The Cowboy and the Cop
Autore
Christine Wenger
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Capitoli
18
HarlequinChapter One
What am I doing here? I feel like a buckle bunny.
Several times Amber Chapman thought of leaving the Professional Bull Riders autograph session in the huge Oklahoma City arena. She’d stood in bull rider Luke Beaumont’s line way too long so she could give him a piece of her mind.
I have a million things to do back home.
Maybe she should just let the three Beaumont brothers find out on their own that they were going to lose the ranch that had been in their family for generations, but she just couldn’t do that to the brothers, not even Luke, no matter how much she disliked him. Besides, their town would suffer the most, since the Beaumont Ranch employed many of the locals...or at least it used to.
Not anymore. Not in its present state.
Luke barely looked up at her when Amber finally stood in front of him. Robotically he slid over a glossy eight-by-ten picture of himself.
“Who would you like me to sign it to?” he said, a black felt-tip pen poised over a large photo of him riding a huge bull.
“Sergeant Amber Chapman of Beaumont, Oklahoma, but actually you can skip the autograph and the photo.”
Luke looked up from his place at the long table of bull riders signing and posing for pictures with their fans.
He grinned. “Amber? Amber Chapman. Hey, it’s been a long time. I didn’t know you were a fan.”
She had forgotten that he had the brightest blue eyes—more like turquoise. The lights of the arena made them even bluer.
Amber noticed, of course, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t there to look at his eyes or at how his muscles stretched out his chambray shirt, or how good he smelled. Like leather and pine.
She refocused on the task at hand. Placing her hands on the table, Amber leaned over so only he could hear.
“There’re a couple of things I need to make you aware of, Luke, but I’m not going to go into them now. There are too many people within hearing distance, and you have a long line waiting. What I have to say is for your ears only. You can fill your brothers in later.”
She looked down the long parade of tables. She spotted the other two Beaumonts: Reed and Jesse, Luke’s younger brothers.
Amber whispered, “I saw a bar across the street from the stadium. It’s called the Silver Spur. I’ll meet you there. And, by the way, I’m not a fan of yours.”
Okay, that was a lie. He was a good rider who’d probably win the Finals. Besides, he was a hometown celebrity and that brought a lot of attention to the town of Beaumont.
“And here I was hoping you waited in line for my autograph and a selfie.” Luke grinned. “Are you still mad at me over the senior prom?”
Yeah, she was still mad at him. It seemed ridiculous to hold a grudge for so long, but there was only one senior prom in her lifetime, and it had been the worst night of her life.
“I’m not here to talk about that, and don’t flatter yourself, Luke. I’m not one of your groupies.” She rolled her eyes. “And why would you think I was?”
“Because you had to drive here from Beaumont. Let’s see...Beaumont to Oklahoma City...that’s more than a three-hour drive.”
“I like to drive. I like bull riding in general.”
“But you still haven’t forgiven me, huh?”
“Not particularly. How am I supposed to forgive you when you ruined one of the most important events of senior year by getting my date drunk and sending him home in a taxi?”
“He was a jerk.”
“He was my date. Maybe someone should have had the courtesy of telling me where he was.”
“I should have told you right away. I admit it. Can we just forget about it?”
“I suppose it was a long time ago. I can think about forgiving you.”
He raised a perfect black eyebrow. “Well, at least you asked me out to a bar. That’s a start.”
Amber gritted her teeth. “I need to talk to you, that’s all. No more.”
“It must be really important.”
“Of course it’s important. Or why would I have driven all this way? Oh, and by the way, when the Beaumonts are champions of our hometown again, Luke, then you can autograph a picture for me and we can take a selfie. Just meet me after this circus so we can talk.”
* * *
LUKE BEAUMONT SCANNED the packed bar for Amber. It seemed that the entire arena had emptied out and gathered into a two-thousand-square-foot building. People were packed elbow to elbow; most sported denim and clutched a beer in their hand.
The dance floor was equally full. Patrons were dancing in between tables, some on the tables.
The Silver Spur wasn’t the quiet spot that Amber wanted.
