Cowboy Courage

by Carolyn Brown

  “Do y’all know Molly Wilson?” Rose asked. “She owns the Rose Garden Bed-and-Breakfast, and she’s my aunt.”

  “Lady, I don’t care if the mother of Jesus is your aunt,” he said, “it looks to me like y’all have just got caught after robbing the drugstore in town. I don’t know why, but we’re going to get this all straightened out at the station, so get in the back of the patrol car.”

  Hud was already in the backseat when she got in. “At least they didn’t handcuff us.”

  “They’re going to be embarrassed when we call Luna and she tells them we’ve been at the B&B all evening,” he whispered.

  Officer Turnbull drove them to the station in Bowie, and opened the back door. “Don’t either of you run.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, but I would like to make a phone call,” Rose said.

  “After we get inside,” he said. “But it sure looks like you’re guilty of something when you want to call a lawyer before we even ask our questions.”

  “I’m not calling a lawyer,” she told him.

  Turnbull kept one hand on his holstered gun as he ushered them inside the station and told them to sit down behind a desk. “If you want to make that call, you can do it now before we fingerprint the both of you.”

  Rose drew in a sharp breath. If the army found out she’d been taken in for questioning, it might have a bearing on her reenlistment. She hit the speed-dial number for the bed-and-breakfast and sent up a silent prayer that Aunt Luna wasn’t in the bathtub or sleeping.

  “Hello, Wilbur,” Luna answered. “It’s about time you called.”

  “Aunt Luna, this is Rose.” She went on to tell her what had happened. “Can you get a taxi to bring you down here to tell these people that we didn’t rob the drugstore? That we were at the B&B and you were with us all evening?”

  “Hell, no!” Luna screeched. “You’re only four blocks from me, so I’ll walk. Ain’t no use in payin’ for a taxi, and I damn sure need the time to cool my temper. Them policemen had better have me a place cleaned off, because Luna is on her way and she’s bringin’ hell with her.”

  “She’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” Rose told Hud and sincerely hoped that Luna left Madam at home.

  Her great-aunt stormed through the door in ten minutes, and the poor policeman’s eyes popped out of his head so far that Rose was afraid they’d be rolling around on the floor any minute. Luna had not taken her hair out of its customary braids with the beads that made a clacking sound every time she did a head roll. She was wearing a floral flowing skirt and a striped blouse, boots that looked like they’d come right out of Granny Clampett’s closet, and a cowboy hat crammed down on her head. The hat was either Molly’s or one that a visitor had left behind, but Rose had seen it on the rack that stood just inside the front door of the B&B. The boots were about two sizes too big and muddy around the bottom edge where she’d probably waded right through mud puddles on the way to the station.

  She came into the station with a full head of steam, and her forefinger waggling. She leaned over the desk and got nose to nose with the officer. “You sumbitches are about to get a lawsuit slapped on your sorry asses for this. My niece wouldn’t be robbin’ no damn store. She’s just served her country in the army for the past ten years, and Hud Baker is a respectable citizen of Montague County. He owns a ranch over there.”

  “Aunt Luna, just tell them that we were at the B&B all evening. He needs to know that you were with us,” Rose said.

  Hud slipped his arm around Rose’s shoulders. “It could just be an honest mistake. We were on our way to the Rusty Spur to do some dancing, officer. We haven’t been drinking and we sure didn’t rob a store.”

  “Excuse me, sir.” The second officer popped his head in the door. “We had the drug dog sniff out the truck, and we didn’t find anything.”

  “Can we please just go now?” Rose asked.

  “Not without an apology for all this crap you’ve put us through. It’s supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, right?” Hud’s tone was cold as ice.

  Luna started toward the new officer with blood in her eye and her hand in the pocket of the oversize coat. “Are you the other fool who thinks he’s some kind of hero? Well, right here sits the real hero.” She turned and pointed at Hud. “He’s the one who rescues babies from burning buildings. He don’t rob drugstores. This is just one of the reasons I hate Texas.”

