally, Lauren turned and faced him. “Why is he in jail, Sheriff? Give me the facts.”

Lauren only called him that when she was too angry to remember he was her father.

“He won’t talk. No one believes he stole food from Luther’s old truck stop, and nobody believes his story about not remembering how he got the backpack full of can goods obviously from the store.”

Thatcher must have heard them because he yelled from twenty feet away, “I ain’t telling who I got the stolen groceries from, and that’s final. I took them back, isn’t that good enough? I’ll rot in this place before I talk. And I didn’t attack Luther. He insulted me and my whole family. I’m not arguing that my no-name dad and run-off mother were trash, but that don’t give him the right to remind me.”

Lauren stormed into the next room, which had one cell on either side of a wide-open space in-between. “Stop talking like an idiot, Thatcher. We’re trying to get you into Texas Tech this fall, and you’ll never make it talking like that.”

Dan left the doors open for O’Grady as he leaned against the opposite cell and enjoyed watching his daughter yell at someone besides him for a while.

Tim O’Grady and Lauren might not be more than six or seven years older than Thatcher, but they’d thought of themselves as his substitute parents since they’d all three worked together one summer. Thatcher had been painting the county offices, working off fines. Tim was collecting ideas for his writing. Lauren was organizing her father’s office, something she’d done every summer since she was ten.

Thatcher might be four years older than he’d been that summer, but his respect for Lauren was obvious as he stood and gripped the bars. He’d grown a few inches since Lauren had been home, but he was still bone-thin. His hair was as wild as prairie grass, and he was tanned so deep his skin hadn’t lightened even if winter was settling in for a long stay.

Part of Dan hoped no one ever changed the kid. He was a blend of Tom Sawyer and Billy the Kid with a little bit of a young Abe Lincoln mixed in. He’d been born two hundred years too late to be understood and damn if the kid cared.

Thatcher smiled suddenly, that easy smile that would melt hearts someday, but Lauren didn’t smile back.

He lowered his voice. “Hell, look at me, Lauren. I’m in jail. The chances of any college taking me are not looking too good right now.” He bumped his forehead against the bars. “But double damn. I got to make it to Tech for Kristi’s sake. If I don’t get there and save her, she’ll find some brainiac like O’Grady and start hanging out with him. They’ll probably marry and have a dozen little redheaded kids with not one of them having a lick of common sense.”

Tim finally caught up with the sheriff and Lauren. “What’s wrong with red hair? And what makes you think my kids wouldn’t have common sense?”

Thatcher sighed. “You superglued your fingers together that summer I met you. You hooked your ear the last time we tried fly-fishing. You—”

“I’m not in jail,” Tim interrupted.

Lauren slapped at Thatcher’s knuckles and flashed Tim a dirty look. “Shut up, the both of you. We’ve got to get organized and get you out without some kind of record hanging over you. If we just knew who did steal the food, maybe we could clear this up.”

“I already told you I ain’t telling. Not even if you torture me.”

The sheriff leaned over Lauren’s shoulder. “Don’t give me any ideas, kid.”

Tim swore as he paced the space between the cells. “I’ve already tried getting him to talk, Sheriff. Nothing works. We always end up back at square one. The kid is tormenting me. Maybe I should file a complaint. I’ve been here all morning talking to him, and all that’s happening is my red hair is falling out.”

Thatcher reached out and almost grabbed the front of Tim’s sweatshirt. “I’m not a kid, O’Grady. Call me that one more time, and you’ll be swallowing teeth. The sheriff’s the only one who can call me that. I’m eighteen.”

“What are you going to do?” Tim shouted. “Knock me out, too, like you did Luther when he accused you of stealing? At the rate you’re going, you’ll have to do double time in prison to ever see daylight.”

Lauren shook her head. Her long, straight blond hair waving down her back reminded Dan of how Brandi Malone’s dark hair had seemed to come alive when she moved. Had it only been noon yesterday when he’d touched those dark curls and thought he’d see her by midnight? It seemed like a lifetime since he’d kissed the singer on the forehead and left the Nowhere Club.

He should have kissed her that last time on the mouth. The way his luck was running right now, Dan might never see his wild, beauty again.

Tim’s loud lecture drew the sheriff back from his thoughts. O’Grady was overreacting as usual. If he wrote as fast as he talked, he’d have a dozen books out by now.

When Lauren glanced in Dan’s direction, he winked at her, silently letting her know that the world was not as dark as she thought it might be.

She finally realized that her father, not just a sheriff, was right beside her. She leaned close to him so he’d hear her over Tim’s rant. “Okay, Pop, what do we do now?”

Tim gave up talking and listened for a change.

“I tried talking Luther out of pressing charges,” Dan began. “I had no luck. But he used to give you free ice cream even after I’d already said no. Maybe you and Tim should go out to the truck stop and give it a shot. Since the stolen goods were found in the store, that charge won’t hold, but the assault might.” Dan was too tired to think of any other option.

“But—” Lauren started to argue.

Dan pushed his only option. “Talk to him. It might not change anything, but who knows, it might help.”

“What about Thatcher?”

“I’ll be right here.” Dan glanced at the kid. “He’s not going anywhere for a while. Charley Collins has already talked to him and is out trying to get him a lawyer. The Franklin sisters called to tell me I’d better not even think of feeding him prison food. They’re bringing his meals from the bed and breakfast.”