by Em Petrova
Affection burned through his chest, and he could only nod in agreement.
Zayden dug a crinkled list from his back pocket. “Have the feed store and tack shop put the items on my tab.”
His brows shot up. “Somebody actually extended a Moon credit?”
A wry tip of Zayden’s lips told Dane a lot had changed around here lately. “I’ve paid cash for everything for months, and I guess proved I was good for it, so old Travis at the feed store offered. And you know his grandson owns the tack shop now. Guess they both decided the Moons aren’t all bad.”
“You’re not—not anymore. Can’t say the same for myself.” He settled his hat back on his head and took off walking to the house. When he poked his head in the door, he called out to Mimi, “Takin’ Z’s truck to run errands.”
“I hope that old clunker doesn’t break down,” she called back.
Chuckling, he grabbed the keys and closed the door again.
As soon as he settled behind the wheel, a wave of depression hit along with the feeling of not belonging. He might have grown up here, but Stokes wasn’t his place anymore. Despite gaining enough trust from Zayden to run errands, fact was, they’d spent a decade apart, and working together these three long months hadn’t bridged any gaps.
He couldn’t leave just yet, though. He’d lost his truck, his wife and his life. This was all he had left, and he had nobody to blame but himself.
Focus on runnin’ errands. For now, he couldn’t handle more responsibility.
The town of Stokes hadn’t changed much in the years he’d been gone. The main street boasted a couple more coffee shops to cater to the tourists, but this looked like the same town where he’d raised hell in his youth.
He hit the tack shop first. He no sooner stepped through the door than someone gave a low whistle.
Glancing up, he focused on the guy standing a few feet from him. Hell, maybe he shouldn’t have left the ranch. The asshole Dane had gone to school with might be the reason he broke his dry spell, if he opened his fat mouth.
“Haskell.” He gave the guy a flat look.
“Moon. Thought you walked out of this town years ago.”
“I’m back.” He didn’t see a reason to engage in conversation with the jerk who’d worked harder to get under Dane’s skin than at any other endeavor in his life.
“Daddy died, and now all the Moons come running home to claim the land they walked away from.”
Familiar anger welled in his chest, but he was older, wiser…better than this now. He wouldn’t stoop to Haskell’s heckling. Back in the day, the guy only had to say a few words against their father and Dane would jump in with fists flying. Hell, he still carried a scar on his knuckle the size and shape of Haskell’s tooth.
He sidestepped the asshole.
“Lookie who’s too high and mighty to talk to an old friend.”
“We were never friends.” Dane’s drawl came out like whiskey flowed down his throat—easy.
“Hey, no fightin’ in here.” The tack shop owner, Travis’s grandson—whatever his name was—threw them both looks of warning.
Dane held up his hands. “Just pickin’ up a few items.” He moved to the display and began searching for the product on Zayden’s list.
“Heard you’re married, or is that rumor?”
Pivoting, Dane fixed Haskell in a look that made most men sweat off their balls. “Why do you give a shit?”
“I don’t. Was just wonderin’ if she left ya already.”
That hit close to home. This asshole always did like to find a crack and pry it open ‘til Dane’s guts were hanging out.
Grinding his teeth, Dane fought for calm.
He grabbed what he needed and strode across the store for the second item. He wouldn’t rise to Haskell’s bullshit talk. He’d outgrown that way of life.
“Heard your wife’s a stripper.”
Jesus Christ. The guy didn’t want to keep his teeth, did he?
With extreme effort, Dane ignored him and searched for what he needed. He found a D-ring bit, a lunge line and the fly spray they always needed with horses and headed to the checkout.
Once he reached the counter, Haskell was right behind him. “Your daddy screwed mine out of some money, you know,” he said.
Not surprising, but Dane still didn’t want to discuss it.
“My father and some other ranchers formed a coalition to help each other out. Your father never paid them back.”
“Now, Haskell, you know Zayden paid that money back to the coalition,” the store owner said.
