Long, Tall Texans: Harley
Author
Diana Palmer
Reads
15.5K
Chapters
11
She's in town to uncover a mystery, but danger isn't the only thing her arrival has sparked. Can this cowboy play it cool when the chemistry between them is hotter than the Texas sun? Cool, composed rancher Harley Fowler finds his world turned upside down when a beautiful whirlwind bumps into him. Investigator Alice Jones has come to Jacobsville, Texas, to solve a deadly mystery. All too soon, Harley finds himself square in the middle of her case, and he can't help but want to protect her from danger. With sparks flying between the cowboy and the beautiful brunette, will true love be able to shield Harley and Alice from a dangerous threat?
One
Harley Fowler was staring so hard at his list of chores that he walked right into a young brunette as he headed into the hardware store in Jacobsville, Texas. He looked up, shocked, when she fell back against the open door, glaring at him.
“I’ve heard of men getting buried in their work, but this is too much,” she told him with a speaking look. She smoothed over her short black hair, feeling for a bump where she’d collided with the door. Deep blue eyes glared up into his pale blue ones. She noticed that he had light brown hair and was wearing a baseball cap that seemed to suit him. He was sexy-looking.
“I’m not buried in my work,” he said curtly. “I’m trying to get back to work, and shopping chores are keeping me from it.”
“Which doesn’t explain why you’re assaulting women with doors. Does it?” she mused.
His eyes flared. “I didn’t assault you with a door. You walked into me.”
“I did not. You were staring at that piece of paper so hard that you wouldn’t have seen a freight train coming.” She peered over his arm at the list. “Pruning shears? Two new rakes?” She pursed her lips, but smiling blue eyes stared at him. “You’re obviously somebody’s gardener,” she said, noting his muddy shoes and baseball cap.
His eyebrows met. “I am not a gardener,” he said indignantly. “I’m a cowboy.”
“You are not!”
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t have a horse, you’re not wearing a cowboy hat, and you don’t have on any chaps.” She glanced at his feet. “You aren’t even wearing cowboy boots!”
He gaped at her. “Did you just escape from intense therapy?”
“I have not been in any therapy,” she said haughtily. “My idiosyncrasies are so unique that they couldn’t classify me even with the latest edition of the DSM-IV, much less attempt to pyschoanalize me!”
She was referring to a classic volume of psychology that was used to diagnose those with mental challenges. He obviously had no idea what she was talking about.
“So, can you sing, then?”
He looked hunted. “Why would I want to sing?”
“Cowboys sing. I read it in a book.”
“You can read?” he asked in mock surprise.
“Why would you think I couldn’t?” she asked.
He nodded toward the sign on the hardware store’s door that clearly said, in large letters, PULL. She was trying to push it.
She let go of the door and shifted her feet. “I saw that,” she said defensively. “I just wanted to know if you were paying attention.” She cocked her head at him. “Do you have a rope?”
“Why?” he asked. “You planning to hang yourself?”
She sighed with exaggerated patience. “Cowboys carry ropes.”
“What for?”
“So they can rope cattle!”
“Don’t find many head of cattle wandering around in hardware stores,” he murmured, looking more confident now.
“What if you did?” she persisted. “How would you get a cow out of the store?”
“Bull. We run purebred Santa Gertrudis bulls on Mr. Parks’s ranch,” he corrected.
“And you don’t have any cows?” She made a face. “You don’t raise calves, then.” She nodded.
His face flamed. “We do so raise calves. We do have cows. We just don’t carry them into hardware stores and turn them loose!”
“Well, excuse me!” she said in mock apology. “I never said you did.”
“Cowboy hats and ropes and cows,” he muttered. He opened the door. “You going in or standing out here? I have work to do.”
“Doing what? Knocking unsuspecting women in the head with doors?” she asked pleasantly.
His impatient eyes went over her neat slacks and wool jacket, to the bag she was holding. “I said, are you going into the store?” he asked with forced patience, holding the door open.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” she replied, moving closer. “I need some tape measures and Super Glue and matches and chalk and push pins and colored string and sticky tape.”
“Don’t tell me,” he drawled. “You’re a contractor.”
