Linda Miller - Big Sky Country

And here was that dead man’s dog. Not seeing the point of leaving a message, she simply closed the phone and dropped it back into her purse.

“I’m so sorry, boy,” she said, stroking the dog’s head gently.

He shivered again.

She straightened, moved to open the back door of the car and began transferring her grocery bags to the trunk.

Jasper watched her the whole time, still hopeful.

“Come on,” she said, when the backseat was clear. “Let’s get you home to Whisper Creek Ranch.”

Jasper hesitated, as though debating the matter, then limped obediently over and jumped into the backseat, landing with a little whimper.

Was the dog hurt? Should she take him straight to the nearest veterinarian? Her head was beginning to ache.

Joslyn slipped behind the wheel of the car and glanced into the rearview mirror. Jasper’s big mug filled the glass.

“Everything’s going to be all right,” she promised him.

He sighed and settled in to wait for further developments.

Joslyn got her cell phone out again. She didn’t have Hutch’s number, but Kendra was on speed dial.

Her voice mail came on, and Joslyn figured her friend was either at the real-estate closing she’d mentioned earlier or busy showing somebody around the chicken farm.

“Give me a ring, ASAP,” she said. “I need Hutch’s number.”

She hadn’t even gotten out of the lot before Kendra called her back.

“Why?” Kendra asked, not bothering with a hello.

Joslyn stopped the car, making sure she wasn’t blocking incoming or outgoing traffic, and sighed. “Why, what?”

“Why do you need Hutch Carmody’s phone number?” Kendra was probably trying to sound nonchalant, but it wasn’t working.

A slow smile spread across Joslyn’s mouth. Kendra Shepherd and Hutch Carmody? They were polar opposites, those two—she was prim and proper, some would say a control freak, and Hutch was a hell-raiser who liked to take life as it came.

And those things were just the beginning of their differences.

Still, stranger things had happened, especially in the realm of romance.

“I need the number,” Joslyn replied smoothly, “because I’m looking for a night of wild, irresponsible sex, and I figure Hutch will make as good a partner as anybody.”

Kendra sucked in a breath—and then laughed. “Well, if you’re looking for ‘irresponsible,’” she quipped, “Hutch is definitely your man.”

Zing, Joslyn thought, still smiling.

“Actually, I found his father’s dog just now, and the poor thing looks pretty bedraggled and very much in need of some tender loving care.”

“Jasper?” Kendra asked. “You found Jasper?”

“Yes,” Joslyn replied patiently. “That’s what his name tag says. And when I called the number, I got John Carmody’s voice mail.”

“That must have been strange.” There was a pause. “Hold on. I’m scrolling for Hutch’s contact information.”

“Holding,” Joslyn confirmed, thrumming her fingers on the top of the steering wheel.

“555-6298,” Kendra finally said.

Joslyn wrote the number in the dust on the dashboard of her car, using her fingertip for a pen. “Thanks,” she said. “By the way, I checked the office before I left home. Nobody there.”

“That figures,” Kendra said, sounding tired all of a sudden.

Since Kendra was usually annoyingly optimistic, Joslyn picked up on the contrast right away, subtle though it was. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“My feet hurt,” Kendra said, “and still no offer on the chicken farm.”

Joslyn chuckled. “You didn’t change out of those high heels?” she chided. “It’s the law of cause and effect, my friend. And maybe the eighteenth showing will be the charm, and the next great chicken farmer will sign on the dotted line.”

The smile was back in Kendra’s voice. “Right,” she said, with wistful good humor. “Do you happen to have any wine on hand?”

“I beg your pardon? I just moved in, Kendra. I barely have staples.”

“Wine is a staple,” Kendra retorted. “The last client dinner party wiped out what was left of my supply, so I’ll stop for some later, on my way home. We can raise a glass to old times. Red or white?”

Jasper leaned over the back of Joslyn’s seat and ran his tongue along the length of her right cheek. It was a companionable gesture.

She laughed, making a face. “Red, I guess, since it doesn’t have to be chilled. I’m about to cook up a storm, so plan on arriving hungry.”

They set a time—six o’clock—said their goodbyes and hung up.

Joslyn immediately dialed the number etched into her dashboard dust.

Another recording. If the words hadn’t been different, the effect would have been downright eerie.

Hutch sounded almost exactly like his father.

“Leave a message,” he said tersely. “I might call you back and, then again, I might not. It all depends on what you want.”

“I have your father’s dog,” Joslyn said after the beep and then realized the statement sounded like the preamble to a ransom demand. “I mean, it’s Joslyn Kirk calling. You remember, from high school? I’m living in Kendra Shepherd’s guesthouse now, and—well—I found Jasper and I’m sure you’ve been looking for him so—” She paused, blurted out her cell number and snapped the phone shut.

“What a charmer,” she told Jasper wryly.

The lab gave a little whine of commiseration.

“Guess you’ll just have to come home with me for the time being,” she told him with a surge of gladness that surprised her. If there was one thing she didn’t need with her life in suspended animation, it was a dog.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to enjoy Jasper’s company for a few hours. Would it?

After looking carefully in both directions, Joslyn pulled out onto the highway and pointed herself, Jasper and the groceries in the direction of Rodeo Road. It was time to push up her sleeves and get cooking.

* * *

THE REST OF THAT DAY was slow, which was good, Slade supposed, considering the business he was in. He clocked out at five o’clock sharp, something he rarely did, and headed for home.

Letting himself into the one-bedroom duplex he’d rented after his marriage went to hell two weeks after he’d been elected sheriff, he looked around at the minimal furnishings, the bare walls and the scruffy carpet in a color his mother had dubbed “baby poop green.”

The place had never been a home, just a place to wait out a transition—a campsite with walls and windows and a roof.

He hung up his hat, unhooked his badge from his belt and set it aside. He carried a service revolver, but that was locked up in a gun safe under the driver’s seat of his truck.

From the front door, it was a straight shot to the open, one-counter kitchen, a hike of about a dozen feet, give or take.

Slade zeroed in on the refrigerator, which was the same uninspired color as the carpet, opened the door and assessed the contents. Two cans of beer, half a stick of butter and a shriveled slice of pizza from a couple of days back. He should have bought more than a bottle of water back there at Mulligan’s Grocery, he reflected, taking a beer and shutting the fridge door on the dismal selection.

The truth was, he’d been too distracted to think straight ever since the meeting at Maggie Landers’s office that morning, and running into Joslyn Kirk at the grocery store hadn’t helped matters.

He popped the top on the beer, opened the sliding glass door next to the card table that served as a dining area and stepped out onto his miniscule brick patio. The grass needed mowing, and weeds were springing up everywhere.

On the other side of the low concrete-block wall loomed the old Rossiter mansion.