Dane kept his head down, his sights set on getting the items rung up so he could walk away without kicking anybody’s ass. But this was all news to him. No wonder Zayden had been stressed about money and asked Dane for help.
What else had Chaz Moon done to fuck over all of them? Bad enough he’d left his love of whiskey, gambling and fighting in Dane’s veins.
The owner rang him up.
“Put it on the tab,” Dane said.
The guy looked up at him. “I can’t put this on Zayden’s tab, Dane.”
“Why the hell not?” What cool he’d managed to cling to quickly slipped from his grasp.
“I can only take purchases from Zayden. Sorry, Dane, but you know how you were back in the day…”
Yeah, he’d shoplifted a few times in his youth. Who the hell hadn’t? But this was ridiculous. He wasn’t trying to swindle anyone.
Turning over a new leaf would be harder than he thought.
“Zayden told me to put it on his tab.”
The clerk shook his head. “Sorry.”
Behind him, Haskell chuckled.
Do not fucking punch him. Do not start it.
But that laugh got under his skin, and the county jail was looking more and more homey to him.
At that moment, the bell over the door jingled, and Dane looked around at the beautiful woman entering the shop. A woman he didn’t want to see again, after the embarrassment of being kicked off her land.
She met his stare. Warm brown eyes and brown hair to match. Now that she wore no hat, he could see the warm locks waving around her shoulders in an enticing all-natural way so unlike any of the painted girls in Vegas he knew, including Liz.
He looked away.
“Hello, Dr. Peterson.” Travis’s grandson smiled at the woman.
Doctor? Dane had been passed out in a doctor’s barn?
The owner turned his attention back to him. “Dane? How would you like to pay?”
No point in getting out an empty wallet.
“Let me do the honors.” Haskell withdrew his money clip and peeled off a few bills, his grin snide.
Like hell.
“Forget it,” Dane ground out and turned for the door. He tipped his hat to the lady and strode to the truck.
“Son of a fucking bitch,” he muttered.
He hadn’t returned to Stokes under the delusion that people would throw him a parade but goddammit, he didn’t think he’d come up against the old fortress walls either. His chest burned.
One glance at the other two vehicles in the lot and he knew which belonged to his old nemesis. The jacked-up truck with the gun rack in the back couldn’t belong to the woman who owned the old Connally place.
Without thinking twice, he pulled his pocketknife and flipped out the blade. As he approached Haskell’s truck, he thought of that snide smile. The guy would never stop knocking the Moons until one of them taught him a lesson. That person would be Dane.
He bent over and drew back his arm. He was about to jab the knife point into his sidewall when pain exploded up his arm.
Whirling, he sent a glare at Haskell.
“You were about to slice my tire, you bastard!”
The knife had flown out of his grasp, but he balled a fist and rammed his knuckles into Haskell’s gut instead. “That’s for fucking up my little brother Asher when he was in eighth grade!” He dealt him another blow to his fat paunch. “And that’s for talk
in’ about my wife!”
Haskell wobbled and groaned, but he wasn’t as weak as Dane first thought. When he rounded a strike that glanced off Dane’s jaw, his head rocked and stars exploded in his vision.
Time to end this fight.
“No one trusts a no-good Moon,” Haskell bit off, still panting from Dane sinking a fist deep into his gut. “This town was better off without you. You and your rotten brothers should just go away again and—”
Dane’s roar cut off the rest of his words. He ran two steps, hitting him full force in the midsection and lifting him over his head at the same time. With a grunt of exertion, Dane tossed him into the back of the truck and stood back, chest heaving with anger.
The shop door opened and the woman walked out. Had she seen any of that? Dane tipped his hat to her, and she gave him a smile he read as uneasy. She climbed into her SUV and drove off.
Peeking into the truck bed, he saw Haskell stirring. The guy sat up, shaking his head to clear it. The first eyes he saw when he looked up were Dane’s.
“Don’t fuck with the Moons.” He emphasized each word, and then turned and walked to his truck.
