Broken Road

by Char Marie Adles

  Broken Road

  Broken Road

  Char Marie Adles

  © 2012

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Copyright © Charlotte Adlesperger

  Cover Design © Wicked Cover Designs

  wix.com/wicked_art/wicked-cover-designs

  Chapter One

  Winthrop Canter was awakened by what sounded like the cry of some small animal outside. Rubbing his sleep dusted eyes he rolled back over with a groan. Twenty minutes later the crying had grown and so had his irritation.

  Muttering a curse under his breath he rose from his bed and made his way down the creaky ancient stairs. Walking through the giant empty ranch house gave him a chill down his spine. It was a warning later he would have wished he had listened to.

  Scowling he pulled the screen door open looking out into the night and the porch. He didn’t see a thing nor hear another cry. Not even from where it had come. Not seeing anything he settled into a glower at being awoken for nothing in the middle of the night.

  Just as he turned to go back in and up to his bed, he heard a single wail that stopped him dead in his tracks. He swung around as fast as his feet would carry him and looked down. That hadn’t been the wail of any small animal he had ever heard or seen before. It was the wail of a baby.

  And there in a box of blankets laid a baby.

  Winthrop froze.

  There was a baby on the ranch. On his ranch. In front of him.

  He eyed the baby warily as if it were a snake ready to spring and bite him. What was a baby doing here?

  There was only men on his ranch for no woman had stepped foot on the ranch since his mother had left when he was thirteen. So since that ruled out the kid from being anyone’s on the ranch the kid didn’t belong to any of his men.

  “Oh hell,” he cursed under his breath.

  The child had been abandon. On his front porch no less and he didn’t know a damn thing about babies.

  He took a few steps towards the box and peered at the baby within who was crying for the entire world to hear, fighting with the blanket he was covered with.

  The moment the kid’s eyes met his, the child stopped crying. Instead the baby smiled, cooed at him and lifted a waving fist at him.

  There was a stirring in his chest at the sight of the poor kid in the box and he bent down. Winthrop took the kid up in his arms and marveled at it.

  By the looks of it the child had Native American blood in him for the child had rusty, tan skin, like Winthrop himself. Jet black hair as well and startling ice blue eyes.

  Eyes the same shade of blue his brother’s had been. The very brother who had been killed less then a month before.

  “Oh hell,” he cursed for the second time that night.

  In the distance lighting lit the sky followed by the roar of thunder.

  Chapter Two

  Cheers of a crowd mad with excitement still echoed in the distance from the front stage. Sweat dripped from her forehead down her cheeks and her breath came in short bursts as she walked to a room with a star taped on the door.

  Devil stared at that star for a moment in silence and opened the door. It shut with a soft click behind her. She took a deep breath and listened to the sound of nothing.

  No music, no roaring crowds, no clicks and flashes of a camera. It was a temporary heaven that wouldn’t last long.

  She let out her breath in a long sigh and sat at the dressing room table. She stared at the face within the mirror. It was the same it always had been. Not beautiful, but striking in its own proud way. Waist long ebony silk hair, rusty tan skin, and a set of icy blue eyes. All showed her Native background, but for those blue eyes.

  No, those blue eyes were a gift from her white mother, not her father who had been proud of his pure-blood Native American parentage. How many times had she looked at the young Native girl in the mirror and hated her. It was Devil’s face, but also the face of a devil. How fitting that was for her father was the one that named her.

  It was the face of Devil Runner, super model, sometimes movie star, and full time county singer. In all of her eighteen years she had done what millions of people dreamed of doing, but it didn’t mean anything to her.

  It’s just been a way to eat, Devil thought, for a while and now meaningless.

  She had no family left alive but for a single sister she hadn’t seen in ten years. She had no home in this world either, she’d run away from home at the age of twelve when her father died, then she had drifted to where she was taken.

  “And what a life that’s been,” she said with a grim smile to the girl in to mirror.

  The girl repeated her words and Devil laughed without humor at them. Then something caught her eye.

  It was a letter.

  Devil had told people years ago when she started singing that she never wanted to see a single letter from anyone.

  So why is there a letter here, she asked herself.

  She picked up the letter and was about to toss it into the rubbish bin before she saw the name of the letter’s sender.

  Wylde Runner

  It was from her older sister.

  Devil took a deep breath and sat back down, letter in hand, hard on the chair. Her hand shook a little as she opened the letter and began to read Wylde’s delicate, but bold hand writing.

  Dear Devil,

  I know it has been forever since you have seen or heard from me and is likely mad at that. But please listen to my word. I was going to come from you a few years back, but found out that everyone had died and you had ran away after dad died. Imagine my surprise a few years later when I saw you singing in a movie! I’ve been watching you since then and I’m proud you made something out of yourself. But you never seemed happy even if you were smiling. I’m only now brave enough to write this letter to you before I disappear from your world forever. Devil you are the only person I can trust to see to the things I leave behind.

