Cowboy Summer

by Joanne Kennedy

  “I have to warn you, we usually clean the ductwork at the end of summer.” She flicked a switch. “It gets kind of stale.”

  Closing her eyes briefly, she said a little prayer and was rewarded when the Beast obediently rumbled to life.

  But oh, the smell! Jess didn’t remember it ever being this bad. Maybe something had died in the ductwork. Maybe several somethings. Maybe an entire pack of especially filthy rats.

  That was actually the best-case scenario. Once, a whole gaggle of bats had flown into a vent and been unable to escape. One of the worst memories of her childhood was watching her father, her brother, and Cade fishing their small, winged bodies out of the Beast with a coat hanger. They’d had foxy faces and creepy little hands, and they’d smelled a lot like this.

  The Dudette gagged as she stumbled up the stairs and out of the hatch. “What eees that?”

  Molly stumbled up the stairs after her, and Jess heard them coughing outside. Beside her, the Dude scrunched up his face.

  “I’m not sure I’d describe that as stale,” he said. “It’s more like—you sure something didn’t die in there?”

  Jess hit the off button, hoping the smell would go away, but it lingered in the air. Worse yet, the Beast had probably pumped its foul breath into every room upstairs. They’d have to air the place out as soon as the buyers left.

  Actually, this might be a good thing. She’d been tempted to give these people a good dose of ranch reality, and here it was. Maybe it would drive them off.

  The Dude, however, was made of surprisingly stern stuff. He circled the Beast, sniffing now and then as he poked his fingers into various openings. Like a bloodhound, he seemed to be following his nose, snuffling around the intake filter, sniffing every riveted joint. Bending at the waist, he circled the machine, his nose seeming to lead him closer and closer to the floor until he knelt on the concrete, thrust his nose into the space beneath the monster, and gave a mighty sniff!

  Jess had to bite her lips to keep from laughing as he scrambled back, his substantial derriere bobbing in the air.

  “There’s something there!” He paused to rub his nose. “Under-cough-neath. I saw it.” He grimaced. “It had a face.”

  “Okay.” Jess hoped he wouldn’t ask her to look. “We’ll, um, have to check that out.”

  “You ladies shouldn’t do it,” said the Dude. “Maybe call that young man next door.”

  Yeah, maybe not.

  Jess almost asked him to take care of it. He was a man, after all, and he had said the ladies shouldn’t deal with it.

  But he was already halfway up the stairs, rubbing his nose. “Golly, I wish I hadn’t smelled that. Not sure I’ll ever forget it. Trapped in my—my mucous memory.”

  Jess had kept a straight face through this whole ordeal, but that put her over the top, and she burst out laughing. The Dude looked hurt for a moment, then joined in with a good-natured chuckle.

  Dang, she was starting to like this guy.

  The Dudette came around the side of the house with Molly.

  “The smell, what was it?” she asked.

  “Dunno, but when I looked at it, it looked back.” The Dude shook his head. “Something crawled underneath, I believe. Died. Been there a while.”

  The Dudette was getting paler by the minute.

  “I suggested they bring that young man over to take care of whatever it is,” the Dude explained. “Not a job for ladies.”

  “That is a good idea,” the Dudette said.

  Jess had had enough. These people had intruded on her day uninvited, and now they wanted her to invite her ex-boyfriend, ex-lover, ex-everything over to her house, just so they could see some hideous thing that was lurking beneath the furnace.

  No way.

  She opened her mouth to object, but Molly beat her to the punch.

  “Oh, you mean Cade?” Molly asked.

  Jess folded her arms over her chest, ready to enjoy the pleasure of hearing her stepmother tell these folks they could forget about dragging Cade into their uninvited visit.

  “I already called him,” Molly said. “He’s on his way.”

  Chapter 34

  Heading for the Diamond Jack, Cade wondered what Molly needed. He had to come, she’d said. Something had died.

  She’d sounded breathless but not agonized, so he assumed it wasn’t Heck. Maybe it was Jess’s baby calf. If so, Jess might need comforting.

  Yeah, sure. And he’d be the person she’d turn to, right?

