One Fine Cowboy by Joanne Kennedy

Author:Joanne Kennedy [Kennedy, Joanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2010-04-10T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

“You’re kind of nice, but you look really scary,” Sam told Phaedra. “Like my teacher.”

Phaedra glanced up from Sam’s fingernails, which she was painting with Nate-approved pink polish. Sam had wanted to try out Phaedra’s Urban Vampire Black, but her father had threatened to cancel the pajama party if Phaedra tried to turn Sam into Junior Goth Girl. “Your teacher dresses Goth?” Phaedra asked.

“Oh, no,” Sam shook her head. “But she wears these slanty-eyed glasses that make her look really mean, and her hair’s real curly and red, like a scary clown. You want to scream and run away when you first see her—but she’s nice. She helped me after school with my subtraction.”

“So what’s nine minus four?” Phaedra paused, holding the brush inches above Sam’s fingers.

“Five.”

“Right.” The polishing resumed. “So do you want to grow up to be a beautician like your mom?” Phaedra asked.

“No.” Sam shook her head. “I want to go to regular college. You know. In the daytime.”

Charlie lifted her head from filing her own nails. “Your mom goes to night school?”

Sam nodded solemnly. “Mostly Fridays and Saturdays. Sometimes she has to stay over.”

Charlie’s filing stopped mid-rasp. “Who stays with you when Mommy’s at school?”

Sam shrugged. “A sitter. Usually Mrs. Bennett from across the hall, but sometimes Cara. Cara’s cool. She’s seventeen.” She invoked the pinnacle of adolescence like a prayer.

“Seventeen! What is that woman…”

Doris interrupted, casting a sharp look at Charlie. “We’ll have to ask your mom about that. That sounds kind of—different.”

All heads turned as a sound like a pride of roaring lions thundered out of the darkness beyond the windows. Lights flashed across the far wall and Doris bounded to the window.

“Pickup,” she said. “A big ol’ diesel. More students, I bet.”

A cowboy whoop pierced the darkness and the truck skidded to a stop outside the bunkhouse. Phaedra applied one last stroke of polish to Sam’s pinky nail and sighed.

“I think that’s my dad,” she said. Charlie wouldn’t have thought the girl could get any paler, but she went white as a marble statue under her pancake makeup.

“Then you were right,” Charlie said. “He sure sounds like a cowboy.”

She sighed. Now she was in for it. She felt like she’d dodged a bullet, coming out here to the Wild West and avoiding all the wild Westerners. But judging from the din outside, her luck had just run out.

Boot heels sounded on the bunkhouse steps, and the new arrival filled the bunkhouse door. With his craggy face and rangy build, he could have stepped right off a Marlboro billboard. Charlie took one look at the ice-blue eyes peering out from under his white felt hat and was struck dumb.

“Well, I’ll be,” Doris said. “Chance Newton.”

The newcomer grinned, perfect teeth gleaming in his tanned face. “Taylor Barnes,” he said. “I just pretended to be Chance Newton for a while there.”

Charlie let out a strangled croak in lieu of a greeting. Taylor Barnes was a cowboy, all right—or at least Chance Newton was. That was

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