Read Only Flesh and Bones Online
Authors: Sarah Andrews
Only Flesh and Bones (9 page)
I took a sip of my beer and spoke directly to Beverly, retracing ground to see if she’d offer more than her husband had. “Well, I was just wanting to see the place, you see. It’s Cecelia I really care about—she’s not been the same and all, since the—you know … it was a big shock for her, to say the least. Her dad asked me to talk to her about things, see if she can let it go, kind of move on with her life, you know? But like I say, the problem is she can’t remember anything of what’s bothering her so much. I just thought if I saw the place where it happened …”
The tension lapsed from Henry’s face. “Well, if
that’s
all. But maybe you’d just as like to see Po’s wife. She has a set of keys, and she’s right here in town.” He swiveled his jowls around to Win Downey. “Right, Win?”
that’s
all. But maybe you’d just as like to see Po’s wife. She has a set of keys, and she’s right here in town.” He swiveled his jowls around to Win Downey. “Right, Win?”
Win closed his eyes and opened them again. “Yeah, she’s in town. That’s the person to see.”
Henry looked back at me. “Right, that’s who you need to see. Gwen Bradley. Nice lady. She’ll help you out.”
And that way I don’t meet Po Bradley, whom your sheriff would like to charge with this murder. Because he might have done it, you don’t know for sure. But either way you don’t want someone from outside
—
even some little old cowgirl from the next county
—
upsetting the local hay wagon. I understand, that’s just not good manners. Well, fine, if you like, I’ll start with the wife. But trust me, folks, if your boy did it, he should and will pay for it.
I smiled equitably. “Okay then, Gwen Bradley. She likely to make an appearance tonight?”
—
even some little old cowgirl from the next county
—
upsetting the local hay wagon. I understand, that’s just not good manners. Well, fine, if you like, I’ll start with the wife. But trust me, folks, if your boy did it, he should and will pay for it.
I smiled equitably. “Okay then, Gwen Bradley. She likely to make an appearance tonight?”
Henry looked a mite embarrassed. “Gwen? Well, y’see—”
Henry was interrupted by the arrival of one more man in the bar. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and at the same time saw the skin around Henry Clough’s rubber lips tighten. The new man was also a vessel in his fifties, but as slim and lithe as Henry Clough was overfleshed and stiff. I
turned and measured him with my eyes. He was no longer in his prime of form and function, but there was something about him that registered as if he was; a liveliness about him, something in the spark of his eyes and the bounce of his step that said he was ready to play. His lips were already stretched in a friendly welcome, but when he saw me, the smile warmed up extraspecial.
turned and measured him with my eyes. He was no longer in his prime of form and function, but there was something about him that registered as if he was; a liveliness about him, something in the spark of his eyes and the bounce of his step that said he was ready to play. His lips were already stretched in a friendly welcome, but when he saw me, the smile warmed up extraspecial.
I smiled back. “Po Bradley?” I said.
“The same.”
Henry opened his mouth to reassert control of the conversation, but I cut him off, saying, “I’m Em Hansen from Chugwater, and I was wondering if I could visit your old homestead.”
“Sure, no problem,” Po said, whipping two chairs around from the adjoining table. As he lowered himself into one chair, he slid the other expertly up to the backs of my knees, saying, “What’s a matter with you old sheep herds, don’t none of you never offer a chair to a lady?”
W
ELL, I made a date to meet Po the next morning at the place where Miriam and Cecelia had gone to pass the previous summer, but I never got another word out of him or anyone else about
the
topic that night. Henry Clough and his friends need not have worried, if their fear was that I’d find out anything untoward about their charming friend; he was a pro at dissembling, a master at redirecting a conversation, making the whole performance so entertaining that I almost forgot to care that I was being put off.
ELL, I made a date to meet Po the next morning at the place where Miriam and Cecelia had gone to pass the previous summer, but I never got another word out of him or anyone else about
the
topic that night. Henry Clough and his friends need not have worried, if their fear was that I’d find out anything untoward about their charming friend; he was a pro at dissembling, a master at redirecting a conversation, making the whole performance so entertaining that I almost forgot to care that I was being put off.
Before the evening was out, I’d been ushered down the street to the Moose and had met almost everyone else in Douglas. Douglas might be the county seat and the jackalope capital of the universe, but it’s still a small town, each and every soul.well tuned to the local hum. I could almost hear the telephones ringing with the news of my arrival echoing through the kitchens and living rooms of the farthest ranches out from town before I’d emptied my last beer.
