Death on Heels by Ellen Byerrum Page B

Smithsonian’ and all hell breaks loose.”
    “I had to tell my editor something to get the time off to come here.”
    “I hope you get along better with that one than you did with Muldoon.”
    Lacey thought of Douglas MacArthur Jones. He was smarter than Muldoon, and Mac had a good heart, as opposed to Muldoon, who had no heart at all, but he could be just as stubborn. “A little.”
    “What kind of story you gonna write? Something personal?”
    “Not too personal, Cole.”
    “No, I guess we wouldn’t want that, would we, Chantilly?”
    “It’s Lacey. All I can do is ask questions and write about the answers. If there are answers.”
    “And all this effort to make sure I’m not a killer? You could write that without seeing me, couldn’t you?” Tucker kept his gaze on her. Lacey tried not to break it, to show she could be just as tough.
    “Maybe I can help somehow.”
    “How? There’s me in here and three dead women out there and everything hanging in the balance,” Tucker said.
    “It’s a horrible crime. And you were never horrible.” He was gentle with people and gentle with his animals.
    “Well,
someone’s
planning to pin it on me like I’m some kind of dog that ought to be shot.” Tucker’s voice was low and slow. He seemed very sad, sadder than she had ever seen him. She had forgotten how deep his voice could be. Nearly as deep as Vic’s. “Doesn’t look like I’ll get bail.”
    Yeah, bail is unlikely, to say the least
, Lacey thought.
    “I want to write about those women. Find out more about them, take a look at Western justice.”
    Tucker settled back in his chair and gazed at her. “Justice? Lacey, this is Sagebrush. Yampa County. Outlawcountry. Always been outlaw country and still is. Justice goes to the man with the most money, the most ammunition, and the fastest horse.”
    She nodded. “How’s jail?”
    “Not exactly the wide-open spaces. The company’s not so bad. I mean in the cell. Just some rowdy old boys in for drunk and disorderly. Then there’s the deputies. The ‘dope-uties,’ we call ’em. But come on, why are we talking about all this nonsense when we could be talking about us?”
    “Us? Tucker, there is no
us
. There hasn’t been an
us
in years.”
    “That’s what I thought, Chantilly. With you leaving Sagebrush in a huff the way you did. But I also thought you were never going to talk to me again, let alone come see me, let alone travel a couple thousand miles from back East to Sagebrush, just to see me. And here you are.”
    “I didn’t leave in a huff.” Lacey glared at him.
    He laughed out loud. “A huff and a puff and a cloud of dust! If I’d known how asking you to marry me would set you off, I’d have kept my damn mouth shut. Anything to keep you near.”
    Lacey sat up straight. “You’re as bad as Muldoon! He thinks I’d still be here covering the frontier for him! And Cole Tucker, you said you would never leave Sagebrush, and then you did!”
Old hurts die hard.
    “But I came right back. Missed the ranch. Missed my hometown. I was still missing you. Had to help out Kit anyway.” That would be Kit Carson Tucker, his little brother. “And Starr.” Belle Starr Tucker, his big sister.
    “You married someone else! Six weeks after I left town! And on Valentine’s Day! You told me there’d never be anyone but me, and then there
was
! You told me you’d never leave this damn place, not even for me, and then you
did
! What the hell was I supposed to think?” She had promised herself a hundred times she would not bring all that up, not let it get to her, not throw it in his face. Tucker, on the other hand, seemed bemused, not angry.
    “You have been thinking about me, Chantilly. It wasall kind of a big mistake. Not you, but all the rest of it. Live and learn, you know?”
    “Las Vegas marriages are always a mistake.”
Like Vic’s marriage
, she thought. She slumped back in her chair. She’d gotten some of the bitterness out. She felt