Page 13 of Harrison Hyde and the Runaway Bride

“You tally up the damage. My family’ll take care of it.”

“They always do,” he replied.

She returned to the front room. Bubba was already helping Harry out to the truck. Poor Harry was limping along across the parking strip, head down, but Bubba had hold of him.

Willow stood by the batwing doors, waiting for her, her eyes all sympathetic and soft. “He’ll be okay,” she said.

“He’ll be feelin’ okay, for sure,” Maria replied. “Manny’s pain meds were the real deal. Harry’s gon’ think I’m tryin’ to kill him.” Then she sighed. “Maybe it’ll buy me some time before I haveto tell him Billy Bob stole his car outta spite after beatin’ him bloody.”

“Billy Bob stole Harry’s car?”

“He must’ve. It’s gone. And his whole life’s work is in that car, in a little black box in the back. Come on, I’ll fill you in on the way home.”

They walked outside. Willow stopped and looked around. “Maria, if Billy Bob took Harry’s car, then where’s Billy Bob’s truck? He had to drive here in something.”

Maria frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe he had somebody with him.”

“Didn’t have anyone with him when he left the church,” Willow said.

Maria could see the wheels turning behind her cousin’s eyes. Any minute now, she’d be in crime-solving mode and they’d never get out of there. Sleuthing ran in the family. Her youngest cousins, Orrin and Drew, had inherited it from both sides. But she clasped Willow’s shoulder and said, “We need to get Harry back to the ranch. You can do your deputy thing later, okay?”

“Yeah,” Willow said. “Sure, okay.”

Things got very cloudy for Harry. He was in a vehicle, lying sideways, on a narrow back seat. It was not his own car. That worried him. There were strangers in the front seat, a big guy in a big hat was driving, and a woman with long, dark hair rode in the passenger seat. Then he realized his pillow was a set of warm, denim-clad thighs, and immediately sat up.

Maria was beside him. He’d been lying with his head in her lap.

“Hey, no, it’s okay,” she said. “Here, relax.”

“My car?—”

“Willow’s got folks takin’ care of that,” she said, nodding toward the woman in the passenger seat. “She’s the newest deputy at the Quinn County Sheriff’s Department, you know. And don’t you worry, cause like I told you, the sheriff’s my uncle and the chief deputy’s my dad.”

He didn’t know what her uncle being sheriff had to do with them picking up his car for him, but he appreciated it. He couldn’t have driven it himself. “Make sure… the solar?—”

“I will.”

He closed his eyes in relief.

When he opened them again, he was in a big, soft bed, in a bedroom with flowered wallpaper. Sheer curtains danced in the breeze that came through an open window, beyond which was darkness. It was nighttime. An old man in a red plaid shirt with pearl snaps was standing over him on the other side of the bed. He had a thick head of white hair that fell in waves to his neck and a white mustache to match. If he’d had a goatee, he’d have looked like General Custer.

“No skull fracture,” he was saying, and nearby the runaway bride and several strangers sighed in apparent relief. “He should sleep off the hydrocodone by morning. You tell Manuel to turn that in at the pharmacy, Maria?”

“Uh, sure,” the beautiful redhead replied, but her compassionate brown eyes were on him.

“Good girl,” the doctor said. “Nice job on the butterflies. Can’t believe Billy Bob would do something like this.”

“Well, let’s keep that between us, for now.”

“Pssh. ’Round here? Good luck with that, little lady. Thank your mamma for bringing the portable X-ray over from the vet clinic.”

“I will.”

“Call me if there’s any change. But I think he’s fine.”

“He has to be in Silver City by noon on Wednesday,” she said.

“Well, it’s only Saturday. He should be okay to make that trip. He won’t be pretty, but he’ll be up and around.”

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