The Trouble with Texas Cowboys

by Carolyn Brown

  “That sounds wonderful.” Jill smiled.

  With Sawyer’s hand at her back, they made their way to the door, where they shook hands with the preacher and made a comment about how wonderful it was to see the sun shining. Jill couldn’t lie and tell him it was an awesome sermon, because she’d caught only snatches of it between keeping Sawyer awake and dozing herself.

  She heard someone snort and say, “Oink, oink.” Then another one gave a pig snort that wasn’t totally unlike Sawyer’s snores.

  One more oink, and a Brennan said something about a thieving smart-ass. Jill was too short to see who threw the first punch, but the fight was on. The church parking lot, which had been declared sacred, neutral ground, turned into a free-for-all. Fists and profanity flew around like buzzards having it out over a dead possum in the middle of the road.

  Those who sat in the middle section of church either quietly circled the brawl to their trucks or else stood on the sidelines. No one, not even the preacher, wadded into the middle of the fracas to try to put an end to it.

  Finally, Verdie pushed her way through the speechless onlookers and right out into the lot. When she reached the middle, she grabbed two ears, a Brennan and a Gallagher, and hauled them off the ground to their feet.

  “One of y’all makes a move, I will put a knee in a place that will hurt for the rest of the day,” she said loudly. “Stop it right now, or else I’m going out to my van and bringing in some pistol power.”

  “They started the whole thing by stealing our pigs, and now they’re oinking at us and making pig sounds.” Quaid Brennan rubbed his ear.

  “They’re lying about us,” Tyrell Gallagher yelled.

  “I don’t give a shit who stole the pigs or who is lying. If you’ve got to fight like children, then take it away from the church, the store, and Polly’s bar. Those have been neutral places during this whole damned feud, and the next time this happens, I’m not whistling or pulling ears. I’m going to start kicking and asking questions later,” Verdie said.

  “I want to grow up to be just like her,” Jill said.

  “Not Polly or Gladys?” Sawyer asked.

  “Oh, no. They’re mean, but believe me, Verdie is the toughest one of the lot.”

  * * *

  Two men had guarded the henhouse at Wild Horse, since Naomi was sure that’s where Mavis was going to hit her after the pigs went missing. There was no way those holier-than-thou Brennans were going to get at her big white chickens. Not when it was nearly time to start saving their eggs to incubate for next year’s chicken crop.

  If they hadn’t been standing on the same side of the huge, custom-built coop, they might have seen that the cigarette one of them tossed on the ground and stepped on still had a spark. If they hadn’t been hungover from dancing and drinking at Polly’s the night before, they might have smelled the smoke before the chickens went crazy, flapping their wings and cackling louder than a rock band.

  “What’s that smell? You’ve got to quit smokin’, Billy. That damn smoke gets in my nose and, oh my God! The henhouse is on fire. That’s why they’re throwin’ such a fit,” one yelled.

  “Dammit! Call the house. Call anybody. Get us some help. We’ll have to open the doors, or they’ll all burn up in there. Those damn Brennans got past us somehow. Naomi is going to fire us for sure,” one of the guards yelled at the other one.

  He jerked a phone from his pocket with one hand and opened the doors with the other. Mad hens are one thing, but terrified ones are another story. And a mean old rooster damn sure didn’t like his harem carrying on like that. Both guards dropped to their knees and covered their faces with their hands when the rooster led the chickens out in flight, squawking and clawing anything in their path.

  A sea of Gallaghers swarmed toward the fire. The chickens didn’t care if they were masters or servants. They wanted away from the evil fire, so they lit on heads, pecked at ears, fought with people trying to catch them, flew into the trees, and in their fear, dropped a fair amount of chicken crap down on the heads of those trying to coax them down.

  Those that had had their wings singed by the fire before they were set loose ran into the mesquite trees and hid in the underbrush. The rooster flogged everyone in his pathway as he made his way toward the nearest barn and flew up to the rafter, where he publicly made known his anger at having his tail feathers plumb burned to a crisp.

