What Are the Odds

by Marja McGraw

  Rick glanced at my mother. “And here’s to Livvie and Frank Brewster and their llama ranch, ghosts and all.”

  Chapter Three

  Everyone was gone by eight o’clock and Pete and I shared a glorious wedding night. It was everything I’d hoped for, and more. The stuff dreams are made of. I hoped he felt the same, and in the morning I was pretty sure he did, judging by the smile on his face while he slept.

  Knowing Bubba would need to go outside, I dragged myself out of bed and headed for the stairs.

  “Mrs. Sandi Webster,” I said to myself. “Dang! Old habits die hard. Mrs. Sandi Goldberg.” I descended the stairs slowly, humming to myself.

  Bubba sleeps at the foot of my bed at night, but I’d made him stay downstairs. He and Pete seem to have drawn a line in the sand, each daring the other to cross it. They could both be territorial when they wanted to be. My favorite dog wasn’t too happy and when I entered the kitchen, he snubbed me.

  I looked him in the eye before reaching for the back door to let him out to do his doggy business. “Pete lives here now and you’re just going to have to get used to it. Understand? We’re a family. It’s not just you and me anymore. It’s the three of us. Got it?”

  Sometimes I could swear my dog understands most of what I say to him. He looked up at me knowingly and seemed to be searching my face before he scratched at the door and lumbered outside like big dogs tend to do. That is, big dogs tend to lumber. He glanced back at me before putting his head in the air and sniffing. Letting out one deep woof, he turned away. He was definitely in a snubbing mood. I was pretty sure that would pass when I put his breakfast out for him.

  “Considering you were talking to a dog, that was quite a little speech.” Pete stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching. He walked through the room, closed the back door and gave me a morning kiss.

  “I’m ready to get used to this.” I smiled up at him, brushing back the hair on his slightly graying temples. Pete was close to six feet tall with dark brown, almost black hair. He wasn’t what I’d call handsome, but he had a unique man’s man look that women couldn’t resist. He was rugged looking. There was a tiny scar at the right side of his mouth which turned white when he scowled. At the moment he was smiling, not scowling.

  “Wanna go back to bed?” he asked.

  Before I could answer, the doorbell rang.

  “Guess not.” He turned and headed for the living room.

  I wanted to make him a special wedding breakfast and I began pulling things out of the refrigerator and cupboards.

  “Have you two had breakfast yet?” I could hear Pete talking to someone as yet unidentified.

  “We have.” Stanley’s voice carried to the kitchen. “We thought maybe we should get an early start to Arizona. Are you and Sandi packed?”

  “Stan, give Pete a break. Can’t you see he just got up?” Felicity’s tinkling voice carried to me, too. “Cute jammie bottoms, by the way.”

  Pete laughed. “Good thing I put them back on.”

  The doorbell rang again and I began putting everything back in the refrigerator and cupboards. It didn’t look like I’d have time to make the special wedding breakfast.

  I filled Bubba’s bowl with dog food and opened the back door. He took his time coming in, even though I knew he was hungry. He’d just have to adjust.

  I heard my mother’s and Frank’s voices and decided I’d better go join the crowd.

  “Good morning,” I said. “What’s everyone doing up so early?”

  My mother gave me a hug. “Frank and I are leaving to get things ready at the llama ranch. Did I tell you a friend loaned us their motorhome to use while we work on the house?”

  My stomach did a small lurch. “A motorhome? What do you need that for? Won’t you be staying in the house?”

  “Oh, no. There’s no electricity or water yet. Didn’t I tell you? While the house was vacant someone scrounged around and stole everything they could. They ripped out wiring, took sink faucets and swiped some of the lighting fixtures. They took copper pipes.”

  Frank frowned. “They even took the well pump. There’s a hole in the ceiling where someone was trying to steal more wiring and fell through. They must have been injured because they didn’t go back to get their wire cutters.”