As Henry Clough took his leave at the end of the evening, he shifted his dark, ursine eyes back and forth between me and Po a few times. He began to turn toward the door, but then turned back, took my hand in his in a fatherly way, and said, “Now, you watch yourself, young lady. Any daughter of Clyde Hansen’s deserves a little warning about our Mr. Po. Just don’t you get drawn in by that smile of his, y’hear?”
I laughed and made a “Go on with you” gesture, thinking,
Po’s old enough to be my father.
Perhaps it was the beer thinking for me.
Po’s old enough to be my father.
Perhaps it was the beer thinking for me.
Henry tipped his enormous head anxiously to one side,
said, “You be careful on all accounts, okay?” And with that he left, herding his wiry little wife ahead of him.
said, “You be careful on all accounts, okay?” And with that he left, herding his wiry little wife ahead of him.
I spent the night stretched out in my old goose-down sleeping bag in the bed of my truck under a tent formed by the drape of a tarp, tucked out of sight behind a little butte off the road above La Prele Creek. After the cloying experience of being ogled by half the county, I didn’t feel like booking into a room at the LaBonte by myself, and besides, the night sky always calms my soul.
I snuggled the edges of the bag up around my face, fighting off the deep chill that had ridden in with the westerly winds, thankful that the front hadn’t come from the south and brought a dump of freezing moisture from the Gulf Coast. I might see a sifting of fine westerly ice snow before morning, but the tarp would keep it off me and spare me a night folded up on the short bench seat in the cab of the truck.
I needed time to think. If I’d been honest, I would have admitted to myself long before then that I wasn’t really on a mission to help Cecelia, much as my heart ached for her. No, I had turned my searchlights onto Miriam. As I’d read the first volumes of her journals, I had thought her boring and naive, but soon her words had begun to speak to me, or to something deep inside of me. I had come to know her by accident, through a candor few people share, and I found that for all her normalcy and plainness of thought, I liked her. I had consumed her simple words, wondering with her as she wondered, and griping with her as she griped.
I had begun to compare her experiences with the mysterious Chandler with a few of my own, lining her sexual adventures up against my best moments with dear old Frank Barnes, the man I let get away. Even though Frank was married now and a father, I found that I kept on thinking of him, even as his new commitments sealed him away from me forever. But even now, as I lay out underneath the cold Wyoming sky, a feeling of sexual warmth flowed into me at the thought of him.
And then there was shy but steady Jim Erikson, the man in California who kept on writing even though I seldom wrote him back. Did the mixture of feelings I held for him portend as much frustration as had Miriam’s for J. C. Menken? Or was there something important I needed to learn about the nice stable guys that I’d been too restless to learn before?
When Miriam’s words had run out with the last volume in the box, I had felt a terrible letdown. I wanted to know more about her, and know her better, so much so that here I was, chasing like a bloodhound to the last place where she’d drawn breath. I suppose I was hoping I’d find a final volume of her journal resting by the bed where she’d slept, closed over her pen to mark the last entry. I wanted that entry to sound a note of resolution, completing a life I had come to care about. I knew this was foolish: Whoever had killed her had probably stolen those last words from her, tearing her from this life before the pen had cooled from the touch of her hand.
Feelings of hope and resignation chased each another back and forth in my mind until I finally admitted to myself, under the privacy of the cloudy, wind-bitten sky, that this early ending to Miriam Menken’s story felt to me like theft, and the fact was that I wanted, deep in my guts, to know who had killed her.
Losses. My father dead, and my mother firmly in charge of the ranch, and Frank was gone from my life. My father I could not bring back, but why had I let Frank go while he was still living? Frank had never sought to chain me; he had always understood, always let me roam as far as my crazy spirit led me. What in hell had I been thinking, roaming so far that he gave up hope of my return? Or was I kidding myself that I cared, safely investing my foolish grief in the man I could no longer have? And finally, why did I have to follow such a solitary path in this life?
I rolled restlessly onto my back and traced the constellations that now shone through a parting in the drifting clouds. Orion. Hercules. Perseus. Greek heroes striding over
Wyoming, journeying outward to embrace adventure, returning home to share with their tribes the wisdom gained through trial. Miriam had led a mundane life until her early forties, had run wild into the mountains with an unnamed man, and had returned. If she’d lived, could she have told me what might lie beyond the cramped perspective of my own thirty years?
