Rustler's Moon. Jodi Thomas
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wanted to feel as if there was a crowd around. In an odd way, this rough-around-the-edges cowboy tempted her. He wasn’t relationship material, but maybe for that one-night stand all her friends talked about but Angela had never tried. If he made love as well as he kissed, he might be more than she could handle.
Who was she kidding? His old uncle Vern was probably more than she could handle.
Still, she could dream about it, even if she knew nothing would ever happen. Wilkes Wagner seemed perfect to fall in love with for the night and then walk away. He’d never work for long-term but she had a feeling he’d start a fire that would fill her dreams for years.
He stood so smoothly, so silently, she was halfway to the door when he said, “Angie, I’m not going to attack you. I didn’t the day we met. You just jumped when I must have startled you.” He moved around the table and pulled a chair out as if proving that he’d come to work. “And just for the record, I won’t ever ask for your hand. If I come a-asking, it’ll be for a lot more than just your hand I’d want, darlin’. I have no doubt there’s a woman beneath all those baggy clothes.”
Now several feet away, she felt more comfortable. “I wasn’t startled,” she lied, not wanting to think about the hand comment.
“You’re the most skittish woman I’ve ever met. Hell, I’ve seen horseflies calmer than you.”
Angela smiled, feeling safe so near the door. “You meet a lot of skittish women, do you?”
“Not many,” he admitted as the corner of his lip lifted slightly. “Not any that taste like warm honey.”
She walked away, her cheeks burning.
He called out before she closed the door. “Let me know when it’s closing time. I don’t own a watch and I forgot my cell.”
Glancing back, she noticed there was no clock in the room. Wilkes was already busy opening the file drawers, and, to her surprise, he did look as if he knew his way around the stacks of records.
She promised herself she would not go check on him until five o’clock, but a little after four she couldn’t resist any longer.
As silently as possible, she opened the library door to find the long oak table covered in books and papers. Wilkes Wagner was sound asleep, his chin on his chest and his boots propped on the chair across from him.
She moved closer and noticed the stubble along his jaw and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He seemed to be a man who laughed often even if he was a puzzle. Why would someone get a college degree and not use it? Why would a handsome man flirt with the likes of her? Why did he let his uncle talk to him as if he were a kid?
As she studied him, she spied a few scars on his chin and one just above his eye. For a man who couldn’t be much into his thirties, she was surprised to see so many deep scars on his hands.
A photograph of a house lay next to his left elbow. It was a small two-story, built low into the ground. She’d read early homes often were dug into the plains’ sod to save on lumber and to keep the small dwellings warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
Above the photograph someone had written Stanley House. Angela began to put facts together like puzzle pieces in her mind. A family named Stanley was listed among the first settlement in the area. They worked as blacksmiths and farriers on the Kirkland spread. She couldn’t remember seeing any Stanleys on the current membership list, so they must have died out or moved away.
She left the room quietly and ran to the wagon exhibit she’d just shown on the high school tour. There, at the back, was an old, faded vardo wagon that looked like a tiny house on wheels. A Gypsy wagon made of wood. The name on the plaque read “Stanley Wagon. One of two traveling with James Kirkland in 1872.”
She smiled and headed back to tell Wilkes that she’d found something that might help, but a dozen people suddenly filled the foyer. They seemed to be having a small reunion and asked Angela to see their great-aunt’s collection of quilts that had been donated to the museum forty years ago. It took Angela and both volunteers, Miss Bees and Miss Abernathy, to find them in the archives. By the time the quilts were carefully folded and put away, it was long past closing time.
As she said goodbye to the older ladies and locked up, she remembered the sleeping cowboy in the library. Maybe she could simply let him sleep the night. No, that wouldn’t work. The last thing she wanted was Wilkes Wagner wandering around here after dark.
He’d already spent far too much time wandering around in her dreams.
When she found Wilkes still sound asleep, her next problem was how to wake him. If she frightened him awake, he might jump or attack. Miss Bees told her Wilkes had served three years in the army after college.
Angela had heard of soldiers fighting if surprised.
Maybe if she just tapped him on the shoulder and jumped out of range. With her arm outstretched, she moved slowly toward him, but when she could have touched his shoulder, she corrected slightly and brushed his light brown hair with the tips of her fingers.
It was far softer than she would have thought. Thick, with just a bit of curl circling over her fingers. She could never remember wanting to touch any man’s hair before. Most of her encounters with the opposite sex were awkward and none she ever wanted to repeat. But almost of its own will, her hand brushed lightly over his hair once more.
When she finally looked down to his face, his blue eyes were staring up at her, waiting to see what she’d do next.
“Oh! I’m sorry.” She leaped back. “I wasn’t sure how to wake you.”
“Saying wake up would have worked,” he said, unfolding from the chair. “But I didn’t mind you brushing my hair back. My mother used to wake me like that when I was a kid.”
“I, um, just needed to let you know that it’s long past closing time.” She picked up a few of the books, trying not to look at him, then remembered the wagon. “Oh, wait, I wanted to show you something.”
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