Beau’s aunt led her through a doorway into a high-ceilinged room whose furnishings tended toward dark woods and rich, soft fabrics. Noticing the room’s formality, Emma felt as if she’d entered a museum.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t leave my dog outside, too? Her hair—and he looks disapproving.” Emma nodded toward the bearded man standing stiffly in a full-length portrait above the fireplace, his hawklike gaze regarding her severely.
Mrs. Parker’s blue eyes danced. “Captain Kingston? I think not,” she said before sharing several entertaining tales about her ancestor, a hard-drinking Civil War blockade runner who’d stolen wives, been arrested for brawling, and famously ridden a horse into a hotel lobby to challenge a rival to a duel before founding the ranch that eventually catapulted him to respectability. Or as much respectability as land and cattle could buy.
Emma laughed, liking the woman more with every moment. So it was that by the time Beau came back with the boys, his aunt had persuaded her to stay for what she insisted would be a light, informal lunch.
“You’re sure you want to?” Beau pulled Emma aside as the boys were washing up and his aunt was making some arrangement with the cooks. “You’re certainly welcome to. I mean, you have to eat, but I’m sure, just getting out of the hospital... My family can be a little—”
Leland popped his head into the doorway and grinned in their direction before abruptly racing away after Beau pointed him back out with a stern look that had Emma fighting laughter.
“—overly enthusiastic,” Beau finished, reddening a little when his gaze connected with hers. “And, um, under-subtle, I’m afraid, about their excitement over my bringing an actual human female to the house for the first time since Melissa...”
“Melissa was your...?” Emma asked, lowering her voice to make certain she wasn’t overhead.
“My wife, yes,” Beau said, the pain in his eyes like a shaft of moonlight falling on dark water. “I don’t—Not that you’ve asked, of course, but I’m not looking to replace her.”
“And I’m not looking to—” Emma blurted, holding up her hands as a nervous chuckle broke through. “I already have one husband I can’t get rid of. Not that you’re a Jeremy. I don’t want you to think I’ve been comparing—”
She groaned and shook her head, heat suffusing her face. “Maybe I’d better make my apologies and leave now, before I have to go back to the hospital and have my foot surgically extracted from my mouth.”
Beau laughed. “Maybe you should stick around. I haven’t had this much fun with a woman since you tried to shoot me.”
“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” She stroked the top of River’s head.
He grinned in response. “Not until you learn to aim better, anyway.”
“You’d better watch it, then, in that case. My cop stepfather told me when he took me to the range that I’m pretty much a deadeye,” she said. “I only missed the other day because I had such a bad angle.”
“Must’ve been that that rattler you were snuggling threw you off.”
She grunted as the memory stabbed at her injured leg. “Ugh. Don’t remind me. Makes my skin crawl every time I think about those slithering scales.”
Mrs. Parker interrupted, calling the two of them to wash up and come to the breakfast room, which she explained the family preferred to the formal dining room. Soon, they were seated around a long plank farmhouse table, where a pair of plump women wearing thick silver braids and colorfully embroidered dresses chatted amiably as they carried in trays with bowls of rice and beans along with the makings of beef and chicken tacos.
“If you like yours blistering, try the green sauce,” Beau advised, passing two small bowls of fresh salsa, along with avocado. “Semi-spicy, go for red—”
“Or Yankee-style, go bare naked,” little Leland blurted, earning a scolding about “company manners” from his great-aunt and a stern look from his dad.
But Beau’s wink in Emma’s direction had her tamping down another smile, and the meal, with its delicious flavors, flow of conversation on topics ranging from hopes for a drought-busting rainstorm in the near future to the fat bullfrogs the boys had recently discovered at a nearby water hole, and childish laughter warmed her heart.
It also reminded her painfully of a time she’d hoped to have this. Not the grand house, the sprawling ranch or servants, but she ached for the loss of her own, more modest version of this table, with her mother fawning over her first grandchild, her husband behaving himself—his hostility kept in check by the presence of Emma’s protective stepfather—or who knew? Maybe fatherhood would’ve restored the loving man she’d married.
After the lunch plates were cleared away, Beau excused himself to take a call that came in on his cell, leaving her to chat with his aunt and answer rapid-fire questions from his sons, who’d been awestruck when she’d told them that the frogs had gotten their names because their loud croaks sounded like cattle mooing and that the lady frogs (“Are the girls called cow frogs?” Leland had asked earnestly) were actually the biggest.
After about ten minutes, Mrs. Parker frowned and said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll go check on my nephew...and remind him not to neglect his guest. I do apologize.”
“Please don’t,” Emma said. “It’s always a pleasure talking with two bright, young nature lovers.”
As the boys’ questions shifted from the ranch’s slimier inhabitants to what it had felt like getting bitten by a rattlesnake, she resisted the temptation to sneak a glance at her watch. As pleasant as she’d found this visit, and as much as River seemed to be enjoying the attention she was getting from her new admirers, who’d joined her down on the rug, Emma was growing restless. With every minute that ticked by, she could feel her leg swelling more, a reminder of her need to elevate it and maybe even grab a nap at the motel before she began her search for another place to stay. And she really needed to go through those photos from the turbine as soon as possible.
