One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas)

  Trixie grabbed Agnes’s arm, pulled her up, and kept her moving toward the stairs. “Well, you look more like a homeless bum.”

  Agnes pulled free and stood her ground, arms crossed over her chest, the smell of mothballs filling up the whole landing area.

  “We’ve got to get out of here in a hurry,” Trixie tried to whisper, but it came out more like a squeal.

  “He said he’d kill you, didn’t he?” Agnes finally let herself be led away. “I knew it, but I betcha I scared the shit out of him. He’ll be crawling out the window and the police will catch him.”

  They met four policemen, guns drawn, serious expressions etched into their faces, in the kitchen. Every gun shot up and pointed straight at Agnes and Trixie.

  Trixie threw up her hands, but Agnes just glared at them.

  “Jack, it’s me and Agnes. This is just a big misunderstanding.”

  Living right next door to the Andrewses’ house his whole life, Jack Landry had tagged along with Trixie, Marty, and Cathy their whole growing-up years. He lowered his gun and raised an eyebrow.

  “Nothing going on upstairs, I assure you,” Trixie said, and she wasn’t lying. Agnes had put a stop to what was about to happen for damn sure.

  Trixie hoped the old girl had an asthma attack from the mothballs as payment for ruining her Wednesday night.

  “We heard a gunshot,” Jack said.

  “That would be my shotgun. It’s up there on the floor. Knocked me right on my ass. I forgot that it had a kick. Loud sumbitch messed up my hearing,” Agnes hollered and reached up to touch her kinky red hair. “I lost my hat when I fell down. I’ve got to go get it.”

  Trixie saw the hat come floating down the stairs and tackled it on the bottom step. “Here it is. You dropped it while we were running away.”

  Agnes screamed at her. “You lied! You said we had to get away from him before he killed us, and I ran down the stairs, and I’m liable to have a heart attack, and it’s your fault. I told Cathy and Marty not to bring the likes of you in this house. It’s an abomination, I tell you. Divorced woman like you hasn’t got no business in the house with a couple of maiden ladies.”

  “Miz Agnes, one of my officers will help you across the street.” Jack pushed a button on his radio and said, “False alarm at Miss Clawdy’s.”

  A young officer was instantly at Agnes’s side.

  Agnes eyed the fresh-faced fellow. “You lay a hand on me, and I’ll go back up there and get my gun. I know what you rascals have on your mind all the time, and you ain’t goin’ to skinny up next to me. I can still go get my gun. I got more shells right here in my britches’ pockets.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am. I’m just going to make sure you get across the street and into your house safely,” he said.

  Trixie could hear the laughter behind his tone, but not a damn bit of it was funny. Andy was upstairs. The kitchen was full of men who worked for him, and if Cathy and Marty heard there were problems at Clawdy’s, they could come rushing in at any time.

  “Maiden ladies my ass,” Trixie mumbled. “I’m only thirty-four.”

  * * *

  Darla Jean had finished evening prayers and was on her way back down the hallway from the sanctuary to her apartment. Her tiny one-bedroom apartment was located in the back of the old convenience store and gas station combination. Set on the corner lot facing Main Street, it had served the area well until the super Walmart went in up in Sherman. Five years before when business got too bad to stay open, her uncle shut the doors. Then he died and left her the property at a time when she was ready to retire from her “escort” business. She had been worrying about what to listen to: her heart or her brain. The heart said she should give up her previous lifestyle and start to preach like her mamma wanted her to do back when she was just a teenager. Her brain said that she’d made a good living in the “escort” business and she would be a damn fine madam.

  The gas station didn’t look much like a brothel, but she could see lots of possibilities for a church. It seemed like an omen, so she turned it into the Christian Nondenominational Church and started preaching the word of God. Straight across from the church was Miss Clawdy’s Café.

  She hadn’t even made it to her apartment door when the noisy sirens sounded like they were driving right through the doors of her church sanctuary. She stopped and said a quick prayer in case it was the Rapture and God had decided to send Jesus back to Earth with all the fanfare of police cars and flashing lights. The Good Book didn’t say just how he’d return, and Darla Jean had an open mind about it. If he could be born in a stable the first time around, then he could return in a blaze of flashing red, white, and blue lights the second time.

  She pulled back the miniblinds in her living room. The police were across the street at Miss Clawdy’s. At least Jesus wasn’t coming to whisk her away that night. There was only one car in the parking lot, like most Wednesday nights, and she knew who drove that car. Hopefully, the hullabaloo over there was because Trixie had finally taken her advice and thrown the man out.

  God didn’t take too kindly to a woman screwing around with another woman’s man. Not even if the woman had been married to him and the “other woman” wasn’t married to him yet. Maybe it was a good thing that Jesus wasn’t riding in a patrol car that night. She’d hate for her friend Trixie to be one of those left behind folks.

  “Got to be a Bible verse somewhere to support that. Maybe I could find something in David’s history of many wives that would help me get through to her,” she muttered as she hurried out a side door and across Fourth Street toward the café.

  “Holy Mother of Jesus, has Marty come home early and caught Andy over there and murdered him?” Darla Jean mumbled.

  Had the cops arrived in all the noisy fanfare to take her away in handcuffs?

  Then she saw a policeman leading Agnes across the street. So it hadn’t been Marty but Agnes who’d done the killing. That meant Trixie was dead. Agnes had never liked her, and she’d threatened to kill her on more than one occasion. Lord, have mercy! The twins were going to faint when they found out.

  Order Carolyn Brown's book

  What Happens in Texas

  On sale June 2016

  About the Author

  Carolyn Brown is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with more than seventy books published. Her bestselling cowboy romance series include the Lucky trilogy, the Honky Tonk series, Spikes & Spurs, Cowboys & Brides, and the new Burnt Boot, Texas, series. She launched into women’s fiction with a Texas twang. Born in Texas and raised in southern Oklahoma, Carolyn and her husband make their home in the town of Davis, Oklahoma, where she credits her eclectic family for her humor and writing ideas.

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