by Kate Pearce
“Where’s Billy?”
“He’s at AA. He’ll be back soon.”
“Shush!” Ruth sat beside Roy. January and Chase were at the table. Ry offered Avery the last comfortable chair and perched on the arm beside her. “It’s about to start.”
Francesca’s beautiful face came on the screen and she spoke directly to the camera. “Welcome to the last of our profiles of local heroes: HW Morgan, finalist in the upcoming national rodeo finals in Las Vegas.”
“Hero.” Ry snorted, and Avery dug her elbow in his ribs.
A photo of HW caught him in motion on the back of a saddle bronc, his hand held high, his body arched like a bow against the pull of the horse, who had all four feet off the ground.
“Nice,” Avery murmured.
The picture faded to show the real-life HW waving and grinning up at the stands as he received an outstanding score. Ry had to admit he looked good on camera—like an all-American cowboy from the old movies.
Francesca appeared again, this time her expression concerned—well, Ry supposed she was meant to look concerned, but she didn’t seem able to frown due to the Botox in her face.
“But behind this triumph lies a story so shocking that it is amazing HW Morgan has succeeded at all.”
Ry tensed. “Holy hell, she’s going to make this all about what a shit I’ve been to my identical twin, isn’t she?”
Ruth patted his knee. “Calm down, Ry, and stop cursing. Let’s listen to what she has to say.”
* * *
Chase turned the TV off and silence fell over the room, broken by the cheerful sound of Billy whistling as he came through the door.
“What’s wrong? It looks like you’re holding a séance in here. How did the TV special go?”
As Ruth brought out a handkerchief from her pocket, her hand was shaking and for once she looked her years.
Chase cleared his throat. “Ah . . . not too good.”
Billy frowned. “Did she do a hatchet job on Ry?”
“She did an exposé of our whole family—including dragging up all the crap that happened when Mom and Rachel disappeared. I didn’t even know there was TV footage of that around, but dear old Francesca found it.” Chase took out his cell. “Don’t worry. I’m going to talk to my lawyers and get this piece of bullshit taken off the air.”
“But everything she said was true.” Ry finally found his voice. “How the hell can you fight that?”
“Sure, some of the facts were right, but the slant she put on them? Making us all look like devils while poor old angelic HW struggled to survive his monstrous family and become a rodeo hero? That’s not journalism.” Chase was so furious he’d gotten all quiet, and his blue eyes were chips of ice. “That’s a hatchet job.”
“Holy crap.” Billy sucked in a breath, his gaze fixed on Ruth. “Did they mention me?”
“Yeah,” Ry answered before Ruth could. “They knew all about you, and Francesca made very sure to leave the question of whether you murdered your own wife and child hanging out there for the entire world to speculate on.”
Ruth dabbed at her eyes. “We invited them into our home. I made lasagna! We were good to them.”
“We didn’t invite them,” Ry said flatly. “HW did.”
Chase tapped out a number on his cell phone. After a few seconds he grimaced.
“He’s not answering. I’ll leave a message.” He waited for the beep and then spoke. “HW? It’s Chase. You need to come back here right now, no excuses. You’ve got some explaining to do to your grandmother and father.”
* * *
Ry sat at the kitchen table with Chase and BB. They’d persuaded everyone else to go to bed or go home, which hadn’t been easy. The shock of seeing all her family tragedies spelled out on TV had made Ruth cry. Ry found that unforgiveable. And his poor father, who was trying so hard to be a good man, was now cast as a villain. The fact that HW had also made Ry out to be a jealous, talentless fool hardly mattered.
BB groaned and poured himself more coffee. “What a mess.”
“At least they didn’t seem to have much dirt on Maria, or know that Mom might be alive,” Chase murmured as he tapped away at his laptop. “My only concern is—what if someone picks up this story, and it goes viral? Then nothing will be sacred, and they’ll be digging into January’s past, Jenna’s, Maria’s, and even Avery’s.”
