“We don’t trust nobody,” the old woman replied, still smiling.
He could hear that theme song, the one where the mountain people murdered the newcomer and buried him in an old well. His weapon had been removed and his cell phone had been confiscated. He hadn’t reported in all day, so hopefully someone would realize he’d gone missing. Or there was the other possibility—because he was known for going off on his own to do his job and he always turned back up eventually, he might not even be missed until it was too late.
Nor found until the spring thaw. He’d either be frozen solid under a snowdrift or chewed into pieces by some hungry mountain varmint. Not exactly a noble death.
Too late to worry about that now. He’d have to find a way around these two overly zealous defenders of the universe so he could get back to finding his fugitive. Obviously, if the criminal Adan was searching for had been here, they’d helped him escape while Adan was out cold. Or maybe thrown him into an old well, too. He couldn’t be sure, though. They didn’t seem all that cagey now. More like worried that he’d haul them in.
“I’m sorry,” the pretty one said as she stepped back to look at him. “About the...shotgun and about Bettye hitting you with her cast-iron skillet. She thought you were an intruder, so she was just trying to protect me.”
“We’re tight, me and Sophia,” the older one replied, her thumb hooking toward the pretty one, her eyes squinting inside the crow’s-feet stretching out around her face.
The older lady wore so many layers, it was hard to tell where the coats and scarves ended and her actual skin began. Her gray-streaked braid of hair was woven around her head to match the old gray scarf woven around her neck.
Adan let out another grunt. “You think? Tight like Thelma and Louise. Do you always greet strangers with a gun and a skillet?”
“Only the tall, good-looking ones,” the lady called Bettye said on a chuckle. “Just our way of saying welcome to the neighborhood.”
Adan wondered again if he’d stumbled into an alternative world. But this was Ozark country in Arkansas. Anything could happen. “Well, thanks for the welcome. Don’t I get cookies and coffee, too?”
“Yes,” the one called Sophia replied. She put her hand on his arm. “Can you sit up?”
“I’m fine,” he replied, testy because two spry women had gotten the best of him. “I can sit up and I can stand up.” He tried to do both and saw double.
And he really didn’t need two of either of them.
“Lie back down,” Sophia said. “Rest and I’ll make some dinner. Bettye, you will stay and have dinner with us, right?”
Adan saw something quiet and secretive pass between the women. Were they still aiding and abetting a fugitive?
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Bettye replied. “I’ll keep our guest company while you get dinner going.” Then she turned to Adan and hooted with laughter. “We’ve had ourselves a very exciting night, don’t you think, Mr. Texas Ranger?”
Adan glared at her and willed his eyes to quit showing him two of her. “I couldn’t agree more.”
But once his head quit spinning, he’d be up and out of this bed and then he’d decide what to do with these two enchanting and entertaining petty criminals.
Thinking he could persuade the older one, he said, “I’m just here trying to do my job. And I did try to show you my credentials.”
Bettye gave him a sharp glare. “Just remember, you were the one trespassing.”
“DINNER’S READY. DO YOU feel better now?”
Adan glanced up at Sophia and studied her for signs of betrayal and deceit. But the woman only appeared concerned and certainly worried. She was making nice now that he’d lived.
“I feel fine,” he said, his mood anything but fine and dandy. He was dirty, hungry and frustrated. At this rate, he wouldn’t make it back to Austin in time for New Year’s Eve with his parents and his daughter, Gaylen, let alone Christmas Eve.
How many times had he let that girl down? Being a single dad was hard on a normal day. Being a Texas Ranger didn’t provide for many normal days.
And being accosted by these two just proved that point.
He stood and made it out into the hallway then surveyed the tidy little mountain cabin. It was square and long, with a kitchen-dining area across from a small living room in the front and what looked like a bath between two bedrooms on the back. The furnishings were sturdy and colorful. Old furniture painted in bright primary colors—flowers and leaves, stars and the moon—and a Christmas tree with sparkling little odds and ends of all colors and shapes decorating it. Two entryways, one out the front toward the woodsy view of the Ozarks and the other probably backed up to a bluff overlooking one of the many flowing streams in the foothills that moved down from the mountain peak.
A man could sure hide out in those snow-capped hills. But a man could also freeze to death out there tonight, too.
“Nice place,” he finally said. He ambled toward the round oak table with the mosaic tile top, his pulse tapping at the sore spot on the back of his head. “You live here alone?”
“Who wants to know?” the older woman standing in the kitchen asked, her eyes going into double question marks.
Adan gave Sophia another direct glance. “I’m one of the good guys, so tell her to let up on being so ornery and suspicious. Or I will reconsider how I’m gonna handle being attacked and held hostage.”
“We are not holding you hostage,” Sophia said, motioning to him to sit down. She gave her partner in crime a warning glare. “We overreacted, but we have to be careful. This mountain is off the beaten path, and it’s isolated.”
“And don’t I know that.” He sat down and sniffed the beef-and-vegetable soup cooling in a chipped blue bowl. “How ’bout we start over while we eat.” He waited for the ladies to sit down.
Bettye giggled and pushed at her gray hair and then pointed a finger toward Adan. “A gentleman.”
She sat down with a prim and proper air. Sophia placed biscuits on the table and found her seat. Adan followed suit, his stomach growling in joy. It had been a long day and he’d skipped a meal or two.
He grinned, then grimaced because it hurt to grin. “I’m Adan Harrison. I live in Austin and I’m a Texas Ranger.”
“They grow them Rangers everywhere down in Texas, don’t they?” Bettye asked, her expression full of wrinkles and curiosity. She grabbed a flaky biscuit then shoved the straw basket toward Adan. “Tough lot, all of you.”
“We are a proud lot,” Adan admitted. How strange to be sitting here having dinner with the two women who’d tried to do him in. But he wasn’t so dumb that he couldn’t twist things around on them. “And we pride ourselves on getting the job done. So I’ll make a deal with you two lovely ladies. I won’t press charges against either of you. But you need to do something in return for me.”
“And what’s that?” Sophia asked, her blue eyes widening as she set the biscuit basket next to her plate. She put down her spoon and waited as if she were afraid to take her next breath. Guilty? Or scared? Or both?
“You need to tell me if you were harboring a wanted felon. And if you were and you let him escape, you need to come clean. Or I won’t be able to help you later.”
* * *
SOPHIA’S APPETITE WENT as cold as