Page 1 of Texas Daze (Texas Montgomery Mavericks)

Chapter1

“Goddamn gophers.”Martha Gale Jenkins adjusted the tree limb she’d found to use as a crutch. She limped alongside her horse as they made their way back to the barn. “Hate ‘em, hate ‘em,hate‘em.”

Rascal, her chestnut gelding, limped along with her. Both of them had fallen victim to a couple of new gopher holes in the lower pasture. Better she fall in than Rascal. Hell, he was probably more valuable to the ranch thanshewas.

She was still a ways out when Pedro, one of the young ranch hands, came ridingtowardthem.

“Seen ya limping, Marti. Needsomehelp?”

Martha, aka Marti, was in a right fine mood, ready to pick a fight with anybody just to take her mind off the pain in her left leg. But Pedro was too nice a guy for her to use as her personalpunchingbag.

“Thanks, Pedro. Rascal and me had a run in with a couple of rattlesnakes followed up by new gopher holes.” She held up the rattlesnake bodies. “Won one battle, lost theother.”

The eighteen-year-old shook his head. “Can’t believe you brought those snakes homewithcha.”

“You’ve been here long enough to know that Grisham loves rattlesnake meat. It’ll put him in a good mood for days. Here,” she said, trying to hand him the snakecarcasses.

“No, ma’am. Me and snakes don’t like eachother.”

She laughed. “Know what you mean.” She gave a dramatic shiver. “If it didn’t make our grumpy foreman so happy, I’d have left these for thebuzzards.”

“Why you limpin’? Did one of them snakesbitecha?”

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. If one of these snakes had bit her, even through her heavy boots, she wouldn’t be in a bad mood. She’d probablybedead.

Pedro had come to the ranch on a work-release program four years ago but he’d grown up in Kansas City. His abhorrence of anything dealing with snakes was, unfortunately, a continued source of jokes from the other hands with a multitude of rubber snakes showing up in unfortunateplaces.

In a joint program with the Whispering Springs Police Department, the Flying Pig Ranch agreed to take on a couple of non-violent teenage offenders to work off minor offenses. Marti’s grandfather had started the program when he served as Chief of Police while still being a rancher in need of ranch hands. Over the years, hundreds of teens had mucked out stalls, brushed horses, and even helped with feeding the livestock. Busted for selling marijuana at fourteen, Pedro had been one of those non-violent offenders and sent to the ranch. Hostile when he first arrived, he’d found his home and calling among the farmanimals.

“No snake bites,” Marti said. “Rascal has a stone bruise and possibly a slight sprain. I didn’t want to do any further injury. I, on the other hand, fell into a gopher hole while one of these snakes decided he wanted to strike out. His mistake. Shot hisheadoff.”

Pedro held out his hand while pulling his left foot from the stirrup. “Climb on and I’ll give you arideback.”

“Appreciate the offer, but I can barely stand on my left leg. No way can I lift myself on it.” She tossed him Rascal’s reins. “Take Rascal on back.I’llwalk.”

He hesitated and then said, “It don’t seem right, leaving you here.” He swung off the horse with ease that showed years of riding. She smiled. He’d changed so much since the first time he’d tried to dismount from a horse and fell off instead. “Now, don’t get mad at me,” he warned seconds before grabbing her around the waist and throwing her up onto hishorse’sback.

She gasped insurprise.

“Sorry, ma’am but Foreman Grisham would have me mucking stalls by myself for a month if I left you here.” He collected Rascal’s reins and settled back onto his horse. “Hold on. I’llgoslow.”

* * *

“Don’t look good to me,”Marti’s father said. Patrick Jenkins turned his daughter’s leg side to side, which made Marti gasp. The swelling from day one had climbed from her ankle to just below her knee now. She’d found her grandfather’s cedar wood cane and had been using it for the past four days, hoping that, with the cane supporting most of her weight, she’d be back to normalbynow.

“It’s just a bad sprain. I’m sure,”shesaid.

“Mara. Come here and look at yourdaughter’sleg.”

Mara Jenkins entered the living room drying her hands on a kitchen towel. “Stillswollen?”

“Yup,” Patrick said. “But your daughter thinks if she ignores it, it’llgoaway.”

Mara grinned. “Yourdaughter is a bullheaded as you,”shesaid.

“Your daughter is sitting right here you know,”Martisaid.

Her mother kissed her forehead. “Like we could forget.” Mara pressed on the front of Marti’s left leg just below her knee. Her finger sank into the flesh. The indentation remained. “Sorry, honey, but your father is right. It’s time to see adoctor.”

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