BB scoffed. “It won’t go viral. Who’s going to care about one local rodeo cowboy?”
Chase looked at him over the lid of his laptop. “Because news these days is twenty-four seven, and the networks are all desperate for new content, and steal from each other all the time. Something like this, topped with HW’s pretty face? Total clickbait.”
BB set down his mug with a thump. “If anyone gets in my face about Maria . . .”
“What are you going to do, bro?” Chase said. “Break some bones? That will really help.”
Ry sipped his coffee. “If this does get bigger, we’ve got other problems.”
“Like what?”
“Mom up in Humboldt. What if she saw this? She’s going to freak out.”
Chase shrugged. “She hated the rodeo, she hated this place, why the hell would she bother to watch something about an up-and-coming local rodeo star?”
“Because HW was her favorite?” Silence greeted that remark, and Ry carried on. “If someone mentioned his name, or she saw an ad for the show, she’d watch it.”
“The odds are still small that she would, Ry, but I take your point.” Chase closed his laptop. “I would worry about all the other people we met in Humboldt—the ones who know we’re Morgans and we’re searching for our mother. They might be quite happy to talk to the media about that.”
“Crap.” BB dropped his head into his hands. “We’re toast.”
“So what do we do?” Ry asked.
“Nothing until we hear back from HW.”
Ry leaned back in his chair. “Oh, come on, Chase. You won’t hear from him. He’ll love all the attention, and he won’t care how he got it.”
“That’s harsh,” BB said slowly. “HW isn’t the devil any more than we are. What’s up with you, Ry? You used to be the one defending him to the last breath.”
“He’s right.” Chase was also staring at him now. “What’s wrong?”
“Maybe I’m tired of defending him.”
“Sure, but give him the benefit of the doubt. He’ll come back, and we can sit down together and work out exactly how we’re going to handle this as a family, okay?”
“Right.” Ry stood up. “And now I’m going to bed.”
Chase held up his hand. “There’s one more thing. It has nothing to do with the situation with HW. I was going to tell you earlier, and then I got distracted.”
“What’s up?”
“Ruth and I have decided we need a full-time events coordinator on board before we launch the new guest ranch. Do you have any objections if I ask the Hayes family first?”
“Not a problem for me.”
The thought of having Avery working full-time up at the ranch was the best thing he’d heard all week.
“Good.” Chase nodded. “I wasn’t sure whether working alongside Avery would be a problem if you stopped dating.”
“It won’t be.”
Ry went up the stairs and headed for the bathroom. Chase didn’t know that he had no intention of ever stopping dating Avery. He’d waited for her, and now he was fairly sure she liked him as much as he liked her. Despite his god-awful day, he found a smile. She gave him that. She gave him the courage to face anything, and if he was lucky enough to gain her love, he’d always be understood and loved for himself.
Sure, sometimes she understood him far too well for his comfort zone, but even that made him want to be better for her. To show her that he could be the man she wanted.
“Jeez, Rowdy Yates Morgan . . .” he muttered as he turned on the faucet. “You’re besotted.”
He stared at his reflection in the mirror, and s
lowly smiled.
* * *
Marley put her head around the office door.
“Hey, you busy?”
Avery jumped. She’d been sitting there staring into space, thinking about the events of the previous night up at the Morgans’. Several of the hotel staff had watched the show, and there had been a lot of chatter about it this morning. From what Avery could tell, the majority of the locals thought the family had been treated badly, and weren’t very happy with their so-called hometown hero.
Worse were the rumors flying around about Ry’s father, and whether he’d killed his own wife. She wanted to tell them to shut up and leave the poor man alone. Hadn’t he been through enough already? She knew what it was like to suffer and rebuild your life, and she had nothing but admiration for what Billy had achieved. Most people who got that lost, never found themselves again or had the courage to admit their mistakes and make amends.
“What’s up?” Belatedly she realized that Marley was beginning to look concerned.
