Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Meredith said wryly when Rey was gone. “I set him off again.”
“It won’t hurt him to have one woman who doesn’t fall all over herself when he’s around,” Leo told her flatly. “Sometimes too much success can ruin a good man.”
She toyed with her coffee cup. “Women like him, I guess,” she said.
He gave her a quick glance that she didn’t see before he started on his pie. “He’s had girlfriends since he was in grammar school. But there was only one serious one. She turned out to be a real loser,” he added quietly. “She soured him on women.”
She sipped coffee. “You can’t judge an entire sex by one woman,” she pointed out.
“Well, we had our mother as an example, too,” he continued. “She left Dad with five young boys and never looked back. We haven’t been overawed with sterling examples of womanhood, although Simon and Corrigan and Cag have made good marriages in spite of that.”
She smiled absently as she looked at him. “I had a brother of my own,” she said without thinking.
“Yes, I know,” Leo replied, surprising her into silence. “His name was Michael Johns. He worked for Houston PD.”
Her gasp was audible. “How…do you know about him?”
“Remember Colter Banks?”
“Yes. Colter was Mike’s best friend.”
“Well, Colter’s our second cousin,” he told her. “I knew Mike, too. I’m sorry.”
She clenched one fist in her lap and tried not to give way to tears. “Do the others…know?”
“No, they don’t,” he replied. “They weren’t that close to Colter, and they never met Mike. I haven’t told them, and I’m not planning to.”
She searched his dark eyes. “What else do you know about me, Leo?” she asked, because of the way he was watching her.
He shrugged. “Everything.”
She let out a long breath. “And you haven’t shared it with Rey.”
“You wouldn’t want me to,” he murmured dryly. “He’s having too much fun being condescending. When the time comes, he’s got a few shocks coming, hasn’t he?”
She laughed softly. “I hadn’t meant to be cloak-and-daggerish. It’s just that it still hurts too much to talk about,” she said honestly.
“Colter told me the circumstances. It wasn’t your fault,” he replied. “Or your father’s. I gather that he drinks because he feels responsible?”
She nodded. “We both dined out on ‘what-if’ just after it happened,” she confessed. “I know that it probably wouldn’t have made any difference, but you can’t help wondering.”
“It doesn’t do any good to torment yourself over things that are history,” Leo said gently.
“I don’t do it intentionally,” she murmured.
“The first step was getting your father into treatment,” he said. “Getting you out of your rut was the second. You don’t have any memories to contend with here. I’ve noticed the difference in you just in the past week.” He smiled. “You’re changing already.”
“I suppose so.” She smiled back. “I’ve never even been on a ranch before. I could love it here. It’s such a change of pace.”
“When you’re back to normal, we’ve got plenty of opportunity around here for your sort of job,” he pointed out.
She chuckled. “Don’t rush me. It’s far too soon to think about leaving Houston.” She didn’t add that she didn’t want to be that close to Rey, considering his opinion of her at the moment. “I’ve only been down here a week.”
“Okay. I’ll let it drop, for now.” He leaned back in his chair and winced, favoring the arm he’d had stitched. “Damned bull,” he muttered.
“Did they give you something for the pain?”
“No, and I didn’t ask for anything. I have over-the-counter painkillers if it gets really bad. So far, it hasn’t.”
“You know, of course, that statistically farm and ranch work have the highest ratio of accidents,” she said.
“Any job can be dangerous,” he said easily.
She pursed her lips and lifted her coffee cup to them. “Your brother’s a walking job hazard,” she said thoughtfully.
“Oh? In what way, exactly?” he asked.
She wouldn’t have touched that line with a pole. She laughed. “He’s abrasive. I don’t think he wants me here.”
“I’ve noticed his attitude. I hope you haven’t let it get to you?”
“I haven’t. Anyway, he’ll mellow one of these days,” she said.
“He could use some mellowing. He’s a disillusioned man.”
She smoothed the lip of the cup. “Did he love her very much?”
He knew she was talking about Carlie. He sighed.
“He thought he did. His pride suffered more than his heart.” He hesitated.
“I didn’t help matters. I made a play for her deliberately, to show him what she was.
That was a miscalculation. A bad one. He’s never forgiven me for it.
Now, if I pay any attention to a woman, he tries to compete with me… ”
She noticed the way his voice trailed off, and she averted her eyes. “I get the picture,” she said.
“It’s not like that, not with you,” he began.
She forced a smile. “He’s not interested in me,” she said bluntly.
