Page 74 of Final Ride

“No, you don’t. I can hear growling out there and that meansthe bear is back. You’re staying in here with me, girl. We’re going back to bed. You can’t go out until she goes back to her cave in the morning.”

Cleo whined and lay down on the mat at the door.

Shortly after dawn, Cleo whined again to go out and Bobby dragged himself out of bed. “I’m not letting you go out there alone, girl. We don’t know for sure that we only have one bear. We might have two and that means double trouble for you.”

Bobby stuck his feet into his boots and grabbed the shotgun that came with the cabin. “Come on, we’ll go out the front door this morning, just in case.”

He opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. His mouth hung open for a minute while he stared at the amazing sight in front of him.

It was not a bear.

“Well, Cleo, would you look at that big red beauty sitting there. Miss Tammy must have taken a lesson from that last beating I laid on her. She brought me a present to make up for all of her disgusting murderous and kidnapping behavior.”

Bobby walked over to the truck and jumped up on the sidestep. He peeked in the driver’s window and took it all in.

“She’s gorgeous, Cleo. I’ll take you for a ride later, but first we’d better go look for Tammy. If she arrived in the middle of the night, that old bear might’ve got her.”

Coulter-Ross Ranch. La Grange.

While Travis and Annie drank their morning coffee on the front porch, Kevin Bennett arrived with the paperwork and keys for Travis’ new property.

“Congratulations, Travis. You are now the proud owner of a beautiful spread up in Lincoln.” He handed Travis the package and shook his hand, then explained what each of the keys were for.

“Thanks for bringing it to me,” said Travis.

“You okay? You look a little more damaged than when I saw you in the office yesterday.”

“Had a little mishap on the way back to Annie’s ranch,” mumbled Travis and his hand inadvertently went to the wounds in his side.

“Sorry to hear that. You won’t be in top shape for your moving day, then.”

Travis laughed. “Definitely won’t be lifting much. I’ll have to leave that for my boys.”

Kevin left and Travis tried to get out of his comfy porch chair. “I guess we’d better get over there and wait for the moving truck.”

“You and the boys go ahead,” said Annie. “I’ll make some sandwiches and follow y’all over in a bit. I bet you don’t have any food over there.”

“Not yet, but I’ll make a list and send the boys to the store later.” Travis hollered for the boys and when they came running out of the house, he said, “Virgie, you and Harlan get the horses loaded. It’s time to get over to our new place.”

“Copy that, Dad. Virge, help me cut our horses out of the corral.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” said Lucy. The three of them ran to the corral to get started.

River Bend Ranch. Lincoln. Texas.

On the final leg of their move, Travis led the way pulling the horse trailer, with me and Virge behind him towing the Harleys behind our Jeep.

I clocked the mileage from Annie’s ranch to ours and it was exactly twenty-nine miles. Not far at all. A half-hour drive.

Driving through the fancy gate at the end of our lane felt like coming home. “We’re here, Corb. What do you think?”

“Nice ranch so far. I like the gateway. The ranch has a name—River Bend. Is there a river?”

“Yep. Haven’t seen it yet, but we have one.”

“Hope the furniture truck don’t take too long to get here. I might want a bed to sleep in tonight,” said Virge.

“If it don’t come, Dad said we’d sleep in a hotel. Either way, you’ll have a bed, Virge. You big wuss.”

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