Just Down the Road (8 page)

Most folks wouldn’t notice, but she was pretty in her own way.

His kind of pretty, Beau thought as he walked to his car.

S
UNDAY MORNING

S
EPTEMBER
18

T
URNER
R
ANCH

T
INCH
T
URNER SPENT AN HOUR CALMING DOWN A DEVIL
of a mare who’d been in an accident one stormy night a month ago. The truck she was being hauled in jackknifed on a slick road, causing a pileup.

The trucker transporting the horse had bloodied the gray’s neck trying to pull her from the wreck with a chain, and the patrolman on the scene suggested putting her down because the mare was obviously in a great deal of pain.

Lucky for the gray mare, a farmer who knew horses stopped to help. He climbed into the wreckage and blindfolded the horse with his jacket. Unable to see all the flashing lights and lightning, the animal calmed.

The farmer sat beside her stroking the trapped horse’s
neck as she gave birth to a stillborn colt. In the chaos around them, no one noticed. No one cared.

Tinch had heard that it was almost dawn before they freed the mare. She had several deep cuts. For the next week Tinch wasn’t sure where the horse went or how the gray was treated. The vet who finally took care of her said the owner didn’t want to pay and told him to keep the animal. He claimed she wasn’t worth the cost of putting her down.

The vet in Clifton Creek called the vet in Harmony, who e-mailed Tinch and described the problem. Both men knew that Tinch would go get her and bring the mare home. They had a hell of a time getting her into a trailer, but they cared enough to make the effort. The doctor who’d worked on the mare started calling her Stormy, and Tinch barely noticed what her name had been when the vet handed over her papers to him.

Half the horses Tinch kept in his barn belonged to no one, or more accurately to him by default. Tinch wasn’t sure what the gray had been through between the wreck and the day he picked her up, but it must have been horrible because she hated anyone, man or animal, who got near her.

He finally got her in a clean stall, swearing and sweating as much as the horse. “I don’t know if I got enough lifetime left to gentle you, darlin’,” Tinch shouted over her stomping and snorting.

He grabbed the bucket and headed for the wash stand. Popping the snaps on his shirt, he splashed water on his face and chest while the bucket filled.

When the horse kept kicking the sides of the stall, Tinch yelled, “Stop that, darlin’. Nobody’s listening to your rant.” Then in a normal voice, he added, “I know you were expecting the horse whisperer, but I’m the horse yeller.” He raised his voice again. “Stop trying to kick your way out of my barn.”

To his surprise the horse stopped, proving his theory that even horses recognized insanity in humans.

Tinch reached for a towel, but the shelf was empty.
Laundry was never at the top of his to-do list. He shoved his wet black hair back and crammed his hat on, thinking he’d just drip dry. He didn’t have time to go back to the house for a towel.

He looked out the open barn door at what promised to be a warm sunshiny day. As much as he talked to himself and the animals, it was lucky he lived in the country.

The sound of a bell clanging shattered the silence of the morning.

Tinch turned north to the house no more than a shadow hidden behind the dried cornfield.

The clanging came again from the Rogerses’ bell. He’d heard it several times over the years and knew there had to be trouble.

Tinch dropped the bucket and ran for his truck, his mind already full of what-ifs.

Addison could have hurt herself. The house could be on fire. Someone could be robbing the place.

A woman living this far out should own a gun and know how to use it and have a dog, a big one that would bite. Hell, after meeting the doc it might just be easier to tell her to move back to town.

He swung into her driveway and braked, sending mud and rocks flying in every direction. As he jumped out of the cab, he saw her standing on the front porch, dressed in her white lab coat and white slacks. She looked as out of place as a street sign.

“What is it?” he yelled, relieved that she seemed to be in one piece.

“A … a …”

He ran toward her. Whatever had happened must be terrible. She looked like she’d been frightened. Her face was almost as pale as her coat. “What?” he yelled as he reached her.

“A … snake. By my car. I almost stepped on it.”

Tinch slowed, took a breath. Just a snake. “Did he strike? Was it a rattler?” If she’d been bitten by a rattlesnake, they needed to be on their way to the hospital.

“I wasn’t bitten, and I didn’t pick it up to see if it rattled.” Suddenly, she looked angry, as if it were his fault.

Tinch held up one hand. “You stay here on the porch and I’ll check it out.”

“What if it comes this way?”

“You’re safe right there. Snakes hate climbing steps.” He doubted that was true, but it seemed to calm her some. How could a woman who cut people open daily be afraid of a snake? She’d probably scared the rattler far more than it had her.

Tinch walked around her car parked inside the old garage. The place was cluttered with years of junk. Listening, he watched for any sign of a snake.

Nothing.

He picked up a rake and moved it under her little car. A four-foot-long bull snake wiggled out.

Tinch hooked him with the rake and walked out of her garage. He didn’t look her direction, but he swore he could feel her watching him. He made a wide circle so she wouldn’t think he was getting closer to her with the reptile. When he reached his truck, he pulled out a grain sack and lowered the snake inside, then knotted the top and set it down in the bed of his truck.

