Chapter 6 #3
One look at Hettie said that she was still steaming mad over her tulip bed.
“Me, too. I wouldn’t let Amos bring one of those animals to our ranch.
I told him I would buy bacon and ham at the store.
” She set about making herself a third whiskey sour and carried it to the table.
“Them Callahans have sure brought a truckload of trouble to our little town. You’d think we were going back in time to the cattle run days and everything was wild and woolly around here. ”
“I agree,” Audrey said. “I’m going to get into my night shirt. Leave out the whiskey. I need a drink, too.”
If you didn’t feel something for Brodie, he wouldn’t upset you so much , the voice in her head whispered.
“I’d feel more for a baby kitten, and I don’t even like cats,” she declared as she got dressed and went back to the kitchen.
“The only good thing about tonight is that I bet Bernie is fit to be tied since she’s failing to get Brodie Callahan hooked up with a wife,” Hettie said. “I made you a good stiff drink. Sit down and let it settle your nerves.”
“I hope she’s so mad that the anger blows the top of her head off,” Audrey agreed, but she didn’t tell her aunt that her reasons were far different. She might not want to date Brodie, but she sure didn’t want him to go out with anyone else.
“God don’t like her anymore. I’m back in the favorite seat,” Hettie said. “I’m taking my drink and going to my room. I’ll watch one of them reruns of Lethal Weapon and try to forget about Bernie and your next-door neighbor.”
“He’s your neighbor, too,” Audrey told her.
“I don’t own this land,” Hettie yelled as she closed her bedroom door.
Audrey closed her eyes, shook her head, and whispered, “God does not have the time or patience for two feuding old women, and I do not have the patience for Brodie Callahan.”
She finished off her drink and paced the floor for a few minutes.
The walls began to feel like they were closing in on her, so she shoved her feet down into a pair of rubber boots and went outside.
She intended to take a short walk out to the barbed-wire fence and back.
But she only made it to the end of the back porch when a squealing blur that looked a lot like that pig she had parked on the café table raced past her.
Brodie was right behind it—bare chested, bruised, and bleeding.
“What the hell?” she screeched and started chasing him. “If that critter tears up my cornfield, I’m going to shoot it and you.”
“If she eats anything on this place, she’ll die from pesticide poisoning anyway,” Brodie hollered over his shoulder.
“So, you’ve got an organic hog?” Audrey’s boots got stuck in the mud. Her feet came out of them, and she kept running in her bare feet.
Brodie stooped and got a firm grip on Pansy and took a step, but he stepped in a hole and fell flat on his back. The pig got loose and ran right into acres and acres of corn plants that were about a foot high.
Audrey bent at the waist and put her hands on her knees.
When she could catch her breath, she took a good look at Brodie.
“We’ve got to catch that thing before it roots up the corn.
” She panted and then straightened up. “You look like hell. Did number seven work you over with her fists and fingernails? I hope she did. You deserve it.”
“How did you know Wanette was number seven?” he asked.
“Everyone in town”—she panted—“keeps track. Aunt Hettie and her Sunday school friends are betting against Bernie. This will be her first fail if she don’t get you married. Aunt Hettie will probably dance a jig in her underwear in the church parking lot if she wins that pot.”
“That’s a picture I don’t want in my head, but I can’t unsee it.” Brodie shivered.
Pansy had made a wide circle and ran back toward him.
He reached for her, but she shimmied out of his hands and ran between Audrey’s legs.
It startled Audrey so badly that she tumbled backward and fell on her back on the muddy ground.
Brodie offered her a helping hand. She took it but slipped when she tried to get enough traction to get up and pulled him down on top of her.
She pushed him off to the side, wiggled free of his arms and legs, and sat up.
“Was that as good for you as it was for me?” he teased.
“That is not funny,” she snapped. “I wish that woman would have shot you rather than just beat the hell out of you.”
“Sorry to disappoint, darlin’,” Brodie chuckled. “But this is blackberry cobbler stain, and the blood is from barbed wire. I knocked down a post when I tried to jump the fence. The rest is mud. It will all wash off.”
“If it wasn’t for bad luck…” she started.
“So, I’m bad luck?” he asked.
“Absolutely, and also a pain in my ass,” she told him as she carefully stood up. “Now I have to take a second shower.”
“You aren’t getting any pity from me. I have to turn on the garden hose and clean up outside in cold water,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Can’t take Pansy to the Paradise, so I’m living in the trailer until we can get a pen built for her,” he said as he got to his feet.
“Why do you call that thing Pansy?” Audrey asked.
“Because she tore up Hettie’s flower beds,” Brodie answered.
“Tulips, not pansies,” she snapped.
Brodie started walking away. “Pansy fits her better.”
Audrey caught up to him and rattled off a string of numbers. “That’s my number. If your new best friend isn’t at the trailer and has circled back around into my corn, you better run, not walk, back over here and find it or else. And fix my fence before the sun sets tomorrow.”
He pulled his phone from his hip pocket, wiped the messy screen well enough that he could see it, and said, “Tell me that number again.”
She said it slowly, and he typed it in.
“And honey, that fence could be mine rather than yours, depending on which brother put it up, so I will fix it when I damn well please,” he told her in a low voice.
She stomped her bare foot in a puddle and sent more mud flying up onto his jeans. Not even that brought her a bit of peace.