Hank scowled. “That’s right . . .”
Daisy looked to Tal. “Wyatt’s said that you’re really good at sizin’ up people. What was your impression of Mark today?”
“Tense, on guard, military grade, smart, efficient, and he didn’t trust me at all because he sensed I was a threat to him.”
“Mark was Force Recon like me, for four years,” Jake said. “He served in Afghanistan, just like I did. He’s got four combat tours under his belt. I wasn’t in his regiment, but he made a name for himself over there. He was well thought of by everyone.”
Tal nodded and turned to Wyatt. “We ought to be looking at his military jacket more closely.”
“We will,” Wyatt promised her grimly.
“What else?” Daisy prodded. “Did he look angry at Mattie?”
“No, not at all. When he spoke to her at first, he was tough and no-nonsense. His eyes were hard. He was really on guard, as if we had guns on us, but we didn’t.”
“Probably shielding himself from Mattie’s anger,” Wyatt guessed.
“I’m sure. But that changed,” Tal told them.
“How?” Daisy asked.
“Mark started to leave, but he stopped himself, as if he didn’t want to leave her. He turned and looked directly at Mattie, holding her gaze. His voice changed, his eyes softened, and his voice grew less harsh. I saw regret in his expression, sadness, and something else I couldn’t interpret. But he told her to take good care of herself. Whatever that meant. I wouldn’t try to interpret that last exchange he had with her, Daisy.”
Daisy said nothing, giving her husband a searching look. Hank’s face was rock hard, and he wasn’t talking.
Jake shook his head. “This makes no sense to me.”
Cat snorted and stood up, taking her dishes to the sink and rinsing her plate and flatware off beneath the faucet. She gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, you guys are dense! It makes a whole helluva lot of sense to me. And I bet it does for Mom and Tal, too.”
“What are you talking about?” Jake demanded.
Cat slid the items into the dishwasher and then grabbed a towel, drying off her hands. Walking to the table, she sat down and stared at them in disbelief. “Come on, you guys! Are y’all dumb as a box of rocks?” She gave them a scathing look of disbelief. “Wyatt, you out of everyone here should know the answer. Don’t you?”
Wyatt gave his sister a sour look. “I think,” he offered, “that just because Mark and Mattie have separated, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still love her in his own way.”
“Finally a smart male,” Cat growled. “Mom? This didn’t bypass you, did it?”
Daisy’s face fell and she whispered, “I guess I’m like your dad. I’m in denial about it. I don’t want Mark still loving Mattie, no matter what his reasons. She deserves a lot better than him.”
“Well,” Jake snarled, “Reuss sure as hell doesn’t deserve Mattie. I ever see him”—he flexed his fist, giving his father and mother an angry look—“he’ll never be able to see Mattie again. That bastard has made her suffer for years.”
Hank growled at his son, “Be careful, young pup. You’re the baby of our family. The one with the least experience with human foibles at this table is you. You’re conveniently leaving Mattie out of this equation. She loved Mark since she was a little thing. They grew up best friends until he left for the Marine Corps.” Hank raised a brow, looking over at Tal. “So you think Mark is still in love with Mattie.”
Tal hitched a shoulder. “I could be wrong, Hank. But the way he looked at her is how Wyatt looks at me sometimes.”
Wyatt smiled a little, holding Tal’s gaze. “When you love someone, it’s pretty readable on your face, in your voice and body language.”
“Tal, I think you’re right,” Hank offered, giving her a meaningful look filled with respect. “You’re very astute about sizing people up. I think you hit this nail on the head.”
“What a mess,” Cat muttered, shaking her head.
“Maybe,” Wyatt offered, “he’s done us all a favor.”
Jake said, “That’s what I was also thinking. He doesn’t know you and Tal are running a global security firm. He has no idea the power and influence you hold with Artemis. I doubt seriously he even knows you and Tal are engaged to be married and are visiting us.”
“That’s to our advantage,” Wyatt informed them.
Daisy studied him. “What are you gonna do, Wyatt? What’s on your mind?”
