It was nearing sundown when Dean looked up from the fence he was repairing to see Randall riding in on the dappled gray mustang he’d had since he was fifteen. His brother had named the poor horse Lucy despite the fact he was a gelding. It had always been Randall’s way to be unexpected and ridiculous.
A handful of ranch hands had ridden in just ahead of Randall. For the most part, the men spent weeks at a time camping under the stars and eating from the chuck wagon that traveled with them, but whenever any of them were near enough to make use of the bunkhouse, they didn’t resist the opportunity to enjoy Jimena’s cooking.
Aside from his brother, who was foreman, Dean had nearly twenty-five hands working Lawton ranch. It was the most the ranch had ever had. After Augie’s death, Dean had dedicated himself to making the ranch prosper, and his work had paid off.
After securing his gelding by the water trough, Randall walked up to Dean with tense shoulders and a hard glint in his eyes. “I found four more near Freeman’s Rock.”
Dean swallowed an expletive. He didn’t want his brother to know how much the loss bothered him. Instead, he gave a short nod and turned to rest his forearms on top of the fence, sending his gaze eastward. Randall’s house stood past the pasture, and beyond that, where the river straightened out and began to flow faster, the land opened up to a few hundred thousand acres of free range.
“Something’s gotta be done.” Randall’s voice was heavy with frustration.
“I’ll handle it.”
“How?”
“I said I’ll see to it, and I will.”
“Dammit, Dean, this ranch is partly mine. Granddad may have given you a ruling share and made you the boss, but almost half of those cattle are mine. We can deal with this problem together. There’s gotta be a way to find out who’s behind it.”
If his brother didn’t have any idea who might be perpetrating the crimes, Dean preferred to keep it that way. Randall was likely to go off half-cocked, without any proof. Unfortunately, proof had been damned near impossible to come by. The killings were totally random, with no rhyme or reason behind when or where they occurred. And Dean was not about to go accusing anyone without solid evidence against them.
“Maybe the MacDonnells know something,” Randall suggested as he came up beside him to rest his arms on the fence in a replica of Dean’s stance.
Dean glanced sharply at his brother. “Why would you say that?”
Randall shrugged. “Maybe the same thing is happening to their stock. We could work together.”
Dean didn’t reply.
“You can’t avoid them forever,” Randall said.
“I don’t intend to.”
“I could ride over there tomorrow and have a talk with Horatio. See if he knows anything or if he’s heard of any others in these parts describing the same incidents.”
“No.”
Randall pushed off from the fence in frustration. “Dammit, Dean. Let me do something. I can do more for this ranch than act like a glorified hand.”
Dean understood his brother’s irritation. He did. But now wasn’t the time to be taking risks.
“I get it, all right? I’ll think about giving you some more responsibilities. But I will not have you riding off to the MacDonnell’s place on this matter. Got it?”
The two men squared off for a long moment. Both intense and stubborn. But Randall would back down eventually. Dean was still boss.
Suddenly, his younger brother’s expression shifted into one of shock as his eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped open. “Shit! You think they’re responsible for the killings, don’t you?”
Aw, hell.
Dean had known Randall would come to that realization eventually. His brother was impulsive and wild, but he wasn’t stupid. Dean had just hoped to be able to resolve the issue first.
“But that’s crazy,” Randall stated emphatically “The MacDonnells would never do such a thing.”
Dean shook his head. No point hiding his thoughts now. “I don’t want to believe it either. But think back to when the first killing happened.” He waited to see the flicker of acknowledgment in his brother’s eyes. “Right. The day of Anne’s funeral. And the next?”
Randall looked confused at that one, so Dean provided the answer. “The day that should have been her twenty-second birthday.”
“Shit!” Randall hissed as he shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”
“All the incidents since those first two have been random, but near enough to the MacDonnell homestead that someone could have ridden out, killed the cattle, and gone home without much effort.”
“But why?”
Dean didn’t want to answer that. He didn’t want to believe Anne’s family, lifelong friends of the Lawtons, would have turned on them in such a way. But grief could do terrible things to people.
“We don’t know for sure it’s them,” Dean explained instead. “It’s just a suspicion at this point. I can’t do anything without solid proof. I won’t,” he stated firmly, looking his still-stunned brother hard in the eye. “And you won’t either. Got it?”
Randall nodded readily. “Yeah. I got it.”
Dean gave a nod of his own. “Now, why don’t you head home? I imagine Pilar’s been waiting for you.”
“Sure,” Randall replied, though his movements were reluctant as he turned to his gelding. Just before hoisting himself up into his saddle, he looked back. “I’m sorry, Dean. I never woulda thought…”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it. Get on home.”
