Chapter 15

 

Instead of stabling his horse as usual when he planned to be in town for a while, Charlie rode the palomino right up to the picket fence surrounding Cassie's house. He was tired of avoiding her — tired of a brief tip of his hat if he happened to be in town and meet her when she made one of her rare excursions out. Besides he could see down the street that the town was pretty much deserted this afternoon. Everyone was at the church for the much touted fundraising social. If anyone saw him here...well, he was also tired of pretending to have no interest in Cassie Foster's life.

After tying his reins to the fence, he strode through the gate and up the porch steps. Memories assailed him — times when he wouldn't even have bothered to knock. Times when he wouldn't have bothered with the front door and instead gone charging around back and straight into the welcoming kitchen, not worrying about whether he had a hole in his pants knee or his hands were washed.

Now he paused a moment on the porch, running his palm across his face for the twentieth time to make sure he hadn't missed a whisker when he shaved so carefully this morning. His good suit still fit, though it was a tad snug in the waist. Theresa had fixed it up real proper when he took it over there yesterday and made the request, and she's also washed and ironed his white shirt into snowy brightness. Felt like Mary's housekeeper had put some starch in the collar, though. He ran his finger beneath it, trying to loosen the black string tie.

Removing his hat, he pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his balding head. He caught a whiff of the bay rum he'd used this morning for the first time in too many years. The Texas summer heat usually sucked that right off a feller's skin, but he'd taken that into consideration and been extra liberal with it that morning.

Dang, maybe he should take time for a smoke first. He stuffed the handkerchief back, then felt inside his coat for his makings. Changing his mind when he realized he was dilly dallying around and putting off the inevitable, he firmly knocked on the door. Dropping his head, he waited — but no one answered.

Hell, maybe she'd gone to the social. No, he doubted that. He banged on the door louder, then caught a glimpse of a curtain moving on the front parlor window. So that was the way she wanted to play it?

He tested the doorknob and found it unlocked. With only one deep breath for courage, he shoved the door back and strode inside, going directly into the well-remembered parlor.

Cassie stood in front of the window, her hand clasped at her throat. For just a brief instant he thought he saw a flash of the young Cassie in the blue eyes that used to welcome him. Just as quickly it was gone, replaced by the dimness and paler color he'd seen over the past years when he got lucky enough to get close to her. That brief flash, however, gave him some fortitude.

"Hello, Cassie."

"Please leave," she murmured. "I didn't invite you here."

"Never used to need an invite," he replied. "And I ain't gonna leave. Not until we have us a talk that's long overdue."

Back rigid, she started past him to the door. He snaked his arm in front of her and swung her around to face him — close, very close. They'd both been the same height when they stopped growing, and her eyes were on the same level as his. She stared at him in increasing fright, then clamped her eyes shut.

"Please," she repeated. "We don't have anything to talk about. And even if we did, you can't force me to talk to you."

"Then you just sit down and listen, Cassie, sweetheart."

The endearment had the desired effect, and she opened her eyes. "I'm not your...I don't want...oh, please, Duckie. Leave me alone!"

"No one's called me Duckie in years," he said with a half smile.

She stepped back and he let her go, as long as she didn't start for the door again.

"You beat up anyone else who tried to call you that, except Sammie and me," she blurted.

"Yeah, I remember. And I remember lots of other things, including some big mistakes I made. Sammie's daughter coming to town made me do a lot of thinking."

Cassie whirled and strode to the settee. "That girl! She never should have come here! She doesn't have any idea what she's done!"

"That's the problem," Charlie said, walking over and gently pushing her down on the settee. Sitting beside her, he took her hands in his. "She doesn't know. And I think we should tell her."

"No!" Cassie gripped his hands in a fiercesome hold. "Please, Duckie, you can't! It's over and done with and it's stayed buried all these years. It was hard enough going through it the first time. I can't bear it all over again!"

"Cassie, I've come to the conclusion over the past few days that we've done our bearing of the situation entirely wrong. We've acted like the guilty ones, instead of holding our heads up without shame. It wasn't our fault, you know."

"It was!" Cassie shook her head, clenching her teeth and swallowing before she continued. "If I had been...if he hadn't ...if Sammie...."

"Damn it, listen to me! Remember how young we all were. Maybe if we'd gone to my parents, like I suggested, things would have turned out different. Your folks had just died. You didn't have anyone to turn to."

