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The “huh” held a world of meanin

g He glanced at Dawn She’d folded her arlint of irritation, as if she were angry at three people she’d never met for what they’d done to him It made him want to pull the car over, take her in his arain

Jesus, he thought, and shifted uneasily in his seat

“And I wasn’t there On their ranch Neither were they,school…”

Gray frowned and cleared his throat Great Another fewher all about his life, and Jonas, and a fortune she just ht collect

“Anyway, it was suether one afternoon and Travis, I think it was, found a dead rattler in one of the paddocks” He sent his ed a thread of an to unravel “It was sort of trampled”

“Double yuck”

“Exactly Well, we looked at it, poked at it, picked it up with a stick, and Travis said Indians used to eat snakes, and one thing led to another, and—”

“And,” Dawn said, with a little smile, “it tasted just like chicken”

“It tasted like an old boot that had maybe kicked a chicken once, but mostly it tasted like it had spent too much time in a horse paddock” He chuckled “But ere only kids”

“I know Little boys can be such characters…”

The words see straight ahead, hands folded in her lap, a wistful quality to her so, she’d shown coo How could she care about a stranger and not her own child? Was she thinking about her own son now? Questions buzzed inside his head like bees around a hive The more he saw of Dawn Carter, the less he understood It ry Maybe it was ti subtle…

“Look!”

He followed her pointing finger The place he’d re-down buildings set on a sprawl of gravel The tires crunched as Gray pulled up to the gas puine

“Okay Now all we have to do is hope they have a gas can somewhere and we’re in business”