A Cowboy Worth Loving (Canton County Cowboys 1)

by Charlene Bright

  ***

  Lucy watched Gavin walk away. No one went after him, and now all eyes except hers were on Tuck Stevenson as he pushed himself up off the ground. She didn’t want him to notice her just yet. When he was back on his feet and dusting himself off, Colt said, “Maybe you ought to call it a night, Tuck.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy saw the older man give Colt a murderous look. Then he straightened his spine and headed off in the opposite direction that Gavin had taken off in. When he was gone, Lucy looked at Kayla and said, “Do you think Gavin’s going to leave this alone? It’s not going to look good in court if Tuck goes in there with assault charges filed against him.”

  “Yeah, he’ll be fine. If he was going to kick Tuck’s butt, he would have done it right here. He just needs to be by himself when he gets like this. I don’t think we need to worry about him.” She glanced over next to her at the table and said sarcastically, “You either, Brance. Just calm down, he’ll be fine.”

  Brance was already sitting back down with a mouthful of sandwich. He didn’t look the least bit worried as he looked up at her and winked. Kayla just shook her head.

  “All right then,” Lucy said. “I do think we need to file a restraining order against Tuck. That way maybe he’ll think twice about insinuating himself where he doesn’t belong and Gavin won’t be so tempted to put him in his place. I don’t want him making things worse here.”

  “I agree,” Kayla said. “I would feel better if there was a restraining order. I don’t know if it’ll keep him away but at least he’ll have some consequences for a change.”

  “I think I’m going to call it a night,” Lucy said then I’m exhausted all of a sudden. It’s been a really long day.”

  “Are you sure, Lucy? The band will be starting up soon, and we we’re just about to go over there. We don’t have to let this spoil the whole night.”

  “I’m sure,” Lucy told Kayla with a smile. She glanced again toward Tuck’s retreating back, now all the way across the courtyard. She really was tired, but she was also not prepared to face Tuck just yet if he decided to come back. “I think I’m starting to feel that accident a little in my muscles now. While we were sitting here, my body stiffened up a little bit.”

  “Oh, you poor thing, I forgot all about it! You go get some rest then. You have my number if you need anything. We’ll be in town for a bit.”

  “Thanks,” Lucy told her. “I’m going to start working on some motions for us to file first thing in the morning, so I’ll give you a call if I need any more information. If you get a chance, try and talk some more to Gavin about the adverse property law, okay?”

  “All right, Lucy, I will. Thank you so much.”

  Lucy said good night to Brance and left the courtyard going the opposite direction from where Tuck had gone. She headed down the street toward the White Lace Inn where she was staying. She hadn’t seen the place before she made her reservations there with Miss Hildie over the phone, but as soon as she walked up onto the comfortable looking porch; she could see that it was aptly named. Everything was made of white lace—from the curtains on the windows right down to the doilies Miss Hildie made by hand and draped over the arm of every couch and chair in the place.

  The little town was almost completely deserted on this end. It seemed that the entire population was at the festival. As she neared the end of the street, the wind seemed to kick up just a bit, making everything sway slightly. A gust of it picked up her auburn hair and blew through it, leaving it pointing out in wild directions. She reached up and tucked it behind her ear, sucking in a breath of the cooler air, thankful that the hot days of August were behind them. She was almost to the steps that led up to the big wraparound porch with the white rocking chairs and lace cushions when she saw him. Gavin was sitting in one of the chairs, rocking it gently back and forth like he’d been waiting for her. He had his hat in his hand and it looked like the wind had whipped through his dark hair as well. It only made him look sexier, she thought.

  She stopped and looked at him curiously, wondering why he was there. She couldn’t read the look on his face, and he didn’t say anything, he just stopped the motion of his chair and held her gaze with his as she advanced up the steps. She dropped down into the chair next to him, and finally breaking the silence, she asked, “Are you okay?”

