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Sapplehead
by
K. B. Ross
Sandy Templeton’s plan was to attend her
grandfather’s funeral, but when she was chased by two men wanting a brooch
she knew nothing about, a frightening adventure began leading to romance
with a man named Dusty and a mystery she thought she’d never solve.
ISBN
978-1-935048-42-8 1-935048-42-2
Word Count: 56,652
EBook $6.49
Trade Paperback $11.49 plus shipping.
EXCERPT
CHAPTER 1
Sandy Templeton gasped as she glanced into
the rear view mirror of her compact car. Her blue eyes widened as a dark
sedan filled the looking glass. “I don’t have the brooch they’re looking
for. Why are they following me?” Her long slim fingers grasped the steering
wheel so tightly her arms ached and the palms felt wet. She swallowed a lump
in her throat and as she brought her attention back to the road, her breath
burst from her throat in short sobs.
The trip seemed to last forever although she
traveled this route many times from where she was teaching in
Colorado Springs to Fort Collins then on to
Laramie where her grandfather and father ranched west of the gem city. But
today she was rushing to her grandfather’s funeral and the car behind her
added to her stress.
In Fort Collins she darted down alleys hoping
to evade her pursuers. On one diversion, she lost them as they zipped past
her hiding place. She sat back in the seat and sighed. She’d been taken in
by the tall handsome John Sterling when he came to her apartment, but all he
wanted was a brooch he said belonged to his family and was given to her
grandfather’s father when he left England years ago.
She knew of no such brooch. He obviously had
the wrong person and they were interested in some other family. Shaking her
head and angrily pounding the steering wheel, she pulled from the alley and
headed for the highway leading to Laramie. “The old liars,” she breathed.
“There’s no brooch and why would they want the thing after all these years?”
Her teeth ground together and she growled deep in her throat then her eyes
brightened as a thought popped into her head. “Danny,” she said. The
mentally challenged man who took care of their cabin would know the truth.
“Grandpa could tell him anything because he always kept Grandpa’s secrets to
himself.”
She glanced at the mirror again and sighed
finding no dark car behind her. A gravel road heading north caught her
attention and Sandy swerved the car onto it thinking this last evasive move
would leave John Sterling and his fat friend, Livingstone, far behind.
The sun gleamed close to the western
mountains and Sandy guessed she had perhaps three hours or so before it set.
A large dark bottomed thunderhead moved slowly from behind the hills and
pushed its way across the early June sky, but she felt confident that before
the cloud emptied its contents, this gavel road, winding northward, would
take her to the interstate stretching between Cheyenne and Laramie. Leaning
back in the seat, she sighed and let the air from her lungs serge through
her lips in a whistle of relief.
Automatically her gaze darted to the mirror
and a lump of nervous energy jumped from her chest to her throat. Dust from
behind assured her that Sterling had found her trail. She tensed again and
pushed on the foot feed.
“Oh boy,” she breathed in terror. “And here I
sit in the middle of nowhere.”
Her gaze darted from left to right at the
small farms and ranches dotting the edges of the gravel. She sped on, her
gray pumps pressing the accelerator. Eyeing a plain dirt road, she dived
onto it, the rear end of her compact spewing gravel as she turned.
Before her a large cloud of dust appeared.
She gasped at the herd of cattle being driven down the dusty road by men on
horseback and coughed at the dirt filtering into her car as she approached
the herd. Her heart thumped loudly and she licked her dry lips as she saw
her escape route blocked and Sterling’s car approaching.
Sandy’s heart beat frantically inside the
pale blue cotton blouse. What a situation, squeezed between a herd of cattle
stretching out on either side of the road and
Sterling behind. She wished she
had the brooch they wanted, for gladly she would hand it over. Why in the
world would they think she had it? And why was it so important?
She pushed the car horn, remembering what
Grandpa did to make a trail through the herd, but the cattle only turned and
looked at her. Finally they started to move aside and Sandy smiled weakly at
her good fortune.
A quick glance in the mirror gave her more
assurance. The herd filled the space behind, leaving Sterling beyond the
cattle’s broad brown backs. A strained chuckle escaped from her throat as
she moved slowly forward.
Above the herd’s bellowing she heard
Sterling’s car horn, but the sight of the men was lost in the dust and the
cattle moving as a stream around her. Sandy gasped as something mingled with
the dust. Steam began billowing from beneath the compact’s hood covering the
windshield with moisture then mud. She anxiously groped to find the wipers
as the car began to cough and sputter. The lump in her throat enlarged and
she growled with anger as the car’s motor stopped, leaving her sitting
still, the herd moving around her like a stream of dark water.
The last of the herd stepped around Sandy’s
stalled compact revealing the hood of the dark car behind her. She twisted
the key in the ignition again and again, stomping on the gas pedal as she
urged the car to start. “Come on, you old thing. Start. Oh, please start.”
Exhausted at trying, she pounded on the steering wheel, trying to hold back
tears of panic burning in her eyes.
Behind her, she saw Sterling slide from the
driver’s seat and slowly step out carefully closing the door as if enjoying
the panic in the compact.
Sandy desperately locked her door and
squirmed to secure the other three as Sterling smiling face appeared at the
window. She watched the man pull on the door then look on the ground,
searching as if he lost something. Sandy couldn’t hold back the scream,
seeing Sterling with a stone and knowing he intended breaking the window.
What could she do but scream although only
Sterling could hear her. The horsemen were lost in the dust ahead and the
ringing of the scream was confined to the walls of the tin box in which she
sat.
* * * *
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