Love Drunk Cowboy Read Online Free PDF Page A

breezes pushed the lace curtains out away from the window in the living room. The house had been built the first year Verline and Oscar got married back in 1947 and reflected the simplicity of the times. The living room took up the first quarter of the house with a bar separating it from the kitchen. A short hallway to the left had doors that opened into a small bathroom and two equal sized bedrooms. The washer and dryer were in the garage off the kitchen. It had been years since there was enough room out there to park a car. Now it housed the overflow of Verline’s love for pure old junk.
    Austin turned around slowly and took in every nook and cranny filled with stuff. Getting through it all would take every waking hour for the next two weeks. Maybe she should have taken her mother’s offer to come and help her. Barbara would have gone through the place like a whirlwind and in two days it would have all been relegated to the trash bin. Austin wanted to take her time and make decisions about what to keep and what to toss.
    “Granny was a junkie of the purest kind,” she mumbled.
    Granny’s business desk was in the corner of the living room, back behind the recliner that faced the small television set. A letter bearing her name rested on top of a business checkbook, lying in plain sight on top of an antique desk. The oak chair squeaked when she sat down as if it realized the wrong woman was using it. She recognized the spidery handwriting on the letter as her grandmother’s and held the letter to her chest before she opened it and read,
    Hi honey,
    If you are reading this then my ashes are floating down the Red River and I’m already sliding down a rainbow or chasing raindrops. I’m writing this today because I know the time is nearing. Don’t know how, but it is, and I don’t want you to cry for me, Austin. Just pick up the reins and run this old ranch like it was the love of your life and it’ll give back to you a hundredfold. The lawyer will come soon and you’ll see just how prosperous good old hard work will make you. But in case you need to take care of business before he gets here, the checkbook will tell you what I pay the hired hands. Felix will tell you how we do business. Rye will help you with anything he can. He’s a damn fine young man and he’s been good to me. Do whatever you want with the farm and the house. I’d love it if I could see what you decide, but I trust you to do what’s best for you. Remember I love you and the times we shared were the highlights of my life… Granny
    Austin wept until she got the hiccups. She finally got it under control enough to look through the checkbook, find the amount owed each hired hand from the previous summer, and write out six checks, but when she signed the last one she swallowed hard past the lump still in her throat. Verline Lanier had lived in this little house, less than half the size of Austin’s Tulsa apartment, for the majority of her life. She’d lived in Terral all eighty-three years. Could Austin really sell a lifetime to strangers looking for a good deal at an auction?
    “They wouldn’t even realize how many hours Granny spent sitting in this creaky old oak chair or why there’s a chunk out of the corner of the desk.”
    Austin rubbed her upper arm at the memory of the summer when she was running through the house and stubbed her toe on a throw rug. It sent her flying into the desk, knocking out a chunk of wood and putting a gash in her arm that required five stitches at the Nocona hospital emergency room. Granny hadn’t even told Barbara and Eddie about it until it was time to send her home. The scar was barely visible, nothing more than a tiny white line that showed up when she had time to get a tan. Barbara had said her daughter would never go to that godforsaken place again and Eddie had said it wasn’t any big deal. Barbara had asked him what he was going to do the next time when it scarred Austin’s face.
    Austin’s father had