Big Chance Cowboy

by Teri Anne Stanley

  She got back in the car, rolled down all the windows, and turned the fan to full blast.

  “Listen,” she told the dog, who leaned over the seat and licked her ear. “I’ll bring you with me. But we’re stopping to get you a bath at the car wash on the way through town right before we go to the vet. Then I’ll find you a new home as soon as possible.”

  The dog barked.

  “No. No dogs for Lizzie. I mean it.”

  * * *

  “Beer, bologna, and white bread. That’s all you’re gettin’?” The middle-aged grocery clerk—her name tag said Juanita—glared at Adam as though he’d personally offended her. “How’s a big boy like you gonna survive on that?”

  Adam fought the urge to wipe away the cold sweat that had broken out along his hairline in spite of the frigid air-conditioning inside the Big Chance Shop-n-Save. He’d about reached his out-in-public time limit. Don’t snap her head off. Just smile politely. She was simply being friendly, in that judge-everything way people had in Big Chance. “Well, ma’am,” he found himself explaining, “it’s just me, and…”

  “Hmmph.” She crossed her ample arms instead of scanning his food items.

  Come on, he silently begged. You don’t really want to see me go into full frontal meltdown, do you? He looked around for a self-checkout, but the store apparently hadn’t been upgraded since he’d left for the army, and it was old then.

  The clerk—Juanita—peered at him now, eyes squinched up to inspect him. “You’re that Collins boy, aren’t you?”

  I used to be. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “I heard you was back. Holed up out there like some kinda hermit on your granddad’s ranch. You know he used to come in here and talk about you like you was the second coming of Patton.”

  He was momentarily stunned that Granddad had spoken of him at all, much less with pride. For Granddad, the greatest praise he’d ever offered Adam was “Well, you didn’t fuck that up too much, I guess.” Maybe it was just as well that his grandfather had lost most of his grip on reality these days, because he wouldn’t even be able to say that much about him anymore.

  Adam told Juanita, “Thank you. That’s nice to hear.”

  She shook her head. “So sorry for how he’s gotten to be. He was a good man in his day.”

  Granddad was something, all right. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  “Your sister’s doing a good job with him, though.”

  “Yes, she is.” Unfortunately for her. The war Emma had fought at home, while Adam was deployed, was as bad as anything he’d suffered overseas, and she wasn’t free yet. If only he’d known how bad things were here, he could have…what? Gotten out sooner? Not reenlisted—twice? He didn’t know if he could do things differently, because until that last mission, finding IEDs with his dog had been the one thing he was good at.

  Now here he was, sweating through his clothes in the grocery store, wanting nothing more than to get back to hiding out in the place he’d avoided for the last twelve years, at least until he could move on again.

  Juanita still hadn’t scanned his loaf of bread or his lunch meat. Or—please, God—the beer. The country music playing on the intercom seemed to get louder, even through the buzzing noise, which Adam knew didn’t exist anywhere but in his head. The sound, always present at a low hum when he was in town, intensified. He inhaled on a count of ten and exhaled.

  “Sooo…” He waved at the supplies, hoping to get checked out and into his truck before his vision narrowed any further.

  “You still in the army?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You were in a long time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Hell, he’d planned to stay in the military until they pried his dog’s leash from his cold, dead hand, but that wasn’t how it had worked out.

  She nodded. “You need some meat. Homer!” she barked over her shoulder at the elderly man standing a few feet away.

  Adam flinched at the volume. Nothing compared to an IED or gunfire but jarring in its own way.

  “Yep?” Homer moved a step closer, tilting his head in Juanita’s direction.

  “Go get some a’ them pork chops, and bring me a couple big Idaho bakers. Oh, and a bag of that salad mix!”

  Homer nodded and shuffled off.

  “Ma’am, I don’t need—”

  “Yes, you do. You can’t keep that fine body strong on nitrates and Wonder Bread.”

