A heavy chill settled in Cassie’s middle and stayed there. What if . . . ? Mavis glanced toward Cassie. “You needn’t worry about them, you know. I’m fairly certain those who the pastor was referring to are a bunch of blowhards—at least one is, and the others tag along with him. They’ve not done any real damage in all the years I’ve known them. Liquor is their backbone, and after they sleep it off—sometimes Edgar throws them in jail for twenty-four hours—they either forget about it or think the better of it.” “But what if this time it doesn’t work that way?” “If someone strange comes on the ranch at night, our dog will announce it to the world. And Ransom and Lucas trust his bark. Besides, you have Othello. When he barks, he sounds like a huge dog. And Dog too. Barking dogs scare drunks.” “But what if someone were to injure or even kill the dogs?” The thought of Othello being wounded or killed made her want to cry already, with just the fear of it.