  Wrong.

  But in spite of all his resolutions, something stupid inside him longed to see her. Every cool gaze, every polite word, was a stab in the heart, but he wanted her anyway.

  There was a rental car in front of the barn. Cade hoped to God it wasn’t the Dude and his wife, but Molly had said something had died. Maybe the Dudette had been stomped to death by a horse. The woman didn’t mean to maltreat them, but horses didn’t mean to fight back, either. It would be divine retribution.

  “Down here,” Molly called when he rapped on the screen door. “We’re in the basement.”

  Cade poked his head downstairs to see Jess, the Dude, and the Dudette standing around the furnace. They’d called it the Beast when they were kids, and right now, it smelled like one. The whole house did.

  Oh no. Not bats again. Dead bats make Jess cry.

  He remembered the tiny bodies, the gaping mouths, the once-bright eyes dull in death, and shuddered. Why did guys always have to deal with this sort of stuff? It wasn’t like testosterone made you immune to sorrow, and it sure as hell wasn’t making him immune to the awful smell.

  Trying not to breathe, he headed downstairs.

  The room was warm. They must have had the heater on, and whatever was inside it had cooked a bit. The scent was so dense in the air, he could taste it. He wished he could spit.

  “It’s under the furnace.” The Dude was pinching his nose closed and sounded like Bob Dylan. “I could see it, but I couldn’t reach it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Not sure. It’s got fur, though. And it’s smiling.”

  Glancing around for a tool, Cade found a manure shovel leaning against the wall near the hatch. Shoving the blade beneath the heater, he realized he was just pushing the thing deeper beneath the Beast, but by turning the shovel over and scraping, he managed to haul out a grinning creature, flat as a doormat and dead as a stomped bug.

  “Raccoon.” He shook his head. “What’s a raccoon doing in here?”

  “Oh no.” The Dudette had edged down the stairs after Cade. Now, she approached the flattened corpse, clutching Cade’s shoulder so she could peer at it. “The poor theeng.”

  Cade shoved the blade of the shovel under the flattened corpse and lifted it. The paws stuck out in all directions, as if the critter was playing airplane. It had been dead for a long, long time.

  “He must haff crawled under there to die,” the Dudette said.

  “Yeah.” Cade kept his face somber. “Maybe he committed suicide because all the other raccoons teased him about the tire tracks on his back.” He glanced around the room with a hard, accusing gaze. “Something’s going on here. Somebody’s playing games.” He let his gaze linger on Jess, who was leaning against the wall, studying her fingernails. “And I bet I know who it is.”

  * * *

  Jess knew exactly what Cade was thinking. She’d made that dumb joke about giving the buyers a dose of ranch reality, and then she’d accidentally shown them poor Hermy’s behind. Cade probably thought she’d done that on purpose, which meant he thought she’d put the road-killed raccoon under the heater, too.

  She narrowed her eyes. Cade himself could have done it, just to keep her around so he could make more stupid excuses for having slept with his ex-wife. But how would he know to put it under the heater? And when would he have been in the basement?
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  Sighing, she watched him carry the crispy critter up the steps and head for the dumpster behind the shed.

  “Put that manure shovel in the barn, okay?” she called after him. “I’ve been looking for it.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  She didn’t deserve his sarcasm. She was working her tail off, fixing the house so her dad could sell it. It wasn’t what she wanted, but she knew it was the best solution to her family’s problems. She was staying here to help, endangering a promotion she desperately wanted, so it ticked her off that he could accuse her of playing juvenile pranks that went against her dad’s best interests.

  Molly cleared her throat and gave the buyers her most winsome smile. “Would you folks like some iced tea?”

  Say no, say no, say no. Jess wanted them gone, but the Dude gave Molly a grin.

  “That would be just fine,” he said.

  The Dudette rubbed her nose. “Can we sit outside?”

  “We could sit in the gazebo,” Molly said.

  The gazebo, built by some imaginative Bailey around the turn of the century, had been another of Dot Bailey’s favorite places, probably because it was loaded with Victorian curlicues and performed no ranch-related function at all. Like Dot herself, it was merely decorative.