  Adam snorted. He wasn’t having any trouble staying in shape out on the ranch. There was enough work to be done that he could sweat from morning until night for a year and not finish all the hammering and scraping and scrubbing.

  “Am I right?” She raised her eyebrows. “You need to keep up your strength.”

  Homer thunked Juanita’s order down on the counter.

  She pushed the twelve-pack toward Homer and said, “Take this beer back to the cooler and bring me a gallon of that sweet tea.”

  “Really, I—” Adam reached for his beer, but the old man was already staggering away under its weight.

  Juanita shook her finger at him. “No ifs, ands, or buts. You get some good food in you.” She stopped then, her eyes wide and sympathetic. “Unless…you don’t have anyone to cook it for you, do you?”

  He assumed she meant a woman. But instead of mustering some righteous feminist indignation on behalf of his sister and all the women he’d ever met, he just felt tired. It was good that he lived alone—no one besides himself to make miserable. “I do know how to cook, Miss Juanita. I don’t do it much, though.”

  Juanita snorted. “That’s ridiculous. What do you eat for breakfast? You’re not buying any oatmeal or even Pop-Tarts.” She held up a hand. “Don’t tell me you eat at that cesspool diner at the truck stop out on 15.”

  “No, ma’am.” He’d tried it once, in the middle of the night, figuring that would be a safe time, fewer people. Something about the vacant, litter-strewn parking lot reminded him a little too much of his time in the desert, though, so he hadn’t been back.

  “Well, that’s good, anyway,” Juanita said. “But you better not be going to that superstore over in Fredericksburg, either. They got radiation in their eggs, you know.”

  “Really?” Adam didn’t mind a little radioactivity. It was a failure to find the right balance of desperation and antianxiety meds that had him stuck buying food in Big Chance instead of going farther away, where no one knew his name or cared what he bought to eat.

  Juanita smiled and slapped the counter. “You know what? You gotta get offa that property. Bein’ alone ain’t healthy. You come on to town some Saturday night. There’s movies in the high school gym, bingo at the Catholic church, and there’s gonna be a big shindig on the Fourth of July in the square. There’ll be a band and dancing and food trucks and everything. There’s all kinds of unmarried women there, just dying for a big strong man to take care of. Some of them girls are divorced, but don’t let that stop you from givin’ ’em a chance. They probably know how to cook, too.”

  “I’ve got a lot of work to do out there at the ranch. It keeps me pretty busy.” And away from town with its memories. Although, if he did wander through the town square one night, he wouldn’t run into anyone he’d thought about over the long nights in the desert. Last he’d heard, anyone was seriously dating some land developer mogul-type and living the big life in Houston.

  Homer returned with the jug of tea, plunking it on the counter next to the paper-wrapped bundle from the butcher and several plastic containers, one containing something green that he leaned to look at—beans?—and one full of coleslaw.

  Juanita nodded. “That’s better.”

  “Can I keep my bologna and bread?” Adam asked. Maybe he could get out of here with his bachelorhood intact if he hurried.

  “Fine. But you better not come back in here and buy more of that crap.”
/>   The chances he’d be back soon were getting slimmer by the minute, and a grab-and-go convenience store diet was looking better.

  He gathered his bags and stepped into the already oppressive early summer afternoon. His white pickup truck sat alone in the parking lot, and only a few cars passed by. Big Chance was still more or less alive—there was someone down near the vet’s office—but most people had the sense to stay in their air-conditioning today. A plastic grocery bag blew from between two buildings and did the twenty-first century tumbleweed thing down Main Street toward him. He put out his foot and caught it on the toe of his boot. He bent over and pulled the plastic free, wadding it up and shoving it in his pocket while keeping an eye on the street. A quiet neighborhood wasn’t any less likely to wield danger than a busy market place, but it was easier to avoid distractions.

