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He sat up, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and pointed at the television. “Wouldn’t you love to be there right now?” He blocked out the golf game and pictured a beach with enough roll to the ocean to make it pretty, the wind barely blowing, and Jill in a bikini, lying beside him on the white sand.
She pulled herself up to a sitting position and leaned over to retrieve her quilt that had fallen on the floor. The sports announcer said something about the score in that same whispery-soft voice, and she frowned. “Just how long does it take to play a game, anyway?”
“This is a different one than we started off with earlier,” he answered. “This one is in Miami.”
“How do you know? You were asleep before I found the station with the first one.”
“I woke up when you stole more than your half of my blanket. You didn’t answer my question. Already acting like a wife because we’ve slept together,” he said.
“We did not sleep together, and, yes, I’d love to be anywhere away from this feud, even Miami,” she argued.
“We did sleep together, and I had to snuggle up to you to even get a corner of my blanket. And why did you say even Miami? You don’t like it?” He crossed his fingers behind his back like he had when he was a child. Truth was, he’d awakened at four and wanted to be close to her, so he’d snuggled up to her back and draped an arm around her.
“I love the beach, but I don’t like that many people.”
“Me either. Been there with the rodeo crew a few times, but I like less people too,” he said.
She turned over, and their faces were just inches apart. “So you did the rodeo tour?”
“My cousin did, and we followed it when we could. I tried riding bulls and broncs, but I wasn’t star quality.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows. “My expertise lies in other areas.”
“Sawyer O’Donnell!”
“Your mind is in the gutter.”
“Yours isn’t?” she asked.
“No, it is not. I have several cousins who were rodeo folks, so I know star quality when I see it. I found my niche, though. I usually got a gig as the rodeo clown.”
She laughed. “Well, I can sure see that.”
“So scratch off Miami for the honeymoon?”
“What honeymoon?” she asked.
“Ours, darlin’. Gladys will make me marry you, since we’ve slept together.”
She put her finger over his lips. “If you don’t tell, I won’t.”
Chapter 12
“Something isn’t right. I can feel it in the air,” Sawyer said when they opened the doors into the bar that night.
“I’ve been enjoying the quiet,” Jill said. “Seems like the feud is dying down, even after that chicken house incident.”
“It’s the quiet that worries me. After the business last Sunday at the church, and Naomi’s chickens flying the coop, you can bet your pretty little ass both parties are up to something. They’ve been layin’ low all week.”
Jill nodded. “Come to think of it, we haven’t seen much of them in the store either. Betsy did come in to buy a couple of whole chickens. Said her grandmother would have to make do until she could build a new henhouse. It was while you were taking a nap on the cot in the storeroom.”
Sawyer flipped the top off a Coors longneck and took a long drink from it. “And while you were taking a nap, Quaid came by to pick up two dozen pork chops. Almost wiped out the supply, and I didn’t cut up any more for Monday morning.”
“It’s the Brennans who are fixin’ to strike,” Jill said. “I wonder what they’ve got up their sleeves.”
“How do you know that?” Sawyer asked.
“Betsy didn’t ask about you. I bet there’s not a half a dozen of either family in church tomorrow morning. Looks like this will be a lazy night. We might even get to close up early.”
“Or not,” Sawyer said when Tyrell shoved his way into the bar. Betsy and a half-dozen Gallaghers followed him and claimed a table in the corner.
“Two pitchers of Coors and seven red cups,” Tyrell yelled as he plugged coins into the jukebox.
“I jinxed it when I said that,” Jill said.
The door opened again, and Kinsey Brennan, Quaid, and half a dozen Brennans lined up on bar stools. “I want a strawberry daiquiri, and stir it with your finger, Sawyer,” Kinsey flirted.
“A Miller Lite and a pitcher of margaritas, and one of Coors for our table,” Quaid said.
Jill took their money and watched as they each carried their drink in one hand and a pitcher in the other to a table as far away from the Gallaghers as possible. Even though Jill couldn’t hear a word either family said, their body language spoke volumes.
The Gallaghers were loud and boisterous, line dancing to fast songs, swilling beer by the pitcherful, and having a good time. The Brennans nursed their drinks and kept their heads together. Polly was probably right. The Gallaghers should be on Wild Horse Ranch, patrolling every square inch, because the Brennans were likely to strike that very night.