  “That would be perfect.”

  Jess had crossed the gazebo off her list just the other day, slapping a coat of white paint over the wood so it was ready for its close-up.

  “Oh, yes, so pretty. We might put a hot tub in eet.”

  The Dudette tripped girlishly down the porch steps and headed for the gazebo. Apparently, she expected Molly to get the tea on her own, like a servant. Jess loaded glasses with ice while the Dude poked around the kitchen, running the water and watching it drain, testing the disposal, flicking the stove on and off.

  His examination was interrupted by a shrill scream from outside. Jess felt like she was having an Amber Lynn flashback, but this was real, it was now, and it was coming from the gazebo.

  “Hermy!” the Dudette shrieked. “Oh, Hermy, no!”

  Great. The missing calf had probably wandered off to die, and the Dudette had found her second corpse of the day. Jess was all for ranch reality, but even she thought that might be a little harsh.

  She raced outside, fighting tears and cursing herself for loving the doomed little calf. Cade was right behind her, along with the Dude, who was huffing and puffing like a steam train.

  “I’m coming, princess-darling-sweetheart! I’m coming!” he shouted.

  Jess braced herself for the sight of a deceased Hermy. The little guy had a trusting way of looking up at her while he took his bottle, batting the longest eyelashes of any animal she’d ever seen.

  She reached the gazebo and found that Hermy wasn’t dead at all; he was very much alive, standing spraddle-legged in the center of the gazebo. He eyed Jess shyly, blinking those long-lashed eyes like a shy but proud student presenting an art project.

  He’d certainly been, um, productive. The gazebo was polka-dotted with proof the calf had been there quite some time.

  Jess couldn’t help it; her eyes teared up to see her little friend still alive. Kneeling in one of the few poop-free spots, she opened her arms. The spindly calf stumbled toward her, bawling pitifully and butting her with his head.

  “Oh, Hermy, you’re okay!” She looked up at the Dudette, whose mouth hung slack, maybe in horror, maybe in preparation for another operatic scream. “He must have wandered out to look for his mother and gotten stuck in here. Cows normally won’t go up stairs, because they sure don’t like to go down. It looks like he’s been here all day.”

  The Dudette wrinkled her nose at the poop-spattered floor. “He ees still sick.”

  “Actually, he’s getting better.” Jess pointed at a mini cow patty near her foot. “You see? His stool is actually formed. It was runny before.”

  The Dudette blanched, and Jess remembered most people weren’t used to analyzing animal poop. But it was an important way to gauge their health. Ranch reality struck again.

  “There is so much,” the Dudette said. “And it steenks.”

  Jess had to admit she was right. Normally, the vine-covered gazebo smelled like honeysuckle, but today it smelled strongly of slightly sick cow. That wasn’t quite as bad as eau de deceased raccoon, but it came pretty close.

  “Mrs. Swammett?” Molly was doing her best to keep smiling. “How about we have our tea on the porch? There’s a lovely swing up there, with a honeysuckle vine. It’s the nicest place to sit on a summer day.”

  “Long as there is no steenk.” The woman tottered back to the house in her high-heeled cowboy boots, her face twisted in a grimace.

  Cade stuck his head into the gazebo and frowned. “What a mess.”

  “I know,” Jess said. “I just painted it, too.”

  Cade shot her a level stare. “Surprised you’d put him in here, then.”

  She felt heat flush her cheeks. “I didn’t put him here. I was looking for him when they showed up.”

  “Right,” he said. “And that raccoon crawled into your basement to die.”

  Jess scowled. “You know what? You’ve got a lot of nerve, accusing me of lying. You had your ex-wife at your house for what, a week? And you didn’t tell me. And now…”

  He was halfway to his truck before she finished speaking. She wanted to chase after him, make him understand, but why bother? If he thought she was lying—when she’d never lied to him, ever—what did that say about him?

  She’d be a fool to believe nothing had happened between him and Amber Lynn. He’d said it himself—men are weak.