"It still would have been just as bad. Even worse on Sammie, after what we saw later on. The best thing to do is let it lie. Send Sunny back to St. Louis where she belongs, before she succeeds in...."

"Jake came out to the ranch the other night," he interrupted. "He asked me flat out if I was Sunny's father."

"Oh, my God!" Cassie pulled her hands free and placed them on his forearms. He covered one of her hands with his palm, allowing himself at least that much.

"What did you say?" she asked in a anxious voice.

"I dodged answering him. Let him know it was none of his business. But Sunny's got a right to know, Cassie. And we're the only ones who can tell her."

"No! No, no, no! What gives her more rights than I have? I've suffered through this for nineteen years, Duckie! I'm begging you. If you have any feelings left at all for me, for the friendship we once had, please don't let all of this come out again."

"It's not me that's digging into it," he said with a tired sigh. "And if I recollect right, bulldog persistence is a trait you and Sammie both had, so you can bet your niece has it, too. Remember that time you were bound and be darned you were gonna catch that old carp that lived in the swimming hole? You fished every day for two weeks. You even learned to put your own worms on the hook, after I wouldn't do it for you any longer."

"I caught him, too, didn't I?" Cassie's face creased with a smile, making her look more like the younger Cassie he had known. "But I put him back. You thought we should eat him!"

"The swimming hole is still there. I was out there a couple days ago. It was awful lonesome there by myself, though. It's been awful lonesome for a great many years now."

Cassie faced him rebelliously. "I don't care how many times you bring up the past, you're not going to talk me into it. It's past, and we can't change what happened. I guess I can't stop you from doing whatever you want to, but if you do I'll be forced to leave town. And I have nowhere else to go. Please don't do that to me, Duckie."

Charlie stood. Jamming his hands into his pants pockets, he strolled over to the parlor window. He'd known she was stubborn. Hell, he probably knew her better than she knew herself. She wasn't easy to manipulate, but he'd done some developing himself over the years. And his father had always said the best way to handle the stubborn mares without breaking their spirit was to let them think whatever you wanted them to do was their own idea all along.

"All right, I'll keep quiet for now," he agreed as he turned back to her. "But you need to quit blaming yourself, Cassie. You need to stop hiding in this house and start holding your head up again. Haven't you punished yourself enough for something you didn't have any control over?"

Cassie chewed her bottom lip in a remarkably girlish manner. He remembered her doing that whenever she was trying to decide if she wanted to go along with some suggestion he and Sammie had made for the day or force them to submit to her own idea for fun instead. Nine times out of ten Cassie's plan had won out.

She was even the one who came up with what needed to be done nineteen years ago, he reminded himself. Sammie and he had both leaned on her, neither of them realizing how shattered her own emotions must have been. He'd only seen that later, that first visit home from St. Louis.

Cassie rose, scanning Charlie's clothing as though noticing it for the first time. She glanced down at her own plain black gown, a frown furrowing her forehead.

"I never did look good in black. Sammie could wear it, but she didn't much care for it. Her blond hair was set off by it, though, while mine used to have more brown in it. Black washed it out even further."

"Your hair used to sparkle with gold in the sunlight," Charlie told her. "But I like that pretty color you have now, too."

"It's grey," Cassie sneered. "Seems like it turned grey overnight. Mama grayed early on, too."

"It's a nice soft white, like your mama's was," Charlie said. "You remember what I told you I once heard my dad say to my mother one winter night when I snuck out of bed? Just because there's snow on the roof...."

"...doesn't mean there isn't a fire in the furnace," Cassie finished, then clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled. Dropping her arm, she released a deep sigh. "But there's too many cinders in the furnace now. It's too late to do anything about them."

Charlie's hopefulness faded as Cassie took a step toward the parlor door. "It was nice seeing you again, Duckie. And thank you for agreeing to keep quiet about everything. You'll soon realize it's the only way to handle this."

"Maybe I've changed my mind," Charlie said truculently.

Cassie gasped and her eyes widened as she whirled to face him again. "You promised!"

"Yeah, well, maybe I lied." He jammed his hands into his pockets again to keep from reaching for her to assure her that he would never do anything to hurt her. Sometimes, his father used to say, you had to hurt a person for the person's own good. "Maybe I'm tired of letting you push me around and always have your own way. Maybe I should have done something about that nineteen years ago."

"I did what I thought was best for us! All of us, you and Sammie included."

