Cowboy Sing Me Home

  COWBOY, SING ME HOME

  by

  Kim Hunt Harris

  Text copyright 2012 Kim Hunt Harris

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Funny how a few hundred yards can change a man’s entire perspective. Luke Tanner drove down the highway in his state-issue Aloma County Sheriff’s Department pickup, getting more depressed with each mile he passed. Fields that should be green by now with cotton plants two feet tall were either barren and brown, or looked at best as if they’d been sprinkled with a bit of parsley. Nothing like the thick healthy plants the area economy depended on. Heat shimmered off the blacktop; it was 10 o’clock in the morning and already 97 degrees. Irrigation systems worked practically nonstop, and Luke was sure he wasn’t the only one who thought he could hear the sound of the aquifer below them being sucked dry, like the sound of the world’s biggest straw sucking at the bottom of the world’s biggest empty cup. Not a hint of a cloud graced the white hot sky.

  In other words, bad. Bad bad bad.

  He topped a hill and saw a pickup and RV pulled to the side of the road at the bottom of the hill. That in itself was interesting; he’d stopped two days ago in almost the same place to help a guy change a flat, and ended up arresting him on an out-of-state warrant. If that happened again, Aloma County’s two-cell jail would be at capacity.

  Whoever it was, though, it wasn’t a local. Tanner knew everyone in the county and what they drove. It was a big deal when someone got a new car, and practically made the paper if someone got an RV.

  Maybe somebody coming into town for the upcoming Rain Fest, he thought with a slight surge of hope. He signaled that he was pulling over.

  He picked up his handset and started to call in the stop. He broke off because suddenly there was no air in his lungs

  This wasn’t just any motorist. This was a drop dead gorgeous woman. With long legs, long blonde hair and…he pulled closer. Yep, with a flat tire, too. He shook his head and grinned. And here he was, to save the day.

  In other words, good. Good good, oh so good.

  Luke Tanner loved to help people. Always had. Not just beautiful female people, either. He was idealistic enough to admit to himself that that was why he went into law enforcement – to help people. True, he didn’t get to be the hero nearly as much as he got to hand out speeding tickets, but the occasional opportunity did present itself.

  He did a quick teeth check in the rearview mirror and exited the pickup, already mentally checking his calendar for the next few nights. He lifted his hat in the vain hope of coaxing a quick breeze against his sweating scalp. He did have band rehearsal until eight every night, but if the damsel in distress appeared agreeable, he might just suggest a drink and dance after.

  That turned out to be a big “if.” The damsel in question didn’t appear agreeable in the least. In fact, the moment her eyes met his, the temperature around him dropped a good ten degrees.

  It caught him off guard. Generally, women were glad to see him, especially ones that needed help. But this woman stared daggers at him, the set of her jaw square and her green eyes fierce. That was why, no doubt, he was thrown enough to say the idiotically predictable, “Got a flat one?”

  To her credit, she didn’t come right out and call him an idiot. Just continued to glare at him, then slowly lifted her long blonde hair off her neck to cool it. “My jack is busted.”

  “Not a problem, I have one in my truck. We’ll have you back on the road in a jiffy.”

  Good lord, he said to himself as he pulled the jack from the back of his pickup. A jiffy? Could he get any more lame?

  She had rattled him, though. She was just in a bad mood about the tire, he told himself. The heat. She had not taken an instant dislike to him. After all, what was not to like?

  He came back with the jack and fresh resolve. He stuck out his hand. “Deputy Luke Tanner.”

  She gave his hand a quick shake and said, “Nice to meet you, Deputy Tanner. I can work the jack myself, I just need one that’s not broken.”

  “Don’t be crazy,” Luke said, noticing that she’d not given him her name. “My mother would slap me upside the head if I stood by and let a beautiful girl change her own flat tire.”

  She took the jack from him and rolled her eyes slightly. “What about an ugly girl?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “Well now, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen an ugly girl. I’ve heard about them, of course, but they’re not very common around here, that’s for sure.”

  That earned him a quick look that might possibly have been a smile way deep, deep down. It was gone quicker than it came. She placed the jack on the ground and reached for the wrench that worked it.

  He drew it back, out of her reach. “Nuh-uh. Sorry, but I was serious. I can’t let you change your own tire. That’s not the way we do things around here.”

  She took an appraising look around, clearly not impressed with around here. “Suit yourself.”

  He crouched, fit the end of the wrench into the notch and spun the jack handle. He decided that it was okay if she didn’t like him. But she didn’t need to be turning her nose up at his home town.

  He looked around while he spun the jack. “You traveling through, or are you planning to stay for a while? We’re having a big festival next week. Gonna be fun.”

  “Is that right?” Dusty Rhodes crossed her arms over her chest and watched the Coca-Cola cowboy make his weak attempt at impressing her. Yes, okay, he was handsome. Taller than she, which she considered a plus; she was 5’10” and it wasn’t as easy as one might think to find men tall enough. And he had those deep brackets around his mouth when he smiled that crooked, charm-the-pants-right-off-you smile. Lean. Wide shoulders. Nice butt. She supposed most women would be attracted to a guy like that.

