Merry’s blush went nuclear. Well, she thought, Sam has the asshole part down pat…Still, from what she’d seen at the spring this evening, his schlong was something to schling home about. She looked away. “Whatever, Llama Boy. I’d really prefer not to get in a measuring contest with a dude in footie pajamas.”
“I take offense at that categorization,” he said, crossing his legs at the ankle and gazing fondly at his broad, callused—and very bare—feet. “I’m a big believer in letting the tootsies breathe. And while we’re on the subject of gnarly things, why are you so hung up about a couple of scars anyway? A scar is just a record of where you’ve been in this life, not a source of shame.”
Shows how much he knows, thought Merry. Her career-ending injury had been the ultimate humiliation. Winning had been Merry’s whole reason—and frankly, her whole justification—for being.
Suddenly, Sam looked stricken. His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath. “Wait…is that why you’ve been such a klutz? Why you had so much trouble keeping up on the llama trek? Your injury?”
Merry looked away and didn’t answer.
“Well, hell.”
He stood up abruptly, strode over to the cot, and helped himself to a seat on it. The bed dipped under his solid bulk, and Merry’s body lurched close to his. Suddenly her senses were swamped with that warm, slightly musky Sam scent, and she scrambled to the other end of the cot to get some distance. She pressed her back to the wall and gazed at him with something close to alarm.
“I really am an ass, aren’t I?” he said, seeing her reaction. “But Jesus, Merry, why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
“I’m not hurt. I’m crippled,” she snapped, then clamped her mouth shut, embarrassed by the admission. Her eyes were suddenly blurry, but that only made her madder at Sam. Damn it, I. Will. Not. Cry!
“What are you talking about?” he asked, genuine puzzlement in his voice. “You shoveled shit, you baled hay, and you helped get the Muellers all the way to the top of Wheeler Peak and back. You were slow, sure, and you stumbled a bit, but you made it. Nobody could ask more from you.”
My mother could ask more, Merry thought.
“Merry, I’m sorry I’ve given you such a hard time. I guess since you got here, I’ve just been afraid you were trying to take advantage of my aunt. But you aren’t, are you?”
With so little space between them, Merry could see the gold flecks in his blue irises. Pretty, she thought, before his words sunk in. “Of course I’m not! I’m trying to help! I’ve been doing everything I can to portray the ranch in the best light possible—and honestly, aside from you, I haven’t had to fudge a whole lot to make it look good. The Last Chance really is a pretty magical place. And so is what I’ve seen of the rest of Aguas Milagros. I want to do the place justice for my readers—and I was hoping maybe that might do you guys some good, tourism-wise. I don’t know if I’m physically capable of doing all the heavy lifting I signed on to do, but I’d like to be of use while I’m here, if you’d only stop trying to run me off at every turn.”
Sam sucked thoughtfully on his teeth, giving her a sideways assessing glance. “I guess I can see that now. I just thought…hell, I dunno. I thought all that over-the-top ‘Cowboy Sam’ crap was you making fun of us country bumpkins—that, or you were wearing some serious rose-colored beer goggles.” His lips twisted ruefully.
“No beer goggles,” Merry said. “But maybe I have a career as a romance novelist in my future if I’ve managed to sell you as a leading man.” Relenting a bit, she allowed a small smile to cross her lips.
Sam matched it with his own, then allowed the smile to grow into a full-fledged grin. It transformed his homely features into something that made Merry’s heart grow warm.
At least she told herself it was her heart.
“You’re gonna tone that down now though, right?”
“Am I?” Merry arched her brow. “No, I don’t think I am. I could stand to stretch my fiction-writing wings.”
“I’m not going to start having groupies, am I?” He sounded alarmed.
“You might, if the comments on my columns so far are any indication.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” he muttered. A look of consternation crossed his face. “Maybe that’s why…”
“Why what?”
“Well, Aunt Dolly told me she’s started getting a surprising number of bookings for the tours the last couple days. All of them from women.”
