Protected by a Hero

by Susan Stoker, Cristin Harber, Cora Seton, Lynn Raye Harris, Kaylea Cross, Katie Reus, Tessa Layne

  “Because when you’re done,” the General continued, leaning forward again to make his point, “if you haven’t figured out the math yet, you’ll be my sons-in-law. Which means the five of you stand to inherit one of the biggest, most productive ranches in Chance Creek County, Montana. This mission beginning to look a little more palatable?”

  Holy shit. Brian’s hands flexed, then clenched. He hadn’t taken in that part fully. A fifth of an established ranch with no buy-in costs and no risk? Brian gave Cass’s photograph another look. “Yeah,” he heard himself say. “It’s a little more palatable.” He ducked when the General chucked a manual at him. “I mean, it would be an honor to marry your daughter, sir!”

  “That’s better. Get packed. You leave today.” The General strode toward the door.

  Brian stood up with the others as he passed them.

  “You’re crazy,” Logan said when the General was gone. “Lake, if you do this you’re cracked in the head. No matter the alternative.”

  Maybe. Or maybe this mission was the answer to all his problems.

  Cass Reed placed the last of the breakfast dishes into the draining rack and let the soapy water out of the sink, eyeing the dripping faucet with resignation. It was worse today, which meant she’d have to pull out her tools, take it apart and find the problem. As if she didn’t have enough to do already. Sometimes she felt Two Willows was falling apart faster than she could fix it.

  The window on the second-story landing still had a piece of cardboard taped into its frame to replace a missing pane. The tiling in the shower on the first floor had given way, which meant another leak was creating havoc behind the wall. The roof was also leaking in three places that Cass knew of, which reminded her she needed to check the buckets she’d positioned around the attic—there’d been a light rain the previous night. One of these days she’d have to crawl out on the roof and repair the shingles.

  Too bad she was afraid of heights.

  Things didn’t used to be like this—not when her mother was alive. Or maybe they had been and she’d just been too young and oblivious to realize how hard her mother had worked to keep up with the large old house they lived in. Cass wasn’t sure. One thing she did know was that at twenty-six, she couldn’t stack up to Amelia when it came to handling problems with panache—or parenting her sisters. She’d thanked God when she’d turned twenty-one and persuaded her father to stop sending useless guardians to watch over them. None of the women who’d come to help could fill Amelia’s shoes. They were there for an easy paycheck, something the General never seemed to understand.

  Cass was the one who’d done the real work around the house since her mother passed away when she was fifteen. As her mother lay dying, she and her sisters had taken turns visiting the hospital and keeping an eye on the ranch. It hadn’t occurred to Cass until then that her mother had foreseen what had happened to her, as she’d foreseen so much else over the course of her life; although the stroke had come out of nowhere, her mother had been prepared for it. She seemed peaceful in those last few days, even as all her daughters came apart. Cass had tried so hard to match her serenity, but for the most part she’d failed.

  “It’s up to you now to keep your sisters and father safe,” Amelia had struggled to say in her slurred speech. “You’ll have to be the anchor that keeps this family together, and it won’t be easy, but you’re strong, Cass. Stronger than you know. The key is the ranch. The land. That’s where the power is. No matter what happens, you have to stay on the ranch.”

  “Like you did?”

  Amelia had understood immediately what she was asking. Did she need to physically stay on the ranch at all times, like her mother had ever since her father joined the Army? All the girls had been aware of why Amelia stayed within the confines of her property unless the General was by her side. She’d made some sort of pact with God—or maybe with the land itself. If she stayed, the General would survive the dangers he’d faced throughout his career. If she left, all bets were off.

  Ridiculous, like everything else that happened at Two Willows. And yet—

  Despite a long, dangerous career in the Army, the General was still alive.

  Even if her mother wasn’t.

  “There are five of you to share the burden,” Amelia had told her. “But Cass… let it mostly be you. I know Alice feels the things to come far more than you do, but she doesn’t have the determination you have. You’re the oldest. The strongest. And you love the ranch.”