“Mom,” Jake said, “we have to do something about this. We can’t let the Cardona cartel get away with using our land for drug running. Wyatt and Tal have the tools and means to get this handled. Maybe even capture Diego Cardona himself if he’s in that caravan.”
“Oh, dear,” Daisy murmured, giving Wyatt a searching look. “Is that true, Wyatt? You’re gonna do something about this?”
“I have to, Mom,” he said, reaching out, squeezing her shoulder. “If we don’t stop this now with the window of opportunity Mark just gave us, it will continue. I don’t think any of you want this to happen again. Do you?”
“Of course not,” Hank growled. And then he gave his wife a tender look. “It will all work out.”
“I need to make some calls,” Wyatt said, excusing himself.
“I’ll come and help you,” Tal volunteered, “because we only have two days to get an op thrown together. We have no idea how many trucks are coming through, how many soldiers, what time of night, or what they’re carrying.”
Wyatt placed his hand beneath her elbow, helping her to stand. “We’ll be in your office, Dad, if you need us.”
*
On Friday morning, Sage Reuss was saddling her black quarter horse gelding, TR, who stood quietly in the cross ties in the center of the horse barn, when she saw a broad-shouldered man, tall and wearing a cowboy hat, come sauntering into the concrete aisle of the barn. At first, she didn’t recognize him. As he approached, the glow from the overhead lights reached his face.
“Wyatt,” she said, lifting a stirrup off the saddle horn and lowering it against the side of the horse. “Nice to see you. I didn’t know you were home.” He was dressed in a Levi’s jacket, his hands stuffed in the pockets of it because it was eight a.m. and near freezing.
“Sage,” he said, doffing his hat to her. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
She smiled a little and took TR out of the panic snaps on the cross ties, pulling the reins over his head. “Getting ready to ride the fence line. You know how exciting that is.” She looked up at him. “How long has it been? Last I saw you was about four years ago when you came home for Christmas. Are you still in the SEALs?”
He walked to her side, casually gazing around. He’d already run into a couple of her wranglers who were riding ATVs out to different parts of the huge ranch. “Naw, I quit them.”
“I thought you were staying in for twenty.” She walked her gelding down the gravel ramp from the barn.
“Met a woman I want to marry,” he admitted, smiling and giving her a sideward glance. Sage was twenty-seven years old, about five feet six inches tall, a little thing but strong as a Texas longhorn steer. Wyatt had grown up with Sage. She and Mattie used to tail him and Mark around, and she’d bugged the daylights out of them with her curiosity, intelligence, and perseverance. He saw she wore thin kidskin gloves on her hands and full chaps on her jean-clad legs. Her black hair was almost as short as a military man’s haircut. But there was no way Sage looked mannish. She had her Chippewa mother’s oval face, high cheekbones, and broad forehead, never mind those golden-brown eyes of hers. Both children, as far as he was concerned, took after their mother, Migisi. Mark’s skin was coppery, while hers was a pretty gold color. Both looked part Native American. Fortunately, neither child had taken after their abusive father, Jeb, in any physical way that he could tell.
“You?” Sage stopped and gave him a big grin. “Seriously, you left the SEALs? I’d never believe it if you hadn’t told me yourself.”
&nb
sp; He liked her wide grin, her eyes sparkling with deviltry. “Yep. My woman is a wild filly like you, Sage. She roped and hog-tied me, so she’s number one in my life. Somethin’ had to go, so I left the SEALs.”
“Well then,” she drawled, leaning over and pulling her spurs onto the heels of her boots, “you’ve got your hands full, Lockwood.”
“Indeed I do. But you know,” he said, pushing his hat up on his forehead a bit and continuing to casually case the ranch, “you were the same way. I imagine you still are.”
“Oh,” she murmured, tightening a leather strap across the top of her boot. “I haven’t changed at all.”
“Ranch looks nice, Sage. A lot nicer than the last time I saw it.” She straightened, and he saw her full lips quirk. “I heard from Jake that you’d hired on a good foreman?”