By nine o’clock, the bar was full and noisy, and smoke hovered in the air like fog. Evidently, dancing made folks hungry as well as thirsty, because Sawyer stayed busy at the grill while Jill drew pitcher after pitcher of beer. Thank goodness bar rules said that she didn’t carry it to the tables, but that they had to order and pay at the bar. And Polly did not run charge accounts or take checks or credit cards, so it was cash only.
“Looks like a normal Saturday night,” Sawyer said during a rare lull in business.
Jill wiped down the bar and nodded. “Maybe they’ve had enough thieving and burning down henhouses. But frankly, Sawyer, I don’t give a damn about the infamous pig war. I want to get through the night and sleep until noon tomorrow. I told Aunt Gladys not to look for me in church. I swear, by this time on Saturday, my butt is draggin’ so bad that I don’t have the energy to even sing.”
“And according to this sexy redhead who kisses like an angel, I snored last week, so I’ll be staying home with you,” he said.
That cocky little grin of his sent shivers down her back. What was wrong with her? Never before had a few kisses and a shared nap made her throw caution and common sense to the wind.
ThenwhyamIdoingitnow? she asked herself.
“You are fighting with yourself again,” he said.
“Am not.”
“Yes, you are,” Sawyer said. “Your head cocks over to one side and then the other when you do that. Are you deciding whether to give Quaid or Tyrell another chance? If you want quiet and steady, go with Quaid. If you want a good time and a hell of a dancer, holler at Tyrell. As far as money and fame, you’ll get it with either one of them.”
She took a step to the side so that she was shoulder to shoulder with him. “For your information, I was thinking about my friend.”
“Betsy or Kinsey? I’ll put my money on Betsy, since you and Kinsey have some evil vibes going on between you tonight,” he said.
“No, my friend who protects me from the evil feuding family.” She grinned.
“Hey, gorgeous, can I get three pitchers of Coors?” Tyrell bellied up to the bar. “And, Sawyer, we’d like seven burger baskets. Load ’em up with everything. Double the grilled onions.”
Jill pulled the lever and filled three pitchers and set them on the bar.
Tyrell flipped two bills toward her. “If there’s anything left, consider it a tip. If not, let me know what else I owe when the burgers are done. And, darlin’, say the word, and I’ll wait for you after-hours and we’ll go watch the moon from a special spot I know about.”
“Sorry, the only thing I’m interested in…” She stopped short of saying that she wanted to fall into bed.
“Is what?” Tyrell grinned.
Too bad his smile wasn’t as hot as Sawyer’s, or she might have taken him up on a visit to his special spot.
“The only thing I’m interested in is sleep,” she said.
“I would love to hold you in my arms all night. I’ll be the last one out the door, so if you change your mind, let me know.” He picked up two pitchers in one hand, and the last one in the other, and swaggered off to his table.
“Should I tell him that you steal covers?” Sawyer asked.
“What about covers?” Betsy asked from the bar. “I’d be right happy to keep you warm enough that you wouldn’t have to worry about covers, Sawyer. Thought I’d wait for the burgers and carry them back to the table as you get them ready. We are starving.”
Jill didn’t miss the look exchanged between the two women when Kinsey brushed past Betsy on her way outside with a cell phone plastered to her ear.
“I was saying that you can’t judge a book by the cover,” Sawyer lied. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Betsy.”
“Well, hot damn, darlin’! I agree with you on that. Anytime you want to see inside this book, all you have to do is open the cover.” She flipped her hand around to sweep from head to toe.
Sawyer ignored her comment. “Three burger baskets right here, and the other four will be ready when you get back.”
“Fast thinking there, cowboy.” Jill laughed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kinsey let a welcome blast of fresh air inside when she returned with the phone tucked away somewhere and a smile on her face. She and her cronies, which had grown a table full of people to two tables, put their heads together for another confab and kept glancing toward the bar.
“Either they’re about to murder Betsy, which I wouldn’t mind, or they’re going to try to enlist us into their family for help on the next battle of the pig war,” Jill told Sawyer.
“I’m a lover not a fighter,” he said.
There was that cocky grin again.
“No sassy comeback. You must be tired,” Sawyer said.
“I was thinkin’ maybe I’d tell Betsy that you’re a lover, or maybe Kinsey,” she said.
“They know it already. That’s why they’re both chasin’ me.” He laughed.
“Not a bit of ego risin’ up from your cowboy boots, is there?”
“Awww, this is Sawyer you’re talkin’ to, ma’am. Not Quaid or Tyrell. You don’t have to stomp on my feelin’s because you’re mad at them.”