"What you thought was best," Charlie repeated, the emphasis he gave the words at odds with her own meaning. "Now, I'm gonna do what I think is best."

"And what would that be?" Cassie asked cautiously.

"I find I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go," Charlie mused. "And just down the street is a nice town social. I find I'm wanting to go to that social, but I don't wanna wander around all alone."

"You know everyone at that social."

"Well, I guess then it's more important to me who's not at that social. And I intend to see that she is there. Go change your dress, Cassie, sweetheart. Put on something blue, like your eyes."

Cassie glared at him. "I...you can't force me to go with you!"

"Don't bet on it," Charlie said sternly. "And there's something else I expect you to do for me, if you want me to keep quiet."

"Are you trying to blackmail me, Charlie Duckworth?"

"If I am, what are you gonna do about it? Have me arrested, so I can let Jake force me into telling him what hold I have over you that I thought you might be willing to pay for my silence for? Why, Jake might even bring me to trial if I plead not guilty. Then the whole town would be there to listen when I broke down and admitted what I was guilty of."

"You wouldn't!"

"Don't bet on it," Charlie repeated.

"You've changed, Duckie," Cassie said, shaking her head.

"No...well, yes, maybe I have," he admitted. "Or maybe you're just seeing the real me. Charlie instead of Duckie."

Cassie's shoulders slumped in defeat. "What do you want me to do?"

Charlie took his hands from his pocket and crossed his arms over his chest. When Cassie glanced at him again, he could have sworn he saw a little respect in her eyes. He cupped his chin in his palm, stroking a finger on his clean cheek.

"Seems like I've got a house that needs a woman's touch. My mother took most of the stuff with her to Dallas, and I ain't got around to fixing things back up again. There's a few things up in the attic at the homestead, but I wouldn't know which ones would fit. Or reckon I could just order new stuff through some of them catalogs over at Fred's store, if I got someone to give me some advice on what would look nice."

"You've been living out there in an unfurnished house ever since your mother moved to Dallas four years ago?" Cassie asked in astonishment. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

"No more ashamed than you should be for spending almost all your time inside these walls, even if they do have somewhere to set or lay down in them."

"I'll help you pick out some furniture, Duck...Charlie," Cassie said.

"Well, I figure I'm gonna need some little doo dads to put around here and there, too," Charlie mused. "Things like what might be on sale at that social. Things some of the women in town might've made up for people to decorate their homes with. I find myself wanting my old place to be a home again, not just a house."

Digging in his inside coat pocket, he strode to the settee and sat. "I'll just wait here and have a smoke while you change, Cassie. Bring me an ashtray, would you? Unless you want me to flip the ashes in the fireplace."

"You'd end up dropping them on my rug!" Cassie fumed.

He quirked an eyebrow at her, and she stomped over to a lamp table beside the window. Picking up a cut-glass bowl, she came back and shoved it at him. "I don't have any ashtrays. And when did you start smoking? I don't like the smell of those things."

"Well, now." Charlie took the bowl and set it on the end table. "Reckon if I had someone it was important enough to, I might give up my smokes." He concentrated on rolling the tobacco inside the paper as he went on, "But it would have to be somebody pretty danged important. Not just anybody can make a man give up something as serious as his smokes."

Charlie knew she was inwardly smoldering when she propped her fists on hips not much fuller than they had been nineteen years ago. Lifting his leg, he laid his boot on his knee and struck a matchstick on the sole. He lit up, drew in the smoke and let it out directly into her face. She coughed and backed away, turning toward the door.

"Don't forget," he called after her. "I like you best in blue. Blue's a serious, important color in my mind."

She shot him a venomous look, reminiscent of his young Cassie when he had managed to thwart her one of those rare times, and stormed from the room. When she came back ten minutes later, she wore a summer-sky blue gown, but it didn't quite match the summer-storm color of her eyes.

"Does this suit your majesty?" she snarled.

He nodded his head and rose. "It suits me fine. And you, too," he said softly. "Just fine. And I've sorta grown used to you calling me Duckie for the past forty years. Don't much care for 'your majesty'."

She sniffed, tilting her nose up. "I feel every one of those forty years and then some, especially recently. I've had a nosy niece move into my house, asking questions she has no right to ask. Within a day of that, she brought a noisy little child to stay here and ruined my peace and quiet. Now you come back into my life, ordering me around with threats of blackmail. Don't think that just because I knuckled under to you, I'll forget what you've done."