“Are you going to kill it?” she asked.

“No. It’s a bull snake just looking for his dinner in your garage. I’m guessing he’s not welcome, so I’ll take him down the road and let him go.”

“Far down the road.” She was slowly calming, turning back to ice. “When I rented the place, I didn’t know there were subleasers on the property.”

Tinch reached her, but she stood two feet above him on the porch. “He’s not going to hurt you, Addison. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry to have bothered you.” She nodded slowly as if trying to allow his words to sink in. “It’s just that I’ve never lived in the country, and the only snakes I’ve known wore suits and ties.”

He smiled as if she were joking, but he had a feeling she wasn’t.
“If you see another snake or hear a rattling that sounds kind of like the buzz of a cicada, back away slowly.”

She held her chin up. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“If it’s any comfort, that’s the first snake I’ve seen around here in months.” Even while he tried to reassure her he wondered why she held herself so tightly in place.

“That is no comfort,” she answered.

“Besides for dancing, wearing boots comes in handy out here. You might want to buy a pair.”

She shook her head as she stared at the garage.

“You got any liquor around here?”

That pulled her out of her nightmare thoughts. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning, Mr. Turner, surely you don’t need a drink?”

He shoved his hat low and wondered why this woman was so irritating. “I was thinking
you
might need a shot to steady your nerves.”

“I’m fine. Thank you for coming.” She turned as if to go inside.

“You’re welcome.” He propped his foot on the first step and stared at his boots. “Look, Doc, don’t take it so personal. We all get scared from time to time. Nobody, even you, has to be perfect.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it as if by saying anything she might reveal too much of herself.

He took the chance to change the subject. “You want to see something else I found in the garage? I promise this won’t frighten you.”

When she didn’t answer, he walked into the dark garage and came back out with something cupped within his hands. “This might have been what brought the snake calling. I saw the Rogerses’ old barn cat moving her kittens a few days ago. She’s probably been living fat on field mice down by the old barn, but decided to move her family into the garage for winter.”

He opened his hands and a tiny kitten lifted its black-and-brown striped head. With great care he set it in the basket strapped to the back of an old bike near the porch.
“There’s another one still in the barn. They look big enough to survive, so the momma cat may have moved on.”

When he returned with the tabby kitten, he saw Addison smile, and for the first time Tinch thought she could be pretty if she tried. She was still too tall, not rounded enough in the right places and far too controlled to be someone he’d be interested in, even if he was looking.

“I can take them home with me, if you don’t want them. I got a few other strays around my place.”

She walked down the steps and held her hands out slowly until her fingers brushed fur. “I’ll take them both. At least until I leave.”

He watched her carefully as she brushed one finger over the tiny kitten’s head.

“I wanted a cat when I was a kid,” she said more to the cat than him. “But my parents wouldn’t hear of it. They said an animal in the house would be chaos.”

Tinch relaxed a little as he studied her. “Why don’t you take Chaos and his brother inside and give them a little milk?”

She smiled at Tinch. “I’ll do that, and thanks for coming. I guess I should spend some time looking up the difference between bull snakes and rattlesnakes.”

“You do that, Doc.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “Friends?” he offered.

“Friends,” she agreed.

He went back to his truck fighting down a laugh. Who would have guessed the doc would turn human over a stray cat or two? He’d thought for a minute she was going to kiss him for handing over the kittens.

Maybe he should bring over a horse. Maybe she’d be so tickled she’d sleep with him. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman, even a tall, thin, washed-out one was starting to look good.

The thought of Addison tangled in the sheets almost buckled him to his knees. He hadn’t thought of a woman like that since Lori Anne died. Sure, he had dreams of
women, but they were only fiction in his mind, not real flesh-and-blood neighbors.

Tinch expected to feel guilt for somehow betraying Lori Anne, but he didn’t. Maybe time had washed a little of the married feeling away, or more likely he’d just grown insensitive to the pain. Thinking of Addison was so far away from something that would happen, she might as well have been a fantasy. Even if he wanted to know her better, the doc would never allow that to happen.

M
ONDAY

S
EPTEMBER
19

T
RUMAN
F
ARM

R
EAGAN SWORE SHE COULD FEEL HER HEART CRACKING
as she walked through the rooms of her uncle’s house … her house. She’d tried to sleep most of Sunday after she’d made it home from the hospital, but today she had far too many things to do.

Only, the house seemed to call to her as the shadows grew long. Memories lined the walls of the old place that had been in the Truman family for more than a hundred years. Lifetimes of living mixed with her short time among them.

She thought of her first days here when she’d counted the hours until Jeremiah kicked her out. She’d shown up with nothing in her backpack but a few changes of underwear, a jacket, and a couple of old T-shirts.

Reagan remembered the day he’d given her a roll of money and trusted her to do what was right. Old Jeremiah had been the first person ever to trust her or believe in her. He’d set up a charge account for her at stores in town and told her to spend what she needed and never questioned her on a dime she spent.

She thought of the party when he’d handed her the deed to this place for her eighteenth birthday. He’d said he did it so she’d never have to worry about having a home.