SuckeredA Rylie Cooper Mystery
Stella Bixby
Ferry Tail Publishing LLC
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Jennifer Zemanek, Copyright © Jennifer Zemanek/Seedlings Design Studio
Copyright © 2018 by Crystal S. Ferry
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system presently available or yet to be invented without permission in writing from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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For my sweet Lily. Happy Birthday, beautiful! I love you!
1
Rattlesnake wrangling was not on my bucket list.
When Brock radioed that he needed my assistance on the swim beach, I thought it would be for a found child, a fish hook injury, or even another dead body. I never imagined I’d end up face to face with a venomous monster.
The snake’s stare mirrored my determination. I would not—could not—make a fool of myself.
The snake coiled its long brown and tan body, its head up, ready to strike. It shook its tail in the sand, the rattling sound muffled by gasps and whispers of the beachgoers with their smartphone cameras pointed at me.
I brandished my snake stick—a golf club with a hook welded onto the end—and tried to hook it under the belly of the beast like we’d practiced in training. I glanced back at the five-gallon snake bucket. The lid was off and ready to be quickly replaced trapping the snake safely inside.
How was I the only ranger at the reservoir right now who wasn’t afraid of snakes? My heart thumped in my throat where the rope burns from my brush with death a couple of months ago had finally healed into small, angry red scars. Thankfully, the man responsible was no longer my supervisor, but that was another story.
The snake opened its mouth and hissed at the snake stick. I took a startled step backward, but instead of finding solid ground, my foot landed in what felt like a pile of quicksand.
The world slowed as my ankle twisted and I landed flat on my ass.
A high-pitched scream from behind me drew my attention away from the snake. The searing pain in my hand indicated what my diverted eyes didn’t see—the snake sinking its fangs into my flesh.
A gasp stole through the crowd.
My mind blanked, and the world spun as the snake opened its mouth to attempt another bite.
Without thinking, I grabbed the snake with my left hand and threw it away from me—right at the feet of one of the trail rangers, Seamus.
“Bloody hell,” Seamus said in his Irish brogue that practically made ladies beg him to write them tickets if only for the few extra minutes they’d have with him. “Yeh can’t be throwin’ snakes at people.” He yanked the snake stick from my hand.
The snake coiled into position ready to strike, but it didn’t faze Seamus. Like a pro, he hooked the stick under the snake’s belly, deposited it into the bucket, and snapped the lid on top.
The crowd erupted in cheers, and Seamus shot them a cheeky grin.
“Don’t worry about me.” My vision blurred. “I’m only dying over here,” I reminded them as panic flooded my chest.
I squeezed my eyes shut and grasped my wrist as hard as possible with my other hand trying to prevent the venom from spreading through my body. If I moved too much, I’d be dead in minutes. Bile crept up my throat.
“Yeh ain’t dyin’,” Seamus laughed, and the crowd roared along with him. “It’s just a measly bullsnake. Not venomous.”
I opened one eye and let it focus on the scruffy man looking down at me with one eyebrow raised. I released my wrist allowing blood flow back to my purpling hand and choked down the vomit.
“Hey lady,” an angry-looking little girl walked over and stood right next to Seamus, her hands on her hips and her big blue eyes red from crying, “you sat on my sand castle.”
So much for not making a fool of myself.
In a matter of minutes, I’d managed to discredit myself as a ranger, humiliate myself in front of a hundred park guests, get myself bitten by a non-venomous snake, and wreck a little girl’s sand castle. There was no way I would get the full-time position.
“I—I’m sorry.” I tried to stand, but my butt stayed cemented to the ground.
Brock, one of my fellow summer rangers or summies, as we’re more affectionately known, offered a hand and yanked me to my feet.
“Thanks, Rylie. I would have helped, but I’m scared shitless of snakes.” An embarrassed blush hid Brock’s usual testosterone-fueled façade. “At least I won’t have to deal with them once I’m a cop.”
Brock as a cop might have been scarier than being bitten by a rattlesnake, or bullshit snake, or whatever the hell it was called.
“Yeh both should have been able to handle it yourselves,” Seamus said. “That’s why we went through a week-long course on snake handling.”
“I thought I could but . . .” I felt my cheeks blossoming into crimson circles. Thankfully the park guests had long forgotten about me and were returning to their weekend activities.
“Don’t make the same mistake twice,” Seamus said. He was only about five years older than my almost-thirty, but he acted like the wise old ranger wizard.
“Why are you even here?” I asked him. “Aren’t you supposed to be patrolling the trails?”
He shrugged one broad shoulder. “I thought I’d come and check on yeh since the reservoir is so busy. And it’s a good thing I did.” He grabbed my hand in his examining the bloody puncture wounds. “We should probably get this cleaned up so