  “I do,” Cass had assured her. She’d taken on that burden willingly, and her sisters had shared it without question. In the past eleven years there hadn’t been a single moment when at least one Reed woman wasn’t on the property. Until the General came home, there never would.

  Would the General ever come home again?

  Cass pushed the question aside. It didn’t matter. She was here to stay, anyway. And she needed to keep her sisters in line. She’d struggled mightily to do so when they were teenagers. Now it was a lost cause.

  It was her fault, Cass admitted to herself. She’d been distracted ever since their latest overseer had arrived last November. Bob Finchley had tricked her well and thoroughly, and they were all paying for her mistake now. He’d pursued her with a vengeance, and Cass, who’d had little time or opportunity for dating and men before now, had been swept off her feet by his flattery and attention.

  Every time she thought about it she wanted to die of humiliation.

  She’d believed everything he’d said as he accompanied her day and night. She’d told him all of her hopes and dreams. Confessed everything about her estrangement from her father—and the way he’d squashed her dream of joining the Army when she’d dared to express it, even though she’d known she wouldn’t follow through. How could she when she was needed here? But she’d wanted him to say, “Yes, Cass, you’d make a fine soldier.”

  Of course he hadn’t.

  That wasn’t the worst, though. In the end, she’d slept with Bob—the man who’d been stealing from her family the whole time. It was only luck that led her to discover the fact he was cooking the books. He’d been hinting he meant to propose to her soon—and she would have said yes if she hadn’t pieced it all together. She still didn’t know if he had meant to marry her and try to eventually take the ranch for himself, or string her along while he siphoned all the cash he could from it before leaving her in the dust.

  She wasn’t sure which was worse, either. All she knew was she was glad he was gone. Even if he’d left their finances in ruins.

  If only Bob had gone farther away, though, she thought as she examined the leaky faucet again. He was still in town, and she thought he might be tracking her movements, because she bumped into him far too often. Several people had congratulated her on her engagement to him in the past week. She wouldn’t put it past Bob to have started the rumors himself. She was doing everything she could to dispel them, but it worried her; what was he up to? Between his continued presence in town, her sisters’ waywardness and the way the house was falling down around her head, Cass was beginning to think she was losing her mind.

  Which wasn’t an option. Not today, anyway, she reminded herself firmly, going to the large walk-in pantry where she kept her tool kit on the bottom shelf next to the cleaning supplies and “how to” books.

  “I’m off to Westfield,” Alice called as she crossed the kitchen on her way to the back door. “Be back for dinner.”

  Cass exited the pantry in a hurry to confront her. The third oldest at twenty-four, Alice was the beauty of the family. Artistic, almost other-worldly in her appearance, she made men young and old stop and stare. She had a way of sensing things before they happened, too, but for someone with the second sight, Cass thought she was awfully blind to her current boyfriend’s faults.

  “You’ll be at Westfield all that time?” She took in the garment bags draped over Alice’s arm. She must be going to the other ranch for a dress fitting. The women at Westfield kept Alice busy sewing
the Regency costumes they wore. Sometimes Cass wished she could go stay at their Jane Austen bed and breakfast and never come home again.

  But that wasn’t possible.

  “I’m going out with Howie afterward.” Alice quickly turned to go.

  Just as Cass had predicted. “Did he ever explain what he was doing with your car?” Cass knew she was overly suspicious after her own disastrous relationship with Bob, but recently Howie’s behavior was raising all kinds of red flags.

  “I already told you—he had to pick something up in Silver Falls. It was important. I don’t see why you’re making such a big fuss.”

  “Why didn’t he take his truck?”

  “It was in the shop.”

  Cass didn’t like it. Something wasn’t sitting right with her about Howie these days, but she knew from experience Alice wouldn’t tolerate an inquisition. Howie was the first man her sister had seriously dated, and she’d fallen for him hard in the past month.