“A pitcher of beer and two cheeseburgers, no fries,” Kinsey said.
“Four burger baskets for Betsy Gallagher,” Sawyer yelled.
Betsy made her way through the crowd and perched on a stool right beside Kinsey. “So how’s business? You chargin’ more than a dollar to meet some poor old cowboy out behind the bar? I saw you leave a while ago.”
“Prices went up,” Kinsey said sarcastically. “For prime they have to pay two bucks. When I found out you was chargin’ a dollar, I figured I was worth twice that much.”
“Don’t forget to pay your taxes. I’d hate for the IRS to get you for tax evasion. The righteous Brennan name couldn’t stand a mar on it,” Betsy said.
“Like the bootleggin’ Gallaghers?” Kinsey smarted off.
“Ladies, remember where you are,” Jill said.
Betsy leaned forward until she was inches from Kinsey’s face. “I see a few wrinkles around your eyes. Won’t be long until you’ll have to lower your prices or pay the customer.”
Then she flipped two dollar bills on the bar in front of the stunned Kinsey and said, “I wouldn’t want you to starve to death since your chicken and dumplin’s dried up. That should buy you a latte tomorrow morning.”
She lined the burger baskets up on her arm like a professional waitress and sashayed her way through the line dancers back to her table. Kinsey swiped all the color from her lips with a paper coaster and smiled at Sawyer.
“I’m experienced, not old,” she said.
“I’m not sayin’ a word,” Sawyer said bluntly.
“I’ll take the beer back and return for the burgers,” Kinsey said.
The baling on the hip pockets of jeans glimmered as she carefully made her way past the folks two-stepping to Blake Shelton’s newest song. Then suddenly she stumbled and fell right into the Gallagher table, dumping one pitcher of beer on the floor and the other on Betsy.
Jill grabbed a mop and headed that way, with Sawyer right behind her. Betsy jumped to her feet, slinging her hands and throwing drops of beer on everyone around her.
Kinsey’s eyes went wide in mock shock. “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry,” she said coldly. Then she moved closer to Betsy, grabbed her by the shoulders, and licked the beer from her face from jawbone to forehead. The song ended, and the bar went quiet. It was worse than sitting in the eye of a tornado, and more eerie than the music in a horror movie.
“What the hell are you doing?” Betsy quivered like she’d stepped on a mouse in her bare feet.
“A Brennan doesn’t waste good beer.” Kinsey smiled. “If all you can do is whine and bark, then you don’t have a place with the big dogs.”
Betsy’s hands knotted into fists. “I’ll show you a fight, if that’s what you want.”
“Not in here, you won’t. You’ve both had your fun, now settle down,” Jill said.
Sawyer quickly plugged two coins into the jukebox, and loud noise filled the building again. Jill didn’t know if he simply punched in numbers or if he’d chosen the songs, but she couldn’t keep from smiling when Gretchen Wilson’s voice filled the room with “Redneck Woman.”
Jill swabbed up the beer on the floor and put the mop back in the closet. “It says that she’s a product of her raisin’. I believe that Kinsey and Betsy should sing along with her,” she grumbled when she was back behind the bar.
“What was that? I was afraid the crowd might goad them into a brawl, so I started poking numbers into the jukebox. I’m not sure what I played,” Sawyer said. “I was ready to step in if fists started flying, because I was afraid you’d get hurt.”
“Hey, I had a mop. I’d have decked them both with the handle.” She started to laugh when the song ended and “Romeo,” an old one from Dolly Parton and Billy Ray Cyrus, started playing. “Are you sure you didn’t handpick these?”
“Hell, no! I’m not interested in being anyone’s Romeo, if that’s what you are thinking,” he answered.
She laughed even harder when the lyrics said that she might not be in love but that she was definitely in heat. “Sounds to me like Dolly Parton knows Kinsey and Betsy both pretty damn good. They’re not in love, darlin’, they are in heat, like she says in the song.”
“It’s not funny,” Sawyer said.
But it was, because Jill had the same problem. Love and heat were two different things, and she could easily see where Sawyer, with his tall, dark, handsome looks could put any woman in heat. The words said she didn’t get as far as his eyes when she was lookin’ him over, and Jill could relate very well. She had trouble listening to that damn song and not letting her eyes stray to the silver belt buckle above Sawyer’s zipper.
