Free Prairie Gothic by J.M. Hayes Page A

brassiere?” Two accused.
    â€œWell, hey. It’s not like I strip searched her. I just patted her down.”
    â€œNah. You copped a feel, and since she was out after hours and didn’t want her folks to know, she didn’t say anything because you let her sneak in her house afterwards. She didn’t tell her pa, who would likely come after you with an ax handle. And she didn’t tell her boyfriend, who would probably punch your lights out and then get arrested for assaulting a law officer.”
    â€œSo she told us,” the Heather in the back seat continued, “’cause she thought we might hint to Dad that one of his deputies needed to learn to keep his hands to himself.”
    â€œWhich we will, if we ever hear about you doing anything like that again,” Two resumed. “Or might, anyway, if you don’t keep your promise and teach us how to drive a standard shift.”
    â€œBut why today?” Wynn complained.
    Two practiced downshifting to third again, then back up to fourth. “’Cause Englishman says he’ll start driving this cruiser more and leaving his truck for us once we learn how to handle a standard transmission. Only he’s never got the time to teach us. And, ’cause you’re actually a pretty sweet guy and would probably have done this out of the goodness of your heart if we’d only asked you nicely in the first place. Right, Heather?”
    â€œRight, Heather.”
    â€œOK, OK. Only let’s pull off on some back roads where you won’t have to pass any more semis. And let’s slow down, pretend there’s a thirty mile speed limit.”
    â€œSure,” Two of Two agreed, swinging onto the first crossroad to the west. There was just enough patch ice in the intersection to let the back end go loose on her, only she steered into the skid and kept it on the road, managing a pretty smooth downshift into second in the process. “Is this better?”
    â€œGack!” she decided, was probably not an affirmative response.
    ***
    Judy was out of the door before the Taurus stopped rolling. The wind finished the job she hadn’t completed with the brake pedal, bringing it to rest inches short of their front fence. The wind did its best to finish her, too, strafing her with snowflakes and tugging on her clothes as it resisted her frantic efforts to get to the front door.
    Boris met her with a delighted bound into her arms that almost knocked her down but seemed gentle in comparison to the buffets dealt by the wind.
    â€œHeathers!” Judy shouted. Relative silence was her only reply. Boris panted and tried to cover her with slobber. The house creaked and groaned as the storm probed it for weakness and rattled the windows. There was no sign of the girls, only the note on the dining room table. She had just finished reading it, crumpling it with rage, and was about to let loose a scream that would have been nearly as wild as her fears when the doorbell rang. Boris launched himself, madly barking, ready to battle the forces of darkness or welcome his wide circle of friends.
    It was the nosy woman from next door, so wrapped up in her parka that it took Judy a moment to recognize her. Boris exchanged barking for tentative tail wagging. He knew her but she wasn’t a dog person, not worth his time.
    â€œIs everything all right, Judy?” the woman asked. “The way you drove in, and after all the excitement over here today, well, I’d begun to worry.”
    â€œExcitement?” Judy pictured a band of armed terrorists seizing her house. She could see the fire trucks, visualize the row of ambulances, hear Englishman directing his SWAT team. Too bad Buffalo Springs only had one volunteer fire truck, an ambulance would have had to come from outside the county, and Englishman didn’t have enough deputies to police the roads, let alone put together a Special Weapons and Tactics unit.
    â€œFirst the deputy