Travis

Grant had developed a particularly skillful disappearing act since I had begun to ask more pointed questions. But I could be skillful, too, and this time I was determined to keep Grant from dodging me by riding out early. Spending the night in the tack room waiting to ambush my brother wasn’t particularly appealing, especially when Christine had made it very apparent I would be welcome in her bed. But I knew it was time to corner Grant for answers.

Christine. Dang, our relationship had been intense right out of the chute. Being with the woman was like sitting on a crate of firecrackers. It was impossible to know when it would detonate, but explosions were inevitable. And I always had loved playing with matches. At some point, I’d started feeling things I’d never expected to feel again. When had that happened?

I knew the answer. It had begun when I’d nearly collided with an otherworldly vision on a mountain road. Never in my life had head, heart, and physical interest all happened at the same time for me. And now they were doing just that, life was pretty freaking amazing.

Forcing what I’d rather be doing from my mind, I took a rough inventory of supplies, noting the worn leather, the scraps of unusable equipment set aside for salvage. Much of our equipment had long ago seen better days. Working with my hands had always relaxed me, so I settled on the old barstool in front of the little workbench and repaired tack while I waited for my brother and some answers.

“You’re up early,” Grant said, when he walked into the tack room a few hours later. If he was surprised to see me there, it didn’t show in the pleasant smile on his face.

“Never slept.”

“You used to going without sleep?”

Travis shrugged. “Sometimes. When it’s necessary.”

“Guess you’re saying I made it necessary.”

I didn’t look up. In silence, I concentrated on folding the leather strip into a loop around the harness buckle then securing it with neat stitches.

Grant shuffled his feet back and forth. “Come on, Trav! I hate it when Dad pulls that no-talk bullshit. Do you have to be just like him?”

I frowned, irritated by the comparison. With deliberate care, I tied off the thread then hung the repaired harness on a hook behind the bench, along with several others I’d finished.

Just as deliberately, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the scrap of material I’d cut from my shirt the day before, unwrapped the slug I’d retrieved from the dead cow, and set it on the workbench.

Then I turned and regarded my brother in silence, pointedly waiting for the answers to the questions I’d been asking for days.

Grant regarded the spent bullet like it was poison. “You got that from the dead cow?”

I cocked my head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “Is there someplace else I might have found it?”

Grant stooped and picked up a stray buckle from the floor. With exaggerated care, he placed it on the bench. “We had some trouble up in the high pasture this past spring.”

“Some trouble?” Two words that offered nothing in the way of explanation. “Come on, Grant! You gotta do better than that. Why did you ask me to come home?”

Grant averted his eyes.

I rocked back on my heels and blew out an irritated breath. “I don’t get it. You literally summoned me home, hinted that you need help.” I shrugged. “And for some reason, you don’t want to have a simple conversation about what’s going on around here. So I guess the real question is, why should I stay?”

“Dad had a heart attack. About three years ago.”

My head came up sharply, as though Grant had just popped me in the jaw.

“It was mild, pretty much over before he even got to the hospital. But he had to have tests, meds. And there were bills. A lot of bills” He paused, seemed to struggle for words. “We had… a rough patch.”

“You never said a word.” Rage constricted my voice as I barely checked my temper. “Did you think I wouldn’t care?”

“He didn’t want you to know. I kept hoping you’d see the quarterly reports and…” He spread his hands helplessly. “Notice something.”

With a little prick of conscience, I visualized my desk drawer with the neat bundle of unopened white envelopes that arrived from the accountant every three months. I scrubbed a hand over my face, as the frustration of years spent avoiding reminders of the life I’d once left behind, caught up with me. If I was truthful, I had to admit I’d come back exhausted from living a life I shouldn’t have been living. And I’d nearly been too late getting home.

“Dad thought —hoped you’d come back after Mac… died.” Grant picked up a scrap of harness and began rolling the leather between his fingers. “When you didn’t, he didn’t want to drag you back here on his account.”

“I couldn’t come back. Not then. I was injured myself, and…” I closed my eyes against pain I’d spent years hiding from. Mac, my cousin with the unruly red hair and the splash of freckles across his nose, that kept him a perpetual kid even as a man doing a man’s job. The grin that flashed even in impossible circumstances. The vision gelled in my mind, became so clear I might as well have been twisting the knife in my heart. I forced my eyes open and focused on the tack room. Harnesses, buckles, wood, straw… But no red hair. No Mac.

Tamping back on the raw feelings, I focused on Grant and returned to the conversation. “I could’ve helped in other ways. I would have sent money. Geez, Grant, I’ve got more of that than I could ever use. I was Mac’s beneficiary on his life insurance and he died on the job, so the payout was tripled.”