"Ah, Cassie, sweetheart." Charlie moved over to her and tucked her hand in his arm. "I'm going to make sure you don't forget me. Not for the next forty years."

With a wink, he placed his hat on his head and led her from the parlor.

~~

Sunny wiped her sweaty brow with the back of her hand. Shoot, she wasn't even sure which one of the ladies on the fundraising committee had left the note for her at the house about needing desert mushrooms for some sort of contest at the social. Whoever it was evidently realized how hot this trek would be and sloughed the job off on her. She'd been directed to the field behind the church and informed to make sure she found the driest and flattest mushrooms available.

Heck, everything out here was dry — seared by the hot Texas sun and lack of rain. The little grass there was crackled beneath her shoes, and the baked rocks reflected even more heat into the air. She'd only seen cactus in books up until today, but plenty of the ones she recognized as the low-growing prickly pear flourished in this area, ready to snag an unwary dress hem with their harmless appearing but far-from-innocuous clumps of feathery prickles.

She rubbed the side of her arm, which had brushed up against one clump of prickles when she bent to drive her small spade under a flat, brownish mushroom and drop it in her bucket. She thought she'd managed to get all the tiny barbs out by pulling them with her fingernails, but the area was still reddened and swollen.

Lordy, lordy, it was hot. Her chip straw bonnet shaded her face somewhat, but not enough to keep her nose from feeling warm and on the verge of sunburn. She should have brought a parasol.

She hadn't even realized how much she missed real trees until she found herself longing for a little shade. The only thing even close out here was scrubby brush she'd learned was called mesquite. One of the men had been cutting that a while ago, saying something about using it to flavor the steer Mary's foreman, Chuck, had brought in yesterday. The steer was cooking over a pit back beside the church, and the man had left long ago, dragging his cache of wood behind him.

That darned mesquite had thorns, too, she recalled. Long, sharp thorns. One had pierced the man's heavy gloves, and she felt sure his language in response to the pain would have been much more colorful had he not looked up to see her watching him, her attention drawn by his first yelp.

"Miss Sunny, over here's one!" Teddy called.

Picking up her tin bucket, Sunny trudged in the little girl's direction. Her back ached from bending over and a hot knot flared between her shoulder blades. This mushroom would fill her bucket, and if that wasn't enough for whatever crazy contest the note writer had in mind, that person could gather more herself!

Just as she reached Teddy, the little girl's eyes widened in horror and she froze in place. Sunny immediately identified the sound reaching her ears, and her heart pounded in terror. Eyes searching the rocks around Teddy, she saw the wavering tail of the rattlesnake — a huge tail, covered with a dozen layers of vibrating scales. The sound escalated when she gasped and dropped her bucket.

"Teddy!" she whispered harshly. "Don't move!"

Teddy's eyes rolled sideways at her but she obeyed. The terror she saw on Teddy's face matched her own dread. Oh, God! Where was Rowdy? If the dog should try to protect Teddy....

She cautiously turned her head but didn't see the small brown and white dog. Maybe if they stood still enough, the snake would slither away. Her own knees threatened to buckle, though, and she didn't know how long Teddy could face the snake without breaking and running. If she did, she didn't have a chance of escaping the snake's strike.

She tensed her body, prepared to lunge forward and fling herself between Teddy and the snake if necessary.

The snake's triangular head wavered into view, mouth slightly open to show deadly white fangs and a black forked tongue flickering in and out. Sunny began to pray.

A loud explosion sounded, and the snake's head disappeared in a flash of goriness. Sunny leapt for Teddy, catching her in her arms and dragging her several feet away. Sobbing, Teddy buried her face in Sunny's skirts and Sunny clutched her frantically. Scattering pebbles and small rocks, the snake's headless body writhed and tumbled. It had to be at least six feet long and as large around as Sunny's upper arm.

The scream caught in her throat finally broke free and shattered the air. Jerking Teddy into her arms, she stumbled backwards, carrying the child with her.

"Easy, Sunny."

She hit the solid wall of Jake's chest and his soothing voice cut through her terror. Turning and shoving Teddy into Jake's arms, she clung to both of them, her body shaking with receding panic as Jake gathered them close.

"Thank God," she murmured. "Thank God. How did you know?"

She felt him lay his cheek against the top of her head. "I was looking for you," he said. "I spotted Rowdy and headed this way. The dog suddenly froze and started growling low in his throat, or I would have just kept right on walking and pushed that snake into striking when I appeared."