“Oh, she’s something a little less conventional than that, Harley,” Police Chief Cash Grier said as he came up the steps to the store. “How’s it going, Jones?” he asked.
“I’m overflowing in DBs, Grier,” she replied with a grin. “Want some?”
He held up his hands. “We don’t do a big business in homicides here. I’d like to keep it that way.” He scowled. “You’re out of your territory a bit, aren’t you?”
“I am. I was asked down here by your sheriff, Hayes Carson. He actually does have a DB. I’m working the crime scene for him per his request through the Bexar County medical examiner’s office, but I didn’t bring enough supplies. I hope the hardware store can accommodate me. It’s a long drive back to San Antonio when you’re on a case.”
“On a case?” Harley asked, confused.
“Yes, on a case,” she said. “Unlike you, some of us are professionals who have real jobs.”
“Do you know him?” Cash asked her.
She gave Harley a studied appraisal. “Not really. He came barreling up the steps and hit me with a door. He says he’s a cowboy,” she added in a confidential tone. “But just between us, I’m sure he’s lying. He doesn’t have a horse or a rope, he isn’t wearing a cowboy hat or boots, he says he can’t sing, and he thinks bulls roam around loose in hardware stores.”
Harley stared at her with more mixed emotions than he’d felt in years.
Cash choked back a laugh. “Well, he actually is a cowboy,” Cash defended him. “He’s Harley Fowler, Cy Parks’s foreman on his cattle ranch.”
“Imagine that!” she exclaimed. “What a blow to the image of Texas if some tourist walks in and sees him dressed like that!” She indicated Harley’s attire with one slender hand. “They can’t call us the cowboy capital of the world if we have people working cattle in baseball caps! We’ll be disgraced!”
Cash was trying not to laugh. Harley looked as if he might explode.
“Better a horseless cowboy than a contractor with an attitude like yours!” Harley shot back, with glittery eyes. “I’m amazed that anybody around here would hire you to build something for them.”
She gave him a superior look. “I don’t build things. But I could if I wanted to.”
“She really doesn’t build things,” Cash said. “Harley, this is Alice Mayfield Jones,” he introduced. “She’s a forensic investigator for the Bexar County medical examiner’s office.”
“She works with dead people?” Harley exclaimed, and moved back a step.
“Dead bodies,” Alice returned, glaring at his obvious distaste. “DBs. And I’m damned good at my job. Ask him,” she added, nodding toward Cash.
“She does have a reputation,” Cash admitted. His dark eyes twinkled. “And a nickname. Old Jab-’Em-in-the-Liver Alice.”
“You’ve been talking to Marc Brannon,” she accused.
“You did help him solve a case, back when he was still a Texas Ranger,” he pointed out.
“Now they’ve got this new guy, transferred up from Houston,” she said on a sigh. “He’s real hard going. No sense of humor.” She gave him a wry look. “Kind of like you used to be, in the old days when you worked out of the San Antonio district attorney’s office, Grier,” she recalled. “A professional loner with a bad attitude.”
“Oh, I’ve changed.” He grinned. “A wife and child can turn the worst of us inside out.”
She smiled. “No kidding? If I have time, I’d love to see that little girl everybody’s talking about. Is she as pretty as her mama?”
He nodded. “Oh, yes. Every bit.”
Harley pulled at his collar. “Could you stop talking about children, please?” he muttered. “I’ll break out in hives.”
“Allergic to small things, are you?” Alice chided.
“Allergic to the whole subject of marriage,” he emphasized with a meaningful stare.
Her eyebrows arched. “I’m sorry, were you hoping I was going to ask you to marry me?” she replied pleasantly. “You’re not bad-looking, I guess, but I have a very high standard for prospective bridegrooms. Frankly,” she added with a quick appraisal, “if you were on sale in a groom shop, I can assure you that I wouldn’t purchase you.”
He stared at her as if he doubted his hearing. Cash Grier had to turn away. His face was going purple.
The hardware-store door opened and a tall, black-haired, taciturn man came out it. He frowned. “Jones? What the hell are you doing down here? They asked for Longfellow!”
