CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE SUN WAS high over the town, sparkling off the tin roof of the hardware store and the windshields of passing cars, as if teasing everyone that spring had arrived in February.
But it felt like dark winter in Lauren Brigman’s heart as she walked over to her father’s office.
When she’d been little, she used to sit on the steps of the county offices and count the cars. Crossroads, Texas, sat on a big X of two highways. East-west. North-south. All those years ago she’d sworn she’d travel every road when she grew up. But she hadn’t. She seemed to be one of those people who never learned to pack.
As she walked into the sheriff’s office, Lauren realized there was nowhere she’d rather be than this town. She was right on the X, the crossroads, the center of the world.
Pop looked up from his cluttered desk. To her, he’d always be handsome in his pressed uniform. He was one of the true heroes in life. There might be a touch of gray at his temples now and wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, but neither tarnished him. She’d often wondered, when she was a kid, how her mother could have left such a man. Correction, how she could have left them. Margaret Brigman had abandoned both husband and daughter for her career goals in Dallas.
Lauren had been five then and thought everything had to make sense. Her pop might not have been able to explain what was happening, but he was there to go through it with her.
Life still didn’t make sense, but two things were constant. Her father loved her, and he never stopped asking her questions. “Morning, darlin’,” he said with a smile. “You have breakfast yet? If you’re here as the press, turn around and walk right back out. If you’re hungry, there are doughnuts in the box.”
Lauren sat on the only clean corner of his desk. “Pop. The press has a right to know what’s going on.”
“I don’t have any more facts than I did last night.”
“You arrested Lucas Reyes.”
“I’m only detaining him for questioning. In fact, Lucas told me to lock him up.”
“So, he’s not your prisoner?”
“Not exactly...” Her pop, the best sheriff in the world, frowned as if he could feel a trick question coming on.
“Then you won’t mind me visiting him, as a friend.” She held up the cup she’d carried in. “I just brought him coffee.”
The sheriff’s frown didn’t go away. “You’re the third friend this morning bringing coffee. I’m beginning to suspect a plot. He’s probably upstairs braiding the cups together for a rope now.”
Lauren stood. “Let me in to see him before this coffee gets cold. No questions, I promise.”
Dan Brigman stood. “All right, but I’m locking you in the jail room with him. I don’t have time to keep running up and down two flights of stairs. I’ve got too much work to do and Pearly’s late this morning.”
As they climbed the steps, she noticed how tired her father seemed. “You need help, Pop? Hire another deputy. When is the last time you had eight hours’ sleep? Or ate a real meal?”
“You’re starting to sound like Brandi. And what happened to the no-questions clause to this agreement?”
“That only applies to the guest of the county you have locked up, Pop. About that deputy you need? First, it has to be a real one, not the two-week substitute you hired yesterday. He looks like a biker and doesn’t even have an accent. None. Like the guy is from nowhere.”
“I’ll get around to hiring another. Hamilton is only filling in, and as he’s a federal agent, I’m sure he’s more than qualified. Deputies are impossible to find or keep around. About the time I advertise for one, interview and get him trained, he moves on to the big cities like Lubbock or Amarillo. They pay better and the work is far more exciting.”
“You just miss Fifth Weathers, Pop. It’s not likely you’ll find another who will fill his shoes.”
Pop laughed. “Literally. I think his shoe size was fifteen. Best deputy ever and what did he do? Move one county over to become sheriff.” His last sentence came out as if Fifth had committed a crime.
“And he’s a great lawman because he trained with you.” She bumped her shoulder against his. “What about hiring someone local this time?” she asked as the sheriff unlocked the first door on the third floor.
“I’ve tried, but haven’t had much luck even getting anyone to talk to me about the job. The last local I picked up for smoking pot asked if he could fill out an application while I was booking him. Said he’d be a perfect deputy. He knew every drug dealer for a hundred miles around.” Pop grinned at her. “I’m so desperate I considered his offer for a few seconds.”
