Chapter 6
Mattox staggered up the front steps and kicked the front door open. Rex weighed a lot more than he anticipated. He sweated and gasped for breath. The door flew back, and he propped it open with his foot. The moment he got inside, he called out, “Lyric!”
Silence answered him.
He took another step and tripped over the rug behind the door. He landed on his knees across the hardwood floor. He barely caught Rex in time and heaved him onto the living room couch.
Mattox panted on all fours and considered his next move. He called out one more time from the floor, “Lyric!” but no one came.
He got to his feet and strode to the foot of the stairs. “Melody! Anybody!”
Nothing.
He leaned one hand on the banister and glared at Rex’s prostrate form. He ran through the possible scenarios and came to the same conclusion he came to in the barn. He couldn’t leave Rex on the couch. He hated to tread on the Mackenzie family’s privacy like this, but what choice did he have?
He went back over to the couch and peered down at the wasted form. How could any Bruin let his life fall tosuch a ruin? So, this was what happened when a Bruin lost his life’s mate. Beauty Mackenzie lived up to her name. She could take her pick of a dozen prime Alphas on the mountain, but she chose a wild rager instead.
She never tamed Rex. No one could. She could only love him by turning as wild as he was, and they blazed across the sky like two comets for fifteen years before tragedy struck. Rex took over as Alpha of the Mackenzie tribe and worked the ranch into the multi-billion dollar profit range. The couple raised three fine children. Everything went from good to better to excellent until the day Rex came home and found Beauty dead on the kitchen floor from a massive hemorrhage in her brain.
Rex broke every rule in Bruin country by taking Beauty to the local medical clinic and demanding an autopsy to find out what killed her. Doctor Wayland Otsprenk shook his head and sighed when he gave Rex the news. A tangle of blood vessels lay dormant in Beauty’s brain since the day she was born. No one on God’s green Earth could explain what made it explode, and no one could bring Beauty back.
Everyone on Bruins’ Peak shook their heads and clucked their tongues. They buried Beauty in state. Whispered rumors predicted Rex wouldn’t stay alive long himself, but he did. He quit the ranch and instead worked overtime, night and day. He drank himself into a stupor and gambled away his money so fast he put the ranch in danger.
That’s when his teenage son Azer stepped in—Azer and Lyric. Lyric could sit a horse and rope a steer as well as any man. Everyone on Bruins’ Peak knew it. She and Azer made up their minds they wouldn’t let their father rob them of their rightful inheritance. When Rex ran off to the bars and the casinos, Azer and Lyric ran the ranch without him. They kept the profits rolling in until they could bring Riskin Dodd on to work full time.
To look at him now, no one would guess Rex was ever anything but a waste of skin. He barely covered the couch with his bony shoulders and his reeking clothes. Mattox went down on one knee next to the couch and shoved his arms under the emaciated body.
He lifted Rex up and cradled him in his arms. He carried him to the bedroom under the stairs. Mattox never wouldn’t venture into the bedroom Rex shared with Beauty all those years ago unless this was a matter of life and death.
Mattox kept his eyes down so he wouldn’t see any detail of the room. He stumbled to the bed and laid Rex on it before he stood back in relief. Now he could leave. He started to turn away when a sudden indrawing of air called his attention back to the bed.
Rex gave a jolt. The next minute, terrible shudders passed up and down his frail body. He spasmed and convulsed out of control. Mattox dashed back to the bed. He got there just in time to stop Rex from rolling sideways onto the floor.
He caught Rex’s shoulder and held him back. Rex’s middle folded in half and twitched across the bed. Mattox wrestled him away from the edge of the bed. He did his best to arrange Rex back on the pillow, but the convulsions wouldn’t stop. At last, Rex heaved over with a stomach-turning wretch.
Mattox swept the room with wild eyes. His gaze came to rest on an old-fashioned jug and washbasin decorating a nearby dresser. He grabbed the basin and got it under Rex’s head just as the technicolor spew erupted from the old man’s mouth.
Mattox clamped his eyes shut and turned his head away, but he couldn’t escape that foul smell. He held Rex’s shoulder with one hand and kept the basin in position with the other until the crisis passed. He set the basin aside and took a deep breath.
He eased Rex back on the pillow. This beat all. A slather of avocado-green slime stained the man’s face. Every fiber told Mattox to scream and run, to get the ever-lovin’ crap out of that room. He couldn’t leave this man alone, though. Lyric and Melody never came into this room. They had no reason to believe their father was in the house. If Mattox walked out that door right now, Rex could lie here for days, weeks, even months before anybody found out he was here.
Everything depended on Mattox. Lyric’s sad eyes came back to him one more time. He couldn’t let her see her father like this. She knew better than anybody how far Rex descended into the subhuman realms of destruction and squalor. Mattox would do just about anything to spare her from coming face to face with this brutal reality.
He rinsed the puke down the toilet in the bathroom. He brought the basin back half-full of clear cold water. He wet a towel in it and set to work washing up Rex’s face and hair. He spent half an hour rubbing the grime off Rex’s jaws. What would Riskin say if he knew Mattox spent the work day in the house, cleaning up Rex and making him presentable? He spent the next half hour tugging at those filthy clothes and trying to change Rex into a pair of pajamas.
At last, he succeeded in getting the man cleaned up, changed, and tucked under the quilt. He would take Rex’s old clothes outside and burn them behind the pig pen before he told Lyric her father was in his room. He patted the folded-over sheet into place and got ready to make his escape when Rex shot bolt upright in bed. His scrawny fingers clamped down on Mattox’s wrist in a death grip.