She glared back. “Longfellow hid in the women’s restroom and refused to come out,” she said haughtily. “So they sent me. And why are you interested in Sheriff Carson’s case? You’re a fed.”
Kilraven put his finger to his lips and looked around hastily to make sure nobody was listening. “I’m a policeman, working on the city force,” he said curtly.
Alice held up both hands defensively. “Sorry! It’s so hard to keep up with all these secrets!”
Kilraven glanced at his boss and back at Alice. “What secrets?”
“Well, there’s the horseless cowboy there—” she pointed at Harley “—and the DB over on the Little Carmichael River…”
Kilraven’s silver eyes widened. “On the river? I thought it was in town. Nobody told me!”
“I just did,” Alice said. “But it’s really a secret. I’m not supposed to tell anybody.”
“I’m local law enforcement,” Kilraven insisted. “You can tell me. Who is he?”
Alice gave him a bland look and propped a hand on her hip. “I only looked at him for two minutes before I realized I needed to get more investigative supplies. He’s male and dead. He’s got no ID, he’s naked, and even his mother wouldn’t recognize his face.”
“Dental records…” Kilraven began.
“For those, you need identifiable teeth,” Alice replied sweetly.
Harley was turning white.
She glanced at him. “Are you squeamish?” she asked hopefully. “Listen, I once examined this dead guy whose girlfriend caught him with a hooker. After she offed him, she cut off his…Where are you going?”
Harley was making a beeline for the interior of the hardware store.
“Bathroom, I imagine.” Grier grinned at Kilraven, who chuckled.
“He works around cattle and he’s squeamish?” Alice asked, delighted. “I’ll bet he’s a lot of fun when they round up the calves!”
“Not nice,” Kilraven chided. “Everybody’s got a weak spot, Jones. Even you.”
“I have no weak spots,” she assured him.
“No social life, either,” Grier murmured. “I heard you tried to conduct a postmortem on a turkey in North Carolina during a murder investigation there.”
“It met with fowl play,” she said, straight-faced.
Both men chuckled.
“I have to get to work,” she said, becoming serious. “This is a strange case. Nobody knows who this guy is or where he came from, and there was a serious attempt to make him unidentifiable. Even with DNA, when I can get a profile back from state—and don’t hold your breath on the timetable—I don’t know if we can identify him. If he has no criminal record, he won’t be on file anywhere.”
“At least we don’t get many of these,” Kilraven said quietly.
Jones smiled at him. “When are you coming back up to San Antonio?” she asked. “You solved the Pendleton kidnapping and helped wrap up the perps.”
“Just a few loose ends to tie up,” he said. He nodded at her and his boss. “I’ll get back on patrol.”
“Brady’s wife made potato soup and real corn bread for lunch. Don’t miss it.”
“Not me, boss.”
Alice stared after the handsome officer. “He’s a dish. But isn’t he overstaying his purpose down here?” she asked Cash.
He leaned down. “Winnie Sinclair works for the 911 center. Local gossip has it that he’s sweet on her. That’s why he’s finding excuses not to leave.”
Alice looked worried. “And he’s dragging around a whole past that hardly anybody knows about. He’s pretending it never happened.”
“Maybe he has to.”
She nodded. “It was bad. One of the worst cases I ever worked. Poor guy.” She frowned. “They never solved it, you know. The perp is still out there, running around loose. It must have driven Kilraven and his brother, Jon Blackhawk, nuts, wondering if it was somebody they arrested, somebody with a grudge.”
“Their father was an FBI agent in San Antonio, before he drank himself to death after the murders. Blackhawk still is,” Cash replied thoughtfully. “Could have been a case any one of the three men worked, a perp getting even.”
“It could,” she agreed. “It must haunt the brothers. The guilt would be bad enough, but they wouldn’t want to risk it happening again, to someone else they got involved with. They avoid women. Especially Kilraven.”
“He wouldn’t want to go through it again,” Cash said.
“This Sinclair woman, how does she feel about Kilraven?”
Cash gave her a friendly smile. “I am not a gossip.”
“Bull.”
He laughed. “She’s crazy about him. But she’s very young.”