  Little over two months ago I had a baby. Her name is Lilla Emalina Runner Canter. She is the most beautiful baby in the world and it breaks my heart to leave her. But I got into some trouble a few years back that I thought it was over, but it has come back to get me. So I leave Lilla in your hands. I have left her with her father on the Lone Star Ranch in Montana, but you are the person I need to have to take care of her. Her father is the sweetest man a live, but he couldn’t take care of her to save his life the way I know you can. I still remember what you did for me and Mama even when you were just a little kid.

  Devil in this envelope there are custody papers for Lilla, please sign them and become her new mother. There is also a picture of me and her father Wade when I just found out I was going to have her. It’s the only picture I had of me and thought you might like to have it. Well I better go now. I love you and Lilla and tell Wade I love him too. Please don’t try to find me because you won’t be able too. Don’t mettle around in my problems because they will come for you too.

  And Devil, I’m so sorry.

  Wylde M.R.

  She sat the letter down and brushed a stray tear from her eye. Sniffing a little she looked inside of the envelope and sure enough there were the custody papers and a picture. Devil lifted up the picture and gazed at the young woman and the young man, both in their middle twenties, but couldn’t be happier.

  The man was obviously Native American and had eyes close to the same color as Devil herself, so he wasn’t a full blooded Indian, but he had waist long hair that was black as coal and a cheeky grin spread across his face. He also had his
hand on the woman’s gently rounded stomach. He was a giant compared to her sister, all muscle and lean height. The woman even though she was older then what Devil remembered her to be was her sister Wylde. Wylde had a shy grin on her face and she was just as thin as she had always been. Her long hair in a braid over her shoulder that fell to her waist, her warm gold eyes bright with tears. They sure did make the perfect happy couple.

  “Looks like you did well for yourself too Sis,” Devil said softly, but then she looked to the custody papers.

  Just what did you get yourself into? And leave your baby to me? I wouldn’t know how to take care of a baby either! But if what she said in the letter is true I won’t leave my niece on a ranch full of men who couldn’t take care of her right, Devil thought, but she took out a pen and signed the papers anyway.

  It was done and it looked like the famous Devil Runner, movie star, country star, and super model just became a mom.

  “Looks like I’m going to Montana,” she told the girl in the mirror.

  The girl kept silent.

  Chapter Three

  As it happened the ranch turned out to be in the upper north of Montana in the Rocky Mountains. Devil abandoned her tour bus and the guys in search of a truck. She found a sorry little ’54 with rusty paint and decided it was perfect. So when she offered five hundred in cash they took the cash from her and had her sign the papers saying there were no take-backs dropping the keys straight into her open hands.

  She went to tell the tour crew that she would be gone for the night and left for the ranch. She had to stop to put gas in the old rust bucket and she figured she might as well ask directions.

  While the old gas pump clicked away Devil went inside to pay. The overhead light flickered and a bell rang over the door as she walked inside. A middle aged woman behind the counter smiled as she looked up to greet whoever walked in, and her mouth fell open as she gaped at Devil. Her gum fell out of her mouth and rolled onto the ground.

  “Oh my lord,” she breathed, “oh my lord!”

  Devil flashed the lady a quick smile and ducked into on of the isles. She fished around for a Coke and a beef jerky stick. She waited a moment before she took a deep breath and walked up to the counter.

  “Hello there dear, is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Just twenty on pump three and these,” she said setting the snacks on the counter.

  The cashier lady did as Devil asked, but soon she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  “You are my favorite country singer! What brings you up here to the middle-of-nowhere Montana?” gushed the older woman.

  Devil thought for a moment and came up with an idea that didn’t sound half bad.

  “I’m doing a small concert up here in a couple of weeks. I had some time during the tour and came up to see some old friends too.”

  The woman’s eyes brightened. “Really? Here? Is there somewhere I can get tickets? And who? Maybe I know em’. Everyone comes by here sooner or later.”

  Devil quickly came up with her answers deciding sticking to the truth as close as she could be best thing she could do.

  “First of all I was going to stop by and see my sister and her baby. They live up by the Lone Star Ranch. Do you know where that is by chance?”

  The woman smiled. “Of course. It’s up the road about five or so miles then you have to take a left and go off the main road for twenty or so minutes. Then follow the paved road up to a small town called Marlo. It’s more of an outpost then a town now. From there follow the signs. You’ll be there in no time.”

  Devil repeated the directions in her mind to make sure she got some right.

  “As for the tickets I’ll have one of the guys bring some by for you then,” she said paying for the snacks and gas with cash.

  Devil put the gas pump back away and hoped in her trusty rusty truck. She started up the road and hoped for the best. The dark clouds didn’t promise anything good.

  The best wasn’t what she got.

  Rain came in a swift down pour the moment she turned onto the country dirt road from Marlo that would take her to the ranch. She flipped on the windshield wipers with a sigh of annoyance. She winced at the first crack of lighting that striked through the dark, cloudy sky.