  The officer slammed the door in her face before she could back him up into a corner. “Run, you little sumbitch!” she yelled. “Just shows that you don’t deserve that badge when you can’t stand up to an eighty-year-old woman.” She returned to the desk and started in on Officer Turnbull again. “Is there a law in this gawd-forsaken town about havin’ a black pickup truck?” Daggers shot from her eyes straight at him.

  “No, ma’am.” Officer Turnbull shook his head.

  “Why did you stop Hud in the first place?”

  “He was going a few miles over the speed limit, and we was only going to give him a warning,” the officer answered.

  The young officer opened the door again. “We did find traces of fertilizer in the truck. You reckon these two were makin’ a bomb?”

  “You ain’t nothing but a baby-faced kid,” Luna said. “Hud is a rancher. Of course he has traces of fertilizer in his truck. Did you find any explosives? How long have you been on the force?”

  “This is my first day, ma’am,” he answered. “And no, I didn’t find anything but a few grains of fertilizer.”

  “Like the lady said, I’m a rancher.” Hud’s tone hadn’t warmed a bit. “I hauled ten bags of fertilizer in that truck a few days ago. You can check with the feed store if you want to verify that.”

  Luna narrowed her eyes at the officer behind the desk. “You were training him on how to make a stop and write out a warning, and then realized that the truck was the same color as the one that was used in a robbery. Are you crazy or just plain stupid?”

  “No…well…I don’t have to…” the officer muttered, and then cleared his throat.

  Luna gave him a go-to-hell look. Rose bit back a giggle, and Hud chuckled under his breath.

  “Your truck is in impound,” the younger officer said.

  “Then you can go get it out,” Luna turned on him. “This is your stupid mistake, and Hud’s not paying you one single dime.”

  The young man looked over at Officer Turnbull. The older man shrugged. “Go on and do it.” Then he turned his attention back to Hud. “You are both free to go with our apologies. I didn’t recognize you as the firefighter who saved that kid.”

  “Thank you,” Rose said.

  Hud leaned over the desk and stared the man right in the eye. “You might want to give a person a chance to explain things a little more before you haul them in to the station.”

  “That wasn’t much of an apology, and it don’t make up for the fact that you’ve done such a stupid thing,” Luna said. “I’m going home now. If I missed my call from Wilbur, I’ll be back to give you another piece of my mind. I’ll be waiting out front. I don’t like this place.” She stormed out of the police station and slammed the door behind her.

  “She’s hell on wheels, isn’t she?” the officer said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Rose agreed. “Just be glad that she wasn’t really mad.”

  In less than ten minutes, they were free to go. Luna was sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette. When she saw them, she threw it on the ground and put it out with the heel of her boot. “I give up smokin’ five years ago, and only have one when I’m mad. You kids can take me back to the house. If Wilbur called while I was gone, I may sue this city yet.”

  “He can call back, can’t he?” Rose asked as she helped Luna into the backseat of the truck.

  “Not until tomorrow. The office at the trailer park where we live closes up tight at eight o’clock.” Luna chuckled and then it grew to a full-fledged laugh. “I’m callin’ Molly soon as I get back in the house. She’s got to hear this st
ory.” She stopped long enough to wipe her eyes, and then went on, “I swear to God, I wish I’d had one of y’all’s fancy phones so I could have taken a picture of them policemen’s faces when I cornered them; she would’ve loved it.”

  Rose laughed with her, but she didn’t know if it was nerves or if the situation was really that funny. Then she suddenly stopped. “What does the trailer park office have to do with y’all calling each other?”

  “We ain’t got a phone”—Luna wiped her eyes again—“never saw no need for one. Me and Molly like to write and get letters, and she’s the only one I’d ever call, so payin’ a phone bill seems like a waste of money.”

  Hud pulled to a stop in front of the B&B and unfastened his seat belt. “You can stay in the truck if it’s too cold for you.”

