Page 99 of Wyoming Homecoming


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“That looks great, sweetheart!” Abby called back.

Cody laughed at Abby’s stricken expression. “We have all the time in the world to talk,” he said quietly, searching her eyes. “For now, let’s just skate and have a good time together.”

She took a deep breath and her eyes twinkled. “Let’s do that.”

AFTERALONGAFTERNOON, Cody drove them home in his truck. He was off duty, and dressed in khaki pants with a soft blue cotton shirt and his shepherd’s coat and brown Stetson hat. The truck was a double cab, so Lucy had a place to sit in the back seat, and Abby sat up beside Cody.

Snow was falling. Catelow looked beautiful in the late afternoon, with the lights just coming on inside houses.

“It looks like a miniature village from up here,” Abby sighed as they drove down the mountain toward Catelow. “One of those that people put around train sets. My best friend’s brother had one of those. We used to turn out the lights in the room and turn on the lights in the little houses and watch the train go around.”

“I bought a train set years ago, but I never had a place to run it.”

“We got a big playroom in our house, Cody,” Lucy told him. “You could put a train set in there and we could all watch it go!”

He laughed. “If Abby doesn’t mind, we might...!”

The impact was terrible. The truck went off the road, skidding in the fresh snow. Cody managed to keep it upright, just, but there was broken glass everywhere and Lucy was crying.

Cody muttered some very bad words under his breath as his sharp eyes followed the big truck that had slammed into them. He pulled out his phone and called his deputy, giving a description of the vehicle that had hit them and ordering a BOLO for it. Meanwhile, he phoned the Catelow Police Department, because they were in the city limits and this was their jurisdiction.

The police chief, Bruce Eller, back from time off with his new baby, came himself, along with one of his patrol officers, Emmy Sawyer.

“Do you have any idea who hit you?” Eller asked as Cody helped a stunned and bruised Abby out of the front seat and a weeping Lucy out of the back. He held Lucy in his arms while he turned to the chief.

“I don’t know who hit us, but I have a pretty good idea of who ordered it,” Cody said. He indicated the sheer drop-off that he’d avoided. If the truck had rolled, all three occupants of the truck would have died instantly from the fall.

“Somebody who meant business,” Eller agreed somberly. He winced at little Lucy’s tearstained face. He had a little girl about the same age. “Let me run all of you over to the hospital and get you checked out.”

“That’s a good idea,” Cody said, sliding an arm around a shaken Abby as he cuddled Lucy. “It never hurts to be careful. Thanks.”

“All in a day’s work. Got a BOLO out?”

Cody nodded. “I phoned my deputy just after it happened and gave him a description of the truck. With any luck, they’ll find it before it goes too far.”

Just then, as they reached the chief’s car, Cody’s phone rang. He put Lucy in the back seat of the squad car with Abby and answered it.

“Banks,” he said abruptly.

“And guess who we have in custody?” his undersheriff, Jeb, asked in a smug tone.

“I’ll bite,” Cody replied. “Who?”

“A convicted bank robber with a rap sheet as long as my arm, who told me that a blonde woman promised him two thousand dollars if he’d run you off the road. Paid in advance. With a wire transfer. And guess where the bank transfer came from?”

Cody was feeling better by the minute. “Florida?” he mused aloud.

“There,” his deputy chuckled. “I knew you were psychic!”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CODYWASDELIGHTEDat the turn of events. Apparently, his blonde prisoner had lost her temper to such an extent that she’d gotten careless. The wire transfer had been a really bad mistake, so they could now add an additional charge of attempted murder against her, not to mention her boyfriend, Bobby Grant. Within hours, the police chief in Florida had Grant in jail charged with conspiracy to commit murder. That charge would hold him until enough evidence was amassed to send him to Denver to stand trial for felony murder, along with his girlfriend, Domenica Alvarez.

Horace Whatley and Julia announced their engagement in the weekly newspaper, and were seen together frequently around town following Horace’s release from jail and being judged innocent of the bank robbery charge. The actual bank robber would have that charge to face, as well as the assault on Cody and his passengers. Considering that he was already on parole for assault, he would go back to prison to serve his full term, plus facing additional time for the new charges.

But none of these things made much difference to Cody and Abby, except that they’d eventually have to testify when the cases came to trial.

They went walking in the snow, all alone, having left Hannah to babysit Lucy and Snow and Alexander.

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