Catch Me a Cowboy (3 page)

“Call me if you change your mind about that fishin’.”

The front door banged closed, and Shirlene pushed the blanket back and glared at Bubba.

“You can let me go now.”

The dark brows over his deep-set eyes lifted. “You shore you haven’t changed your mind about Wilkesville?”

“Get. Your. Hand. Off. My. Butt.”

A grin tipped up the corners of his wide mouth. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, although those warm digits didn’t seem to be in any hurry to comply. It took Sherman’s earsplitting squeals of pain to get him to release her.

“What the hell?” Bubba sat straight up, almost dumping her to the floor.

In her desire to get Kenny out of the trailer without recognizing her, Shirlene had forgotten all about Sherman—and the psycho killer. Although Kenny had more than likely scared the killer away. Still, she wasn’t taking any chances.

“Where’s your gun?” she said as she jumped up from the bed. When he continued to sit there with a stunned look on his face, she yelled, “Your gun, Wilkes!”

He rolled to his feet, giving her a glimpse of Wilkesville as he slipped into a pair of Wranglers. If Shirlene hadn’t been so worried about Sherman getting carved into Sunday dinner, she might’ve been impressed by the lean muscled streets and the half-mast flagpole in the center of town. Instead, she didn’t even wait for him to cover that fine butt before she hurried out the door.

Fortunately, she didn’t find Sherman sliced into a hundred pounds of bacon. But she did find his head caught in the springs of the overturned recliner.

“Oh, Piglet.” She hurried over and sat down next to him, trying to soothe him until she could figure out how to get him loose.

“A pig?” Bubba stood in the doorway of the bedroom, wearing nothing but his unbuttoned jeans. Distracted by the lean stomach and defined chest, it took her a moment to notice the revolver he held in one hand.

“I gotta tell you, Ms. Dalton.” He rubbed his whiskered jaw. “I like my pork about as much as any man. But I don’t much care for shooting defenseless animals.” He nodded at the door. “Now if you was to let him loose, it might be a little more sportin’.”

“I don’t want you to shoot Sherman,” she snapped. “I want you to shoot the maniac with the chainsaw who was trying to kill us. Now could you put that thing down and give me a hand?”

Bubba hesitated. “Does it bite?”

She glanced up. “Don’t tell me that a good ol’ country boy like yourself has never been around a pig before.”

“We didn’t have pigs,” he stated as he set the gun down on the counter in the kitchen right next to a bottle of tequila that Shirlene could’ve used a few minutes earlier. “We had passive cows. Not some squealing overweight animal.”

“Sherman is not overweight,” she stated. “He’s a perfect weight for his species and height.”

Bubba nodded. “Sorta like you, I suppose.” He knelt down next to her and brushed her hands away. “Pretty soon you’ll have him so tangled up I’ll be forced to keep him as a conversation piece.”

“What do you mean sort of like me?” She bristled. “Are you comparing me to a pig?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, but his smirk said something else entirely.

She wanted to wipe that stupid country grin off his face with her fist. And seeing as she was not a violent person, she wondered where the powerful reaction had come from. The man was nothing to her. In fact, she’d only been in his company a couple of times. But both times she’d gotten the distinct feeling that Bubba Wilkes didn’t like her. And maybe that was where her animosity for the man came from—very few people disliked Shirlene and none of them were men.

After taking his good sweet time assessing the situation, Bubba gripped the coils on either side of Sherman’s head in his lean hands and, with a simple flex of muscles, set the pig free. Sherman shook his head a few times before he nuzzled against Shirlene and received her sympathy scratches.

Reaching into the springs of the recliner, Bubba pulled out a half-eaten bag of Doritos. “Was this what you were lookin’ for, Pig?”

Sherman leaned over and sniffed the bag before very delicately taking it out of Bubba’s hand.

“See,” Shirlene cooed. “He’s as gentle as a lamb.” At which point, Sherman proceeded to rip the bag to shreds trying to get to the last of the crumbs.

