She lifted the crispy bacon strips from the hot grease onto a plate and broke three eggs into the skillet. They sizzled and spit as the edges of the whites crisped and curled. Damn. Lacy eggs. She turned down the heat and reached for the bread. "Will two toasts be enough?"
"Yeah. Listen, I heard in town Art shot your dog."
A mix of sadness and anger still burned inside her over how the border collie had died. Isabelle dropped the bread slices into the toaster. "Jack was chasing his sheep."
"Humph. Art 'Dimos and our old man. Now there's a pair. Somebody shoulda killed 'em both a long time ago. I can prob'ly find you another dog. What kind you want?"
Isabelle carefully turned the eggs, proud of herself for not breaking the yolks. "I don't know if Ava's ready for another pet. We'll just let it go for a while, until she says she wants one. I've got my hands full with other things right now."
When the toast popped up, she removed it and began to spread butter on it. "Paul, how long has John Bradshaw been sheriff?"
She hadn't been able to put the altogether too appealing sheriff out of her mind. To her continued dismay, the image of his tight Wranglers hugging his muscled haunches as he stalked across her yard kept coming back at unexpected moments.
"I dunno. Since before Christmas, I guess. Why?"
"He came out about Jack. I was surprised to see him back in Callister. Remember when he was in high school? He was a good enough roper to be on the Wrangler team. If someone had asked me what happened to him, I would've said he became a rodeo star."
"He tried, but he ain't no different from the rest of us Callisterites, sis. Born losers, ever' last one of us."
"Don't say that. I don't consider myself a loser. And you aren't one either unless you make it so."
"The busybodies say ol' John spent too much time on the road. Neglected his homework."
Her brother sniggered, as she had heard other men do when they talked about sex. Having worked all of her adulthood around more men than women, she had no trouble recognizing it as the male equivalent of a giggle. Isabelle rolled her eyes. "You men are all alike."
"Well?" Paul returned a wide-eyed look as if he were innocent. "What else would you call it? While John was off chasing rodeos, his wife fell into some college professor's bed down in Boise, then took off with him to California. If ol' John had been spending his nights at home, that prob'ly wouldn't of happened. It must've got to him pretty bad 'cause afterwards was when he took up whiskey."
Isabelle lifted the eggs from the skillet and slid them onto the plate with the bacon and toast. "That's too bad, but that's how it is with a lot of rodeoers who try to be married and have families. It's a hard life filled with temptations."
She set the steaming breakfast in front of her brother, then returned to her chair at the table and her coffee. "He's divorced now?"
Why she asked, she didn't know.
Paul dug into the food like he hadn't eaten in a month. "That's what they say. She cleaned him out. They had some kids. She took them, too."
"I don't understand how he got to be sheriff if he drinks too much."
"He don't drink no more. Nobody else would take the job, Izzy. It went empty for weeks after they arrested Jim Higgins. You remember Luke McRae? He's a county commissioner now. He ran into John down in Boise and hired him to do it."
She scarcely remembered Luke, with him a senior and her a sophomore. The hard-up Rondeaus and the well-off McRaes had nothing in common. "How nice to be rich enough to just pick out the man you want to be the sheriff."
"Things ain't changed much around here, Izzy. Same ol' people running things and scratching each other's backs—the McRaes, the Flaggs, the Fielders... the Bradshaws. Nobody was even surprised when all of a sudden a Bradshaw got to be the sheriff."
"Well, fortunately there isn't much crime here." Unless you count murdered dogs. "So when can you start work on the barn?"
"No time like now, I guess. Soon's I eat." He popped a bacon slice into his mouth and chewed, then washed it down with coffee. He gave her a mischievous grin. "I 'spect you ain't gonna pay me, but I hope to hell you're gonna keep feeding me. You're almost as good a cook as Ma was."
Chapter 5
Barking dogs in the sheriff's office?
As John reached the bottom of the stairs in the sheriff's reception room, he saw Rooster and Dana huddled over a big cardboard box, playing with two blond puppies. So his ears hadn't deceived him. "Where'd they come from?"
