Rustler's Moon. Jodi Thomas
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what the sheriff was saying, but invisible boulders kept falling on her head. She was the only employee.
“Anything else I should know about?”
Dan looked out the window. “There is Carter Mayes. You’ll see his little RV parked out here on the museum lot now and then. He comes every spring and stays till late fall, has for years. Folks say he’s looking for something he lost in the canyon when he was a kid, but I think he just loves walking the back trails. Don’t worry about him. He’s a good guy.”
She saw a lean figure far down in the canyon moving slowly toward the bottom. Carter Mayes.
“Anything else?” the sheriff asked with his hand on the door.
“Yes,” she said. “I think I’ll go back to my maiden name.” It seemed like a good idea, since she’d never really been engaged to the man named Jones, who never really existed. “When I talked to Mr. Kirkland, I thought I’d be married, but it didn’t happen.”
Dan grinned. “Who knows, Miss Harold, that might have been for the best. I’ve been trying to recover from a wedding for fifteen years. But no regrets. I got my Lauren away at college. If I brag about her too much, stop me.”
“I will.” She smiled, wondering if her father had ever talked so proudly about her. Maybe he had.
“Makes sense to clear up the name. Folks would get confused.” Dan nodded. “A few started calling you Harold the minute they heard the bastard didn’t move to Texas with you.”
She stared at the sheriff. “What makes you think he was a bastard?”
Dan smiled and stepped through the threshold. “He’d have to be, Angie, if he left a find like you.”
As his footsteps echoed down the stairs, Angela fought back a giggle. That was the nicest thing she could remember anyone ever saying to her.
But her head was spinning. Maybe she had made a mistake changing back to her real last name, but despite her father’s warning, why would anyone come after her? The people in Crossroads already knew her real name. She hadn’t said anything when she’d signed Harold on the lease for the cabin made out to Angela Jones. Now the fake name on the lease would keep her safe. If she was careful, she could leave little record of her real name.
But then, what did it matter if the people called her Harold now that she was here? They weren’t likely to run into any of her relatives half a continent away.
Time to stop worrying about her family and dive into work. This was her new life, her new beginning. She had been so unimportant in her father’s family they’d probably forgotten her by now anyway.
Angela grinned, remembering how last Thanksgiving Uncle Anthony’s latest wife had moved the family’s big dinner and forgotten to mention it to her or her father. Now, if any of them dropped by the beach house on Anna Marie Island, they probably wouldn’t be worried enough to ask where she’d gone.
She picked up her notepad and went downstairs. One of the volunteers was giving a tour this afternoon, and she planned to learn as much as possible.
* * *
OVER THE REST of the week, the museum drew her in like a magic time machine to a period in history that she’d loved since she’d discovered Little House on the Prairie as a girl. Yet somehow, she felt she belonged in this place. To her knowledge no one in her family had ever come west. She was the first pioneer, even if she was over a hundred years late.
Friday morning, Angela was deep in paperwork when she glanced up from her records to find Wilkes Wagner standing at her office door. He seemed to be blocking the entire entrance with his tall frame and wide shoulders. She had no idea how long he’d been lurking there.
“If you’ve come to assault me or ask for my hand, Mr. Wagner, I’m sorry, I’m busy. You’ll have to come back later.”
The cowboy had the nerve to smile and walk in as if he’d been invited. “I haven’t recovered from the last beating you gave me, Angie. I’ve still got a bruise on my rib.” He towered over her. “You want to see?” He tugged at his shirt.
“No.” She decided the sheriff must have left out dumb when he mentioned the Wagner family traits. Only, he wasn’t dumb. Arrogant. Rude. Sexy as hell, but not dumb.
“Well, if stripping is out—” he winked, telling her he’d been teasing “—then I’m here to do some research. You store county records under this roof. I’m looking for details about an old house that may have been one of the first in Crossroads. A friend of mine, Yancy Grey, claims it haunts him.”
She stood, trying to look her most professional, but it was hard to pull it off in the baggy trousers and bulky sweater she’d worn for a workday behind the dusty display cases. Any hope that he wouldn’t notice vanished when she saw him studying her from the knot of wild hair on the top of her head to her tennis shoes.
“Please follow me,” she ordered, her chin high.
He did just that, though she guessed he knew exactly where the museum records were kept. It was a beautiful room in the heart of the building. Although windowless, the walls between file cabinets and bookshelves had been painted sunset yellow. The tall room’s lighting had been expertly crafted with low-hanging wrought-iron chandeliers. Local cattle brands were laser cut into the dark iron giving the room a warm, Western glow. The Double K for the Kirklands, The Bar W for the Collins’ ranch and many others including the Devil’s Fork. Wilkes’s family brand looked like the branches of a winter tree that nature had shaped into the lines of a three-tine fork.
She started when Wilkes overtook her a moment before she reached for the doorknob. He held it open for her and then followed her in. For the first time, she noticed a leather backpack slung over one of his shoulders. “I’m afraid I can’t show you around. I haven’t had a chance yet to explore all the wonderful records in this room.”
He dropped his pack on the nearest chair and sat on the end of the long oak table that sliced down the middle of the room. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve explored these stacks. My mother used to volunteer here on Saturdays, and I always tagged along. I think this place is why I majored in American history in college.”
“You went to college?” The words were out before she could stop them. Somehow with his worn boots and old jeans she’d formed the idea that he’d never left the ranch for more than a few hours.
He grinned, that wicked grin she’d seen her first day. “Much as I tried to goof off, I ended up with a degree in history and a minor in math.” Sitting on the table, he was eye level with her, which made him impossible to ignore. Men shouldn’t be that rugged and that good-looking at the same time.
The memory of their kiss warmed her and she licked her lips. His smile faded, but his eyes darkened slightly, telling her he knew exactly what she was thinking.
Wilkes folded his arms and looked away. One kiss might have been an accident, a part of a game he assumed was being played, but another would be an advance. He was silently telling her it wouldn’t happen again.
He was right, of course. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. The best kiss of her life had been a mistake. Nothing more.
She tried to be polite. Change the subject before her cheeks matched the color of her hair. “There’s not a great deal you can do with a history degree unless you want to teach, I’ve heard.”
He crossed his legs at the ankle, almost touching her shoes as he did.
She moved a foot away.
“I’ve no interest in teaching. I want to ranch, Angie. Tried to find something else but waking up to clean air and sounds of the country won out. Maybe I didn’t love ranching so much as I simply had no great ambition to do anything else,” he said. “Today, I’m just helping a friend who wants to learn about one of the houses at the edge of town. I’m not working on some great research project.”
She took