Cisco could not remember being this irritated with anyone before in his life. Well, at least not with someone who wasn’t even a Hernandez by birth. Generally in order to piss him off this thoroughly, you had to be family. Or Jesse. His adopted sister had been pretty good at pissing him off too. But Melody wasn’t Jesse. She wasn’t a Hernandez. And for some reason, she seemed to have the ability to pull his strings pretty damn thoroughly.

What is her problem?

Cisco paced back and forth in his office and glared out the window because pretty much anything he looked at involved a total glare. There had been half a dozen electronic deliveries of various motions and injunctions and other legal bullshit pertaining to Melody’s case this morning. Cisco had been on the phone with his friend the private investigator. He had spoken with good old Mr. Watson twice. And pretty much the entire morning so far had been focused on figuring out who was trying to screw Melody out of her inheritance.

Would she even care that he had been attempting to solve this problem for her? Probably not. Or maybe she would. That stupid ranch seemed to be the focus of her life right now. Wasn’t it? Or was her running away from him the night before pretty much the culmination of her distaste of him and his tastes in general? Had she just pretty much decided that she wasn’t interested in his help any more than she was interested in him as a man?

Ugh! Why did that keep coming up? Why did it matter if she was interested in him or not? He could get another woman. He had another woman. He was sort of—maybe—involved with Vittoria. Perhaps he should be focusing on that and his career and getting paid for doing legal work. That would be good. Right?

“Francisco?”

Speak of the devil and she shall appear…

Cisco shook his head to clear away his fanciful thoughts. He smiled at Vittoria and waved her into his office. Perhaps it was time he started being nicer to her. “How can I help you, Ms. Velasquez?”

“I just thought I would let you know that your father has come to visit you.” Vittoria’s breathless words were accompanied by Joe Hernandez’s smiling face.

Cisco felt his own smile freeze on his face. Why in the hell was his father here? It couldn’t be for anything good. And most likely it was something pointedly bad—well, not bad but just interfering. Because that was how Joe Hernandez rolled.

Cisco forced himself to react. He had to say something. Unfortunately, his brain and his mouth were not exactly in full communication. “Ms. Velasquez, we have secretaries and paralegals for that sort of thing, surely. You didn’t have to escort my father back to my office. My goodness! I’m sure you’ve got better things to do with your time. Next time just buzz me. Better yet, I’ll go talk to him downstairs.”

Vittoria’s expression turned brittle. Her eyes were falsely bright, and she looked as if she were about to chew and spit glass. “He’s your father, Francisco. Surely you wish to speak to him.” She turned and put her hand on Joe’s upper arm. “He’s such a wonderful man. He deserves some personal attention when he comes to visit you.”

There was no doubt in Cisco’s mind that his father was loving every minute of this bullshit. He was doing his damnedest to hide a big fat smile as he watched Cisco try to negotiate his way around Vittoria’s obvious attempt to ingratiate herself with the patriarch of the Hernandez family.

Vittoria patted Joe’s arm and then leaned in close to him. Gazing up into Joe’s lined, sun-worn face, she batted her big dark eyes. “Poor Joe! Your son doesn’t seem to appreciate you at all.”

“No,” Joe agreed. “He sure doesn’t. But that’s what happens when you have children, young lady. You just wait. One day they’ll be asking you to buy them their first pickup truck and the next day they won’t even speak to you if they see you in public.”

Vittoria threw her head back and laughed. Cisco wondered if the woman actually stood in front of the mirror to practice that very practiced looking move. The way she shook her head just enough to get her hair shaking in a fall down her back suggested the move was most definitely premeditated.

“I will leave you two boys.” Vittoria grinned at Cisco’s father and bent her index finger in a strange kind of girly wave. Then she sashayed down the hall and left Cisco’s office.

“Come in and shut the door,” Cisco growled. “And for shit’s sake don’t you dare say one more word to that woman.”

“You could do worse,” Joe muttered as he at least fulfilled Cisco’s request to shut the door. “She’s smart, talented, driven, rich, and socially motivated.”