  Cass couldn’t blame her. Howie was handsome and a lot of fun. If he was secretive now and then, or borrowed her sister’s Chevy without asking, who was she to say that was a problem? Still, she worried. None of them knew what they were doing around men. The General treated them like something he’d found on the bottom of his shoe. He alternated between ignoring them and imposing his will from USSOCOM headquarters as if they were a rogue nation he’d been tasked with governing since they couldn’t be trusted to govern themselves.

  “See you later.” Alice slipped away and shut the back door behind her. Cass stood in kitchen, her arms crossed over her chest and raised her eyes to the high, whitewashed ceiling. “Mama, if you’ve got any ideas, now’s the time to let me in on them. Because I don’t know how to get her away from that man.”

  She got no answer, aside from the ticking of the grandfather clock in the central hall. She was alone in this mess, just as she’d been since she was fifteen.

  Time to fix that faucet.

  But before she could return to the task, Sadie, who was twenty-two, clattered down the stairs and called out, “I’m going shopping. I’ll be back by dinner time. Need anything?”

  Cass’s shoulders slumped. Shopping—again? Sadie did that a lot these days, and it terrified Cass—they didn’t have money to spare. She knew she should tell her sisters that, but so far she hadn’t been able to make herself confess. She was the one in charge of the budget, and she was the one who’d been sleeping with the man who’d stolen more than thirty grand from their coffers, from what Cass could piece together. She needed to tell her sisters. And the General, for that matter. But what if the General took the ranch away from them? He’d threatened to do that several times before, and she couldn’t let that happen. This was their home. Two Willows was special. They needed it. The General needed it, too, though he didn’t seem to realize that.

  “What are you shopping for?” she asked Sadie.

  “Shoes. My garden clogs are gone. I’ve looked for them everywhere.”

  “Garden clogs don’t up and disappear on their own. Look again.”

  “I have. Seriously, Cass—I’ve looked everywhere I can think of. So has Lena. They’re gone.”

  Cass shook her head, but given how much food her sister provided from the plot she tended, plus the extra income she made from the farm stand produce and the herbal cures she sold to passersby, she guessed her sister needed a new pair. But Cass’s gut told her Sadie wasn’t being entirely truthful. She had no doubt her sister would come home with new garden clogs, but how many more bags would she carry into the house?

  She hadn’t been able to force herself to confront her sister about her overspending yet, as much as she needed to. Why would Sadie shop like that except to fill the hole inside her where her parents’ love should have been? Her mother was gone and the General might as well be dead, too, for all the attention he gave them. Her once calm, confident, sweet little sister had turned herself inside out chasing Mark Pendergrass, a handsome but hard-edged young man Cass would have banned from Two Willows if she could.

  Cass kept grasping for the right thing to say to show Sadie she was worth so much more than that, but her words always fell on deaf ears. “Easy for you to say,” Sadie had retorted the last time Cass told her she didn’t need new clothes to look beautiful. “You and Alice are the pretty ones. The rest of us have to fight to get a man.”

  “No,” Cass had wanted to tell her. “That’s all wrong.” But Sadie was young; her friends shopped and dressed up to attract men. Who was she to put Sadie down? When the credit card bills came due, Cass paid them from their dwindling funds. And racked her brains for other ways to save money.

  “Anything else?” Cass found herself saying, despite her resolutions to keep quiet.

  “I might buy some other things,” Sadie admitted.

  “What other things?”

  “Clothes, all right? A dress. For tonight.”

  “Because…?” Cass wasn’t sure why she was asking. There was only one thing Sadie would want to do on a Friday night: go out on the town with Mark.

  “I work hard. I deserve some new things once in a while.” Sadie tossed her auburn curls over her shoulder. Cass read something else in her expression, though. Not just defiance. Guilt.

  That was even worse.