  “This place is on well water?” Pete sounded interested, even if I, on the other hand, had a sinking feeling. “It must be a lot farther out in the country than we thought.”

  “It’s about thirty miles north of Kingman, off a dirt road. We’re going to be roughing it for a while.”

  Frank looked happy, Pete seemed intrigued, and I had major reservations. Stanley looked almost panic stricken. Felicity was simply Felicity, ready for any adventure. As small as she was, she never let her size get in the way.

  “Mother? You’re going to be roughing it?”

  “Yes, dear, I can rough it with the best of them. Besides, we’ll be in a motorhome, so it won’t be that bad. Just be sure to bring lots of bottled water with you. Oh, and a sturdy pair of boots. You never know when you might run into a rattlesnake or a scorpion. There’s a hoard of black widows, too. We’ve set off four bug bombs and you should see the dead bugs. Piles of them. But the house should be fairly safe by now.”

  I glanced at Stanley and saw a horrified look on his face.

  “Rattlesnakes?” His voice wasn’t much more than a squeak.

  “Honey bun, we don’t want to miss all the fun. We’ll be just fine. Remember, we’ll watch out for one another.” Felicity was excited, which seemed to flummox Stanley even more.

  “What did I get into?” he asked.

  Felicity’s smile disappeared. “I certainly hope you’re not talking about our marriage.”

  Stanley took a step toward his wife and looked horrified, once again. “Oh, my precious, absolutely not. I’ll revere the day we married for the rest of my life. I mean – ”

  “Okay, dumpling, I get it.” Her smile was back in place. “And let’s save the pet names for when we’re alone, if that’s okay with you.”

  I silently thanked her because the names were so gooey. They were hard to take on an empty stomach. I looked at Pete and had a feeling he felt the same way, although he was chuckling.

  “You two are going to have an interesting marriage,” he said, grinning at Stanley. “However, now you’re going to have to show us what you’re made of and help out at the ranch. Right?”

  “Right. How much harm can a snake or two do?” Stanley choked on his words and Felicity patted his back.

  “Has everyone had breakfast?” Mother asked.

  Pete and I shook our heads while everyone else nodded.

  “Well, move along so we can get on the road.” Uh oh. My mother was in Supervisor mode. I was glad we wouldn’t be taking the long trip in the same vehicle. “I was going to go ahead and set things up at the ranch, but I’ve been thinking we should caravan out there.”

  “So we need to bring sleeping bags and tents?” I asked.

  “If you want a place to sleep, that would be a good idea. Just sleeping bags though.”

  “Pete, why don’t you start getting those things together and I’ll fix something we can eat on the road? I’ll get Bubba’s food and a few toys to take with us. How am I going to teach him to stay away from snakes? He’ll think they’re toys. Oh, good grief. Stanley’s right. We had no idea what we were getting into.”

  Frank patted Bubba’s head. “I’m not sure, but I have a feeling dogs may have an instinct about these things.”

  “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Remember when he thought there was a ghost in this house? Oooh, yeah, I guess if he’s afraid of ghosts, maybe he’ll be afraid of snakes.”

  Ghosts? Too much ghost talk, and I was making it. Too much snake talk, too.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie, I’ll protect you.” My mother said that, not Pete. “The ghosts would never dream of bothering you with all of us around.”

  I don’t believe in ghosts. No
t now, never did.

  Chapter Four

  We’d already packed our suitcases, and after hearing about the living conditions, or lack thereof, I added a lot of items. I still remember the time Pete and I were stranded in a ghost town so I thought about what I’d wished we had with us but didn’t. I headed for the candy drawer in the kitchen and filled a bag with chocolate bars. Chocolate was high on my list of priorities, right up there with food and water. I knew there were stores in Kingman, but the town was thirty miles away from the llama ranch.

  While we were loading the car, Pete opened the bag and laughed. “Of course.” He threw it in the back seat of the Jeep.