“You know.” Cisco did not bother to hide his irritation with his father’s obvious lack of anything approaching paternal warmth or consideration. “You say that like it’s a good thing, but that’s not the type of woman you married.”

“Eh.” Joe actually shrugged. “Your mother didn’t really help further my business or our ranch much. She did come with a big fat dowry and a large chunk of land though.”

“Oh, so there has to be some kind of monetary motivation or compensation to entice a person to marry?” Cisco was disgusted with this way of thinking. It just felt wrong.

“Apparently not for you.” Joe Hernandez put his hands on his hips and glared down at Cisco as though he were trying to rip him apart and see what made him tick. “You have apparently leg-shackled yourself in secret to some woman of no family and no fortune.”

“You do realize that you sound like a ridiculous parody of some historical romance novel, right?” Cisco snorted. He was not going to allow himself to be intimidated by his father. Apparently, Ms. Lolly Landry had a big fat mouth to go with her horrible earrings and other miscellaneous jewelry.

“Do you have any idea how many phone calls I’ve been fielding today about this crap?” Joe asked wearily.

“Seriously?” Cisco thought to himself about people like Melody’s friend Allie who was probably waking up seriously hung over or something equally horrible to realize that she’d lost her job and her ability to feed herself because of one bad decision. “That is what you and your friends have to worry about in life? Whether or not I married in secret to someone you didn’t approve of?”

“Did you?” Joe demanded.

“Why would I even bother to tell you?” Cisco flung up his hands and struggled with the urge to punch his father. He figured all of the Hernandez sons had felt that at one point or another. “Have you stopped bothering Jesse about her land? Have you acknowledged that your adopted daughter is not your child and therefore not under your jurisdiction? Have you acknowledged that she is running her own ranch and pretty much doing for herself?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Joe snarled. He flung his hands at Cisco, pushing him back. “You could at least find something to throw at me that matters.”

“Oh, but it does! You know why?” Cisco was feeling just as snarly as poor old Joe. “Because you don’t have any more of a say in Jesse’s life than you do in mine, or Laredo’s, or Darren’s, or even Cal’s. You don’t get to say what we do or say anymore because we are adults!”

“You are my children,” Joe said fervently. The feverish gleam in his faded blue eyes was enough to give Cisco chills. “Jesse is my child.”

“No. Jesse is not your child, and you need to get that through your thick head.” Cisco put his hand on his father’s chest and pushed to put some distance between them. “And I’m not a child. I might be your kid, but I’m a grown-ass man, Pops. That means you don’t get to choose for me anymore. You don’t get to say who I date or who I talk to. If I want to help a young woman who deserves some help, then I can.”

“The whole city says you’re going to marry her!” Joe protested. He pushed Cisco’s hand away from his chest.

The whole city, hmm? That was disturbing. Why did the city of Denver have nothing better to think about other than his love life? “I don’t care what the whole city says. I don’t even think Melody would marry me if I asked. She’s not into rich guys.”

Joe grunted. “All women are into rich guys. If you wanted her, she would be yours for the taking.”

“What is wrong with you?” Cisco fumed. “First she isn’t good enough for me, but then when I tell you that she wouldn’t say yes, you immediately jump on the wagon of yes she would? Be happy there’s nothing going on and go about your business.”

“There’s something else.”

How could there be something else? That’s what Cisco wanted to know. The man had come in here and insulted Cisco in just about every way possible. He was barely acknowledging that Cisco was competent enough to make his own decisions about his relationships. And now he wanted to keep on yakking. No thanks.

“I think you’ve said enough.”

“Weatherby is telling anyone who will listen that you’re trying to claim jump him on the Farrell place.”

Cisco cursed out loud. At any other moment in time, that sentence would have been so preposterous as to be complete bullshit. Claim jumping had gone out with the rest of the mining practices and other Old West era less than kosher business practices. Of course, the original use of the term had involved the bushwhacking of some poor old miner who had only just recently managed to strike gold, silver, or something else valuable on a claim he’d been working thanklessly for a decade or more. At some point, the claim became valuable—and not always because it involved ore of some kind either—and then it was stolen. Some other man, woman, or entity would file a claim with the land office or just steal it directly from the individual. It was a horrible practice, and Cisco did not appreciate a man like Weatherby trying to pin that kind of behavior on Cisco.