  Except for the activity two blocks away, where a woman struggled with what was probably a dog but looked more like an elephant calf. It wasn’t stupid, whatever it was, and it barked in protest. Smelled one veterinarian’s office, smelled them all, it seemed to be saying, and no one ever saw the vet just for the treats and pats on the head. Adam suppressed a pang of longing—dogs had been a big part of his life for as long as he could remember, but the smarter, more experienced part of him was glad he didn’t have the responsibility and problems anymore. The woman shook her head at the dog, a move that seemed familiar. He couldn’t see her face, but when she tripped over the dog, who had stopped to sit in the middle of the sidewalk, there was something about the way she tossed her hair as she laughed that took him back.

  Back to memories of the night before he went to boot camp, when he’d kissed a girl in the dark summer night. Kissed her and touched her and wanted her like he’d never known was possible. He’d never had any doubts about joining the military, wasn’t afraid of basic training, knew how to handle himself, but that night, holding Lizzie Vanhook in the moonlight, he’d felt a trickle of regret and longing for what he was leaving behind.

  A car door slammed nearby, jerking him back to his own space. With a hot prickle of anxiety, Adam shook his head and turned toward his truck. Time to make tracks back to the ranch and get back to work. He’d promised his sister he’d stop and visit Granddad this afternoon, but he’d been in the presence of humanity for long enough.

  He glanced back down the street, but the woman with the dog was gone. Just as well. Lizzie would never have settled for the likes of him, and now he was even less respectable than when he’d been the kid with dog crap on his cowboy boots, who thought this little redneck town was the worst place in the world. He’d had no idea how much worse the outside world could get. As of now, Big Chance was just one more reminder that the kid he’d been hadn’t turned into the man he’d expected.

  Chapter 2

  “Elizabeth Marie! If this thing isn’t out of my house in the next two minutes, I’m going to drag it into the front yard and lasso it to the next car that drives past!”

  Uh-oh. Mom sounded a little…shrill. D-Day, what did you eat now? It might be time to get him out of the house for a while, take him for a ride. Lizzie wanted to look at some of the properties her dad’s real estate agency was listing. Since he didn’t seem to have the energy to think about work right now, she wanted to step up and help.

  She grabbed her car keys, purse, and the leash. “Come here, D-Day!” She headed toward the dining room, hoping the dog had learned his name since the last time she’d tried it, forty-five minutes ago. “Come on, buddy!”

  “Elizabeth…” Mom’s voice was lower now, almost calm, which was possibly even worse.

  “Coming!” She broke into a jog and skidded around the corner to find the source of the chaos. “Come on, D-Day. Let’s go for a ride!”

  But D-Day wasn’t interested in a ride. He wanted in on Mom’s Big Chance Hometown Independence Day planning party, which consisted of seven other local ladies, a pitcher of margaritas, and enough diet-busting food to fill the Astrodome. This last part was clearly what D-Day was most interested in, because he stood perfectly still, his enormous face resting on the edge of the dining room table.

  Meanwhile, her mom’s friends began to gather around Lizzie.

  “Oh, Lizzie, it’s so lovely to see you back in Big Chance,” one woman said. “I’m so sorry things didn’t work out for you in Houston,” she added in a stage whisper. “But don’t worry. You’ll find someone else.”

  Lizzie smiled as politely as she could, desperate to escape the inquisition. She clipped the leash to D-Day’s collar and tugged, but he didn’t move.

  “It’s so nice that you’re willing to help out at the agency until you’re able to settle down,” another woman said.

  Until you find a husband to support you, she knew the woman meant. She didn’t need to settle down for that. “I’m just glad I could be here to help out.” Lizzie gritted her teeth. “Come on, D-Day.”

  He didn’t budge. Worse, he’d locked eyes with Ms. Lucy Chance, supreme goddess of the universe herself. The older woman sat frozen, a half-bitten miniature quiche hanging from her creased, orange lips.

  Seriously? Could he choose a less appropriate target? Ms. Lucy held most of Big Chance, Texas, in the palm of her hand. She had more dirt on the residents than anyone else in the county. She was also the president of the Third Savings Bank of Big Chance (no one knew if there had ever been a first or second), and Third Savings was the only bank in Big Chance. Ms. Lucy knew who charged porn sites to their credit cards and who bought seventy-five boxes of Thin Mints last year from the local Girl Scouts. As far as Lizzie knew, Ms. Lucy didn’t use her power for evil, but the threat was always there, and no one wanted to tip her over the edge.

