Chapter 3

Mattox slammed his hay hooks into the next bale and pitched it off the truck to the pile on the barn floor. When he made the pile as tall of his head, he climbed down and hooked the bales into a neat square stack in the barn hay rick.

He worked steadily, hour after hour, without a break. Sweat ran down his temples and disappeared into his thick beard. He never slackened his pace for a moment, not even when his nose detected a Bruin scent. He didn't have to turn around to know who it was.

He knew that scent from those times he went into the house for meals and to sleep. Sometimes he picked up that scent in the barn or in distant parts of Mackenzie country, but it always drifted on a faint breeze out of the distant past. He never found it anywhere near as strong as in the house.

He kept his eyes down, even when he turned her way to go back to the truck. Lyric was out of bounds. Everybody knew she was marrying Riskin Dodd in a few weeks. She stuck with Riskin and Azer when it came to keeping Mattox under their heel. None of them would ever change. They would never loosen their grip on this ranch.

Mattox made up his mind within hours of coming to live at the Mackenzies' to ignore Lyric. She didn't exist for him. She made his meals and changed his bedding. That's as far as he could reasonably consider her. Azer and Riskin existed for him. She was an extension of Riskin, nothing more.

He treated Azer and Riskin as his new Alpha—his combined Alpha. Azer would take over as Alpha when old Rex Mackenzie finally kicked the bucket, but Riskin acted as his right-hand man. No one could piss up a rope without their approval, and they stuck together like two peas in a pod. You ever saw one without the other, and neither of them made any decision without the other’s support.

Riskin marrying Lyric proved that more than anything. Once they got married, Riskin would inherit Lyric's share of the Homestead. He would claim as much ownership of this ranch as Azer himself. They would close this ranch up like a box turtle, and no one would ever get a toe in the front door.

Lyric frowned at Mattox from the barn doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. She paced back and forth and glanced out the door toward the house, but she didn't leave. Mattox kept silent and went on with his work. He waited for her to leave.

No sound disturbed the barn but his gasping, panting breath when he bucked the hay bales off the truck and heaved them into the hay rick. When he came back to the truck a second time, Lyric whirled around to glare at him. For a fraction of a second, he locked his eyes on her before he walked straight past her and climbed up the flatbed again.

Lyric scowled. Smoke billowed out of her ears, but Mattox knew better than to say anything. If he learned one thing in six months on this ranch, it was to keep his mouth shut.

He never mentioned any of the gross irregularities he noticed in Azer and Riskin's management of the ranch. He never criticized them in any way. He never engaged anyone in conversation—not even Melody, who did her best to make him welcome. Conversation with any of these people led nowhere and could only get him in trouble.

He couldn't help but notice, though. Melody was nice enough and pretty as the day was long, but she couldn't hold a candle to her sister. Anybody with two eyes in his head could see Lyric was unhappy. She stood alone on the front porch and gazed out toward the pasture in the late afternoon between cleaning up lunch and making dinner.

She watched the men driving cattle in their trucks and on horseback. She came to the corral fence at branding time and discussed the herds with Riskin at the dinner table. She knew as much about the ranch as the guys, but they did their best to ignore her.

In spite of himself, Mattox found himself watching her when she didn't know he was there. He watched her sad eyes trace the outline of the far distant hills, and she shaded them from the sun to admire the sunset fading over the horizon. She wanted to be out there, riding the ranch and doing the dusty work. That's what she was made for, not scrubbing dirty pots and pans.

Every night on his way upstairs to bed, he passed the old photographs that hung on the stairwell wall. He gave those photographs nothing more than a passing glance, but that's all he needed to see more than they revealed. Lyric sat deep in her saddle with her tight jeans hugging her hips and a dusty old hat stuck on her head. Her plaid shirt and cowboy boots showed a lot more of her than her faded house dress and apron ever did. Her sandy blonde hair flew in the wind, and she narrowed her eyes in concentration to aim her swirling lasso at a charging steer. That's where she belonged, not stuck inside the house all day.

Mattox had to keep his head down not to see that steer-roper standing in the barn door right now. He only looked at that photograph once, but he saw her all the time now when he looked at Lyric. He couldn't see anything else.

