Patricia Potter Read Free Page A

was in more danger now than she had been minutes before. At the unblinking, appraising look of the man, Estelle fled to the house.
    Chad watched as the man took one step toward Estelle, and then turned back to him. “Miss Taylor?” His voice carried puzzlement.
    “Naw, that’s Estelle,” Chad said. “Willow’s not here. She hasn’t come back from school.”
    Lobo’s eyes ranged over the ranch. His brow furrowed. “School?”
    “She teaches school, didn’t ya know? Everyone knows that.”
    “You her kid?”
    Chad shrugged. He guessed he was. “One of ’em,” he said.
    “Why aren’t you in school?”
    “Willow needs me here during the day.” Chad was too ashamed to say he’d flatly refused to go because he’d been so far behind the other kids his age. Willow taught him privately.
    Lobo’s senses were reeling. One of ’em, the boy had said. “There’s more of you?”
    “Two,” Chad said, watching surprise register in the stranger’s cold eyes. He fought to keep his own eyes from going to the well-worn gunbelt on the man’s hips, the holster held tight against his body by a leather strap around his thigh. There was a tension about the man, an aura of danger that fascinated Chad.
    “Goddamn,” the stranger said to himself.
    “Willow will be here pretty soon,” Chad told him. “She’ll want to thank you. Sallie Sue’s her baby. She was chasing Brunhilde.”
    “Brunhilde?”
    “One of the chickens. Sallie Sue’s pet,” Chad explained. His expression changed to one of disgust. “Now I’ll have to catch her.”
    Lobo found himself blinking. Sallie Sue, for God’s sake. What a name for a kid. And Brunhilde. A chicken?
    Chad suddenly found his manners. “Why don’t you come inside. There’s some cookies,” he offered.
    Cookies, for chrissakes.
    Lobo winced. He had been hired to scare the hell out of the woman who lived here, and now he was invited for cookies! Filled with unaccustomed confusion, he ignored the boy and untied the rope from around his waist, circling it in loops and tying it back on his saddle.
    Lobo leapt into the saddle and leaned down to speak to the boy. “Get that damned well fixed.” Only after he said the words did he realize how ridiculous they were. These people would be gone shortly. Very shortly.
    Before Chad could utter a word or even ask for the stranger’s name, the man was gone in a swirl of dust. Chad thought that the whole episode was just like one of Willow’s stories, and wondered whether he had imagined the whole thing.
    But then he saw the last of the dust settling down in the distance, and he grinned to himself.
    God’s whiskers, but did he have a story of his own to tell.
    T HOROUGHLY DISGUSTED WITH himself and his incomprehensible behavior, Lobo finally found a clearing alongside the river that ran through the ranch. It was nearing dusk, and he was filthy from his venture into the hole. He washed in the river, not much more than a trickle of water because of the hot, dry weather, and he started a cooking fire.
    Sitting under a tree, watching the flames flare and lick the coffeepot, he felt an unusual disquiet. Nothing was as he expected it, and he didn’t like the feeling of not having control.
    Nor did he like being lied to. Even if Newton hadn’t actually lied, there was a hell of a lot he’d left unsaid.
    Not only a woman, but children were involved. What in the hell had Newton expected him to do to kids?
    And he was supposed to believe that the woman had seduced and cheated an old rancher. After bearing four children, how could she entice anyone? He had seen enough worn women in his life, old before their time because of childbearing. And every woman teacher he’d ever seen had been as homely as sin.
    Goddamn Newton.
    Lobo recognized only one weakness in himself. Young things. He had no pity, no mercy, no compassion for those who should be able to take care of themselves. He had survived. Others could well do the same thing.
    But the