I'll Sing for my Dinner (22 page)

“No, I don’t mind,” I said, smiling and hugging her close. “It should be a beautiful drive. I’m glad you’re making friends now,” I said. “I know Greeley isn’t very exciting, and I work all the time.”

“I like Greeley,” Cecily said. “I missed you when I was on tour, but I missed Barney and Mari and Maggie, too. I love this house, and I like the people at the bar. I wish my mother were more like Kathy. And this winter, when I get through with the tour, I’d like to spend a bit more time in Denver. We can go to the symphony, see some operas and ballets. Maybe go out to dinner and go dancing. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“Yes, I would like that.” I kissed her, and then she took me in her hand, then her mouth, and escalated things. We didn’t do much talking after that until we got up to shower and go meet Myra and Terrie for lunch.

After lunch, Cecily announced that she was taking her friends shopping.

“If you’re going to hang out in Greeley, you need to dress properly,” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “There will be some hot cowboys here tonight, and you want to dress to impress, right?”

When they came back around five o’clock, Myra and Terrie wore tight, form-fitting western shirts, boot-cut jeans and cowboy boots. And hats. Their jeans looked as though they were painted on. I had to admit they looked really good.

Cecily played through the dinner hours, and we waited for her before ordering our own dinner. After she finished her last set, she thanked the audience, as she usually did, then made an announcement.

“A couple of my closest friends are here tonight. Now, I know some of you boys know how to dance without murdering a girl’s feet. They’re both single, so don’t be shy about showing them a good time. I’ve told them that Colorado cowboys are the friendliest men in the world, so don’t make a liar out of me. Terrie, Myra, stand up so that they know who you are.”

The girls looked both pleased and distinctly embarrassed.

“Come on, stand up. Let everyone see your pretty faces,” Cecily insisted.

Her friends stood and waved at everyone.

“There ya go,” Cecily crowed. “Treat them as though you remember the manners your mamas tried to teach you, okay? They both have big mean brothers.”

The crowd laughed.

She walked over to the bar as Jared and the band took the stage.

“You can be so shy and demure sometimes,” I said, shaking my head as I handed her a glass of wine.

“I am,” she said, “except when I get on stage. You want everyone to have a good time, don’t you?”

I laughed. “You just embarrassed the hell out of your friends.”