With a wary look, Bubba sat back on his heels and watched the animal scarf up the cheesy chips. “So is this maniac with a chainsaw the same psychotic killer you were telling me about? Or are they two different fellers?”

Having lived in Bramble most of her life, Shirlene had developed a tolerance for the country psyche. But after being evicted from her home, choked by ghosts, and
chased by psycho killers, she wasn’t about to be made fun of by a redneck from east Texas. So she shot him a look she gave very few people and climbed to her feet.

“Come on, Sherman,” she said. Before she headed out the door, she took a detour to the kitchen, where she slammed down a shot of tequila and picked up the gun.

The sun had crested over the horizon, but Shirlene didn’t stop to enjoy the mellow pinks and oranges of the beautiful sunrise as she trotted down the steps with Sherman close on her heels. She had some things to get accomplished, namely talking to the new bank president so she could get back to the lifestyle she was used to. Not this crazy trailer trash nightmare she had stepped into. And in order to do that, she had to face whoever—or whatever—had taken up residence in her trailer long enough to retrieve her purse and keys. After that, the ghosties could have the pile of aluminum for all she cared.

“Would you slow down,” Bubba said as he followed her through the opening in the hedge. She accidently released a branch, and it slapped him in the face. Or maybe not so accidently. But what was a branch in the face compared to all the butt pats and heinous pickup lines? He was lucky she didn’t turn the gun on him. Although the women of east Texas would probably thank her for ridding them of such a distributor of bullshit.

“Now just hold up there,” he said. As they weaved their way through the junk maze, he reached out and grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. He was careful to grab the arm that didn’t hold the gun. “You can’t just run around shooting at anything that moves.”

“I can if they’re on my property.”

He released her arm and glanced around at the pathetic lot. “This is yours?”

“Since the day I was born.” She continued to the front steps, but when she reached the door, she hesitated. The door looked even worse than it had to begin with. The plywood was splintered and cracked, and the hinges sagging.

Bubba came up behind her, and she couldn’t help but be comforted by his presence, especially when Sherman had refused to climb the steps and was now cowering beneath an old, metal lawn chair with the remnants of the Doritos bag still clutched in his mouth.

“The psycho?” Bubba asked when he noticed the battered door.

“No, the pig,” she answered as she pushed the door open.

Before she stepped over the threshold, Bubba reached down and took the gun out of her hand. “Wouldn’t want you shooting off your toe by accident—or other important body parts.”

Shirlene rolled her eyes as he preceded her into the room. Except for the bright sunlight shining in through the thin sheets that covered the windows, the room looked much as it did the night before—the couch was still pulled out and the sheets and blankets still rumpled. When she saw her purse and shoes sitting on the floor, she heaved a sigh of relief.

Bubba might be an annoying redneck, but he wasn’t a coward. He boldly checked out the rest of the trailer while she followed more cautiously behind him. After looking in the tiny bathroom, he stepped back out in the hallway where she stood. The narrow space seemed much smaller with his bare chest so close.

His eyebrows hiked up over those deep-set brown eyes. “No maniacs or psychos that I could find.”

“And you expect the villains to stay at the scene of the crime after the sun comes up? What horror movies have you been watching, honey?” She shot him a skeptical look before she headed back to the living room, where it was much easier to breathe.

While she sat down on the edge of the couch and put on her shoes, Bubba walked into the room and flopped down next to her. “I don’t watch horror movies. Those things scare the hell out of me—even if it’s only Hollywood magic.”

It was difficult to concentrate on fastening the tiny little buckles with his body stretched the length of the mattress and then some. Her gaze couldn’t help wandering over to the flat stomach with its slit of a belly button, or his muscled-coated ribcage, or the deep brown of his small nipples. But what really had her stomach fluttering was the patch of dark hair under each arm. She couldn’t ever remember looking at Lyle’s underarms—or any man’s for that matter. And seeing the contrast of the white skin with the rest of his tan body had her face flushing as hot as Main Street in late August.

It took his eyelids sliding open and a very quizzical look to get her attention back to her shoes. It took a couple moments more before she could speak.