"I found them this morning," Dana answered. "Someone left them in this box by the door last night. Bless their hearts." She picked one up and cuddled it at her breast. It wriggled free and climbed over her shoulder, letting out a whine. "Aren't they just the cutest things?"
"You taking them home?"
"Cliff'll skin me if I bring home one more animal."
John knelt on one knee, put his hand into the box and let the remaining pup lick his fingers. "You taking them to your house, Rooster?"
"Lord, no. I got two dogs already. Looks like they belong to you, John T."
"Me? I live in an apartment, remember?"
"If you want a doghouse, I've got one o' them fiberglass things you can have."
"Where'll I put it, in the living room? They male or female?" He picked the pup in the box up and peered at its belly.
"One of each, I think," Dana said.
"So what'll we do with them?"
"Maybe somebody'll come in today who'll want them," Rooster said.
"Maybe you could use your charm, John, and sweet-talk Morticia into taking them." Dana guffawed.
The receptionist was joking about Rita Mitchell, the exotic-looking brunette from Boise who had opened a coffee shop in town. She delivered free lattes to the sheriff's office and made it so obvious that more than free coffee was available that Dana and Rooster teased him at every opportunity.
Ignoring the receptionist's jab, John said to Rooster, "Since we don't have an animal control department, I suppose the sheriff gets stuck with that job, too, huh?"
Rooster laughed. "That's about the size of it."
John put both puppies back into the box and carried them to one of the two empty jail cells. Rooster and Dana followed and spread newspaper on the cell's concrete floor. Then Dana left for the grocery store to buy dog food and chew toys.
By six o'clock they'd had no more success at finding the puppies a home than they'd had at keeping them jailed. With their small bodies, they slipped right through the bars and kept John, Rooster and Dana busy putting them back.
The dozen people who had come and gone in the sheriff's office had viewed the cell's occupants, but no one volunteered to adopt them. John had gone back to the cell to pet them and play with them several times and grown more attached with each passing hour, but he couldn't figure out how he could keep them. Dana ducked out for home before six, leaving the puppies' future to him and Rooster.
"What do you want me to do with 'em when I lock up tonight?" Rooster asked. "We can't leave 'em here overnight."
John's shift had ended, but Rooster would be keeping the office open until nine. "I'm not sure," he said. "My backyard's barely big enough for my porch." The minute the words left his mouth, Ava Bledsoe's unhappy little face popped into his mind. "Wait a minute. I know just what to do with these guys."
An hour later he was standing on Izzy's front porch, the box of puppies under one arm. Hanging on the other was the plastic grocery sack of chew toys and the bag of Puppy Chow that Dana had bought. On the porch floor at his feet sat a gray igloo-shaped doghouse he had picked up at Rooster's place. He had even extorted a promise from the vet for free shots.
He knocked. Ava came to the door and stared up at him. She was dressed in jeans, two sweaters and pink-and-white athletic shoes. She had a book in her hand.
"Your mom home?"
"She's over at the barn." She pushed her glasses up on her nose with her forefinger.
A puppy yelped and his head popped up, past the rim of the
box. "Okay," John said. "I'll go over there."
He turned to leave, but before he reached the edge of the porch, the kid was in front of him, shoving her thin arms into a coat. "I'll show you," she said and headed for the barn. Her eyes kept veering to the squirming bodies inside the box. "What are you doing with those puppies?"
"Nothing much. I just came to show them to your mom."
"Mama doesn't want any hounds. She only likes a few kinds of dogs."
"What kind is that?"
"She likes border collies and shelties. Sometimes she likes Jack Russells, but she says they're useless."
"I see," John said, mentally agreeing with that opinion.
Approaching the barn, John saw new pine poles here and there in the corral fences. He didn't recall seeing them a few days ago when he had come out to investigate the dog shooting. Somebody was making improvements.
Ava and he ducked between the poles of the corral adjoining the big barn and she led him inside. He inhaled a deep breath. Being the son of a cattle rancher, he loved the smell of a barn. The mixed scents of hay, leather and animals were branded on his soul and he missed them. The apartment where he spent his free time smelled like an oil furnace.
