“Why didn’t you tell me you knew about my mom?” he said.
Chester spit a stream of tobacco to the ground. “Everyone has a right to their secrets.”
“Unless it hurts folks,” Lucas said. “And keeping your love for the deputy a secret is not only hurting her, it’s hurting you.”
“Tell her, boy,” Chester said.
Part of him wanted to listen to Chester and Lucas and hop in his truck and head straight into town. The other part was scared of confessing his love and discovering Dixie didn’t feel the same way. The fear won out.
He shook his head. “If Dixie wants to leave, that’s her choice.”
Before he could blink, Lucas had him by the shirt. “Now you listen to me, Lincoln Hayes. I know what happens when a man lets his pride get in the way of love. I did it with my sweet Gertrude and wasted decades of my life. I won’t let you do the same thing. You get your butt into that town and you talk to that girl. You hear me?”
Before Lincoln could answer, his cellphone rang.
Lucas released his shirt. “That’s probably the deputy now. Don’t screw this up, Lincoln.”
At just the thought of talking to Dixie and confessing his love, Lincoln’s insides started to shake.
Chester patted his shoulder. “You can do this, boy. Come on, Luc, let’s give the man some privacy.”
The two old cowboys walked away as Lincoln pulled the phone from his breast pocket with a shaky hand. But as scared as he was of talking with Dixie, he was twice as disappointed when he saw it wasn’t Dixie calling. It was a number he didn’t recognize. He thought about not answering. But the spark of hope that maybe Dixie was calling from another phone had him tapping the accept button.
“Lincoln Hayes.”
“Hey, Linc. It’s Cal Daily.”
He tried to disguise his disappointment. “Hey, Cal. What’s up?”
“You told me if I remembered anything about the night Sam disappeared to give you a call. It’s probably nothing, but I did remember something. While I was closing up the bar that night, one of the bouncers brought in a cowboy hat he’d found in the parking lot. I recognized it immediately as the sheriff’s. So I called him and left a message telling him that I’d found his hat in the parking lot. But he never called me back. When I saw him in town the next day, I tried to give it to him. But he still claimed it wasn’t his. And since he had on a hat just like it, I figured I’d made a mistake and it belonged to someone else.”
“Do you still have the hat?”
“I did until it got burned up in the fire. Damn, I loved that hat too. Wore it almost every day.”
“You kept it?”
“Yeah. No one claimed it and it was a damn fine hat . . . after I had the stains removed.”
“What kind of stains?”
“I don’t know what they were. It looked like something got splattered on the brim. Probably mud from Cotton-Eyed Joe’s parking lot.”
Or blood.
“And Sheriff Miller said it wasn’t his?” Lincoln asked.
“Miller? Oh, sorry, my mistake. I thought you knew I was talking about the sheriff we have now. I guess back then he was a deputy.”
Lincoln’s muscles tensed. “Willaby was the one you called that night?”
“Yeah. Sheriff Miller always took off to go fishing with his brother the second week in June—wait a minute! It was the second Saturday in June. It had to be if Sheriff Miller was fishing. You were right, Lincoln. The more you talk about something, the more you remember. Does any of this help you out?”
It did help him out. It helped him out a lot.
The cold case had suddenly gotten warm.
Or more like sizzling hot.
Chapter Nineteen
Dixie woke from a horrible nightmare. Except when she finally came fully awake, she realized it hadn’t been a nightmare at all. Everything she’d had with Lincoln was nothing but a lie. No matter what he had said when he left her apartment, she didn’t believe for a second that any part of their relationship had been real. All the kisses, all the caresses, all the lovemaking nothing but a pack of lies. And she had fallen for them. She had fallen hard. He must really think she was a ditz.
“Urghhh!” She rolled to her back and drummed her feet against the mattress, causing Queenie to lift her head from the pillow next to her and give her a disdainful look. “What?” Dixie snapped. “I can throw a hissy fit in my own bed if I want to.”
“So I guess my sweet mild-mannered daughter is awake.”
Dixie glanced over at the doorway to find her mother standing there holding a tray. As usual, Winona looked perfectly put together from her styled blond hair to her designer heels. Even that annoyed Dixie.
“Don’t you ever look messy, Mama?”
Winona walked into the room. “Now what kind of a question is that, Dixie Leigh? Of course I look messy at times. All women do. I just hide my mess better than most. Now quit feeling sorry for yourself and sit up. I made you some breakfast.”
She sat up and stuffed her pillow behind her back. “This should be good since you don’t cook, Mama.”
“Watch your mouth, young lady. You aren’t too old to get a bar of Dial shoved down to your tonsils. I cook when I need to. And this morning my baby needed me to.” She set the tray on Dixie’s lap. “Although I did burn
