State Fair by Earlene Fowler Read Free Book Online

Don’t know much about him except that he’s a hard worker and doesn’t seem to have any family. They just started dating about a month ago. Not a real go-getter, but he’s miles better than her last boyfriend.”
    “Who was that?” I asked.
    “Dodge Burnside,” Katsy said.
    “You’re right. Anyone’s an improvement over him.”
    Dodge was one of many young men who hung around the ranch with my stepson, Sam. Usually I liked his friends, but I’d taken a dislike to Dodge after an incident at our roundup last year. My neighbor, Love Johnson, and I had walked into the barn to let the young men gathered there know that the food was ready. Dodge had been in the middle of telling a crude joke about women using language that would have caused Dove to smack him with a broom. Red-faced, Love had cleared her throat to let him know there were women present. He looked directly at us and kept going until Sam hit him with his hat and told him to shut up.
    “Why’s that?” Hud asked.
    “You fill in the deputy,” Katsy said. “I’ll see if I can help Maggie fix the display.”
    I nodded. “Since I’m technically in charge of the exhibit, I’ll make the police report. Let Maggie know I’m taking care of that.”
    “Thanks. By the way, Levi knows about the theft.”
    “Got it.”
    On the walk over to the fair’s administrative offices where the sheriff’s department had set up a command post, I told Hud about Dodge Burnside.
    “He’s a local boy. He hangs out with Gabe’s son, Sam, though I wouldn’t mind if Sam found a little more high-class company.”
    “What’s the kid’s problem?”
    “Smart-ass, disrespectful to women, always looks like he’s hiding something not quite legal. Gets away with it because he’s way too good looking. We’re talking soap opera star handsome.”
    He grinned. “Hey, that’s a hard row to hoe. You have no idea how difficult it is.”
    I ignored his remark. I didn’t feel like going into the story about walking in on Dodge telling the crude joke. “His dad, Lloyd, has a real successful house and fence painting business in Atascadero. He does a lot of work for local business and ranches. He’s belonged to the Cattle-men’s Association for as long as I can remember. Dodge worked for him for a while, but from what I heard, even his dad got fed up with his attitude. I think Sam said that Dodge got kicked out of college and that he works for Milt Piebald now. You know, the guy that owns those used car lots with the cheesy commercials?”
    “Piebald’s Awesome Autos,” Hud said. “I love those commercials. Especially the one where he wears that yellow cowboy suit with the cabbage-sized roses on the lapels.”
    “That’s an original Nudie suit,” I said. “Supposedly worth thousands. He claims he bought it from Porter Waggoner. Anyway, Justin, Milt’s son, also hangs out with Sam. Justin’s a San Celina cop. Gabe says he’s a good officer.”
    I wiped the back of my hand across my sweating forehead. The heat was starting to become unbearable. “I can’t believe Jazz ever looked twice at Dodge Burnside. He doesn’t seem her type. Then again, I suppose at some time every girl falls for a bad boy just for his looks. Even smart girls like Jazz.”
    “Sometimes they even marry them,” Hud said, shooting me with a finger pistol.
    “And if I were a bad girl,” I replied, “you’d be getting a certain one-finger salute.”
    He threw back his head and laughed. “Please, please, be bad, ranch girl. Just for a minute. You’ll like it, I promise.”
    “Seriously, this particular quilt being stolen has a lot of bad connotations. I hate to think about what it might stir up.” I chewed the inside of my cheek.
    “No worries. We’ll catch the big bad quilt thief. You have my word.”
    While we walked to the administrative building where the sheriff’s department had a command post, Hud told me that this year he was in charge of security at the fair. It explained why he