Free Heartbreak Bronco by Terri Farley Page B

pointed at the floor of the shower.
    â€œDo you mean those streaks?” Sam said. “There’s iron in the water. Just wipe it out.”
    â€œI was worried about my hair, not your shower,” Crystal bawled, but as soon as she paused for a breath, Amelia cut in with a second complaint.
    â€œCrystal’s not wearing boots, so I’m not going to, either.”
    â€œYou have to wear boots. Both of you. Today it might not matter, but it will when we mount up. You might as well get used to them.”
    Sam hadn’t meant to sound so bossy, but taking back her words would be a mistake. A shoe without a heel could slip through the stirrup. If the rider fell and the horse kept moving, she could be dragged.
    As Sam made up her bunk, she heard Crystalmutter, “Who died and made her queen?”
    Go ahead and hate me , Sam thought as she opened the curtains on each window.
    Ignoring their unmade beds, the girls stood together at the bathroom mirror. Amelia seemed to be mimicking Crystal’s way of applying eye makeup.
    â€œI’ll meet you up at the kitchen for breakfast,” Sam said.
    She sighed as she left the bunkhouse, but it wasn’t the sound of her own breath that stopped her three steps down the path.
    The whirring noise drew her eyes to the flat-topped boulder she’d sat on just an hour ago.
    Nightmares were like this.
    You looked.
    You saw.
    Your cry was strangled to silence by fear.

Chapter Nine
    T he snake lay across the boulder like a foot-long mosaic of beige and brown. His forked tongue flicked. The bumps on his tapered tail looked like rows of corn on the cob as they twitched from side to side.
    Do rattlesnakes have to be coiled to strike? Can they bite through leather boots? How about jeans? Will it come after me if I back away?
    The rattlesnake’s seeking head raised off the rock. Its intent eyes glinted.
    Sam couldn’t remember what to do.
    It’s more afraid of you than you are of it.
    She’d heard that about all kinds of wildlife. She hoped it was true of rattlesnakes.
    Sam scuffed her boot on the dirt, trying to frightenthe snake. Like magic, it wove itself into a coil and its rattles beat louder.
    Sam took a step backward. The snake didn’t seem to notice. She took another silent step away, and another, until her back was pressed against the bunkhouse door.
    It couldn’t reach her from here. Then, even though she was watching, the snake disappeared. She couldn’t say which side of the boulder it had flowed down. There was movement and it was gone.
    Sam’s breath rushed out and she rapped on the closed bunkhouse door. She didn’t feel like turning her back on the path. It hadn’t been a very big snake. What if its mother were nearby?
    The door jerked inward and Sam staggered back a step, laughing in relief.
    â€œWhat?” Crystal snapped.
    Sam covered her mouth against the inappropriate laughter bubbling up in her. She pointed toward the path, and Amelia and Crystal looked.
    â€œA rattlesnake was right there.”
    â€œOh, sure.” Crystal’s surliness hadn’t cured itself overnight.
    â€œI don’t care if you believe me. I need to tell my Dad.” Sam started toward the ranch house. “And if I were you, I’d stay in the middle of the path.”
    Dubious but unsure, the girls looked around them.
    To Sam, their ankles looked vulnerable above their sneakers.
    â€œAnd you’re idiots if you don’t put on boots!”
    Sam broke into a jog, suddenly desperate to tell Dad before he left the ranch.
    â€œYou can’t talk to us like that!” Crystal shouted after her, but Sam kept running.
    Â 
    Brush-poppin’ was put off for a few hours.
    Wearing thick leather gloves, Dad and the cowboys searched out openings around every exterior door of the house and both bunkhouses and blocked them. They cut down brush that bordered paths, so that snakes wouldn’t rest in their shade