“Sorry for the delay,” Beau said, reappearing in the doorway. “I’ve found that lawyers are harder to get off the phone than telemarketers.”
In spite of his jest, the tension in his face gave Emma the distinct impression that his call hadn’t been good news.
But Leland abruptly pointed at the folding wheelchair his father was pushing and announced, “Hey, that’s Grandpa’s.”
“Yes, it was.” Beau’s tone was patient as he explained to his sons. “But since he’s not using it any longer, I thought Dr. Emma here might be more comfortable getting the grand tour of the place on wheels than she would be struggling on those crutches.”
“As much as I’d love the chance to look around, I’ll have to take a rain check.” Emma used the table to push herself up onto one foot. “I really need to be getting back to town now.”
“I was telling my aunt the same thing,” he said, “but she had another idea. A better idea, now that I think on it. Why don’t you stay here instead? We have plenty of extra space and as much privacy as you could want, in one of the guest suites, and the place is far more secure than anything you’ll find in town.”
His offer sounded sincere enough, but Emma noted the guarded look in his eyes. Or maybe he was just distracted, troubled by whatever his attorney had said.
“I really appreciate the offer,” she said, “but I wouldn’t want to put you out.”
His aunt came up behind him. “I’m only ‘put out,’” she told Emma as her painted nails sketched air quotes around the two words, “that the same nephew I was responsible for teaching manners didn’t invite you to stay from the first. After all, you were hurt right here on Kingston property.”
“Stay, please! And then maybe you’ll even have time to show us where that nasty old snake bit you,” piped up Leland, who’d been disappointed earlier when Emma had turned down his request to peek beneath the bandage on her leg.
“I hope they haven’t been driving you too crazy. Or that you didn’t feel too pressured, with everyone after you to stay,” Beau said after his aunt herded the boys upstairs to get ready for a birthday party she was taking them to shortly. Beau wheeled Emma through the mansion’s ground floor, a series of rooms whose heavy ranch-style furnishings were offset with glass mosaic accent windows as brilliant as the plumage of tropical birds, while River trotted just ahead, parading through the grandeur as if she’d lived here all her life.
“This is amazing,” Emma said, pointing out a large fountain built up against a foyer wall before looking up to see him watching her expectantly, waiting for her answer. “The colors, the patterns, the history running though it. And I’ve enjoyed getting to know Cort and Leland and your aunt, too. You have a lovely family, even if they did con you into extending this invitation.”
He moved out from behind her. “I’m the one who invited you.”
“But you didn’t mean to, did you? You’re obviously very busy with—is everything all right, Beau? The look on your face after you took that call...”
He grimaced before shaking it off. “It’s just ranch business, that’s all. Nothing for you to worry over.”
“But you’re worried, aren’t you? Really worried about something?” When he didn’t deny it, she continued, “And I know you wouldn’t have asked me here without your aunt insisting, and the boys chiming in with their—”
He silenced her with a smile, his deep brown eyes lingering on hers as he reached down and ruffled the silkier fur behind River’s ears. “Maybe that’s so, Emma. But there’s no maybe about the fact that I’m very glad they did.”
Emma felt that tingling rush again, her own blood, warm and alive as it hurried through her body. For a moment, the years fell away, and she was sixteen again, not thirty-three, feeling herself unfurling like a seedling in the sunlight of another’s interest.
“I’m glad, too,” she said quietly, sounding almost as shy as that girl had been. Just don’t be as stupid, she warned herself, her hand drifting to cup the emptiness of her lower abdomen.
* * *
After getting Emma to write out the information about her ex to give to the PI and helping her settle into one of the guest suites in the mansion’s one-story south wing, Beau left her to elevate her leg and rest for a while. Though he was a little concerned about his aunt and especially his boys reading more into this visit than was good for any of them, it was worth it knowing he wouldn’t have to worry about Emma, alone and vulnerable in some rented room. She’d be comfortable here, too, since he’d discreetly asked Sarita and Consuelo, the sisters who’d worked for decades organizing his father’s kitchen and welcoming the ranch’s guests, to see that Emma’s bed was turned down and the mini-fridge stocked with beverages and light snacks. Beside each in-house phone extension, Emma also had a list of numbers to call if she needed anything else—a list to which he’d added his own cell number.
But he didn’t have the time to dwell on why it felt so damned good taking care of her and watching her interacting with his aunt and the boys—not after finding a half dozen messages stacked up on his cell phone, which he’d left to charge following his conversation with his attorney, from the normally unflappable Fernando. Though he’d given no specifics, the ranch manager had asked—increasingly insistently—for Beau to please come by ranch headquarters as soon as he could make it.
Had Fernando learned something about one of the trucks missing from the equipment shed the night of Emma’s attack—possibly something that would implicate one of his own men? Or had there been some kind of emergency, perhaps an accident that had left a valuable ranch animal or, heaven forbid, one of the vaqueros seriously injured?