Mattox fought that grip with all his strength, but he couldn’t break free. He did his best to push Rex back down on the pillow. “It’s all right. You’re safe at home now. Lie still and try to get some sleep.”
Rex foamed at the mouth, and his eyes rolled in their sockets. He fixed his bleary gaze on Mattox. He croaked out the broken words. “You’re the one. You’re the next Alpha. It’s your destiny.”
Mattox got his other hand around Rex’s fingers to pry those iron straps off his wrist, but to no avail. “Take it easy, Rex. You’re exhausted, and you’ve got the DTs. Go to sleep. I’ll get one of the girls to bring you something to eat later.”
Not only did Rex not lie down or let go, his eyes blazed with a spooky light. He locked his eyes on Mattox’s face. Could Rex possibly recognize him. No one could misunderstand those words. He formed every sound with distinct, precise clarity. “You’re the one. You’re the next Alpha. You’ll take over the ranch and lead Mackenzie tribe after me. You’re the only one who can do it.”
A shiver ran down Mattox’s spine. Rex couldn’t mean him. Mattox could never be Mackenzie Alpha. Rex must think he was talking to his own son, Azer. “It’s all right, Rex. I’m not a Mackenzie. I’m Mattox Farrell. I’m just helping out here on the ranch. I’ll get your son, Azer, for you. He’s the one who’ll be Alpha after you, and he’s been running the ranch since you…since you left.”
Rex’s other hand rocketed out faster than Mattox could see. He grabbed Mattox around the back of the neck and pulled him in hard. He brought Mattox’s face within inches of his eyes blazing with eerie fire. His gaze drilled into Mattox’s soul and left no doubt Rex knew exactly what he was saying and to whom. “Listen to me, Mattox Farrell. Do you think my son Azer could challenge me the way you just did in the barn? Do you think he could challenge me and win?”
Mattox fought that commanding hand. “Cool it, Rex….”
“Azer has never dared challenge me—not him or that pussy-foot boyfriend of his, Riskin Dodd. Neither of them has the strength or the backbone to challenge me—me, a drunken wraith! They can only sneak around behind my back and hope I don’t find out what they’re up to. You’re the only one who has ever dared challenge me, and you won. You fought me down and subdued me. I’m Alpha of my tribe, and you know what that means.”
Mattox stared into those milky eyes. A bolt of lightning struck Mattox between the eyes. His blood ran cold when he remembered what he’d done in the barn. Rex attacked him as a bear. Mattox shifted to defend himself. He knocked Rex over and suffocated him into submission.
He’d challenged an Alpha and won. That made him….He couldn’t form the words. He couldn’t even think them.
Rex spoke the words for him, “You’re Alpha, Mattox. You’re Alpha of Mackenzie tribe. You’ll take over the ranch and run this tribe. It’s your destiny. The ranch will fall into your hands, and Azer and Riskin will serve you. That’s the way it’s got to be.”
The last words trailed off in a soft out-rushing breath, and Rex collapsed back on the pillow. His withered hands slackened. Mattox slipped free, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from that wrinkled face. The grey hair slicked back from the lined forehead where Mattox combed it straight.
This was Mackenzie Alpha, the old Alpha. This Alpha just laid his mantle on his chosen successor. No one could contradict him. Every Bruin knew that. Mattox met Rex, bear to bear, in the barn. He stood his ground and won. He beat this Alpha in a fair fight. That made him Alpha in Rex’s place.
Mattox shivered, but even now, a change came over him. Deep calm infused his soul, and dozens of questions that used to keep him awake at night no longer bothered him.
He could trounce Azer and Riskin with one hand tied behind his back. He’d known that six months ago, when he first set foot on Mackenzie Homestead. He could squash them like bugs whenever he chose.
That’s why he had to keep control of himself at all times. He couldn’t accept any challenge from them when he could destroy them with one flick of his little finger. He forced himself to be excruciatingly polite and conciliatory to them so he would never threaten their hold on this tribe.
He never wanted to challenge Rex. He never considered for two seconds getting mixed up in this tribe and its ranching operation. Now, he’d gone and done it without meaning to. He fought their Alpha and beat him, and he couldn’t back out.
A sneaking suspicion crept into his heart. He had to admit the truth to himself, even if he never spoke the words out loud to another living soul. He didn’t want to back out. He won. He deserved this. He claimed the right to take over this ranch. He didn’t have to stand around taking Azer and Riskin’s static anymore.
He moved Rex’s head on the pillow and smoothed the quilt over his chest one more time. He ran his hand over Rex’s gnarled knuckles and patted his hand in farewell when the door flew open and Melody burst into the room.
Her mouth fell open when she saw Mattox. “What are you doing in here? I heard voices and…” Her eye fell on her father lying in bed, and she screamed out loud. She launched herself across the room and went down on her knees by her father’s bedside. “Papa! Papa!”
She didn’t wait for a reply. She knocked Mattox out of the way in a mad rush for the door. “Lyric! Lyric! Papa’s home! Come quick!”
Lyric flew into the room. Both girls tore around the room in a flurry of activity. Mattox backed into a corner. They charged here and hurried there in their haste to do everything at once. There wasn’t much to do, as Mattox did most of it already. Neither of them noticed when he balled up the soiled clothes and dirty towels and disappeared.