“Mom and Dad want to speak to us.”
“About what?”
“I dunno.”
Avery grumbled as she pushed away from her desk and followed her sister next door. Her parents were both smiling, which immediately made her suspicious. Since Marley’s return, they’d been looking haunted.
“Girls, we have a couple of things we want to share with you.” Dad gestured at the chairs in front of his desk. “Take the weight off.”
Mom went first. “There’s been a big increase in reservations from tonight, so we’ll be at capacity. I want you both at work for the next few days.”
Marley nodded and opened her iPad. “Why all the sudden reservations? Is there something going on?”
Dad fiddled with the pens on his desk. “It’s probably something to do with the story on the Morgans last night on TV.”
Avery sat up. “I hope you’re not intending to profit from that pile of crap, Dad.”
“I’m merely a hotel owner offering people a place to sleep, dear. A guest’s reason for staying with us is no concern of ours.”
“Did you watch that thing?” Avery scowled at her parents. “It was horrible. Offering a place to stay to people who want to come and gawk at a long-forgotten tragedy doesn’t make you a friend of the Morgans.”
“It’s okay, sis.” Marley patted her knee. “Avery’s upset because of Ry.”
“Ry who?” Mom inquired.
“Ry Morgan. You know she’s dating him, right?” Marley looked at her parents. “I know you said you don’t inquire about what’s going on in your own hotel, but I would think you might have met Ry Morgan creeping up and down the staff stairs recently. I know I certainly have.”
“Thanks, Marley,” Avery muttered. Sometimes her sister’s honest streak sucked. “Nice.”
“You’re dating Ry?” Mom asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Avery gave her sister the death look. “Because it slipped my mind?”
“Then that brings us nicely to our next item for discussion. I had a phone call from Ruth Morgan yesterday, followed up with a job description for a full-time events coordinator up at the ranch.”
Mom handed them both a piece of paper. “I printed it out for you. But isn’t it great? The job would be perfect for you, Marley—just perfect!”
Avery stopped reading. “Hold up. If anyone gets this job it should be me. I’m already working with the Morgans.”
“But—” Marley’s excited expression faded. “It would be perfect for me. Chase is definitely looking for someone with the skill set I possess.”
“But I’m pretty sure he meant to offer the job to me,” Avery said.
“Then why didn’t he say so?” Marley replied. “If he’d absolutely one hundred percent wanted you, he would have asked for you by name.”
Avery squared up to her sister. “Maybe he doesn’t know you exist.”
“Of course he does. I told him what I was up to when I last saw him in town.”
“Avery, dear,” Dad said cautiously. “Is it possible that the Morgans thought the job might be too much for you?”
“In what way?”
“Well, that you’re more suited to a smaller environment that you are familiar with, and not around, um, horses?”
She glared at her father. “I have been doing fine with the horses! Ask anyone.”
Mom hastened to intervene. “That’s great, darling. But don’t you think it would be fair to give your sister a chance?”
Avery knew damn well what they were trying to do, but she so wasn’t buying into it.
“The job is meant for me.”
“Did Ry tell you that himself?” Marley asked.
“No, he didn’t, but—”
Marley folded her arms. “Then maybe he doesn’t want you to do it either. It would mean you’d be stuck with each other all day long.”
“Ry isn’t in charge of who gets hired at the ranch. Chase is.”
“But I thought you told me it was Ry’s idea for you to coordinate the wedding, so if that’s the case, why didn’t he suggest you for the event coordinator position?”
Avery studied her sister, who had two red spots of color on her cheeks and her chin jutting out at an all-too-familiar confrontational angle.
“Marley . . .”
Dad cleared his throat and gave Avery the side eye. “If you want my opinion, I think Marley should take the job. There’s nothing to worry about, Avery, you can carry on doing your thing here at the hotel. We’ll take care of you.”
She stood up. “It’s my job. I’m applying for it.”
Marley rose too. “So am I.”