Good God, when did this happen? A couple of kisses, and I’m wanting to jump his bones? What’s the matter with me?
It was a few minutes past eleven when Sawyer finally unplugged the jukebox and announced that the place was now officially closed. The Brennans and Gallaghers had left, and a couple of old worn-out cowboys who’d come close to dancing the leather off their boots shuffled out the door.
Sawyer locked it and picked up the broom. Jill started wiping down tables and chairs. She’d barely gotten past the first table when she heard money clinking down the chute in the jukebox and turned to see Sawyer coming toward her with that grin on his face.
“Will you be my Juliet?” He growled exactly like Billy Ray in the “Romeo” song.
“I’m too damn tired to dance,” she said.
He grabbed her hand. “Don’t make me waste my money.”
He tucked his hands in his belt loops, and good Lord, those jeans did things that gave her hot flashes. It was either dance with him or stand there slack-jawed like a Saturday-night drunk. She tossed the cleaner and the rag on the table, tucked her thumbs in her jean loops, and matched him step for step in the line dance.
When it ended, she was panting so badly that she couldn’t even talk. “That sucked every bit of energy out of me.”
“You ain’t that old yet,” he said as Mary Chapin Carpenter started singing “Down at the Twist and Shout.” He swung her out to the Cajun-flavored music and brought her back to his chest for three minutes of swing dancing.
“Please, tell me the third song isn’t that fast,” she said when it ended.
The whine of the fiddle in an old song softened the lights and the whole atmosphere in the bar. Sawyer pulled her close to his chest, picked up her hands, and put them around his neck. Then he dropped both his hands to rest at the small of her back, and he moved slowly around the floor as George Jones sang “Don’t Be Angry.”
He softly sang the words in her ear as they danced. He sang about remembering the first time he flirted with her, and asked her not be angry with him when he failed to understand all her little whims and wishes all the time.
When the song ended, he tipped her chin up and kissed her. She heard the whine of the fiddles and a harmonica somewhere in the distance, even though the music had stopped. There wasn’t an angry bone left in her body when she rolled up on her toes for the second kiss.
“That, darlin’, was the payment on the bet,” she said.
He picked up the broom and started sweeping.
“So?” she asked.
“So what?”
“So is my bet debt paid in full?”
“Honey, after that kiss, I will need at least two cold showers to cool my blood so I can sleep.”
Chapter 13
Clouds shifted back and forth over the moon, and only an occasional star could be found in the sky when Jill and Sawyer locked up for the evening.
Jill inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with clean, cool air. “Thank goodness the bunkhouse and the store are smoke-free, or we’d both drop graveyard dead with lung cancer from secondhand smoke.”
“At least the exhaust fan takes most of it out of the bar area, so we don’t get what the folks do that are out there around the tables.” Sawyer’s hand went to the small of her back as he guided her to the truck.
They were inside with seat belts buckled, and he had put the truck in reverse, when both doors opened, startling Jill so badly that she squealed.
“What the hell?” Sawyer said.
Tall men with ski masks, bibbed overalls, and work boots pointed sawed-off shotguns at them. Sawyer’s pulse quickened, and adrenaline rushed through his body, but there wasn’t a thing he could do. Three guns in his truck, and he couldn’t reach a damn one of them.
“Out of the truck right now. You make a move, and I’ll shoot this little lady right here in the parking lot. She’d bleed out before you could get an ambulance all the way up here,” the one with a gun on Jill said gruffly.
“Hey, slow down. We’re not protesting. You can have the truck, if that’s what you are after.” Sawyer reached for the seat belt and got a tap on the shoulder with the butt of the gun.
“Don’t be cute, or you’ll never see her again,” the man said.
“I’m undoing our seat belts. Don’t get trigger-happy. We are stepping out now,” Sawyer said.
If only one of them had held a gun, he might have grabbed it and told Jill to run, but not when there were two guns. Jill might get hurt or killed. There wasn’t a truck in the world worth harming one hair on her head, but who in the hell would have thought there would be hijackers in Burnt Boot, Texas?
“Hey, Sherlock,” the man with the gun on Jill yelled. “It’s all yours.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Sawyer asked. “Can I get my personal things out of the glove compartment before you take it off to strip it down for parts?”
“Who said we’re stripping it down? And, no, you can’t get anything out of the inside. You’ve probably got guns in there. Give me your cell phones, billfold, and your purse, woman,” Jill’s assailant said.
