"I still hate carrots," she said.
"It doesn't matter. If I tell you to eat them, then you will eat them," Rachel said.
"I'm going to my room and I'm not eating them carrots. You can tell my daddy that you whipped me."
Rachel pointed her finger at Lizzy. "I'm not telling him anything and neither are you or you'll get twice as many swats next time. I'm coming back next Saturday to spend the whole day because Marita and Carl need to be away from the ranch. You'll learn to mind me, little girl."
Lizzy raced up to her bedroom and slammed the door.
Julie had trouble getting to sleep that night. She'd found Edna's recipes written neatly in a notebook, along with last year's price of sugar, spices, and jars that she bought at the Wal-Mart store in Gainesville. It wouldn't be so difficult to keep the business going, and it would give her a little extra income.
She finally drifted off at midnight to hear Annie screaming. Fear glued her to the bed for a moment before the adrenaline rush set in. She ran to the bedroom to find Annie as white as a sheet, sitting straight up in bed, her eyes opened so wide they were frightening.
"What is the matter, baby?" Julie tried to soothe her.
"It's a witch. Her name is Edna and she won't die. She's a mean old woman and she hates me because I look like Lizzy. She said she was going to put me in a dark place and never let me out, and she said I was a spawn like Lizzy."
"It was just a dream," Julie said. "You must have overheard Mamie talking today. Edna is dead. She died and is buried at Saint Jo. She can't put you in a dark place because she's not here."
"Promise?" Annie asked.
"I promise."
"Will you sleep with me?"
"Only tonight."
"Lizzy would sleep with me but she's afraid to come in our house because of that mean old witch," Annie said.
It must have been a hell of a nightmare, Julie thought as she crawled into the bed and cradled her daughter in her arms.
Chapter 3
NOT A LEAF WAS STIRRING AND THE DIRT KICKED UP BY Griffin's tractor settled back to the earth quickly. August was even hotter than June and July, and they'd broken heat records during those months. It had been weeks since they'd had rain and there was none in the next week's forecast. The temperatures had been over the hundred-degree mark for days on end. Over to his right he could see Paul, one of his hired hands, driving the John Deere to the barbed wire fence. He made a turn and started another round. Griffin did the same thing in the pasture on the other side of the fence.
Thank goodness for air-conditioned cabs on his tractors or he'd be spitting dust for a week. While he plowed, his thoughts went to Rachel, who was back at the ranch house keeping Lizzy that day. Griffin was thinking about taking their relationship up to the next notch. Lizzy was getting to the age when she needed a mother. The past five years had passed like a blur. Before long she'd need another woman to talk to about things like sex and boys.
Griffin's brows knit into a solid black line across. His little girl and boys? He was frowning when his cell phone rang. He groped in the pocket of his bibbed overalls for the phone. It rang three times before he fished it out of his pocket. "I know it's dinner time. I'm on my way."
"Dinner is on the bar. I put it out there twenty minutes ago, just like the instructions Marita left me said to do. Several of the hired hands have already been in and eaten. I'm just calling to remind you and Lizzy to come on home to eat," Rachel said.
Every hair on Griffin's neck stood straight up. "Lizzy isn't with me. Isn't she there with you?"
"Haven't seen her all morning. I figured she'd begged to go with you this morning and you let her. You know you spoil her too much, Griff."
"When did you see her last?" Griffin asked.
"I haven't seen her. When I got here you were leaving and said to let her sleep since you two watched a late movie together. At ten I decided she'd slept long enough so I went to wake her and she wasn't there. I did check the barn about fifteen minutes ago to see if she was playing with those miserable cats. But since she wasn't there I figured she was with you on the tractor," Rachel said.
Griffin stopped the tractor and jogged to his truck parked at the side of the field. His pulse raced and his heart felt like a band of steel was tightened around it. For some silly reason Lizzy didn't like Rachel. He'd asked her about it the night before when they were watching Over the Hedge, and she'd only shrugged.
The ranch was safe and everyone knew Lizzy. No one could steal her right out of her bedroom, could they? She'd been told that she could not ride her pony except when Griff told her it was okay, and then she was never to leave the property.
"Dian?" he said aloud, then discarded the idea. Lizzy's mother had agreed on a settlement and left Lizzy in his care when she was two months old. Surely after five years she hadn't gotten a maternal itch and come back to steal Lizzy.
The band got tighter and tighter.
He figured that Lizzy was hiding from Rachel and would come out from behind a playhouse made of hay bales when he called her name. He hit the back porch at a run and slung open the door.
Rachel met him, shaking her finger at him. "You give that kid too much freedom, Griffin. She's allowed to run all over the place and ride that pony of hers wherever she wants on the ranch. It's not my fault she's gone. She's spoiled rotten and needs a good solid whipping for scaring us like this."
"No one is whipping my daughter. She'll be punished if she's wrong, but there might be an explanation," he said icily.