Wyoming, journeying outward to embrace adventure, returning home to share with their tribes the wisdom gained through trial. Miriam had led a mundane life until her early forties, had run wild into the mountains with an unnamed man, and had returned. If she’d lived, could she have told me what might lie beyond the cramped perspective of my own thirty years?
The breeze freshened, sealing up the rift in the clouds. I shifted into the lee of the upwind wall of the truck bed and tugged at the tarp to make sure the clips were holding. At length, my eyelids grew heavy, the clouds blurred into the soft underparts of my dreams, and I slid into the warm arms of sleep.
T
HE first thought in my head on waking was that I had made the right choice in not driving right out to the ranch with Po the evening before, as he had none too subtly suggested. “You can stay at the house,” he’d said. “You’ll be snug as a bug in a rug with me. No problem. You don’t need to worry about no ghosts, neither, Emmy dear. Your friend’s mama’s gone away where she ain’t comin’ back.”
HE first thought in my head on waking was that I had made the right choice in not driving right out to the ranch with Po the evening before, as he had none too subtly suggested. “You can stay at the house,” he’d said. “You’ll be snug as a bug in a rug with me. No problem. You don’t need to worry about no ghosts, neither, Emmy dear. Your friend’s mama’s gone away where she ain’t comin’ back.”
Had I heard sadness in his tone, or an attempt at getting sympathy? My mind didn’t have to rummage far, in the relative clarity of daylight, reduced state of fatigue, and dissipating beer buzz, to realize that Po Bradley had found Miriam Menken more than a bit attractive. Of course he had; if he found me worth smiling at, then a lively woman spending the summer off the leash would have caught his attention in the blink of a gnat’s eyelash. Had he pursued her? Maybe. Won her?
Nah,
I thought,
Miriam liked her men
—
Nah,
I thought,
Miriam liked her men
—
No, wait, Po can dance
—
—
Yes.
He had turned me around the dance floor nicely. And among other returning memories of the previous evening was the image of Po, his lean backbone swaying with the music, dancing Beverly Clough across the floor at the Moose, his eyes locked on her as if he’d found heaven in her soft gray peepers. She had held her spine primly away, but she hadn’t otherwise fought him. Yes, Po could dance. I made a mental note to ask him if he had ever danced with Miriam Menken.
He had turned me around the dance floor nicely. And among other returning memories of the previous evening was the image of Po, his lean backbone swaying with the music, dancing Beverly Clough across the floor at the Moose, his eyes locked on her as if he’d found heaven in her soft gray peepers. She had held her spine primly away, but she hadn’t otherwise fought him. Yes, Po could dance. I made a mental note to ask him if he had ever danced with Miriam Menken.
The road in to Po Bradley’s new ranch house was marked by a rough-hewn timber arch that spelled out BROKEN SPOKE
RANCH in tall, proud letters. My truck rolled off asphalt and onto dirt twenty feet off the county road, then jounced over the horizontal bars of a cattle guard as I crossed the line of a barbed-wire fence. I paused and looked around, aghast. As I’d crossed this boundary, I’d moved from a good strong stand of grass into a mixed scrub of sage, squaw brush, and the dispirited remnants of grass, all chewed down to nothing. Even the previous year’s growth on the sage was bitten off, a sure sign that whatever cow had foraged there had been hard up for dinner. Even under the half inch of fine snow that had collected during the night, the range looked sad and forlorn.
RANCH in tall, proud letters. My truck rolled off asphalt and onto dirt twenty feet off the county road, then jounced over the horizontal bars of a cattle guard as I crossed the line of a barbed-wire fence. I paused and looked around, aghast. As I’d crossed this boundary, I’d moved from a good strong stand of grass into a mixed scrub of sage, squaw brush, and the dispirited remnants of grass, all chewed down to nothing. Even the previous year’s growth on the sage was bitten off, a sure sign that whatever cow had foraged there had been hard up for dinner. Even under the half inch of fine snow that had collected during the night, the range looked sad and forlorn.
I sighed. Po Bradley was no kind of rancher, or at least no custodian of the grass, which was saying about the same thing. Any cattleman worth his salt knew what he was really doing was keeping the range healthy first and worrying about the cows second. Perhaps Po was too busy dancing to worry at all.
