Page 144 of Cowboy Daddies

Pink?

This wasn’t Oz and our dirt road sure as hell wasn’t paved with yellow bricks. Still as my mind tried to make sense of how a sounder of wild hogs had gotten caught up in a tornado, the squeal was replaced by the sound of wood and metal meeting resistance.

Damn it!

What had I done to deserve this? First cows and now pigs.

Calculating how much additional wire I’d need to get, I automatically flipped my signal in the opposite direction and turned right.

Chapter Six

Livvy

It all happened so fast, I didn’t have time to do anything other than to twist the wheel and slam on the brakes. Well, I might have had time to close my eyes and pray I’d miss whatever had just appeared in the middle of the road, but when all I heard was the sound of screeching, I was terrified I hadn’t.

“Please, please, please, please,” I chanted as the car bounced and shimmied and shook until, finally, a last jolt had my head jerking forward and then back. Oh, and my teeth clicked together so hard I was afraid I’d open my mouth to discover I looked like a jagged-tooth jack-o’-lantern.

My heart threatened to beat out of my chest when I looked forward again and saw blood. It took a good three seconds to realize the blood wasn’t splattered outside the windshield but was on the inside rear view mirror, which meant…“Euuuuu!”

It took another couple of seconds to find the courage to reach up and touch my face. I was extremely proud of myself for not hurling when my fingertips came away painted in red. It wasn’t that I was some weak-stomached city slicker who fainted dead away at the sight of blood. Just yesterday, I’d pressed my entire body against an injured cow in order to staunch the flow, but it was a totally different story when it was my blood.

I reached into the passenger seat to grab my purse with the intention of finding a tissue. When my hand came up empty, I gingerly turned my head to see if it had fallen into the footwell. Instead of my purse, I was rewarded with the sight of dark, swirling liquid. My stomach flipped again. Had I skewered one of those vital arteries? The ones that spurted and spewed like…

Old Faithful in Yellowstone?

“How is that helpful? I wanted to see it, not be it! Can’t you ever think positively?”

Girl, if that’s your blood, you wouldn’t still be conscious. You’d be…

That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but it turned out to be a tad bit helpful though I didn’t feel generous enough to thank her. But she was right. If I’d severed an artery, I’d have bled out by now. Which meant it belonged to someone—or something—else.

I squeezed my eyes closed and tried not to think about what I’d run over that was big enough to have pierced the underside of my car to bleed on my floor. They’d have to have huge, razor-sharp claws like Baloo, strong fangs of a sabretooth tiger like Diego, or a rack of antlers like Bambi.

Tears welled as I pictured scenes from some of my favorite films. I’d far rather it be my blood than that of a beloved Disney character! I reached up to swipe my tears away with my sleeve, except not only was my tank-top sleeveless, the majority of it was tucked beneath the bib of my overalls. Lowering my arm, I saw a small smear of red which brought me out of thoughts about what I might have murdered to what I’d definitely injured. Shuddering a bit, I resumed the search for my purse and while it was once again futile as I didn’t see it, I did see a ginormous Styrofoam cup as well as a plastic-domed lid that still cradled a long red straw.

I sent a thank you out into the Universe as I realized it wasn’t blood in that pool. The liquid was what was had been left of my special blend of C4—half Coke Classic and half Cherry Coke. I’d bought it at the last gas station when I’d stopped for fuel and a pee break. Forty-four ounces was far more than I could drink in one sitting, but it had cost only a quarter more for the extra-jumbo-size, so it had been a no-brainer. Besides, I’d figured I could sip on it for a couple of days. That wasn’t happening now, and while grateful I’d solved that mystery, I still hadn’t found a tissue or napkin and I understood I wasn’t going to find one as I remembered I’d left my purse at the house. Seeing as this called for desperate measures, I wiped my fingertips on my pantleg and was bracing to open my mouth to survey the dental damage when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and froze.

Wait.

Dead animals didn’t move, right?

Oh thank you! The relief to learn I wasn’t a murderer was immense and immediately followed by the knowledge that the poor creature could still be injured. “Hold on, I’m coming!” I yelled, only wincing a little at the bite of pain of speaking. My jaw ached but at least my teeth hadn’t tumbled out like Tic Tacs. I yanked the door handle and shoved hard. Or at least tried to but it refused to open more than a fraction of an inch.

Plan B.

Passenger-side window!

I was halfway across the center console when I felt something tugging me back. My heart leapt into my throat as I whimpered. Not being dead didn’t mean an injured beast couldn’t easily reach through the open window to⁠—

Slamming my eyes closed, I braced one hand on the passenger seat and reached behind me to bat away the creature. It took me a moment to understand that what my fingers grabbed wasn’t matted fur or bloodied hair, it was smooth and flat and… taking a chance, I twisted my head to look over my shoulder and opened one eye. Okay, I really, really, really needed to calm down. It was only the seatbelt I’d forgotten to unbuckle. Scooching back a bit, I pushed the button to free myself and was doing a combination of wiggling and kicking to free myself of the strap when a sound had me looking back again. The leaves of the bush blocking the door were not only rustling, but were parting to reveal…

Funny how even if a person couldn’t speak clearly when their jaw ached, they could sure scream.

Chapter Seven

Lincoln

I probably lost a good ten years off my life when the scream ripped through the air. I’d only made it halfway through the uprooted bush that was preventing me from seeing fully into the car. As strains of it reverberated around me, I widened the path I’d created until I could bend down and stick my head into the vehicle’s interior. Even as synapses fired to make sense of what I was seeing, my head rocked back as a solid right hook hit my jaw.