“Only a little bit. They’d be a lot more embarrassed if they sat there all night and no one asked them to dance. I’m starving. Are we going to have dinner now?”

~~~

Chapter 28

Cecily

The week before Labor Day, Jake was in town running around trying to get everything ready for the big bash we were throwing at the bar. Jared and I were leaving for our country tour of the South the following week, and we talked Jake into throwing a party.

Besides me and Prairie Lightning, Jared’s band, we had three more fairly big name acts coming in. The alfalfa field beyond the parking lot had been mowed, and we set up a large bandstand in the field. Jared and the band dug a pit large enough to roast a whole cow on a spit. We had a semi-truck full of kegs of beer parked behind the bar. Dave Thomas promoted it all over Northeastern Colorado, and sold five thousand tickets. We had no idea what the walk-up traffic would be the day of the event.

I stayed home to clean house. Terrie and Myra were driving up from Denver, and Jake’s Aunt Tilly was coming in with her family from out around Fort Morgan. I hadn’t met any of Jake and Jared’s relatives, so I was a bit nervous. We would have a full house, and the plan was to put the kids, Tilly’s four grandchildren, out in the barn. I found myself wondering what the place would be like when Jake and I had kids. Knowing Jake and Jared, I could imagine that the ranch was a great place to grow up.

I heard Barney start to bark. Not his bark when Jake or Jared came home, but the way his bark sounded when strangers came to the house. I wandered over to the dining room window and peeped out. A large shiny new blue car came down the drive. It slowed, then crawled into the yard between the buildings. I didn’t recognize it. Most of the people we knew drove pickups.

I went back into the kitchen and grabbed a towel, drying my hands as I walked back into the dining room. The car came to a stop, and I tried to see through the windshield who might be coming to visit.

It was Alejandro.

I stood frozen for a moment, then ducked into the living room. I locked the front door and threw the deadbolt.

Oh, my dear God. What was I going to do? I felt a bit lightheaded and forced myself to take a deep breath. Jake had guns in the house, but they were all locked up, and I wouldn’t know what to do with a gun even if I had one. I felt for my knife, even though I knew it was hanging around my neck. Taking stock of what I had, I checked my phone in the pocket of the shift I was wearing. Other than the shift, the only clothes I had on were my panties. I was barefoot.

Barney was still barking. I snuck a peek out the window, and saw that Alejandro and the others in the car just sat there.

Grabbing my sneakers and socks from the foyer, I pulled them on as quickly as I could. I knew I wouldn’t be able to run in cowboy boots. Peeking out the window again, I saw someone stick their hand out of one of the car windows. The sound of the gunshot made me jump, and I felt as though my heart stopped for a moment.

Barney let out a scream and twisted in a strange way. The gun fired two more times, and Barney lay in the dirt with a pool of blood around him. Mari took off running for the stable.

My heart hammered in my chest. Rushing to the back door, I set the locks, including the one on the dog door, and slipped out. I tried to pull the door closed as quietly as I could. Crouching, I snuck toward the corner of the house. I was blocked from Alejandro’s view, but there would be a brief time that I was exposed between the house and the stable. If I was lucky, I could do it without anyone seeing me.

I wasn’t sure how many of them were there. Alejandro for sure, and the driver. I thought the gun had been extended from the back seat, but with the angle I had, I couldn’t be sure. I decided I should assume there were four of them. Any more, and they would have brought another car.

A part of me was planning, and another part was panicked so bad that I could barely breathe. I couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see me. They might think no one was home. There weren’t any cars in front of the house. I didn’t know if they would send someone around to the back door, but I didn’t think I could stay where I was and take the chance.

The shift I wore was an old one of Mary’s. Once it had been bright yellow, but was now faded with age. It probably hit her above the knee, but on me it hung to mid-calf. I worried that it might tangle around my legs when I ran so I pulled it up above my knees and tied a knot in it. Then I pulled my knife out and held it in my hand.

I heard car doors slam. Lying down, I edged my eye around the corner of the building, trying to expose as little of myself as possible. I didn’t see anyone.

Through the open window above me, I heard someone pounding on the front door. Jumping up, I sprinted toward the far end of the stable. As I passed through the open space where someone near the car might be able to see me, I chanced a look toward the car and saw a man’s back. My breathing and the blood pounding in my ears sounded as loud as a freight train, and I was sure Alejandro and his goons could hear it, even though they were a couple of hundred feet away from me.

I peered around the corner of the building and didn’t see anyone coming toward me. I did hear them hammering on the front door of the house, and then a crash, and then silence.

The copse of trees around the stream and the swimming hole where Jake and I picnicked was visible in the distance. Jake said it was two miles from the house. On horseback, it took us about half an hour to reach it, but we rode slowly. I had walked it a few times, and it took me about the same amount of time. If I ran straight toward it, no one would be able to see me from the house unless they were in Jared’s or Mary’s rooms on the second floor. The stable blocked the view from ground level.

I took out my phone and found Jake’s number, then started jogging toward the trees. When I was far enough away that I was sure no one could hear me, I punched the call icon.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Jake said. “What’s up?”

“Jake, there are men from Baltimore at the house. They have guns. Call the police.” My speech probably sounded a bit strange. I was panting and the pounding of my feet on the ground gave what I was saying a sort of cadence.

“Where are you?” All the playfulness was gone from his voice.

“I’m running toward the swimming hole,” I told him. “I think I got away without being seen.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” he said. “When you get there, go west. The banks of the creek deepen and start to wind in that direction. It will be harder to see you. I’m about ten miles from home, hang on and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Jake, no. Call the cops. Jake, they … they shot Barney.” My voice hitched a little bit when I said that. He was such a sweet dog. I wanted to cry, but focused. “Jake, they didn’t see me. They can’t know for sure that I’m here. Be careful. Wait for the cops. If anything happened to you, I’d die. Please, oh please don’t do anything stupid.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll call the police, then I’ll call you back. How many of them are there?”

“Jake, no. I’ll leave my phone on and lock it. That way you can hear me. Call the police on your other line. I can’t talk and run at the same time, but you’ll be able to hear me. I’ll tell you what’s happening. Okay?”

“Yes,” he said. “Hide, Cecily. Hide and I’ll come for you. How many men are there?”

“I saw three, but I think there are four. I love you, Jake,” I said. Muting the speaker but leaving the call open, I locked my phone and slipped it back in the pocket of my shift.

Looking behind me, I didn’t see anything. I slowed to a walk while talking to Jake, but now I started jogging again. It didn’t seem as though the trees were getting any closer. How far away did I need to be from the house before I was out of range? I had read somewhere that a person never heard the gunshot that killed them. Bullets travel faster than the speed of sound. I wondered if I would know if I was killed, or if it would be like turning off a light switch.

~~~

Chapter 29

Jake

Cecily’s call put me into a panic. I was driving toward the house already, and I pushed the gas pedal to the floor. I called 911, but I had no plans to wait for the sheriff’s department to catch up to me. There might not be a deputy within twenty miles. Weld County is huge, almost four thousand square miles, and Ted Yost’s force wasn’t large enough to cover it all.

The 911 dispatcher took the information I gave her, but then Ted came on the line before I could hang up.

“Jake, don’t do anything stupid,” he said.

“Ted, I’m not going to rush in there, but I’m not waiting for your deputies before I scope things out. That’s my girl, and if there’s a way to get her out of there, I’m going to take it.”

“Dammit, Jake. This isn’t Iraq. Wait for backup.”

“Ted, thanks for admitting I have a right to be there,” I said and hung up.

I switched back to the other line, the one Cecily said she would leave open. All I heard was static and swishing noises. I listened for a while, and finally heard what sounded like a soft curse. It was Cecily’s voice. Then more swishy noises.

From what she told me, all of the thugs were at the ranch house. I should be able to drive most of the way to the house without being seen. Most of the area was flat, but the area to the north of the house had a couple of low hills. Not really even hills. They were so low even my grandmother could climb them when she was eighty. But Granddad built the house where he did to take advantage of those pimples on the plain to block the north wind.

I pulled the truck off the road at a windmill about three hundred yards from the house. Reaching in the glove box, I pulled out my Glock, checked it, and jacked a shell into the chamber. There were three long guns locked into the rack behind my head. A shotgun and two rifles. I used the .308 to hunt deer and elk, and the .244 for coyotes and antelope. The advantage of the lighter rifle was that it was very flat shooting, good for long distances. I took it and the shotgun and relocked the .308 in the rack.