Wow. When Frank had agreed to hang out with Tiffani and the reporter, he hadn’t expected it to be so much like the Spanish Inquisition. He was surprised that this Lani Markland person didn’t come equipped with her own bright spotlight to shine in people’s faces. She’d seemed really nice until they sat down for the interview, and then all the claws came out. He supposed she was just doing her job, but still—wasn’t this supposed to be a lighthearted article to bring people in to the fundraiser? Why all the digging for some kind of dark secret?
As they walked around, Tiffani did a great job of pointing out the different aspects of the ranch, and Frank was more than happy to stay in the background. Especially after all that garbage about the ranch being a male-dominated compound. Yes, women were really outnumbered here, which was sort of to be expected on a boys’ ranch, but the women who did live here could hold their own. He was proud of his sisters-in-law, his mother, and Brittany, all of whom showed strength and integrity in everything they did. They didn’t take any guff from anyone, and that included their husbands.
He kicked at a rock, sending it skittering into the side of the barn. He didn’t realize how that looked until Tiffani glanced over at him. “Are you okay?”
He raised his head and saw both Tiffani and Lani watching him, concerned looks on their faces. “Oh, I’m fine,” he said, putting on a smile. “I was just trying to work through a problem in my head.” That was true enough. “A repair we need to make.” Also true. If this article cast the ranch in a bad light, there would be a lot of repairs to do.
Adam crunched across the gravel toward them, a big smile on his face. “Hello,” he said, holding out his hand for Lani to shake. “You must be the reporter. Thanks for coming out today.”
She accepted his hand. “Lani Markland.”
“I’m Tiffani’s husband, Adam. May I invite you to have lunch with us up at the house? My mother’s a fantastic cook.”
“That would be nice,” Lani replied. “Thank you.”
“Where was Lillian earlier?” Tiffani asked. “We were just up at the house and didn’t see her.”
“She’s been making new tablecloths for all the cabins, and she went to the fabric store,” Adam said with a smile. “You’d think she’d be busy enough with all she does, but every so often, she just has to add on another project.”
“What all does your mother do here?” Lani asked.
“She’s like, a mother on steroids,” Adam replied. “She keeps the cookie jars filled all the time, she makes a huge family barbecue every Friday night, and she’s essentially the grandma these boys need. She loves every second of it.”
“Does she have any outside interests besides the ranch?”
“She reads and watches movies and does crafts,” Tiffani answered. “She also helps out in the community quite a bit.”
“But she doesn’t do anything as a career?” Lani pressed.
Adam glanced over at Frank, who didn’t have to be an empath himself to know what his brother was asking. Gently, so gently, he sent out a ray of calm, pulling her sharpness back and replacing it with understanding.
“Yes, lunch sounds very nice,” she said after a moment, and Adam smiled. There was still a crease between his eyes, though, and he glanced at Frank again before nodding and heading back across the compound.
“Tiffani, can I catch up with you in a moment?” Lani asked. “I’d like to talk with Frank for a second.”
Frank blinked. Okay …
“Sure,” Tiffani said. “I’ll see you both at lunch.” She walked off after her husband, and Lani whirled on Frank.
“What in the heck is going on?” she spat.
***
When Adam McClain walked up to their small group and shook Lani’s hand, there was something about him, an awareness, a connectivity that she wasn’t used to encountering. It was like he could see into her soul. Then he glanced at Frank—why was everyone glancing at Frank?—and she sensed warmth descending over her, sort of like it had earlier, but she actually felt her emotions change when it happened. Something weird was going on, and she absolutely had to get to the bottom of it.
She thought about asking Adam, but he kind of scared her. Not because she thought he’d hurt her in any way, but because he seemed to know way too much. She’d talk to him later if she had to, but she’d start with Frank and see if she couldn’t get the answers she needed from him first.
“What in the heck is going on?” she asked as soon as they were alone.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, leaning up against the side of the building—she thought it was called the bunkhouse—where they’d stopped to chat.
“Okay, listen.” She hated having this conversation with people—they always thought she was weird or insane or possessed, so she tried to keep it under her hat as much as possible. She had to tell him, though, or she’d never get to the bottom of this mystery. “I know this sounds nuts, but I’m what they call empathic.”
Frank raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.
“It means that I pick up on the emotions of those around me. I’m not a full-blown empath—that’s someone who can really feel what’s going on around them—but I sense quite a bit.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
She held out her arms. “What the heck is up with this ranch? Your brother—he’s like . . . I’m not sure, but he’s sort of creepy. Weirding me out. And you? You make me want to take a nap. For real. And you’re all exchanging glances and sending secret messages through your eyes. What is this? I mean, I feel like I’m stumbled into the Twilight Zone or something here, and I need answers.”
