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“What’d you think I meant?”
Bluffing was easier when I wasn’t chatting up a shotgun. “I thought you were referring to the … um …” A tidbit of a phone conversation I’d overheard earlier this morning came to mind. “To the problem you had at the Prairie Dog Palace.”
Harvey’s jaw jutted. “Mud wrestling has no age limit.”
“You’re right. They need to be less age-biased. Maybe even have anAARP Nightevery Wednesday.”
“Nobody told me about the bikini bit ‘til it was too late.”
I winced. I couldn’t help it.
“So, what’re you gonna charge me to sell my place?”
“What would you like me to charge you?” I was all about pleasing the customer this afternoon.
He leaned the gun on his shoulder, double barrels pointed at the porch ceiling. “The usual, I guess.”
No longer on the verge of extinction, I used the porch rail to keep from keeling over. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out for the realty business. Did they still sell encyclopedias door-to-door?
“This ranch belonged to my pappy, and his pappy before him.” Harvey’s lips thinned as he stared over my shoulder.
“It must hold a big place in your heart.” I tried to sound sincere as I inched along the railing toward the steps. My red Bronco glinted and beckoned under the July sun.
“Hell, no. I can’t wait to shuck this shithole.”
“What?” I’d made it as far as the first step.
“I’m sick and tired of fixin’ rusted fences, chasing four-wheeling fools through my pastures, sniffing out lost cows in every damned gulch and gully.” His blue eyes snapped back to mine. “And I keep hearing funny noises at night coming from out behind my ol’ barn.”
I followed the nudge of his bearded chin. Weathered and white-washed by Mother Nature, the sprawling building’s roof seemed to sag in the afternoon heat. The doors were chained shut, one of the haymow windows broken. “Funny how?”
“Like grab-your-shotgun funny.”
Normally, this might give me pause, but after the greeting I’d received today from the old codger’s double barrels, I had a feeling that Harvey wore his shotgun around the house like a pair of holey underwear. I’d bet my measly savings he even slept with it. “Maybe it’s just a mountain lion,” I suggested. “The paper said there’s been a surge of sightings lately.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Harvey shrugged. “I don’t care. I want to move to town. It gets awful lonely out here come wintertime. Start thinking about things that just ain’t right. I almost married a girl from Taiwan last January. Turned out ‘she’ was really a ‘he’ from Nigeria.”
“Wow.”
“Damned Internet.” Harvey’s gaze washed over me. “What about you, Violet Parker?”
“What about me?”
“There’s no ring on your finger. You got a boyfriend?”
“Uh, no.”
I didn’t want one, either. Men had a history of fouling up my life, from burning down my house to leaving me knocked up with twins. These days, I liked my relationships how I liked my eggs: over-easy.
Harvey’s two gold teeth twinkled at me through his whiskers. “Then how about a drink? Scotch or gin?”
I chewed on my lip, considering my options. I could climb into my Bronco and watch this opportunity and the crazy old bastard with the trigger-happy finger disappear in my rearview mirror; or I could blow off common sense and follow Harvey in for some hard liquor and maybe a signed contract.
Like I really had a choice. “Do you have any tonic?”