  “What the tarnation is that?” the old lady whispered, not looking away from the dog.

  “D-Day.” The dog ignored Lizzie and licked his chops, sending a string of drool flying over the crystal dish of trail mix.

  “Good Lord,” Mom swore, swept the bowl out of sight, and grabbed the lemon squares before they got contaminated.

  D-Day seemed to grin at Ms. Lucy. The dog, who might be a Great Dane/buffalo mix, weighed more than Lizzie did, and she was no delicate flower. If she got into a tug of war with him, she’d lose. “Come on, buddy.” She had to get him out of here before something awful happened.

  But then Ms. Lucy asked, “Can I pet him?”

  “Uh…sure.” Lizzie nudged D-Day with her hip, and he obligingly stepped over to the older woman, who reached out to stroke his giant head.

  As a side effect, his back end started wiggling with delight. Hoping to avoid a tail-induced accident, Lizzie said, “D-Day, sit.” At which point he rose onto his hind legs and planted his front paws on either side of Ms. Lucy’s Jackie Kennedy pink skirt.

  “D-Day, no!” She pulled back on the leash as hard as she could without strangling him, but he didn’t move. “D-Day, down!”

  Nothing.

  “Come on, D-Day. Let’s go, big guy. Seriously.” Crap. She’d promised herself she’d never beg a man for anything. Did begging a male dog count? “I’m so sorry, Ms. Lucy. I’ll save you.” Somehow. And then maybe her mother would forgive her for ruining her party, and Lizzie would magically lose thirty pounds and win the lottery.

  Coiling the rope around her fist, she reached for D-Day’s collar, intending to lever his giant body off the woman’s lap and wedge herself between them. But before she could get into position, she heard something.

  A giggle?

  Holy crap.

  Ms. Lucy was laughing while D-Day licked her. And not just her face. He lapped at her from collarbone to hairline, and Ms. Lucy had her hands in the patchy fur around his neck, hugging him.

  Lizzie tried again. “Let’s go, D-Day.”

  “Noooo!” Ms. Lucy begged. “He loves me! He’s just a big old wubba dubba boy, isn’t he?” she asked, kissing D-Day back. Fortunately, she didn’t
seem to be using as much tongue as the dog.

  While Ms. Lucy made googly eyes at D-Day, Mom took Lizzie’s arm and hissed, “You’ve got to get rid of this dog.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m trying to get him to behave. I really am.”

  “I see that, but it’s not working, and he’s simply too much for you to handle.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but the fact was, Mom was right. But who was going to want to adopt a dog with the body of a T. rex and the mindset of a Jack Russell terrier? “I’ll figure something out.”

  “Elizabeth.”

  What now?

  Mom was looking pointedly at D-Day’s underside.

  “Yeah. Okay.” Lizzie prepared to put her weight into moving the dog this time, because she’d seen what Mom was staring at. D-Day was clearly at least as enamored of Ms. Lucy as she was of him, because he was humping the dickens out of her right leg. “Let’s go, dog. I really mean it this time.”

  With a long, lingering look in Ms. Lucy’s direction, D-Day followed Lizzie to her car.

  “What do you say, D-Day? Want to go meet a friend of mine?” Lizzie asked when he’d jumped into the back seat.

  Mom had said Emma Collins-Stern still worked at the Feed and Seed down on Main Street, and Emma’s family had trained police dogs when they were younger. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in person for a decade, Lizzie hoped Emma would help her out. Maybe even let D-Day stay at the ranch for a while.

  Lizzie drove down her parents’ street and turned onto Main, passing the old Dairy Queen, which, along with the Feed and Seed, Todd’s parents had owned, back when he was Adam’s best friend and not Emma’s husband.