The Rancher's Twin Troubles

by Laura Marie Altom

  After dumping diced onions into a pan filled with Italian sausage, he took the cutting board and knife to the sink, running them both under water.

  “Ignore me all you want, but deep down, you know I’m right.” Behind him, her hand on his shoulder, she added, “A large part of being a good parent is sometimes being the bad guy. You have to set boundaries. Just like your father and I did with you and your brothers.”

  “That’s different. We were all hell on horseback.”

  She snorted. “Like your girls are any different because they’re only riding the ponies you gave them for Christmas?”

  “They love those cuties.” He bristled. “Ponies topped the twins’ Santa lists.”

  “Doesn’t make it right.” She stirred the meat and onions that’d started to sizzle above a gas flame. “Clint Eastwood topped my wish list, but you don’t see me out gallivanting, do you?”

  “You’re impossible.” His back turned, he took his work coat from the peg mounted alongside the back door. “I’m going to check the cattle.”

  “Mark my words, Dallas Buckhorn, you might temporarily hide from this situation, but sooner or later you have to deal with your rambunctious girls.”

  “GOT IT! AND IT ONLY TOOK ten strokes.” Friday evening, on hole seven of Potter’s Putt-Putt, Natalie performed a little dance that revealed she may have had one too many beers. It was the monthly ladies’ night and judging by the slew of high scores, none of the foursome would give the LPGA a run for their money any time soon.

  First grade teacher, Shelby Foster, pushed the counselor aside. “Let me show you how a professional does it…”

  “Professional what?” Cami Vettle, the school secretary teased in a raunchy tone.

  For the first time in what felt like weeks, Josie truly laughed and it felt not only good, but long overdue. Until just now, she hadn’t realized how much stress she’d been under. She’d always loved her job. As a general rule, kindergarteners were a lovable, trouble-free bunch. Oh, sure, she’d dealt with plenty of mischief, but nothing as regular and confounding as the stunts of Betsy and Bonnie Buckhorn.

  “You all right?” Natalie asked while waiting for the other women to take their turns.

  “Sure,” Josie said, swirling her plastic cup of beer. “Why wouldn’t I be?” White lights decorated the course’s trees. With temperatures in the seventies, it felt as if fall had finally arrived. Shrieks of laughter mingled with top-forty music blaring from loudspeakers. The mouthwatering scent of the snack bar’s trademark barbecue normally would have her stomach growling. Lately, though, she’d been so consumed with dreaming up a delicate way to manage the twins that she forgot to eat.

  “You seem awfully quiet. Man trouble?” Tipsy, Natalie leaned on Josie’s shoulder. Beer mingled with her pretty floral perfume, again causing Josie’s lips to curve into a smile.

  “Oh, sure. As you full well know, I haven’t been with a man since Lyle, and he was a disaster.”

  “Only because you didn’t put an ounce of effort into the relationship. It’s been four years since Hugh died. He wouldn’t want you to be lonely.”

  Then why had he left her?

  “Who said I am?” Josie swigged her beer. “And who are you to talk? When’s the last time you went on a date?”

  “Two weeks ago, thank you very much.”

  “Your turn,” Cami said to Josie, writing down her score. “What are you two gossiping about?”

  “Nat, here, says she had a date.” Josie centered the ball on the putting mat before giving it a swat. It landed between a giant plaster frog and a rubber lily pad. “You believe her?”

  “Absolutely. It was with the UPS man. I witnessed him asking her in the front office.”

  “Impressive…” Josie’s shot landed her ball ten feet from the moat’s dragon. Sighing, she stepped over a second lily pad to set up for stroke three.

  “Kind of like Betsy and Bonnie’s dad. Whew.” Cheeks flushed, Cami fanned herself with the scorecard. “He’s gorgeous.”

  “Don’t look now, but he’s also headed this way…” Natalie downed the rest of her beer.

  Upon meeting Dallas’s penetrating stare, Josie hit her ball all the way to Hansel and Gretel’s cottage on hole fourteen!

  Chapter Two

  “Ladies…” Dallas tipped his hat to Bonnie and Betsy’s teacher and three other women he’d seen around the girls’ school. “Nice night to be on the links.”

