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“It was already getting hot there,” he said. “Too hot.”
“What part of Mexico were you in?”
“Chihuahua. I was working on a ranch—riding fence, working cattle.” He glanced around them, his gaze sweeping the moonlit pasture beyond the creek. “It’s a relief to be farther north with weather cold enough that I’ll need a jacket.”
Mariah couldn’t help but smile at the satisfaction behind his words. “I hope that means you’ll stay here in Montana, on the ranch.”
“I was born and raised here.” He turned his head, his gaze sweeping the horizon. “I’d like to stay on this land—maybe see my nieces or nephews grow up here.”
“Nephews or nieces?” Curious, she searched his profile, etched by moonlight against the darker shadows of night. “Not your own son or daughter?”
“I’ll never have kids.”
His flat statement surprised her. “You sound very sure,” she replied, curious. “I am.”
She stared at him. “You don’t like children?”
He shrugged. “I like kids. But given who my father was, I’m not taking any chances I might turn out like him.” He caught her arm when she stumbled.
“Careful.”
His big hand cupped her elbow but he released her as soon as she steadied. She wished he hadn’t—the contact was electric and exhilarating, distracting her from his comment about Joseph. They reached the cabin and she climbed the steps, pausing at the door to turn and face him.
“Thanks for walking me home.”
He touched the brim of his hat. “My pleasure.”
Mariah felt the faintly gravelly tones of his drawl shiver over her skin and for a moment, she thought, hoped, he would say more. But then he turned and strode down the steps.
“Good night,” she called. He didn’t turn, merely lifted a hand in response and kept walking. His tall, broad-shouldered figure was a dark silhouette against the paler gravel until the road curved to the left and Cade disappeared in the deeper shadow cast by the barn.
Mariah sighed unconsciously and entered the house. She’d spent only an hour or so in his company yet Cade Coulter made her foolish body respond with shivers and undeniable excitement.
Of all the men in the world, she thought, why him? He had every reason to resent her after Joseph had made her an heir. But Joseph had dreamed of having his sons back on the Triple C and she was committed to helping that dream come true, despite Cade’s suspicions as to her motives. Cade hadn’t actually accused her of scamming his father but his skepticism about her response as to why Joseph had left her the house had been clear.
Cade couldn’t be more wrong about her, she thought. She would never have tried to manipulate or harm Joseph—she owed him too much to ever betray him.
A few years earlier, she’d taken a break from college classes and set out on a driving tour through Montana. She didn’t know exactly where she caught the flu virus, but she’d become violently ill on the road and while trying to reach Indian Springs, had passed out, losing control of her car. The vehicle had ended up in the ditch just past the Triple C ranch turnoff and Joseph had taken her in. He’d called a doctor, then he and Pete had tended her until she recovered from a raging fever and gut-wrenching flu symptoms. A year later, when her apartment building in Indian Springs burned to the ground, the solitary rancher had offered her a home in a vacant cabin on the Triple C. The more time she spent with the quiet, sad man, the more she grew to like him and when he’d been diagnosed with cancer, there was no question that she’d care for him as if he were her own father.
She’d never expected payment for being kind to him. She’d often told him it was her privilege to ease his last days on earth. She had no other family and knowing Joseph felt a paternal affection for her warmed her heart and enriched her life.
No, she told herself with conviction, if Joseph hadn’t welcomed her into his life on the Triple C along with Pete and J.T., she would have been alone.
It was impossible to imagine Joseph harming his sons, yet Cade’s comments about his father had rang with truth.
If she accepted Cade’s damning statement, she felt disloyal to Joseph.
If she hadn’t dearly loved the old man, she thought, she’d pack her bags, turn over the house keys to Joseph’s oldest son, and move into town.
But she had loved Joseph. So she’d guard her tongue and swallow angry replies—at least until Cade had time to grow familiar with the workings of the Triple C.
She sighed and made her way to bed but sleep eluded her and she lay awake much too long, pondering and worrying about the changes that were sure to follow Cade’s return to the Triple C.
Chapter Three
After leaving Mariah at her cabin, Cade kept walking, past the bunkhouse to the barn. He’d been caught off guard by the urge to bend his head and taste her mouth. He hadn’t been tempted to act impulsively with a woman since he was a kid and he couldn’t help fantasizing about what she’d look like out of those snug, faded jeans.
