Read Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] for Free Online Page B

door, slamming it behind her, and hurried across the yard to the corral.
    Pete Perry was in his middle twenties: a tall, lanky man with straw-colored hair, springing thickly from the scalp and pushed back in deep waves. He had hazel eyes, strong white teeth, and a deep dimple in his chin. He considered himself quite attractive to the female population. Henry Ann didn’t know if he’d ever had a steady job, but he seemed always to have money in his pocket.
    “She tryin’ to run ya off?” Pete asked when Johnny came from the house, climbed atop the rail fence, sat down, and hooked his heels on the lower rail.
    Silence from the boy on the rail fence.
    “What she needs is a hour or two on her back with a man between her legs. A real man with a long pole’d take the sass outta her.” Pete enjoyed talking nasty about women.
    Johnny’s dark eyes moved to the man and then away. It was impossible to know what the boy was thinking when he wore his Indian face.
    “Listen, kid. With old Ed gone you stand to get a piece a this place. Ain’t no mortgage on it far as I know. Hell. It ain’t fair for that tightass woman to get it all. You could go to Dallas or New York—maybe even to California.”
    Again Johnny’s eyes flicked to Pete’s face and away.
    “Ya and the girl’s got as much right here as that stuck-up Henry Ann. Old Ed was still married to your mama, you know. Betcha he didn’t make out no will.”
    Johnny slid off the fence, slipped the bridle on his pony, and sprang on its back. Without a word to Pete, he nudged open the gate and rode off down the lane toward the woods.
    “Johnny! Wait—” Isabel called. “Where’s he goin’?” She came to stand beside Pete.
    “Ridin’.”
    “Where? What’d he say about what she did?”
    “Nothin’.” Pete looked down at the girl and grinned. “Don’t worry ’bout it. He gets that way sometimes. He’ll come around when he thinks about it.”
    “Are you really my cousin?”
    “Name’s Perry. Your mama was a Perry.”
    “Are we close kin?”
    “Me and Dorene had the same grandma somewheres down the line—so Pa says.”
    “Ah . . . shoot!”
    “Now why’d you go and say a thin’ like that?”
    “I’d just as soon you wasn’t . . . kin.”
    “You flirtin’ with me, honey? How old are you? You look like you ain’t been outta diapers long.”
    “Seventeen,” she lied.
    “Then I reckon you’re old enough.” He chucked her beneath the chin with his fist, then let it fall to sweep lingeringly across her small breast. He turned to get his horse. “Got to be gettin’ on home. See ya . . . cutie.”
    “Ain’t ya got a car?” Isabel called.
    “Yeah, I got one.”
    “Then why’er ya ridin’ a horse?”
    “So I can get places I can’t get to in a car, sweet thin’. And so pretty little girls will ask questions.” He finished saddling his horse. “If I’d knowed I wasn’t gettin’ an invite to dinner, I’d not a unsaddled my horse.”
    Isabel glanced toward the house, then back to Pete, who was sitting atop his horse rolling a cigarette.
    “I’m askin’ ya . . . to dinner.”
    With his eyes on her face, he licked the edge of the cigarette paper to seal the tobacco in, twisted the end, and stuck it between his lips. He lit it before he spoke.
    “You ain’t got ’nuff say ’round here yet, cutie. Maybe later . . . huh?” He dropped his lid in a flirtatious wink and put his heels to his horse.
    Isabel watched him until he disappeared into the wood. Then, with her heart beating with excitement, she ran back to the house.

 
Chapter Three
    C ONROY , T EXAS
    Tom Dolan sat in one of the white wicker chairs on the long veranda and listened to his father-in-law and Marty try to outtalk each other. They had ignored Tom as if the conversation were beyond him. Young Conroy was trying to impress his father with his knowledge of the oil industry.
    “We’d not have to lease a whole section, Daddy. Hell, set a well a hundred feet