  “Careful with that,” I said. “You know how I can be if I don’t have my chocolate fix.” It was kind of like my mother without her hormone pills.

  Stanley and Felicity made a trip to the sporting goods store and picked up a few things while we packed. Neither one had ever gone camping, so they were sorely lacking in supplies. When they pulled up in front of the house, Stanley was wearing a camouflage baseball cap.

  I bit my tongue because it was sooo not Stanley.

  “Frank already took the motorhome out to the ranch, so we won’t have to stop in Bullhead City. Is Bubba in the car?” Mother glanced in the back seat and smiled at him. He grinned back.

  She put her hand in the air and walked toward their car. “Onward, troops.”

  Pete rolled his eyes and started the car. “I know we’re going to follow them, but do you have directions in case we lose each other?”

  “Yes. Mother gave them to me before the wedding.” I reached into my backpack. “Oh. Don’t leave yet.” I opened the car door and ran to the house, keys in hand.

  Pete honked the horn to get everyone’s attention while I ran into the house to find the forgotten directions.

  Dolly stood on her porch with her little family and waved when we finally drove away.

  I leaned my head back on the headrest. “It’s been a crazy few days, but we’re finally married and we’re on our way to a supposedly haunted house.”

  Pete smiled. “How much better can it get?” He reached over and patted my knee. “Sandi and Pete are on another adventure.”

  It was a long drive to the llama ranch. We’d have to call it something else since there weren’t any llamas there anymore. That would be up to my mother and Frank though.

  We talked about our future during the drive. We had plans to enlarge the agency, but that would have to wait. The national economy was in the dumpster at the moment. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have plans ready when the time came.

  I was hoping at some point we could open a satellite office and move away from Los Angeles. I loved the city, but I was ready to put down roots in a smaller community. Pete felt much the same way.

  “Have you given any more thought to kids?” he asked, coming at me from out of the blue.

  Oh, we’d talked about children, but we both had mixed feelings about the timing. I wanted to wait a while, and yet neither of us was getting any younger. I was pushing my mid-thirties and Pete was a couple of years older than me.

  “I’m still on the fence about it.”

  “We’re not getting any younger, you know.”

  “Now you’re mind reading? I was thinking the same thing. But we just got married yesterday, so let’s put our decision on the back burner, at least until after the honeymoon.”

  “Of course. I’m just making conversation.” Pete glanced at me before turning back to the road. I noticed he was grinning.

  Our route took us through a lot of desert. There wasn’t much scenery to watch so I finally tipped my head back and fell asleep. The lack of scenery made me feel lethargic. I hoped it didn’t have that effect on Pete, since he was driving.

  I awoke when we drove over a big bump in the road. “Are we almost there?”

  “Nowhere near the ranch yet.”

  “Oh. How are your leg and ankle? Do you want me to drive for a while?”

  Pete had been in an accident and broken his right leg and left ankle several months earlier.

  “I’m fine. I think if I had to use my left foot more it might be sore, but right now it’s not.”

  I turned in my seat and checked to be sure Felicity and Stanley were still behind us. Felicity saw me turn and waved. Stanley still wore his camo hat. I waved back.

  “Do you think there really are rattlesnakes?”

  I kind of hoped he’d say it was all a joke.

  “You can count on it. I talked to Frank and he said they already killed one they found in the barn. There are a lot of black widows, too.”

  “How much farther do you think it is?”

  “We should be there in about another hour and a half.”

  The scenery whizzed by and practically hypnotized me. I nodded off again. After all, we hadn’t had much sleep. Wedding nights are like that.

  Waking again just before we reached Kingman, I began to feel unusually excited. Pete was right, we were heading for another adventure. I didn’t have any doubts. My bones were practically rattling with excitement.

  We stopped at a store in town and stocked up on more food and water. Pete found a little outdoor stove that ran on propane. It even had burners and a small oven. We oohed and aahed over it before storing it in Frank’s car. He still had some room left. We were loaded to the gills.