He saw Izzy at the far end of the barn mucking out a stall, shoveling soiled hay and shavings and animal droppings into a wheelbarrow. When they reached her, both puppies were straining to crawl out of the box and John set it on the ground.
Izzy stared wide-eyed at the box. She began to shake her head. "No, no—"
"Can we have them, Mama? Please?"
Before John had time to wonder if he had made a huge mistake, a puppy, its tail swinging like a pendulum, climbed out of the box and waddled toward Ava on stubby legs. She picked it up and its tiny pink tongue frantically lapped her face. Giggles bubbled out and John felt his heart lift. The pup that had been left behind in the box began to whine. Ava picked it up, too. Now she had a double armload of squirming, licking puppyflesh and she was laughing nonstop.
No combination was as full of pure happiness as a kid and a puppy. John couldn't keep from grinning.
Izzy gave him a baleful glare and threw her shovel across the muck-filled wheelbarrow. "Don't look so pleased with yourself. They aren't staying."
"Aw, c'mon. Look at your daughter. It's a perfect match."
Peeling off her gloves, Izzy walked over and looked down at the animals in the kid's arms. "What are they?"
John frowned. "Dogs?"
"This isn't funny. I meant what sex." She planted her fists on her hips.
John looked at her, sex leaping into his mind. She had on tight jeans and a green turtleneck sweater that hugged her trim shape. Her breasts weren't huge, but were just right for her build. The outline of peaked nipples showed on the front of her sweater. Chilly temperature. Lord, the sensitivities of a woman's body would fascinate him 'til he died.
She looked solid and strong as any athlete, yet fine-boned and feminine. Memories from high school darted through his head, the hours he had fantasized about touching her. Somehow she seemed even sexier now than back then. With her rosy cheeks, full lips and a storm of hair the color of new pennies, she looked healthy and alive and she was arousing urges he had no business having. "How about one of each?"
She took a puppy from her daughter and examined its underside. "This one's male." She ran her thumb and fingers over a paw. "They're mutts. And they're going to be big mutts. Look at the size of these feet."
"A cross between a lab and something, I'd say. Cute, huh? I took one look at them and thought of Ava Bledsoe."
"My name isn't Bledsoe," Ava said. "It's Rondeau."
Confusion muddled John's mind. What was up with these two and names? Had Izzy and Billy not married? Was Ava not Billy's kid? "Oh, sorry."
"I'll take care of them, Mama. They won't be any trouble." A puppy licked Ava's chin and knocked her glasses askew. She quickly righted them. "I'll teach them not to potty on the carpet. Like I did Jack, remember?"
Izzy glared up at him, her jaw tight. "I can't believe you've done this. What kind of a horrible mother would I be if I insisted you take them out of here?"
"I'm going to name the girl dog Jenny," Ava said, "after the girl that got saved by Harry Potter."
Except for having heard the name everywhere, John knew nothing about Harry Potter. "Sounds good. I bet she'll like that."
Izzy heaved a great sigh.
"C'mon," John said to her again. "Don't be grouchy. You're out here all by yourself miles from town. Your neighbor isn't exactly neighborly. You can use a couple of watchdogs. They don't have to be a special kind. And these two probably don't have an instinct to herd sheep."
"I'm going to name the boy dog Harry," Ava said.
"Damn," Izzy mumbled, almost but not quite under her breath. "Bring them up to the house."
She stuffed her gloves in her hip pocket and left the barn. Behind her back, John gave Ava a thumbs-up and the girl scrunched her shoulders and giggled. She was a likable kid. They put the puppies back into the box, he picked it up and they caught up with Izzy.
As they walked along the fence, the stud lifted his head from grazing and shuffled toward them. John stopped and waited for him, noticing that he was smaller and lighter than John's rope horse and most ranch horses. Even so, the stallion had the sleek look of an athlete and damn near perfect conformation. A magnificent animal.