He stopped to look in on Jiggs, entering the barn through a small door to the right of the bigger, wide-plank door. Overhead lights flashed on with the flick of the switch just inside the door and Jiggs lifted his muzzle from a water pail, nickering when he saw Cade.
“Hey, boy.” Cade ran a quick assessing gaze over the black’s quarters. Fresh straw bedding covered the floor of the box stall. The manger was filled with hay and Jiggs looked happy and content. He made a mental note to thank J.T. “Looks like the kid treated you right.”
Jiggs bobbed his head up and down before he nuzzled Cade’s jacket pocket.
“Sorry,” Cade told him. “No apples tonight. I forgot to buy any in town. I’ll get some tomorrow.”
Jiggs whuffed in disappointment. Cade chuckled and smoothed his palm down the black’s face and muzzle.
“You’re spoiled.” He patted the black’s strong neck and turned away. He looked back just before he snapped off the light and grinned at the horse’s disappointed expression.
Cade left the barn and crossed the ranch yard. He’d put off entering the house for as long as he could. Automatically, he scraped mud from his boots before going inside. He closed the door behind him, flipped the light switch on the wall to his right and halted, pausing to sweep the big main room with an assessing glance.
It looked the same. In fact, he thought, it was as if the house were frozen in time. The worn leather sofa and matching big chair with its ottoman were scuffed and worn but still solid and familiar. Above the huge fireplace, the heavy oak plank that his father had used to create the mantel still held a collection of framed photos and two glass oil lamps. Several stacks of magazines and books were neatly spaced atop the carved oak coffee table in front of the sofa. A small table with a lamp sat next to the cherrywood sewing rocker beside the hearth.
He crossed the room to the fireplace and with one hand, set the rocker moving gently back and forth. For a long moment, he stared at the four framed photographs before he picked up the largest, an 8 × 10 studio photo of his family. His mother’s green eyes glowed with the same happiness that curved her mouth in a smile. His father’s arm was slung over her shoulder, tucking her protectively against his side. Cade and his three brothers were little-boy stairsteps ranged in front of their parents. Melanie Coulter’s hand rested on Cade’s shoulder.
Cade could feel his mother’s warm, loving touch as if the Coulter family had posed for the portrait only yesterday. An old, familiar pain burned in his gut and he absentmindedly rubbed his chest, just to the left of center. When he realized what he was doing, he jerked his hand away and set the photo back on the mantel.
Maybe I’m not as immune to memories as I thought.
He rolled his shoulders, shrugging off the unwelcome introspection, and turned his back on the collection of photographs, striding across the room to enter the kitchen. Here, too, time seemed to have stood still. In the far corner, the heavy wooden chair with scarred legs was pushed neatly up to the long kitchen table. Cade remembered too well how his mother had loved the table and chairs, a gift from husband and sons for her birthday. After she died, the table had grown dusty and lost its polish, the chairs earning scars from her sons’ spurs knocking into the carved legs.
He shrugged out of his coat and hung it over the back of a chair, hooking his hat on the corner. He gave the room one last cursory survey, checked to make sure the coffee canister was nearly full in the cabinet above the coffeemaker next to the sink, and left the room.
Joseph Coulter’s office was just down the hall from the living room. Cade pushed open the door, flipped on the light switch and stepped inside.
The big desk faced the door. Cade walked across the room and behind it, pausing to scan the framed map of the Triple C and surrounding ranches that hung on the wall. The boundaries of the huge ranch were etched in solid black.
Cade was struck anew at his father’s obvious determination to hold the land. Given the financial straits the ranch was in, he knew Joseph must have been strapped for cash.
And judging by how little paint remained on the shabby buildings, he thought grimly, the Triple C had probably been running on short rations for a long time.
He dropped into the worn leather seat of the wooden swivel desk chair. The desktop was free of dust and a black accounting ledger was centered on the blotter. Three sharpened pencils, a blue ink pen, a red ink pen and a short ruler were tucked into a heavy pottery mug sitting to one side of the blotter.
Everything was clean and very neat. Cade guessed Mariah was probably responsible for the tidy house.
He flipped the ledger open to the latest entries, neat columns in red and black ink. The red ink column was much longer than the black.
