Do you take this rebel - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,7

changes were taking place in town, but then Edna Collins wasn’t the kind to take stock of her surroundings or to comment on them. She stayed mostly to herself, spending her time on the mending she did to make ends meet and on church work. Because she was relieved to no longer be the target of it herself, she didn’t indulge in gossip. Cassie regretted not asking more questions since her last trip home. Even her mother had to have noticed an influx of wealthy newcomers.

“Can we drive through town before we go to Grandma’s?” Jake pleaded. “I’ve forgotten what it was like. Besides, I’m starved. Grandma won’t have anything but peanut butter and jelly.”

“Which she is expecting you to eat,” Cassie reminded him, grateful for the excuse to put off the moment when she would have to start seeing people, facing their curious stares and blunt questions.

“We’ll go into town after lunch,” she promised, grinning at him. “You can have ice cream for dessert.”

The promise was enough to pacify Jake, and it bought her some time…time to ask questions, time to brace herself for the possibility of running into Jake’s father.

Time to get used to the increasingly likely possibility that this was going to be home again.

Cole was mending fences near the highway when the old blue sedan sped past. It said a lot about his state of mind that he even looked up. Usually his concentration was intent on the task at hand, but ever since his father’s sly comment about Cassie’s return, passing cars had caught his interest.

This time there was no mistaking the thick brown hair caught up in a ponytail and pulled through the opening of a baseball cap. Cassie had worn her hair exactly that way on too many occasions, making his fingers itch to free it and watch it tumble to her shoulders in silky waves. His belly tightened and his hand trembled unmistakably, either at the memory or the glimpse of her. Maybe both.

He forced his attention back to the fence, aimed his hammer at the nail with too much force and too little concentration and caught his thumb instead. His muttered expletive carried across the field to his father, who stared at him with that smug expression that had become increasingly familiar lately.

“See something interesting?” his father inquired tartly.

“Not a thing,” Cole insisted, though the image of Cassie with the breeze stealing wisps of hair to tease her cheeks was firmly planted in his head. If a glimpse could tie him up in knots, what would seeing her up close do to him? He didn’t want to find out.

He just needed to make himself scarce for a few days and she’d be gone again, back to wherever she lived, taking that mysterious boy of hers with her. Then his life would return to normal. His days would be uncomplicated. His nights…well, they might be boring from a social perspective, but they would be rewarding financially. He did his best work in the middle of the night when the day’s stresses faded and his mind could wander.

“You going into town this afternoon?” his father asked, his expression neutral.

“Hadn’t planned to.”

“We could use an order of feed.”

“Then pick up the phone and order it,” Cole retorted, refusing to take the less-than-subtle bait.

“Just thought you might have other business to see to.”

“I do,” he agreed, tossing his tools into the back of the pickup. “If you need me, I’ll be at the house.”

His father stared at him with a disgusted expression. “Working on that blasted computer, I suppose.”

“Exactly.”

With any luck he could create a computer game in which the meddling owner of a ranch was murdered by his put-upon son and nobody caught on.

From the moment she drove into the driveway at her mother’s place, Cassie was taken back in time. Nothing had changed. The little white house, not much more than a cottage, really, still had a sagging porch and needed paint. As always, there was a pot of struggling red geraniums in need of water on the steps. A swing hung from a sturdy but rusting chain. The white paint had long since chipped away, leaving the swing a weathered gray.

Inside, the walls were a faded cream, the drapes too dark and heavy, as if her mother was determined to shut out the world that had never been kind to her. A sewing basket, overflowing with colorful threads, sat beside the worn chair where her mother liked to work under a bare