When he twisted the key in the ignition, it only clicked.
Son of a bitch. Karma was comin’ after him with a vengeance, wasn’t it?
He jumped out and slammed the truck door so hard that he wouldn’t be surprised if it fell off, though he didn’t throw a backward glance to see. He took off walking for home.
Halfway down the road to the ranch, a blast of a horn had Dane turning. He didn’t recognize the truck slowing to a stop beside him. But the man behind the wheel he’d know anywhere as Mimi’s relative.
The guy rolled down the window. “You headed home?”
“Yeah. I suspect it’s somethin’ with the alternator.”
“Get in. I’ll drive ya.”
He didn’t hesitate to open the door and slide into the truck. He cast the Ute Indian a glance. “You Ouray?”
“Yeah.”
“I remember you from years back.”
“Remember you too.” Ouray started down the road.
“Thanks for the ride. It’s a long walk.”
“Figured my great-aunt would be mad if you missed dinner.” He smiled at Dane.
At least he wasn’t trying to pick a fight, looking down his nose or judging him—all three of which he’d gotten back in the tack shop.
Maybe the woman hadn’t been judging him, though. He couldn’t tell by her expression. She only appeared to be curious about him, but he didn’t stick around to find out her take on his personality. He didn’t want to fucking know.
“Heard you were back from Vegas,” Ouray said as way of making conversation.
He was related to Mimi, and that practically made him family, so Dane didn’t mind talking to him about it. “Yeah, I’m through with the city life.”
“I can’t imagine living anyplace but here. Just look at those mountains.” He pointed, and Dane swung his gaze to the beautiful peaks. He’d missed them, if he was honest. The mountains were such a way of life growing up. Hunting, trapping and just plain hiding out from the old man to avoid his wrath.
Maybe once he got some cash together, he’d build a cabin as far up as he could and become a hermit.
“You know that’s where your brother met his fiancée, right?”
Dane jerked his head to look at Ouray. His strong features pronounced him full-blooded Ute. At least he didn’t have to look in the mirror and see traces of the father he hated like Dane did.
“I didn’t know about Zayden and Esme,” Dane said.
“She went up the mountain with her boyfriend and the guy left her up there in a snowstorm.”
He thought of Esme, and even though he shared time with her and Zayden in the three months he’d been home, nobody discussed this part of her life. Anger licked at his insides at the way she’d been treated. “Why the fuck would someone do that?”
“Asshole, is what he is. Anyway, some people in town formed a search party to go looking for her, but Zayden went up alone.”
Dane pushed out a grunt. “Typical.”
“Yeah. He found her and the rest is history.”
Dane shook his head. Leave it to Zayden to get himself a good woman by doing something heroic. Neither Dane or Asher could ever live up to Zayden, and he’d quit trying long ago.
They approached the driveway leading to the Moon Ranch.
Dane grunted. “Leave me off here. I’ll walk the rest of the way. Unless you want to see Mimi, of course.”
“I’ve got things to do at home, but tell her I’ll be around to pick her up for her doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll do that.” He felt a pang at not being able to take Mimi himself, but didn’t voice it. Thank God Ouray was there for the woman all these years when they’d gone and left her to live with their drunk dick of a father.
Ouray stopped the truck, and Dane climbed out. “Thanks again.”
“Sure thing. Let me know if I can help with the dead battery.”
“Appreciate it.” He shut the door and took off walking toward the ranch. A stand of pines shielded the creek he fished in as a boy. The land called to him to come and explore, to find a bit of peace. But he needed to get home and tell Zayden about the dead truck.
As soon as he rounded the bend, he spotted an unfamiliar vehicle with a trailer attached. Funny, being parked in the yard.
Squinting, he shielded his eyes from the sun. “What the hell?”
It looked as though someone was loading the tractor onto a flatbed to haul away. Zayden hadn’t told him about the equipment needing work.