As Beau jumped into his truck to make the short drive, he breathed a silent prayer for his workers’ safety. And for the ranch itself, which was teetering on a series of loans and strung-out promises until the first of the new Green Horizons payments happened. If they happen, he thought, his gut clenching with worry over what the government would make of a possible murder investigation related to the endangered bird study it had ordered. Would they really shut the wind farm down, or freeze the permits the company needed to begin its new construction?
And would he still be around to worry over any of it—and all those depending on him for their livings?
As he rounded a bend, a cluster of corrals, barns and other outbuildings—the beating heart of the ranch operation—came into view. Alongside his truck, a small herd of quarter horses galloped along the fence line, their stocky black, dun and rust-colored backs gleaming in the sunlight, and a lump swelled in Beau’s throat at the thought of the call from his attorney, of the possibility of laying down his worries—of handing off the lead-heavy baton to Wallace Freaking Fleming, a man he didn’t believe for a moment his father had thought fit to run the operation.
Beau swallowed back a surge of dread, wondering how the ranch that had once seemed more like a sentence than a legacy, a place that he’d once run from to escape his history, his heritage and the questions that hung over both, could have possibly come to mean so much to him. After parking in his usual reserved spot beside the half dozen vehicles of various payroll, invoice and other employees who worked in the long white stucco building housing the ranch’s central offices, he was surprised to encounter Fernando in the shade of the building’s cedar-posted porch. Seated in one of the massive carved rockers, the ranch manager, always so capable and fit that he seemed nearly ageless, was bent forward, his graying head supported by his hands as if it were too heavy to hold up. The cup holder built into the chair’s armrest held, not the water or iced tea he normally stuck to, but one of the pint-plus beers many of the hands favored, with several of the large cans crumpled up beside him.
He’s plastered. The realization was a shock, since Beau had never seen him touch a drop of alcohol before. Not in celebration or commiseration. Not so much as a single cold beer with Beau’s father or the vaqueros at the end of a long day.
“Is it—is it your wife?” Beau asked, lowering himself into the other chair. He didn’t want to sit, not really, but whatever this was, if felt important enough to deal with face-to-face, on the same level.
“No, jefe. Esmeralda is—with these new treatments, she does better. The doctors give us hope, and my sons and their children—they give her much to live for. At least those who are loyal.”
“Then it’s Antonio? Has something happened between you?” Beau was uncomfortably aware of the growing friction between Fernando and his youngest, whom he’d been carefully grooming to one day replace him, over Tony’s recent trips to distant cities to interview for highly competitive paid positions in large metropolitan fire departments.
Beau, who had secretly lent the kid a little money to assist with this endeavor, hoped like hell Fernando hadn’t caught wind of an act he’d surely see as a betrayal.
Fernando sloppily waved off the question. “Antonio—bah! He is always at that station. Or off running after some girlfriend or another.”
“Then why this?” Beau gestured toward Fernando’s drink. “And why all the messages blowing up my phone? Did you find proof that one of our men tried to run down Emma Copley?”
Fernando hesitated, scowling, before shaking his head emphatically. “I believe no such thing. Our vaqueros are still honest, hardworking men, not thieves and killers, the sun still burns in the sky, watching over this ranch and this life, the life I tell all my sons is a good and honest life, a future they can hold their heads high and be proud to pass on to their families—if they are allowed.”
“What have you heard?” Beau demanded, thinking of his lawyer’s phone call. “Who have you been talking to?”
This morning, Fernando had planned to run several errands in town. He’d have known people at every stop, any one of whom could have heard some rumor. Any one of whom could have decided it was only fai
r to warn their respected friend that the winds were shifting.
Fernando straightened, scowling and shaking his head. “This does not matter so much, I think, especially since I heard it here and there and—híjole, Señor Kingston. All the town buzzes like a hive of killer bees.”
“Buzzes about what?” Beau damned well needed to know how much damage control he was looking at—if this damage could be controlled at all.
“This news that soon, there will soon be another jefe running this ranch. And that your cousin Sheriff Fleming is no friend of the vaquero.”
Beau swore under his breath, furious that word had already gotten out—probably leaked by Wallace himself even before Beau had gotten the call at lunch letting him know that the second, more recent will had been authenticated. Whether or not that meant the probate judge would rule to reverse the prior will was still in question. But the fact that his own lawyer had suggested discussing a financial settlement to make the issue go away worried the hell out of Beau, who’d angrily refused the suggestion.
“I can’t believe the old man could’ve done this.” Gritting his teeth, Beau shook his head in exasperation. “He told me himself that Wallace oughta stick to law and order.”
Damn fool may think he’s got all the answers, Beau could hear his father saying one afternoon after his cousin had apparently worn out his welcome, but he hardly knows a bull calf from a heifer or has the business sense of either. Turning toward Beau, the senior Kingston had looked him in the eye and said, When I’m gone, in the name of family loyalty, I hope that you’ll continue supporting that boy’s reelection campaigns, but promise me, you’ll never invest a dime of the ranch’s money into any of his harebrained schemes.
“He believes that we are all the same,” Fernando went on, gesturing broadly so that beer sloshed out over his work-roughened hand. “Thinks that the men who have worked this land for generations and know how to bring the best feed and the finest horses and cattle from it are worth no more than any hungry, sunburned farm laborer or a gang member from some city.”
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