Frank looked down at the ground and scuffed his boot. Finally, he looked back up. “This is going to be a long conversation,” he said. “Do you mind if we go inside and sit down?”
She glanced at the building behind them. “In the bunkhouse?”
He smiled. “There’s a kitchen and dining room, and I bet Claire has something we can eat. I’ll text up to the house and tell them not to expect us yet.”
“Okay,” Lani said, anxious to get this over with. While Frank was texting the house, she sent a quick text of her own to her editor, telling him her last location in case she didn’t come back. A little melodramatic, maybe, but she wasn’t taking any chances. If she was about to get murdered, she wanted her killers brought to justice.
Frank slipped his phone back into his pocket and held the door open for her. She entered, expecting some sort of medieval torture chamber, but instead, she saw a dining room, and on one end was a pass-through window into a kitchen. A redhead was working over some dough on the counter, and she looked up and smiled as they came in.
“Hi,” she called out. “What can I do for you?”
Frank led Lani up to the kitchen doorway. “Hey, Claire. This is Lani Markland, the reporter. Do you have any lunch I could give her?”
“Sure do. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll bring it out in a sec.”
“Thanks.”
Frank motioned for Lani to choose any spot she liked, and she chose a table in the center of the room. Once they were seated across from each other, Frank nodded toward the kitchen. “That’s Claire, my brother Daniel’s wife. She cooks for the ranch hands here, and she spoils the rest of us rotten too.”
Lani nodded. Introductions and all that were great, but she didn’t really care at the moment. She needed answers. Frank seemed to know that, as he pulled in a deep breath and began speaking.
“You said you sensed something odd about my brother Adam, and also about me.”
She nodded again.
“Before we have this conversation, I need your promise that not one word of this will go in your article. Honestly, Lani. You really have no idea how much I’m trusting you right now.” His phone chimed. He checked it, nodded, and returned it to his pocket. Then he focused on her again. “There are thirty boys on this ranch who depend on us for their healing and for their shot at a future. I can’t risk that. They’re too important to me.”
Wow. His sincerity, and also his stress, rolled off him in waves. Lani didn’t think she’d ever felt someone’s emotions so strongly before. He’d gone from being chill and laid back to intense and sort of desperate.
“I promise,” she said. “I’m putting the reporter to the side for now and I’m asking you this as a person.”
“Thank you.” He exhaled and visibly relaxed. “So, you and Tiffani were talking about the history of the ranch, how it was started by an ancestor long ago.”
“Yes. I also read that online.”
He nodded. “The ranch isn’t the only thing that’s been passed down over the years. You see, if you go way, way back in my family tree, you’ll see that in every generation, there is born a seventh son. And that seventh son has seven sons, and so on. The pattern has never been broken, as far as we can tell.”
“Wow,” Lani said. She’d never heard of anything like that. “That’s incredible. Have you been studied? Talked to geneticists or something?”
“No, nothing like that. Because there’s more.” He pulled in a breath. “The seventh son always possesses some kind of gift or power. You mentioned being empathetic—it’s sort of like that, only stronger. Someone in our line could control water—like, cause tides and stuff. There was another guy who could control the weather. There are too many gifts to count, and they appear differently in each person. But as far as we can tell, they are given for us to bless the lives of others.”
Lani blinked. Because of her own experiences, she knew that there were certain unexplainable things at work in the world, but she’d never heard of this kind of stuff. “So . . . there are seven of you brothers. That means your dad is a seventh son, and that he has powers.”
“That’s right.”
“And so your youngest brother would have powers too.”
“Um, yes, that’s right again.”
Frank seemed a little uncomfortable answering that question, and she felt like he was hiding something from her. Before she could ask him about it, though, he went on.
“Actually, every seven generations, all the sons have some kind of power, and we’re the seventh generation.”
They were interrupted just then by Claire, who set a tray on the table, glanced back and forth between them apologetically, and scurried back to the kitchen.
“She probably knows that I’m giving you ‘the talk,’” Frank said with a chuckle.
“‘The talk?’” Lani repeated.
“Yeah. This whole ‘secret of the ranch’ thing.” He set a plate in front of Lani, but she couldn’t look down at it. Her eyes were glued to his face.
“What do you mean, every one of you has a gift? You have a gift?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you take a bite while I explain it? You look hungry.”
She picked up her fork, but made no move to eat. “Just what are these gifts?”
“You already know Adam’s.”
“He’s an empath, isn’t he? A full-fledged empath, not a pretend one like me.”
