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Cass sucked in a deep breath and held it. Letting the air hiss out slowly, she wiped her face and nose with the bandanna then stuck it in her pocket, just in case. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”
The doors on the old truck creaked as they opened. Buddy jumped out after Boots, and he scolded the dog.
“Leave him be, Uncle Boots. He has as much right to say goodbye to Daddy as anyone.” She met him on the sidewalk and slipped her arm through his. “We can do this. Right?”
Boots patted her hand where it rested on his forearm. “You know what your daddy always said, sugar.”
“Yeah. Often and loudly.” She inhaled deeply again. “Cowgirls don’t cry, they just get back on and ride. I really hate that phrase, you know.”
He chuckled and gave her hand another pat.
Boots distracted the officious man who met them at the door while Cassie snuck past, Buddy at her heels. They were probably breaking some law but she didn’t care. Buddy needed this goodbye as much as she did.
Alone in a private viewing room a few minutes later, Cass stared at what used to be her father. A sheet covered his body from shoulders to toes. There’d be no burying clothes or makeup on his face since he’d be cremated once she left. The funeral home had kept the body solely for her chance to say goodbye.
His face had thinned with the years, as had his hair. And the crinkles around his eyes looked like they’d been etched in wax. This...thing wasn’t her father. He’d been full of life. Of laughter. And a few choice cuss words. She reached out as if to touch his hand but couldn’t follow through. The cancer had stolen his vitality. The thought of her skin touching that cold facsimile of her dad made her stomach roil.
“Oh, Daddy.” The words clogged up her throat as sorrow surged. “God, I miss you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. Please forgive me?” She closed her eyes against the salty sting, and her throat ached from swallowing her sobs. With her arms pressed across her stomach, she swayed with the rhythm of her grief. Something warm leaned against her leg, and Buddy’s whine joined her choking sobs. She dropped one hand to rest on the dog’s head, her fingers burrowing into the soft fur. “You miss him, too, Buddy. I know. What the hell are we going to do now?”
* * *
Chance sat in the bank’s parking lot making notes as he talked to Cash on the phone. “So Ben Morgan has a daughter.” An heir complicated matters, but he could file enough paperwork to keep the estate tied up until he could get the loan called. Morgan had been desperate so there was a balloon payment—due and owing on a date certain. “Do you have a name?”
“Cassidy. I’ve put a tracer on her. Oh, and speaking of, I have the information you wanted on that tag. Truck belongs to a guy named Baxter Thomas.”
A memory nudged him again. “Where do I know that name from?”
“Ya got me, Chance. Want me to run his financials?”
“No. Just do a quick Google search. See what comes up.” He drummed his fingers on the leather-clad steering wheel as he listened to clicking keys through the cell phone.
His brother’s low whistle caught his attention. “Now that’s interesting. Baxter Thomas is also Boots Thomas.”
“The rodeo clown?” They weren’t called that anymore—now they were called bullfighters, which was more appropriate to what they did inside the arena. Boots Thomas was a legend and anyone who’d ever traveled the rodeo circuit knew his name.
“That’s the one. And according to this article, he and Ben Morgan were partners in a rodeo stock company.” Cash whistled again. “And the plot thickens. Cassidy Morgan was a champion cowgirl back in the day, but she quit after winning the Denver Stock Show ten years ago. That’s the year you and Cord won the team roping up there.”
“Well, damn.” Had he met her on the rodeo circuit? He couldn’t put a face with the name so probably not. His rodeo career pretty much ended after that night. He graduated from college that spring and started law school soon after. He didn’t have time to chase steers or cowgirls.
“Chance? Are you listening?”
He wasn’t. “What?”
“There’s a memorial service for Morgan day after tomorrow at the Pleasant Hills Funeral Home. As near as I can figure, it’s a cremation. I suppose it’d be really uncool to serve her with the papers at the service.”
“Ya think? Jeez, Cash, you’ve been hanging around the old man too long. What time is the memorial?”
“Ten in the morning. Why? You aren’t thinking about actually showing up, are you?”
He didn’t examine his motives very closely as he answered. “It might be a good idea to go. Just to get a feel for things.” Business. This was just business. But he could do business without being a jerk—even if his father wanted to steal a ranch out from under his enemy’s grieving daughter. He didn’t believe in coincidences, but the odds of his mystery girl being Cassidy Morgan just kept getting better.
Armed with the information he needed, Chance started his car and headed home. He had plenty of time to get the legal papers filed. First, he wanted a shower and a change of clothes because he felt slimy all of a sudden. Like a royal SOB. He had plenty of time to get the legal papers filed.