Suddenly applause started—low at first then it picked up steam. Everyone turned to look at him. Cheers resounded through the room.
“Yeah, Luke!”
“Congratulations, Luke!”
“Yeehaw!”
He didn’t particularly like the attention. Yes, he’d won the PBR event tonight, but there were a lot of other bull riders who deserved applause for great rides. He’d just got lucky.
Luke tipped his hat to the crowd and they went back to what they’d been doing. No one approached him for autographs or selfies, but a waitress came over with a frosty longneck and a stack of bar tokens toward drinks.
Sweet.
Finally he saw Amber waving to him.
The crowd parted as he zigzagged toward her, but he had to run a gauntlet of handshakes, backslaps and flirty smiles along with pieces of paper slipped into his shirt pocket. Phone numbers.
He’d never called one of the numbers given to him. Never.
He tipped his hat to Amber, slid into a chair opposite her and pulled out his stack of tokens. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“I’ll have a ginger ale. I have to drive home tonight.”
All he had to do was hold up his hand and a waitress was at his side.
“A ginger ale for the lady and I’ll take another one of these.” He pointed to his bottle.
While he waited for Amber to tell him what was on her mind, he leaned back on his chair and wondered why she looked so different to him. He’d seen her around town occasionally, but he’d never really looked at her. She was just there, like most of Beaumont. He knew just about everyone casually and had gone to school with a good chunk of the population—after all it was a small town—but he didn’t really know Amber.
He’d seen her in a sheriff’s uniform once and that had surprised him. Her father and brothers weren’t exactly pillars of the community. They tried just about every get-rich-quick scheme known to mankind, and their junkyard was known for hot car parts. And their moonshine...well, when the word got around that a new batch was ready, there was usually a line at the junkyard’s back door.
Their drinks were delivered along with more tokens. Still, he waited for her to tell him what was on her mind.
After the waitress left, Amber crossed her arms and leaned toward him. Her usually full lips were clasped together in a thin, white line, but her eyes were the greenest of green, like emeralds. Her shoulder-length hair had various shades of blond, and she wasn’t loaded with makeup, but those emerald eyes began to narrow.
This wasn’t going to be good.
“Luke, have you been home lately?”
“If you follow the PBR, you know I haven’t. Every weekend, there’s another event. I’m on the tour and close to winning the season. If you’re worried about us seeing my father, we got him a cell phone and call him a lot. He knows that I can’t be around much. The same with my brothers.”
“Isn’t there a summer break coming up soon?”
“Yep. After Billings, Montana, this weekend.”
“As you recently told me, you are only three hours from home.”
“I know, but I might as well be in Alaska. I have way too many things I have to do right now and the week after Billings.”
“You’d better change your plans and the sooner the better,” Amber said.
“Why, what’s going on?”
She pulled out a piece of paper from her purse, unfolded it and handed it to him. “It’s a copy. Your ranch is going up for auction for back taxes in two weeks.”
He scanned the letter. “Dammit!”
“Big Dan didn’t tell you?” she asked.
“Of course not. My father doesn’t care about the ranch. Not since my mother died.” Looking at the letter again, he shook his head. “And that’s when my father stopped paying taxes. I know he doesn’t give a hoot about the ranch anymore, but I thought he was at least keeping up with the taxes. We’ve been sending him money...”
He shrugged.
“It’s easy to see that Big Dan hasn’t been putting money into the ranch, Luke. It’s been a mess since Hurricane Daphne. Your outbuildings are falling down, the main barn’s roof has a hole in it, and the handful of stock your father didn’t sell is scattered to the wind. Your neighbors and former workers took them in and have been taking care of them. The homestead’s portico is hanging on by one post and some windows are blown out. My brothers boarded them up.”
A plan was already formulating in his mind but he had to get Jesse and Reed, his brothers, involved. The Beaumont Ranch had been part of their heritage since the late nineteenth century land rush in Oklahoma. Old Pierre Beaumont might have been a “Sooner,” someone who jumped the whistle too soon, but he’d plopped his wagon on acres of prime cattle and horse land. Throughout the decades, his descendants had added a total of twenty-thousand acres to the original homestead.