  “Damn Brennans. Start a fight over in the churchyard, and now this,” Tyrell cussed. “They’re going to pay.”

  “You’re damn right, and they will pay dearly.” Naomi wiped a blob of chicken crap from her forehead. “Even if we can catch them, it’ll be weeks before they lay again. I won’t have enough eggs to incubate this year, which means we’ll have to buy our chickens, and I hate store-bought meat. Damn you, Mavis!” Naomi fished a cell phone from the hip pocket of her jeans and jabbed in the numbers to River Bend Ranch.

  “Hello,” Mavis said.

  “You are a bitch from hell, Mavis Brennan, and you will pay for this,” Naomi screamed.

  “What in the hell are you talkin’ about? Did Orville decide to do right by my granddaughter?”

  “Hell, no. He and Ilene are talking about getting married now. But I’m pressing charges against you for burning down my chicken house,” Naomi growled.

  “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” Mavis quoted with laughter. “Since God has taken my side, you’d better watch out, woman.”

  Naomi raised her fist and yelled, “God didn’t do this. Damn it, Mavis, you done messed with the wrong woman because I won’t leave revenge in God’s hands. I’ll take care of it myself.”

  * * *

  Jill fluffed up her pillow and pulled a quilt up over her body. She shut her eyes, and immediately that fuzzy feeling that happens before sleep settled in. Then her phone rang.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” she grumbled as she reached for it.

  “Jill, hope you weren’t asleep yet, but I had to tell you,” Gladys said. “Naomi Gallagher’s chicken house has flat-out burned to the ground. They had to turn the chickens free, and they can’t catch them. Naomi didn’t believe in clipping their wings, so they’re in the trees, hiding in the mesquite underbrush, and the rooster won’t come down from the rafters in the barn. It’s a big mess, and she’s blaming the Brennans.”

  “Did the Brennans do it?”

  “Mavis says that God must have avenged her for losing her hogs. She swears that she didn’t do it and that she never had any intentions of messing with Naomi’s chickens. If she had, she says she would have poisoned them, not set fire to them.”

  “More fuel for the feud, huh?” Jill said.

  She didn’t care if the Brennans and Gallaghers burned each other out as long as they didn’t let their fires spread to Fiddle Creek.

  “You sound groggy. Go on back to sleep,” Gladys said.

  “Thank you for calling.”

  “Just thought y’all might want to keep an eye out for either one of the families. They might use Fiddle Creek as crossing ground to get to the other one.”

  Jill yawned. “So is the pig war now the chicken war?”

  “No, this chapter in the feud will always be the pig war, I’m afraid. Doesn’t that sound horrible? I’m hanging up now and sleep all day. From now on I’ll do the feeding on Sundays. I’ll get Polly settled, and I’ll only be gone an hour each time. Besides”—she lowered her voice—“I love her, and we get along pretty good, but I’m getting cabin fever, and I can’t ask Verdie to babysit all the time so I can get out.”

  That’s when Jill’s stomach growled. She’d had a bowl of canned chicken noodle soup for dinner, but she’d been too tired to eat all of it. Now it was either eat something or never get back to sleep.

  She pushed back the quilt and padded barefoot across the cold wood floor to the kitchen area. She opened the freezer. Ice cream didn’
t appeal to her. Nothing in the fridge looked good either, so she went to the cabinets.

  “Doughnuts,” Sawyer said gruffly.

  “You startled me, but that does sound good,” she said.

  Sawyer reached over her shoulder and picked up the half-empty box of store-bought chocolate doughnuts. “They’re not as good as what we got in Gainesville, but they’ll make your stomach stop grumblin’. Finn called to tell me that the Gallaghers’ henhouse burned. After I eat something, I’m turning off my damn phone.”

  “Aunt Gladys called me with the same news.” She pulled the milk from the refrigerator and carried it to the table, along with two glasses.

  “Do you care if they’re having roasted chicken for supper next door?” he asked.

  She poured milk and slid a glass toward his end of the table. “I do not.”

