by Anna Jeffrey
He limped around the front end of the truck and opened the door for Joanna to climb out, but she just sat there. “I don’t think I can move,” she said.
He offered her his hand. “Come on, Red. You’re not gonna quit on me now, are you?”
“Red? Oh, my gosh, am I that sunburned?”
He found the energy to chuckle. “I was talking about your hair.”
She looked at him with a thousand-kilowatt smile. He smiled back and took a few seconds and let his eyes feast on her face. She was hot and sweaty and sunburned indeed, and her makeup, whatever she had worn, was gone. She didn’t seem to care, and it was just as well. She was pretty without it.
“No one’s ever called me Red,” she said, then laughed. “Is that better than babe?”
Damn, he liked her.
Chapter 13
Dalton stood with his hand extended. She took it and climbed out slowly, letting out a groan when her feet hit the ground. “I’ve got to gather the eggs.” She looked spent, but her face held an expression of resolve as she clapped her cap on her head.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “It won’t take long with the two of us.” After she had worked so hard helping him, he could stoop to help her gather eggs one more time.
She nodded. “Thanks. I never turn down help. I’ll go get the baskets.”
She came out of her little room and led the way to the chicken yard and let them through the gate. They approached the first coop together. “Look,” she said, “let’s do this like we did this morning. I’ll take these on the left and you—”
An ominous sizzle and hiss stopped them.
An adrenaline burst shot through his gut. Fuck!
She stopped dead still. “Oh, my God,” she whispered and swung a wild-eyed look of horror at him.
There was no mistaking the sound. He scanned a 180 degrees but saw nothing. “Be still.” He kept his voice low, not wanting to excite her any more. “I can’t see it. Can you?”
“No. I—I think it’s on my left. Maybe behind the coop.” Her voice held a quaver.
Fuck! He had no weapon of any kind. He knew there was a good chance the varmint would slither away if left alone and unthreatened. Then again, to be hissing and rattling, it already felt threatened. It had probably come for eggs. And if it found food successfully, it would return. He didn’t like the idea of either Joanna or his mother facing a rattlesnake. His eyes darted everywhere until he spotted a three-foot-long piece of two-by-four securing the coop’s door flap. “That two-by-four on top of the chicken house. Is it nailed down?”
“N-no.”
“Don’t move a muscle.” He stepped gingerly to the right and lifted the two-by-four from the roof. He eased around the back of the coop, coming up on the opposite side. There he saw the snake coiled like a rope at the corner of the shack, its triangular head risen to strike. The damn thing was thick, and it had to be four feet long. He knew two things: It could strike quicker than the blink of an eye and he had to move fast.
He raised the board and struck. Thwack!
The rattler twisted and writhed on the ground, its neck broken. He finished it off with the two-by-four and his boot heel.
He glanced in Joanna’s direction. She had sunk to her knees, her face covered with her hands. He threw the two-by-four back onto the roof, went to her and squatted beside her. She was shaking all over. “You okay?”
She began to sob in great gulps. “N-no…. I’m n-not okay.”
He rubbed her back with one hand. “I got him. He can’t hurt you now. Everything’s all right.”
She braced a hand on his knee and stood up, wiping her nose with the heel of her hand. “I have to go home. Right now. I have to go home.” She turned and stumbled toward the gate.
“Wait a minute….”
But she didn’t stop. She fumbled the gate open and stumbled through but didn’t close it. “When you go see your mom, don’t tell her about the snake.”
He got to his feet and followed her, pausing long enough to latch the gate. He sure didn’t want to risk all those friggin’ chickens getting out of their pen at sundown.
She was headed on a crooked path toward her truck. He quickstepped behind her. When he reached her she was trying to dig her keys from her jeans pocket, but the tail of his oversize shirt and her trembling prevented it.