“And just in case you’re worried that I might be falling all over him, there’s no danger of that, either.
I was outside the door when he was talking to you.
I wasn’t eavesdropping, but he was speaking rather loudly.
I heard what he said. I’d have to be certifiable to lose my heart over a man like that. ”
He grimaced as he read the faint pain that lingered in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have had you hear what he said for the world,” he said deeply.
She managed a smile. “It’s just as well. It will keep me from taking him seriously. Besides, I’m not really down here looking for a soul mate.”
“Just as well, because Rey isn’t any woman’s idea of the perfect partner, not the way he is right now. I love him dearly, but I can afford to. It’s another story for any woman who loses her heart to him.” He studied her warily. “Just don’t let him play you for a fool.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. “Even if I got the chance.”
He nodded. He finished his pie and coffee and got to his feet. “I’d better change and get back to work. Thanks for running interference, by the way. You’re a cool head in an emergency,” he remarked with a smile.
“I’ve had lots of practice,” she said modestly and grinned. “But try to stay away from horned things for a while.”
“Especially my brother, the minor devil,” he said, tongue-in-cheek, and grinned back when she got the reference and started laughing.
* * *
After Leo went back to work, Meredith went out to gather eggs. It seemed very straightforward. You walked into the henhouse, reached in the nest, and pulled out a dozen or so big brown eggs, some still warm from the chicken’s feathered body.
But that wasn’t what happened. She paused just inside the henhouse to let her eyes adjust to the reduced light, and when she moved toward the row of straw-laced nests, she saw something wrapped around one nest that wasn’t feathered.
It had scales and a flickering long tongue.
It peered at her through the darkness and tightened its coils around its prey, three big brown eggs.
Meredith, a city girl with very little experience of scaly things, did something predictable. She screamed, threw the basket in the general direction of the snake, and left skid marks getting out of the fenced lot.
Annie Lewis, who was doing the laundry, came to the back door as fast as her arthritis would allow, to see what all the commotion was about.
“There’s a…big black and white snnnnnakkkkkke… in there!” Meredith screamed, shaking all over from the close encounter.
“After the eggs, I reckon,” Annie said with a sigh. She wiped her hands on her apron. “Let me get a stick and I’ll deal with it.”
“You can’t go in there alone with the horrible thing and try to kill it! It must be five feet long!”
“It’s a king snake, not a rattler,” Annie said gently, recognizing the description. “And I’m not planning to kill it. I’m going to get it on a stick and put in the barn. It can eat its fill of rats and poisonous snakes and do some good out there.”
“You aren’t going to kill it?” Meredith exclaimed, horrified.
“It’s a king snake, dear,” came the gentle reply. “We don’t like to kill them. They’re very useful. They eat rattlesnakes, you know.”
“I didn’t know.” Meredith shivered again. “I’ve never seen a snake except in a zoo, and it was a python.”
“You’ll see lots of them out here in the country. Just remember that if one rattles at you, it means business and it will strike. Rattlesnakes are venomous.”
Meredith looked around as if she expected to be mobbed just at the mention of them.
“You can finish the washing,” Annie said, trying not to grin. “I’ll take care of the snake.”
“Please be careful!”
“I will. After all, you get used to things like…”
Rey drove up and stopped the truck just short of the two women, exiting it with his usual graceful speed.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he pulled a box of assorted bovine medicines out of the boot of the truck.
“There’s a snake in the henhouse!” Meredith exclaimed.
He stopped with the supplies in his arms and stared at her curiously. “So?” he asked.
“I’m just going to move it for her, Rey,” Mrs. Lewis said with a grin. “It sounds like a king snake. I thought I’d put him in the barn.”
“I’ll get him for you.” He put the box on the hood of the truck. “Scared of snakes, are you?” he scoffed.
“I’d never seen one until a few minutes ago,” she said huffily, and flushed. He was looking at her as if she were a child.
“There’s a first time for everything,” he said, and his eyes made a very explicit remark as they lingered on her breasts.
She gave him a glare hot enough to fry bacon, which he ignored. He walked right into the chicken lot and, then, into the henhouse.
Barely a minute later, he came back out with the snake coiled around one arm, its neck gently held in his other hand.
“Would you look at this, it’s Bandit!” he exclaimed, showing it to a fascinated Mrs. Lewis. “See the scar on his back where he got caught in the corn sheller that time?”
“So it is!” she said. “Hello, old fella!” She actually petted the vile thing under the chin.