  But she‘d seen enough drugstore cowboys to last her a lifetime.

  The cowboy was rattling on about the big festival in town next week. She forced herself to appear interested. He was, after all, changing her flat and, unnecessary as his chivalry was, at least he was trying to be nice. She could make an attempt to be civil. But not enough to encourage him.

  “People just need something to look forward to, you know? Something to give them some hope.”

  She made a noncommital noise.

  “I think it’s helping, actually.” He grunted as he lifted the tire off and stood, heaving it into the back of her pickup. He lifted the spare down and let it bounce on the ground, gaging how sturdy it felt as it bounced. Apparently he was satisfied; he crouched again to lift it onto the wheel. “I mean, obviously we’re not working up any rain or anything. But the point of the whole thing is to give people some hope, remind them that we’re a community, more than just a bunch of people living in the same area. We help each other out, you know? We stick together and we stick it out and we hang in there through the ups and downs.” He spun nuts onto bolts one by one.

  He was just one pat cliché after another, she thought, knowing that it sounded mean even in the privacy of her mind.

  “Anyway, you’ve got to come, as long as you’re here. Everyone in the county is getting together for this. We’ve got bands playing, a street dance, a carnival for
the kids. All four churches in town are getting together for special prayer services all week. It's a big deal. We even have some hotshot musician coming in for a week-long gig at Tumbleweeds.”

  She cast a quick glance at him. Her eyes were the darkest green he’d ever seen, so dark they almost didn’t look real, but she didn’t look the type to wear tinted lenses, either. She looked the type who’d tell you to kiss her butt before she’d give a flip what you thought.

  Glad to have her attention, he elaborated. “Some joker named Dusty Rhodes is supposed to be here sometime this afternoon. Pretty lame, huh? Usually when I hear a cheesy stage name like that, I think it’s a crutch to make up for a lack of talent. But maybe he’ll be okay. He’d better be a damn virtuoso, to keep up with his ego. He sent a list of instructions for the house band that’s as long as my arm. Learn all these songs, have this equipment, yadda yadda yadda. I want this in my dressing room, I want all smokers this far from the stage.” He rubbed his arm against his mouth to rub off the grin that might look a little too smug. “I’m in the house band at Tumbleweeds. Play the guitar.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and kept up the deadpan look.

  A horrific thought crossed his mind. “Uhhh…” he said. Very eloquent, Tanner.

  “Uhhh,” she said back.

  “I just stepped right in it, didn’t I?

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Hip deep.”

  He frowned and looked away, then back up at her, squinting against the sun. “What say we rewind about the last ninety seconds or so?”

  She picked up the jack pieces and handed them to him. “Dusty Rhodes, pleasure to meet you. And that’s not a stage name, that’s the name my parents gave me. They were a hoot.” Her expression dared him to make a smart remark. “And I am a virtuoso.”

  Luke stood in the middle of the highway and watched her drive away, then slowly climbed back in his truck and drove to the courthouse. He entered silently, his mind still reeling. Inside, he dropped to the torn Naugahyde chair and rested his elbows on his knees.

  Toby Haskell, the sheriff of Aloma County and Luke’s best friend, studied him. He looked at Adam, the newest deputy, who sat at the desk nearest Luke. “You okay, Tanner?”

  “Somebody check and see if hell has frozen over, would you?” He sat back and rubbed his face and hair till it stood on end. “I think I just met the woman I want to marry.”

  “Talk me up. Make me sound good.”

  “Relax,” Toby said as they walked into Tumbleweeds. “By the time I get through with her, she’ll think you’re a cross between Willie Nelson and Sir Galahad.”

  Luke spotted her, then took a deep breath and waited for his heart to turn back over in his chest. She stood beside the stage, hooking up microphone cords and giving orders to Stevie, the steel guitar player. Stevie looked like he had died and gone to Heaven, and wasn’t quite sure how to deal with his good fortune. “Yep. That’s her.”

  “Pretty.”

  “Keep your eyes to yourself. I saw her first.”

  “And I’m married, remember? Don’t sweat it. I want to meet the woman who has the legendary Luke Tanner saying the “m” word.”

  “Make me sound good. Make it up if you have to.” Luke watched Toby walk up to Dusty and strike up a conversation. He took his acoustic out of the case and fiddled with tuning it, but his concentration was more on the way Dusty was laughing at whatever Toby had just said.

  She had a deep, throaty laugh, one that evoked images of smoky bars and shared secrets in the dark of the night.

  Evidently, it was having the same effect on Stevie. He sat at his guitar, staring slack-jawed at Dusty. “She is a goddess,” he said definitely.

  “Yeah, that was my opinion, too.”

  Stevie was all of twenty-two years old. Probably at least five years Dusty’s junior. Probably she wouldn’t be interested in someone like him.

  “Don’t you have a girlfriend?” Luke frowned at Stevie.