Lauren made a note to put a few lines in ChatAroundCrossroads about a job opening. Who knew, maybe other businesses needed help also. Crossroads was getting too big to just ask around when looking for new employees.
They passed through the empty room that had probably been built for interviews or client-lawyer talks but no one had ever bothered to furnish it.
When Pop opened the second door, he whispered, “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” He held the door for her, then locked it as soon as she passed into the jail area.
She stepped through the door into a room with a ten-foot square cell on either side of her.
Lucas was standing at the window with his back to her. Tall, dark, lean. She’d always thought of him as good-looking, but in his late twenties he was maturing into a man who seemed cut from a cloth meant for greatness.
Since high school he’d always been in a hurry to make something of himself, and he had. In another ten or twenty years he’d be a judge maybe, or governor.
If he didn’t get mixed up in the mess at the Collins ranch.
The bars framed him now as he turned. She couldn’t miss the dark stubble along his jaw or the anger in his eyes.
“You shouldn’t have come, Lauren.”
“I just...” What? she thought. Why had she rushed up here this morning? To ask him questions? To make sure he was okay? To demand he say what he’d almost said a minute before they’d seen the glow from the barn fire.
She didn’t even know why she’d come. How could she tell Lucas that he mattered so much to her, when she knew he wouldn’t return the feelings?
He’d told her not to come. He didn’t want her help. He didn’t want the alibi she could easily give him. If she told the world that she was with him the night the barns were burned, she’d also have to tell about how she’d seen Lucas knock Reid Collins flat on the ground in anger. Some people might believe that if he was mad enough to hit Reid, he’d probably be mad enough to burn two barns.
Lauren took a step backward. He was right, she shouldn’t have come. He must have changed his mind about whatever he’d planned to say to her. The talk he’d promised would never come. This was just her dreaming and him hesitating, as always.
The locked door stopped her steps. For the next ten minutes she was as much a prisoner as he was.
“Leave,” he said more calmly.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “Pop locked me in. Like it or not, you’re stuck with me.”
He turned his back and continued staring out into the town. “I don’t want the coffee, if that’s what you brought.”
She moved the few feet to a table sitting between the two cells. “I do.” Her hand shook a little as she pulled off the lid. “Are you ever going to talk to me, Lucas? Or just spend the next ten minutes mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you. This just isn’t the right time to talk about the future. I don’t want you involved in what’s going on. You have no idea what a mess this is. I tried to help once and only made it worse.”
Studying him, she said. “Oh, right. I see it now. You were trying to knock some sense into Reid when you hit him.”
“Something like that.” He finally looked her direction. “I thought I’d get him to think twice about destroying the Bar W. I didn’t realize it was already too late.”
She leaned against the wall a few feet from where Lucas stood, but they still seemed miles apart. She drank the coffee she’d brought for him, and he stared out the window.
Lauren didn’t know if they were even friends anymore. In high school she’d had a crush on him. In college she’d spend most of her time waiting for him to notice her, to start something between them.
But it never happened. A few wild kisses. A thousand daydreams. Whispered promises spoken in the night that never saw the day. If they couldn’t find the time to talk, she’d never find her way to him.
Maybe everybody has that almost kind of love. As you grow up and grow older, it shifts and changes like some kind of parallel universe, no more than a thin shadow walking in your mind beside your real life.
But it’s there. A could-have-been. A love you could have had, if only there had been a time or place for it in the real world.
Lauren studied him now, wondering why she blamed him for them not becoming lovers. Wasn’t she half the equation? Half the reason? Half the problem?
Setting the coffee on the table, she walked to the bars. “Look at me, Lucas.”
He turned as if he’d almost forgotten she was there.
Lauren took a stand. This might be her own personal Alamo, and what she’d thought they had might die right now, but for once in her life she was going to fight. This might not be the time or the place, but they needed to talk.
“Come over here.”