“Here,” he said, starting to be concerned about her, “let me do that.” He shoved his fingers into her jeans pocket, pulled out her keys and handed them to her. “You sure you’re okay to drive?” She reached for the door, but he held it closed. “I’m not sure you should be driving—”
“I can drive,” she snapped, yanking on the door latch.
“Okay.” He lifted his hands in surrender, then pulled the door all the way open and held it for her. She climbed onto the driver’s seat and fumbled the keys into the ignition with a shaking hand.
“Don’t worry about the eggs,” he said, stunned at hearing himself say it. “I’ll get ’em for you.”
“You don’t have to. They can wait.” She fired the engine, giving it too much gas. It came to life with a loud roar.
“I said I’ll get ’em. And I will.” He raised his voice to be heard over the engine noise. “I don’t know how to wash ’em, but I’ll put ’em in the refrigerator for you.”
“Fine. Please. I have to go.”
He closed the door and she drove away, leaving him to worry. About her.
Snake!…Rattlesnake!…Shit.
What the hell was a snake doing slinking around in September? Weren’t they all supposed to be asleep by now?
Joanna lay in a bathtub of warm bubbles up to her neck, waiting for the shakes to go away. Her stomach had roiled all the way home, and she had barely made it into the house before it rebelled and she hurled what little she had eaten all day. Her heart continued to pound, and she still felt a buzz all over her body.
She hadn’t seen a snake in the chicken yard in a long while. So long, in fact, that she had become complacent about looking out for one. And she had never seen a rattlesnake there. In fact, in spite of living in the middle of a rattlesnake haven, she had never seen one up close and personal, ever. A rat snake or an ordinary old bullsnake that came to steal eggs didn’t scare her. But a rattlesnake terrified her. Shit. Reimagining the rattle sent another shiver up her spine.
She couldn’t make herself stop thinking about two years ago when Toby Patterson, a local teenager, had been bitten on the hand while picnicking. He didn’t die from it, but he came close. Now, more than twenty surgeries in three major hospitals later, he had lost 20 percent of the use of his hand and arm. Gossip said his medical bills had come to a million dollars. Hatlow’s churches and citizens still held bake sales, raising money to help his family pay them.
What would she have done if Dalton hadn’t been there? No answer to that question came, but the thought of him as her knight in shining armor brought on new and different distress. How illogical was that? One was just as hard to put out of her mind as the other.
Instead of doing any more heavy cogitating, she concentrated on Alan Jackson’s mellow voice crooning from the CD player in the bedroom and the haunting lyrics of “Red on a Rose.” That endeavor turned out to be a mistake because the song was a haunting ballad about a man’s deep love for a woman, something Joanna had never known. How nice would it be to have someone who cared about her all the way to his soul, someone who was strong and would always look out for her, someone who would hold her and tell her she was safe?
New anguish pushed in on her attempt at serenity, and as if it were playing on a movie screen, she saw her future as a lonely old woman who had chosen hard work over the risk of relationships.
Tears welled in her eyes. Her inexplicable attraction to a man as impossible as Dalton Parker and the incident with the rattlesnake only reinforced just how alone she was and the precarious position in which the egg business had put her security. Why couldn’t she have been content with the two businesses
she already owned that supported her reasonably well? Now the egg business took so much of her time and energy, her other enterprises suffered. And she hadn’t been able to put away any more toward her retirement in ages.
Out of control, her thoughts hurtled into even scarier territory and left her pondering what character flaw made her feel unfulfilled and had her constantly reaching for a new success. Was it because she had no family, no husband or children on which to spend her energy? Was that why she often found herself involved with the endless crises in Clova’s family? Of course, her history proved that if she hadn’t taken Clova’s troubles upon herself, she would have found someone else’s. When her mother and her friends told her she had to stop trying to solve everyone else’s problems, they were right.
