Run Wild With Me by Sandra Chastain Read Free Book Online

o’clock?”
    “A better question might be where have
you
been, Buck?”
    “What makes you think I’ve been anywhere?”
    “For one thing you’re eating chocolate-chip cookies. For another, I went back out to the Hines place to check on Sam Farley. He told me that you and Otis had been out. How
dare
you go there and threaten Sam Farley, as if I couldn’t take care of myself!”
    “I wasn’t checking up on you, Andy.” He looked sheepish as she glared at him. “Oh, all right. Yes, I was,” he admitted. “I heard you tossing and turning in your bed after you got home last night. You’ve been doing that a lot lately. Louise thinks … I mean, I was just worried.”
    “You talked with Louise Roberts about me? Great!” Andrea slapped her desktop and turned away from Buck’s puzzled expression while she tried to calm herself. Why shouldn’t Buck talk to Louise about her? Why was she getting so angry?
    “I’m sorry, Andy. I just think sometimes that I haven’t done a very good job raising you. A woman might understand certain things … better.”
    “You’ve done fine, Buck. We’ve done fine, just the two of us. I didn’t mean to worry you. I thought it was my duty,” she said slowly, “to go back and check on Sam Farley’s identification, after you
disappeared
.”
    “I didn’t ‘disappear.’ I was having coffee with Otis and Mamie’s lawyer, Stuart Traylor.”
    Buck’s injured tone didn’t soothe Andrea for a moment, not even when he added proudly, “Stuart says that Mamie’s will is on file over at the courthouse in Cottonboro. Judge Thomas is having a copy made up for us.”
    Mamie’s will. Andrea hadn’t thought of that. But then she hadn’t thought about anything except a stranger with a heart-shaped tattoo who was sentimental about his mother. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check it out,” she snapped. “But in the future, stop taking care of me.”
    Andrea could tell that Buck was surprised at her outburst. As the phone rang and he answeredit with unusual irritation, she realized that he too had had a steady trickle of citizens who just happened by the café to hear about the “wild-looking” stranger.
    “All right, Andy,” he agreed as he was hanging up the phone. “I just don’t want to see you hurt. Sam may be all right. In fact he kinda reminds me of myself when I was his age. But a man like Ed, a man from Meredith County, is the kind of man you belong with.”
    “Buck, I’m twenty-six years old—a woman, not some teenager to be protected and supervised. I’m not going to marry Ed Pinyon. I’ll pick out the man I want.”
    “But not this man, Andy. He’s not one of us.” Buck pleaded with a glazed look in his eyes that said he was thinking of her mother. He added hesitantly, “I know you’re not a child anymore. I just get in the habit of acting like a father, and I charge ahead without thinking. We know Ed. We don’t know this boy, even if he does have a claim here. Be careful.”
    Andrea sighed and leaned over to kiss his bald head. “Oh, Pop, I’m overreacting too. He’s just passing through, and I understand what you’re saying. He’ll soon be gone, you’ll be mobile again, and life will be back to normal.”
    And you’ll have to find some other explanation for my tossing and turning at night, because I haven’t
.
    “No, you’re right,” Buck was saying. “It was a father who went over to Mamie’s place, Andy, not a police officer. Sam Farley comes from good stock. I ought to give him a chance. But we still need Mamie’s will.”
    “Fine. Here are his records. You look them over. I’ll drive over to the courthouse and pick up the will before lunch.”
    Andrea didn’t tell Buck that she intended to send off an inquiry to the state-patrol headquarters. She didn’t doubt what Sam Farley said about himself. She just wanted to know what the world said about Sam Farley.
    Andrea drove slowly down Main Street, nodding at Mrs. Bryan overseeing