Last Chance Cowboys: The Drifter Read Online Free

gone…”
    Chet glanced at Eduardo. “Her brother,” Eduardo explained.
    The woman who had brought Chet his supper stalked across the yard. “You men are worse than a bunch of old hens gossiping this way. And you, Bunker, are worse than the rest put together,” she told the big man. “Seems to me the lot of you have got evening chores that need tendin’, so I would suggest you be gettin’ to it.”
    Chet saw how quickly the men scattered, and it dawned on him that he probably needed to get on this woman’s good side if he was going to have any chance of staying on for work. He handed her the dishes. “That was the best stew I’ve—”
    â€œAnd there’s no need for you to go trying to cozy up to anybody on this ranch. You can stay the night, but at dawn, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll be on your way.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œDon’t know what that girl was thinkin’,” she mumbled to herself in Spanish. “Taking in strangers with all she’s…” The rest was lost as she entered the courtyard.
    * * *
    Once again, Maria could not seem to settle down for the night. “You’re just overtired,” her mother would have said with a knowing smile. Of course, that was when her mother had taken notice of anything her four children might be doing. These days Constance Porterfield was like a child herself. She either stayed curled in her bed for hours at a time or wandered through the house, her dressing gown hanging from her bony shoulders and skimming the tile floors.
    Was that a voice? And had it come from inside or outside the house?
    Maria sat up in bed, her senses on full alert. Her younger sister, Amanda, slept on the bed next to hers. A beam of weak light found its way under the closed door from Trey’s room across the hall. No doubt her brother was reading. For the first several years of his young life, Trey had been ill and often confined to his room. In spite of that, he always seemed to look at adversity as a challenge to be overcome. Unable to run and play or learn the activities most children of ranchers were taught practically from the day they started to walk, Trey had focused his time on reading and drawing. Even though his health had improved over the last year or so, he still was rarely without a book or his sketch pad.
    There it was again. Outside.
    Perhaps it was the wind. All indicators were that there would be rain before dawn. She left her bed and curled onto the seat next to the window that overlooked the courtyard and the outbuildings beyond. The bunkhouse was dark, but there was a thin stream of light coming from the barn.
    The drifter.
    Eduardo had reported that the man had elected to sleep in the barn rather than the bunkhouse—something about not wanting to disturb the others if he decided to leave after just a couple hours sleep. She hadn’t even gotten his name—just that he came from Florida. That seemed impossible. Florida was hundreds—maybe even thousands—of miles away. Of course, these days people seemed to think nothing of taking off for someplace they’d never been before and knew nothing about. Seemed downright foolish to her. On the other hand, knowing the man came from someplace so different explained a lot about the way he dressed and his accent and mannerisms. But it did not explain what he was doing so far from home.
    He’d mentioned the Tipton Brothers Company, but how would he have heard of that all the way back in Florida? And even if he had, wasn’t this an awfully long way to come for a job? These were all questions that she had overheard Juanita asking Eduardo. Obviously Juanita had decided the stranger was someone in need of watching. She’d even instructed Eduardo to make up some excuse for sleeping in the barn as well—with his pistol at the ready.
    And of course, Eduardo had complied. It was the rare