  Half an hour later she turned onto yet another road. She found herself following more signs like the ones from Marlo. This one was a longer road. By now there was enough water running across the dirt road to call it a flood. Soon she turned onto the final dirt road to the ranch. It wasn’t much of a road, more like a rocky trail up the side of the mountain.

  Devil looked at the muddy water running down the road and hesitated. But her stubborn streak won over her commonsense. She shifted the rust bucket to four-wheel drive and put her foot on the gas.

  I can’t let a little flood stop me now that I’m here. Lilla needs me.

  Chapter Four

  Red, Winthrop’s newest ranch hand, ran to the porch of the ranch house and came in the screen door skidding to a halt. He was soaked from head to toe and he had a look of pure amazement and panic on his face.

  “What?” Winthrop snapped at him. He had just got the kid asleep after hours of crying.

  “Someone is walking up the mountain road, but not only that but they’re covered in mud too!” Red exclaimed.

  “Why did you come to tell me this,” Winthrop asked, his eyes narrowing on the younger man.

  Red stared at him as if he was mental for a moment and Winthrop wanted to throw something at Red. Too bad he couldn’t because he had the sleeping baby in his arms.

  “Why? Well 'cause it looked like a woman of course, and she was heading towards the ranch,” Red said.

  “What?!” Winthrop nearly yelled.

  The baby made disgruntled snort. Winthrop looked at the baby girl in horror. Would she wake up and cry again? But the baby settled back to sleep in his arms, snuggling closer.

  “What?” he asked quieter to Red with a glare that was known to wither any man.

  Red took a step back, holding up his hands. “A woman is heading for the ranch,” he repeated.

  “And you didn’t help her?” he asked after a moment of quieting his panic.

  A woman. And she was heading to his ranch.

  “No, Boss. I figured with your hate of woman and my need to rush back and help, not too. Plus she was almost to the ranch anyway. She’ll be here any moment I reckon.”

  Winthrop suppressed a shiver and told Red to go and help bring the horses in for the night. Red left to do as he was told and Winthrop went upstairs to put the baby down in his brother’s old crib.

  What is a woman doing coming up here in this weather and coming to the ranch for? Was she lost? Then a thought cross his mind that had him frowning. Maybe it’s the kid’s mother.

  He went back down stairs and sat in his chair before the roaring fire and waited to find out.

  …

  By the time Devil tried to pull the truck out of the muddy ditch she was half covered in mud and soaked to the bone. Thank God it was a warm storm. Finally she gave up and decided to walk the rest of the way up the mountain road.

  Soon she had the ranch gates within her sights and a red truck zoomed past her at a speed that sent mud flying directly for her.

  Devil spluttered indignantly and slid a hand down her face to remove some of the mud. If she was mad about her truck before, now she was completely pissed.

  “Why in the hell is Montana weather such a pain in the ass,” she grumbled wiping away more mud.

  Lighting crashed across the sky with thunder to make her point clear.

  “And thanks for the help, you jerk!” She yelled after the truck that was speeding away, retreating up the road. Giving into her impulses for a moment she took off one of her boots and threw it after the truck.

  There was a reason she was a country singer rather then a football player. She sucked at throwing.

  Trudging up the road she scooped up her boot and dumped out the mud as
she passed by. With every step she took her foot squished into the ground and she gritted her teeth. Devil muttered about stupid weather and a stupid sister.

  “You better hope you’re in real danger Wylde or I’ll kill ya,” Devil threatened as her foot sank into a deep mud hole. She toppled backwards and cursed as she laid flat in the mud.

  Montana, she deiced, wasn’t for her.

  The rain changed direction and was now pouring from the east. Droplets tickled Devil’s face and she sighed closing her eyes. She had always loved the rain for it calmed her, but the mud was nothing more then a pain in the butt. She took in deep breaths and soon she slowly got to her feet and walked the rest of the way up the mountain rode. Soon she passed through the gates of the ranch and she spotted the grand four story Victorian ranch house and its fancy wrap-around porch. She knew where she had to go.

  Devil eyed the house curiously as she walked closer.

  So this is where Wylde would have lived with Wade and the baby. The Canters must be big ranchers.

  Lighting flashed over head once more and thunder rolled through the dark clouds echoing a secret promise. Horses screamed in terror drawing her eyes to a carrel where men were leading them into a giant barn. Devil watched them for a moment and was taken back to her early childhood years where she would spend a few weeks on her step-uncle’s ranch.

  She shook herself and headed for the ranch house. She slipped a little going up the stairs and came to stand at the screen door. For a second she caught a glimpse of a large man folded into a chair by the fire. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

  This was it. This is where everything new was going to start.

  The man got up from the chair and came to the screen door. He opened it, eyed her and froze. His face was casted into the shadows of the dark porch, but he looked tall, well muscled and dangerous. And he looked just like Wade Canter in the photo.