“Age doesn’t matter, in the long run,” Alice said with a faraway look in her eyes. “At least, sometimes.” She opened the door. “See you around, Grier.”
“You, too, Jones.”
She walked into the hardware store. There at the counter was Harley, pale and out of sorts. He glared at her.
She held up both hands. “I wasn’t even graphic,” she said defensively. “And God only knows how you manage to help with branding, with that stomach.”
“I ate something that didn’t agree with me,” he said icily.
“In that case, you must not have a lot of friends….”
The clerk doubled over laughing.
“I do not eat people!” Harley muttered.
“I should hope not,” she replied. “I mean, being a cannibal is much worse than being a gardener.”
“I am not a gardener!”
Alice gave the clerk a sweet smile. “Do you have chalk and colored string?” she asked. “I also need double-A batteries for my digital camera and some antibacterial hand cleaner.”
The clerk looked blank.
Harley grinned. He knew this clerk very well. Sadly, Alice didn’t. “Hey, John, this is a real, honest-to-goodness crime scene investigator,” he told the young man. “She works out of the medical examiner’s office in San Antonio!”
Alice felt her stomach drop as she noted the bright fascination in the clerk’s eyes. The clerk’s whole face became animated. “You do, really? Hey, I watch all those CSI shows,” he exclaimed. “I know about DNA profiles. I even know how to tell how long a body’s been dead just by identifying the insects on it…!”
“You have a great day, Ms. Jones,” Harley told Alice, over the clerk’s exuberant monologue.
She glared at him. “Oh, thanks very much.”
He tipped his bibbed cap at her. “See you, John,” he told the clerk. Harley picked up his purchases, smiling with pure delight, and headed right out the front door.
The clerk waved an absent hand in his general direction, never taking his eyes off Alice. “Anyway, about those insects,” he began enthusiastically.
Alice followed him around the store for her supplies, groaning inwardly as he kept talking. She never ran out of people who could tell her how to do her job these days, thanks to the proliferation of television shows on forensics. She tried to explain that most labs were understaffed, under-budgeted, and that lab results didn’t come back in an hour, even for a department like hers, on the University of Texas campus, which had a national reputation for excellence. But the bug expert here was on a roll and he wasn’t listening. She resigned herself to the lecture and forced a smile. Wouldn’t do to make enemies here, not when she might be doing more business with him later. She was going to get even with that smug cowboy the next time she saw him, though.
The riverbank was spitting out law enforcement people. Alice groaned as she bent to the poor body and began to take measurements. She’d already had an accommodating young officer from the Jacobsville Police Department run yellow police tape all around the crime scene. That didn’t stop people from stepping over it, however.
“You stop that,” Alice muttered at two men wearing deputy sheriff uniforms. They both stopped with one foot in the air at the tone of her voice. “No tramping around on my crime scene! That yellow tape is to keep people out.”
“Sorry,” one murmured sheepishly, and they both went back on their side of the line. Alice pushed away a strand of sweaty hair with the back of a latex-gloved hand and muttered to herself. It was almost Christmas, but the weather had gone nuts and it was hot. She’d already taken off her wool jacket and replaced it with a lab coat, but her slacks were wool and she was burning up. Not to mention that this guy had been lying on the riverbank for at least a day and he was ripe. She had Vicks Salve under her nose, but it wasn’t helping a lot.
For the hundredth time, she wondered why she’d ever chosen such a messy profession. But it was very satisfying when she could help catch a murderer, which she had many times over the years. Not that it substituted for a family. But most men she met were repelled by her profession. Sometimes she tried to keep it to herself. But inevitably there would be a movie or a TV show that would mention some forensic detail and Alice would hold forth on the misinformation she noted. Sometimes it was rather graphic, like with the vengeful cowboy in the hardware store.
Then there would be the forced smiles. The excuses. And so it went. Usually that happened before the end of the first date. Or at least the second.
“I’ll bet I’m the only twenty-six-year-old virgin in the whole damned state of Texas,” she muttered to herself.
“Excuse me?” one of the deputies, a woman, exclaimed with wide, shocked eyes.
“That’s right, you just look at me as if I sprouted horns and a tail,” she murmured as she worked. “I know I’m an anachronism.”