  “Honey, I ain’t no weakling,” Luna told him as she opened the door, “and I don’t need you to walk me to the door, either. It might make Rose jealous.” She cackled, “So you just go on and do some dancin’ and maybe even some makin’ out on the way home.”

  Hud waited until she was inside the B&B before he backed out of the driveway and started toward town one more time. “That was a real circus back there.”

  “I almost felt sorry for the policemen,” Rose said. “I bet they didn’t know what hit them and still don’t. First Luna comes in and goes crazy on them, and then you deliver a dose of cowboy pride. I bet they stop and consider before pulling over someone on a trumped-up charge again.”

  “As for me, I’m wondering if you and I will ever have a date that doesn’t involve a catastrophe.”

  “I think we’ve covered a lot of them.” She smiled as they passed the place where they’d been stopped before.

  “There’s still hail, floods, and tornadoes,” he said.

  “Shhh.” She shook her head at him. “Don’t say that out loud.”

  She’d always wondered what Hud Baker would become, even when she’d known him as a lanky teenager. Now she’d had a little taste of the answer, and she’d never felt more alive in her entire twenty-eight years. Nothing was ever humdrum around him, and catastrophes seemed to follow him everywhere he went.

  “You ever had this much bad luck in one week?” she asked.

  “Nope,” he replied with a head shake, “or this much good luck, either. Guess one comes with the other.”

  “Good luck?” she asked, incredulously.

  “Got to go through all of them with you, didn’t I? Do you have your heart set on going dancing?”

  “Not really,” she answered, honestly. “I just wanted to spend some time with you.”

  “Then let’s go to the Dairy Queen and have some ice cream. I’d rather talk until they run us out than have to yell above the jukebox at the Rusty Spur,” he said.

  “Or we could go out to your ranch and let me see where you live.” It might be brazen, but a girl didn’t get anywhere by being shy. She’d proven that more times than one.

  “I’ve got ice cream in the freezer and cold beers in the refrigerator.” He turned the pickup around and headed in the opposite direction.

  * * *

  Hud’s hands shook a little when he turned into the lane leading up to the small ranch house. Everyone in Tulia knew that the Bakers had a ranch as big as a small third-world country, so what was she going to think about the little two-bedroom house he now lived in?

  “Oh! My! Goodness!” Rose exclaimed. “Your place looks like something out of a magazine with the fence and all. When I retire, I want something just like this.”

  “You really like something this small?” Hud had been reluctant to tell her too much about the run-down ranch that he half-owned. She deserved so much more than what he could offer. She’d been all over the world, and she spoke however many languages. Surely her dream home was more than a little ranch-style, clapboard frame house.

  “Love it!” she said as she got out of the truck before he could even open his door. “I’ve always lived in small spaces. In the commune, it was a trailer. The two years I went to public school, we rented a house about this size, and now, I live in a dorm room in the army barracks. This is perfect.”

  “Well, it does have about seven hundred acres surrounding it,” he said as he got out of the vehicle.

  Rose had already let herself out when he reached her door. “That’s bigger than our whole commune. Do you make a garden? I love to putter about in the dirt, and I really like fresh vegetables.”

  “We haven’t got one yet, but we’ve talked about putting one in this spring.”

  “Do you realize that it’s only been since Wednesday that we’ve actually reconnected? Seems like I’ve known you forever,” she told him.

  “I know,” he replied. “It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? We did have that year together out in the Panhandle, even if we were just kids, and we saw each other at Maverick’s wedding the first of the month,” he said. “One thing for sure, there doesn’t seem to be a dull moment when we’re together.”

  “Amen to that.” She started for the porch.

  Suddenly, Hud couldn’t wait to show her his place. He beat her to the door and opened it for her. “Welcome to my house. Actually, I share it with Paxton right now, but he’ll be leaving soon to go back out around Daisy.” He reached around the door and flipped on the light, and a dog scooted in past both of them. The animal yipped once and then took off for the kitchen.