  It took us over another half hour to reach the llama ranch. We turned off onto a dirt road and followed it to the road where my mother and Frank turned. It was a bumpy ride.

  Frank pulled up to the property and climbed out of their car to opened a large gate before he climbed back in the car and pulled forward, driving to the right side of the house and parking.

  We stopped in front and I looked around. There was a stand of trees in front. They looked forlorn and were in need of a long drink of water. Past the trees I saw what would one day be an amazing house. The plaster was peeling off the walls, but it had once been beautiful. It needed some tender, loving care.

  There was a large front porch with columns on each side of the steps leading up to it. The security screen door was white and rusting. It sure hadn’t done the past residents any good. I could see a small dark spot that would probably be the bullet hole my mother had mentioned.

  Off to the side I could see something that looked like a workshop, and behind that was what I thought might be the barn.

  I was chomping at the bit. I couldn’t wait to get out of the Jeep and explore.

  My mother said this was a tri-level house, but it looked like it was two stories to me. I tipped my head and considered the building. I must have misunderstood.

  Pete pulled around and parked beside the house.

  I could see the motorhome sitting next to the workshop type building. There was an attached garage on the side of the house which opened on the yard side of the lot, and when Frank opened the door I saw they’d already stored a lot of their things at the ranch.

  I walked around to the front of the place with Bubba at my side to get a better look. Glancing at the second floor, I thought I saw someone watching us from the window. I opened my mouth to say something, but the figure disappeared in a heartbeat.

  Bubba blinked and hurried back to the cars.

  I don’t believe in ghosts! Period, end of story.

  Chapter Five

  We decided to do a little exploring before unpacking the cars.

  There was a door leading from the garage to stairs descending to a basement. We carried flashlights because there wasn’t any electricity yet. It was huge, and it looked like at one time it might have been a game room or something. The floor was covered with dust and dead bugs, and the walls were stained, but it didn’t look like water stains. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what the stains were.

  Pete immediately got rid of the resident black widow spider who greeted us. At least, I hoped it was the only one around the house.

  My mother was enjoying being the tour guide. “Let’s head upst
airs and look at the main floor.”

  “Mom, didn’t you say this is a tri-level house? Didn’t you mean a two-story house with a basement?”

  “No, dear. You’ll see it all.” Although in her fifties, she ascended the stairs with the steps of a teenager. She was excited.

  Bubba sniffed all the corners and I had to call him away. I think the only reason he listened to me was because there was more to explore.

  Mother’s excitement was catching and I hurried up the stairs with the others trailing in our wake.

  In the living room, the old carpeting had been pulled up. “Did you and Frank already start working on the house?” I asked.

  “No, sweetie, this room was already bare. See that big yellow circle painted on the floor? We think someone painted over the blood stains to hide them.” She sounded so blasé about it. I guess she had to be or she wouldn’t want to live in the house.

  Bubba headed straight for the yellow paint, lowering his head and sniffing intently.

  There were two bay windows at the front of the room. The windows were both wide and tall. It was a large room with a stone fireplace.

  To the right were two huge front doors. I opened them and came face to face with a bullet hole in the screen door. “Oh.” After studying the hole for a moment, I returned to the group.

  “Bubba, come.” He ignored me and kept sniffing. “Bubba! I said to come.” He turned his head slowly, and reluctantly followed me.

  We traipsed through the kitchen, which was fairly large and included a walk-in pantry. Bubba found the pantry quite fascinating, so I left him to explore.

  Looking over my shoulder, I didn’t see Stanley or Felicity, so I reversed my steps and found them in the living room. Stanley was staring at the paint.

  I didn’t want him to obsess about it. “Come see the kitchen. It’s got lots of possibilities.”

  “Come on, love bug, let’s see the rest of the house.” Felicity pulled on his arm.

  He shifted his eyes away from the spot on the floor. “Yes, sugar lump. I’m coming.”