“It’s about time you bothered to show up for work,” Joe Hernandez, the patriarch of the family, leaned against the doorframe in Laredo’s office and glared hot enough to start a fire with the stack of papers on Laredo’s desk. “What is wrong with you lately?”

Laredo’s head was pounding. He now had something like a thousand dollars in fines and damages to pay. He still had to arrange for and pay for the repair to his subdivision’s entrance sign. And there was the little matter of his mutilated truck to take care of as well. He really didn’t have the patience or the time to deal with his father’s complaining.

“Did you meet with Jesse Collins?” Joe demanded.

Laredo wanted to lay his head down on his desk and groan out loud. He really did not want to talk about this right now. “Dad, I have told you multiple times. I have met with Jesse. I have talked to her. I have tried to convince her that she should just sign away her property to you, but as you might be able to imagine, she’d rather just run the Collins ranch herself.”

“Damn fool child,” Joe Hernandez muttered.

Laredo wasn’t really sure what was behind his father’s desire to keep control of the Collins ranch. Yes. They’d been running Hernandez cattle on Jesse’s family land since she had come to live with them ten years before, but their cattle would not starve to death just because they had to stay on Hernandez land.

“Dad,” Laredo began, trying his best to sound reasonable. “We’re just fine. We make more money from rodeo stock contracting every year than we do from the cattle. We’ll pare down the herds and send some stock to market. The beef prices are halfway decent. We won’t take a loss. Then we’ll have plenty of land on our own ranch to support our stock. Jesse will be free to do her own thing, and that will be that.”

“You don’t understand!” Joe barked. He was getting very agitated, and Laredo could not understand why. “We have to keep that girl safe! Do you have any idea how many people want to take that ranch from her?”

“What? Like you?” Laredo grunted. He recalled a scene only a few weeks ago when Darren had spoken to his father on this topic. “Besides, you told Darren that you were going to back off. You said you were ready for Jesse to grow up.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to protect her,” Joe Hernandez shot back. He was looking so agitated that Laredo wondered if he wasn’t going to give himself a heart attack. “We need to keep Jesse away from that place!”

“She’s living there, Dad,” Laredo said drily. “Cal gave her keys months ago when she turned twenty-one.”

“That traitorous bastard!” Joe wheezed. He was leaning even more heavily on the doorframe. “He knew better! He knows why she has to stay off that land!”

“Dad!” Laredo got up from his desk. Joe was now weaving. “Dad. Are you all right?”

Laredo reached out to his father, but Joe pulled away. “I’m fine. Get your hands off me, boy. I’m so fed up with you and your brothers that I’m about ready to leave the whole ranch to Darren!”

“Last month you hated Darren more than the rest of us,” Laredo said with a tired sigh. “Remember?”

“I was mad at him for sure,” Joe agreed. “Your brother has never shown much interest in this ranch. But lately he’s started to get his life together. I’ve got a grandson now, you know.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Laredo agreed. “I know.”

It was strange, but Laredo had spent so many years trying to please their father and be the favorite that he wasn’t exactly sure what to do with this new turn of events that left Darren, of all people, in the limelight. Darren had always been the football jock. That was his thing. Laredo was the one who ran the business end of things. That was his thing. Now Darren was becoming a regular family man with a regular teaching job. He was going to get married to a wonderful woman and probably settle down and pop out a dozen more kids.

Laredo had failed at marriage. He was failing at fatherhood. And now he was even failing as his father’s favorite child. If that was what was happening in his life, then where was he supposed to go next? What was left for him? Jail?

Joe Hernandez suddenly stopped wheezing and stared at Laredo with a very strange look on his face. “When was the last time you actually looked at a horse?”

“Excuse me?” Laredo wasn’t sure what to make of that comment.

