Big Chance Cowboy

by Teri Anne Stanley

  “No kidding,” Lizzie said, impressed with her mom’s ability to assimilate random information. (Not gossip, of course. If it had been gossip, Lizzie might have heard about all this before now.)

  “Nope,” Mom said. “And Faye said the trailer’s the biggest eyesore in the county. That Mitch painted it orange and blue for the Houston Astros, and he didn’t do a very good job.”

  Wow. So Mitch owned the farm. Was that going to make it harder or easier to buy the property? She’d just to have go find out. “Come on, Loretta. We’re going for a ride.”

  Chapter 27

  “God damn it!” The first thing Adam encountered when he walked into the living room was a pile of dog crap, which was bad. What made it worse was that the pile happened to be on his dead grandmother’s antique rag rug, which he’d rescued from the horse shed. He’d have to get it cleaned. Again.

  “What’s wrong, Sar—” Jake’s voice cut off when he saw Adam standing on one leg inside the doorway. He began to back up the way he’d come, but the protesting squeak of a puppy had him toppling forward.

  “Jake!” Adam forgot about his offended foot and ran across the room to keep Jake from slamming face-first into the coffee table. He barely managed to get the two of them onto the couch without landing in any more crap or causing new injuries. He pulled off his shoe and held it poop side up while he regained his equilibrium.

  “Oops.” Jake smiled his half smile and looked at the nasty footprints stretching across the room. “I’ll clean that.”

  “What the hell, man?” A puppy crawled from beneath the couch and climbed on top of two others napping on a sweatshirt. One of Adam’s sweatshirts, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  “They’re gettin’ big, aren’t they, Sar’nt?” Jake lifted the nearest puppy.

  “Where’s their mother?” Adam asked, as though he could insist Loretta make her children behave.

  “Lizzie has her.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “I guess there wasn’t much blood in your brain this morning, huh, Sar’nt?” Jake asked, referring to the way he’d almost caught Adam and Lizzie in the act.

  Talbott clomped down the stairs, oblivious to everything but his phone, until the stench hit him. “Damn, Hoss, you forget where the outhouse is?” The look on Talbott’s face might have been comical if Garth or Travis—Adam couldn’t tell them apart—hadn’t just left another deposit next to the stepped-on one.

  “Have you guys seen any of these Facebook posts from Zimmerman?” Talbott asked, holding up his phone.

  “Man, I barely use my phone as a phone,” Adam said. “I don’t even think I have that app on mine. What’s going on?” He looked at the screen Talbott handed him, Jake peering over his shoulder.

  There were a bunch of animated gifs showing things blowing up, cartoon characters running off cliffs or into walls. “So?”

  “Don’t you think that’s strange?” Talbott asked. “No pictures of his wife and kid, no cute cat memes. Not even a political rant. I don’t know, but this stuff seems weird.”

  “So call him,” Adam suggested, hoping Talbott was reading too much into things.

  “I did,” Talbott said. “He’s not answering.”

  “He texted me last night,” Jake offered, pulling out his phone and scrolling through. “Here.” He handed it to Adam.

  The last message had come in at three a.m.

  Zimm: You up?

  Jake: No

  Zimm: Then why did you answer

  Jake: I was sleeping, but I’m awake now because you woke me up

  Zimm: Fuck it never mind

  Jake: What do you want?

  No response.

  “Why didn’t he answer you? What do you think he wanted?” Adam handed the phone to Talbott so he could read the exchange.

  Jake shrugged. “I think he was…drunk texting and went to sleep.”

  Talbott handed the phone back to Jake, his frown deepening. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  Neither did Adam. “Why don’t you send him another text?” he suggested to Jake. “Find out how he’s doing.”

  “What should I say?”

  “Ask him where he’s getting his crazy Facebook shit,” Talbott offered.

  Adam didn’t have a better idea, other than coming right out and asking the guy if he was coming unglued, which didn’t seem like a good idea.

