The Rancher's Twin Troubles

“Don’t look now, but he’s also headed this way…” Natalie downed the rest of her beer.

Upon meeting Dallas’s penetrating stare, Josie hit her ball all the way to Hansel and Gretel’s cottage on hole fourteen!

Chapter Two

“Ladies…” Dallas tipped his hat to Bonnie and Betsy’s teacher and three other women he’d seen around the girls’ school. “Nice night to be on the links.”

The tall brunette laughed at his joke.

“Miss Griffin?” He was intrigued by the notion that she found it necessary to hide behind a pine.

“Please,” she mumbled, ducking out from behind a particularly full bough to extend her hand, “outside of school you can call me Josie.”

When their fingers touched, he was unprepared for the breeze of awareness whispering through him. It’d been so long since he’d noticed any woman beyond casual conversation that he abruptly released her. Just as hastily broke their stare. Had she felt that shift from the ordinary, too?

“Hi, Miss Griffin!” The twins and three of their more giggly friends danced around him.

“H-hi, girls,” their teacher said. Had she always been so hot? Maybe it was the course’s dim lighting, but her complexion glowed as pretty as his mama’s Sunday pearls. Her hair hung long and wild, and she wore the hell out of a pair of faded jeans and a University of Oklahoma sweatshirt. Red cowboy boots peeked out from beneath her hems. “You all having a party?”

Bonnie nodded. “Daddy’s letting us have a sleepover for doing good on our chores all week.”

“Congratulations,” their teacher said, patting Bonnie’s back. “I’m proud of you.”

His daughter beamed.

Feeling damned proud for having raised such a conscientious sweetheart, Dallas couldn’t help but grin.

“Come on, Daddy.” Betsy yanked his arm. “Let’s play.”

“Well…” Oddly reluctant to end the conversation, Dallas said, “Guess I’d better get going. My bosses are calling.”

The look Josie Griffin shot him was painful. As if she disapproved of his play on words. The notion annoyed him and brought him back to the reality of who she was in the grand scheme of things. A teacher he’d never see again after his girls’ kindergarten graduation. As for his musings on her good looks? A waste of time he wouldn’t be repeating.

“I KNOW, KITTY, THE MAN’S infuriating, isn’t he?” While Josie’s calico performed figure eights between her legs, she spooned gourmet cat food onto a china saucer. Her friends thought she was nutty for lavishing so much attention on her pet, but Kitty had been a wedding gift from Hugh. When she one day lost her furry friend, she didn’t know what she’d do. In some ways, it would be like losing her husband all over again.

Another thing her friends nagged her about was worrying over events that hadn’t happened. But surviving the kinds of things Josie had taught her to never underestimate any signs—no matter how seemingly insignificant.

“Kitty,” she said, setting the saucer on the wide planked walnut floor, “do you think when it comes to the Trouble Twins I’m looking for problems where there are none?”

Chowing down on his Albacore Tuna Delight, Kitty couldn’t have cared less.

Josie took a banana from the bowl she kept filled with seasonal fruit. Usually in her honey-gold kitchen with its granite counters, colorful rag rugs and green floral curtains, she felt warm and cozy. Content with her lot in life. Yes, she’d faced unspeakable tragedy early on, but as years passed, she’d grown accustomed to living on her own. She shopped Saturday morning yard sales for quilting fabric and took ballet every Thursday night. Even after three years, she was the worst in her class, but the motions and music were soothing—unlike her impromptu meeting with Dallas Buckhorn.

Her hand meeting his had produced the queerest sensation. Lightning in a bottle. Had it been her imagination? A by-product of beer mixed with moonlight? Or just Nat’s gushing praise of the man’s sinfully good looks catching like a virus?

ON MONDAY MORNING, as calmly as possible, Josie fished for the green snake one of her darlings had thoughtfully placed in her desk drawer. Finally grabbing hold of him—or her—she held it up for her class’s squealing perusal. “Don’t suppose any of you lost this?”

Bonnie Buckhorn raised her hand. “Sorry. He got out of my lunch bag.”

“Yes, well, come and get him and—” Josie dumped yarn from a nearby plastic tub, and then set the writhing snake inside. “Everyone line up. We’re taking a field trip.”

“Where? Where?” sang a chorus of hyper five-yearolds.

Bonnie took the tub.

“We’re going to take Bonnie’s friend outside—where he belongs.”

“You’re not letting him go!” Bonnie hugged the yellow tub, vigorously shaking her head.

“Yes, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Now, I need this week’s light buddies to do their job, please.”

Sarah Boyden and Thomas Quinn scampered out of line to switch off the front and back fluorescent lights.

“Please, ma’am,” Betsy said while her twin stood beneath the American and Oklahoman flags crying, “Bonnie didn’t mean to put Green Bean in your desk.”

“Then how did he get there?” Josie asked as Sarah and Thomas rejoined the line.

“Um…” She gnawed her bottom lip. “He wanted to go for a walk, but then he got lost.”

“Uh-huh.” Hands on her hips, miles behind on the morning’s lesson, Josie said, “Get in line. Bonnie, you, too.”

Bonnie tilted her head back and screamed.

Not just your garden-variety kindergarten outrage, but a full-blown tantrum generally reserved for toy store emergencies. A whole minute later she was still screaming so loud that her classmates put their hands over their ears.

Josie tried reasoning with her, but Bonnie wouldn’t hush longer than the few seconds it took to drag in a fresh batch of air. Not sure what else to do, Josie resorted to pressing the intercom’s call button.

“Office.”

“Cami!” Josie shouted over Bonnie, “I need Nat down here right away.”

The door burst open and Shelby ran in. “What’s wrong? Sounds like someone’s dying.”

Nat followed, out of breath and barely able to speak. “C-Cami said it sounds like someone’s dying.”

Both women eyed the squirming student lineup and then Bonnie. Betsy stood alongside her, whispering something only her twin could hear—that is, if she’d quieted enough to listen.

“Sweetie,” Josie tried reasoning with the girl, “if Green Bean is your pet, I won’t let him go, but we’ll have to call your father to come get him. You know it’s against our rules to bring pets to school when it’s not for show-and-tell.”

For Josie’s ears only, Natalie said, “Hang tight, I’ll get hold of her dad.”

“LOOK,” DALLAS SAID AN HOUR later. When he’d gotten the counselor’s call, he’d been out on the back forty, vaccinating late summer calves. It was a wonder he’d even heard his cell ring. “If my girl said the snake got in her teacher’s desk by accident, then that’s what happened. Nobody saw her do it. Even if it did purposely end up there, how many boys are in her class? Could one of them have done it?” In the principal’s office, Bonnie sat on one of his knees, Betsy on the other. Stroking their hair, he added, “I’m a busy man. I don’t appreciate having to come all the way down here for something so minor.”

Principal Moody sighed. With gray hair, gray suit and black pearls, she looked more like a prison guard than someone who dealt with children. “Mr. Buckhorn, in many ways schools are communities. Much like the town of Weed Gulch, our elementary maintains easy to understand laws by which all of our citizens must abide. I’ve been at this job for over thirty-five years and not once have I seen a snake accidentally find its way into a teacher’s desk. I have, however, encountered fourteen cases of students placing their reptiles in various inappropriate locations.”

Hardening his jaw, Dallas asked, “You calling my girl a liar? Look how upset she still is…”

Bonnie hiccupped and sniffled.