Griffin went to the bottom of the stairs and called up. "Lizzy! Come down here right now. It's dinner time."
Silence answered him.
He called her name a dozen times as he went up the steps and checked every bedroom, under the beds, in the back corners of the closets, and even the attic. No Lizzy. By the time he checked the basement, fear had his heart in a vice grip. He hurried out the back door, jumped the fence, and went to the barn.
She'd be in there with her momma cat and the kittens. She had to be. It was the last place she could be unless she'd ridden her pony to one of the far corners of the ranch and gotten hurt. She knew her boundaries and had been told always to put the spare cell phone in her pocket before she left the house.
He grabbed his phone and dialed the number. It rang four times before someone picked up. He let out a whoosh of air.
"Lizzy, where are you?" he demanded before she even said, "hello."
"This is Rachel. I heard the phone ringing and was about to say 'hello' when you started talking."
He snapped it shut without another word and began to call Lizzy's name, searching all over the barn—but no Lizzy. He checked the pasture for her pony and found it missing along with her saddle out of the tack room. Visions of her lying in a pool of blood after a fall raced through his head. He was climbing back down the ladder when kittens gathered around his ankles, meowing and demanding attention. He stepped carefully to keep from stomping a tail or hurting one of them and was already out the door with the phone in his hand to call the Saint Jo police when something stopped him.
There was a yellow kitten in with the black and white ones. The old black barn cat that Lizzy called Fluffy always produced black and white kittens. Three to five in a litter a couple of times a year. He'd just been out to the barn the day before with Lizzy and they'd played with black and white kittens. He turned around abruptly and went back into the barn. Three little kittens with a black mother. He remembered it well because he and Lizzy had watched an old rerun of The Three Stooges a few days before and she named them Larry, Moe, and Curly. Larry had a black smudge on his nose. Moe had a white streak on his head. And Curly had a white tip on his tail. Now there was one yellow and two black and white. Where was Curly?
"Here kitty, kitty," he called. No more kittens came running.
His phone rang and he snapped it open. "Yes."
"I don't like the way you hung up on me, Griffin. It hurt my feelings and you owe me an apology," R
achel said.
"I'm sorry. I'm worried about Lizzy."
"Well, so am I, but she'll turn up. Come have some dinner and then we'll both go hunt for the little runaway…"
He hung up again and called Marita's cell phone number.
"Hello," she answered.
"Lizzy is missing," he said bluntly. "And there's a yellow cat in our barn with the black and white ones."
"Did you call the police? Was it Dian? Did she steal her? Have you gone looking for her? Did she ride her pony?"
"I don't know what's going on. Her pony and saddle are gone so she's out riding somewhere. The only thing I can find that's weird is that yellow kitten."
"Edna had a yellow cat. She had a notice up in the grocery store for free yellow kittens the week before she died. Didn't you tell me that that schoolteacher bought her place?"
"But it's almost a mile from our property line to the Lassiter place and Lizzy knows better than to ride her pony on the road."
"She knows better but Annie is all she talks about. Check that house and when I get home we'll comb the rest of the ranch. I'm calling the police if you haven't located her in an hour. It could be Dian is mixed up in this."
"I'm on my way to the Lassiter place. I'll call if I find her."
He didn't go through the house but around it and left a trail of dust behind him as he took off in the truck. He drove to the end of the lane and headed south toward town. Surely Lizzy hadn't disobeyed him and ridden down the country road that far. Just this past month he'd let her ride the pony out of the yard and that was with the promise that she'd always have the cell phone in her pocket.
It was a hot Saturday at the end of August.
Not warm.
Not merely hot but stinking hot.
Julie had been outside with a hoe weeding Edna's garden most of the morning. In spite of the heat the garden was still producing. The squash had golden blossoms the size of saucers, which meant in a few days there would be a crop to make squash relish for Mamie. New cucumbers were two inches long. Just right for bread and butter pickles.
Dust settled into the sweat pouring off her face and neck and finding its way into her bra. Thank goodness she wasn't expecting company because she looked worse than a homeless bag lady from inner-city Dallas. Julie had always loved getting her hands dirty, even as a child, so she'd fallen right into taking care of the garden. She wiped the sweat from her brow with the tail of her T-shirt that had only a few dry strands left. She loved the feel of the damp earth under her bare feet as she chopped the weeds and turned over the ground around the plants. When she finished she planned to stretch the garden hose from the back of the house and water the whole area. Then she was having a long bath and reading a good romance book the rest of the afternoon.
Annie kept making trips inside the house and back out to the garden. She'd talk to Julie for a few minutes, then remember that her dolls needed her and she'd be off to the house again. Julie had figured Annie would be whining all day since it was Saturday and she couldn't see her little friends, but she'd played happily in and out of the house all morning.