  Jake moved his thumbs over the screen while Adam got to his feet. He found a roll of paper towels and spray cleaner under the kitchen sink and then tiptoed across the living room to start cleaning up after the puppies. “These dogs have got to go,” he muttered as he collected another turd.

  Jake glanced up, stricken. “Max says he got them from a site called ‘The Man Left Behind.’”

  “Oh hell,” Talbott said. “I heard about that. It’s like a message board or chat room for veterans who are thinking about suicide. And it’s not to talk them out of it.”

  “Jesus.” Adam scrubbed both his hands through his hair but couldn’t wash away the dread tightening his scalp. A few violent images didn’t necessarily mean Zimmerman was in trouble, but if he’d been going to pro-suicide websites, he could be in a dark, dark place.

  No one spoke for a long moment.

  “You should call him,” Adam said.

  “Me?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah, man. You have the best relationship with him.”

  Jake shook his head. “Not me. I don’t…I won’t say the right thing.”

  “We’re right here next to you,” Talbott said.

  Looking doubtful, Jake pressed the buttons.

  They watched the phone as though it were a live bomb with a short fuse.

  “Yeah.” The call was answered.

  Jake put the phone to his ear. “Hey, Zimm. We want to know if you’re okay…me and Sar’nt Collins and Talbott.”

  Adam could hear the response from where he stood three feet away. “You’re talking about me? What the hell for?” Zimm spat.

  Jake looked to Adam and Talbott, uncertainty creasing his forehead.

  “Gimme that.” Talbott grabbed for the phone and spoke into it. “This is Talbott. We were talking about you because you’re posting messed-up shit on Facebook. What did you think would happen?”

  Adam couldn’t hear any distinct words after that, but Talbott said a lot of things like “Uh-huh” and “Yeah, I get it” and “No, man, don’t think like that.”

  Meanwhile, Adam sat down on the floor, where a puppy—Faith?—crawled into his lap while D-Day leaned against his shoulder. He fondled the little one’s ears and considered what was happening on the other end of that phone line. He had a feeling he could fill in the blanks very easily. Zimmerman was lost. He didn’t know how to be around people. Nothing made sense except the crap that pissed him off. He couldn’t sleep most nights unless he took a pill, drank himself blind, or worked himself to exhaustion.

  Talbott was doing a little more talking now. “You know, we’re doing okay here. We’ve got all these dogs, man. You’ve got to see them. I don’t care if you’re a cat person. You’d love these little fur balls.”

  Zimmerman had come home to a wife, a new baby, and a job at the family trucking company. He had a big family in Indianapolis, and while overseas, they’d all written him almost every day, sending him emails with stupid-ass—but admittedly funny—cat pictures.

  If a guy with everything going for him couldn’t keep his shit together, what hope was there for the rest of them?

  “Seriously, man. You’ve got to come down for a few days. Take a break… Yeah, maybe your wife could come, too? Okay, yeah, maybe she needs a break from you. Whatever.”

  What? Talbott was inviting more desperate people to the ranch. Adam’s heart felt like jungle drums, beating in his chest, faster and louder, warning of danger. “Damn it,
Talbott,” he began, his annoyance loud and clear, but Talbott just turned his back and continued to talk to Zimmerman.

  “Yeah. Call me back as soon as you get a chance. We’ll figure something out.”

  Frustration, fear, and helplessness pushed Adam to his feet, and he headed for the front door as Talbott ended the call.

  “Where you going, Sar’nt?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He stepped over a puppy on his way to the door and, God damn it, almost stepped in another pile of crap. “Jake, it’s time for these dogs to find new homes.”

  He ignored the stricken look on Jake’s face as he pointed a finger at Talbott. “And you. Hear this. I’m not running a halfway house for broken-down soldiers who can’t keep their shit together.”

  * * *

  Lizzie didn’t have any trouble finding Mitch Babcock’s single-wide mobile home that probably hadn’t been mobile since it left the factory, at least thirty years ago. It was, indeed, blue and orange, but there was something decidedly not cheerful about the garish colors. They were almost aggressive, she decided.

