The Widower's Two-Step (Tres Navarre #2)(60)

"My boss," he said with satisfaction.

Then he turned and casually walked in the opposite direction, into the dark.

29

Sheckly wasn't out cold, exactly. Just slightly cooled down.

I nudged my way through the spectators and found him sitting in the dust, his fingertips on his temples and a look of complete dismay on his face. He was dressed in black from boots to shirt. His Stetson lay nearby, knocked from his head. Below Sheck's left eye, the cheek looked like a crosssection of a rare filet mignon. An inch higher and the horseshoe would've blinded him.

An older woman squatted next to him, patting his shoulders and trying to console him.

Her words came out slurred. The margarita in her other hand sloshed at a fortyfive degree angle.

A couple of cowboy types stood on the other side. They seemed anxious to lend the rich man a bandanna, or an arm to lean on, or a gun to shoot Allison Saint Pierre.

Anything he needed.

Sheckly shook his head a couple of times. He dabbed at his ruined cheek with the back of his fist, looked at the blood on his knuckles, and regained some colour in his face. Then he tried to get up and failed. He rallied again, staggering to his feet with the help of the cowboys.

"I'm gonna kill that crazy bitch."

The men murmured agreement.

Sheckly blinked. He stumbled, huge and awkward as a drugged horse.

He scanned the crowd, targeted me briefly, and seemed to make a foggy connection.

Then his eyes kept moving.

Allison SaintPierre was nowhere to be seen, though a few people were looking in the direction of the ranch house and shaking their heads as they speculated about her. I went toward the house.

When I bumped into Willis Daniels on the porch he turned around and grabbed my upper arm and for a second I thought the old man was going to clobber me with his cane. I hardly recognized him. The Santa Claus smile had vanished. His eyes blazed.

His cement coloured hair was flattened into sweaty bangs against his forehead.

He looked disappointed when he saw I wasn't someone he wanted to clobber. At least not at the moment.

"Damn it," he muttered, lowering his cane.

"Allison went this way?"

Willis raised his cane again and shook it at nobody in particular. Then he glared in the direction of the horseshoe pit and began grumbling things about Mrs. Saint Pierre that weren't fit for Santa's elves to hear. I went inside.

Stringed instruments decorated the walls. A couple of kids slept on a Naugahyde couch in the living room while their parents told Aggie jokes and mixed drinks in the kitchen. The door to the first bedroom down the hall was open. A woman I didn't know had passed out on the bed in the middle of a pile of cowboy hats. The door to the second bedroom was ajar and Allison's voice came through in a tone so shaky it made me wince—like an Estring tuned to the point you just knew it was going to snap in the guitarist's face.

"He pushed me down!" she yelled. "I'm not going to just stand there like you and—"

"Allison—" Miranda's voice was only slightly more in control. "You should look at yourself, girl."

I opened the door.

They were both standing by the bed. Miranda looked like a young square dancer in her fulllength denim skirt and white blouse and bandanna around her neck. She wore no makeup, but the colour in her face looked healthier than usual because she was angry.

Her eyes were bright brown.

She picked a twig out of Allison's hair. She had plenty to choose from. Allison had smudges of dirt on her face and dust all down her side. Her red blouse had come untucked from her jeans. She had the same murderous look I'd seen in her eyes that afternoon, but now her eyelids were swollen and red, a few tears smeared in with the dirt.

Miranda saw me before Allison did. The singer's shoulders relaxed just slightly. She said nothing but her posture invited me in. If I'd been alone in a room with Allison right then, I would've welcomed company too.

"What happened?" I asked.

Allison started. She had a little trouble bringing me into focus. She took a shaky breath before she could answer me with something besides a scream.

"Sheck."

"He pushed you. So you figured you'd just brain him with a horseshoe?"

Allison splayed her fingers and brought them up to her ears. "He moved too fast. I swear to God the next time—"

Her voice broke. However violent a show she was used to staging, however much she normally got away with, this time she'd surprised herself. The muscles in her face had started loosening up.

"There can't be any next time," Miranda said.

"You could've succeeded in killing him, Allison," I said. "Easily."

Allison managed to refocus on me. "You're the one who slammed Cam's head into a beer keg, Tres. What— it's okay for you to act that way?"

Miranda gave me a look I couldn't quite read. She seemed to be willing me to say something.

I'm not sure why, but just then the room we were standing in came into clearer focus. I realized it must be Miranda's. The burgundy and blue quilt on the bed, the miniature wooden horse on the desk, the dried arrangements of sage and lavender along the windowsill all seemed right for her. A tiny blond Martin guitar was propped in the corner. A few Daniels family photographs were framed in silver on the nightstand. It was a strange room—sparse and orderly but also cozy, definitely feminine. Normally I would've guessed it belonged to a little girl with a tidy mother, or perhaps to somebody's grandmother.