Wild Cowboy Ways (Lucky Penny Ranch #1)(2)

Shooter, who had been lying under the table at his feet, now stood erect and staring at the doorway. Blake would give the joker one more chance before he let him know he was messing with the wrong cowboy.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

“Don’t play games with me, Walter.” The voice was thin and tinny and definitely not a teenager.

“And who are you?” he asked.

“Don’t be silly. You know who I am, Walter.” The voice got closer and closer.

What the hell was going on?

Back in the summer when the Lucky Penny went on the market, Blake, Toby, and Jud decided that they didn’t believe in all that folderol about bad luck. The Lucky Penny’s previous owners clearly just hadn’t put enough blood, sweat, and tears into the land, or it would have been a productive ranch. They hadn’t understood what it took to get a place that size up and running and/or didn’t have the patience and perseverance to stick it out until there was a profit. But now Blake was beginning to question whether the bad luck had something to do with the supernatural.

He scooted his chair back and stood, Shooter close at his side, hackles up and his head lowered. Blake laid a hand on the dog’s head. “Sit, boy, and don’t move unless I give you the command.” Shooter obeyed, but he quivered with anticipation.

“Walter, darlin’, where is she?” If it wasn’t a ghost, then whatever mortal it was with that voice should audition for a part in a zombie movie.

Before Blake could call out a response, a gray-haired woman shuffled into the kitchen. The old girl was flesh and blood because no self-respecting ghost or apparition would be caught anywhere looking like that. She wore a long, hot-pink chenille robe belted at the waist with a wide leather belt, yellow rubber boots printed with hot pink flamingos, and her thin hair looked like she’d stuck her finger in an electrical outlet. The wild look in her eyes gave testimony that the hair wasn’t the only thing that got fried when she tested the electricity that morning. He felt a sneeze coming on as the scent of her heavy perfume filled the room.

“Aaaaachoo.” He grabbed a paper napkin from the middle of the table in time to cover his mouth, when it burst from him like a bomb.

“I hope you’re not getting sick, Walter,” she said as she marched across the room, grabbed his cheeks with her cold hands, and pulled his face down to kiss him on the cheek. “Katy’s wedding is coming up, and I don’t want a red nose and puffy eyes.”

“Of course not. Just a tickle in my nose, that’s all.” Best thing he could think to do was play along until he was able to find who the hell the old girl was talking about.

The woman hung her cane on the edge of the table and plopped into a chair. When she sat down the tail of her robe fell back to show that she was wearing jeans underneath it. She must have escaped from an institution, but Blake couldn’t remember anything resembling a nursing home closer than Throckmorton or Wichita Falls, and the old gal would have frozen to death if she’d walked that far.

She laid an icy hand on his forearm. “Is she out feeding the chickens? Are we safe?”

“I’m not sure.” Blake eyed her closely as he sat back down.

She squeezed his arm pretty damn tight for such bony fingers. “Aren’t you even going to offer me coffee? I walked the whole way over here to see you, Walter, and it is cold as a witch’s tit out there.”

Holy smokin’ shit! Would the real Walter please stand up and do it in a hurry?

Blake opened his mouth to tell her that he was not Walter, but then clamped it shut. If he made her mad, he’d never find out her name and without that, he wouldn’t be able to get her back where she belonged. He could call the police, but Dry Creek depended on the sheriff’s department out of Throckmorton for emergencies and he didn’t have that number.

“Yes, let’s get you warmed up. You take cream and sugar, sweetheart?” he drawled.

“Oh, sweetheart now, is it? You know very well I take it black, Walter.”

“Should I call you baby? Sugar bun? Hot lips?”

“Irene will do just fine,” she harrumphed, but Blake could see a smile tilting her lips.

He patted her hand as he pulled his arm away and got up from the table to retrieve a second coffee mug. “How about a toaster pastry to go with that?” he asked. Maybe if he got some food in her, she’d snap out of it and figure out he wasn’t Walter.

“What in the hell is a toaster pastry? Your mama usually makes gravy and biscuits.” The smile faded and her eyes darted around the room.

“Not this morning, darlin’.” So the woman who put even more craziness in the old gal’s eyes wasn’t Walter’s wife but his mother.

“I keep telling you to move out on your own,” Irene continued as he placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of her. She wrapped her hands around it like a lifeline. “If you had your own place, I’d leave my husband and we could be together all the time.” She pursed her mouth so tight that her long, thin face had hollows below the high cheekbones. “A man who’s almost forty years old has no business living with his mother, especially one who won’t make you a decent breakfast.”

“But what if she can’t get along without me to help her?” Blake asked.

She shook her fist at him. “You’ve got four brothers. Let them take a turn. It’s time for you to own up to the fact that this ranch is bad luck—always has been, always will be. You aren’t going to make it here, but we could do good out in California. We’ll both get a job pickin’ fruit and get us a little house in town. I always wanted to live in town.” She took his hand, hope shining in her eyes. The old girl just about broke Blake’s heart.