  The tall brunette laughed at his joke.

  “Miss Griffin?” He was intrigued by the notion that she found it necessary to hide behind a pine.

  “Please,” she mumbled, ducking out from behind a particularly full bough to extend her hand, “outside of school you can call me Josie.”

  When their fingers touched, he was unprepared for the breeze of awareness whispering through him. It’d been so long since he’d noticed any woman beyond casual conversation that he abruptly released her. Just as hastily broke their stare. Had she felt that shift from the ordinary, too?

  “Hi, Miss Griffin!” The twins and three of their more giggly friends danced around him.

  “H-hi, girls,” their teacher said. Had she always been so hot? Maybe it was the course’s dim lighting, but her complexion glowed as pretty as his mama’s Sunday pearls. Her hair hung long and wild, and she wore the hell out of a pair of faded jeans and a University of Oklahoma sweatshirt. Red cowboy boots peeked out from beneath her hems. “You all having a party?”

  Bonnie nodded. “Daddy’s letting us have a sleepover for doing good on our chores all week.”

  “Congratulations,” their teacher said, patting Bonnie’s back. “I’m proud of you.”

  His daughter beamed.

  Feeling damned proud for having raised such a conscientious sweetheart, Dallas couldn’t help but grin.

  “Come on, Daddy.” Betsy yanked his arm. “Let’s play.”

  “Well…” Oddly reluctant to end the conversation, Dallas said, “Guess I’d better get going. My bosses are calling.”

  The look Josie Griffin shot him was painful. As if she disapproved of his play on words. The notion annoyed him and brought him back to the reality of who she was in the grand scheme of things. A teacher he’d never see again after his girls’ kindergarten graduation. As for his musings on her good looks? A waste of time he wouldn’t be repeating.

  “I KNOW, KITTY, THE MAN’S infuriating, isn’t he?” While Josie’s calico performed figure eights between her legs, she spooned gourmet cat food onto a china saucer. Her friends thought she was nutty for lavishing so much attention on her pet, but Kitty had been a wedding gift from Hugh. When she one day lost her furry friend, she didn’t know what she’d do. In some ways, it would be like losing her husband all over again.

  Another thing her friends nagged her about was worrying over events that hadn’t happened. But surviving the kinds of things Josie had taught her to never underestimate any signs—no matter how seemingly insignificant.

  “Kitty,” she said, setting the saucer on the wide planked walnut floor, “do you think when it comes to the Trouble Twins I’m looking for problems where there are none?”

  Chowing down on his Albacore Tuna Delight, Kitty couldn’t have cared less.

  Josie took a banana from the bowl she kept filled with seasonal fruit. Usually in her honey-gold kitchen with its granite counters, colorful rag rugs and green floral curtains, she felt warm and cozy. Content with her lot in life. Yes, she’d faced unspeakable tragedy early on, but as years passed, she’d grown accustomed to living on her own. She shopped Saturday morning yard sales for quilting fabric and took ballet every Thursday night. Even after three years, she was the worst in her class, but the motions and music were soothing—unlike her impromptu meeting with Dallas Buckhorn.

  Her hand meeting his had produced the queerest sensation. Lightning in a bottle. Had it been her imagination? A by-product of beer mixed with moonlight? Or just Nat’s gushing praise of the man’s sinfully good looks catc
hing like a virus?

  ON MONDAY MORNING, as calmly as possible, Josie fished for the green snake one of her darlings had thoughtfully placed in her desk drawer. Finally grabbing hold of him—or her—she held it up for her class’s squealing perusal. “Don’t suppose any of you lost this?”

  Bonnie Buckhorn raised her hand. “Sorry. He got out of my lunch bag.”

  “Yes, well, come and get him and—” Josie dumped yarn from a nearby plastic tub, and then set the writhing snake inside. “Everyone line up. We’re taking a field trip.”

  “Where? Where?” sang a chorus of hyper five-yearolds.

  Bonnie took the tub.

  “We’re going to take Bonnie’s friend outside—where he belongs.”

  “You’re not letting him go!” Bonnie hugged the yellow tub, vigorously shaking her head.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Now, I need this week’s light buddies to do their job, please.”