He hopped off the flat bed and strode over to the hay rick for another round of heaving bales when she startled him out of his reverie by jumping into his path. “How long have you been out here this morning?”

He started back in surprise. “What?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You heard me. When did you come out here this morning?”

He dodged around her and hooked the first bale. He muttered under his breath and buried his answer under a gasp. “I don't know.”

She paced back and forth beyond the bale pile. “You started unloading this truck today, and you're almost finished. It's not even ten o'clock, so you must have been out here long before daylight. The guys think you were asleep in your room past the call for breakfast, but that's not possible. You've been out here working the whole time, haven't you? Admit it.”

He didn't say anything. He hid his face behind another hay bale so she wouldn't see his cheeks burning red. Why did she have to go sticking her nose in his business? Was she trying to trap him, to get him more hot water? He had to get rid of her.

Azer and Riskin never paid any attention to what Mattox did. They gave him whatever job they didn't want to do, and they never noticed how fast or how well he did it. That's the first mistake he noticed they made in running their own ranch. They didn't know or care whether the job got done or how well it got done. They only cared about getting as far away from Mattox as they could to focus on their own priorities.

Lyric surprised him out of his boots by noticing he'd almost finished bucking the hay in a few hours. That job would have taken one of the guys several days to complete, but he never pointed that out to them. He flew low under their radar. The less they thought about him and the less they noticed him, the better for everybody.

Now, here she came, noticing him. That’s the last thing he needed in the world. She would run straight to Riskin and tell him…what? She’d embarrass Riskin and Azer by pointing out to them Mattox was doing his job? Not likely.

Lyric knit her brows at him. She set her jaw in fierce determination. That steer-roper in the photograph wouldn't back down once she set her mind to finding something out. She paced back and forth again for a minute. She looked all around the barn. “Where's Riskin?”

Mattox grunted under his breath.

Lyric waited, but when he didn't say anything, she humphed. When he came back to the flat bed, she threw her hip out sideways and gave him a twisted grin. She leaned against the truck. “Why don't you take your jacket off? You'd be a lot cooler.”

He pretended not to hear. Pretty soon, she would get bored and go off somewhere else. So she wanted Riskin. She could see plain as day Riskin wasn't here.

“Why do you always wear that jacket? It's blasting hot out there, and you're dressed up like something out of the deep woods. You'd get a lot more work done if you were cooler.”

He jumped down in front of her. For the first time, he squared his shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “Did you come out here to talk about my jacket?”

She took a step back in alarm. He'd never spoken to her that way before, direct and to the point. She looked right and left. “I'm just saying you'd be cooler.”

“Yeah. I'd be cooler. Riskin isn't here. He's out in the north pasture, running the fences. You won't find him here talking about my jacket.”

He went back to the hay rick. That should get rid of her if nothing else did. She didn't leave, though. She just stood there staring at him.

She could have knocked him over with a feather when she said, “Do you have a sweetheart, Mattox?”

He didn't look up. He couldn't. He wouldn't look at her for all the money in the world. What in God's name did she want to know that for?

She turned her sad eyes to the country outside the door. She roamed there in her dreams. “Do you know what my sister Melody says? She says every Bruin has one true mate they're destined to marry. Bruins mate for life. She thinks Bruins marrying is some kind of fairy tale come true. She thinks I'm living a fairy tale by marrying Riskin.”

He said nothing. He kept throwing hay bales on the stack and sliding them into place with his hooks.

After another long pause, she came back around to studying him. She muttered under her breath like he couldn't hear her, “If that's true, there must be someone out there for you, too. Someone in this crazy world must think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread. Someone would think you're the most attractive man in the world in your fringed jacket and your woolly hair.” She snickered to herself.

He listened, but he didn't look up. What was she going on about? After six months eating at the same table, his jacket couldn't bother her so much she had to come out to the barn to pester him about it.

In six months, nothing ever worked as well as that jacket to keep everyone away from him. It worked like a charm to ensure neither of the girls got any ideas about him, and it protected him from Riskin ever getting jealous of finding Mattox alone with Lyric.

