Something More Read Online Free

stood out, the rain darkening its heavy timbers, giving it solidness and bulk.
    No other structure vied with it for prominence. A double row of pine trees, planted years ago as a windbreak, marked the former location of the ranch house. Now they were silent sentinels, protecting the blackened rubble and charred ruins that remained.
    Never once did Luke’s glance stray to the old house site. Home for him was now a single-wide trailer parked on the other side of it. In the falling rain, the nondescript beige of the trailer’s metal siding merged into the surrounding landscape.
    The only spot of bright color in the scene came from the yellow school bus as it rolled away from the ranch yard, heading down the lane that would take it to the main road five miles distant. Luke’s glance paused on it.
    â€œIt looks like Dulcie’s home from school already,” he remarked idly. “I hadn’t realized it was so late.”
    But he didn’t wonder where the time had gone. His thoughts were on the fast-approaching nighttime hours to be faced—and somehow filled. But he knew he’d fill them the same way he always had—with the help of a bottle. It was a fact that no longer troubled him, if it ever had.
    Tobe, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less that his kid sister was home from school. It was something to be expected, therefore unimportant. The hour of the day, though; that raised other questions.
    â€œDo you think Beauchamp will come out yet today to collect the body?” He had visions of the skeleton being disinterred as night fell, with lights strategically placed around the sight, blackness swirling around the edges of the scene.
    â€œIt’s hard to say,” Luke replied with indifference. “As long as the body’s been in the ground already, I don’t know what the rush would be to dig him up. It probably would be easiest just to wait until morning.”
    â€œYeah.” Tobe sighed his disappointment and slowed the truck as they approached the pasture gate.
    When the pickup rolled to a stop, Luke climbed out of the cab and went to open the gate, taking the thermos cup of laced coffee with him. One-handed, he dragged the gate through the mud and waited for both pickups with trailers in tow to drive through, then drained the last fortifying swallow of the tepid liquid. As soon as the gate was closed and latched, Luke trotted to the waiting pickup and climbed back into the dry cab.
    â€œDo you want me to drop you off at the trailer?” Tobe lifted his voice to make himself heard above the rumble of the pickup over the wood-planked bridge that spanned the creek.
    Luke thought about the question for a full minute. “Might as well,” he agreed finally. The phone call had to be made. Postponing it accomplished nothing. “Let the boys know I’ve got their checks ready and waiting for them.”
    â€œWill do.” Tobe stopped the pickup thirty feet from the trailer.
    Head down, Luke crossed the sloppy ground to the metal steps, conscious of the smell of wood smoke the rain resurrected from the fire-charred rubble. He paused long enough to scrape the worst of the mud from his boots, then mounted the steps.
    The aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies greeted him when he walked inside. Turning, he shrugged out of his slicker and hung it on a hook by the door.
    â€œAren’t the others coming?” The voice belonged to eight-year-old Dulcie West, a slender waif of a girl with long blond hair the pale color of moonlight.
    â€œThey’ll be along directly,” Luke told her, his mouth curving in an automatic smile.
    â€œFargo baked a batch of cookies for them,” she said, as if it were news.
    â€œI noticed.” Rubbing his cold hands together, he headed toward the kitchen, the sound of his footsteps accompanied by the muted clink of his mud-caked spurs. “I hope he’s got hot coffee to go with them,” he