  “That would be Red. He’s a little rude tonight, not stoppin’ to even say hello,” Hud said. “But it’s past his suppertime, and from the way he’s actin’, he didn’t catch a rabbit or even a squirrel.”

  “Then I guess we’d better feed him, hadn’t we?” She marched through the living room and straight into the kitchen.

  Lord, that girl had spirit and spunk. Nothing seemed to faze her, and yet that shouldn’t surprise him. From what he already knew, she’d grown up pretty much in a conservative commune. She’d had the nerve to join the military without telling her father until she’d already signed the papers. He’d just bet she’d locked horns with her dad on more than one occasion.

  He hung up his coat and, when he made it to the kitchen, found her dropped down on her knees, scratching Red’s ears. “He’s named after the dog in Blake Shelton’s song. Since he looked a little like the hound in the video, we thought it was a fitting name,” he said as he filled a bowl with dry food.

  “I love dogs.” She stood up when Red bounded off into the utility room to scarf down his supper.

  “I thought you were going to adopt Chester.” Hud got the ice cream from the freezer and filled two bowls. “We’ve got caramel and chocolate toppings. Which one?”

  “Both, please.” She stood up. “And I’d gladly take a dog and a cat, long as they didn’t kill each other.” She squeezed out caramel first and then chocolate onto her ice cream.

  “Living room or kitchen?” he asked.

  “Let’s take it to the living room.” She picked up her bowl and headed in that direction. “Think we might start a blaze in the fireplace.”

  “That’s easy enough.” He set his ice cream on the end table and turned a knob to one side of the bricks. “The logs are fake and it’s gas powered.”

  “I don’t care if it’s solar powered,” she said. “I just love to look at it while I’m eating ice cream.”

  “Did you have one in your house?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Never even done this before, but I always imagined it in my head as a little bit romantic.”

  So she wanted romantic? Hud could give her that for sure.

  She sat down on the sofa, and he settled in beside her, and pulled a quilt over both of them. “Is this the way you imagined it?”

  “Yep,” she replied. “Only we were fourteen, not almost thirty. I used to lay awake at night and think about how it would be if we went on a real date. That was my favorite scenario. Did you even think about me when the day ended?”

  He set his ice cream to the side and pulled her in even closer
to him. “I’ve dreamed about you for years and years, darlin’.”

  “That sounds like a pickup line to me, but I like it.” She put her bowl on the coffee table, and snuggled up closer to him. “What did you dream?”

  “That you were back in my life, and that we had times just like this,” he answered. “Sometimes in my dreams we were having a picnic by a creek, other times we were sitting on the porch watching kids playing in the yard.”

  “How did you feel when you woke up from those dreams?” she asked.

  “At peace,” he replied. “How’d your imaginations about a fireplace make you feel?”

  “Excited.” She shifted her position so that she was sitting in his lap.

  Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, and then her eyes fluttered shut. The kisses started out with enough steam to fog the windows in the living room, and got hotter and hotter. She unbuttoned his shirt, and the touch of her hands on his bare chest made the pressure behind his zipper unbearable. He slipped his hands under her shirt and unfastened the hooks of her bra, and then moved around to cup her breast with his hand.

  “Sweet Jesus!” she muttered. “I hope you have protection somewhere in this house because I’m not on the pill.”

  That’s the moment when Red decided to jump on the couch and lick Rose from her chin up to her forehead in one long swipe. She wiped at her face with the back of her hand and then began to laugh. “Ask and ye shall receive.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Hud asked.

  “I asked for protection. I wasn’t expecting it in the form of dog slobbers, but that sure ruined the mood,” she said.

  He chuckled with her. “I guess it did. Maybe Red knows that it’s too soon for us to…”

  “Have sex,” she finished the sentence for him. “Well, I usually do wait until the fifth or maybe even the sixth date. How about you?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a third date,” he answered, honestly. “Most of my dates”—he air quoted that last word—“have been one-night stands that I picked up at the bars.”