Live Bait

‘Honey, the library sounds like a bar down here. These people really know how to have a good time. Grace, you have got to get your pathetic, ski

Grace’s smile broadened. ‘I’m afraid to ask.’

‘These good old boys open doors, they pull out chairs, they tip their hats, and they just plumb knock a woman off her size sixes. And the very best part is that I am the fattest woman in Arizona.’

‘You must be very proud.’

‘What I am, is the one and only package on the shelf for any man who likes a Renaissance woman. What the hell was I doing in Mi

‘I miss you too, A

‘I’ll do better than that. I’m flying back up there this weekend. I talked to Harley last night; he said the rig should be ready to ride any day now.’

‘You’re making the road trip with us?’

A

‘I told him.’

‘Did he cry?’

‘Actually… I only told him about Arizona.’

For a moment, all Grace could hear from the phone was some cowboy crooner singing about leaving his heart at the Tulsa Greyhound Station. ‘You little weasel,’ A

‘Don’t be silly, A

‘The hell you don’t. You two have sex every time you look at each other; sleeping together is just a formality you haven’t gotten around to yet.’

Grace was silent for two seconds, which was a big mistake.

‘Lord God,’ A

‘I’m thinking about a lot of things lately. But I’m coming to Arizona.’

After the phone call with A

Bad weather coming, Grace thought.

A

It had been a genuine hardship preparing for today’s color choice; there was no doubt about that. She’d had to rush to the salon first thing this morning to get a black rinse in her he

She smiled – just a wee bit wickedly – and wriggled her big, silk-clad fa

There were women with some of the men, of course, and A

A

‘Miss Belinsky?’

Lord in heaven, she’d never seen him coming, and A

‘Well, hello, Mr Stellan. You are one of the few men who ever succeeded in startling me.’

He stood there with his cowboy hat held respectfully at his chest, looking for all the world like Gary Cooper in some of the old movies – except his eyes were too intense. ‘Miss Belinsky, I will use any method available to plant myself in your memory.’

A

‘Indeed you do, ma’am, terms and price that you specified.’ He laid a rental agreement on the bar for her to sign. ‘The owners were a little reluctant to lift the no-pets clause, until I explained about him being a police dog ’n’ all. He doesn’t attack on sight, or anything, does he?’

A

‘Well, that’s surely good news. I suspected he was a tracker, being that you’re here to help the chief find his daughter.’

A

‘Ah, heck, everybody in town knew that about three minutes after you showed up. It’s a real small place, Miss Belinsky.’

A real closed place, A

Chief Savadra was the single exception so far, and the minute he gave her his standard morning sad-smile, she felt totally at ease, free to be herself. He was surely the ugliest man in town, with his rough-cut, sun-seamed face and a wiry body that didn’t seem to know where most of its parts were going at any given time; but there was something special about him A

‘I hear you got the hacienda.’

A