Long, Tall Texans_ Boone (Long, Tall Texans #35) - Diana Palmer Page 0,46

getting louder.

Kilraven glanced outside and chuckled. “He’ll want a report for his insurance agency. I’d better go write him up.”

“Have they found Macreedy yet?” Winnie asked with a drawl and a grin.

Kilraven groaned. “He surfaced over in Bexar County about five yesterday afternoon trailing forty cars in a funeral procession. They were supposed to be headed for a cemetery in Comanche Wells, where they were due at three o’clock,” he added, because Keely was looking puzzled. “He did finally get them to the right church…after several cars stopped to get gas.”

“That’s twice this month. They should never let Macreedy lead a funeral procession,” Winnie pointed out.

Kilraven chuckled. “I told Hayes Carson the same thing, but he says Macreedy will never learn self-confidence if he pulls him off public service details now.”

“Doesn’t he have a map?” Keely wanted to know.

“If he does, he can’t ever find it,” Kilraven said with a sigh. “He led the last funeral procession down into a bog near the river and the hearse got stuck.” He laughed. “It’s funny now, but nobody was laughing at the time. They had to get tow trucks to haul everybody out.”

“Hayes should cut his losses and put Macreedy on administrative duties,” Winnie said.

“Big mistake. Hayes put him in charge of the jail month before last and he let a prisoner out to use the bathroom and forgot to lock him up again. The prisoner robbed a bank while he was temporarily liberated.” He shook his head. “I don’t think Macreedy’s cut out for a career in law enforcement.”

“Yes, but his father does,” Winnie reminded him.

“His father was a career state trooper,” Kilraven told Keely. “He insisted that his son was to follow in his footsteps.”

“Hayes Carson is our sheriff,” Keely said, confused. “Macreedy’s a sheriff’s deputy.”

“Yes, well, Macreedy started out working as a state trooper,” Winnie began.

Kilraven was chuckling again. “And then he pulled over an undercover drug unit in their van just as they were speeding up to stop a huge shipment of cocaine. They’d been working the case for weeks. The drug dealers got away while Macreedy was citing the drug agents for a burned-out taillight. Macreedy’s dad did manage to save him from the guys in the drug unit, but he was invited to practice his craft somewhere else.”

“So Hayes Carson got him,” Winnie continued. “Hayes is his second cousin.”

“Sheriff Carson could have said no,” Keely replied.

“You don’t say no to Macreedy’s father,” Kilraven retorted.

“At least he’s learning all the back roads,” Winnie said philosophically.

Kilraven grinned at her. The look lasted just a second too long to be conventional, and Winnie’s delicate skin took on a pretty flush.

“Where’s my rifle?” came a bellow from the parking lot. “Somebody stole my rifle!”

Kilraven glanced out the window. The young fellow who owned the red SUV was running down the street with a rifle, in the general direction that the escaped deer had gone. The gun’s owner was jumping up and down in his rage and yelling threats after the deer hunter.

“I’d better go save the deer hunter,” Kilraven remarked.

“I hope he has an understanding insurance agent,” Keely mused.

“And a good lawyer. Stealing rifles is a felony.” Kilraven nodded at them and went striding out the door.

“Well!” Keely teased softly. “And you don’t think he likes you?”

Winnie’s expression was so joyful that Keely envied her.

CHAPTER NINE

KEELY HAD LAUGHED at the predicament Hayes Carson was in with his cousin Macreedy, but it was impossible for her to talk about him or think about him without remembering her mother’s pained confession about Hayes’s brother, Robert.

She was feeling guilty about that when Clark phoned her.

“I’m sorry,” she said as soon as she recognized his voice.

“You are?” He hesitated. “Oh. I guess you mean about Nellie. Boone knew all along, Keely,” he added heavily. “I thought I was pulling the wool over his eyes. I always underestimate him. He’d hired his girlfriend’s father’s detective agency to investigate Nellie. I can’t say I’m really surprised at what he found out. Well, I’m surprised that she was married and…fooling around with me, I mean.”

“Boone is very intelligent,” she said noncommittally.

“Yes, and he knows how to make people talk.”

She grimaced. “I didn’t mean to…”

“No! Not you. Me! He asked me what the hell I thought I was doing, leaving you at a dance alone all evening. He was furious.”

“But I was all right.”

“He knows that your father and his partner in crime might make a grab for you, Keely. I knew it, or should have known it,