  A dented white pickup sat next to the sagging steps, and she pulled her car in behind it, under the unenthusiastic shade of a scrubby-looking pine. Loretta was curled into a ball in the foot well of the passenger seat.

  “How can you sleep like that? Wouldn’t you rather sit on the seat?” Lizzie asked but got no response.

  She made sure the windows were rolled down before turning off the ignition. Somewhere a dog barked, a lonely sound. A whisper of apprehension skittered over her skin.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have come out here alone, but she’d known Mitch in high school. He was a spoiled jerk, but she didn’t remember being intimidated by him. Still, as she approached the front door and looked for a clean place to knock, she wished she’d coaxed Loretta to come with her.

  She found a spot, knocked, and waited. She was about to give up when she heard movement inside.

  “Hang on, damn it,” growled a voice from the other side of the door as it creaked open. “Yeah?” The person who stood blinking out at her only vaguely resembled the Mitch Babcock Lizzie remembered.

  This man had the same ultrafine blond hair, though instead of being professionally cut and styled, it was greasy and flopped over his eyebrows. The whites of his blue eyes were streaked with red, and his face—from what she could see, his whole body, really—was puffy.

  Mitch looked Lizzie up and down, grinned, and wet his lips. “Hey, darlin’. What’s your name? Did Jorge send you?”

  “No, Mitch, I’m—”

  “I don’t normally like so much meat on the bones of my dates, but you look kinda high class.”

  Dear God, did he think she was a sex worker?

  “I’m Lizzie Vanhook,” she said. Her phone rang, and she hit the button to send the call to voicemail. “Remember me from high school?”

  His expression changed then, surprise replacing lust, followed by confusion. “I was just kiddin’ about that Jorge thing,” he said as he straightened. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I don’t have much to do in Big Chance anymore. What brings you all the way out here?”

  He looked toward her car, then scanned behind her, as though she might have someone hiding in the bushes on the other side of the road. Apparently satisfied she was alone, he stood back and opened the door wider. “Come on in.” The odor of unwashed feet and stale beer wafted out of the humid darkness.

  Lizzie shook her head. “No, thanks. I…my dog’s in the car. She’ll freak out if she can’t see me.”

  “I don’t see a dog,” Mitch said.

  “She’s lying down, but believe me, she can see me.” Hopefully. “So anyway, Mitch, I moved back to Big Chance a couple of months ago and was surprised to hear you’d moved back, too,” she started.

  “Yeah. Sometimes things just happen that way.” He ran a hand through his stringy hair, but it didn’t help. “This dump is my cousin’s place, you know,” he said, “I’m just staying here until my condo’s ready.”

  Or maybe he didn’t have anywhere else to go. “Is that right?” Lizzie asked, going along with his narrative.

  “What are you doing these days?” Mitch asked her, as though they’d run into each other in the produce aisle.

  “I’m working for my dad. Doing real estate. And I’m here because I want to talk to you about that land you own. The Mill Creek farm.”

  “Really?” His eyes took on a beady quality, making him look like an enormous white rat. “What about the farm?”

  “I’m interested in buying that property—well, a group of us are interested—to create a new outdoor multiuse park.”

  “Oh, well,” he said. “Aren’t we fancy?”

  Lizzie ignored the sarcasm and said, “We’ve been trying to find the owner for a while, because there were some problems with the paperwork, and we didn’t know it belonged to you.”

  Mitch shrugged. “Well, you found me now.”

  “So I want to know if you’re interested in selling that land,” she said.

  “Well, let me think a minute.” His thinking seemed to involve staring at Lizzie’s boobs.

  She refused to do him the honor of crossing her arms over her chest, but she did turn slightly and brought her notepad up to use as a shield of sorts.

  “How much are you willing to pay?” he asked.

  “Not a lot,” she told him honestly. “We’re working with a very tight budget.”

  “That’s too bad,” Mitch said, shaking his head in a poor approximation of sympathy. “I’ve already had an offer on that land. Big development company wants to give me half a mil for it.”

