Chapter 8
Lyric stared at the book. Row upon row of seven digit numbers lined every page, along with microscopic scribbled notes. By squinting hard, she could just make out notations related to which bulls mated with which cows. That book contained a detailed record of the parentage of every animal on the ranch.
She lifted her eyes to his face one more time, but she didn't see the Mattox Farrell she thought she knew. Who was this man? “Have you been studying this book…what—every night and weekend in the whole six months you’ve been here?”
He flipped the pages back and forth. “Yep, just about. Every spare minute I have, I read this. Your father put a lot of information in here.”
She didn't look at the book again. She couldn't take her eyes off him. “If you're telling the truth, you must know a lot more about this ranching operation than Azer or Riskin.”
He shot her a sidelong grin. “Does that surprise you?”
“Do they know what you're doing here?”
“Of course, they do. Azer gave me the cow himself. He knew she was in calf, and they know I'm in here taking care of them now. They think I'm cracked in the head.”
Lyric turned bright red. “What are you saying? Are you saying Azer and Riskin don't know anything about this ranch?”
He shrugged and turned away. “They know what they want to know. If anything comes along they don't want to know, they ignore it, kind of like…” He trailed off and headed out of the room.
Lyric stared after him. What had he been about to say? She knew what she would say if she had to finish that sentence. If anything came along Azer and Riskin didn't want to know, they ignored it, just like they ignored him.
Her mind whirled in a thousand directions, and none of them made sense. Mattox Farrell discovered a secret book that told him everything he needed to know about the Mackenzie cattle ranch. He learned all this in his free time when Azer and Riskin thought he was picking daisies and staring into space. Mattox Farrell, of all people!
Now he'd gotten his hands on a calf crossed between her father's old pedigree and the Mackenzies' prize bull. He was building his own breeding line, a stronger, fitter, heavier line than anything Azer or Riskin could dream of.
Where would it end? Once he built this line, he would…He couldn't. He didn't dare threaten the ranch, not after the way her father took him in when he lost his place with his own tribe.
Lyric shook her head, but she couldn't clear her thoughts. Why shouldn't he threaten the ranch, after the way the guys treated him—after the way Lyric herself treated him? He owed the Mackenzies no loyalty. She wouldn't blame him if he did everything possible to drive them into the ground.
Of course, he hadn't told Azer and Riskin what he found in that book. They would ignore that, too. They would find a way to torment him about that along with everything else.
She heard him open the tie-up gate. He was back in there now, checking on his prize cow and her calf. The calf was a heifer, too. Nothing could set Mattox up better to carry out his plan to develop his own pedigree. A moment later, the light switch thunked. He moved down the barn floor, turning off the lights and getting ready to leave for the night.
She couldn't wait any longer. She hurried out of the tack room, but she didn't exit the barn the way she came in. She dashed the other way and snuck out behind his back. What could make her slink around her own home like a thief? Why did finding out what Mattox was doing stab her heart with guilt? His conscience didn't bother him, so why should hers?
She raced back to the house and into the living room. Riskin stood at the kitchen counter spooning ice cream into a dish. Melody sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her. She read a romance novel and didn't look up when Lyric entered.
Riskin cast a glance in her direction and went back to his spoon. She marched right over and rounded the counter, but he started talking first. “Listen, darling, I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I know you're still mad at me, but....”
Lyric cut him off with a wave of her hand. “I want to talk to you, Riskin. It's important.”
His eyes popped open. “You do? Okay. I thought you wanted to handle all the wedding plans on your own, but if you need help with anything…”
“Will you put a sock in it for two seconds and listen to me? This has nothing to do with wedding. I said this is important.”
He frowned. “Our wedding is important.”
“Did you know Mattox is raising a cow and calf by hand in the barn?”
His face hardened. “So, this is about Mattox? That's not important.”
Lyric shut her eyes tight. “Did you know about it or not?”
He licked his spoon. “Sure, I knew about it. He can dress in women's clothing and hang around in bars in his free time, for all I care. He's some kind of idiot. That's the only thing I can figure. That must be why his father passed him up.”