The song ended. The bathwater had grown tepid. She forced herself to climb out. A hot bubble bath had not soothed the aches and pains she felt in every cell. Not only had it been dumb for her to volunteer to help a superior physical specimen such as Dalton built a fence, it had been downright stupid to try to keep up with him. She had never seen a human being work so hard and get so much done in so short a time. He was like a damn machine. Helping him had taken all of the physical strength and willpower she possessed.
But no way would she ever let him know it. Her pride wouldn’t allow it.
She dried her body, pulled on her shorts and T-shirt and smoothed another layer of antibiotic cream on the injury between her brows and antiwrinkle cream on her face, readying for bed. Tomorrow would be an early day. She wished she could beg off, but she had already made appointments to deliver her product and had already made arrangements for Alicia to gather the coming morning’s eggs.
As she snuggled into her bed, a glance at the digital clock on the nightstand told her it wasn’t even nine o’clock. Even if she wanted a social life or a relationship with someone, she had no strength for it. On a great sigh, she closed her eyes.
After a fitful night of bad dreams and snarling stomach, she rose even earlier than usual, showered and shampooed her hair and smoothed a strategic layer of concealer on the bruise between her eyes. Then she dressed in khaki Dockers and a royal blue polo and pulled on her new Justin boots. She was starved. Her stomach was in no shape for coffee, so she took an extra few minutes to make a soft scrambled egg. She overcooked it and it felt like Play-Doh in her mouth, but it, a slice of toast and a glass of milk quelled the blistering fire inside her stomach.
Reaching the ranch before daylight, she killed the headlights as she turned into the long driveway, not wanting to wake Dalton and have him to deal with this morning. The hens would be roosting yet, but she gave the chicken yard a cursory look, then let her eyes and thoughts dwell on the coop behind which the snake had been hiding. Reliving the incident for a few seconds in her mind, she felt a shudder pass over her.
But dammit, she had to forget it. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to go forward and function. Making a renewed effort to put the incident behind her, she turned her back on the chicken yard and started toward the egg-washing room.
When she opened the refrigerator, she saw four baskets full of eggs. So Dalton really had gathered them. She just now remembered that he said he would. The surprise made a tiny smile crook her lips.
But alas, she didn’t put unwashed eggs in the refrigerator. Now the whole interior would have to be washed with disinfectant soap, but no way would she look a gift horse in the mouth by criticizing him. She wrote a note to Alicia telling her to wash the fresh eggs left in the refrigerator along with those she would gather this morning and to wash the inside of the refrigerator before putting the clean eggs inside. Poor kid. She would earn her pay today, but the job had to be done. No way would Joanna risk delivering bacteria-contaminated eggs. She decided she would pick up a special gift for Alicia today in Lubbock or Amarillo.
Since Walsh’s Naturals had no refrigeration unit on the pickup and could ill afford to buy one, Joanna used plastic thermal coolers and frozen blue ice blocks to keep the eggs cool during transportation. So far, that method had worked just fine, so long as she wasted no time. She began to load her pickup bed with the coolers filled with cartons of eggs.
Dalton stood in the dark in the dining room, watching Joanna load some kind of boxes into her truck bed. If he were a gentleman, he would go out and help her. But no one had accused him of being a gentleman in years.
She hadn’t mentioned yesterday that she would show up here before daylight. Hearing her truck engine and the crunch of the tires on the gravel driveway—and being half awake anyway thinking about Lane and the new addition to the family—he had gotten up to see who might be driving in so early.
Lane wasn’t the only one who had been in his head all night. Joanna had been there, too. The fantasy of her naked body had darted in and out of his semiconsciousness, and he felt as if he’d had a hard-on all night. But his thoughts of Joanna were more complicated than those base urges. He kept mulling over her frank honesty, how easy he found her company, her willingness to work at something that had no benefit to her personally. She aroused his emotions in ways he hadn’t yet defined, and he couldn’t decide if he felt safe being around her this morning.