He hesitated, then moved to stand in front of her. Only five inches separated them. Five inches and a line of steel bars.
“I came because I care about you. I’ve always cared about you.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Lauren.”
She gripped the bars, fisting her hands so hard her knuckles whitened. “I care about you.” She said it again; she couldn’t bring herself to say the word love. “Whatever this fight is about, I’m on your side. You pushing me away won’t change that. I know you, Lucas, and I want to help.”
Lucas’s hands covered hers. “This is too dangerous. Too risky. I don’t know who we’re dealing with, but they don’t play by any rules. You’ll be safer if you don’t know anything. The only way I’ll know you’re out of any danger is for you to ignore me. Walk away. No one needs to connect the two of us. It wouldn’t be safe for you.”
For the first time, she thought she saw fear in him. This wasn’t about him being mad and hitting Reid Collins. This was far more. She could see it in his eyes. Lucas was fighting, struggling to hide something from her.
“I can’t.” Lauren pressed her forehead against the cold bars. “I don’t want to be safe. If something happened to you and I didn’t help I’d never forgive myself. Like it or not, you’re a part of me, a piece that would leave me hollow forever if you were gone.” A single tear rolled down her cheek.
His hand slid between the bars as he brushed her tear away with two fingers. “All right, mi cielo. Don’t cry. You’re right. We’re linked. I think we have been since that night in the old Gypsy House.” His hand moved along the side of her face in a caress. “You’re so beautiful. Sometimes just remembering your face gives me hope that the world is a good place. Sky blue eyes and sunbeam hair.”
For a moment they just stared at each other. His dark eyes looking so deep into her soul she swore he could read all her secrets.
“There are words that need to be said between us, but not now.”
She nodded. It was enough just to be that honest. He was right, this wasn’t the time.
“Can I trust you?” He was so close to the bars she could feel the warmth of him.
“Always.”
He slid his fingers over hers again and pulled her hand into his cage. His skin was warm, the bars cold.
She stared as he unfolded her hand and moved his fingers along her palm. Then, in a blink, he laid a key in her palm and rolled her fingers into a fist. “Don’t say anything to anyone. Just keep this key with you. It holds my future.”
“I promise.” She pulled her hand back through the bars and slipped the key into her pocket.
He seemed to relax, even smiled at her. “You know, I almost married a woman in Houston once. I thought she had everything—beauty, money, ambition, a daddy with political connections.”
“Why didn’t you marry her, Lucas?”
He covered her hand still resting on the bars. “She wasn’t you. I would have never trusted her with my life.”
“And are you trusting me that much?”
His voice was so low it seemed to be more a thought than words passing between them. “I am. If something happens to me, that key will let you know how I feel about you.”
The rattle of the far door clanked and their time was ending.
“Don’t come back,” he whispered. “I’ll find you when this is over.”
She nodded.
As her father opened the second door, she said in as cold a voice as she could manage, “Well, if you’re not going to talk to me I might as well leave.” Her hand shivered as she pulled it from beneath his.
Pop simply held the door open as he watched her storm out. For once he didn’t ask a single question as they walked down the two flights of stairs. When they reached the lobby, she darted around a dozen people waiting to see the sheriff and was gone before she had to say another word.
Shoving her hand into her pocket, she gripped the key Lucas had passed her. A secret she couldn’t tell anyone, not even her pop.
Marching down the street, Lauren felt different. More alert. Watching. Aware of everyone around her. If Lucas was worried, mixed up in something dangerous, not all was what it seemed. What if Crossroads wasn’t safe for him? If he had to keep a secret or hide something? Then it wasn’t safe for her, either.
Once back at her office, she pulled the key from her pocket. It didn’t look very important. Just a key that unlocked a door. But somehow it held a secret that could change lives.
She pulled off her necklace and put the key on the chain. When she put the chain back, she looped it only once and the key dropped down between her breasts. She’d keep it there, next to her heart, until he asked for it back.