Restless and unwilling to begin what was sure to be a grim review of the Triple C’s finances, Cade closed the ledger and shoved back the chair. The books could wait until morning. He left the room to collect his coat and walk to his truck. The temperature had dropped since he’d come inside and a slight breeze chilled his bare face and hands, ruffling his hair. It took only moments to collect his duffel bag from his truck cab and he jogged back to the house, entering the warm living room. He hung his coat on the pegs just inside the front door before climbing the staircase to the house’s second floor.
The banister was worn smooth as silk beneath his palm. Cade had a swift mental image of his mother laughing as he and his brothers slid down into his father’s waiting arms. Joseph had caught and deposited each of them with swift efficiency, then lectured them sternly about the danger of falling. But his mouth had twitched with a smile as he warned them, just before he picked them up and packed them into the living room to wrestle in front of the fire.
The world had been a different, happier place before his mother died and Joseph started drinking.
Ten years of watching his father try to drown his grief in a bottle had taught Cade two unforgettable lessons. First, he was never getting married because a man in love could be sucked into hell if he lost the woman. And second, he was never having kids. Because what was the likelihood he wouldn’t repeat his father’s mistakes?
There are too many ghosts in this house, he thought grimly as he started down the upstairs hall.
Five closed doors lined the hallway and Cade automatically strode to the far end before turning the knob and entering the room.
He halted abruptly, his gaze slowly sweeping the room. Like the rest of the house, his childhood bedroom seemed caught in a time warp, preserved just as it was the last time he’d walked out, closed the door and left the Triple C all those years ago. Too tired to deal with the wash of emotions, he slammed the door on the sadness, regret and memories to focus on the old-fashioned brass bed, made up with fresh linens, the blankets and flannel sheets turned back invitingly. Cade dropped his duffel on the seat of a straight-backed wooden chair, unzipping the bag to pull out clean shorts and a T-shirt. He carried them across the hall and into the bathroom. Here, too, all was neat with clean towels and washcloths hung on the bar next to the sink and shower stall.
Cade stripped and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water pour over him, easing muscles that ached after the long hours he’d spent driving. He’d been on the road by 3:00 a.m. each day, taking advantage of the early morning hours and nearly traffic-free highways.
Toweling off, he slid into his shorts and shirt then went back to the bedroom. Climbing between clean sheets, he fell asleep within moments. Unfortunately, falling asleep loosened his control and memories surfaced once more. He dreamed in vivid, brilliant Technicolor and painful detail.
He was ten years old and his mother, Melanie Coulter, had won the National Arts Award for her copper and silver sculptures. He’d flown to New York City with his parents and brothers for the ceremony, his mother glowing with delight as she walked across the stage. Holding the golden statuette in her hands, she told the crowd that her inspiration came from her husband and four sons, whom she adored. Seated in the front row, Cade looked up to see the pride on his father’s face, feel the love and affection in the touch of his big hand on his shoulder. Cade couldn’t imagine ever being sad.
The dreamscape changed, flashing forward two years. Swimming in the creek, Cade and his brothers teased their mother, coaxing her to join them. They’d all swung on the rope over the creek hundreds of times, but this time it broke and Melanie fell, hitting her head on a rock.
In Cade’s dream, it happened in slow motion. And as always, he couldn’t reach her in time. The dark house, graveside service, grief and muffled sobs were followed by the sharp pain of a broken arm.
The phantom pain was so acute that Cade woke, jack-knifing upright in bed.
His heart pounded in his chest and he scrubbed his hands over his face.
“Just a dream,” he muttered aloud. He absently rubbed his bicep where the injury had long since healed.
The upper arm bone was broken when he’d stepped between his father and younger brother Eli during one of Joseph’s drunken rages. It wasn’t the first nor the only time he’d deflected his father’s anger to keep him from hitting one of his younger brothers. Cade had never understood why his father blamed his sons for their mother’s death. He only knew Joseph had plunged them all into a hellish existence when he started drinking the day they buried their mother.
And he still didn’t know, he thought grimly. And even if Joseph had known the answer, he no longer could explain.
Cade stretched out on the mattress and closed his eyes, willing himself to rest undisturbed. This time, his exhausted body took over and he fell into deep, dreamless sleep.
Mariah left for work at the Indian Springs Café before daylight the next morning; the moon rode low on the horizon and stars still glittered in the dark sky. The bunkhouse was dark but lamplight gleamed from the ranch house kitchen and living room windows.