He was about to act the world’s biggest bully, all under the orders of the bastard who sired him. At a stoplight, he glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. “You are a complete slimeball, you know that, right?” He didn’t blink at the accusation. He always told the truth, at least to himself.
Lost in thought, the light turned green, but he didn’t notice until someone honked. He waved a hand hoping the car behind saw the gesture as an apology, and wondered why the hell that mattered. He was a Barron. If he wanted to sit through a whole light, he would. He accelerated through the intersection and put his thoughts on hold until he arrived at his condo. Thinking about stealing the ranch from Cassidy Morgan would only make things worse. He barked a wry laugh. As if. He wasn’t sure how they could get any worse.
* * *
Cassie wore black—suit jacket, matching skirt and heels—and felt out of place. Colorful Western clothes abounded, the room resembling a patchwork quilt—homey and warm, like the people who wore them. The small chapel was bursting at the seams with an array of folks—old rodeo hands, neighbors, the friends garnered from a lifetime of living. Death was just another part of all that living. Her dad once commented that suits were for marryin’ and buryin’, but nobody said they had to be black. She should have remembered that.
The front of the room looked like a field of wildflowers. No fussy formal arrangements. She didn’t know the minister, but he seemed to know all about her dad. While short, his eulogy painted a vivid picture of the man. When he finished, he invited any who wished to share a few words or a memory.
Near the back, a man cleared his throat. Chairs scraped and creaked on the wooden floor, followed by the sound of heavy boots marching up the aisle. A big bear of a man, with a scraggly beard, a paunch overhanging the huge rodeo buckle on his belt and a chaw of tobacco in his cheek stepped forward.
“Ben Morgan saved my life some forty years ago. We were dang sure dumb back in our twenties. At the Fort Worth rodeo, I got hung up on a bull named Red Devil. Ol’ Boots here was working the arena as a clown, and Ben rode the pickup horse. While Boots kept Devil occupied, Ben jumped off his horse, grabbed that bull by the ear and rode him down to his knees so the other boys could cut me free. Next thing I knew, I’m sitting on my ass in the dirt, and Ben is flyin’ across the arena. That dang bull broke three of Ben’s ribs but he got right up, dusted off his britches and went on with his job. He was a helluva man, and he’ll be missed.”
A chorus of yesses and amens followed the man back down the aisle. A woman approached the microphone next. She paused to offer her hand to Cassie and gave Boots’s shoulder a pat. At the lectern, she turned a 100-watt smile on the congregation. “Most of y’all know me. For those who don’t, I’m Nadine Jackson, and I own the Four Corners Diner. Ben came in most every day before he got sick. But all the regulars kept up with him through Boots. Ben’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He didn’t have deep pockets, but if a cowboy was down on his luck, Ben always had a few bucks to spare and dinner to share. My granddaughter called him the Louis L’Amour Cowboy.”
She paused to let the chuckles from the crowd die down. “She’s only eight, so I’m pleased the little darlin’ even knows who Mr. L’Amour is. But she’s right. Ben could’ve been a hero in one of those books. He was tall, rugged and believed in doin’ the right thing no matter what. He was the kind of man a body would be proud to call friend.”
Nadine turned her smile toward Cassie. “And you, honey? You was his pride and joy. He couldn’t stop talkin’ about you. Your buckles and trophies from back when you were a champion cowgirl, your report cards and your college graduation. ‘My little girl is a college graduate, Nadine,’ he told me. ‘She’s made somethin’ of herself.’”
Cassie’s ribs seemed to constrict around her lungs, and she couldn’t breathe. Pain. There was so much pain in her heart. She gripped her hands together until her knuckles turned white. Tears prickled behind her eyelids, and she swallowed around the lump clogging her throat. Oh, Daddy, I’m so sorry. She sent the prayer winging into the cosmos, hoping her father would catch a whisper of it.
“I just have one more thing to say,” Nadine continued. “The Four Corners is closed to the public today. I figure poor Cassie ain’t in any shape to be hosting this herd at home, so I’m throwin’ open the doors. Y’all come on by, grab a bite t’eat and reminisce some about Ben.”
When no one else came forward, the minister speared Cassie with a long look. She sat for a moment to gather her thoughts and steel her emotions. Boots gave her clenched hands a little squeeze. She leaned over, kissed his cheek and stood. From the podium, she gazed out over the room and was struck once more by the bright colors and the kind, honest faces of her father’s friends. They knew him so much better than she. He wouldn’t want her wearing black on this day, wouldn’t want her tears or her remorse.
Movement in the doorway caught her attention, and her breath froze for a moment when she thought she recognized the figure ducking out. Impossible. There was no way that man could have been the same one at the hotel in Chicago. The hair prickled on the back of her neck and she got a shivery feeling. Her dad would have said someone was walking across her grave. She shivered again, doing her best to ignore the premonition.