And his color was almost blue. A blue roan. John had seen only one other in all his years around horses and livestock.
The stallion craned his neck over the fence and snuffled at the cardboard box. When one of the pups barked, the horse jerked his head up and danced backward, farting and stamping and swishing his tail. Izzy put her hand out to him. "Stop that, you devil, and come here."
The horse approached the fence again. She slipped an arm around his neck and made kissing sounds at him. The horse nuzzled her hair and John had the feeling she had a special bond with him. "You're ornery," she told him softly, as she rubbed the side of his head.
"He's quite a lover," John said on a laugh, smoothing a hand down the stud's neck, enjoying the proximity of a sexy woman and a good horse. "He got a name?"
"Pepto's Blue Dan. I call him Dancer, but Satan would better suit his personality."
John didn't know performance horses by breeding, but he had been around a few highbred horses in rodeos and had heard variations of the Peppy name. "Good breeding, huh?"
"Yep. Goes all the way back to Little Peppy. You know that horse?"
Before John could say he had heard the name everywhere, Ava chimed in. "He was a cutting horse from the King Ranch in Texas. He won a million dollars."
Izzy grinned and pushed strands of hair from Ava's face. "At least a million."
John could see the strength in the stallion's body, the arrogance in his bearing, the intelligence in his eyes. "Cutting horse, huh? You had him in shows?"
"Some futurities in Texas."
"He's got cow," Ava said.
Isabelle chuckled and looked at Ava with obvious affection. "My little expert." She looked back up at John. "He's good with cows, all right, but he's high-spirited. Sometimes he takes some handling. He doesn't mean to be troublesome. His biggest problem is being a five-year-old stud."
John laughed as the two mares ambled up to the corral fence by the big barn on the other side of the driveway and whinnied, no doubt feeling slighted. He turned, walked across the driveway to the fence and gave them a quick once-over. Izzy and her daughter followed. "These are good-looking nags, too."
She cocked her head and looked up at him, squinting from the sunlight. "Get out your checkbook, sheriff. They're for sale."
"They trained for cutting, too?"
"You betcha. That's what Billy and I did in Texas."
John's tongue itched to ask about the state of her and Billy Bledsoe's relationship and how she got her hands on horses like these three, but he restrained himself. "You show them, too?"
"We—I used to
. They're too old for futurities, but they're still qualified for some shows."
"Who keeps them in shape?"
"Me. It's what I do. I'm well known for it."
John had spent most of his life in a world of horses. Women were all over it, calling themselves trainers, but he knew of few really successful ones. He looked her in the eye. "You don't say."
"Right now I mostly just want to sell them."
Like hell she wanted to sell them. He could hear that much in the way her voice softened a note when she said it. Still, if that was her story, why had she brought them here? Even with as little knowledge as John had about the cutting-horse community in Idaho, he knew it had to be small compared to the scene in the Southwest. The nearest buyer for a horse like one of these would have to be in Boise, or more likely Texas or California. Anywhere but here.
She spun and marched toward the house. John couldn't keep from thinking her butt still had that twitch he had admired in high school.
When they reached the backyard, he set the box of puppies on the ground. "I brought a doghouse with me and some doggie stuff."
Izzy gave him a flat look. "Doggie stuff?"
He looked right back at her. "Puppies gotta have something to chew on, right?"
He returned to the front porch, picked up the doghouse and the sack of toys and Puppy Chow, then lugged them to the backyard. "Their shots are all arranged. No charge. All you have to do is take them by the vet's office."
Izzy stood on the stoop, arms crossed under her breasts while he and Ava located and leveled the doghouse a few feet from the back door, resetting and readjusting it until the installation suited the kid. At the end of it, mud covered his boots and his hands and knees.
"When they're grown," Izzy said, "I doubt if even one of them will fit into that thing, much less two. Does that mean you're going to show up out here with a second doghouse?"
"I could." John walked over to where she stood a couple of steps up on the stoop, pulled his handkerchief from his rear pocket and began to wipe his hands.
The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 Page 5