Déjà vu struck, shooting him back to the moment when he’d handed over his truck keys to those thugs back in Vegas.
He took off running.
When he got within yelling distance of the men, he bellowed, “Stop! What are you doing?”
One turned and watched him run toward them. The other hooked a chain around the tires to keep the tractor from rolling.
The thump of Dane’s boots on the turf matched the drum of his heart. What the actual fuck was going on? He aimed to find out, and all the restraint he’d shown in town now fled. If these assholes wanted a fight, he’d give one to them.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, drawing up in front of one man. Tall, wearing a ball cap. He wasn’t from these parts—Dane would bet on that, and he was known to be a gambling man.
“This here tractor is owed to us.”
Fuck, this was his own doing. Giving his truck obviously hadn’t been enough.
“Look, don’t take the tractor. I’ll work something out with your boss.”
The second guy rounded the trailer now holding the tractor and shook his head. “You don’t pay your debts, Moon, we take what we’re owed. If we want to take that field over there”—he pointed toward the boundary between the Moon Ranch and the Connally place—“we’ll take it.”
Son of a bitch. Now what? He couldn’t let them take the tractor. Zayden would kick his ass when he got home and found the tractor missing.
Dane racked his brain. “Take me instead. I’ll do whatever work you need done in trade.”
One of the guys barked out a laugh. “We’re not in the slave business. The tractor doesn’t begin to cover the tab, but don’t worry—we’ll find a way to get the rest.” He got behind the wheel and the other guy settled next to him in the passenger’s seat. Dane balled his fists and ground his teeth as they drove off.
Fuck. Just when he thought he couldn’t hate himself more. Tearing off his hat, he scrubbed a hand over his face.
Dammit. And here he’d thought he’d lost everything. But now he was starting to realize he had a long way to go to hit rock bottom.
Chapter Four
Brennah set the pitchfork in the corner of the barn and gripped the handles of the wheelbarrow filled with shavings to use in the freshly cleaned stalls. The mundane work helped calm her overloaded mind.
/>
In her teens, she’d found that caring for animals helped her get through the worst parts of her life. When her momma would go days in a state Brennah could only call falling-down drunk, she could feed her cats, groom the dog, clean the birdcage. Owning animals and burying herself in textbooks gave her something to live for each and every day while offering an escape.
Today, her brain refused to shut down and rest.
She spent Saturday mornings at the clinic with back-to-back appointments. Then she hit her own chores. The stalls got cleaned during the week, but on Saturdays she liked to really give the barn a good, thorough scrubbing.
The cluck of the chickens and the scrape of her shovel as she spread shavings on the floor were the only sounds, and she relaxed into her work. For the fifth time, her thoughts wandered to Dane Moon. Seeing him again at the tack shop had revived her old girlish imagination, and he looked bigger and hotter than ever.
That jerk James Haskell had picked a fight, and then insulted Dane by offering to pay for his order. Damn, she hated a bully, and the look on Dane’s face had told her so much. Had anyone ever treated the man right? Knowing the rumors about his family, she doubted it.
He isn’t my responsibility. He isn’t a hurt animal to care for.
Back in the tack shop, Dane appeared sober—cleaned up too. Actually, he smelled good, like he’d chopped down a pine tree and rolled around in leather.
She shook the notion away, but her mind circled right back to the cowboy like a dog gnawing a bone. When she walked out of the shop, Dane stood by Haskell’s truck alone but with his fists curled and his huge body tensed as though he’d just faced down a bear with nothing but his knuckles.
She still couldn’t make out what happened. All she knew was the way he looked gave a woman shivers in all the right—or wrong, in his case—spots.
Brennah wasn’t a woman who thought much about men or relationships. She was far too busy for either. But seeing Dane Moon again made her remember how hard she’d crushed on him in high school and if the rumors about dating a bad boy were true.
Shovel, dump, shovel, dump. She forced her mind to move away from Dane, but that only carried her to the second worry—how to keep up this constant pace at her veterinary practice without burning out.