Merry had to laugh at the chagrin on Sam’s face. “Maybe you’ll get to play swashbuckling hero after all, Mr. Dundee.”
Sam changed the subject, clearly uncomfortable. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did that happen?” He waved at her leg.
Merry hesitated. It would be so easy to let her guard down, but she wasn’t actually sure she liked this new Sam. Or more precisely, she wasn’t sure she liked how easily he might get under her skin. Bantering about his fictitious sex appeal was one thing—it was awesome to watch him squirm—but she wasn’t about to swap confidences with a guy who got his jollies calling her “Wookiee.” His sudden about-face was just that—a little too sudden. She wasn’t sure how he’d react once he learned who she had once been.
“I do mind,” she said shortly. “It’s not something I care to discuss with ogres who come galumphing into my bedroom in the middle of the night, brandishing battle-axes.”
Sam snorted. “I don’t ‘galumph,’” he informed her, letting the issue of her injury drop. “And it was a wood axe.”
“Whatever. We’re not getting all buddy-buddy, buddy, so if you don’t mind, it’s time for you and your pilgrim pj’s to shove off.” Suiting actions to words, Merry gave Sam a shove on his thigh with her foot.
It was like trying to dislodge a boulder from a riverbed with a spork.
A hot, muscular boulder. “Move it, Llama Boy. This Wookiee needs her shut-eye.”
“You’re not worried about the so-called monster you think you saw anymore?”
“I didn’t think I saw it, it landed splat on my face! And believe me, Mick Dundee wrestled crocs that were smaller than this beast.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious!”
“I’m sure you are, Wookiee,” said Sam, getting to his feet and dusting off his faded red flannels. “I’m sure wherever you’re from, mosquitoes seem like ferocious wildlife to you too.”
Merry started to sputter a tart rejoinder at the unfairness of this, coming from a Garden State native, but a movement in her peripheral vision had her catching her breath. “Oh my God, there it is!” she hissed, pointing to the pile of firewood beside the woodstove. “I think I just saw it disappear between the logs!”
“Just a centipede, probably,” Sam said, not bothering to investigate.
Just a centipede? The thing was enormous! “Aren’t you going to slay it?”
“I doubt it’ll bother you again,” he said. He shouldered the axe and turned, giving Merry a gander at the fireman’s flap of the buttoned-up union suit. “If we’re all done with the girl talk, Wookiee, I’m gonna head back to my bed. I gotta be sure I’m properly studly in the morning for your readers.”
Merry ignored the snark. “But…you can’t just leave me here with that thing. It’s horrible!”
Sam shrugged, heading for the door. “Lots of things are ugly at first glance. Doesn’t mean they don’t have a place in nature. And I certainly don’t want to be the one to kill the poor bugger just because it had the poor judgment to dive into your skivvies. I didn’t try to murder you when you tried to dive into mine, after all.”
Merry was too terrified to get huffy. “At least leave me the axe,” she pleaded.
“I don’t think so, Wookiee. You’re accident-prone enough as it is.”
“Some hero,” she groused, squinching herself into a tight ball at the head of her bed. “Won’t even leave the distressed damsel the means to defend herself. Be careful, or I might have to tell my readers the truth about Studly Sam.”
; Sam shrugged, as if unconcerned with such trivialities as public opinion. “In your case, fiction is stranger than truth. Hasta mañana, Merry Manning.” Then he paused at the door, looking thoughtful.
“Tell you what. We’ve got some very special guests coming in for an overnight experience in a couple days, and if you’re serious about sticking this out, I’ll want your help with them. I think you might learn a few things about perseverance. And who knows: Maybe you’ll have something to teach them too. Unless…” A look of challenge lit his blue eyes. “Unless you’re giving up on the Last Chance?”
“I’ll be there,” Merry said tightly. If I’m not in the gullet of a monstrous insect by then, she thought.