  He seemed to either ignore or not hear the question. Instead, he asked, “Why do you want to help us so badly?”

  Instead of answering his question, she replied, “Why are you so suspicious of people who want to help you?”

  Gavin half smiled at that and said, “I’m not, usually. It’s just lawyers I’m suspicious of and women from the city.”

  “Wow, I guess I didn’t have a chance then.”

  “Nope,” he said, still smiling. He turned serious again and said, “Just make me understand. Why would you want to help a couple of complete strangers for nothing in return?”

  “I do get something,” she said. “I get the satisfaction of knowing that I did the right thing. I don’t like seeing people being taken advantage of.”

  “How did you even know about us?”

  “Henry James is an old friend of my partner, Milton Finch. He came in one day a month or so ago to seek his advice. Milton could see that Henry was at a crossroads. He didn’t want to leave you and Kayla without representation, but he had no idea where to even begin with this. He kept saying the case was bigger than he was, and he didn’t want to be responsible for the two of you losing your land. Milton asked me and our paralegal Jenny to do some research for him since I had a light caseload at the time. During the course of my research, I became more and more interested. I finally worked up the nerve to ask Henry if he might want to hand the case off to me if I did it pro bono. I thought the old man was going to kiss me, he was so relieved. He told me that, as long as you and Kayla agreed, it was mine.”

  “What interested you about it?” Gavin said.

  Before she could answer that, the front door of the Inn opened behind them. A younger version of Tuck Stevenson stood in the doorway. Lucy could actually feel the color drain from her face as he said, “Well, there’s my gorgeous ex-partner. Hi, Red.” Then he turned to Gavin and said, “Hello there, I’m Heath Stevenson.”

  Gavin didn’t take the hand the other man extended, and eventually Heath dropped it to his side. Even in the dark, Lucy could see that every muscle in Gavin’s body was tensed up. The vein in his neck was throbbing like it had been when he confronted Tuck a while ago. He finally looked at her, and the suspicious shroud that she had begun to chip away at was back.

  “Your partner?” he said.

  “Heath hasn’t worked for the firm for almost three years,” she said. Then she looked at Heath and said, “And you were never a partner.” Gavin stood up and pushed the chair back against the wall with his legs as he did. The sudden motion and noise startled her. He was halfway down the steps and putting his hat back on his head, before she recovered and jumped to her feet. “Gavin, wait! Please!”

  “Go home, Lucy. We don’t need you to save us or whatever the hell it is you’re trying to do.”

  He kept walking and sure that it wouldn’t do any good, Lucy didn’t go after him. Instead, she turned on Heath with fire in her green eyes and asked, “What are you doing here?”

  He put his hand on his heart and said, “Jeez, you just keep driving the knife in deeper. First, you cancel our wedding and then you get me fired.”

  “I got you fired? No, Heath, the fact that you liked telling Milton’s prospective clients that you were his partner to get them to sleep with you got you fired!”

  “I don’t think we need to rehash all of this ugliness, do we Red?”

  “Don’t call me that. I asked you what you were doing here.”

  Heath’s face suddenly went serious, and he said, “Daddy needed representation.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kayla and Brance found Gavin sitting on Brance’s tailgate a couple o
f hours later. He had a beer in his hand and an almost-empty six-pack next to him. They both knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t in any mood to talk or answer questions.

  The ride back to the ranch was completely silent until Brance drove up in front of the main house to drop Kayla off. That was when Gavin said, “We need to find a new attorney.”

  Kayla looked at him strangely and said, “We have Lucy.”

  “No, we don’t,” he said. “I’m not signing off on her representing us, so you may as well just give up on that. We both have to agree.”

  Brance sat quietly, looking uncomfortable to be in the midst of the sibling’s dispute, as Kayla said, “Right, we both have to agree, so you don’t get to make the decision to fire her, either. What happened between the time she agreed to be your fiancée and now?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he told her. “What matters is that this ranch is half mine, so you don’t get to make all of the decisions. You dragged me into this legal stuff, telling me I needed to act like a landowner. Well, here I am.”