Sawyer inhaled deeply. Yes, there was a pistol in the glove box, another one in the console, and a third one under the seat. He had a license to carry all three, but it wasn’t doing him a bit of good right then.
Sherlock crawled into the driver’s seat, backed the truck out, and drove away with it. No skidding tires or slinging gravel—just drove off like it belonged to him.
“Now, you two start walking,” Jill’s outlaw said.
“To where?” Jill asked.
“Out to the road.”
“Are you going to kill us in the middle of the road? Wouldn’t it be better to shoot us right here?” Jill asked.
Sawyer could have wrung her pretty little neck himself right then. If they reached the road, there was a possibility that someone might drive by and help them. He reached over and laced her fingers in his. She squeezed his hand gently, and he hoped that didn’t mean she was about to try something stupid.
A dark van pulled up and slowed down, and Sawyer thought their problems were solved, until the double doors at the back swung open, and the two hooded men motioned for them to get inside.
“What the hell is this?” Sawyer protested.
The second man shoved the gun into Jill’s gut, and Sawyer crawled inside the van. They pushed Jill in right behind him. The doors closed, and the darkness was so thick that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.
“Jill, where are you?” he whispered.
A hand reached out and touched him on the shoulder. “Right here.”
He grabbed it and pulled her into his lap, felt around her face until he found an ear, and pressed his lips close to it. “I imagine this is bugged, so start kicking the side of the van to make noise, and I’ll whisper. Who do you know that would kidnap you?”
She kicked and said in a loud whisper, “Nobody. Not even Aunt Gladys or Aunt Polly would do this.”
“Gallaghers or Brennans?”
“Both.”
“Which way are we going?”
“I don’t know. I think we turned around about the time they shoved me in here, but I’m not sure.”
The van slowed down as if stopping at a red light or a stop sign. Burnt Boot had only one red light and a handful of stop signs, but Sawyer still couldn’t get a bearing on where they were. Or why in the hell either of the feuding families would want to kidnap them.
Tires squealed, and they were thrown against the doors of the van. Whoever was driving cussed loud enough that they could hear him through the metal separating the cab from the cargo area. “Damn tree in the road. You should have checked things out better than this, Dumbo.”
“Does that name mean anything to you?” Sawyer asked when they were sitting back up.
“No,” she whispered.
“Well, let’s get out and move the damn thing. We can’t get to where we’re going any other way,” the one with the deep voice said.
Everything got quiet.
“I’m going to kick these doors open,” Sawyer said. “Slide back so you are out of the way.”
He raised his foot, his boot landed square on the hinged part, and the doors swung open as if by magic. Trouble was, instead of a midnight sky, there were two more guys in ski masks with guns, pistols this time, motioning for them to be quiet and get out of the van.
“It’s the FBI,” Jill said. “They’re here to save us and then shoot the balls off those bastards for stealing your truck.”
One of the men chuckled. “Follow us. Now get in here. Be quiet, and we’ll get you out of this.”
Sawyer and Jill moved as quietly as possible and crawled into another cargo van. This one was blue with some kind of lettering on the side, and the doors went shut, but not before Sawyer shoved his jacket in between them.
“Why did you do that?” Jill asked.
“I don’t think we’re being rescued. I think we’re changing kidnappers.”
“No!” she said.
“Give them time to get around to the front, and then we’re getting out. Slide off into that ditch until they drive away, and then we’ll start making our way out of this mess. We might have to find a place to hole up until daylight, when we can get our bearings. I think we were driving for about twenty minutes, but I don’t have any idea which way…now, Jill, slide out right now. They’re starting to move.”
He grabbed her hand and opened one door, retrieved his denim jacket, carefully shut the door, and the van pulled away into the night without its passengers. The two men wrestling with the tree finally freed it, and they went in the opposite direction without ever realizing they’d lost their cargo.
Sawyer and Jill exhaled loudly at the same time as they watched from a prone position halfway down a ditch beside the road.
“Now what? We don’t know where we are, and our cell phones and money are all gone,” Jill said.
“Take a real deep breath,” Sawyer said.
“Yuck,” she said.
“That, darlin’, is pig shit. Where there are pigs, there is a barn or a house or something nearby. We’ll follow our noses until we find a barn.”
“Why not knock on a door and ask for help?” she asked.
“We might get shot for one thing, and how do we know who we can trust?” He pulled her up, put on his jacket, and wrapped her hand into his. “I’m going to kick some ass when I find out who did this. I’m too damned tired to walk for miles in the cold.”