  “Then let’s both turn off the phones, make the sofa out into a bed, throw our pillows and quilts on it…”

  “And,” she finished his sentence, “turn on the television to something totally boring for the noise, and sleep all afternoon. But why on the sofa and not in our own beds?”

  “Television noise will be louder in the living area. It’ll block out everything. I vote for the sports channel. There’s a golf game on this afternoon.”

  “You don’t like golf.”

  “No, ma’am. I like football, baseball, and basketball, and I like to play those, not watch them on television.”

  “Me too.” She nodded.

  “Play or watch?”

  “Play, but not today. Pull out the sofa. Do we need to put a pillow in the middle, like they used to do in the old days to discourage hanky-panky?” she asked.

  “Honey, my hanky-panky is drooping. If you want that, you’ll have to wait until later.” He grinned.

  They quickly finished their snack, and while she went to get her pillow and quilt, he tossed the sofa cushions on the floor and pulled the bed out. It was covered with a dark-green flannel sheet that looked soft and inviting.

  “Hey, where did you get that?” Jill pointed at the fleece-lined soft blanket he carried to the living room.

  “Christmas present from my sister,” he answered. “Your phone turned off? Mine is.”

  “Turned off and shoved to the bottom of my purse. And Aunt Gladys said that she’s giving us Sunday off from now on. Starting this evening, she’ll take care of chores.”

  She picked up the remote and turned on the television, hit the channel button a couple of times until she found a station showing golf. The sports announcer’s tone was a soft monologue—perfect sleeping noise. Before she could lay the remote on the end table, Sawyer was already snoring.

  Who needed television? His snores would block out a nuclear attack on Fiddle Creek. She eased down on her side of the sofa and was asleep seconds after her head hit the pillow. At dusk she awoke with Sawyer curled around her back, one arm thrown over her waist and both of them covered with his soft blanket.

  * * *

  “Was that as good for you as it was for me?” he murmured when she wiggled out of his embrace.

  “Sleep, yes. But if you were having some kind of wicked dream, sorry, partner, I didn’t share it with you.” She yawned.

  He sat up, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and pointed at the television. “Wouldn’t you love to be there right now?” He blocked out the golf game and pictured a beach with enough roll to the ocean to make it pretty, the wind barely blowing, and Jill in a bikini, lying beside him on the white sand.

  She pulled herself up to a sitting position and leaned over to retrieve her quilt that had fallen on the floor. The sports announcer said something about the score in that same whispery-soft voice, and she frowned. “Just how long does it take to play a game, anyway?”

  “This is a different one than we started off with earlier,” he answered. “This one is in Miami.”

  “How do you know? You were asleep before I found the station with the first one.”

  “I woke up when you stole more than your half of my blanket. You didn’t answer my question. Already acting like a wife because we’ve slept together,” he said.

  “We did not sleep together, and, yes, I’d love to be anywhere away from this feud, even Miami,” she argued.

  “We did sleep together, and I had to snuggle up to you to even get a corner of my blanket. And why did you say even Miami? You don’t like it?” He crossed his fingers behind his back like he had when he was a child. Truth was, he’d awakened at four and wanted to be close to her, so he’d snuggled up to her back and draped an arm around her.

  “I love the beach, but I don’t like that many people.”

  “Me either. Been there with the rodeo crew a few times, but I like less people too,” he said.

  She turned over, and their faces were just inches apart. “So you did the rodeo tour?”

  “My cousin did, and we followed it when we could. I tried riding bulls and broncs, but I wasn’t star quality.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows. “My expertise lies in other areas.”

  “Sawyer O’Donnell!”

  “Your mind is in the gutter.”

  “Yours isn’t?” she asked.

  “No, it is not. I have several cousins who were rodeo folks, so I know star quality when I see it. I found my niche, though. I usually got a gig as the rodeo clown.”

  She laughed. “Well, I can sure see that.”

  “So scratch off Miami for the honeymoon?”

  “What honeymoon?” she asked.

