Death Rides Again (A Jocelyn Shore Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

to be fun.”
    She shot me a glance. “Fun. Yeah, right. Anyway, I’m starving. Let’s go back.”
    We returned to the parking lot and stopped dead in our tracks.
    A goat perched atop the mound of feed sacks in the bed of the red ranch truck and now appeared to be intent on chewing her way to the bottom.
    I gave a shout and ran forward, waving my arms. The goat raised her head briefly, golden eyes with their odd horizontal pupils taking me in and then dismissing me. She raised a cloven hoof to liberate another few cubes from the torn sack and took one between delicate lips.
    “How in the world did it get up there?” asked Kyla as she came up beside me. She looked around as though searching for a stepladder.
    “Jumped. Goats can get into anything. I’ve seen them in trees. Besides, the tailgate is down.”
    I hoisted myself onto the pickup bed and then climbed onto the mound of feed sacks. Face-to-face, the goat seemed larger and more solid than she had from the ground. She certainly was not at all bothered by my presence. I waved my arms again but got less response than she would have paid to a horsefly. I reached out and grabbed one of the curved horns and pulled gently at first, then as hard as I could. The goat shook me off with a nonchalant toss of her head and took another cube.
    Kyla started to laugh. “Goat one, Jocelyn zero.”
    “Very helpful. Get up here and help me push.”
    “Yeah, right,” she said, making no move. “Who do you think he belongs to?”
    “She,” I corrected.
    “How can you tell? No, never mind, I don’t want to know. What if we just get in the truck and start driving? Either it will hop down or Uncle Kel will be plus one goat.”
    “Or she’ll fall out while we’re driving, cause a traffic accident, and get squashed like a bug.”
    “Yeah, or that.”
    I climbed back off the truck and rejoined Kyla. “Maybe if we both got up there we could pull her off together.”
    “No way. I’m not climbing up there and tugging at some strange goat.”
    I gave her an exasperated glance. “Well, what do you suggest?”
    A voice behind us spoke.
    “Morning, ladies. Having trouble?”
    We turned. Like many of the men working on the grounds, the man behind us wore jeans, a cowboy hat, and boots. Unlike most of them, his shirt was crisp and pressed, he was about our age, and he was, if not exactly handsome, then at least very nice looking. Kyla removed her hands from her hips, straightened visibly, and produced a dazzling smile.
    “Yes, I’d like to register a complaint. This goat is bothering us,” she answered.
    He laughed and gave her a frankly admiring glance. “We can’t have that.”
    He turned, put two fingers to his lips, and produced an ear-splitting whistle. At the sound, half a dozen assorted workmen and cowboys raised their heads. He beckoned to one of them and gestured to our pickup.
    Within a few moments, a trio of men in boots arrived and slipped a rope around the goat’s neck without any fuss. She made one bleat of protest, then accepted defeat with resignation and allowed herself to be led away.
    Our new friend slapped the last cowboy on the shoulder as he passed and turned his attention back to us. Or rather, turned his attention back to Kyla. I might as well have been the goat.
    “T. J. Knoller,” he said, extending his hand to her.
    She grasped it firmly and squeezed. His eyes widened in surprise, not quite watering, but close. Kyla didn’t believe in limp, feminine handshakes.
    “Kyla Shore,” she said, smiling up at him through long lashes.
    “I’m going to take a wild guess and say you are not a ranch-to-ranch feed salesman.”
    “You’re a sharp one. I’m just visiting family.”
    “Shore,” he repeated. “You a relative of Kel Shore over at the Smoke Quartz?”
    “He’s my uncle.”
    Not “our” uncle, I noticed. I also noticed that she had shifted her weight subtly to edge in front of me. Not that she needed to have bothered. T.J.’s eyes had