Caroline Burnes - Familiar Texas

“Ready?” he asked as he moved closer to the wicker chaise.

“Go.”

He grasped the chaise and lifted it high. As he stepped back, the snake lunged. Stephanie pulled the trigger. The snake fell, writhing on the floor, headless.

“Nice shooting,” Rodney said, putting the chaise across the room. “I’ll get a shovel and take care of this mess. It’s a good thing your aunt Em wasn’t around. She’d have both our hides for shooting into the wall like that.” He pointed to the bullet hole.

“Aunt Em would have shot the snake herself.” Stephanie smiled, but the pain of her loss was suddenly too much to bear. She felt the tears welling.

“Emily spoke of you all the time,” Rodney said, his own eyes growing moist. “She was as proud of you as a new cow with a calf. She had a bulletin board in the barn, and she’d cut clippings from the New York Times when you had advertising successes.”

Stephanie managed to gain control of her emotions. “Thank you, Rodney. But I should have been here, helping them.”

He shook his head. “No, ma’am, now I have to disagree. Your aunt said you were doing what you needed to do at the time. ’Course she always felt you’d come home to Pecos and run the ranch when you got the city out of your blood.”

“I just never thought I’d have to do it without them.”

Hank Dalton idled his truck at the gates of McCammon Ranch and studied the wreckage of the realty sign listing the property for sale. He understood a little more about the woman who’d occupied his thoughts for the last three hours. She might be a city woman with no interest in ranching, but she wasn’t going to be pushed by anyone. Stephanie Chisholm wasn’t going to give up McCammon Ranch until she was good and ready to do so.

He’d come to make her an offer on the ranch. He was going to be honest with her and tell her about the water situation on the Running Z. If she didn’t want to sell, he was going to see if he could work out some grazing rights on land that bordered Twisty Creek. The water situation was serious for him. As much as he would have liked to give her time to grieve her loss, he didn’t have time. He’d filed a lawsuit against the developers who’d rerouted the creek, but the legal system was too slow. His cows would be dead and his pasture land a desert by the time the courts ruled. He gazed at the tree-lined driveway and remembered the many happy times he’d driven over for dinner with Albert and Em.

He started down the driveway when he heard a gunshot. Pressing the accelerator to the floor, he pushed the truck to the maximum as he sped toward the white ranch house. As he pulled into the yard he saw Rodney coming out of the house with a huge timber rattler hanging off a shovel.

“Ms. Stephanie clean blew his head off,” Rodney said proudly.

“How the hell did that snake get into the house?” Hank asked. “Albert never said he had a problem with rattlers.”

“Good question. There was another one on the screened porch,” Rodney said. “This one was in the sunroom. I don’t recall Albert ever saying anything about snakes getting into the house, now that you mention it. Maybe the drought drove ’em inside looking for water.”

Hank walked to the porch, wondering who had a key to the ranch house. “They had to get in some way, and wherever they came from, we need to find it and block it off.”

“Let me bury these varmints and I’ll be back,” Rodney said.

Hank knelt down by the porch and began to run his fingers along the screen where it met the wooden floor. He was halfway round when he sensed someone watching him. He looked up into stormy hazel eyes.

“Who are you?” Stephanie asked.

Hank stood, taking in everything about her. She’d changed into jeans and a sleeveless gingham top that showed off slender arms with well-developed muscles. She might be a city girl, but she looked like she could hold her own with farm activities. He smiled. “I’m your neighbor to the north, Hank Dalton.”

“Mr. Dalton.” She held out her hand. “Uncle Albert and Aunt Em spoke of you. Thank you for attending the funeral.”

“Albert and Em were very good to me.” He sighed. “I hate to bring this up today, just after you buried your relatives, but I’m in something of a predicament.”

“Would you like to come in?” she asked.

“Let me finish checking this screen.” He bent back to his work. “Those snakes had to have gotten in somehow.” He moved around the porch, aware that she was watching him. The thought was exciting, and he felt a flush creep up his face as he realized that he found Stephanie a very desirable woman.

“Those snakes scared the life out of me,” she said, walking along the inside of the screen as he checked outside.

“I’ll bet. Timber rattlers aren’t known for their pleasant dispositions. How’d you find them?”

“The cat. Familiar. He warned us before we came in.”

He couldn’t help it. He stopped and stared at her. “That black cat that was with you at the funeral?”

“That’s the one.”

“Where’s Banjo?” Hank bent to the task.

“He was sold. Along with the cows and horses.”

As she spoke, Hank found the tear in the screen. He stood up slowly. “Banjo was what?”

“Sold.”

They stared at each other, and he read her cold anger. “By whose directive?”

“I intend to find that out,” she said. “And then I’ll get back the cows and the horses. And Banjo. I can’t believe they sold my uncle’s cow dog.”

“I was going to offer to take him if you didn’t plan on staying at the ranch. He’s friends with my dog, Biscuit, and I’d give him a good home.”

“I have to get him back first.”

He could see she was being very closemouthed about her plans, and he didn’t blame her. Who in the hell would sell the stock on the ranch and even the dog? “Do you have any extra screen? I can patch this tear for you. Come sundown, you’ll want it tight. The mosquitoes here are big enough to carry you off.”

“I remember that,” she said. “I’ll get Rodney to patch it.”

“No problem. I’ll be glad to do it. A neighborly service.” He knelt and began to examine the tear. It was a perfect square, just large enough to allow a big snake to slither through. “Where was the second snake?” he asked.

“In the sunroom?”

“How did it get into the house?”

She hesitated. “The door was open. I just assumed that Uncle Albert must have left it that way.”

Hank took a slow breath and examined the screen one more time. “Ms. Stephanie, I’m not trying to scare you, but I think someone cut the screen and let the snakes in. I think they left the door open, too.”

“Why would someone do that?” she asked, her voice losing some of its confidence.

He stood up and met her gaze. “To run you off.”

SHE FOUGHT back emotion as she got the coffee pot, filled it with water and made coffee for Hank and Rodney. How many thousands of times had she watched her aunt Em do the whole process, smiling over her shoulder as she did so. She missed her aunt so terribly that she thought she’d double over with pain. Whenever she got control of herself, she was confronted with the harsh question: Why had she run away from this life? Why had she left the only two people who’d truly loved her throughout her entire life?

She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, and before she knew what was happening, Hank had turned her into his chest. His strong arms circled her, holding her gently.

“Crying’s about the only cure for grief,” he said softly. “You pen it up inside you and it’s going to cause a lot of damage later on.”

She was too far gone to stop herself anyway. She’d held it all in, until now. She’d endured the long flight home, the funeral, the emptiness of the house, but now, she couldn’t hold back any longer.