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Finally he saw Amber waving to him.
The crowd parted as he zigzagged toward her, but he had to run a gauntlet of handshakes, backslaps and flirty smiles along with pieces of paper slipped into his shirt pocket. Phone numbers.
He’d never called one of the numbers given to him. Never.
He tipped his hat to Amber, slid into a chair opposite her and pulled out his stack of tokens. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“I’ll have a ginger ale. I have to drive home tonight.”
All he had to do was hold up his hand and a waitress was at his side.
“A ginger ale for the lady and I’ll take another one of these.” He pointed to his bottle.
While he waited for Amber to tell him what was on her mind, he leaned back on his chair and wondered why she looked so different to him. He’d seen her around town occasionally, but he’d never really looked at her. She was just there, like most of Beaumont. He knew just about everyone casually and had gone to school with a good chunk of the population—after all it was a small town—but he didn’t really know Amber.
He’d seen her in a sheriff’s uniform once and that had surprised him. Her father and brothers weren’t exactly pillars of the community. They tried just about every get-rich-quick scheme known to mankind, and their junkyard was known for hot car parts. And their moonshine...well, when the word got around that a new batch was ready, there was usually a line at the junkyard’s back door.
Their drinks were delivered along with more tokens. Still, he waited for her to tell him what was on her mind.
After the waitress left, Amber crossed her arms and leaned toward him. Her usually full lips were clasped together in a thin, white line, but her eyes were the greenest of green, like emeralds. Her shoulder-length hair had various shades of blond, and she wasn’t loaded with makeup, but those emerald eyes began to narrow.
This wasn’t going to be good.
“Luke, have you been home lately?”
“If you follow the PBR, you know I haven’t. Every weekend, there’s another event. I’m on the tour and close to winning the season. If you’re worried about us seeing my father, we got him a cell phone and call him a lot. He knows that I can’t be around much. The same with my brothers.”
“Isn’t there a summer break coming up soon?”
“Yep. After Billings, Montana, this weekend.”
“As you recently told me, you are only three hours from home.”
“I know, but I might as well be in Alaska. I have way too many things I have to do right now and the week after Billings.”
“You’d better change your plans and the sooner the better,” Amber said.
“Why, what’s going on?”
She pulled out a piece of paper from her purse, unfolded it and handed it to him. “It’s a copy. Your ranch is going up for auction for back taxes in two weeks.”
He scanned the letter. “Dammit!”
“Big Dan didn’t tell you?” she asked.
“Of course not. My father doesn’t care about the ranch. Not since my mother died.” Looking at the letter again, he shook his head. “And that’s when my father stopped paying taxes. I know he doesn’t give a hoot about the ranch anymore, but I thought he was at least keeping up with the taxes. We’ve been sending him money...”
He shrugged.
“It’s easy to see that Big Dan hasn’t been putting money into the ranch, Luke. It’s been a mess since Hurricane Daphne. Your outbuildings are falling down, the main barn’s roof has a hole in it, and the handful of stock your father didn’t sell is scattered to the wind. Your neighbors and former workers took them in and have been taking care of them. The homestead’s portico is hanging on by one post and some windows are blown out. My brothers boarded them up.”
A plan was already formulating in his mind but he had to get Jesse and Reed, his brothers, involved. The Beaumont Ranch had been part of their heritage since the late nineteenth century land rush in Oklahoma. Old Pierre Beaumont might have been a “Sooner,” someone who jumped the whistle too soon, but he’d plopped his wagon on acres of prime cattle and horse land. Throughout the decades, his descendants had added a total of twenty-thousand acres to the original homestead.
“I promise that I’ll get home in two weeks, and take care of things,” he said.
“That’ll be cutting it close, but you’ll make the auction.”
“You mean I can’t buy it back before then? I could send a check.”
“It’s too late for that.” She shook her head. “And that’d have to be one big check.”
“Did my father get notices?”
“Of course he did. I happen to know that Connie McBride, who runs the tax department, personally delivered several notices to him.”
He took a long draw of his beer. “This is just getting worse and worse by the second. But you drove all that way, watched the bull riding, stood in my autographing line. Why did you put yourself out? I mean, we’ve barely seen each other since high school. Why are you helping us?”