  “She dumped me. Just in time. Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  “She dumped me.” Just in time, he added silently.

  Stevie whipped his head around. “You’re kidding. Melinda dumped you? People were taking bets she would finally be the one to tie you down.”

  A mental image flashed through Luke’s head of himself tied to the ground with dozens of thread-like ropes, Gulliver-style, with a miniature Melinda running around checking knots and tamping down stakes with a tiny hammer, laughing maniacally.

  The image didn’t feel too far from the truth. Things with Melinda had gotten too serious too quick, and that was not how he operated, not at all. Before he’d even known what hit him, she’d had a toothbrush at his house and that cat of hers had been around his place more than its own. Getting Melinda mad enough to dump him had taken some work, and now that he was out of that particular situation, he was more relieved than anything. She’d run off to her sister’s house in Dallas, threatening to look for a job and an apartment while she was there. He wished her luck.

  Luke wondered if he should get Toby to say something to Dusty about Melinda dumping him. Sometimes women got real sympathetic to a guy who’d been recently dumped. One of the reasons he always made sure he was the dumpee.

  “Let me guess,” Dusty said after Toby had introduced himself. “You’re the friend who’s supposed to talk him up.”

  “He said you were sharp. Those were his exact words. This is kind of like junior high, huh?”

  She gave him a bland look. “I wouldn’t know. I was home schooled.”

  “Well, it is kind of like junior high for us, at any rate. He’s a great guy, lots of fun, and he’s a hero. Arrested a very bad criminal type just yesterday.” Toby smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business and talk about this Rain Fest. We talked about the whole point behind it over the phone.”

  “You’re trying to drum up some rain.”

  “Yeah.” He leaned a hip against the table. “Well, yes and no. As you could probably tell on your way into town, we’re in a pretty bad drought.”

  “The river on the west side of town is almost dry.”

  “Lowest level it’s been since the big drought in the 50s. This is the third year in a row we’ve been hurting for rain. We didn’t get any snow over the winter, and the spring’s already starting out below average. One or two years, we can handle. But this is the third year, and nerves are on edge. Everybody in the county is at each other’s throats. I can’t even tell you the calls we’ve been getting lately. People fighting over the craziest things. Fist fights over price gouging at the grocery store. Two sisters, who’ve lived next door to each other for twenty years, got into an argument over their vegetable garden and they haven’t spoken to each other in three weeks. It’s like that all over the county. And I just...” He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her a half-hearted smile. “We need something. Luke and I were talking, and he came up with this idea. Because we have to have something to get everybody back on the right track. Something to give everybody a reason to keep trying, to keep hanging in there. It’s hard, Miss Rhodes, to keep kids here, to keep them from moving off to a bigger place as soon as they graduate high school. The nearest mall is an hour away. Everything’s an hour away, concerts, museums, decent restaurants... don’t tell Irene at the Dairy Queen that I said that. But my point is, this is a good place to raise a family. And we’re losing that. Maybe we don’t have a lot of money, and maybe there’s not a lot in the way of entertainment, but this has always been a place with a strong sense of community. If we lose that... well, there’s nothing to keep anybody here. So you see...”

  “And you think a little country music is going to rekindle some community spirit?”

  Toby grinned. “Not just country music. We have a street carnival, a revival, some contests for the kids… it’s a big to-do. But yeah, if you could work in a bunch of songs about family, and small town life, and stuff like that, it would help. Ma
ybe a few songs about overcoming hard times. And the evils of the big city, too, if you have any. I know I’d appreciate it. Oh, and if you do know a way to drum up some rain…”

  “You expect a lot.”

  “Miracles happen every day.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Great. There’s a barbecue for all the volunteers working the Rain Fest, day after tomorrow on the courthouse square. I’d like you to come with my wife and me. It starts at 6:30. It’ll be fun, and my wife is making potato salad. That’s worth the trip in itself.”

  “We have rehearsal every night from 6:30 to nine.”

  “Can you skip it for one night?”

  “Do you want the band to sound worth anything at your festival?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Then we can’t skip it for one night.”

  “Tell you what. How about if you come to the barbecue at 6:30, and move rehearsal to 7:30? I’ll make sure the boys don’t leave here one second before 9:30. Would that work?”

  Dusty sighed. She never moved rehearsal. Never. The way she worked with one new band after another, it was important for them to get all the rehearsals they could before they played together in public. And if she started making allowances for one thing, it would snowball and she would lose her leadership control. She didn’t like that.

  But something about the Sheriff’s plea, and his obviously heartfelt concern for his town, had touched her. Naïve and kind of corny, yes, but touching.

  “Okay,” she said, against her better judgement. “We can postpone rehearsal for half an hour. But we’ll go till ten.”

  “Good.” He shook her hand again and studied her. “I’m really glad you’re here. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you. And I have a good feeling about this week.”

  Dusty shrugged. “I always do my best.”

  “That’s all I ask. So I’ll see you Wednesday night on the courthouse square. Do you need a ride?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Then we’ll see you there at 6:30. And Miss Rhodes?”