One side of Grant’s mouth twisted upward into a wry smile. “Wouldn’t Bull and old Robert just love you investing Mac’s insurance payout in McGee land?”

“Who cares about what they’d think?” I leveled my gaze at Grant. “It’s what Mac would have wanted.”

“Is it?” Grant tossed the scrap of leather onto the bench. “Dad said he had good reasons for running off.”

I wince. “I didn’t think Dad knew any of what was going on or why, and I’ll admit a part of me worried he would have tried to stop us so I never told him.

Sudden motion and a whoosh of air sent me flinching backward as Grant drove a violent punch into the wooden beam next to my head.

Sixteen years’ worth of anger simmered in Grant’s green eyes. “You don’t give Dad enough credit,” he grated. He unfurled his fist, without as much as a glance at the torn skin on his knuckles. “He may not have known until later why you left, but he had your back the whole damn time. He trusted you. Covered for you. When he knew you’d gone to Texas, he told the FBI you were always yammering about going to Alaska, so they should start looking there.” Grant’s eyes became enraged slits. “Pretending to hate you was the best way to take the heat off Dad. And off of you. Only he never expected you would hate him back for real.”

Under the weight of Grant’s words, I staggered and gripped the workbench behind myself. “I don’t —I never hated Dad. I didn’t know what he did.”

“You didn’t want to know.” Grant flexed his fingers as though itching to form new fists. “I was watching it kill our old man to write you off so he could protect you from being picked up for kidnapping, and you never even asked how he was, the few times you bothered to call.”

He stalked to the other side of the tack room and stood, back straight, shoulders heaving, his back to me. He’d always had a hot temper, and it had always bugged him when it got away from him.

I stepped away from the bench, forcing my hands to remain open and loose. I had no reason to feel defensive, or maybe I did, but I wouldn’t fight my brother. “Grant, I was hurting, too! I was just eighteen. I was arrogant, thinking I could save the world and there wouldn’t be any consequences. By the time I realized there were, it hurt too much to talk about home, let alone call and hear your voices.”

“And I was thirteen!” Grant whirled, wearing an incensed glare that seemed capable of shooting flames. “Old enough to know you left, but not old enough for anyone to trust me with your reasons for leaving.”

Old enough to feel abandoned.

I took several deep breaths, seeking calm in a river of rage. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Grant slumped. “They made life bad for a while.” Sadness replaced the temper in his voice. “The MacKays. They spread lies about you, about Mac, even —about Mom. And people were listening. But Dad wouldn’t talk about it, wouldn’t talk about you. Finally people stopped caring about the stuff Phyllis was spreading in town. Mostly.”

“If anyone deserved to die in that family, it wasn’t Mac.” Fury I’d never quite banked began to swirl again.

“Dad said his old man beat him up.”

“Someone sure did.” I picked up the long black knife I’d been using to cut leather and twirled it baton-style. “I found him sleeping in the little barn. He’d been there probably three, four days. He was sneaking into the house when we were out so he could steal food to feed himself.” My voice hardened. “Three or four days, and no one came around looking for him.”

“Was he in bad shape when you found him?” Grant paced to the door, stopping to stare out into the stable yard.

“Both eyes were blackened, one was swollen shut. His nose was broken, teeth were loose.” I waited for the picture to fill Grant’s head the way it was filling my own. “And someone had put out a cigarette on his tongue at some point.”

Grant whipped around and I caught a glimpse of shock in my brother’s eyes. “Why?”

“Because he had red hair and he stuttered maybe.” I slashed the air with one hand. “Shit, I don’t know. Why the hell does that family do any damn thing?”

“Couldn’t you, I don’t know, call someone? Report it?”

“Report it to who?” I demanded. “Sheriff Russell MacKay?” I slammed the knife point-first into the scrap leather Grant had been playing with.

Grant whistled low and long. “Mac’s uncle. I forgot.”

“I was just going to take Mac into Jackson, see he got help then come home,” I said, swallowing back the bitterness the memories had dragged up. “But he was afraid they’d send him back. He begged me to stay with him, to take him away from Wyoming, from his family.” I leaned forward and captured Grant’s eyes. “Do you know how bad shit must have been for a kid to beg someone to keep him safe from family?”

A muscle worked in Grant’s jaw but he said nothing.

“I never stopped missing this place,” I said quietly, allowing some of my rage to dissipate. “But I couldn’t come home until Mac made sure I was cleared of kidnapping. And Mac was always —different. Kind of fragile. He couldn’t come back here, and I couldn’t leave him in the city.”

“Why did you stay away after Mac died?”

“I told you I was injured. I just about had to learn to walk again, Grant.” I closed my eyes and allowed different, even more painful memories to surface.

“You never told us it was that bad,” accused Grant, his face showing horror.

