Argosy Junction Read Free

or something like that.”
    Patience’s expression grew earnest. “Are you going to get him his boots and his book back?”
    “Are you crazy? He’ll have to replace them. I’m not risking an attack just so he can have his book and boots.” Lane knew, even as she spoke, that she’d be walking out to get Matt’s things before midnight. Patience had a way about her when she fixed her mind on an idea. If Lane didn’t promise to go get them, Patience would go do it herself and none of the Argosy’s would let that happen.
     
    ~*~*~*~
     
    Thankful for a full moon, Lane left the Jeep at the hill and walked the rest of the way. She had a flashlight, but the brilliant moon above made it unnecessary. At the gate, her eyes panned the pasture below her. It was a good half a mile or more to the cottonwood tree near where she’d found the man. The sheep were snoozing, as usual, in the far corner of the pasture. They usually kept to a grove of trees near the base of the mountain two miles from the gate. If she kept quiet, they’d never wake up.
    She pulled on gloves and climbed over the gate, muttering to herself all the way to the tree. Every argument, admonition, and reproof she hadn’t given Patience, she now spoke with abandon, even if under her breath. The man had no right to wear hiking boots anyway. Surely, the book couldn’t be too precious to him if he’d taken it on an afternoon hike.
    Items secured, she traipsed back to the truck, stripped the gloves from her hands, and set the boots on the passenger floor. Holding the flashlight against her shoulder with her chin, Lane read the cover of the dew-dampened book. “Shakespeare’s Sonnets? He reads Shakespeare? Sonnets? Oh, please. Now he’ll probably go home and write an Ode to a Ewe. Poetic license and all. Can sonnets have puns? And will it be self-fulfilling? Will it be an Eewie Ode?”
    Tempted to drive into Gideon’s and get the ordeal over with, Lane sighed. She couldn’t wake up an exhausted tourist just because she was irritated at her little sister, and if she saw Josiah or Carrie when she was there in the morning well, tough luck. Lane Argosy wasn’t going to hide like a coward just because she wanted to avoid her sister and the rest of the Gideon gang.
     
     

Two
     
     
    Despite her bravado of the previous night, Lane dreaded another trip to Gideon’s. The temptation to call and ask for his cabin was strong enough to prompt her to grab her cell phone. She stuffed it back in her pocket again and started the engine. Five years of almost no contact hadn’t eased her nerves, maybe facing them would.
    As she pulled in front of cabin seven, Josiah Gideon, still too scrawny in his Wranglers and polished boots, crunched across the gravel driveway and held her door shut. “You’re not welcome here, Lane, and you know it.”
    “I’m not here to flaunt my sinful state; I’m simply returning the things your guest left in our south pasture. I’d be gone already if you weren’t leaning against my door.”
    Josiah’s head shook slowly. “No. Give them to me. I’ll see that he gets them and remind him to stay off private property.”
    It was an easy way out of an awkward situation, but surprisingly, Lane no longer dreaded confrontation with the Gideons. Thankful for her size and his bird bones, Lane shoved open the door sending Josiah spinning into the Jeep’s hood. “Sorry Josiah, but you don’t get to make that decision.”
    Lane knocked on Matt’s door, ignoring Josiah’s glare. Matt opened the door in his stocking feet grinning. “Good mor—my boots! My book! Thank you. I never thought I’d see them again.” A cheekiness added to his grin, “although it was more of a hope in regards to the boots.”
    “My little sister decided that you’d need them, and when Patience gets something in her head…”
    She saw him half-listening, watching Josiah from the corner of his eye. Why, she couldn’t imagine, but the guy was probably shooting