The Texan's Christmas Read Online Free Page B

needle in my eye for pleasure.”
    “Ouch.”
    “She’s mad and refused to sign a lease. No.” He rested his elbow on the fence. “She’s angry as hell—at me. After all these damn years, she’s still angry. I don’t get it.”
    “Do you want me to hold a mirror up to your face?”
    “What?”
    “Nettie said your future is in front of you. Maybe you have to confront your past before you can see the future.”
    “Is the heat making you loony?”
    Chance sighed. “Kid, back away from this and I’ll talk to Lucky in the morning.”
    “No.” Kid pointed a finger at his brother. “Cadde said the same thing, but neither one of you is taking over my job.”
    “Okay. Okay.” Chance held up his hands. “I’m not going to mention how important it is to lease Lucky’s land. Everything else is leased up. Without that piece of property, we’re not drilling a well.”
    Kid removed his boot and leaned his back against the pipe. He knew all the risks and he never saw a problem until today. There had to be a way around his shady past.
    “How long has Lucky been home?”
    Chance shrugged. “Five or six years. Why?”
    “You’ve talked to her, right?”
    “Lots of times.”
    “Did she ever ask about me?”
    “No.”
    “Never?”
    “Never.” Chance sighed again. “She didn’t bring up your name and I didn’t, either. Why is this so important to you?”
    “Why did she come back?”
    Chance leaned heavily on the fence and Kid got the impression he wanted to bump his head against it. “We were kids, but I know you remember the time two guys tried to rob The Beer Joint.”
    “Yeah. It’s the only crime ever committed in High Cotton. Some stealing, family squabbles and speeding tickets, but no big crimes like the attempted robbery. As I recall two guys came in after closing with guns drawn demanding all the money. They just didn’t count on Bud having a .45 pistol in the cash register. He shot both of them before they could blink. When he walked around the bar, one of them squeezed off a shot and hit Bud in the hip.”
    “That’s about it. One winter he slipped on some ice and injured the hip pretty bad again. Lucky came home to take care of him and she never left.”
    “So she got a nursing degree?”
    Chance shook his head. “I don’t think so, but I’ve never asked.”
    Kid kicked at the dry September grass. “Why is she slinging beer?”
    “That bothers you?”
    “For some reason it does, and if you mention something about a mirror again I’m going to hit you.”
    Chance shook his head. “Okay. But the bottom line is that Cadde’s not going to let this slide. It’s too important for Shilah. And it’s too important to us as a family.”
    Kid headed for his truck. “I know. Talk to you later.”
    No one had to tell him what signing that lease meant. They’d researched it thoroughly and the land around Giddings was rich in oil and gas. Through sheer tenacity Cadde had managed to secure several leases from other oil companies. That didn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of hours of negotiating.
    The only holdout was the Littlefield tract. Bud had leased the land many years ago but the contract had expired without the property being included in a well. His research showed that ten years ago Bud had transferred the title of the land and all mineral rights to Lucky.
    As someone who had leased many tracts of land for Shilah, he wondered about that. Why would someone in this economy refuse money? He couldn’t leave it alone so he dug deeper, calling some old friends who worked for other oil companies. The response he got was the daughter was harder to deal with than the father and it wasn’t worth the trouble for those fifty acres.
    So maybe it wasn’t about not leasing to a Hardin.
    Maybe it was something else.
     
    A FTER K ID LEFT , L UCKY SPOKE with Mr. Harvey, who had leased his land to Shilah. He was excited aboutthe deal. She wasn’t and she’d just as soon never see Kid again. She