“That’s not what I meant,” the deputy said, chuckling. “Listen, there are a lot of women our ages with that attitude. I don’t want some unspeakable condition that I catch from a man who passes himself around like a dish of peanuts at a bar. And do you think they’re going to tell you they’ve got something?”
Alice beamed. “I like you.”
She chuckled. “Thanks. I think of it as being sensible.” She lowered her voice. “See Kilraven over there?” she asked, drawing Alice’s eyes to the arrival of another local cop—even if he really was a fed pretending to be one. “They say his brother, Jon Blackhawk, has never had a woman in his life. And we think we’re prudes!”
Alice chuckled. “That’s what I heard, too. Sensible man!”
“Very.” The deputy was picking up every piece of paper, every cigarette butt she could find with latex gloves on, bagging them for Alice for evidence. “What about that old rag, Jones, think I should put it in a bag, too? Look at this little rusty spot.”
Alice glanced at it, frowning. It was old, but there was a trace of something on it, something newer than the rag. “Yes,” she said. “I think it’s been here for a while, but that’s new trace evidence on it. Careful not to touch the rusty-looking spot.”
“Blood, isn’t it?” She nodded.
“You’re good,” Alice said.
“I came down from Dallas PD,” she said. “I got tired of big-city crime. Things are a little less hectic here. In fact, this is my first DB since I joined Sheriff Carson’s department.”
“That’s a real change, I know,” Alice said. “I work out of San Antonio. Not the quietest place in the world, especially on weekends.”
Kilraven had walked right over the police tape and came up near the body.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Alice exclaimed. “Kilraven…!”
“Look,” he said, his keen silver eyes on the grass just under the dead man’s right hand, which was clenched and depressed into the mud. “There’s something white.”
Alice followed his gaze. She didn’t even see it at first. She’d moved so that it was in shadow. But when she shifted, the sunlight caught it. Paper. A tiny sliver of paper, just peeping out from under the dead man’s thumb. She reached down with her gloved hand and brushed away the grass. There was a deep indentation in the soft, mushy soil, next to his hand; maybe a footprint. “I need my camera before I move it,” she said, holding out her hand. The deputy retrieved the big digital camera from its bag and handed it to Alice, who documented the find and recorded it on a graph of the crime scene. Then, returning the camera, she slid a pencil gently under the hand, moving it until she was able to see the paper. She reached into her kit for a pair of tweezers and tugged it carefully from his grasp.
“It’s a tiny, folded piece of paper,” she said, frowning. “And thank God it hasn’t rained.”
“Amen,” Kilraven agreed, peering at the paper in her hand.
“Good eyes,” she added with a grin.
He grinned back. “Lakota blood.” He chuckled. “Tracking is in my genes. My great-great-grandfather was at Little Big Horn.”
“I won’t ask on which side,” she said in a loud whisper.
“No need to be coy. He rode with Crazy Horse’s band.”
“Hey, I read about that,” the deputy said. “Custer’s guys were routed, they say.”
“One of the Cheyenne people said later that a white officer was killed down at the river in the first charge,” he said. “He said the officer was carried up to the last stand by his men, and after that the soldiers seemed to lose heart and didn’t fight so hard. They found Custer’s brother, Tom, and a couple of ranking officers from other units, including Custer’s brother-in-law, with Custer. It could indicate that the chain of command changed several times. Makes sense, if you think about it. If there was a charge, Custer would have led it. Several historians think that Custer’s unit made it into the river before the Cheyenne came flying into it after them. If Custer was killed early, he’d have been carried up to the last stand ridge—an enlisted guy, they’d have left there in the river.”
“I never read that Custer got killed early in the fight,” the deputy exclaimed.
“I’ve only ever seen the theory in one book—a warrior was interviewed who was on the Indian side of the fight, and he said he thought Custer was killed in the first charge,” he mused. “The Indians’ side of the story didn’t get much attention until recent years. They said there were no surviving eyewitnesses. Bull! There were several tribes of eyewitnesses. It was just that nobody thought their stories were worth hearing just after the battle. Not the massacre,” he added before the deputy could speak. “Massacres are when you kill unarmed people. Custer’s men all had guns.”