  “Ours, darlin’. Gladys will make me marry you, since we’ve slept together.”

  She put her finger over his lips. “If you don’t tell, I won’t.”

  Chapter 12

  “Something isn’t right. I can feel it in the air,” Sawyer said when they opened the doors into the bar that night.

  “I’ve been enjoying the quiet,” Jill said. “Seems like the feud is dying down, even after that chicken house incident.”

  “It’s the quiet that worries me. After the business last Sunday at the church, and Naomi’s chickens flying the coop, you can bet your pretty little ass both parties are up to something. They’ve been layin’ low all week.”

  Jill nodded. “Come to think of it, we haven’t seen much of them in the store either. Betsy did come in to buy a couple of whole chickens. Said her grandmother would have to make do until she could build a new henhouse. It was while you were taking a nap on the cot in the storeroom.”

  Sawyer flipped the top off a Coors longneck and took a long drink from it. “And while you were taking a nap, Quaid came by to pick up two dozen pork chops. Almost wiped out the supply, and I didn’t cut up any more for Monday morning.”

  “It’s the Brennans who are fixin’ to strike,” Jill said. “I wonder what they’ve got up their sleeves.”

  “How do you know that?” Sawyer asked.

  “Betsy didn’t ask about you. I bet there’s not a half a dozen of either family in church tomorrow morning. Looks like this will be a lazy night. We might even get to close up early.”

  “Or not,” Sawyer said when Tyrell shoved his way into the bar. Betsy and a half-dozen Gallaghers followed him and claimed a table in the corner.

  “Two pitchers of Coors and seven red cups,” Tyrell yelled as he plugged coins into the jukebox.

  “I jinxed it when I said that,” Jill said.

  The door opened again, and Kinsey Brennan, Quaid, and half a dozen Brennans lined up on bar stools. “I want a strawberry daiquiri, and stir it with your finger, Sawyer,” Kinsey flirted.

  “A Miller Lite and a pitcher of margaritas, and one of Coors for our table,” Quaid said.

  Jill took their money and watched as they each carried their drink in one hand and a pitcher in the other to a table as far away from the Gallaghers as possible. Even though Jill could
n’t hear a word either family said, their body language spoke volumes.

  The Gallaghers were loud and boisterous, line dancing to fast songs, swilling beer by the pitcherful, and having a good time. The Brennans nursed their drinks and kept their heads together. Polly was probably right. The Gallaghers should be on Wild Horse Ranch, patrolling every square inch, because the Brennans were likely to strike that very night.

  By nine o’clock, the bar was full and noisy, and smoke hovered in the air like fog. Evidently, dancing made folks hungry as well as thirsty, because Sawyer stayed busy at the grill while Jill drew pitcher after pitcher of beer. Thank goodness bar rules said that she didn’t carry it to the tables, but that they had to order and pay at the bar. And Polly did not run charge accounts or take checks or credit cards, so it was cash only.

  “Looks like a normal Saturday night,” Sawyer said during a rare lull in business.

  Jill wiped down the bar and nodded. “Maybe they’ve had enough thieving and burning down henhouses. But frankly, Sawyer, I don’t give a damn about the infamous pig war. I want to get through the night and sleep until noon tomorrow. I told Aunt Gladys not to look for me in church. I swear, by this time on Saturday, my butt is draggin’ so bad that I don’t have the energy to even sing.”

  “And according to this sexy redhead who kisses like an angel, I snored last week, so I’ll be staying home with you,” he said.

  That cocky little grin of his sent shivers down her back. What was wrong with her? Never before had a few kisses and a shared nap made her throw caution and common sense to the wind.

  Then why am I doing it now? she asked herself.

  “You are fighting with yourself again,” he said.

  “Am not.”

  “Yes, you are,” Sawyer said. “Your head cocks over to one side and then the other when you do that. Are you deciding whether to give Quaid or Tyrell another chance? If you want quiet and steady, go with Quaid. If you want a good time and a hell of a dancer, holler at Tyrell. As far as money and fame, you’ll get it with either one of them.”