Or any morning until he figured out just what the hell it was that caused her to pique his interest. Jesus Christ, the only common ground between them was her connection to his mother and the ranch. Seeing the shape she was in when she left last night, he had been concerned about her, sure. But this morning, couldn’t he be content with just knowing that she was okay?
“Well, shit,” he grumbled in answer to the question. He went back to the bedroom, slipped his feet into his boots and stabbed his arms into a Windbreaker.
Shoving his hands into his jeans pockets against the chill, he walked up to the door of her egg-washing room. “Hey.”
She startled, her eyes flew wide and her palm slapped against her chest. “God, you scared me.”
“What’s going on?”
“Loading up. It’s delivery day.”
“No shit? You really sell these things, huh?”
“Cut it out. I’m in no mood for teasing. Not that you care, but I’ve got two new customers.”
“How many eggs you hauling out of here?”
“A hundred forty dozen.”
Surprised at the number, he whistled. “Overworked chickens, I’d say. PETA’s gonna to be after your ass.”
A stab from her pretty green eyes came back at him. Not liking the hostile look, he glanced away. “So how’d you do last night, after the snake?”
“Fine,” she said.
In a pig’s eye, he thought, taking note of the dark circles and puffiness under her eyes. He knew what happened to the body when someone had the shit scared out of him. He had seen plenty of people coming off an adrenaline high and had some experience himself.
“I measured that sumbitch,” he said. “Four feet, eight inches. I skinned him. I’m gonna find somebody to make me a fancy hatband.”
“Need to show off your trophy, eh? How macho.” She tapped her breastbone with her clenched fist and said in a gravelly voice, “Look at me. Big snake killer.”
He stared at her a few beats. Damn her, anyway. He was trying to be nice, and here she was being a horse’s ass. “You know, I came out here to help you load whatever it is you’re loading, but—”
“Okay, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so short. It’s just that I’ve got a long to-do list today and I’m trying to get organized. I appreciate your help. I appreciate all help, believe me.”
“Okay,” he muttered, still miffed. He scanned the array of boxes sitting on the ground near the truck bed and realized for the first time that they were thermal coolers. “You deliver eggs in camping coolers?” He couldn’t keep incredulity out of his tone.
“Don’t criticize. It’s what I can afford. They work fine. I just stack them in the back of the pickup. They aren’t heavy.”
They began to work together lifting the coolers into
the truck bed. “So who’re you selling all these friggin’ eggs to anyway?” In LA, he could think of dozens of places that sold free-range eggs to consumers, but West Texas wasn’t LA.
“Health-food markets, mostly. But a couple of restaurants called me last week. They have free-range eggs on their menu. West Texas diners are finally catching up with the rest of the country.”
“Humph. I’ve always figured that organic stuff was bullshit. You want the truth? I doubt if most people can tell the difference.”
She gave him an exaggerated gasp as she slid a cooler into the bed. “Have you eaten an egg from your mom’s refrigerator since you’ve been here?”
“Well, sure.”
“And you can’t tell the difference between what you’re eating here and what you get from the grocery store?”
Well, maybe a little. He shook his head. “Nope. Can’t say that I can.”
“You’re impossible.” She shoved the last cooler into the truck bed, lifted the tailgate and slammed it, then dusted her palms. “There. All done. Thanks again for your help.”
She walked around to the driver’s side and climbed into the truck. Left with the choice of standing behind her truck and risking her backing over him, or following her to her door, he followed her to her door.
She closed the door and buzzed down the window. “Listen, when you go see your mom today, tell her I’ll drop by when I get back.”
He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. “Okay. Who’s gonna gather up your eggs this morning?”
“Alicia. Please don’t be mean to her.”
She fired the engine, obviously eager to leave. And that made him anxious for some damn reason. He raised his voice to be heard above the roar of her truck engine. “I told you before, I’m not mean to people.” Without a reply, she put the truck in reverse. That goofy part of himself he didn’t understand wanted her to stay. “You coming out here this evening to gather more eggs?”