“You’re not a pretend one. You’re just not as advanced.” Frank gave her an encouraging nod. “Benjamin can make plants grow, Caleb can sense danger, Daniel can heal people, Ephraim can talk to animals, and I . . . well, you probably know mine, too.”
She shook her head. “I just know that you make me sleepy.”
He chuckled. “I have the gift of calming down people and situations. Tiffani was really nervous about meeting you today, so she asked me to stay nearby and keep her calm. She’s excellent with one-on-one things, but being in a magazine is out of her wheelhouse.”
“And you calmed me down about hitting the planter.”
“Yes, I did. You seemed upset, and really, it’s just a planter, and I didn’t think you should have to worry about it. That made you sleepy?”
She nodded.
“Hmm. You must feel it differently because of your empathy.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she said, holding up one hand. “I did feel calm. I just wanted a nap. So, what about your youngest brother?”
“Gideon has a bit of all the other gifts. He’ll need them all because he’s set to inherit the ranch, and he’ll have the next set of seven sons. It’s not an easy responsibility.”
“I bet not.” Lani finally looked down at her plate, more to give herself some breathing room than anything. She saw a nice piece of chicken, some creamy pasta, and a slice of garlic bread waiting for her. Oh, great—something else to totally ruin her breath, but it looked so delicious, she wouldn’t pass it up. “So, help me out here. What was all that outside just now? You and Adam throwing glances back and forth and whatever?”
“You were getting a little intense asking questions about our mother, and Adam felt it would be good if you felt calmer right before meeting her,” Frank said. “We’re very protective of our mother—she really is the best woman there is—and I know that I for one wouldn’t want her to have all those questions thrown at her. Now, you’ve gotta understand, I don’t say that because she can’t hold her own. Thing is, she can more than hold her own. That was sort of for your protection as well as hers.”
Lani nodded. “I understand.” She took a bite and chewed while she mulled over everything he’d told her. “So, you asked me not to say anything about this,” she went on after she swallowed. “Who all knows?”
“Very few people. None of the boys, for starters. My five older brothers are all married, and their wives know. We have a few close friends, and that’s about it. None of the ranch hands, even. If this gets out, we’d be made into sideshows. We’d be dragged into the media all the time. We have to concentrate on our work here—we don’t have time for all that nonsense.”
Lani nodded. “I did notice that there aren’t any other articles about you to be found. At least, not any with direct quotes or interviews or anything.”
“We have to be very discreet in everything we do. Our purpose is raising boys, not showing off and doing magic tricks and becoming famous for things that we just inherited. If we get distracted, the boys suffer, and that goes against the very moral fiber of the ranch.”
“I can see that.” Lani lifted another bite to her mouth, but a drop of sauce landed on her shirt. “Oh, no,” she said, grabbing a napkin and trying to dab it off. She was surprised, actually, that she hadn’t dropped the whole forkful—that was a lot more like what she usually did.
“I can’t even see it anymore,” Frank said, and she rolled her eyes at him.
“Then you’re blind. Well, I guess that’s the best I can do.” She set her napkin down and tried to focus on their conversation again. “With your gift of calming people down, you must be invaluable on the ranch.”
“It’s true that I have been able to help out in some sticky situations. Adam’s great at stuff like that too because he knows how the boys are feeling, and Gideon has a little bit of both gifts, so he’s a good guy to have around.”
Lani took another bite, finally noticing how good the food really was. She’d been too preoccupied to notice it much. “This is fantastic,” she said.
“Yeah, we were blessed when Claire showed up to apply for the cook’s job. Of course, Daniel was the most blessed out of all of us, finding his wife and all that romantic stuff.”
Lani smiled. “You mentioned that your dad has a gift. What is it?”
“He has precog. Basically, he gets glimpses of the future.”
“Wow. That’s amazing.” Lani leaned back and contemplated him. “You’re sending me calm right now, aren’t you? You don’t want me freaking out about all this stuff you’re telling me.”
He grinned a little sheepishly. “Um, yeah. Just a little.”
“Well, it is helping, but the thing is, I can tell that you’re being honest with me. I’m great at picking out the liars, and you’re not one of them. So while this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life, I’m okay with it.”
“You are?”
“I am. And I should probably have my head examined because of it.”
He grinned again. “Adam’s a psychiatrist. He can help you out with that.”
“Because his opinion wouldn’t be biased at all?”
“Not in the slightest.” Frank nodded down to her plate. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s great. My shirt likes it too.” She shook her head. “You’re just going to have to forgive me. I’m a klutz. The planter, my shirt—stuff like this is completely normal for me. But wait—you have a brother who senses danger. Why don’t we make him my tagalong? Then he could give me a heads-up about these things.”