“Daddy...” Her voice broke, and she coughed to clear the frog in her throat. Feeling a bit stronger now, she tried again. “Daddy was full of sayings, most of them taken from Louis L’Amour books.” She offered Nadine a tentative smile. “We have a whole wall of them at the house, and I grew up on their truisms. Dad also had a tendency to tell me, ‘Shoulda, coulda, woulda, honey, just opens the door to regrets. That’s the worst thing a person can do—live a life full of regrets.’”
She bit her lip and stared out the door where that mysterious figure seemed to be waiting in the shadows. “I should have been a better daughter. And I could have. Would I if circumstances had been different? I don’t know. But I do believe Daddy wouldn’t want me worrying about the past. He lived and loved life to the absolute fullest. We can honor him best by doing the same.” She glanced over at Boots and was puzzled by the look on his face. Something was going on, something he didn’t want to tell her. She’d pin him down soon.
“Thank you all for coming, for being my dad’s friends. And thank you, Nadine, for your gracious offer of Four Corners. I never did learn to cook.” She glanced down at the speckled gray-and-black box that held her father’s ashes. “Hard to believe that a man bigger than life can be reduced to a little box like that. What’s left of his body might be in there, but his spirit is riding free. Nothing could ever contain it. Not a hardscrabble life and certainly not death.”
Cass stepped away from the microphone and was immediately enveloped in a big hug from Boots. Within moments, they were surrounded by well-wishers, despite her resolve to get to the lobby area to see if her imagination was playing tricks on her. The hairs on her neck rose again, and she could have sworn someone was staring at her. As surreptitiously as she could, she scanned the room, but no one triggered the sense of her being...hunted. She shivered.
“I need to get outside, Uncle Boots.” She breathed the words out in a rush and added a few “I’m sorry, excuse me’s” in her wake. Stepping into the balmy temperature of the early spring morning didn’t quell the feeling of being stalked.
A man wearing a black Stetson caught her eye. He strode across the parking lot headed toward a massive Ford pickup. Broad shoulders tapered to a really fine pair of jeans—could it be the guy from Chicago? That wasn’t possible. No way, no how. The shiver dancing through her this time had nothing to do with fear.
* * *
Chance escaped before she recognized him. Traffic wasn’t heavy enough to curtail his thoughts, which left him wanting nothing more than a tall scotch and a cold shower. What in the world had possessed him to attend the memorial service? Who was he trying to kid? Cassidy Morgan. He was drawn to her like a honeybee to clover. Crossing paths with her in Chicago had been a fluke but now he knew where to find her.
Her face as she eulogized her father was far too reminiscent of her expression in the hotel lobby. He’d probably bumped into her right after she received the news about her father’s passing. Chance didn’t do vulnerable but this woman had an inner spark that drew him like a bull to a red cape. He wanted her, plain and simple—even if there was nothing simple about this situation.
His cell phone rang, and he punched the button on the steering wheel for the Bluetooth connection. He snarled into the hidden microphone, “What?”
“Dang, bro. Don’t be biting my head off.”
“What do you want, Cord?”
“Cash and I tracked down that stud colt the old man wanted. You’re not going to believe where he is.”
“Dammit. Does he want me chasing a horse or stealing a ranch out from under a woman who just buried her father?”
“Whoa, dude. Back up there a minute. That almost sounded like you’ve developed a conscience.”
Chance rubbed his temple and gave up trying to talk and drive at the same time. He pulled off and realized he’d parked a block from the Four Corners. How the hell had that happened? He jammed the transmission into Park and leaned his head back against the headrest on the driver’s seat. “Okay, Cord, so tell me where the damn horse is.”
“Right here. The plot thickens, little brother. Ben Morgan bought that colt months before you headed north to track him down. He’s been under our noses all along.”
He sat up straighter. “The ranch and everything on it is collateral. The colt, too?”
“No clue, but Cash is pulling financials. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, the old man wants to accelerate things. Can you call the balloon payment immediately?”
“Our father is a real SOB, Cord.”
His brother’s ringing laughter filled the cab. “So what else is new?” Cord broke the connection before Chance could retort anything.
He stared out the windshield. “So what’s that make us, big brother?”
Four (#u4ff283cb-3456-5b7a-be51-1f50fa1db1d1)
The screen door banged shut behind her. The room hadn’t changed one iota in her entire life. She stopped short as countless memories washed over her.
Don’t run in the house.
Don’t slam the door.
No, you can’t bring that baby skunk inside.