  Well, she was strong. And she wasn’t going to go chasing after Cade Walker.

  Not anymore.

  Chapter 35

  Jess found the Dude on the front porch staring up at a colony of wasps that was constructing a multifamily condo in the eaves.

  “I swear that wasn’t there yesterday,” she groaned.

  He grinned. “Guess the wildlife’s not always cooperative. The swing’s purty, though.”

  She flashed the Dude a quick smile. Despite the phony western lingo, he was a pretty nice guy.

  And he was right. The swing, also newly painted, looked fresh and clean against the green of the garden. Dangling honeysuckle issued a fragrant invitation to sit down and swing a spell.

  “Try it out, honey,” he said to the Dudette.

  “No, thenk you.” The Dudette still hadn’t unwrinkled her nose. “I could get a spleenter. They can get infected, you know. If they are dirty.”

  The look she shot Jess was hurt and accusing, as if Jess were somehow responsible for all the cow manure in the world.

  Well, good. The woman didn’t like dirt, and that meant she wouldn’t like ranching. That meant she wouldn’t buy the Diamond Jack, which meant Jess would never have to see her again. Settling onto the swing herself, Jess pushed off with one toe to make it sway in its restful, easy rhythm. The chains creaked, and the sound, the scents, and the motion brought her back to the magical evenings she’d spent there with Cade. The thought forced her to gulp down a sudden sob, and she struggled to steer her train of thought onto another track.

  As if answering her prayer, Molly burst from the doorway and nearly dropped a tray of glasses.

  “Don’t sit there, Jess. Let Mrs. Swammett.”

  “She doesn’t want to get a spleenter.”

  Smiling, Jess pushed off with her toe again, then lurched and gripped the seat as a loud crack! tore the silence. The world tipped sideways, and the far side of the swing seemed to rise in slow motion as her own seat sank. Her brain ground slowly toward understanding as the sound of splintering wood filled the air.

  Glancing up, she saw the bolt that had been holding the chain above her head had torn from the wood. The other bolt held fast, but it was taking the e
ntire weight of the swing—and of Jess. Time seemed to slow as the beam that held it tore from the ceiling and the whole porch began to collapse.

  Acting on instinct, Jess grabbed the Dudette’s arm and flung her down the steps, where she landed in a heap of angles and elbows. Jess dove after her but was too late to avoid the hail of wreckage. Covering her head with her arms, she felt the sharp broken end of a board slash her forearm. When she pulled her arm down to assess the damage, a beam crashed down on her unprotected head.

  Crawling on her hands and knees, she tumbled down the steps and crab-walked backward across the lawn. The Dudette was already on her feet, her perfect face stretched into a panicked grimace.

  “Zis place is falling down! How can you dare to sell zis house? Eet smells and eet is dangerous!”

  “Now, honey,” said the Dude. “The young lady saved you, and now she’s hurt.”

  “Oh. She deed?” Margo’s face immediately smoothed into its customary perfection, and she gave Jess a quick, flashing smile. “Zenk you.”

  Jess, freezing cold despite the summer day, hugged herself and shivered. That made her brain rattle inside her skull, and it hurt. She looked around. There was a strange quality to the light. Had some sort of storm struck? Everything was flickering.

  “Oh no.” The voice was wobbly and weird, like a slowed-down tape, but the soft hands that stroked her hair were familiar. “She’s bleeding.”

  Molly. It’s Molly. Everything will be okay now.

  Gingerly, Jess touched the back of her head. Something felt wet and slick, and when she looked at her hand, it was coated with a bright-red glove of blood.

  Her head grew hot, too hot, and the world rushed away as if she were falling down a well. Bits and pieces of the ranch streamed past while her vision narrowed to a tiny hole. Her ears filled with static, and the voices around her gabbled like geese.

  “Run upstairs, hon.” Only Molly’s voice rang strong and clear. “There’s a first-aid kit hanging over the toilet.”

  Jess pictured the plastic box with a red cross on it that had hung in that spot, unused, as long as she’d been alive. The Band-Aids would probably shatter at a touch, and the gauze would turn to dust in their hands.