Clearly, Cade Coulter was an early riser. She wondered how he’d spent his first night back in his childhood home after being absent for so many years. Had he felt like a stranger or had he felt welcomed by the old house? She’d grown up in a suburban rambler in a small town in Colorado. Her parents were older when she was born and sadly, she’d lost both of them before she was a senior in college. The house had to be sold to pay her mother’s medical bills. Any remnants of home were long gone.
Mariah couldn’t imagine purposely staying away from her father and a home like the Triple C for long years.
She parked down the street from the brightly lit windows of the Indian Springs Café. Shivering, she left her car, tucking her chin into her muffler and hurrying down the sidewalk. When she pushed open the café door, warmth engulfed her and she sighed with relief.
“Hi, Mariah.” Ed, husband of the café owner, Sally McKinstry, grinned at her, his deep voice booming. “Cold enough for you?”
“Too cold. When’s it going to be spring?” Mariah demanded, shrugging out of her jacket and unwinding her gray knit muffler from her throat. She tugged off the matching hat as she crossed the café to the kitchen entry. One end of the kitchen had a door that led into a small utility room where the walls were ringed with hooks. Mariah hung up her outer things, slipped her purse into a small employee’s locker and spun the dial. She took a clean white apron from the stack just inside the door and walked back into the kitchen, tying the apron strings around her waist as she moved.
Ed was just removing a tray of homemade cinnamon rolls from the oven and Mariah drew a deep breath, closing her eyes at the mouthwatering scent.
“Ed, I swear, if you weren’t already married, I’d propose if you’d promise to bake me cinnamon rolls every morning,” she told him.
He laughed, a deep merry chuckle that echoed in the room. “I’m afraid Sally would skin me alive if I took you up on that.”
Mariah took a tray of frosted rolls from his big hands. “Just my luck.” She winked and left the kitchen to join Sally behind the long counter.
“Were you flirting with my husband?” Sally asked her with a smile.
“Only because of his cinnamon rolls.” Mariah slid the tray of rolls inside the glass counter case, already nearly filled with fresh pies, cakes and Ed’s famous chocolate-caramel bars. “You were so smart to marry a man who can bake, Sally.”
“You’ve got that right.” Sally nodded emphatically, her blue eyes twinkling behind wire-framed glasses. “A husband who can cook is worth his weight in gold.”
Mariah had a swift image of Ed’s big frame and solid muscles. “I can’t afford him,” she determined. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate his bakery items,” she assured Sally.
“Lucky for you free meals are a perk of your job,” Sally told her.
The outer door opened, the string of bells hanging from the handle jingling merrily, and a tall brunette burst into the room. “Morning, you two.” She shed her coat as she skirted the tables to disappear through the kitchen door. “Hi, Ed.” Her cheery hello was followed by a rumbled greeting from the baker and then she reentered the dining area. “How’s everything with you guys this morning?”
“Fine, Julie. How about you?” Mariah picked up a box of salt and one of pepper and headed for the table nearest the door.
“Bob took me to a movie last night—the new thriller with Leanne Crystal.”
“How was it?” Mariah finished filling the salt and pepper shakers and moved to the next table.
Julie shrugged and picked up the pepper shaker. “All right, I guess. I thought the heroine took silly risks—all to make the hero look as if he was saving the day.”
“I hate movies like that,” Mariah commented.
“Yeah,” Julie agreed. “Give me a romantic comedy any day.” She paused abruptly, half-filled pepper shaker in hand. “Hey, I just remembered—we ran into Linda Barnes at the theater. You know her, right? She’s Ned Anderson’s legal secretary and she told me one of the Coulter boys is back in town. Have you seen him?”
“Yes.” Mariah nodded, screwing the shiny metal lid back onto the glass salt shaker.
“Which one is he?”
“Joseph’s oldest son, Cade.”
“Linda said he’s incredibly good-looking, but kind of scary.”
“Scary?” Mariah frowned, considering. “I think he seems a little edgy.”
“Did he tell you where he’s been all these years?” Julie asked, blatantly curious.
“He said he was working in Mexico just before coming home but that’s all I know.”
“I wonder where his brothers are? Have you heard from any of them?”
“No, I haven’t. Although maybe Cade knows more about them.”
“Well, I hope they show up soon,” Julie said. “Bob told me the taxes on the Triple C must be humungous and the sooner the heirs talk to the IRS, the better chance they have to work out a deal.”
Since Julie’s husband was an accountant, Mariah assumed he’d had experience with the IRS and probably was right.