“Yes,” Sage said. “My father couldn’t handle running the ranch. I think you’d just left to go back to your SEAL team in Coronado when he suffered a major stroke.” Her voice grew hard. “All his drinking over the years finally caught up with him. Left him partially paralyzed, and he’s lost speech.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he murmured, leaning against one of the newer pipe-rail fences that had been recently installed. Inside the fence were about a hundred Herefords. From what Wyatt could tell, these animals were going to be hauled away in a couple of eighteen-wheelers, bound for a feed lot, probably up in Amarillo.
She shrugged, buttoning up her jacket. “I’m not.”
Wyatt knew there was no love lost between her and her father. “How are you getting along with your foreman?”
She brightened a little, pulling out a red baseball cap from her back pocket and settling it on her head. “You need to meet him sometime, Wyatt. He takes after your kind.” She grinned a little.
“In what way?”
“Black ops. He’s an ex-Army Delta Force sergeant.”
“Really?” Wyatt found that an interesting piece of intel.
“Yeah, his name is Jackson Collier. By any chance, did you two ever run into one another in Afghanistan?”
Wyatt scratched his jaw. “Collier . . . the name sounds familiar. I’ll let it roll around in my head for a while. I’ll eventually remember.”
“Well, no worries. He was with his Delta Force team in Afghanistan. He’s thirty years old, brown hair, green eyes, and your size, about six feet three inches tall. Hard to miss.” She held his warm gray gaze. “Like you.”
“Hmm, well, we’ll definitely have to make one another’s acquaintance. So? He’s helped you get this ranch back on its feet?” He gestured around the huge ranching concern. It had a two-story early 1900s house, white with blue trim; several smaller single-story homes; and a bunkhouse for the wranglers. There were three barns and four silos. The Reuss Ranch had a long, storied history in Texas and at one time had been one of the best known and most profitable in the state. When Jeb Reuss inherited it and took over, he’d managed the once well-respected ranch so poorly that it fell into disrepair and began a slow death spiral.
“Jackson is in Van Horn right now. He’s picking up a big load of oats and grain for the horses,” she said. “How long are you here for?”
“Oh, I’m on a family vacation of sorts,” he answered, not wanting to be too specific. “I wanted to bring my lady, Tal Culver, home to meet my family over the holidays.”
“Well, hey, I’d love to meet the woman who lassoed and hog-tied you,” she said, smiling.
“Look,” Wyatt said, lowering his voice, “I need to talk to you about something else that’s really important, Sage.”
“Why did I have the intuition this wasn’t just a friendly visit?”
He heard her voice becoming wary, and so did the look in her eyes. In some ways, Sage Reuss reminded him of a primal cougar who knew how to survive anything. She was smart, commonsensible, but more than that, she had always been seerlike. There were times when she would tell him and Mark something that was in the future, and she was always right. “Well, it is a friendly visit, Sage,” he said, looking into her eyes.
“Okay,” she said, tentative. “What’s going on?”
Wyatt took a deep breath and said in a low voice only she could hear, “Mark showed up at Mattie’s kindergarten class yesterday afternoon.” He saw Sage’s brows move up, shock in her expression. So, she didn’t know anything about it. That was good, because Wyatt didn’t want her in cahoots with what Mark was doing. Deep in his gut, he knew Sage would never sell drugs. It just wasn’t in her makeup. But if you’d asked him years earlier if he ever thought Mark would be involved in one of the most deadly cartels in Mexico, he’d have said no, Mark would never run drugs. He’d been wrong.
Quietly, he told Sage the story, and he watched her expression closely, because it would show either her guilt or her innocence. Wyatt had a strong suspicion that Sage had always been in close touch with her brother, even if from a distance. They’d gone through too much as children, barely surviving their drunken, raging father. Her golden eyes had turned a darker brown by the time he finished. Her full lips were pursed. She kicked the dirt with the toe of her scratched-up cowboy boots in deep thought.
“From the look on your face, Sage, I’d guess that you didn’t know anything about this convoy coming across?”
She pulled the bill of her hat a little lower over her eyes, staring at the ground. “No . . .”
Wyatt laid his hand on her slumping shoulder. “Look, I’m sure of a couple of things here, Sage. First I know you and Mark are tighter than two fleas on a dog. Second, I’d hazard a guess that you’re in touch with him.” He dipped his head down, catching her dark, worried gaze. “You need to tell me the truth on this, Sage, because I think that tomorrow night he’s going to be in a heap of trouble.”