“Get in line, Sawyer O’Donnell. I get first chance at them. I hate to pee in the brush, and I damn sure hate sleeping in a hayloft,” she said.
They crawled over two barbed-wire fences, worked their way through a patch of thick mesquite, and outran one rangy old bull before the barn loomed up before them like a silent sentinel in the night.
“I may go back to Corpus Christi and sling hash for a living after this. I’m sick of pig wars and pig shit, and I’m not sure I even like pork chops anymore,” she grumbled.
“It’s only a quarter mile at the most, and it looks like the pasture has winter wheat growing. It’s not tall enough to turn the cows into it, so the going should be good,” he said. “Besides, Gladys will call out the Army, the National Guard, and the Texas Rangers when we don’t show up for church.”
“No, she won’t. I told her that we might not be there, and she’s not going. She and Aunt Polly are staying home, and Verdie is coming over later to play canasta with them. And, remember, she’s doing chores tomorrow, so she won’t miss us until Monday, probably when we don’t show up at the store.”
The barn hadn’t been in use for years, but what was left of the tack room still had a couple of well-worn winter horse blankets stored in a drawer. Sawyer carried them to a stall, kicked the straw around to fluff up a bed, and shook out one blanket.
“We’ve slept spoon style before, and that’s the only way we’ll be able to stay warm with a bed this small,” he said.
“I could sleep standing up in a broom closet. Sawyer, why would the Gallaghers or the Brennans kidnap us? It doesn’t make sense.”
He eased down on the makeshift bed. “Honey, I don’t know what the hell they had in mind, but the one that chuckled was a Gallagher. I don’t know his name, but I recognized his voice from one of the guys in the fight at the church. That means they were stealing us from the Brennans.”
“But why?” She stretched out beside him.
He wrapped an arm around her. “Anyone who gets into a pig war is bat-shit crazy. Let’s find our way home and pretend it never happened, until we can prove it. And then we’ll take them out, one at a time.”
“No use in wasting time. I’ll set fire to both their ranches and burn them to the ground.” The last words were mumbled, and then she was sound asleep.
He tucked the blanket tightly around them both and swore that when he found out who’d done this, the pig war would be nothing compared to what he would do.
Chapter 14
Jill didn’t want to open her eyes. She knew exactly where she was and how she got there and who was snuggled up against her back, but an itchy feeling on the nape of her neck said something was staring at her. If it was a granddaddy long-legs spider, she did not want to see it.
“Hey, are y’all alive?” someone said in a whisper.
Spiders did not talk, so Jill opened her eyes slowly.
“Wow! You are alive. I was afraid you was dead, and I ain’t touchin’ no dead person,” the kid said.
A big yellow dog stuck his nose through the wooden slats of the stall and sniffed the air.
“That’s Buster, my dog. He’s the one who found you first. I come huntin’ for him. Can you hear me?”
Jill nodded. “Where are we?”
“In my daddy’s barn. We only raise hogs now, so we don’t use this barn too much ’cept to store hog feed in and use when a sow has pigs in the real cold wintertime.”
“Are we in Burnt Boot?” she asked.
“Are you talkin’ in your sleep?” Sawyer asked.
“No, I’m talkin’ to a boy and his dog,” Jill answered.
Sawyer sat up so quick that the blanket went flying. The end smacked the dog on the nose, and he yelped. “Do you have a cell phone, son?”
“No, I don’t, but my mama does. She took it with her over to Miz Ruby’s last night though. Miz Ruby is getting another baby, and she needed my mama. Y’all know you ain’t supposed to be here, don’t you?”
Sawyer rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Where are we?”
“In my daddy’s barn. I done told the lady that.”
“But where is your daddy’s barn?” Sawyer asked.
“In Salt Holler. We’re the last house in the holler,” he said.
“How do we get out of here?”
“Well, you could go to the bridge if you need to drive across. But if you follow me, I’ll show you where you can climb over the fence and then go up to the road and follow it. If you go the wrong way, you’ll come to the bridge.”
“Do you go to church in Burnt Boot?” Sawyer asked.
“No, sir. I go to church right here in Salt Holler. Mr. Wallace Redding is preaching this mornin’. I like to listen to him.”
“Where do you go to school?”
“Burnt Boot.”
“Do you know Martin Brewster?”
“You mean Martin O’Donnell. He’s done changed his name, you know?”