“We talk bloodlines and breeding all the time,” Joe continued. “I don’t doubt for a minute that you could list off the names of every stallion on our ranch. You could tell me the background and stats of every bull we own. You can match them with a cow and produce amazing rodeo stock. Some of the horses you recommended we breed have been winning money hand over fist on the cutting circuit.” Joe made a face. “But we Hernandez men don’t ride those horses. We breed them and sell them off for someone else to show. We sell our rodeo stock or we lease them out to contractors for a season or two. We don’t ride anymore. We don’t win. We don’t do a damn thing but sit in an office and rot.” Then Joe stabbed an accusing finger at the loafers Laredo had opted to wear this morning. “We don’t even wear boots anymore. We are prisified!”

Laredo stared in utter confusion as his father turned around and stalked off down the hallway still muttering to himself about the prisification of cowboys. Prisification? Was that even a word? What the hell did Joe Hernandez want? Was Laredo supposed to climb on one of their bulls and try to last eight seconds before he got thrown to the dirt and had his head kicked in? That happened to be his youngest brother, Met’s thing, and it wasn’t even working out that great for him!

“Um, Mr. Hernandez?”

Laredo spun around to find his secretary, Gloria, waving her hand slowly. Was he zoning out or something? It looked like she was getting ready to start spouting something like earth to Laredo or something equally ridiculous. If his life had come to that, it was time for a change.

Laredo cleared his throat. “Yes?”

Gloria had worked for Laredo for so long that he no longer knew what life would be like without her. In that way, she was sort of his work version of Mrs. Naranjo. That probably wasn’t a very flattering thing. He had to pay women to help him out in life because he couldn’t manage to make his wife happy enough to stay with him.

Laredo shook his head. This was no time to start sinking into the cycle of self-pity. Gloria was looking very uncomfortable. He tried to focus on her face and smile. At one time, he’d been told that he had a very charming smile. When Gloria started backing out of his office, Laredo dropped the attempt to be friendly and just went with the scowl that seemed to come naturally these days.

“What?” he demanded. “Just spit it out!”

Gloria narrowed her eyes and straightened her spine until Laredo could have sworn he heard it snap. “Fine. I’ll spit it out! The police are here. They say that they have a warrant for your arrest for driving under the influence.”

Well, shit. He could kind of understand what Gloria’s hesitation had been. However, he wasn’t going to throw a temper tantrum or anything at this point. He was too damn tired. So, he sighed and nodded his head at Gloria. “Tell them I’ll be right there to speak with them.”

“Yes, sir.” Gloria turned on her heel and disappeared.

Laredo walked to the windows in his office that overlooked a small park. At this point, he didn’t really know what to do. Of course, it didn’t necessarily seem like there was anything he could do. When you drove drunk, you paid the price. Right? Although he didn’t actually remember driving drunk. The evidence was certainly in his garage. He’d had to call a cab to get to work today. He’d managed to take out both his truck and his motorcycle. His house was a mess. He’d apparently made a fool of himself with the neighbors.

A sudden laugh bubbled up and caught Laredo by surprise. His father had been talking about acting like a cowboy. Well, if he was talking about some of the less savory behavior often attributed to the members of that profession, then Laredo had that all covered. He was drinking and carousing with the best of them, apparently.

With that in mind, Laredo strode out of his office and out into the waiting area and reception room where Gloria and his father’s aging secretary, June, shared a very large circular desk. There were two police officers standing there. Fortunately, Officer Jones was not one of them. Laredo was pretty well fed up with Jones.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” Laredo asked. He kept his manner mild and his tone respectful. There was no need to piss anyone off before it became absolutely inevitable.

“Mr. Hernandez?” This new officer with yet another handheld device wore a nametag that read ORTEGA. “We’ve received some complaints about you driving under the influence last night.”

“I’m aware.” Laredo managed to remain calm. “I got about a thousand dollars in fines this morning from your colleague. I’ve already made arrangements with my subdivision to cover the cost of repairs to the signage, and my vehicle issues are my own problem since they happened on my property.”

“You’re aware that driving under the influence is against the law?” Officer Ortega asked Laredo in a tone that could not have been more condescending.

“Fully aware,” Laredo agreed. Where was this going? The other guy—nametag BLEVIN—was smirking as though they were about to deliver some kind of bombshell. “So, again, how can I help you gentlemen?”