  “Damn it, Gavin! This ranch is half yours only when you want it to be. Otherwise you want to ride around out there on the range like a cowboy in an old time movie. This is the twenty-first century and real life. Move into it, will you, please?”

  Gavin was well aware of what century it was. He wished sometimes that he wasn’t. He would have fit in better in an earlier time. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore tonight. Just start looking for another lawyer tomorrow. I’ll figure out how to pay for it.”

  “No, I’m not letting Lucy go.”

  “Damn it, Kay. Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

  “Because sometimes I feel like I’m the only one around here that has the best interest of this ranch at heart!”

  His sister jumped out of the truck and slammed the door. He knew she wouldn’t let it go, but maybe tomorrow he’d be in more of a mood to fight with her about it.

  Brance drove them out to the cottage, and when he parked the truck, he said, “It’s not that late. You and I could go back to town and see what’s cookin’ at The Branding Iron.” The Branding Iron was the local bar, and it had a live country band on the weekends. It was where everyone in town went when they needed to relax. But being around people tonight was the exact opposite of what Gavin needed.

  “No, I think I’m just gonna take Satan out for a while. If you go into town tonight, stay there. I don’t want to get a call that your pickup ended wrapped around a tree on your way back.”

  Brance nodded as Gavin got out of the truck. Before Gavin closed the door, Brance said, “You know if I knew what to do to help you, I would.”

  “I know,” Gavin told him. He didn’t expect Brance to know what to do. He didn’t know himself. He appreciated that his friend cared. That was enough. He closed the door and watched Brance back up and drive away. Then he went out to the barn and saddled Satan. When he was in this kind of mood, there was nothing or no one that could calm him down the way a ride on his favorite horse across the ranch could.

  He climbed up into the saddle and clicked his tongue. He let the horse set his own pace, and Satan meandered out into the darkness with the dogs and the goat on their tail. There was a small slip of a moon out, which didn’t offer much light, but the stars littered the sky like a glittering blanket, illuminating the trail in front of them. They rode along the fence line of the meadow behind his house where he used to grow and cut most of his winter feed. Then the droughts came two years in a row, and it had become next to impossible for him to produce enough hay to feed even the meager stock he and Kayla were down to.

  He hadn’t ridden out this way in a while, and now that he did, he noticed that the fence line he rode along between the scrub and the old hay meadow was looking a little rough. It would be one more thing on their long list of things they needed to do in order to save this ranch. Tuck wasn’t the only thing threatening them right now, and no matter what Kayla said to him when she was mad, he knew it as well as she did. Mike and Clint were the only two hands left. When their parents died, there had been twelve of them, and the ranch and the bunkhouse were constantly filled with lively chatter. Mike and Clint had both begun to look haggard and over-used lately. He knew the two of them were doing their best to keep up with things, but he also knew the only reason they were still here was out of loyalty. He didn’t know how long that would last before they would have to leave out of necessity. They each did the work of five men now, especially when he was gone on trips to buy hay they could no longer afford. Without the rains, the pastures were stressed, and the grass was sparse and undeveloped, which meant spending a lot of money to feed the cattle with hay brought in from several hundred miles away. Their money had gotten tight fast, and Gavin was doing all he could to keep them from drowning. He knew that Kayla was doing her part as well.