“Alright then,” he said. “Sweet dreams.” And he sauntered out, swinging the door shut behind him and leaving Merry to wish it had hit him on the ass. She settled back in the cot, cranky and out of sorts. Had they just formed some sort of truce? Or was this only the beginning of a whole new phase of weirdness, Sam Cassidy–style?
And he didn’t even save the day, she thought grumpily. Some Marlboro Man. Her eyelids grew heavy at last—it had been one of the longest days in recent memory—and Merry started to doze off.
Crunch!
A loud, carapace-munching sound came from across the room. Merry looked up just in time to see her very pleased-looking box turtle snarf the tail end of an enormous centipede, then drop back into his terrarium to savor his victory. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear she heard a tiny belch.
“My hero,” she said, drawing her covers up with a smile. At least someone on the ranch understood chivalry.
I started to feel like Ebenezer Scrooge, for I had another spectral visitation the next night. Round about three, perhaps four, or whenever the witching hour is witchiest, I heard a creak, and a draft of air cold as the crypt washed over me. On this moonless night, there was not a speck of light, and the ranch might as well have been resting on the bottom of the ocean.
There came a noise: Clatter-clop, clickety-tromp.
Jacob Marley’s chains dragging against the floorboards? The centipede’s kin seeking revenge? No, too loud for the latter. I held my breath, burrowing beneath the coverlet, and stayed as still as a quivering wreck of a woman could manage. I was too terrified to reach for my phone’s flashlight app, lest it pinpoint for the phantom exactly where I lay. Yet despite my precautions, the sound came closer—and with it came an infernal reek. A reek mixed with…lavender?
I heard the sound of snorting, as if Beelzebub himself had popped in for a bedtime story, and I tried to breathe as shallowly as I could. But just as I thought I would perish from sheer fear, I heard the thing move off again, into the night. Another creak, and the draft stopped. I lay there, panting with horror, until at last my tired body gave up the ghost (or more precisely, gave up on the ghost) and I fell back into an uneasy doze.
This morning when I set feet to floorboards, I found a bouquet of fragrant wildflowers at the foot of my bed.
Apparently, this ghost wants to be friends.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Urgent: Your Garage Space
Dear Ms. Manning,
It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that your vehicle was towed from its assigned garage space in the building this morning. The attendant who witnessed the incident tells me that the gentlemen who towed it were repossession specialists (I believe “repo men” was the term he used), and they had the proper documentation to authorize the removal of the car. I’ve attached a scan of the paperwork for your convenience.
Please note: You will still be required to pay for the space so long as you are a resident of the building. Perhaps your subtenant will be interested in utilizing it?
Sincerely,
Jonathan Jonas
Managing Agent
“Fuck,” said Merry, “a duck.”
That car had been just about the last material possession she could call her own, aside from a few sticks of furniture currently being “utilized” by the tenant she’d gotten to take over her lease. Probably should have gotten my mail forwarded, she thought. She’d undoubtedly missed more than a few bills since she’d been in Aguas Milagros. Well, “missed” wasn’t really the word to use, she thought ruefully. Dodged might be more accurate. But even if she’d received the notice saying her car was about to be repossessed, there wasn’t much she could have done about it—except take the old CDs out of the glove box and say a tearful good-bye. She had nothing in her bank account with which to pay off the title loan. It was only because Pulse was paying for her rental car that Merry was able to keep the MINI while she was here at the ranch. It would have to go back the minute this assignment ended. Leaving Merry up shit’s creek for real.
“Fuck,” said Merry to no one in particular, “two ducks.”
Fortunately, Bob’s diner was devoid of ducks this morning. It was just her, and her laptop, and the unfortunate connection to the world it provided.
Well, while she was facing unpleasant things, she’d might as well get it over with and rip off the Band-Aid. She’d been putting it off for the past several days while she settled into ranch life and her leg started to heal up a bit. But she couldn’t ditch this responsibility any longer.
It was time to scan the comments.
Nooooooooooooooo, she thought, as she always did before she undertook this most loathsome portion of her job. No, please God, spare meeeeeee!