  Sarah Boyden and Thomas Quinn scampered out of line to switch off the front and back fluorescent lights.

  “Please, ma’am,” Betsy said while her twin stood beneath the American and Oklahoman flags crying, “Bonnie didn’t mean to put Green Bean in your desk.”

  “Then how did he get there?” Josie asked as Sarah and Thomas rejoined the line.

  “Um…” She gnawed her bottom lip. “He wanted to go for a walk, but then he got lost.”

  “Uh-huh.” Hands on her hips, miles behind on the morning’s lesson, Josie said, “Get in line. Bonnie, you, too.”

  Bonnie tilted her head back and screamed.

  Not just your garden-variety kindergarten outrage, but a full-blown tantrum generally reserved for toy store emergencies. A whole minute later she was still screaming so loud that her classmates put their hands over their ears.

  Josie tried reasoning with her, but Bonnie wouldn’t hush longer than the few seconds it took to drag in a fresh batch of air. Not sure what else to do, Josie resorted to pressing the intercom’s call button.

  “Office.”

  “Cami!” Josie shouted over Bonnie, “I need Nat down here right away.”

  The door burst open and Shelby ran in. “What’s wrong? Sounds like someone’s dying.”

  Nat followed, out of breath and barely able to speak. “C-Cami said it sounds like someone’s dying.”

  Both women eyed the squirming student lineup and then Bonnie. Betsy stood alongside her, whispering something only her twin could hear—that is, if she’d quieted enough to listen.

  “Sweetie,” Josie tried reasoning with the girl, “if Green Bean is your pet, I won’t let him go, but we’ll have to call your father to come get him. You know it’s against our rules to bring pets to school when it’s not for show-and-tell.”

  For Josie’s ears only, Natalie said, “Hang tight, I’ll get hold of her dad.”

  “LOOK,” DALLAS SAID AN HOUR later. When he’d gotten the counselor’s call, he’d been out on the back forty, vaccinating late summer calves. It was a wonder he’d even heard his cell ring. “If my girl said the snake got in her teacher’s desk by accident, then that’s what happened. Nobody saw her do it. Even if it did purposely end up there, how many boys are in her class? Could one of them have done it?” In the principal’s office, Bonnie sat on one of his knees, Betsy on the other. Stroking their hair, he added, “I’m a busy man. I don’t appreciate having to come all the way down here for something so minor.”

  Principal Moody sighed. With gray hair, gray suit and black pearls, she looked more like a prison guard than someone who dealt with children. “Mr. Buckhorn, in many ways schools are communities. Much like the town of Weed Gulch, our elementary maintains easy to understand laws by which all of our citizens must abide. I’ve been at this job for over thirty-five years and not once have I seen a snake accidentally find its way into a teacher’s desk. I have, however, encountered fourteen cases of students placing their reptiles in various inappropriate locations.”

  Hardening his jaw, Dallas asked, “You calling my girl a liar? Look how upset she still is…”

  Bonnie hiccupped and sniffled.

  The woman rambled on. “All I’m suggesting is that Bonnie may need additional lessons on appropriate classroom behavior. Perhaps you and your girls should schedule a conference with Miss Griffin?”

  Imagining the girls’ scowling teacher, Dallas wondered what kind of crazy dust he’d snorted to have found her the least bit attractive. “As I’m sure you know, I went to this school, as did all of my brothers. My parents never had to deal with this kind of accusatory attitude.”

  “You’re right,” the principal said. “When y’all attended Weed Gulch Elementary, a simple paddling resolved most issues.”

  After ten more minutes of way-too-polite conversation that got him nowhere, Dallas hefted himself and his girls to their feet and said, “These two will be leaving now with me. Is there something I need to sign?”

  The principal rose from her regal leather chair. “Miss Cami in the front office will be happy to show you the appropriate forms.”

  WITH EVERYONE BACK AT THEIR tables, chubby fingers struggling with the letter F, Josie sat at her desk multitasking. On a good day, she managed putting happy stickers on papers, entering completion grades on her computer and eating a tuna sandwich. On this day, she had accomplished only one out of three.

  What sort of excuse would the twins’ father make this time? He and the girls had been in the principal’s office for nearly an hour.