“I promise that I’ll get home in two weeks, and take care of things,” he said.
“That’ll be cutting it close, but you’ll make the auction.”
“You mean I can’t buy it back before then? I could send a check.”
“It’s too late for that.” She shook her head. “And that’d have to be one big check.”
“Did my father get notices?”
“Of course he did. I happen to know that Connie McBride, who runs the tax department, personally delivered several notices to him.”
He took a long draw of his beer. “This is just getting worse and worse by the second. But you drove all that way, watched the bull riding, stood in my autographing line. Why did you put yourself out? I mean, we’ve barely seen each other since high school. Why are you helping us?”
“Because the Beaumont Ranch employs a good chunk of the town, and the town is suffering, Luke. The homestead used to be a tourist attraction, which added to our economy. It’s on the list of national historic places, for heaven’s sake. Now the high school kids are using it for partying at night.”
“I didn’t know, but thanks for telling me.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” Amber held up a hand to stop him. “Hang on, there’s more. Much more, and it gets way worse.”
Luke had a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. What could be worse? Any adrenaline left over from his win was quickly vanishing.
“You might not know, but I’m a sergeant with the Beaumont County Sheriff’s Department. I arrested your father three times.”
“Arrested Big Dan? Three times?” His voice grew loud then he lowered it. “What the hell did he do?”
“Bar fights. Big Dan is turning into the town drunk, Luke. And he’s a shadow of his former self,” Amber said softly. “He’s wasting away. But with any luck, his probation officer, Matty Matthews, and inpatient rehab will help him.”
He tapped his fingers on the table to get rid of some nervous energy. “I know Matty. We were in junior rodeo together. But probation? And inpatient rehab?” Luke sat back in his chair. “I can’t picture my father being successful at either.”
“I’ll tell you more about it when you come home. I really should be leaving soon. I have an early shift in the morning.”
“Listen, Amber.” Luke sighed. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this but, truth be told, I’ve been avoiding going home. In that way, I’m a lot like my father. And sometimes I feel like I’ve lost both parents. So I threw myself into bull riding to forget everything.”
Amber made a move to put her hand over his, but clearly changed her mind at the last minute and took a sip of her ginger ale instead.
“I really should get going, Luke.”
“Thanks for making it a point to tell me everything. I really appreciate it. So will my brothers. If we lost the ranch, well...it’d be a tough blow. Let me walk you to your car.”
They walked to the lot near the arena in silence. “Here is mine.” She pointed. “The red Honda SUV.”
He waited as she opened the door. “Well, see you at home, Luke.”
“Give me a week after Billings. I’ll get right on a plane and will land at the auction.”
She smiled.
It didn’t seem like Amber smiled often; she was very serious. Then again, she’d had some very serious things to tell him.
He’d opened up to her and couldn’t figure out why. He’d never told anyone what he’d just told her.
But Amber had changed. In high school, she was quiet and had ten-foot walls around her that only the brave—or stupid—would approach. She hadn’t had many friends, mostly due to her family’s moonshining activities and rumors of them selling hot car parts. The fact that she lived in a fairly dilapidated house surrounded by a junkyard made her the brunt of even more hurtful comments.
He’d always quelled those kind of jokes, because he’d seen the sadness in her eyes, the tightness of her lips. He’d seen her hurry away for the protection of a dark corner, and then he’d seen her cry.
Why hadn’t he done more to stop the jokes? Instead, he’d only succeeded in his classmates not joking about her in front of him, but he knew that it still occurred.
He should have done more back then to help her, and now Amber had given him the biggest gift of his life by telling him about his ranch.
“See you at home, Luke.”
He took her hand and couldn’t decide whether to shake it or kiss the back of it. So he pulled her toward him in a hug and kissed her forehead.
He heard her slight gasp and he smiled.
She was smiling, too.
There was a little crack in that wall around her and he wondered if he could knock it down for good and get to know more of Deputy Sheriff Sergeant Amber Chapman.