  Lizzie coughed. “That’s, um, surprising. It’s kind of out of the way. What kind of development company?”

  Mitch’s sideways grin was nasty. “I’m obligated not to talk about it—confidentiality agreement, you know.” His eyes raked over her body again. “But if you want to come inside and have a drink, I might be convinced to give you more information. I bet those lips of yours will feel real good coaxing stuff out of me.”

  Lizzie was off that porch and away from Mitch’s disgusting presence so fast, she barely bothered with a seat belt before putting her car in gear.

  The moment she was out of the drive, Loretta raised her head from the foot well, turning her one good eye to look at Lizzie as if to ask, “Is it safe to get up now?”

  “I think we’ve lost our park before we even had it,” Lizzie told Loretta, who tilted her head sympathetically.

  It wasn’t until she was most of the way home, at a stop sign at the turn for Wild Wager Road, that she bothered to check her phone for messages.

  “Hey, Lizzie, this is Rob Chance. The veterinarian? Yeah. So my cousin Joe said you might know of some property that would be a good fit for me. I’m interested in expanding my practice to large animals and could use a place not too far from town, with enough room for a barn or two, some paddock space, but not necessarily grazing land.”

  Well, didn’t that just provide the icing on her afternoon? Someone who wanted to look at Adam’s ranch. She’d call Dr. Chance back later. Right now, she’d take Loretta home, tell Adam about how she wasn’t going to be able to get her park land after all, and by the way, she had a possible buyer for his ranch.

  The sun chose that moment to slide behind a cloud.

  Chapter 28

  Adam’s mood hadn’t improved much in the hour since he’d been chased out of his own house by puppies and assholes, but at least it wasn’t much worse.

  Twilight pushed the last rays of sun behind the clouds lining the horizon, and night creatures began to stir. There was a thick, heavy texture to the night, and Adam suspected a storm was brewing. They were due. It hadn’t rained in weeks. The air smelled of dried earth and dead grass—sure signs that summer had peaked and there was nothing left bu
t to survive another month and hope to be out of here by fall.

  Maybe once he’d gotten shit settled here, he’d head to, hell, Maine. Eat blueberries and lobster and look at the leaves, then hibernate for the winter. As long as he didn’t have to stay here in Big Chance, trying to make amends and not ruin anything else.

  Headlights cut through the deepening dusk, and Lizzie’s car appeared, windows down and radio blaring some sort of ass-kicking done-me-wrong song. Lizzie sang along at the top of her lungs—and so did Loretta. Pit bulls were not bred for their vocal skills, and he refused to pass judgment on Lizzie’s, but just knowing she was here evened out his rough edges. Adam smiled in spite of his crappy mood.

  “Hey,” he said, opening her car door. “Nice duet.”

  Loretta jumped over Lizzie’s lap and into the yard. He should correct that—Loretta needed to wait until she was invited to get out of the car—but something about the tightness of Lizzie’s smile told him not to sweat the small stuff at the moment.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  She blew out a defeated breath. “Guess who owns the Babcocks’ Mill Creek farm?”

  “Who?”

  She looked up at him. “Mitch Babcock.”

  It took a minute for Adam to connect her words to reality. “I thought they sold out and moved away a long time ago.”

  He stepped back as she climbed out of the car. Leaning against its side, she said, “Yeah, well, a lot of people thought they were done with Big Chance. But my dad found some paperwork that shows Mitch’s dad sold it to Mitch for a dollar right before they skedaddled out of town.”

  “So where’s Mitch?”

  “He moved back here not too long ago, and he’s staying in the skeeviest trailer you can imagine out toward Fredericksburg. He looks and smells like he’s been living on Cheetos and vodka. Kind of acts like it, too.”

  “What does that mean? You saw him?”

  She pursed her lips as though to resist a bad taste. “Yeah. I thought—I guess I thought he’d be just dying to sell me the land because he’d somehow become a great guy.”

  Mitch hadn’t been a great guy when they were kids, and Adam didn’t imagine having his family lose everything would have made Mitch suddenly humble and generous. “So what happened?”