Rebel Outlaw

“What the hell, Bo Peep?” he murmured. He’d never seen anything like that.

He shook his head. Maybe when the time came, he wouldn’t have to go through the sweat of rounding up his herd, he’d just ask Holly Jane to give them a whistle.

He swung the big barn door open wide then stepped inside. Sparkling dust motes chased each other in the dawn light that began to peek through the wood slats.

Five stalls lined one wall, and he would add two more to the wall opposite. He meant to have his mares deliver in the safety of the barn rather than on the open land.

A flock of fat hens pecked at seed in a dim corner. Holly Jane must have fed them before she went to work at The Sweet Treat.

Smack in the center of the flock was Sunday dinner. He could nearly taste the crunch of a fried wing right now.

With more work to be done than time to do it, Colt set himself to the task of making the barn his own.

In no time, it seemed, Aunt Tillie came by to bring him the noon meal.

He sat beside her on a bale of hay and gobbled down a hunk of bread with blueberry jam spread all over it.

“How’s Grannie Rose this morning?” he mumbled around the bite of crust.

“Mind your manners, boy.” Aunt Tillie slapped his wrist.

He grinned at her and winked. He didn’t ordinarily eat with his mouth full of food, but his aunt needed someone to fuss over.

“Considering she saw an alligator in the flower garden this morning, she’s doing well.”

“Is she getting worse, do you think?” It hurt, watching his grandmother’s mind falter.

“Sometimes, maybe. Other times she’s as sharp as the both of us combined. She still understands when I tell her that the unreasonable things she sees are in her mind...and the main thing is, Colt, she’s happy.”

“What about you? Will you be happy here?”

She didn’t speak for a minute. She sighed then smiled at him.

“Thank you for bringing us here. It’s paradise compared to the viper pit you took us out of.”

“Too bad Holly Jane had to lose the place for us to get it.” He did feel bad about that.

“Your grandmother heard you last night when she got out of bed to use the chamber pot,” Aunt Tillie arched a brow at him. “Once you marry the child, she’ll feel at home again.”

“I ain’t getting roped and tied,” he said between bites of an apple. “Especially to Little Bo Peep.”

“Bo Peep, is it? You seem defensive, Colt. You always call people names when you want some distance... Rose said you kidnapped her according to the Travers way... You said those very words.”

“It was late, and she wasn’t kidnapped. I just brought her in from the cold so her granddaddy won’t haunt me.”

His aunt laughed. She stood, kissed the top of his dusty hair and walked out of the barn.

He wasn’t comfortable with the way she kept on laughing all the way out into the warm afternoon.

He set to work, rucking out stalls and repairing broken boards. Working up a good sweat ought to get his mind off matchmaking old ladies and back where it belonged, ankle-deep in straw and dried-out manure.

* * *

It had been six days since the Travers family had taken over Holly Jane’s home and, she had to admit, the world had not ended. In some ways life had improved.

For instance, because Colt had spread the word that the ranch belonged to him, she was able to sit beside the spring in Town Square without a single suitor pressing his suit.