Rustler's Moon. Jodi Thomas

run into her. She was just a memory now.

      He stormed out the door not even remembering if he said goodbye.

      With no thought but to escape, Wilkes darted into the next business. The welcome sign clanged like a gong. The smell of hair spray and bleach almost knocked him back outside.

      A beauty shop. Wilkes swore. Why couldn’t it have been a bookstore, or a Laundromat or better yet a bar?

      He looked around at women with aluminum foil in their hair and took a step backward. Alien invasion came to mind.

      The gum-chewing girl with green-striped hair darted around the counter and caught up to him. “May we help you, mister?”

      “No, thanks,” Wilkes managed. “I was, uh, just looking for my aunt.”

      One of the aliens in the back yelled, “Your last aunt died five years ago, Wilkes Wagner.”

      Wilkes pulled his hat down and answered, “Then I guess she’s not here.”

      He ignored the laughter and walked out, head high, keepsake box in hand. Thank goodness the next place down the road was a café he knew. Dorothy’s Café had been around for as long as he could remember, and the food served was exactly the same. Fried grease with a side of starch. He might be a half hour early to meet his friend, but the café seemed a safe place. He knew it would take a little time to wash Lexie out of his mind.

      As he sat down at the first booth, he saw a sign across the street that said Puppy Paradise, Dog Grooming and Training.

      No doubt about it, Crossroads, Texas, was growing. Wilkes couldn’t wait to show Uncle Vern the new place. Maybe he’d suggest grooming the cattle.

      He ordered coffee, then opened the box he’d bought. To his shock, he’d paid twenty dollars for a mug that looked to be about the same as the one the waitress delivered with his coffee.

      Only, the mug in the box was obviously worth far more because it read, “You are at the Crossroads of your life.”

      Wilkes laughed. Nothing had changed in his life in six years. It was hard to see a crossroads when he knew he was born with only one way to travel. He had played four years of college football without managing to pick up much education and served three years in the army without collecting any bullet holes, but by twenty-six, after drifting across the United States and back, he’d come back home to do what he always knew he’d do. Run the ranch. It wasn’t as if he’d given up on his dreams; he’d never really had any to begin with.

      His folks weren’t dead. They were simply absentee landlords. Never around to help or fix things, but calling in now and then to check on what he was doing. They must have started packing the day they’d called Wilkes and found out he hadn’t even bothered to look for a job after he got out of the army. He was drifting and they had the solution to his no goal, no direction life.

      His mother’s folks were aging and needed help downsizing and selling several small businesses. So Wilkes’s parents moved to Denver claiming Wilkes would run the ranch while they were gone, since he seemed to have nothing else to do.

      He’d agreed, thinking they’d be gone a few months. Six years later his dad looked like an aging hippie and his mother was taking meditation classes so she could teleport. They took cruises with Wilkes’s eighty-year-old grandparents and showed no sign of coming back to the work of ranching.

      Wilkes told himself he didn’t care. After all, he had no plans after the army and he loved ranching.

      “Morning, Wilkes,” a low voice greeted him.

      Wilkes turned to see Yancy Grey coming through the door. He was a few years younger than Wilkes, but they’d become friends working on a park project together last year. Yancy had an awkward way about him at first meeting. He’d talk too fast sometimes or be unable to find the right words, but Wilkes didn’t mind. When Yancy settled down into a conversation, he could tell a story with the best of them and Wilkes had the time to listen when Yancy needed to talk.

      “I’m glad you had time to meet me.” Yancy slid his thin frame into the other side of the booth. “I need to ask a favor.”

      The café was empty, so they weren’t likely to be bothered. Yancy worked across the street as the handyman at the retirement community. The senior citizens seemed to have adopted him when he was homeless and he looked after them like a hen with a nest full of chicks.

      Since Wilkes was only talking to himself lately, a favor might pull him out of his slump. Maybe he’d even tell his friend about Uncle Vern’s plan to marry him off to the first chubby, rich, dumb girl they could find.

      “How can I help?” Wilkes had no idea what Yancy needed, but if it was in his power, he was up for the job.

      “I got a history question for you.”

      Wilkes thought maybe he should warn his friend that just because a man had a history degree didn’t make him an expert on any time period. He’d majored in history because it had sounded easier than English. “I’ll do what I can.”

      Yancy straightened, took a gulp of hot coffee the waitress slid in front of him and started. “You think a house can...you know...draw you to it? Kind of like it’s calling you?”

      Nope was the first answer that came to mind, but Wilkes leaned back deciding this conversation might just be interesting. “Tell me about it, Yancy.” His friend seemed suddenly far younger than twenty-seven.

      “You’ll think I’m crazy.” Yancy leaned back as if pulling away. He’d spent his late teens and early twenties in prison. Sometimes that lack of trust showed through.

      Wilkes didn’t judge him for his lack of skills or scars. He had his own scars.

      “I can’t help if I don’t know the facts, Yancy. Just start from the beginning without leaving out anything. I’ll wait until I know the details before I call you crazy.”

      The handyman nodded, took another gulp of coffee and said, “Last night, like I do a lot of nights, I took a walk down the north road. The moon seemed to be whispering secrets in the midnight air, like it does on cloudy nights, you know?”

      “I know.” Wilkes’s brain cells woke up. He didn’t know any such thing, but he’d follow along where this went. He doubted he would be any help to Yancy Grey, but he wanted to hear more.

      “I went down the road toward the old Gypsy House. You know the place covered by weeds and long dead trees.”

      Wilkes nodded.

      Yancy continued, “I’ve heard there are folks who swear they saw strangers as foggy as ghosts going into the house after dark and never coming out. According to the retired folks across the street the place is haunted by dead Gypsies or hippies. No one knows which. Some say the crumbling old place almost took four teenagers’ lives a few years ago, but I was too much into my own problems back then and don’t remember the details. When I ask about the house, folks claim evil lived there. One even said he thought he heard a scream once when he passed the place.”

      “I’ve heard the stories, too. Did you feel the evil?” Wilkes interrupted.

      Yancy shook his head. “The house had been drawing me since I arrived in Crossroads, even before I’d heard it was haunted. I guess you probably heard I came to town broke, alone and fresh out of prison.”

      “I heard. Also know you helped the sheriff catch a gang of rustlers who almost killed Staten Kirkland.”

      Yancy smiled. “Yeah, after that folks accepted me. I’m doing all right now. Got a good job. Hell, I even saved enough to buy a car outright, no payments, but still I walk at night out to that old place. I feel like it’s mocking me. Daring me to step inside. Sounds crazy, don’t it?”

      Wilkes shrugged. “I’m tracking you. Keep talking.” He didn’t want to admit that stressing over a woman who left him years ago might fall into the crazy folder, as well.

      Yancy