She rambled on in a dreamy voice, “You must be a dream come true for someone. I can't imagine who she might be.”

So Riskin was a dream come true for her. All the more reason he should keep his mouth shut and say nothing. He started back to the truck for the last load of bales when she started out of her dream and stepped into his path again. He tried to dodge around her, but she scooted sideways to cut him off. “Why did you have to leave your Homestead?”

He muttered something unintelligible and headed for the flat bed, but she put out her arm to stop him.

“You must have gotten schooled by your Alpha,” she went on. “That's the only reason you could have gotten thrown out of your own territory. What happened? Did Brody challenge you in front of everyone? Did you have to slink away and lick your wounds somewhere he wouldn't have to see your ugly face.”

Mattox coughed and straightened up. He faced her with a deep rumble in his voice. “You and everyone else around here already know why I had to leave Farrell Homestead. You don't have to ask me about it now.”

“I want to hear it straight from you. I want to hear you say the words.”

He cast a swift glance down at her twisted mouth. “Do you want to hear me say I'm a coward? You'll never get me to say that. My father laid his mantle on Brody. It had nothing to do with me. I never challenged Brody, and I never will. I care too much about my own tribe to tear it apart by challenging the chosen Alpha. Brody's a good man. He'll be a good leader for our tribe. I have no need to interfere with that.”

She stared at him in wonder. That was the most words she'd heard him string together in six months. “Does Brody know you feel that way?”

“Of course, he does. Everybody does.” He walked away from her.

She hesitated. Then she hurried after him and called up to him on the hay truck, “You never answered my question about whether you have a sweetheart.”

“I wouldn't be working here if I did.”

“Have you ever kissed a girl, Mattox? Have you ever come close?”

He tossed the hay down onto the pile, but he made sure not to let her see his face again. The more she kept talking about kissing and sweethearts, the more uncomfortable she made him. He had to get rid of her. “I'm sure I've kissed as many girls as any other Bruin guy. I'm sure I've kissed as many girls as Riskin did before he got mixed up with you.”

She rested her shoulder against the truck cab and crossed her arms. “There must be something that makes you tick. What do you think about when you're lying in bed at night? What really interests you? What gives you a sense of purpose in your life?”

He jumped down from the bed and landed right in front of her. “I suppose I could ask you the same question. I'm sure cooking my roast beef doesn't give you a sense of purpose in your life, does it?”

Now she lowered her eyes. All the fire went out of her. That was a low blow, and he knew it before he ever said it. He hated himself for hurting her when he already knew the truth about her.

He made it up to her by smiling under his beard. He called to her over his shoulder on his way back to the hay rick, “What gives me a sense of purpose in life is doing whatever I can to support my tribe. I'm happy to take a dive working in this nut house if it makes Brody's job easier, and I know he appreciates it.”

“I'm sure he does.”

He set to work stacking the last bales. “I've seen it in other tribes too many times. The old Alpha dies, and the brothers fall at each other's throats fighting over who's gonna take over. I couldn't let that happen to my tribe. My father told me he'd picked out Brody to take over for him. That's all I really need to know. Brody set up this position for me to make it easier for all of us, so I took it.”

Lyric smiled in spite of herself. “You're right about one thing. This place is a nut house.”

He muttered low. He didn't mean to say it out loud, but she had a way of working on him so he couldn't stop talking. He'd kept silent so long, it just sort of slipped out by itself. “It's too bad your brother doesn't feel the same way about his tribe. This Homestead could use a good, keen Alpha when your father's gone.”

Lyric stiffened. “What's that supposed to mean? Are you saying you care more about your tribe than Azer does?”

He straightened his shoulders and shrugged. He hung his hay hooks on the wall and slapped his hands against his pants. “I'm not saying anything about Azer. I'm just saying everybody needs to put their own tribe first, not just me.”

Her face softened. He took a second look at her. She looked happier in that moment than he'd ever seen her since he came to stay at this Homestead. He could have been talking to anybody, any girl he met at a funeral or any Bruin girl from over the Peak. He could almost forget the nasty things she said to him at breakfast or the nasty things she laughed at when her brother and her boyfriend said them.