Rebel Outlaw

“No, ma’am.” Colt didn’t miss the shadow that passed over her soft brown eyes.

Grannie winked at him.

He was in for it now. Once Grannie Rose had a notion about something it was difficult to dissuade her from it.

Next trip to The Sweet Treat, he’d wait outside. He’d take a peek or two through the window, but what man wouldn’t?

“There’s a pig nibbling on my boot toe,” Grannie Rose announced.

“Really, Rose,” Aunt Tillie whispered. “Don’t insult the proprietor by saying such a ridiculous thing.”

“But there is a pig, a small one, but a pig, nonetheless, and it’s nipping my footwear.”

Colt glanced at the lovely shop owner to see if the lady meant to kick them out over Grannie’s words. Her cheeks were flushed...turning redder by the second.

“Apologize, Rose!” Aunt Tillie had turned nearly as red as the angel, who swished her yellow skirt rounding the pastry counter.

“Look for yourself, then.” Grannie lifted the table lace.

“Lulu!” The angel dashed forward.

By damn, it was a pig! A pig with a pink ribbon tied through a slot in its ear. It was hard to know what surprised him more, the presence of the pig or that he had failed to notice it under the table. But Grannie was right. It was a very little pig.

The angel rushed for the pig; the pig dashed from under the table snagging the lace tablecloth around its foot.

Tea and chocolate went sailing, while fragile cups hit the floor and shattered. He caught a blue one and saved it.

He and the old ladies jumped up and backed away from the table a heartbeat before the pig ran into the leg and knocked it over with a smash and clatter.

Aunt Tillie laughed out loud. The animal squealed while the angel dashed here and there in pursuit of it.

The pig collided with Colt’s shin then skidded across the floor in a mess of hot tea and melting chocolate. He lunged for it with one hand because he gripped the surviving teacup in the other. The smooth round belly of the creature passed through his grip like it had been buttered. It spun in a circle on short legs then made a dash between Colt’s feet.

“Lulu!” the angel screeched.

She ran forward, stepped in a square of slick chocolate then slipped, sliding belly first...between his legs.

By now Aunt Tillie was laughing so hard that she began to wheeze.

By a bit of good luck, the pig tangled itself in Grannie’s skirt. Colt grabbed it by the scruff while the angel slowly rose to her feet.

She wouldn’t know it, glowering at the animal like she was, but her belly was streaked in chocolate. Even better, chocolate rings circled each of her breasts, revealing that they were plump...womanly.

“Here’s your bacon.” He stuffed the squealing, wriggling creature under her arm then handed her the blue teacup.

“Blast it, Lulu,” she muttered, then looked up with a furious blush staining her cheeks. “I beg your pardon, sir...ladies. Please do come another day for tea and chocolate...on the house naturally.”

She spun about then disappeared behind the curtain, the piglet’s tail twitching with the scolding it was getting.

“I do have to say, Colt,” Aunt Tillie managed to say while attempting to bring her laughter under control, “the girl is a bit earthy.”

“I knew she was the one for you the moment I saw her, Colty.”

“Hell,” he grumbled, and his aunt didn’t even bother to frown.

Chapter Two

“I should have let the butcher keep you,” Holly Jane grumbled at the pig, who grunted at a weed growing near the back door of The Sweet Treat. “You’d have made a fine sandwich.”

She locked the door then glanced about. So far, not a single suitor was visible on the path through the woods that led home.

That, at least, was a blessing. With the sun dipping behind the treetops, she didn’t need another delay. She would be late getting back to the ranch as it was.

What with broken china scattered about and chocolate-tea goop to be scrubbed from the floor, it was well past the time that she liked to be home.

“You, Miss Pigling, will help me feed the chickens since they’ll be cackling up a storm by time we get to the barn.”

Holly Jane walked the path toward home taking deep breaths of autumn-scented air. Late-afternoon sunshine shot through tree branches and cast long shadows behind her and Lulu. Leaves twisted in the breeze, looking like molten gold and then red sparks.

She loved her life here. When she had discovered, at the reading of his will, that Granddaddy had sold her inheritance, she had cried for a week. Between missing the man who had been everything to her and wondering how she would get by without the ranch she had planted her roots in, she thought she might never quit weeping.

Overhead, a crow cawed, flapping its wings toward the west and the coming sunset.

Given a choice, Holly Jane would be snuggled in a cozy chair beside the fireplace when darkness came. Since she didn’t have the choice, she would make another one. She would enjoy the beauty of the evening as it faded from light to dusk then full dark.

Coming out of the woods just now, she watched the sun slip behind the trees growing on the western edge of the ranch. The great orange glow peeked between a line of cedar and cottonwood, with elm and maple tossed in.

It would be dark by the time she reached the house, but a fat full moon rose behind her to light the way. Stars began to blink and twinkle. A raccoon rustled out of the brush and waddled up to Lulu.

“Good evening, Mayberry.”

Lulu oinked and the pair of them toddled behind Holly Jane toward the ranch house...the home she couldn’t even think of leaving.

Blame it, she wouldn’t leave. She had vowed that, to herself if to no one else.

Grandfather, in his wisdom...or confusion...hadn’t sold the entire ranch to the stranger. He had left her a perfect circle of land a hundred yards in diameter and only a short distance from the house.

Smack in the middle of the circle of land was her carousel, the gift Granddaddy had given her when she was five years old.

Why hadn’t he left her the house, as well? What could it have hurt to do that? These questions had plagued her like hounds on a scent.

Her grandfather had meant well, the lawyer had explained that day when her tears wouldn’t stop. Granddaddy’s intention had been to keep her from falling prey to the Folsoms and the Broadhowers, who would do anything to get the Munroe land.

“The new owner has agreed to watch over you, Holly Jane,” the lawyer had explained. “Your granddaddy only wanted to keep you safe.”

Holly Jane stepped onto the bridge that crossed the narrow river that Granddaddy had named Neighborly Creek. She sighed so deep that it must have alarmed Mayberry. The racoon stood on her back legs with her paws scratching the air.

“Can’t think of what got into Granddaddy. I don’t need a stranger looking after me. Haven’t I been watching after him and me since Grandma passed?”