Free Next Door Daddy by Debra Clopton Page B

Sure enough, the rope that had been tied to the metal gate and latched to the nail on the post was gone.
    She looked around for it on the ground, but it was nowhere. “Did you take the rope, Gil?”
    â€œNope. Bert musta ate it. If he’ll eat Bogie’s collar and my buttons he’ll eat a rope. ’Cause it can’t fight back.”
    â€œYou’ve got a point, kiddo. How did he get you on the ground back there?”
    â€œWhen I was bent over tying my shoestrings he snuck up on me and butted me with his head and sent me flying. Man, it was awesome. I hit the ground and rolled like a hundred times before I stopped. My head was spinning—”
    â€œAre you okay?” Polly gasped, fearing she’d made a bad judgment.
    â€œAre you kidding? It was awesome! ”
    Boys. “Come on, let’s go find something else to use as a latch.”
    â€œYeah, something Bert can’t eat,” Gil said, following her into the small shed. “Mom, do you like Nate?”
    Startled, Polly paused digging through a bin of odds and ends. “Well, sure I do. He’s a good neighbor.”
    Gil kicked a can and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I think that woman vet did, too. Did you see the gooey way she was looking at him?”
    Who wouldn’t have? She’d also noticed that she was using Polly as an excuse to drop by his place for a visit. But it wasn’t any of her business. She just wondered if Susan noticed how uneasy her attentions made Nate? It hadn’t taken Polly but a moment to realize that if it hadn’t been for them he’d have run.
    â€œThere’s a chain,” Gil yelped, efficiently bringing Polly’s thoughts back to the moment.
    Looking up to where he was pointing, she spotted the chain coiled on the top shelf. “Yep, that’s a chain, all right. But now I need a ladder to get to it and a ladder I don’t have.”
    â€œThere’s a bucket back here,” Gil exclaimed, disappearing out the door.
    Polly hurried after him to the end of the shed where he was tugging a five-gallon feed bucket out of a tangle of honeysuckle growing over the fence and up the side of the shed. Bert hadn’t gotten to it yet, but Polly had no doubts he’d take care of it soon enough.
    â€œThat’ll work great.” Taking it from him, she headed back inside.
    â€œIt’s a good thing I found it before Bert did or he’d eat it.” Gil laughed. “I’m gonna go make sure he’s not eatin’ poor ole Bogie.”
    â€œThat might be a good idea. And please keep him away from my tulips,” she called, setting the bucket down and stepping onto it. Wobbling, she grasped the lower shelf to steady herself, then stretched up for the chain.
    And that’s when she saw the snake! A big black snake.
    A scream lodged in Polly’s throat as she toppled off the bucket to her knees, her heart thundering like a burst of dynamite. Scrambling up, she stumbled out the door faster than a speeding…faster than a—Well, she was too scared to think of what she was running faster than, but she was certain if someone had been watching they’d find her evacuation of the shed spectacularly entertaining on several different levels.
    A hero she most definitely wasn’t when it came to snakes. She didn’t stop moving until she was almost to the house. Logic told her she’d probably scared the snake as badly as it had scared her. Only problem was, she didn’t care. It could have her shed! Just thinking about its beady little eyes made her recoil.
    What now?
    Polly paced back and forth. She knew the answer. She didn’t like the answer, but she knew she had to dig deep and somehow find the courage to go back in there and reclaim her territory.
    It was probably just a chicken snake. Like that mattered to her! Snakes—chicken, grass or nasty—gave her the creeps.
    She paced some more. Marc had