My Kind of Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page A

years,
little girl." He picked up the fork and shoved a sizable bite into
his mouth.
     
    "But you're thirty years older now too, dad.
It's time for you to scale down."
     
    "I know how old I am, Cassie. And I know how
much I can handle. If that damned snake hadn't scared that new
filly I was riding, we wouldn't be having this discussion."
     
    Holy shit, he'd almost been snakebit too?
She shivered. If there was one thing Cassie hated, it was snakes.
Poisonous or not they all slithered and made her skin crawl. "Dad,
really... a snake ?"
     
    "Yeah, big ole rattler. Scared the bejeesus
outta that filly and she took off and left me behind. Good thing
she's barn sour and ran right back here, or I'd probably still be
out there."
     
    "You're lucky you didn't get bit."
     
    "I had my rifle out aiming to shoot the
damned thing when she bolted. Got off the shot and killed it before
I got thrown."
     
    "Thank God for small favors." She breathed a
sigh of relief and walked back around the counter to put her plate
in the microwave. "Where's the filly? Which one were you
riding?"
    "Fiona. Clementine's foal."
     
    Clementine had been his favorite mare, but
her dad had told her at Christmas that she was too old to work
anymore, so they'd bred her a few times and put her out to pasture
a while back. Cassie grabbed two glasses, filled them with ice then
poured a large iced tea for both of them then walked over to hand
him one. "How old is she?"
     
    "Four. Under saddle for less than a year.
She's just green." He dismissed the filly's poor behavior.
     
    "I think we should run her through the
auction next month. We don't need unmanageable horses here. Someone
else could get hurt."
     
    "No." He said and popped another bite of
pasta into his mouth.
     
    "What?" Cassie spun back around to look at
him. "A spooky, barn sour horse that leaves you hurt out in the
field and you don't want to sell her?"
     
    "No--she stays. We'll just get one of the
hands to work with her more."
     
    God, the man could be stubborn. "Dad we only
have five hands and they are all going to be busy working with the
five hundred head of cattle."
     
    "Talk to Bud--tell him to find someone. She
stays."
     
    She added working with that damned filly to
her ever-growing mental to-do list. Cassie had no idea how this was
going to work. There was just too much to do.
     
    The buzzer on the microwave sounded, but she
found she'd lost her appetite, as she pulled her plate out. Sleep
was going to be what she needed. She had a feeling that would be in
short supply for the next month.
     
    A few hours later, after she'd tidied up the
kitchen, and helped her dad to get tucked into bed, Cassie grabbed
her sleep shorts, fresh underwear and a t-shirt and headed to the
bathroom. Her muscles ached from first sitting in the truck for so
long, then her war with the heater hose in the truck. She smelled
to high heaven she knew, and would probably leave a ring in the tub
from the grime that had accumulated on her skin from her unplanned
pitstop on the road.
     
    Cassie ran hot water into the large
claw-foot tub, poured in some bubble bath then stripped naked. She
slid beneath the frothy bubbles and sighed, closing her eyes.
Tomorrow would tell the tale on whether she'd survive the next
month or so. Once she talked to Bud, she hoped he'd have the
answers she needed on how they were going to get through this
farming fiasco.
     
    If Bud didn't have a good solid plan,
whether her Daddy liked it or not, they were going to have a mass
cattle sale and he was going to take the time off he needed to
heal. Maybe they could both go back to Phoenix for that. That was
the ultimate solution to this problem. If she could get Bud to
agree that was the answer, they could gang up on her dad and talk
some sense into him.
     
    ***
     
    The smothered chicken, mashed potatoes and
gravy Luke ordered at the Bluebird Cafe tasted like sandpaper in
his mouth. This was his favorite dish, so why wasn't he enjoying