After his brother left, Dean stayed out by the arena until the sun gave up its last rays of light over the horizon. He loved the ranch. It was the kind of love that had formed in his bones, passed down through generations.
And someone was threatening it.
He didn’t want to believe Anne’s family had anything to do with the senseless slaughter. Ranchers themselves, the MacDonnells understood the value of livestock as more than what it brought at auction. The cattle were the ranch, the soul, the lifeblood.
An attack on Lawton cattle was a direct attack on Dean.
He bristled with the urge to fight back. To strike in anger and frustration and grief.
But he needed proof. He needed to be convinced unequivocally that the MacDonnells were behind the killings. Until then, his hands were tied and he hated it.
As stars blinked to life in the sky above, he slowly approached the house, gearing himself up for another confrontation he didn’t want to have. Through the window of his office at the back of the barn, he’d seen his red-haired wife return to the main house a few hours ago with Jimena.
Since arriving at the Lawton Ranch with Pilar, Jimena had insisted on cooking for Dean whenever he would allow it. It had taken him a while to accept her frequent presence in his house, since there hadn’t been a female at Lawton Ranch since his mother left nearly twenty years before. But Pilar explained how much her mother loved to be in the kitchen. It gave Jimena joy to cook for her family, and Dean was now family. Apparently, so were the ranch hands she fed whenever any of them were in from the range. Dean employed a camp cook, and Augie had made sure Dean and Randall both knew how to fix their own food in the kitchen as well as out on the range, but their skills just couldn’t compete with Jimena’s culinary talent. It hadn’t taken long for Dean to get used to the various appetizing smells that would greet him when he returned to the house at the end of the day.
Eventually, he and Jimena had settled on a compromise of sorts. She would come over to cook on nights when the family gathered at the big house for the evening meal and whenever there were men in the bunkhouse. It was much easier to prepare big meals for the ranch hands from Dean’s kitchen than from her own. Any other night, Dean managed on his own.
Though Randall and Pilar were not expected to join him tonight, Jimena was likely preparing something for his men.
And there was also his bride to contend with.
After the discussion with Randall, Dean was really not in the mood for another argument, which he definitely expected to have after the way he’d deserted her earlier. He certainly hadn’t planned to dump her off in such a manner. He just hadn’t been prepared to face both women staring at him like he was some jackass for not knowing his own wife’s name.
He’d have to swallow his pride and ask her. He couldn’t go on much longer without knowing, and at this point, he was pretty damn sure she wasn’t going to offer it to him freely.
Jimena was standing at the stove when he entered the house through the kitchen. She gave him a swift look over her shoulder, but that was all it took for him to realize she had sided with his bride. The disappointment and animosity in her dark, flashing gaze made that fact clear as day, even without the sudden litany of Spanish that flowed from her lips like a blast. He didn’t understand a word of it, but there was no doubt she felt he was at fault in regard to the situation with his new bride.
He was. He just didn’t feel like hearing it right then.
Sweeping his hat off his head, he stood stiffly in the middle of the kitchen for about two minutes, enduring the woman’s tirade before he interrupted.
“Enough, Jimena. I get it, but this is between me and the woman.” He crossed the kitchen. “I’m gonna wash up for dinner.”
After taking a quick bath, Dean headed first to the parlor. He was surprised to find it empty, half expecting to find his bride waiting in ambush to give him a piece of her mind. He paced the room a few times, then decided he’d be better off waiting on the porch, where at least he could enjoy some fresh air.
He stepped outside and walked forward to brace his hands on the railing. The night was only slightly cooler than the day had been, suggesting they were in for a hot summer this year. Crickets were making themselves known, and a quiet scuffing came from the barn.
It was a beautiful night. The sounds and scents soothed his riotous mood.
They always had.
When he’d been young—shortly after his mother left—he’d often get to feeling all pent up, as if emotion might explode from his chest. Augie would bring him out here on those nights to just sit in silence and listen. And Dean would realize that no matter what was going wrong in his life, if he had the ranch, he was doing all right.
He’d left his hat off after his bath, and he shoved both hands back through his still-damp hair as he gazed skyward. Tonight, he was badly in need of some of that peace and confidence. He filled his lungs with the night air, releasing it all on a heavy exhale.
A familiar creaking sounded behind him. Turning in place, he came up short at the sight of his bride sitting in Augie’s old rocking chair in the corner of the porch.
Everything inside him pressed outward for a sharp second.
He wasn’t likely to find peace tonight.