Boots sprawled in the worn wooden chair on the porch, Buddy at his feet. A small metal table separated his chair from its twin. Her father’s chair. How many evenings had she worked on her homework at the kitchen table, listening to the two men talk through the open window? She passed off an icy glass of sweet tea to Boots then grabbed a third chair, a refugee from some 1950s patio set, and settled into it.
“What are you not sayin’, Cassie?”
She’d put off this discussion for almost a week. So much for easing into the conversation. There was no way to soften her news, so she blurted it out. “I’m putting the ranch up for sale.” When Boots didn’t respond, she plunged ahead. “I don’t need the money. Not really. I want to set you up with a little place closer to town. A place where you and Buddy and a horse and some cows can live and be happy.”
She gulped down a breath and continued. “It’s for the best, you know. I have a life in Chicago. A job. Friends. I left the ranch and never intended to come back, and I wouldn’t know what to do with it and...and...” Her voice trailed off as she raised her gaze to meet his. “Say something, Uncle Boots. Don’t just sit there staring at me like I’ve grown a second head.”
“You can’t sell the ranch.”
“Yes, I can. It’s mine.” She snapped her mouth shut. Maybe it wasn’t hers. Maybe her father had left the place to Boots. “Isn’t it?”
“Sort of.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You’re Ben’s heir, but the place is in hock to the bankers.”
“What did Daddy do, Uncle Boots?”
“He took out a loan, Cassie, to pay the medical bills. The note on the land is coming due soon.”
She winced, shut her eyes and rubbed at her temples. “How much?”
“A bunch.”
“Define a bunch, Uncle Boots.” Money. This she understood.
“More than what your daddy has in the bank. More than what I have in the bank. And unless you’ve made a fortune I don’t know about, more than what you have.”
“What was he thinking?” The words burst from her mouth before she could stop them.
“He was thinking about paying his bills.”
The censure in Boots’s tone burned, but she deserved it. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. But if Dad took out a loan, he must have had a plan. He didn’t believe in being in debt.” She tried to feel hopeful while waiting for that proverbial other shoe to drop.
“Cattle.”
“Cattle?”
“Before he was diagnosed, he bought a herd of five hundred feeder calves cheap. Had them on grass all winter so they’re fat and almost ready for market. Give ’em another few weeks, and they’ll bring top price. Grass-fed beef is the big thing now, so those calves should make enough to pay off the balloon payment with plenty to cover the rest of his debts to the hospital and leave you a little start-up cash.”
“Start-up cash? Did he really believe I’d come back here to stay? With him gone? Why would I do that?” She gulped and quickly added, “Not that I don’t love you, Uncle Boots.”
“You need to come with me.” He heaved up out of his chair.
He limped going down the steps, Buddy close on his heels, and she remembered Boots was even older than her father. He had to be pushing seventy. Man and dog ambled toward the barn and a few moments later, Cass followed. She caught up and as they entered the dim environs of the wooden structure side by side, Buddy darted ahead. Boots paused to flip a light switch, though it didn’t add much illumination to the space. Whickers greeted them, and a few horses stuck their heads over the stall doors to watch. She recognized her father’s favorite horse, Red. A big sorrel with a white blaze, the horse neighed and stretched his neck.
“Your dad spoiled that dang pony.”
Cass laughed and stepped over to the stall. Red nickered and stretched his nose toward her. She reached up, and his velvet lips nibbled her palm. “I’ll sneak you a carrot later.” She patted the horse’s neck before glancing back at Boots. “So? You wanted me to see Red?”
He shook his head before tilting it toward the stall across the way. “Nope. I want you to look over here.” He pointed to a stall across the barn. “Ben was a horse trader and that’s what he did. Just for you.”
* * *
Chance knocked on the door, but no one answered. Lights illuminated the windows and Boots’s rusty old truck was parked nearby. He walked to the end of the porch. A glass of tea sweated on a metal table. Then he noticed the open door and lights glowing in the barn. He sauntered that way, rehearsing what to say. Whatever he said, his heart wasn’t really in what he had to do, even as it tripped a couple of beats at the thought of seeing Cassidy again.
He stepped into the soft gloom of the barn and stopped dead in his tracks.
Cassidy was leaning over a stable door murmuring something he couldn’t understand. The old man stood next to her. Damn but she looked fine in jeans and boots. The plaid flannel shirt tucked into those jeans enhanced every one of her curves instead of hiding them. All the blood in his head rushed south, and he had to lean on the barn door to keep from pitching over face-first.
Boots opened the stall door, then they both disappeared inside. Chance inhaled several times, adjusted the front of his jeans and stepped deeper into the barn so he could see what was in that stall.