“That’s actually a bit backwards,” Cisco muttered to Joe. “Weatherby has been trying to buy the Farrell place.”

“They’re dead.” Joe’s tone was flat and emotionless. “Died a few months ago in a home in Aurora. I would assume Weatherby could pick up that ranch from the estate. It’s not like the Farrells had family.”

“They had a granddaughter who is now the rightful owner.” Cisco scratched the back of his neck. “It’s complicated. But if Weatherby is spreading that rumor, I assume he’s tying it to the heels of that crap about the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company stealing everything from land to his horses.”

“Yep.” Joe nodded grimly. “We found fifteen hundred head of cattle so far that had our brand but were rebranded with the Flying W.”

“What?” Cisco could barely wrap his mind around such a thing. “He’s stealing our cows? Where the hell are we finding them?”

“That’s the thing,” Joe snorted. “He’s turning them back onto our property but making it look like we’ve been stealing his stock.”

Cisco’s brain cranked into motion, and he realized what purpose the Farrell ranch had been serving to Denver’s finest piece of crap law enforcement officer. “So, let me get this straight.”

“Yeah.”

“The Flying W hands have been stealing our cows, rebranding them, and then returning them to us.” Cisco had to admit that it sounded idiotic. “Then Weatherby is kicking up a fuss and telling everyone we’re the thieves?”

“The stock inspectors can use a light to see which brand came first. You know that. It’s modern technology. I suppose we could just freeze brand, but that’s expensive.” Joe suddenly seemed to be thinking that freeze branding wasn’t so bad. “At the moment, it’s taking us forever to be able to sell anything because it has to go through about a dozen stock inspectors just to prove it’s ours to sell in the first place!”

“So, he’s gumming up the works,” Cisco muttered. He scratched his chin and made his next suggestion. “Melody—the Farrells’s granddaughter—and I went out to the ranch the other day. It’s in good shape. The only person we saw out that way was Weatherby. He came up awful fast. I bet he was already there.”

“Why?” Joe was frowning. Two big furrows cut a swath through his weathered forehead. “The Farrell ranch is the opposite side of the property from where Joe’s main camp is at.”

“Yeah, but what if he was using Farrell land—which has essentially been vacant for five years—to hold cattle that are going through rebranding? I bet you anything those stock inspectors have checked every inch of the Flying W looking for that sort of setup. Am I right?”

“Damn it all to hell,” Joe muttered. “That bastard!”

“It also explains why he’s in such a lather to get that property under his control for good. If he’s got a setup going and he’s not done yet, he’d be real keen not to screw things up.”

“That man wants those rodeo contracts so badly that he’s willing to slander the Hernandez name up one side of Colorado and down the other just to make them think we’re dirty dealing.”

“It’s not working,” Cisco reminded his father. “You might be going through some extra crap with the inspectors. We might be inconvenienced as hell, but if we hold on and hang in there, he can’t last forever. At some point, he has to let go of the idea that he can beat you. He’ll lose the contract and it will be over.”

“You sound so confident.” It was odd, but the way Joe stared at Cisco made him uncomfortable. “I don’t feel quite that confident.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Cisco told his father. “You’re so confident that you’re an absolute ass about it. So, for now, let this go. All right? I’ll keep working on this Farrell ranch angle. Melody wants her grandparents’ place, and I aim to make that happen for her.”

“Why do you care so much about a ranch that isn’t even yours?” Joe wanted to know. His hand was on the door handle and he was preparing to leave. It was the best thing that had happened all day long in Cisco’s office.

“She’s a good person, Dad.” Cisco wondered if his father was even capable of understanding that. “She deserves to have her dreams come true. And if that’s her dream, then who am I to say that it’s wrong?”

No. He could not say that someone else’s dream was right or wrong. He could only say that he felt frustration that the two of them did not share the same dream.