“Well, the thing that chased me this morning wasn’t Hollywood magic.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t your imagination?” He sat up, and she released her breath. “Sure you didn’t have yourself a little happy hour last night?”

“No, I did not have myself a little happy hour,” she said.
Although as she looked around the dismal but ordinary room, she had to wonder if maybe the cold fingers and chainsaw-wielding horror star hadn’t just been figments of her imagination—the remnants of her nightmare. But if that was the case then what had scared Sherman?

Bubba rolled to his feet and tucked the gun in the waistband of his jeans. “Well, I don’t think it was a psycho killer. Probably just some fool tryin’ out his new Craftsman eighteen incher—you know how we Texans love our man-tools.” He pulled a can of chewing tobacco out of his back pocket. After unscrewing the lid, he pinched out some tobacco and placed it in his mouth.

As far as Shirlene was concerned anything that involved stained teeth and streams of disgusting brown spit was a nasty habit that needed to be outlawed. But she didn’t expect anything less from Bubba Wilkes.

“At five o’clock in the morning?” she asked.

Using his tongue, he maneuvered the tobacco down to the corner of his mouth before he spoke. “Which brings up a good point. What is the privileged Ms. Dalton doing out on Grover Road so early?”

“I was just looking things over before I sell it.” It was a pretty good lie if she had to say so herself. And it wasn’t so far from the truth. After her night of hell, she had no intentions of keeping the trailer.

The dark eyes stared back at her for only a moment before he grinned and pointed a finger mere inches from her nose. “You had me goin’ there for a second. But there’s no way a person would want to sell such a prime piece of real estate. Which leads me to believe that I was right in the first place; you
do
have a hankerin’ for a little Bubba lovin’.”

Shirlene stared back at him for only a second before heading for the door. It wasn’t Bubba lovin’ that she had a hankerin’ for as much as her Tempur-Pedic mattress and down pillows. “I’d tell you thanks for the hospitality, but an uninvited mauling isn’t what I consider being hospitable.”

“As hospitable as a woman breakin’ into someone’s huntin’ lodge without an invite? ’Course I figure Ms. Dalton can stay just about anywhere she pleases.” The way he said it sounded almost sarcastic. But since Bubba wouldn’t know sarcasm if it bit him in the behind, she figured she was mistaken. Or maybe just exhausted from her harrowing night.

“See ya around, Bubba.”

“More than likely, Ms. Dalton.” He followed her out.

Wasting no time, she hurried down the steps and hollered for Sherman. Never in her life had she been so happy to slip inside the plush leather seats of her Navigator. And Sherman looked about as happy as she did when she cranked on the air conditioner full blast. He stared back at her with relief in his beady eyes and orange Doritos cheese dust on his upside down heart-shaped snout. As she backed out into the road, she glanced back at the trailer. Bubba still stood on the steps, the pinks and oranges of the sunrise gilding the wavy dark strands of his hair and the hard rippled plains of his body.

Wilkesville was sure nice to look at. Too bad once you got there, it was nothing more than a ghost town.

“B
UBBA
” B
ILLY
W
ILKES WAITED
until the black Navigator had disappeared from sight before he leaned over the steps and spit the wad of tobacco out of his mouth. Still, the strong flavor stayed with him as he wiped off his chin and looked around.

It wasn’t the first time he had seen the lot, but with his mind preoccupied with other things, it was the first time he’d really looked at it. It was a pathetic sight. The yard was so cluttered with trash and junk he couldn’t even see the ground. Water-stained mattresses stuck out of piles of garbage, treadless tires were stacked haphazardly next to rusted-out car and truck frames, and dilapidated couches leaned against dinged-up appliances.

It had to be the biggest pile of crap Billy had ever seen in his life. Even Aunt Mildred and Uncle Fin’s yard didn’t come close, and people had long confused their double-wide for the town junkyard. But it wasn’t the magnitude of junk that surprised him. It was the fact that Mrs. Lyle Dalton owned it. Something he hadn’t discovered from the talkative townsfolk on his visits to Bramble. Of course,
he hadn’t been interested in the wife as much as he was in the husband.