“Because the Beaumont Ranch employs a good chunk of the town, and the town is suffering, Luke. The homestead used to be a tourist attraction, which added to our economy. It’s on the list of national historic places, for heaven’s sake. Now the high school kids are using it for partying at night.”
“I didn’t know, but thanks for telling me.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” Amber held up a hand to stop him. “Hang on, there’s more. Much more, and it gets way worse.”
Luke had a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. What could be worse? Any adrenaline left over from his win was quickly vanishing.
“You might not know, but I’m a sergeant with the Beaumont County Sheriff’s Department. I arrested your father three times.”
“Arrested Big Dan? Three times?” His voice grew loud then he lowered it. “What the hell did he do?”
“Bar fights. Big Dan is turning into the town drunk, Luke. And he’s a shadow of his former self,” Amber said softly. “He’s wasting away. But with any luck, his probation officer, Matty Matthews, and inpatient rehab will help him.”
He tapped his fingers on the table to get rid of some nervous energy. “I know Matty. We were in junior rodeo together. But probation? And inpatient rehab?” Luke sat back in his chair. “I can’t picture my father being successful at either.”
“I’ll tell you more about it when you come home. I really should be leaving soon. I have an early shift in the morning.”
“Listen, Amber.” Luke sighed. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this but, truth be told, I’ve been avoiding going home. In that way, I’m a lot like my father. And sometimes I feel like I’ve lost both parents. So I threw myself into bull riding to forget everything.”
Amber made a move to put her hand over his, but clearly changed her mind at the last minute and took a sip of her ginger ale instead.
“I really should get going, Luke.”
“Thanks for making it a point to tell me everything. I really appreciate it. So will my brothers. If we lost the ranch, well...it’d be a tough blow. Let me walk you to your car.”
They walked to the lot near the arena in silence. “Here is mine.” She pointed. “The red Honda SUV.”
He waited as she opened the door. “Well, see you at home, Luke.”
“Give me a week after Billings. I’ll get right on a plane and will land at the auction.”
She smiled.
It didn’t seem like Amber smiled often; she was very serious. Then again, she’d had some very serious things to tell him.
He’d opened up to her and couldn’t figure out why. He’d never told anyone what he’d just told her.
But Amber had changed. In high school, she was quiet and had ten-foot walls around her that only the brave—or stupid—would approach. She hadn’t had many friends, mostly due to her family’s moonshining activities and rumors of them selling hot car parts. The fact that she lived in a fairly dilapidated house surrounded by a junkyard made her the brunt of even more hurtful comments.
He’d always quelled those kind of jokes, because he’d seen the sadness in her eyes, the tightness of her lips. He’d seen her hurry away for the protection of a dark corner, and then he’d seen her cry.
Why hadn’t he done more to stop the jokes? Instead, he’d only succeeded in his classmates not joking about her in front of him, but he knew that it still occurred.
He should have done more back then to help her, and now Amber had given him the biggest gift of his life by telling him about his ranch.
“See you at home, Luke.”
He took her hand and couldn’t decide whether to shake it or kiss the back of it. So he pulled her toward him in a hug and kissed her forehead.
He heard her slight gasp and he smiled.
She was smiling, too.
There was a little crack in that wall around her and he wondered if he could knock it down for good and get to know more of Deputy Sheriff Sergeant Amber Chapman.
Chapter Two (#uef810a4d-3d57-5a5f-871c-2f4d9356d953)
“Six...seven...eight! He did it, ladies and gentlemen! He did it!”
The announcer’s voice echoed through the cavernous arena in Billings.
Luke did a flying dismount from his bull, Cowabunga. Then the animal pushed him with his huge nose across the arena dirt as if Luke was a rolling pin. Luke felt that the bull actually knew he’d beaten him. That was Cowabunga’s revenge.
Every bone in his body screamed and his teeth rattled in his head. He knew he had whacked his knee again. It took all the effort he could muster to get up, run to the chute gate and climb to safety until the bullfighters got the massive bull out of the arena and into his pen.
“The winner of the Iron Cowboy Showdown is none other than Luke Beaumont!” Dwight Frenza, the arena announcer, said enthusiastically.
Luke knew the drill. When Dwight said, “Everyone put your hands together for the winner...” it was Luke’s signal to stand in front of the Professional Bull Riders sign and be interviewed and presented with a gold buckle and maybe a new pair of boots.