“I was in rehab for months. Then… I wanted to come home, but I didn’t know how to ask. And… I was trying to find someone.”

Grant frowned. “Who were you looking for?”

“I’ll tell you about her sometime,” I promised. Needing a distraction, I scooped the spent bullet off the workbench, rewrapped it, and returned it to my pocket. “She was with us when Mac died. I’ve been looking for her since I got out of the hospital, but… no luck.”

“Long time to be looking for someone,” Grant observed. “So what now? Are you here to stay or are you here with one foot still in the city?”

Easy… one breath in, another out. “I want to come home, Grant. To stay, if you’ll have me. I’ve missed this place, Dad… even you.” He sent a grin across the tack room. “Maybe especially you.”

Raw torment traveled across Grant’s face, and he choked out his answer in a thick voice. “I’ve missed you, too, big brother.”

Something Grant had said earlier registered anew. I leveled him in his sights. “Dad said I was ‘yammering’ about Alaska?”

Grant chuckled. “In the thickest hayseed accent you ever heard.”

The first bit of happiness since the conversation had begun brought on a smile. Our father, with his Master’s Degree in Agricultural Science from Wyoming State, playing country cowboy.

For me. The thought was even more humbling than it was comical.

“So, how much does you wanting to stay have to do with the local barkeep?” Grant’s grin was back in place.

That old brotherly feeling surfaced again —it came easier each time. With an answering smirk, I stalked across the distance between us, hiked Grant onto my shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and walked out into the stable yard. With no remorse whatsoever, I tipped my younger brother into the stock watering trough.

“Hey!” Grant sputtered, as he sat and blew water out of his mouth. He stood, shaking the droplets from his hair. But the huge grin remained plastered across his face. “Paybacks, bro!” he called out. “You know what they say about ‘em.” Then he let out a whoop before bending and retrieving his hat, floating in the trough next to him.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered around a yawn. “They’re a real bitch.” With a lighter heart, I spun away from the happy scene and strode to the house.

* * *

A plush dark towel slung around my hips, I was using another to dry my hair while I contemplated the insanity of having stayed up all night. My bed now looked mighty appealing.

I slid open the dresser drawer and grabbed a pair of dark briefs, pausing when I saw the folder. With one trembling finger, I traced the upper edge. The bold black lines of the capital A on the tab sliced through my conscience like hot wires. I squeezed my eyes shut against the onslaught of thoughts and emotions, I preferred to keep buried.

I popped them open again, making myself dizzy as the colors around me swirled into focus. Damn it! What had I done by getting involved with Christine? It felt a little like… cheating.

I picked up the folder and opened it, swallowing past the thickness lodged in my throat. Pages and pages of my own handwriting were clipped together. Notations of leads which hadn’t panned out; her name, given to me by one of her sympathetic coworkers —Jackie Hollow. Beneath all that, more pages of handwritten notes, the details I remembered of all our conversations, written when I’d been unable to walk, just so I’d have something to hold onto when I’d realized she wasn’t coming to the hospital. I shuffled through them once again, those well-worn sheets of yellow paper.

I’d fallen in love with her, asked her to marry me. Yet I had nothing tangible of her. I’d needed her, but she hadn’t been there as she had promised. She’d completely disappeared, almost like she’d never existed. The guys had teased me for months about hallucinating, until I’d gotten more careful and sly about looking for her.

And now… Christine made me want to throw it all away. Seven years of searching for someone who must not want to be found. Who was I cheating on if she’d left me first?

“Christine,” I whispered. I was cheating Christine, if I moved forward with her before letting go of the past I still struggled with.

“You and your brother square things up?” Dad’s gravelly voice came from the doorway.

I jumped. “Stop my heart first next time, will ya?”

Reason told me I hadn’t been doing anything wrong, but I stuffed the papers back in the folder, then shoved the whole mess back into the dresser and slid the drawer closed.

Throughout my life, my father’s commanding presence had filled every room he entered. Some things never change, even after a heart attack, so I was glad when Dad made himself comfortable, sitting in the chair by the window. It lessened the effect ever so slightly.

“I want to talk to you. I know that brother of yours probably warned you to keep me out of it.” He snickers. “Thinks I’ll live longer if I don’t get upset.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can this wait until I’m wearing pants?”

“We can talk while you get dressed.”

I stared. My father shot a pointed look at the towel. “What? You got something under there you didn’t have when I was changing your diapers?”

“A few more inches,” I muttered under my breath, pissed at the invasion of my personal space. I averted my stance, hoping dad enjoyed the view of my ass, and stepped into my briefs then hauled on a pair of well-worn blue jeans with holes in the knees.

Justin ran a critical eye over my outfit of choice. “You know, they sell pretty decent jeans downtown for less than twenty bucks. Lot less holes.”