  They started and ended most of their days on the ranch now with one of the ranch hands or Kayla driving the truck while he cut the baling twine and tossed the flakes of hay off the back of it to the dusty, hungry cattle and horses. Their lives had actually been easier when Kayla insisted on keeping the herd up front in the holding pens. Gavin knew though that a cramped pen was no way to raise cattle. Gavin felt for his stock. They were more than just money or beef at the end of the spring to him. He was a believer that animals had feelings and suffered hardships just like humans did. His horses had suffered, too, and that was what killed him the most. He once had fifty of the most beautiful, spirited wild horses in Texas. He’d gone to every wild Mustang round up he’d been able to get to and brought them back to the ranch, as proud of them each time as a new father bringing his baby home from the hospital. He trained them one at a time, taking his time with each one, and made sure the horse was completely comfortable in his environment. It wasn’t something that just anyone could do, and he was proud of that. Over the past year he’d had to sell most of them off, one at a time, in order to make enough money to pay their bills and buy more hay. He was down to less than twenty of them now, and his business training horses for the other ranchers was practically nil. He knew it had a lot to do with the economy, but he also knew that Kayla was right and all the trouble they’d had with Tuck played a big role as well. People were getting skittish about leaving their expensive horses in the hands of a man who seemed to be cursed with one trial after the other. Word of the fire at the ranch had already spread all over town. His thoughts of Tuck threatened to take his mind back to the auburn-haired, green-eyed lawyer who, for just a minute, had almost wormed her way into the circle of trust he held tightly against his chest.

  The two dogs and the goat took off under the fence, barking shrilly and raising thirty kinds of hell all of a sudden. He pulled Satan to a stop right at the edge of where the creek ran under the fence line, causing a small break in the road, and tried to see what they were chasing. It was probably a rabbit or a coyote. He looked down then at the pitiful creek, which was yet another reminder that Salt Cedar Ranch wasn’t what it used to be. There was still water in it, but compared to years past, it looked more like the runoff from a slough than the babbling brook it used to be. He sat there and watched the dogs running after a gaunt-looking coyote. They chased the wormy creature along the edge of the water and out into the salt cedar trees that lined the bottom of the ridge. By the time Gavin got off the horse and ducked under the fence, the animals were coming back toward him. He patted them all on the tops of their heads and told them they were good dogs--even Clarence, whose blue-gray eyes looked up at him adoringly. Gavin wished sometimes that he could spend his life dealing only with animals. They were so much easier to trust and love than people were.

  He stood there at the edge of the creek, looking down at the opaque brown liquid that slowly ambled along its path. There was no snow pack from last year to trickle down and cause it to rush along like it had in the past and barely any rain this year to splatter against it. Now it was so still that it was almost stagnant, and the dirt had colored it s
o deeply that even the rocks that lay underneath it were invisible. He found a seat on a large stump and sat there, watching the dirty water and trying to figure out what they should do.

  Lucy was obviously consorting with the enemy. Even if he hadn’t been suspicious of her to begin with, they couldn’t have someone who knew Tuck Stevenson’s son intimately representing them. Maybe that was her plan all along. Maybe she was working for Tuck and would be his ace in the hole. Gavin thought about the look on her face when Heath had stepped out of that door. It registered shock and something akin to disgust. She hadn’t been expecting him, of that he was sure, but that didn’t mean she was innocent either. Why didn’t she tell them that she knew Tuck? Why hadn’t she mentioned that startling fact? She had to know it would be important to them. He was pissed at her, but mostly he was pissed at himself. When she’d been so willing to help him out with Trudy, he had found himself wanting to trust her and believe that she was here to help them. Now he didn’t know what to think.

  He stood up and walked back across to where Satan was waiting for him. The dogs and the goat followed, and he mounted the horse. Still not ready to go back to the house, he continued to ride until they were up along the top of the ridge. From there, he could look down over the trees and across grass below to where the house and barn sat. To the east he could see the silhouettes of the tack house and large bunkhouse his father had built to house at least fifteen ranch hands years ago, and he could make out the shadow of the roof of his cottage to the west. He loved the way the wide open space out here felt. He hadn’t known how much until his time in Corpus Christie. He’d promised himself the day his father had come to bring him home that he was never leaving again. If Kayla thought that he didn’t understand this land was his, she was crazy. He more than understood it; he could feel it, and he was going to do whatever he had to in order to keep it.