Kelton's Rules. Peggy Nicholson

want to watch others create, she’d quickly realized; she needed to do it herself.

      “Ah,” Jack said, sounding more disapproving than enlightened. “Okay, so what will you do instead?”

      She felt a flicker of irritation. Since when was she required to give him a report? She edged away from him on the step, stared up at the moon and muttered, “I’m going to write a book and illustrate it. A children’s picture book.”

      “Ah.” His voice was blank, carefully neutral.

      “Then I’ll do another…and another.” And another. She had ideas to burn.

      “And you plan to sell them?” he inquired.

      “Well, of course I do!” She got restlessly to her feet. “I know it sounds crazy, but don’t you see? This is my chance—maybe my last chance to get my life right. To find what works for me and commit myself to it.” To meet nobody’s expectations, this time, but my own. Not Steve’s, not her mother’s, not her principal’s. “To become the artist I’ve always wanted to be.” Even when I was too scared to admit that’s what I wanted.

      Last chance to shape a happy life. It’s now or never.

      Steve might have kicked her off his magical airplane, but she was darned if she’d fall.

      She meant to fly. No wings, no man, just…sheer determination. And terror.

      “Hmm.” Jack rubbed a knuckle across his mouth. He might have been erasing a skeptical smile.

      At least that was what she thought—and she bristled. Think I can’t do it? Well, who cares what you think?

      “So the bus is part of that plan,” she continued. “I made enough selling our house to carry us for a year, while I create my first book and find a publisher to buy it. But there’s not a penny to spare. So I hope Whitey can fix our poor bus, and soon.”

      Jack tilted back his glass to finish his wine in a gulp. “Assuming he can find the parts, Whitey’s your man.” And I wash my hands of you, said his tone and that gesture.

      The moonlight wavered and she realized her eyes were watering. Odd how her courage never lasted for more than five minutes at a stretch. “Well. I guess I should be heading home.” She grimaced. To a cottage with a moulting elk head in the living room.

      “I’ll walk along. Collect my hotshot.”

      But the kids came running to meet them as they neared the gate.

      “Mom, it’s DC!” Skyler yelped. “He’s missing!”

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      THE NEXT MORNING was Friday, thank God, Jack reflected as he tossed his briefcase into his Jeep. Saturday was trudging into view on leaden feet, but at least it was coming. Or maybe his were the feet of lead. He’d helped Abby search for her damned cat till midnight, driving slowly around and around Trueheart. Then he’d taken her and the kids home, but haunted by her stricken face, he hadn’t been able to sleep.

      At 2:00 a.m. he’d given up the battle and gone out to walk the neighborhood, softly calling, “Here, kitty, kitty” till, over on Polaris Street, old Clay Abbott had almost shot him for a prowler. At which point he’d staggered home and caught at least a couple hours of shut-eye.

      Not nearly enough. He slid behind his wheel, then blinked stupidly at the paper he could see through his windshield.

      A note from Abby, which she’d tucked beneath his wiper. “Jack, could you please see me for a second before you go? A.”

      When he came through the garden gate, she was huddled, looking very small, on the top step of her front porch. She set a mug of coffee aside and smiled at him wearily. “Thanks for stopping by.”

      “My pleasure.” She had shadows under her eyes to match his own, and guilt stabbed him again. Abby had taken enough losses lately, something told him. She didn’t need to lose that tomcat, however worthless he was. Wouldn’t have, if Jack had followed his first instincts and climbed to the rescue. So much for being sensible. Practical. “I take it he didn’t return?”

      Abby had left her kitchen door propped open, with a bowl of the beast’s favorite food just inside, but her face told him the ploy hadn’t worked.

      “’Fraid not. So I was wondering, could I ask a favor? Is there a print shop anyplace near your office where you could drop this off? Ask if they’d make fifty copies?” She handed him a manila envelope, stiffened with cardboard.

      “Sure. May I?” When she nodded, he slid the single sheet of paper out—and gave a grunt of surprise.

      He held a portrait, a Wanted poster of DC-3. Seated upright, with his big tail curled primly around his toes, the white tomcat was depicted in a few lovely loose strokes of black ink. The effect was as fluid as a Japanese brush painting. Comical. Not meant to be camera-realistic but, all the same, DC to his owl-eyed life, whiskers bristling, somehow looking the tiniest bit sheepish and homesick.

      “Wanted!” Abby had lettered in big block letters above his ears. At the bottom of the poster, she’d inked in the rest of her plea: name and description of the cat, her cell phone number, a one-hundred-dollar reward for his return.

      Jack opened his mouth to tell her that to cover Trueheart, she’d need maybe five copies, if that. But he changed his mind. This poster was eye-catching. Framable. He wanted one for his own wall. Even in law-abiding Trueheart, people would be swiping this as soon as it was tacked to a tree. Well, well, well, Ms. Lake. Maybe she wasn’t quite as crazy as he’d feared last night when she’d told him of her plans. Not that one illustration made a book. And certainly not a publishing career, but still…

      “I didn’t have a photo of him that I thought would blow up worth a darn,” she explained as she pulled a cloud of pale hair back behind her small shapely ears. “Do you think this’ll do?”

      “Oh, this’ll get their attention, all right. As will the money. That’s a mighty handsome reward for these parts, ma’am.” More than Abby could afford, he suspected.

      He’d won a smile with his cowboy drawl, but it faded away. “I’ve got to get him back. He’s Skyler’s and Sky…he’s lost enough.”