Before putting the truck back into gear, I noticed that the mailbox was a navy blue job with white letters that crisply read A. BRADLEY. I continued half a mile in off the pavement before I found Po’s house. “What’s the A for?” I asked, as he met me at the door.
He smiled a cheerful good morning and handed me a cup of coffee. “Huh?”
“On your mailbox. Was A your daddy’s first initial or something?”
Po grinned ear to ear, ready to tell me something cute about himself. “A for Arapaho, my full given name. My older sister couldn’t say it right, or so the story goes; she called me ‘Apapapo.’ Got shortened pretty quick. Folks never gave me no middle name; guess they figgered Apapapo was enough name for one little guy.”
“Ah. What’s your sister’s name? Cheyenne?”
“Nope, just Annie. As in Oakley. ’Cause she ain’t shy. Ma didn’t give up cowboys for Indians until I came along.”
I sipped my coffee, grateful as ever to the magic of the sacred bean as it shook awake the far timbers of my brain.
Yep, Po Bradley sure was an engaging sort of fellow. I watched him as he moved about his living room, picking up his boots and socks where they’d been tossed off the night before, and wondered if there could be anything in the sheriff’s apparent notion that this man had killed Miriam Menken. He sure didn’t look like a murderer to me: no shifty eyes, no furtive movements, no smoking gun; but then, of the three murderers I’d already met in my short career, only one of them had fit that stereotype, and it was the two I hadn’t spotted who made the lasting stuff of nightmares.
Yep, Po Bradley sure was an engaging sort of fellow. I watched him as he moved about his living room, picking up his boots and socks where they’d been tossed off the night before, and wondered if there could be anything in the sheriff’s apparent notion that this man had killed Miriam Menken. He sure didn’t look like a murderer to me: no shifty eyes, no furtive movements, no smoking gun; but then, of the three murderers I’d already met in my short career, only one of them had fit that stereotype, and it was the two I hadn’t spotted who made the lasting stuff of nightmares.
And, I told myself firmly, there was the little matter of motivation. I couldn’t imagine why Po Bradley or any other rancher would want to kill a woman who was paying good money to rent the old homestead of his ranch; it wasn’t practical, and practicality goes a long way toward making up people’s minds in Wyoming. And it wasn’t just financial expediency that had to be considered. There was the fact that, sentimental matters aside, women in Wyoming still ranked in value somewhere between the new John Deere tractor and the prize bull, for all a man would want to risk going to jail over killing one. And, like the tractor and the bull, a woman served a function on a ranch, and a man wouldn’t want to have to go around getting a new one if he could avoid it.
Po paused in his efforts to straighten up his unkempt bachelor lair to offer me some breakfast. “Got some eggs and bacon, real easy …”
“No thanks,” I lied, as my stomach rumbled to the tune of frying bacon. I didn’t want to get any cozier with this man out here where there wasn’t a Henry Clough to watch out for me.
“Let’s go, then,” he said, stepping into his boots and shrugging on his western-cut down jacket. “We can take my truck.”
“Thanks anyway,” I answered smoothly, “but I’ll just follow you. That way, I can head straight on out from there to my next appointment.” I was proud of this little subterfuge:
if Po did prove to be a wrong-o, it supplied me with my own way off the premises, one I could use as a two-ton weapon if need be, and at the same time gave him the impression I was expected somewhere else at a known time later that morning, so he would think twice about detaining me by force.
if Po did prove to be a wrong-o, it supplied me with my own way off the premises, one I could use as a two-ton weapon if need be, and at the same time gave him the impression I was expected somewhere else at a known time later that morning, so he would think twice about detaining me by force.
He smiled and nodded in reply. Everything in creation seemed just fine with Po Bradley.
We headed back down the road toward town and a mile or so later turned onto the dirt road that lead to the old homestead of the ranch. Ours were the first tracks in the newly fallen snow for a quarter mile. We turned in under another arch, this one formed of lodgepole timbers turned gray with age. The track bent around the flank of a step in the river terrace, then opened up to a fabulous view: sweeping vistas of the north end of the Laramie Range, beautifully tended irrigated hay fields, a winding line of cottonwoods and willows marking a perennial tributary to La Prele Creek, and, tucked in there among the trees, a fine old log homestead complete with barns and corrals. I got out of my truck in front of the low chain-link fence that separated the dooryard from the open range and gaped. The contrast between this well-kept spread and Po’s overgrazed acres was stunning. “Beautiful,” I cooed.