"That wonderful, wonderful dog," Sunny said.

Teddy wiggled between them. "I want to see Rowdy. Where is he?"

Sunny stepped back, but Jake kept a firm arm around her waist, drawing her to his side while he held Teddy in his other arm. Teddy shifted around, and they saw Rowdy crouched close to the snake's still trembling body, ears flat against his head and growling low and viciously.

"Rowdy," Teddy called around a sob. "Rowdy, come here."

The little dog glanced at her, then back at the snake. His lips drew back in another snarl, baring his white teeth. It reminded Sunny way too much of the vicious fangs so close to Teddy only a moment ago, and she tossed Jake a pleading look.

"The snake can't harm him," Jake assured her. "The bullet smashed its head."

"I know, Ranger Jake," Teddy said. "But I need to tell Rowdy how thankful we are. And I ain't gonna go near that snake to do that."

"I understand." Jake raised his voice. "Rowdy! Here, Rowdy. Come!"

The little dog whined once deep in his throat, then scrambled to his feet and bounced over to them, tail wagging and tongue hanging out. Jake let Teddy down and she knelt at their feet, grabbing Rowdy in a fierce hug and burying her face in the ruff of fur on the brown and white neck.

"You's a wonderful dog, Rowdy," she said. "Just the bestest dog in the whole world."

Sunny bent down to pat the dog's head, receiving a slurpy tongue in her face in return for her own thanks. She cupped Rowdy's face and stared into his deep brown eyes.

"Teddy's right, Rowdy. You are the bestest dog I've ever known. And you're going to have your very own plate of food at the picnic this afternoon."

Teddy raised her head and giggled. With the resilience of a child, she was already recovering from her fright. "You gonna let him eat off one of our good plates, too, Miss Sunny?" she asked.

Sunny returned her smile and said, "I'd like it a lot if you'd start just calling me Sunny from now on, darling. And Rowdy can eat off whatever he wants and have as much as he wants. Until his tummy is so full we have to carry him home."

"Me, too, Sunny?" Teddy asked with a shrewd grin. "I seen lots of goodies on the desert table. Can I just eat off that table?"

"You, young lady," Sunny admonished, waving her index finger, "can...." Her voice faltered and tears misted her eyes. She grabbed Teddy in another tight hug. "You are so precious to me, Teddy. Have I told you today how much I love you?"

Teddy patted her on the back. "Nope, not today. And I'm all right, Sunny. You don't have to cry. Thanks to Rowdy and Ranger Jake, we's both all right now. But I love you back just as much, too."

Sunny sniffed and rose to her feet. "Promise me you'll never come out here alone, Teddy. I shouldn't have brought you with me today. I wouldn't have, if I'd had any idea how dangerous it was."

"I promise, Sunny. Now, can I go on back to the social? Suzie oughta be there by now, and her and me thought up a way at church last Sunday to make some money for your Cu...Cultural Center. We're gonna charge the town kids who don't have ponies of their own a penny apiece to ride Suzie's pony."

"That's a very good idea, Teddy. But we'll all go back together," she said firmly. "I don't want you walking through these rocks alone."

"All right. I'll get the bucket of cow patties."

She raced over to the bucket and picked it up, then started skipping back toward the church in the distance. When Jake proffered his arm, Sunny gratefully accepted it, and they strolled after Teddy and Rowdy.

"I don't know what to say," she said, gazing into the whiskey eyes beneath the shadowing hat brim. "If you hadn't come...that shot...you saved Teddy's life. That snake was large enough for the amount of venom it had to have killed Teddy."

"You looked to me like you were the one who probably would have been bit," Jake answered. "You were ready to fling yourself between Teddy and that snake. And I've never been so damned glad in my life that I'm a good shot."

Looking ahead to assure herself Teddy hadn't gotten too far away, Sunny squeezed his arm. "Well, thank you seems pretty tame for what I really want to say, but it's all I can think of right now. Thank you, Jake. Thank you so much for being there."

"I'd like to always be," she thought she heard him murmur, but when she glanced back at his face, he nodded toward Teddy.

"What the heck were the two of you doing out here digging up cow patties? They planning on having a chip throwing contest as part of the social? And if they are, why the hell didn't one of the men come out here and get them for you? You and Teddy had no business out here alone."