The deputy grinned. “Ever think of teaching history?”
“Teaching’s too dangerous a profession. That’s why I joined the police force instead.” Kilraven chuckled.
“Great news for law enforcement,” Alice said. “You have good eyes.”
“You’d have seen it for yourself, Jones, eventually,” he replied. “You’re the best.”
“Wow! Did you hear that? Take notes,” Alice told the deputy. “The next time I get yelled at for not doing my job right, I’m quoting Kilraven.”
“Would it help?” he asked.
She laughed. “They’re still scared of you up in San Antonio,” she said. “One of the old patrolmen, Jacobs, turns white when they mention your name. I understand the two of you had a little dustup?”
“I threw him into a fruit display at the local supermarket. Messy business. Did you know that blackberries leave purple stains on skin?” he added conversationally.
“I’m a forensic specialist,” Alice reminded him. “Can I ask why you threw him into a fruit display?”
“We were working a robbery and he started making these remarks about fruit with one of the gay officers standing right beside me. The officer in question couldn’t do anything without getting in trouble.” He grinned. “Amazing, how attitudes change with a little gentle adjustment.”
“Hey, Kilraven, what are you doing walking around on the crime scene?” Cash Grier called from the sidelines.
“Don’t fuss at him,” Alice called back. “He just spotted a crucial piece of evidence. You should give him an award!”
There were catcalls from all the officers present.
“I should get an award!” he muttered as he went to join his boss. “I never take days off or vacations!”
“That’s because you don’t have a social life, Kilraven,” one of the officers joked.
Alice stood up, staring at the local law enforcement uniforms surrounding the crime scene tape. She recognized at least two cars from other jurisdictions. There was even a federal car out there! It wasn’t unusual in a sleepy county like Jacobs for all officers who weren’t busy to congregate around an event like this. It wasn’t every day that you found a murder victim in your area. But a federal car for a local murder?
As she watched, Garon Grier and Jon Blackhawk of the San Antonio district FBI office climbed out of the BuCar—the FBI’s term for a bureau car—and walked over the tape to join Alice.
“What have you found?” Grier asked.
She pursed her lips, glancing from the assistant director of the regional FBI office, Grier, to Special Agent Jon Blackhawk. What a contrast! Grier was blond and Blackhawk had long, jet-black hair tied in a ponytail. They were both tall and well-built without being flashy about it. Garon Grier, like his brother Cash, was married. Jon Blackhawk was unattached and available. Alice wished she was his type. He was every bit as good-looking as his half brother Kilraven.
“I found some bits and pieces of evidence, with the deputy’s help. Your brother,” she told Jon, “found this.” She held up the piece of paper in an evidence bag. “Don’t touch,” she cautioned as both men peered in. “I’m not unfolding it until I can get it into my lab. I won’t risk losing any trace evidence out here.”
Blackhawk pulled out a pad and started taking notes. “Where was it?” he asked.
“Gripped in the dead man’s fingers, out of sight. Why are you here?” she asked. “This is a local matter.”
Blackhawk was cautious. “Not entirely,” he said.
Kilraven joined them. He and Blackhawk exchanged uneasy glances.
“Okay. Something’s going on that I can’t be told about. It’s okay.” She held up a hand. “I’m used to being a mushroom. Kept in the dark and fed with…”
“Never mind,” Garon told her. He softened it with a smile. “We’ve had a tip. Nothing substantial. Just something that interests us about this case.”
“And you can’t tell me what the tip was?”
“We found a car in the river, farther down,” Cash said quietly. “San Antonio plates.”
“Maybe his?” Alice indicated the body.
“Maybe. We’re running the plates now,” Cash said.
“So, do you think he came down here on his own, or did somebody bring him in a trunk?” Alice mused.
The men chuckled. “You’re good, Alice,” Garon murmured.
“Of course I am!” she agreed. “Could you,” she called to the female deputy, “get me some plaster of Paris out of my van, in the back? This may be a footprint where we found the piece of paper! Thanks.”
She went back to work with a vengeance while two sets of brothers looked on with intent interest.