“Yeah, but these are my favorite.” I shove my wallet into the only pocket without a gaping hole. “I’m just breaking them in.”

He shakes his head. “Looks more like you’re breaking out of ‘em, but whatever floats your boat.” After taking a deep breath, and releasing it out slowly, he changes the subject. “I figure your brother caught you up on some things.”

I fastened the button on my shirt sleeve without looking up. “What he told me, was you had a heart attack and wouldn’t let him call me.”

“Wasn’t any point. It was over as soon as it started. I wasn’t in the mood for any deathbed nonsense.”

I forced my gaze up, taking in the weathered skin on his face, the deep lines etched into the corners of his eyes. The shadows beneath those eyes. “I could’ve helped. I still can. We can get this place back on its feet.”

Dad flashes a crooked grin. “I wasn’t aware it was completely off its feet.”

“I can help get it back to where it was before—”

“You know Grant’s gotten into boarding some horses?”

The smooth change of subject was so typical of my father that I didn’t lose the beat. “It’s always been horses for him. He’s got a solid plan. We have the space, and the extra income it generates will help.” I pulled my wristwatch into place.

“I agree,” he says in an agreeable tone. Too agreeable. “But let’s not say anything to your brother just yet. You know, your pretty young lady’s the one who got him thinking about boarding. She bought that colt at auction last summer. Turns out he’s so crazy no stable would keep him.”

“No stable should keep him.” I shudder at the memory of snapping teeth. “Including this one. Christine shouldn’t even have him.”

“You plan on telling her that, I want to be there to see it.” He cut loose with a hoarse chuckle. “Thing is, the colt will do anything for that girl. Grant’s been helping her train him, but she’s got horses in her blood, herself, and that colt loves her.” Dad’s expression softens. “She reminds me some of your mother.”

Just great. So he saw it, too. I could already see the matchmaking gleam in his eyes. Never mind any potential interest I might have in that direction myself, I need no help from my daddy on that score. So I shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve only just met her.”

His pointed glance told me he still understood a great deal about what made his sons tick, even the one who’d just returned home after years of being absent. “You won’t find a better match. She won’t take your crap.”

“My—” I let out a long slow breath, relaxed the hands I discovered I’d balled into fists. No, not getting drawn into a conversation I couldn’t win.

Dad went silent and closed his eyes. Good. I considered leaving the room but experience told me we hadn’t gotten to the heart of the conversation yet. So I waited it out.

As usual.

“I don’t suppose your brother got ‘round to telling you the real problem here.” his voice bordered between heightened concern and outright worry.

I shook my head. “Baby steps with him. Gotta take baby steps. I hurt him —hurt you both —when I left.”

“You did what you had to do, son.” He said. “Right now we got some problems a mite harder to deal with than simple cash flow. I know you went to the range yesterday with your girl. You’re too smart not to have noticed the absence of cattle.”

Finally. The answers I’d been looking for. “I noticed. What happened?”

“Grant planned to open up more range farther west,” he said. “He was going to expand by about five hundred head to start. He was talking about going modern, bringing in a helicopter, like a couple of the outfits out of Laramie. We’ve had a couple good years. He made some good investments. Bank was all set to loan him the rest of the stake he needed.”

A half-hour and many words later, I found my world rocked off its axis. And not in a good way.

More than a hundred head of cattle, slaughtered by high-powered rifle shot. Before that, a series of little things which might have been accidents or a run of bad luck, but when pieced together, they looked less like random events and more like well-thought-out malicious acts.

“When did all this happen?”

“April. Right after we moved the herd up there. Grant had a couple of hands up there watching the rest of the herd, but a few more cows got picked off and he brought the whole lot down off the mountain. Couldn’t risk more cattle, or worse, the lives of his men.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, then drew a hand down my face, stopping at my jaw, while I considered the impact of my father’s words. “Geez, Dad. I should never have taken Christine up there.”

“You’re right. It should have been the three of us riding up there, with you knowing what you were riding into.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“Mine.” Dad sighed. “It’s mine. I wouldn’t let your brother call you when things started happening.”

My gaze flashed to my father, for the first time seeing a hint of defeat in the tired green eyes. His anger evaporated.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” He says flatly, returning my gaze.

“No, Dad, I do.” I blow out a long breath, realizing the choices I’d had to make sixteen years earlier would never sit easy with me. “I left for good reasons and I’d do it again. But I left a man and a young boy to run a family business I was part of. I stayed away too long, came back, started giving orders and taking over without earning—what?” I asked when he began chuckling.

The chuckle became a full-out laugh. “I remember your grandmother saying something along those lines once in regard to me. When I started trying to tell my dad what was what after one year at college.”