Po raised his shoulders and dropped them. “Oh, I suppose.”
“The grass is sure—” I caught myself, quickly before I could say what was on my mind:
You sure take better care of this place than up around your new house.
“You keep this part just for the hay? I don’t see any livestock here.”
You sure take better care of this place than up around your new house.
“You keep this part just for the hay? I don’t see any livestock here.”
Po put a hand on each hip and arched his back, working out a kink. “Sister Annie inherited this little part here when our folks passed on, and she won’t let me put no cows on it.”
“She live here, then?” I asked, looking about to see if there was a second structure where the not so shy Annie might be hiding.
“No, she moved to Denver couple years ago. Had to be
near her doctors.” He shrugged. “Don’t know whether she’s grateful or not that I found her a tenant.” He shrugged again. “Course, the tenant gone and got herself killed, poor lady.” He shook his head.
near her doctors.” He shrugged. “Don’t know whether she’s grateful or not that I found her a tenant.” He shrugged again. “Course, the tenant gone and got herself killed, poor lady.” He shook his head.
I regarded him askance. Was this an act for my benefit? “But you got the main part of the ranch.”
And your wife lives in town … ?
And your wife lives in town … ?
He sighed. “Yeah, I got it okay.”
I began to drool, even as I acknowledged that eighty acres, even irrigated, were not enough to support a separate ranching operation in the arid lands of Wyoming. “She looking to sell this place?”
“House and eighty, yours for the low low price of four hundred thousand.”
“Oh, then she doesn’t want to sell.”
“Hey, that’s all irrigated land. You could have a fine little horse-breeding operation here, or build on and make her a bed-and-breakfast.”
“Sure, if I had enough capital going in to buy some breeding stock, nurse the mortgage, and eat for five or six years while I came up to spend. Then I got to pray the price of beef comes out of the cellar.”
Po looked at me appraisingly. “You understand this stuff.”
“Ranch-bred myself, remember?” I said with some heat. There are few things more obnoxious to me than a man who thinks all women incompetent. The judgment just has a way of bouncing off womankind and sticking to the man like glue. Reigning in my temper, I changed the subject back to his sister’s spread. “Still, she’s not exactly giving it away.”
“Folks from Hollywood seem to feel differently.”
I sighed. This was the problem: the weekend hobby ranchers with their passing whims and lack of economic imperative were running the price of land up out of reach of young hopefuls like me. What I couldn’t afford to get started with was a tax write-off to them. There were three economic realities that rode on the backs of the true ranchers: the need to nurse debt (the mortgage), pay operating
costs (equipment purchases and upkeep, feed supplements, and wages to the hired help), and make a living (profit). The way things were, on a given year a typical rancher could hope to meet two out of three. The older family ranches often did the best, as there was less debt and the multigenerational intimate knowledge of the spread and its climatic environment made for the most efficient management of resources; but in those cases, the family’s wealth was tied up in the land, and if a rancher wanted to retire or withdraw capital to nurse declining health, the grim reality of debt came back to haunt him, and he had less to leave his offspring. It was ironic that the central part of the ranch I’d grown up on had been purchased with money inherited from my mother’s father, a banker back east. Even with that leg up, my dad had had to beg more help from my mother’s family in the lean years, a constant source of friction among the disapproving easterners, my rebellious mother, and my embarrassed father.
costs (equipment purchases and upkeep, feed supplements, and wages to the hired help), and make a living (profit). The way things were, on a given year a typical rancher could hope to meet two out of three. The older family ranches often did the best, as there was less debt and the multigenerational intimate knowledge of the spread and its climatic environment made for the most efficient management of resources; but in those cases, the family’s wealth was tied up in the land, and if a rancher wanted to retire or withdraw capital to nurse declining health, the grim reality of debt came back to haunt him, and he had less to leave his offspring. It was ironic that the central part of the ranch I’d grown up on had been purchased with money inherited from my mother’s father, a banker back east. Even with that leg up, my dad had had to beg more help from my mother’s family in the lean years, a constant source of friction among the disapproving easterners, my rebellious mother, and my embarrassed father.