Chewing on her lower lip, Sage glanced up at him. She pulled away from Wyatt’s shoulder. “Who are you working for, Wyatt?” Her voice was accusatory. Her eyes were narrowed on him.
“No one,” he said. “But you know, I was in black ops for nearly a decade, and you get so you see things differently and sort of figure out dynamics that most folks wouldn’t. Look, I care about you. I care about Mark. We grew up together, Sage. The four of us kids were always running around together. I’m coming over here as a friend to see you about this. And I don’t think you know what’s going on with Mark.”
“I’m sayin’ nothing, Wyatt.”
He saw the hurt, the worry, in her stormy-looking eyes. He could see how threatened she felt and her panic for her brother as well. Wyatt figured she knew Mark was in the area, but that was as far as it went. He doubted his friend of so many years would be stupid enough to legally implicate his sister, whom he’d damn near died for while growing up. Mark would protect her at all costs. Sage had been called in for questioning when Mark was arrested but had been cleared of any illegal activity.
Mark’s old man had put him in the hospital once, beating the hell out of him with his fists when he was ten years old and trying to protect Sage. The ugly truth that her father had sexually molested her for years had finally come out. When Mark was old enough to put it together, he began fiercely protecting Sage, and she was never molested again. Wyatt also knew Sage was undyingly loyal to her older brother, too. He’d never thought she’d be easy to convince, and he’d figured she’d act exactly as she was right now. “You don’t need to say a thing, Sage. Look”—he tipped her chin upward with his index finger so that he could hold her gaze—“all I want you to do is tell Mark that he shouldn’t be on Lockwood property tomorrow night with that convoy. If you have a way of contacting him, will you tell him that? None of us wants to see him hurt.” Or killed.
Taking off her cap, Sage ran her gloved hand through her short, shining hair. “This is a warning.”
Grimly, Wyatt nodded. “Yes, it is. My father isn’t going to allow illegal activity of any kind to happen on our ranch.” He saw Sage’s eyes widen and then deep worry come into them. The corners of her mouth were tucked in tight, telli
ng him she was fighting back a lot of emotions, probably fear for Mark’s life among them. It was justified.
“And you know this how, Wyatt? Are you working with local law enforcement? The Border Patrol? All of them?” she said accusatorily, her voice becoming strained.
Shrugging, Wyatt said gently, “Sage, I really respect you. And Mark was my childhood best friend, too. You two lived through hell growin’ up. I don’t know how you survived, but you did. And now”—he looked up, gesturing around the ranch—“you’ve worked damned hard to bring this place back to its former glory. You both deserve a good life, not a bad one. I’m making a neighborly call on you and Mark, is all.” Wyatt drilled her with a look that spoke volumes, and he could see tears suddenly spring to her eyes. Sage cursed under her breath, turning on her heel, pulling her gelding along with her. She mounted up, gave him a regretful last look.
“Thanks for letting me know, Wyatt. I’m sorry your ranch is being pulled into this crap. I’ll see what I can do about contacting Mark, but no promises.” She spun the black gelding around and cantered off for the open range.
Wyatt grimaced, watching her ride off. She was a petite thing, and yet her back was straight, her head held high, so much pride and confidence in her, too. Mark had given his childhood up to protect Sage so she could be normal, or as near to normal as any kid who had lived through the hell she’d experienced. Sage wasn’t dumb. In fact, both children were damned intelligent. Far smarter than the average person, for sure. He turned, sighed, and headed back to the truck that his father had loaned him to drive over to the Reuss Ranch.
If he played his cards right with Sage, she would read between the lines and realize he’d come to warn Mark not to be part of that drug convoy tomorrow night through Rocking L property. That he would be there, as well. Wyatt didn’t want a shoot-out with Mark. He wondered if she had Mark’s cell phone number. Or did she contact him via email? He doubted that, because Mark was now a felon with a prison record. Mark would have trained Sage in black ops ways to get ahold of him without leaving a paper or electronic trail of any kind.
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