Frank smiled. “He doesn’t do minor mishaps—just things that could be classified as actually dangerous.”
“I’m sure I was very dangerous to that planter.”
“Nope, sorry.”
She sighed. “Well, I supposed it’s for the best. I mean, I’d hate to lose you as the tagalong. You’re kind of fun to have around.”
“I am?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, now that I know you’re not all creepy weird.”
He held up a hand. “I don’t remember that we ruled that out entirely.”
She liked his sense of humor. In fact, she liked it probably more than she should. “True—we should probably examine it a little more. But not right now. I want to finish my lunch.”
He folded his arms on the table and watched as she kept eating. She glanced up. “What?”
“Nothing. Just waiting. I’m sort of a fast eater.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I guess it’s because I have so much to do. It feels like I’m wasting time if I sit in any one spot for too long.”
“So, what are your duties around here on the ranch? Aside from the boys, I mean.”
“Well, they obviously take up the most important chunk of my time. I teach them how to mend fences and drive the tractor and bale hay—all that good stuff. Of course, my biggest job is keeping them calm, and that’s sometimes a full-time task, especially when they’re new here and they’re sorting through everything that’s happened to them. I don’t calm all their feelings because if I did that, they’d never process and they’d never heal, but I take the edge off when things are potentially dangerous to themselves or others.”
Lani nodded, more impressed by the minute. “So this is why you have the success rate you do—you can honestly tell what each boy needs and you make sure he gets it.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly. At other facilities, they do their absolute best with educated guesses and their years of training, but we do have a leg up. We never use our gifts to pry into things that aren’t our business—we use them to home in on the needs of the boys and what will bless their lives the most.”
Lani leaned forward and rested her chin in her hand. “But how does that work? Adam’s an empath and your dad has precog. How are you not stumbling into things all the time?”
Frank downed the rest of his ice water before answering. “When a person wants to keep a secret, they build an emotional wall to protect it. When we come up against one of those walls, we back away until they’re ready to let us in. As far as my dad’s precog goes, it’s not a constant thing. He sees bits and pieces, sometimes unexpectedly, and usually about his family. He occasionally sees things about the boys, but for the most part, the powers that be leave it up to us brothers to sort it out.”
“The powers that be?” Lani smiled.
“I don’t know what else to call it. We don’t know where these gifts came from or how it’s determined who gets what—just that there’s some kind of amazing force at work.”
They were both finished eating, so they stood up, and Frank called out his thanks to Claire. Lani thanked her as well, and they left the bunkhouse to continue their walk. “The boys will be home any minute,” Frank said. “This is a good chance for you to meet them. Why don’t you come over to the cabin I share with my brother Gideon and you can meet the six boys we’re currently working with?”
As they strolled, Frank told Lani each of the boys’ names. She wasn’t taking notes, but she knew she’d remember them—her equilibrium might be off, but her memory was fantastic. They reached the cabin just as the school bus deposited the boys, thirty of them, who ran off in all directions and looked like ants in a hill, but then she realized they were just heading off to their separate cabins. Six boys trotted toward them, one hanging back a little, and one taking the lead. That one spoke to Frank in a worried tone of voice. “Something’s up with Nick.”
“Thanks, Jose,” Frank said, clapping the boy on the shoulder as he passed. Then he turned his attention to the boy who was dragging behind. Lani could tell from several paces away that this boy was deeply troubled—his heart was heavy, and it ached. Frank pulled out his phone, hit a few buttons, and then slid it back in his pocket.
“Hey, Nick,” he said when the boy drew near, and Lani felt a trickle of calm leave Frank and cascade over the boy. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it was easier to identify, and definitely cool.
“Don’t wanna talk about it,” Nick mumbled, pushing past and going into the house, where Frank knew Gideon was waiting with an afternoon snack. Frank stood there with his lips pursed.
“I’d love to keep chatting with you, Lani, but I need to give Nick some attention,” Frank said. “Can I meet up with you again later?”
“Of course,” she replied. She was disappointed—she wanted to see everything and hear everything, and hanging out with a hot cowboy was a bonus—but she’d suspected he’d need to turn his attention to the boys now that they were home. “Where will I find Tiffani?”
“She’ll be over at the office.” Frank pointed out the way, then paused and rested his hand on Lani’s shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
“Okay.” She wished she had some kind of charming, flirtatious answer, but that was about as good as it got. He was working some other kind of magic on her now, and it had nothing to do with his gift—instead, it had everything to do with him being a very good-looking man.