“We are here to let you know that the city of Denver will be filing charges against you for driving under the influence.” Officer Ortega pointed to Laredo with his pen.

Laredo thought about this for a moment. “I’m fully aware,” he began, “that there are many screenings nowadays that are able to detect via blood test whether or not an individual has been binge drinking within a certain period of time. I know that it is possible—once you get a warrant—for you to establish that I have been drinking. What you cannot establish, because it's too late, is whether or not I was over or under the legal limit last night. That ship has sailed.”

Officer Blevin stopped smirking. Officer Ortega started squirming. What was really going on here? It was like someone had put them up to this farce of an interview. Laredo gave each man a pleasant smile. He had to play this off no matter what he really thought about it. How unfortunate. He was feeling pissed off enough by now that he would have welcomed a brawl. Ha! There, as even more cowboy-like behavior to prove Joe Hernandez wrong.

“We’re still charging you,” Officer Ortega informed Laredo.

Laredo pulled out his phone. No doubt his attorney would not be happy with yet another phone call from Laredo this morning, but since the man billed by the freaking minute, he would charge Laredo for plenty of time to get over it.

“Then, I’m sure you’ll understand when I contact my attorney to have all of this straightened out,” Laredo told the officers. “And I’m sure you’ll also appreciate that I’m very curious as to know who sent you out here.”

“Our captain,” Blevins said quickly.

Ortega threw a dirty look over his shoulder at his partner.

Suddenly things were starting to make sense. “Would your captain happen to be Paul Weatherby of the Flying W Ranch?” Laredo asked as casually as possible. “Because you can toddle on back to your captain and remind him that even though the Flying W might be in the running for that new stock contract, taking me out of the picture will do absolutely nothing to get the Flying W any nearer to closing the deal. The deal is with the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company, not Laredo Hernandez.”

Blevin poked Ortega. He turned his back to Laredo and whispered in Ortega’s ear. “Is that really why we’re out here? You know he’s right, right?”

“Shut up,” Ortega told Blevin. He shoved the words through his clenched teeth. Finally, Ortega pointed at Laredo. “You better watch it, boy.”

Laredo bristled. The only one who still got away with calling Laredo Hernandez boy was his father, Joe. Anyone else had better be ready for a fight. But right now, a fight was not exactly appropriate. Laredo had to breathe deeply to hang onto his composure. He was so sick of people right now!

Laredo gave the officers a nod. “I’ll watch my step. I can assure you of that. But you’d better tell your captain that harassment charges are cheap and easy to file.”

“We’ll let him know.” Blevins suddenly decided the interview was done. He shouldered Ortega away from Laredo, and the two men headed for the elevator.

When Laredo turned around, he realized that both Gloria and June were watching and listening with wide-eyed fascination. Great. There was nothing better than having the entire company know his personal business. Of course, he could always claim that the Flying W was setting him up. Unfortunately, he was going to have to let his father know that his company vehicle had sustained a little bit of damage and none of that was because of the Flying W.

“Laredo?” Gloria asked hesitantly.

He really wasn’t in the mood. “What?”

“Darren called to let me know that he would take care of getting Bella home tonight. He said that he figured you would forget.” Gloria’s sad-eyed expression was more than Laredo could handle.

“Thank you.” Laredo nodded to Gloria and retreated to his office.

Once the door was closed and he was alone, Laredo sank down into his squishy leather chair and slumped down onto his desk. He felt like crap. His life was going to hell. And right now he had nobody to blame but himself.

Reaching into his top right desk drawer, Laredo pulled out the old family photograph he had kept of Helena, himself, and Bella when she was only two. Bella was beaming, and even Laredo looked happy. What had always struck him was how unhappy Helena looked. What had happened? He could never figure that out. Had Helena ever been happy? Had she ever been glad to be his wife? He had thought so many things about her that were utterly wrong. He knew that now. But had he always been wrong? Had there ever been a moment where the woman was glad just to be with Laredo and nobody else?