  Of course Sadie deserved nice things. They all did. But Cass knew this wasn’t about fulfilling a feminine desire for something pretty. This was about Sadie trying to keep the attention of a man who picked up and discarded women without thinking twice. Sadie had floated on air the night Mark first asked her to dance at the local watering hole. She’d been desperate ever since to keep him from moving on to his next conquest. She’d taken to wearing sky-high heels, tight clothes and so much war paint Cass had to strangle the urge to march her into a bathroom and scrub it off every time she saw her. Sadie deserved so much better than Mark.

  But the heart wanted what the heart wanted.

  Cass knew that better than anyone else.

  Sadie waited, almost as if she hoped Cass would save her from herself. Amelia would have known exactly what to say to convince Sadie to turn her back on Mark, but Cass couldn’t think of anything she hadn’t tried before. “I hope you find something lovely,” was all she could come up with. Maybe Sadie would catch the attention of some other man when she wore her new dress. A better man.

  A man who would stay.

  Sadie nodded, her expression tight, and slipped out of the house before Cass could say more. The screen door banged shut behind her. Seconds later a motor started and Sadie drove away in her battered old Ford.

  Cass waited for the sound to fade away. Fix the sink, she reminded herself. That was one job she knew she could do. She had a manual. She had tools. When she was done, the faucet would work again.

  Unlike anything else.

  She had just started on the task when Jo, the baby of the family at twenty-one, came down the stairs, followed by Tabitha, her white cat. While Sadie had been all dolled up for her trip into Billings, Jo was still in her pajamas. Cass knew she’d been up early to do her chores in the barns, but then she’d come home and gone back to bed. Amelia would never have tolerated that kind of behavior.

  “Hey, are there any eggs left?” Jo asked breezily as Tabitha headed for her food dish in the corner. “I want some French toast.”

  “I just finished cleaning up. What time did you get in last night?”

  “Don’t try to parent me. I’m too old for that.” Jo headed for the refrigerator. She brought out the eggs and butter, then found a loaf of bread. Cass bit back the urge to scream. She’d just gotten the place clean again.

  “You’d better wash up after yourself.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jo snapped an ironic salute and went back to perusing the contents of the fridge. Cass sighed. Jo used to be someone she could count on. Always a bit of a smart-ass, she used to ally herself with Cass against the others when they were being truly out of control. Now she was every bit as headstrong as they were. I
t made Cass wish for the days when a batch of kittens could keep Jo occupied for weeks.

  Cass consulted the plumbing manual. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how to change a washer; she’d done it plenty of times. Still, she wanted to make sure she didn’t miss a step.

  “You’ll have to do without the sink,” she told Jo, bending down absentmindedly to pet Tabitha, who was now weaving between her feet.

  “Guess I won’t be able to wash up after all.”

  Cass bit back an angry retort. “Where were you last night?” God, she sounded like someone’s mother. But with her sisters all acting like children, someone had to take charge.

  “With Sean. He was showing me his web cam.”

  “Web cam.” Cass consulted the manual again. She never could force herself to like Sean. There was something weaseley about him she couldn’t define. She shooed Tabitha gently away and got to work. “What’s he need one of those for?”

  “To talk to people. He showed me how to work it. Maybe I’ll get one, too.”

  “You can use the camera in your laptop if you want to video chat,” Cass pointed out. They didn’t all need to go shopping.

  “A web cam has better quality. Anyway, I’m going back to his house in a few minutes. Be back for dinner.”

  “Don’t you have more chores?”

  “Already did them.”

  Jo turned back to her French toast, working quickly and humming to herself. That had to mean she was happy, right? Cass slid a look her way, took in her sister’s pajamas, the locks of hair escaping from the messy updo she’d secured with a scrunchie. If anything, Jo looked drawn. Probably had stayed up too late. Probably would again tonight.

  “You did your chores in your pajamas?”

  “People wear pajamas everywhere these days.”

  Cass gave up.

  Ten minutes later, Cass was deep into her job and she didn’t realize Jo had gone until she heard the front door slam. She turned around to see that her sister had left the stove top on, the eggs on the counter and a half-cooked piece of toast still in the pan she’d at least had the presence of mind to move to one of the cool burners.