Avery stuck out her hand. “Then may the best sister win!”
Chapter Fourteen
“The phone’s been ringing off the hook,” Ruth said as she served the evening meal. “I gave up answering it after lunch, disconnected it, and hid it in the mudroom under a pile of towels.”
Chase looked up from his pot roast and potatoes. “You could have just turned the ringer off, and let everything go to voice mail.”
Ruth gave him a pitying look. “And had to listen to all those nosey parkers interfering in our business?”
“You could’ve just deleted the messages.”
Ry almost smiled at his brother’s impeccable logic, which didn’t really work with Ruth.
“Most people I talked with thought we’d been treated badly, and that HW should be ashamed of himself.” Ruth finally sat down and helped herself to some food. Roy passed her the salt and pepper and she thanked him. “I reminded them that TV producers make anything look suspicious these days. Look at what they do on those reality shows.”
“She’s right, you know.” Roy poured himself more iced tea. “No one who knows this family will believe that steaming pile of horse crap.”
“Unfortunately that’s a pretty small sample of the possible viewing audience,” Chase commented. “I’ve had over two hundred calls and emails today, and my office has been inundated with reporters and calls as well.”
“No one’s called me,” BB said with a wink at Maria. “They’ve got more sense. How about you, Ry? Did HW get in touch?”
“Nope.” Ry continued to eat his corn bread, using it to soak up the rich gravy. “I didn’t expect him to.”
But at some level he had. The idea that his twin was in trouble and had chosen not to talk to him was . . . unsettling and unreal. Even now, if something went terribly wrong, he’d probably call HW. But did his twin even realize what he’d done?
The sound of a truck pulling up drifted in through the open window, and Ruth went to get up. Blue put his hand on her shoulder and eased her back down.
“That’s probably Jenna. I’ll go and say hi.”
“And kiss her,” Maria whispered as her father left the kitchen. “He’s always doing that. It’s gross.”
“Did you hear back from Avery about the job, Chase?” Ry changed the subject before they all started laughing.
“Nope. She was busy, so Ruth talked to her parents this morning. We’ll probably hear something tonight or tomorrow.”
BB came back in, his expression carefully blank. “It’s not Jenna.”
Ry blinked as HW came in behind his brother. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. His clothes were crumpled and he was unshaven.
“I couldn’t get a flight. I had to drive. Sorry it took so long.” HW nodded at them all, but he didn’t sit down.
Chase slowly raised his gaze to his brother’s face. “HW. Glad you could make it. Is there anything you want to say to us all?”
HW propped a shoulder against the doorjamb. “I didn’t know Francesca was going to do that.”
“You mean go back into the past and trash your family?” Chase shrugged. “You might have guessed what she’d do once you told her your life story.”
“I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Tell her anything about Dad, or what happened to Mom. The only thing she knew about was Ry and me falling out.”
“So how do you think she found out the rest?”
HW’s fists slowly clenched. “She’s a journalist. She must have decided to find out more all by herself.”
“Unlikely, seeing as she hasn’t done that for any of the other featured local heroes,” Ry pointed out. “Why you?”
The searing gaze HW shot him gave Ry pause.
“I don’t know! Maybe she picked up on something when she was here at the ranch—saw photographs, something . . .”
“So it’s our fault? You brought them here, HW. If she did snoop around, it’s totally your fault.”
“As far as you’re concerned, Ry, everything always is my fault, isn’t it?”
Ry stood, his gaze locked on his brother’s. Everyone else faded away. “Because it usually is. You’re so damned impulsive and—”
“Why are you so negative about me these days?” HW demanded. “Other people like me, but you? You’re just so damned determined to undermine me that you suck all the joy out of my life.”
“Then you should be happy I walked out, instead of crying to Francesca about what a big meanie I am.”
HW shook his head. “Ry, just listen to yourself. Why did you hang around if you hated our life so much? Just to make me feel bad all the time?”