I gazed out across the eighty beautiful acres of irrigated hay fields that lay before me. It was an easy guess that the Broken Spoke Ranch had originally been comprised of at least six to ten square miles of grazing lands, with long-term leases to additional grazing on extensive Bureau of Land Management acreage, as well. It was typical in local society that the son or sons inherited the bulk of the lands, but this choice little bit with the original homestead had been left to the daughter. An odd arrangement. And then Annie Oakley Bradley had moved down to Denver to be near her doctors. Declining health or a chronic condition? “How long ago did your folks pass away, Po?” I asked.
“Oh, four years or more.”
I shook my head in empathy. Even with the one time tax exemptions allowed with inheritance, the current appraised value of the Broken Spoke Ranch would have made the U.S. government his 40 percent partner. Mortgage time again, just to buy out the inheritance taxes. Was that why Po was grazing his grass down to a nub? I thought a while, trying to come up with a polite way to ask, and as I thought, I
remembered that he was driving a brand-new truck and that his wife lived in a house in town. Not small capital expenditures. “Times are tough, aren’t they?” I finally said, as suggestively as I could. I gave him a winsome smile.
remembered that he was driving a brand-new truck and that his wife lived in a house in town. Not small capital expenditures. “Times are tough, aren’t they?” I finally said, as suggestively as I could. I gave him a winsome smile.
Po tipped his head to one side. “Oh, I’m doing okay,” he replied. And then, snapping up my bait, he added, “Course, I’ll be doing even better when the oil well’s drilled.”
“Oil?” I said, appalled. Everyone knew the chance of hitting oil south of the Platte River in this county was like trying to find ice in hell. Or at least every oil geologist knew that. Ranchers still hankered after the dream. It was a cash crop they didn’t even have to tend, if they held the mineral rights to their own lands. All they had to do was cuss out the degradation of their land as the pump jacks went in, then cash the checks.
Po assumed a knowing stance, jaw slightly thrust out. “Yeah, I got a deal going with an oil company out of Denver. Gonna drill a well over that way a couple sections, over beyond where the shoulder of that hill comes around.” He gestured toward the west. “Got the tin shed in and graded themselves a road and everything. Just a little holdup on the schedule.”
“Shed?”
“Where they store the drilling mud.”
“They built a shed for the drilling mud?” I asked.
Po turned his look of appraisal back on me. “You know something about drilling?”
I thought a moment. It wouldn’t do to show off and give him my full résumé as a petroleum geologist; that might make him quiet up on me. Instead, I opted for the more blue-collar part of my background: “I used to sit wells as a mudlogger,” I said. “You know, the monkey that stays out at the well and pulls the drill cuttings out of the return mud and samples the works for oil and gas.”
Po gave me a vague look, but nodded his head. “Well, then you know how they use that mud to drill the well. It’s real important.”
“Oh, yeah. Real important,” I agreed, wondering just what in hell an oil company was doing grading a location and building a special shed just to store the sacks of unmixed mud. It came powdered, in hundred-pound bags, like unmixed Portland cement. The roughnecks add water and toss it into the system as needed. Every few feet deeper into the hole takes another sack of mud. It’s pumped continuously down the hole through the drill pipe, out the center of the bit, back up the annular space between the outside of the pipe and the borehole walls, and into a storage pit beside the rig. The stuff lubricates the drilling, flushes the drilling cuttings to surface, and counterpressures any gas or oil that might want to come up to see you out of control. The sacks of dried powdered mud—bentonite, a swelling clay, to be exact—are brought onto the site on a flatbed truck, then stored in a little portable shed that the drilling contractor brings out with the massive rig. And sometimes, the mud is brought out premixed, in a big truck. From companies like Wyoming Mud, just an hour’s drive away in Casper.
So why build a special shed?
I wondered. “So they built you a nice tin shed,” I said, like I was really impressed.
So why build a special shed?
I wondered. “So they built you a nice tin shed,” I said, like I was really impressed.
Other books
Adventures of a Middle School Zombie by Scott Craven
Left in the Dust: A Standalone Bad Boy Romance by Winter Scott
Extreme Faction by Trevor Scott
The Doctor's Undoing by Gina Wilkins
Hell on Heels Christmas by Jensen, A.P.
Legal Affairs - Violation: Legal Affairs Serial Romance by Bennett, Sawyer
If Only You Knew by Denene Millner
Dark Seeker by Taryn Browning
Sons of the Wolf by Barbara Michaels
Little Doors by Paul Di Filippo