Courting Trouble Read Online Free PDF

take Ash away from Savannah to give her a ride?
    Looking at Savannah was like looking into an off-kilter mirror. Her sister’s hair was wilder and longer, her nose broader, her eyes bluer. She wore no makeup, a beat-up white button-down man’s shirt with clay stains streaking the front, ripped jeans, and dirty work boots, but even with all their differences they remained similar.
    “Now, give me the gun,” Tulsa said again, this time more sternly.
    Savannah pulled the shotgun tighter to her chest. “Grandma left it to me.”
    “Correction,” Tulsa said. “She left the house and all its contents to us . One of those items is the gun.”
    “You can have the marble-top buffet.”
    Both sisters looked across the unused formal dining room toward the stubborn antique.
    “What would I do with a three-hundred-pound, solid maple, marble-top buffet?” Tulsa asked.
    “Might look nice in your dining room.”
    “My dining room is California contemporary—that monstrosity would look like an elephant in an igloo.” Tulsa turned her head and faced Savannah. This wasn’t a joke and none of it was funny—not the shooting, not the clutching of a firearm to her chest, and definitely not her sister’s arrest. “Give. Me. The. Gun.” Tulsa emphasized each word. The blaze in Savannah’s eyes had burned out and a hint of doubt, maybe even fear, flitted across her face.
    “You can’t go around racking up weapons charges and expect to keep custody of Ash.”
    With the mention of Ash and the pending custody case, Savannah’s mouth sloped down and her shoulders slumped forward as if a child scolded. Savannah checked the safety and handed the weapon to Tulsa.
    “You are not to shoot this gun again—not now, and quite possibly not ever. At the very least, you aren’t to go near it until this custody case is over.” Tulsa walked across the dining room and placed the gun in the rack over the fireplace.
    Then Tulsa followed Savannah down the long hall, past the staircase, to the back of the old Victorian where the McGrath family did most of their living. The giant open room contained the family room, a remodeled kitchen, a dining area, and walls full of windows. Roughhewn beams broke through the open expanse of the high, raftered ceiling. Their color matched the antique handmade wide-plank wood floors. Fading sunlight reflected off the ochre-colored walls.
    “Where’s Ash?” Tulsa stopped at Savannah’s work table, which was pressed up against a wall of windows looking out toward the backyard and beyond it to the mountains.
    “Volleyball practice.”
    A bit of twisted wire poked out from the red clay Savannah used to make her sculpture models. Although Savannah’s workshop was in the backyard, she usually started a new project here, in the house, at this table.
    “What’re you working on?”
    “I got an idea.” Savannah ducked her head and didn’t meet Tulsa’s gaze. “It’ll be bigger than that.”
    “Commissioned?”
    Savannah dug a piece of clay from under her nail. “Not this one. Trying something new.” She shifted her weight and plopped both her hands on her hips. Discomfort flooded from Savannah. She wasn’t ready to discuss the piece yet. Her specialty was animals: eagles, bears, mountain lions, all cast in bronze. Her great gift was capturing the movement of each creature.
    Savannah dusted some dry clay off her work space and dumped it in the trash. She stood beside her work table, her eyes glued to the lifeless clay that lay waiting for her magic touch. While Tulsa dove straight to the depths of a problem, Savannah edged around life like a crab. To hit upon something direct, Savannah usually needed anger to buoy her; otherwise, she kept most of her thoughts to herself.
    “You’re not finished working yet.”
    “I can be,” Savannah said.
    Tulsa hadn’t seen Savannah since summer, but silence fell around them. A silence, Tulsa knew, that could only be cured by Savannah working on her latest piece