"Cow patties?" Sunny's voice rose in shock. "Teddy called them that a minute ago, too. But the note said they were mushrooms — desert mushrooms. Teddy didn't tell me any different when I told her what we were after."

"Mushrooms don't grow out here," Jake denied. "They need wet, shady ground. Although I've seen a few toadstools manage to get an inch or so tall in a fresh pile of manure after a spring rain. Still, they had no business sending a woman out to gather that stuff."

Sunny pulled him to a halt. They were close enough to the church now to hear the sounds of revelry, and when Teddy peered back at them, she indicated for the little girl to go on with a wave. Teddy and Rowdy took off at a galloping run.

Sunny thinned her lips. Even before asking, she knew she wasn't going to like the answer. "Tell me what cow patties are," she said grimly.

Jake slipped his thumbs in his gunbelt and cocked his head. "You really don't know?"

She denied it with a shake of her head.

"Well, they're cow sh...uh...manure. Or horse manure, like you were griping about being in the streets in town. It dries out in the sun and the cowboys even use it for fire fodder sometimes, because it burns pretty well. Up in the prairie states northeast of us, the sodbusters used to burn buffalo droppings back when the herds were huge."

"I've never seen anything like what I've been shoveling up out here in the Liberty Flats streets!"

"Gets trampled too fast," Jake said with a shrug. "Other horses going by, wagons running over it. It doesn't last long enough in the streets to dry out."

"Ohhhh!" Sunny untied the chin ribbons on her chip straw bonnet, dragged it off and used it to fan her flushed face. "Someone obviously set out to embarrass me! I can just imagine how the whole town would have been laughing at me if I'd carried that bucket of cow...cow...cow stuff into the middle of everyone and told them 'here's your mushrooms!'"

Jake choked on something and she peered at him. His jaws were clenched, and he appeared to be staring at the sky, though she had no idea how he could see up with that hat brim in the way. A funny snort escaped his nose, and her own jaws grew rigid at what she suspected was his suppressed laughter.

"Jake," she warned.

He lost it. His shoulders convulsed and a deep belly laugh roared into the air. He threw back his head, then bent forward clutching his stomach, all the while guffawing as though someone was tickling the devil out of him. Tapping her foot faster and faster, she fumed as she watched him. If she had that bucket of cow patties, she's toss one in his face right now!

Looking for a stick or something else to beat that darn devil straight out of him, she glared around the ground. When he stood upright for an instant and wiped the heels of his hands across his eyes, she saw a smear of moisture on his cheeks and realized he was wiping away tears of laughter. When he saw her watching him, his chest shook with another chuckle, then his laughter roared free again.

Dropping her hat, she fisted her hands and raised them at him. Holding out his hands defensively, he shook his head and backed away, his laughter continuing unsuppressed.

She reached down and grabbed her hat. Flinging herself at him, she battered his head and shoulders with the chip straw bonnet. "Quit it!" she raged. "Quit it right this minute or I'll stuff this hat down your throat to shut you up!"

Continuing to chortle, Jake protectively raised his arms and she beat on them with her bonnet. Suddenly comprehending how ineffectual her blows were, she stilled and glared at him.

The corner of her mouth flickered in a tiny tick. She thinned her lips to a firm line. A bubble burst in her chest. She crossed her arms over it. Jake tipped his hat brim up with a finger and glanced at her. She flounced around to give him her back, but a snort of laughter avoided her clamped teeth. Slipping a look over her shoulder, she met his mirth-filled whiskey eyes and collapsed into most unlady-like snorts and guffaws of her own.

Straightening, she wiped at her eyes and peered over her shoulder. His gleaming whiskey eyes met hers and he quirked a raven brow. "Desert mushrooms?" he teased.

Her giggle bubbled forth again. Skirts flying, she swiveled around, beating on him once more with her bonnet. "That's what...the note said...they were!" she gasped around her laughter.

He grabbed her bonnet away, holding it out of her reach over his head. "Cow patties," he said with a grin.

"Give me back my bonnet," she demanded. She jumped for it, missing and landing with a wobble. Grabbing his brawny forearms for support, she stared into his face.

"Don't you dare tell anyone," she ordered, realizing her mistake at once when an assessing look shadowed his whiskey eyes.

"Well, now," he drawled. "What's it worth to you for me to do that? I figure I ought to get something back in return for doing something as important as keeping my mouth shut. And don't forget. I killed that snake for you."

 

 

***