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“I don’t know.” Layne had a history of crying wolf. His so-called emergencies often turned out to be minor predicaments fixed by applying or removing super glue. But if I didn’t go and something really was wrong, well, that was the Catch-22, wasn’t it? “I need to go home.” Then I remembered my big fish. “Uhh, Mr. Hessler—”
“You want to reschedule?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He reached in his back pocket.
“I could go with you, Mr. Hessler,” Ray volunteered, standing. “If you’d prefer to get moving on this today.”
“That’s okay. I’ll be in town for a few more days.” He handed me a business card. “Call me. I’ll be at the store tomorrow morning.” With a nod goodbye, he left.
I grabbed my jacket and purse. “Mona, I’ll call you later. Ray, you’re a dickhead. I hope you choke on a cheeseburger.”
My boot heels clomping, I rushed out the front door. My eyes were on my cell as I dialed home again. I cut the corner and tripped over a box full of books. The cell phone flew from my hands. I landed on my palms and knees, which saved my nose from catching a sidewalk rash.
“Ow!” I sat up, the smell of sun-baked pavement all around me. My knee burned. Then I noticed the big hole in my green slacks. “Crud!”
“Shit. I shouldn’t have left that box there.” A deep voice said from over my head. “Are you okay?”
I looked up from my scraped knee into a chiseled face with dark brown eyes and a cleft chin. “No. These are my favorite pants.”
“I’ll buy you another pair.”
“You can’t. They’re a couple of years old.”
Mr. Brown Eyes held out his hand to help me up. “How can I make it up to you?”
I accepted with a grunt, wincing as his hand found the sidewalk burn on my palm. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Here’s your phone,” he said and held out both pieces. “Are you bleeding?”
“I’m fine.” I brushed my hands off on my ruined pants, took the phone, and popped the battery back on. A scratch appeared to be the only visible damage. That made two of us.
“Does it still work?”
It powered up. I nodded, stuffing it in my pocket, and then glanced down at the box that had sent me sprawling. One of the books on top had a two-inch thick spine. I lifted it up. “The Life and Times of James Butler Hickok,” I read under my breath. A glance at the other books revealed more prose about Wild Bill. “You’re not from here, are you?” I asked.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because anyone raised in the Black Hills general area had enough Wild Bill history crammed down their throat in elementary school to last a lifetime.”
“Maybe I’m just a big fan of history.” He took the book from me and dropped it back in the box.
Ten bucks said that dinner conversation with this guy would require toothpicks to prop my eyelids open. I hoisted my purse on my shoulder and peeked in the office window that shared a wall with Calamity Jane Realty. Boxes, a ladder, and two paint cans sat next to a lone desk.
“You must be our new neighbor,” I said, noting the keys in his hand. “I work next door.”
“You’re a Realtor?”
“Uh-huh.”
Taped to the outside of his plate-glass window was the same Missing Girl sign about which Ray had thrown a fit. One corner was loose, slightly crinkled. I flattened it against the glass.
“I don’t think she’s just lost in the woods,” my new neighbor said. Something in the tone of his voice made me look up at him. He stared at the girl’s picture with an intensity that made me shiver.
I hoped he was wrong. The urge to swaddle my own kids in bubble wrap reminded me that I had a so-called “emergency” at home. “I gotta go.”
Brown Eyes grabbed my jacket from the ground and handed it to me. “Let me give you some cash for the pants.”
Tempting, but I wasn’t that desperate. Yet. “Thanks, but no. I’ll see you around.”
“What’s your name?” he called after me.
“Violet,” I yelled without turning around. I limped as fast as I could the three blocks to my Bronco, replaying Layne’s call in my head. He had better not have burned his eyebrows off again with another exploded chemistry experiment. Super glue wouldn’t fix eyebrows.