The big check would come later.
Good. He needed it.
Behind the chutes, several monitors were set up and he stopped to see the updated stats. Between the slaps on his back and hearty handshakes from other riders and PBR personnel congratulating him, Luke noticed that his two brothers had dropped a couple places on the standings, but he had no doubt that his brothers would move up. Out of the top twenty-five professional riders, he was number one. Reed was now fourth and Jesse was fifth. Together they were known as the Beaumont Big Guns.
Speaking of Reed and Jesse, both came bounding out of the locker room. Reed had a bag of ice taped to his shoulder and a black eye. Jesse had a bandage around his right hand and wrist.
Reed pumped his hand. “Incredible ride, bro.”
Jesse gave him a fist bump with his good hand. “You did it again, Luke! Three wins in a row.”
“Everyone fairly okay?” Luke asked.
“Just a little nick from my last bull’s horns,” Reed said.
“Nothing worth mentioning.” Jesse shrugged. “But how are you doing, Luke? You took quite a rolling from Cowabunga.”
“I think I trashed my knee again. It hurts like hell. I’ll head to Sports Medicine. They’ll probably tape it and remind me again to get surgery.”
“Don’t forget the autographing, Luke. As usual, the fans will be lined up to see you,” Reed said.
Luke looked forward to signings because he loved talking to fans of the sport. Once in a while, someone from his past would go through his line and it was cool to get reacquainted.
Just like Amber Chapman. But they really hadn’t gotten reacquainted. She’d sternly pointed out that he’d better take care of the ranch and the town or both would disintegrate.
Amber had looked good. Her shoulder-length hair was various shades of blond and her green eyes had looked like new spring grass. He didn’t know why he was being poetic when he thought of Amber. He must have been bucked off too many times and smacked his head.
He’d thought about what Amber had told him for the entire week before the Billings event, but what he hadn’t done was talk to his brothers. He’d wanted to do that in person, and now was the time.
Their Oklahoma roots went back to about 1836 when their great-great-grandfather, Pierre Beaumont, rode from Gonzales, Texas, to fight for the Alamo and stayed to establish a town and a ranch on the outskirts of San Antonio that he called Beaumont.
Although there had been several Beaumonts who’d run the ranch, expanded it and cared for it like Pierre, Big Dan hadn’t given a hoot about anything since his lovely wife, Valerie Lynn O’Malley Beaumont, had died in his arms after being kicked in the head by a horse.
Big Dan had easily fallen into booze and gambling, and resorted to yelling at his sons when they came to visit. He insisted that he didn’t want the ranch touched. Instead he wanted it frozen in time—the time that Valerie died.
Luke waved his brothers over to a corner of the locker room. “I have to talk to you both. There’s a great steakhouse down the street. It’s called Old Barn or something like that. After the autographing, let’s grab some steaks and talk.”
“Anything important?” Reed asked.
“I think it is.”
* * *
LATER THAT NIGHT the three Beaumont Big Guns were treated like celebrities at the Old Barn. Over thick, rare steaks and curly fries with brown gravy, they posed for pictures, signed various pieces of clothing and several programs from the event.
“You are so handsome, Luke, and the best rider—ever,” a much-too-young girl said with her hand on his arm. “Reed is the brainiac, and Jesse is the party guy, but you’re...uh...like both of them, and you’re the best. I have your poster over my bed.”
As he removed her hand, he was amazed that she had his two brothers nailed perfectly. And he...well, she wasn’t the first fan who’d commented on his looks. As for being the best rider ever, he could think of many who were much better. He was just lucky enough to be on top right now. It could change at any minute.
Actually it was going to change soon. He wasn’t going to ride in other circuits over PBR’s summer break. He was going home for a while before Amber Chapman handcuffed him and dragged him home.
During a quiet moment, Luke turned to his brothers. “Hey, I want to talk to you about the ranch. It’s going on the auction block for back taxes in one week. Dad hasn’t paid the taxes since Mom died.”
“But we sent him money,” Reed said.
Luke sighed. “Obviously, he drank it away.”
Reed took a draw on his beer. “Three years is a lot of back taxes.”
“How do you know all this?” Jesse asked.