But there was no help for it. Merry needed to see how her fickle fans were responding to her column. The first DDWID installments had done remarkably well, but that was no reason to go ahead and think the Internet had sprouted daisy-covered rainbows overnight. When you worked as an online journalist, you were only as good as your latest post, only as safe as the trolls were magnanimous that day.
How had the hot-spring hippies gone over? Had they liked her story about the trek up Wheeler Peak, and her descriptions of Sam, Dolly, Bob, and the other Aguas Milagros locals she’d been interviewing? Had the bit she’d done about the amigurumi bored them, or were they anxious to see how crafty she could be with a crochet hook? For the past several days since her encounter with Sam (and the centipede), she’d barely had time to do more than post and run—or rather collapse—given how busy ranch life had been keeping her, but Merry had to remember the Last Chance wasn’t her real job. Or her real home. Reality couldn’t wait any longer.
Maybe it’d be better to check the back-end analytics before subjecting herself to the soul-slashing callousness of the World Wide Web. Merry clicked and typed, clicked some more, and was soon in the bowels of the content management system Pulse staff members used, perusing site stats for her column.
What she saw made her sit back and reach a shaky hand for her latte—this morning’s design was of a sunrise over the mountains—and slug back a swig. “Hot damn,” she breathed, and not just because Bob’s coffee was just short of scalding. The bar graph said it all. Where her numbers had been chugging along respectably for months (though dipping more than she’d liked before Joel had done his bait-and-switch with her column), suddenly there was a spike that sent her into a whole other stratosphere.
The kind of spike that said viral.
Viral. The great white whale of Internet commerce. The elusive, ineffable, and utterly unforeseeable quality that took a story from “hey, cool,” to “you gotta fuckin’ see this” on social media.
Merry switched over to Twitter, where her handle was @merryway. The feed was slow, because Bob’s Wi-Fi was still barely out of the twentieth century, but she could see she’d gained an amazing number of new followers in the past several days, some of whom were even not horny Russian teenagers eager to please. Her message box was awash with spam, lewd offers, and requests for follow-backs—nothing new there—but it was the sheer volume of traffic that set Merry back on her heels.
Scarcely able to believe her eyes, Merry went back to the CMS and delved deeper
, clicking through charts and site referral numbers. Yup. Her shares, likes, and retweets had all grown exponentially. More important, they’d grown organically. Which meant people were interested enough in what she’d been doing enough to post about it, reblog it, and share it with their friends all over the world.
Which meant happy sponsors getting mountains of click-throughs on their ads.
But did it mean the readers were happy—or laughing their asses off at her?
Enough dithering. Time to check the comments and find out.
Except there would not be time to check all the comments. Not if Merry wanted to meet Sam at his house this morning as she’d promised.
There were twelve hundred and forty three of them.
It was near triple the number she’d done on her best day before.
“Ho-ly…”
“Want some eggs and toast with that coffee, Lady Hobbit?” Bob swung by, fishing an order pad from his apron and a pencil from his frowsy hair. “Maybe a pinch more nutmeg on your latte?”
Merry gave him a look that was half baby bird, half woozy travel writer. “No, thanks. Dolly’s got me bringing a picnic brunch over to Sam’s in a bit, so I’ll skip the chow and the nutmeg, but maybe you can spare a pinch on my arm to wake me up? I’m pretty sure I’m dreaming right now, because I am just not that lucky.” She nodded to her laptop.
Bob peeked around her shoulder to see her screen. His eyes darted as he scanned the page, and he nodded wisely. “People have good taste.”
Merry followed his gaze to the topmost comment.
CawfeeKlatch: Does the latte maestro take requests? I want Smaug in my next cappuccino.
Bob stroked his beard. “I don’t know about a cappuccino, but if I used a bit of cayenne for the flames, I bet I could make a Mexican hot cocoa dragon,” he mused.
Merry smiled, mouth already watering at the idea. Then she snorted when she saw one of the replies to the comment.
Last Chance Llama Ranch Page 19