Lyric gritted her teeth and lowered her voice to a snarl. “Will you shut your mouth? I swear to God, if you say one more word about that, I'll slap you silly. I'm talking about something important. Do you and Azer have any plans to develop the herd? Do you have any breeding program to improve our weights at the slaughterhouse or introduce new genetics to make us competitive?”
“Why would we want to do that? Our genetics are good enough the way they are, and we make a whopping profit on our current weights. I see no reason to change that, and neither does Azer. Heaven knows we've got enough to deal with without changing things.”
“You could improve our weights and our profits if you changed something.”
“Changing something is always a risk. We could destroy the ranch that way. I'm for keeping things the way they are.”
“Have you ever thought maybe we're already going downhill by staying the same? Maybe things used to be better, and the way they are now is worse than it used to be. Maybe you're so busy keeping things the way they are you haven't noticed them going down. Did that ever occur to you?”
“Well, we wouldn't know that unless we had some way of measuring the present against the past. We don't have that, so we can only go on the present.”
Lyric threw up her hands. “You and Azer don't have a clue what's going on around this ranch.”
He hitched his hand on his hip. “And you do? You've been stuck in the kitchen for years. You should stay out of the ranching business and leave that to us.”
Lyric narrowed her eyes at him. She started to argue back when she thought better of it. What was the point of arguing with these guys? They didn’t have the first clue what Mattox was up to. They had no plans of their own. They would never do anything to improve the ranch. They kept their eyes on the ground in front of them. They never so much as glanced at the future.
Lyric nodded. “Okay, Riskin. Enjoy your ice cream. I'm going to see Papa now.”
He called after her, “Hey, what about....?”
She hurried away to her father's room and shut the door. She didn't want to think about the encounter with Riskin they planned at breakfast that morning. Did that peaceful moment in front of the kitchen sink happen just this morning? How could so many things change so fast?
A night light shone behind her father's bed. No other light disturbed her sleeping father’s tranquility. Lyric sat down in the arm chair by the bed and gazed at him in deep thought.
This man built the ranch into a Bruin powerhouse. He developed unique breeding lines to turn a bare patch of Bruins' Peak into one of the most profitable businesses in the county. He built a legacy that survived long after his usefulness as a person died away. Not all the drunken gambling and destruction could wipe out his accomplishment.
The work Rex put into this ranch remained recorded in that book. Now Mattox held the ranch's destiny in his hands. No one else came close to her father in vision and talent.
She sat still for hours. Her eyes never wavered from her father's face, but inside, she was in turmoil. Riskin wasn't the man she thought he was. He attacked her in the barn, and now she saw him through Mattox's eyes. He knew nothing about the ranch's prospects or its future. He didn't want to know. How could she marry him, after everything that happened?
Mattox wasn't the man she thought he was, either. Nothing was what she thought it was. Her world rocked on its foundation until nothing remained. She always planned to dedicate her life to the ranch by marrying Riskin. If she didn't marry him, who should she marry to give the ranch its best chance?
Why should she sell herself for the ranch anyway? Why shouldn't she have some crumb of happiness in this whole tragic situation? She'd lost her mother. She might as well have lost her father, for all the good he did her. She lost everything she ever knew about herself, and now she'd lost Riskin, too.
What on Earth did she really want? If she could put out her hand and receive her heart's dearest wish, what would she wish for? Would she go back to this morning and wipe out everything she learned today? Would she go back to thinking Mattox was a dolt and Riskin was her one true love?
She couldn't go back to this morning, and she wouldn't close her eyes to the truth, either. Riskin wasn't her one true love, and Mattox was no dolt. If Riskin wasn't her one true love, who was?
Could Melody be right about all that true love stuff? What if, by some twist of fate, one man out there really did belong to her for all time? How could she give Riskin the time of day, when her true mate waited for her out there?
Her father had had his true mate. Her parents married and lived together for decades. They raised three children and ran a business together. Rex went to the dogs when his mate died, and countless other Bruins went to pieces or killed themselves rather than live without their heart's true mate.
Lyric's heart soared at the prospect. She could meet someone, someone better and stronger and smarter than Riskin. She could meet someone who fired her soul with the joy and beauty of living. What would life be like if she faced every day with her true love at her side? She could embrace it with both hands and rejoice in the future. She wouldn't be a slave to fate anymore.