Connal. Diana Palmer

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       Chapter 2

      Brandon Hale was a carrot-topped maniac, and in his spare time, he was a veterinarian. Pepi adored him. Probably if her heart hadn’t been appropriated by C.C., she might have married Brandon one day.

      He came by just as Pepi and her father were sitting down to the supper table.

      “Oh, boy, apple pie.” Brandon grinned, staring at the luscious treat Pepi had made. “Hello, Mr. Mathews, how are you?”

      “Hungry,” Ben said shortly. “And don’t eye my apple pie. I’m not sharing it.”

      “But you will, won’t you?” Brandon leaned down. “I mean, considering that you need your new calves inspected and that sick bull treated, and those inoculations given, with roundup on the way…”

      “Damn, boy, that’s hitting below the belt,” Ben groaned.

      “Just one little slice,” Brandon said, “the size of a knife blade…”

      “Oh, all right, sit down.” The older man sighed. “But I hope you know I wouldn’t share it with just anybody. And if you don’t stop coming over here at night without a reason, you’ll have to marry Pepi.”

      “I’d be delighted,” Brandon said, winking at Pepi from his pale blue eyes. “Name the day, honey.”

      “The sixth of July, twenty years from now,” she promised, passing the corn. “I expect to live a little before I settle down.”

      “You’ve already lived twenty-two years,” her father remarked. “I want grandchildren.”

      “You have them yourself,” Pepi invited. “I’ve been thinking about joining the Peace Corps.”

      Ben almost dropped his coffee cup. “You’ve what?”

      “It would be something to broaden my horizons,” she said. Not to mention getting her away from C.C. before she slipped up and bared her aching heart to him. Today had been a close call. He seemed to be suspicious of all the attention she gave him, and worried that he couldn’t return her affections. It was getting too much for her. A year away might ease the pain.

      “You could get killed in one of those foreign places,” her father said shortly. “I won’t let you.”

      “I’m twenty-two,” she reminded him with a grin. “You can’t stop me.”

      He sighed angrily. “Who’ll cook and keep house and—”

      “You can hire somebody.”

      “Sure.” Her father laughed.

      That brought home the true situation, and she felt instantly regretful that she’d brought it up. “I won’t go right away,” she promised. “And don’t worry, things will get better.”

      “Pray for rain,” Brandon suggested between bites. “Everybody else is. I’ve never seen so many ranchers in church.”

      “I’ve seen prayers work miracles,” Ben remarked, and launched into some tales that kept Pepi’s mind off C.C.

      After they’d finished off half of Pepi’s apple pie, Brandon went out with her father to check the sick bull. “I don’t usually do night work when I can get out of it,” Brandon told Pepi. “But for an apple pie like that, I’d come out to deliver a calf at three in the morning.”

      “I’ll remember that,” she said pertly, grinning.

      “You’re cute,” he said. “I mean that. You’re really cute, and if you ever want to propose matrimony, just go ahead. I won’t even play hard to get.”

      “Thanks. I’ll keep you in mind, along with my other dozen suitors,” she said lightly.

      “How about a movie Friday night? We’ll run over to El Paso and eat supper before we go to the theater.”

      “Terrific,” she agreed. He was loads of fun and she needed to get away.

      “I won’t get back until midnight, I guess,” her father called out. “After we check that bull down at the Berry place, I want to look over Berry’s books before the tax man gets them. Don’t wait up.”

      “Okay. Have fun,” she called back. It was a joke between them, because Jack Berry kept books that would have confounded a lawyer. It was almost estimated tax time, and Jack was the ranch’s only bookkeeper. They should have hired somebody more qualified, but Jack was elderly and couldn’t do outside work. Her father had a soft heart. Rather than see the old man on welfare, Ben had hired him to keep the books. Which meant, unfortunately, that Ben had to do most of the figuring over again at tax time. His soft heart was one reason the ranch was in the hole. He didn’t really have a business head like his own father had possessed. Without C.C.’s subtle guidance, the ranch would have gone on the auction block three years ago. It still might.

      C.C. She frowned, turning toward the back door. She was worried about him. He hadn’t seemed too drunk when she’d gone to check on him earlier, and that was unusual. His yearly binges were formidable. She’d better give him another look, before her father thought to check him out at midnight.

      The bunkhouse was filling up. There were three men in it, now, the newest temporary hands. But C.C. wasn’t there.

      “He was pretty tight-lipped about where he was going, Miss Mathews,” one of the men volunteered. “But I’d guess he was headed into Juárez from the direction he took.”

      “Oh, boy,” she sighed. “Did he take the pickup or his own car?”

      “His own car—that old Ford.”

      “Thanks.”