The Cowboy And The Cop. Christine Wenger

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      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.”

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