The sun was high in the sky and Julie's stomach beginning to grumble when she finished the job and started toward the back door. That's when she heard tires squealing and a vehicle coming to an abrupt stop on the road in front of her house. She rounded the house in a dead run carrying the hoe with her. Thoughts of Annie disobeying her and running out into the road flooded her mind as she rushed. She shut her eyes and prayed that when she opened them she wouldn't see Annie lying in front of a truck or a car.
She shook her hoe at the truck even before the door opened. Thank God Annie wasn't the reason the driver had come to such an abrupt stop. Julie checked the road, hoping the reckless idiot hadn't hit the momma cat. "What in the hell are you doing driving like that and scaring the bejesus out of me?" she hollered at the truck.
Griffin hopped out of the truck and yelled as he walked toward the yard. "I'm looking for Lizzy. She's been missing all day and we just realized it. I thought she was in the house and they thought she was with me."
Then he really looked at Julie. She was a mess. Red hair escaping that half-assed twist of curls swept up on her head with a crazy-looking plastic clamp. Feet that looked as if they'd never worn shoes or been washed. A stained T-shirt and cut-off jean shorts that could have been rescued from a trash can behind a beer joint. Not a drop of makeup and nothing to make her desirable.
So why in the hell was he thinking about throwing her over his shoulder with her cute little bubble butt pointed up, her red hair swinging behind him at waist level, and her dirty feet kicking the hell out of him? He could even hear her giggling as he swept her away to the loft in his barn and made wild passionate love to her until they were both so tired they could do nothing but sleep in each other's dirty, sweaty arms.
Julie swiped a hand across her face, smearing dirt and grime. At least he was as dirty as she was, but even then, he was damn sexy. What in the hell was wrong with her? Thinking a man in bibbed overalls and a sleeve less shirt was sexy. She swallowed twice and took two steps closer to him. His blue eyes registered pure worry and in that moment she saw him as a father instead of a sexy soldier slash cowboy slash rancher. Still, her Irish temper got the best of her.
"Well, I haven't seen her since she left school yesterday. Maybe you can't remember where she is like you can't remember when you were Lucky and I was Red and there were no questions? Seems to me you've got selective memory problems these days. Maybe when you came home you forgot about what you'd done the night before you left," she said.
"Lady, are you crazy? What are you talkin' about? I never left Saint Jo. There's a yellow kitten in my barn, one of my black and white kittens is missing, and my daughter, Lizzy, is gone, too. Is she here?"
His heart skipped a beat and his hands went clammy. Why on earth did his body respond to her the way it did? He'd had one crazy wife already and had been fortunate enough to get rid of her with money. He didn't trust women, didn't like red-haired women, and the one standing before him was up to something. So why did he keep having ideas that were so farfetched?
She popped her hands on her hips. "I don't know where your daughter is. You must have been drunker than I thought that night. You grew your hair back and got six years older but you can't stand there and tell me you don't remember me at all. I was your lucky charm so you'd come home, remember?"
Griffin set his jaw and spoke through clenched teeth. "Are you sure you don't have a black kitten and my daughter? I don't care if you are crazy as hell. I just want my daughter. Did she come over here?"
A little dark-haired girl stepped out onto the porch.
Griffin squinted against the hot sun. "Lizzy?"
Annie folded her arms across her chest and tilted her chin down to look at him as mean as she could. Her mother did that when she'd been bad and it always worked on her. "I'm Annie and you can't have Lizzy. She's mine now. That mean woman hit her."
Before anyone could say another word, Rachel's Mustang came to a screeching halt right behind Griffin's pickup. She bailed out of the car and started into the yard.
Annie puffed out her chest. "I'm Annie and you are mean and you can't have Lizzy."
"Rachel, there's a restraining order. Luckadeaus can't go on that property," Griffin said.
Rachel kept walking. "I'm not a Luckadeau yet and I can go anywhere I damned well please. Young lady, don't you tell me you aren't Lizzy Luckadeau. I'd know you anywhere and you are in big trouble." Her long strides ate up the ground until she was within a foot of Julie.
"You take another step, lady, and I'll whip your sorry ass myself. This is my place and you aren't touching my daughter or talking to her like that," Julie said just before Rachel stepped onto her porch
Rachel stopped and glared at Julie. "What gives you that right? This isn't your property. It belongs to that old witch, Edna."
"She died and I bought it. It is my property and you are not welcome. Anni
e, what are you talking about? Who hit Lizzy?" Julie asked.
Annie pointed her finger. "Is that her daddy's girlfriend?"
"Yes, I am. You know that, Lizzy. What kind of game are you playing?"
"I'm not Lizzy. I'm Annie. Momma, tell her I'm Annie."
"This is my daughter. Get out and leave us alone," Julie said.
Annie narrowed her eyes at Rachel. "You tried to make Lizzy eat carrots and she don't like carrots. I like carrots and she likes peas. I don't like peas but my momma don't hit me two times on my bottom when I don't eat peas. That woman hit Lizzy, Momma."
Getting Lucky Page 5