  “Missus Gwiffin?” She glanced up to find Charlie Elton sporting a broken crayon. He also had several missing teeth. “I bwoke it. Sworry.”

  “It’s okay, sweetie.” Taking the red oversize crayon, she peeled off the paper from the two halves. “See? Now it works again.”

  “Thwanks!” All smiles, he dashed back to his table. Toothless grins were what led her to teaching. Feeling that every day she made a positive difference in her students’ lives was what kept her in the career. Which was why the tension mounting between herself and the Buckhorn twins was so troubling. Not only was her job usually satisfying, but school was her haven.

  This weekend, she’d head into Tulsa. There were some school specialty stores that might have classroom management books to help with this sort of thing.

  The door opened and in shuffled the sources of her seemingly constant consternation.

  “Hi,” Josie said, wiping damp palms on her navy corduroy skirt. “Everything all right?”

  “Daddy brought Green Bean’s jar,” Bonnie said with enough venom to take down a pit viper.

  “He’s got Green Bean and said we need to get our stuff and go home.” Betsy looked less certain about their mission.

  “Sure that’s what you want to do?” Josie asked, kneeling in front of the pair. “We’re learning about the letter F.”

  “Let’s stay,” Betsy said in a loud whisper. “I love to color new letters.”

  Bonnie shook her head.

  At the door, their father poked his head in. “Get a move on, ladies. I’ve still got work to do.”

  “Okay, Daddy.” Hand in hand, the girls dashed to their cubbies.

  “Mr. Buckhorn…” Josie rose, approaching him slowly in hope of attracting as few little onlookers as possible. Today, the stern set of his features made him imposing. Miles taller than he usually seemed. Yet something about the way he cradled Bonnie’s pet in the crook of his arm gave him away as a closet teddy bear when it came to his girls. Trouble was, as a parent—or even a teacher—you couldn’t be nice all the time. “While the twins gather their things, could we talk?”

  He gestured for her to lead the way to the hall.

  With the classroom door open, allowing her a full view of her diligently working students, Josie said, “I’m sorry this incident inconvenienced you. Pets are only allowed on certain days of the year.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Cold didn’t come close to describing the chill of his demeanor.

  “Yes, you see, the
snake itself is the least of our problems.”

  “Our problems?” He cocked his right eyebrow.

  “Bonnie and Betsy—well, in this case mainly Bonnie, but—”

  “Hold it right there.” In her face, he whispered, “I’m sick and tired of accusations being made against my kids when their class is no doubt full of hooligans.”

  “Hooligans?” Maybe it was the old-fashioned word itself, or the sight of harmless Thomas Quinn wiping his perpetually runny nose on his sleeve—whatever had brought on a grin, she couldn’t seem to stop.

  “Think this is funny? We’re talking about my daughters’ education.”

  “I know,” she said, sobering, trying not to notice how his warm breath smelled strangely inviting. Like oatmeal and cinnamon. “Mr. Buckhorn, I’m sorry. Really I am. I’m not sure how we’ve launched such a contentious relationship, but you have to know I only have the twins’ best interests in mind. Kindergarten is the time for social adjustments. Nipping problem behaviors before they interfere with the real nuts and bolts of crucial reading and math skills.”

  “Why do you keep doing that? Implying my girls are difficult? Look at them,” he said, glancing into the room where Bonnie and Betsy had gravitated to their assigned seats and sat quietly coloring with the rest of the class. “Tell me, have you ever seen a more heartwarming sight?”

  Nope. Nor a more uncharacteristic one!

  Typically by this time of day, Bonnie had carried out her second or third dastardly plan. Whether freeing the inhabitants of their ant farm or counting how many pencils fit in the water fountain’s drain, the girl was always up to something. Betsy either provided cover or assisted in a speedy getaway.

  “They’re even self-starters,” he boasted. “Their mother opened her own horse grooming shop. Looks to me like I have a couple of entrepreneurs on my hands.”

  “I agree,” Josie was honestly able to say. The girls were already experts when it came to launching funny business. “But with all due respect, the twins are currently on their best behavior. With you here, I doubt they’ll find trouble.”