by B. J Daniels
She appeared pale, her freckles standing out on her pixie-cute face. “I don’t need a mother.”
“Some people might argue that.”
She shrugged. “You and I get along just fine.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, reaching out to ruffle her bangs. “Yeah, we do.”
Sam seemed relieved as she went back to her bedroom, little more than a bunk and a chest of drawers at the back of the motor home. She closed the accordion door to change into her pjs and he finished up the dishes.
The hard angry knock at the outside door made him jump. He turned as it swung open, still half hoping. Terri Lyn stomped in.
“How was your dinner?”
He held up one soapy hand. “If you’d just let me explain—”
“I already heard,” Terri Lyn snapped. “It’s all over camp. Who was she?”
“Nobody,” he lied.
“She was Dad’s old girlfriend,” Sam said, appearing in the hallway off the kitchen. “The one he was in love with ten years ago, the one he never got over.” She looked to him, already anticipating his reprimand. “Ace told me, so I know it’s true.”
Ace Winters. Damn. Jack had forgotten that Ace had worked on the Wishing Tree that same summer. Of course, everyone in camp would have been wondering about Chelsea and asking Sam questions—and Ace would have filled them in.
“Your old girlfriend?” Terri Lyn said in that I’m-really-pissed tone that meant there would be hell to pay.
The problem was, he wasn’t in the mood and he realized he didn’t care enough to pay. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Terri Lyn raised a brow.
“Not tonight. Not ever. It really isn’t any of your business,” Jack said, looking from the barrel racer to his daughter and back. He handed Terri Lyn her clean casserole dish. “I’m sorry about our date, but maybe it’s better this way.”
“Yeah, maybe it is.” She slammed the door on her way out.
He looked at his daughter. She had a satisfied smirk on her face, which she quickly tried to wipe off. “Go to bed,” he said. “You’ve accomplished enough for one day.”
She didn’t argue, just turned and disappeared, closing her door behind him.
He thought about going out and finding Ace Winters, but he knew that would be a bad idea in the mood he was in. Anyway, he’d see Ace soon enough and tell the bull rider what he thought of him opening his big mouth to Sam. He’d wanted to punch Ace for as long as he’d known him, and his rival would be in the bull riding at tomorrow night’s rodeo.
The dishes done, he turned out the light, stripped down and climbed up into the narrow bed over the cab. He didn’t have much hope of sleep. The moment he closed his eyes he saw Chelsea’s face. Just as he had for ten years. He found himself listening for the sound of her car engine, hoping she’d come back, praying she wouldn’t, because no good could come of it. Just heartache. And he’d already had his share.
* * *
CHELSEA WOULD HAVE driven away in a cloud of dust if she’d been able to see clearly through her tears.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten out of the rodeo grounds gate when she had to stop. She laid her head on the steering wheel and bawled. She was really getting this crying bit down. Her emotions were like a roller coaster. Humiliation. Oh, yes. Anger. Absolutely.
What had she expected?
She’d expected Jack to have tried to convince her of his innocence. She’d expected him to…to… Okay, to have waited for her, damn it. Just as she’d unconsciously waited for him without even realizing it. Instead, he’d jumped right out of the chute and gotten some woman pregnant!
That hurt.
So did all the terrible things he’d said about her, especially the ones that were true.
If she had any sense, she’d get as far away from Jack Shane…Jackson Robinson…as was humanly possible. Seeing him had definitely not brought her closure.
She made an attempt to wipe her eyes, telling herself she needed to find Highway 87 and keep her foot on the gas pedal until she reached San Antonio and home. She could go home now and tell Cody that Jack was no rustler. A jerk. An arrogant SOB. A heartless bastard. But no rustler.
Not that Cody would believe her.
Jack was right about that. But he was dead wrong about her. Spoiled. Soft. Pampered.
Okay, pampered. Maybe a little spoiled. But definitely not soft.
She was crying so hard she didn’t hear the tap on her side window. She jerked back in alarm as a shadow figure appeared at the glass.
A man in a cowboy hat and jean jacket tapped at her window again. Probably rodeo security. Sheesh.
She hit the power button. The window dropped a few inches. “Yes?” she said, trying to get control of herself.
“Are you all right?” he asked, bending down to look at her. “Chelsea? Chelsea Jensen?”
She blinked in surprise as she recognized him. Lloyd Crandell. She’d seen him only a few weeks ago at her father’s funeral. A big man, he was in his sixties with steel-gray hair and a cowboy mustache and crow’s feet around eyes as gray as his hair. At one time, he’d been the ranch manager at the Wishing Tree.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. Dumb question. Lloyd raised rodeo stock. His family still ranched in the same area as hers did, only Lloyd had left years ago to follow the rodeo. After being stomped by a bucking bronco, he’d gotten into raising rodeo stock.
“I could ask you the same question,” he said, glancing from her stricken, tear-streaked face to the motor home she’d just come racing from. His eyes narrowed. “What has Jack done now?”
Just the mention of Jack’s name set the tears falling again.
Lloyd handed her his handkerchief. “You look like someone who could use some good strong coffee and a shoulder to cry on. Come on. Roberta just put a pot on.”
Maybe it was the fact that he reminded her of her father, whom she missed so desperately, or maybe it was just his familiar face. Whichever, she let him park her car and lead her over to the bus he’d converted into a home away from home.
“Sit down and tell me what in blue blazes has you all worked up,” he said as he went into the kitchen and poured them both a mug of coffee. “Sugar? Cream? Brandy?”
She shook her head and worked to get the sobs under control again.
Lloyd’s wife Roberta came out then, surprised to see Chelsea. Roberta was an angular, tall ranch woman with short-cropped gray hair and a weathered face. Like Chelsea and Lloyd, she’d grown up on a ranch around San Antonio. Chelsea recalled her dad saying what a sharp businesswoman Roberta was, and that Lloyd owed a lot of his success in the rodeo stock trade to her.
“Chelsea? What in the world…?” the older woman asked.
Chelsea gave her a weak smile as she took the mug of hot coffee Lloyd handed her, cradling it in her palms, surprised at how much she needed the warmth. The couple sat across from her, both looking concerned.
“It’s a long story,” Chelsea said.
“I got all the time in the world for Ryder’s little girl,” Lloyd said.
That brought on another bout of tears, but eventually she gulped down some of the coffee and spilled out her story, starting with the summer she fell in love with Jack right up to his hurtful words tonight.
Lloyd shook his head. “I’m sure your dad regretted what he did, not giving the boy the benefit of the doubt.”
“If only I could get Jack to believe that.”
“I think it’s a bit more complicated,” Lloyd said. “The thing is, that rustling rumor is always going to hang over Jack’s head. Your father believed him guilty. So did your brother. That kind of takes care of anything that could have ever happened between the two of you, wouldn’t you say?”
Convincing Cody of Jack’s innocence would take an act of Congress. Or… She stared at Lloyd as a thought struck her. “What if I could prove Jack was innocent?”
He let out a low whistle. “That’s going to be darned hard to do after this
many years, and I’m not sure even that will mend the fences between your brother and Jack. You know how bullheaded Cody can be.” Lloyd smiled to soften his words. “Just like your daddy.”
No kidding. But she’d gotten her share of stubbornness from her father as well.
“Now don’t go encouraging her to do something stupid,” Roberta said, helping herself to a cookie. “I swear, you’re a romantic at heart, Lloyd T. Crandell.”
He laughed. “Don’t you know it.”
Seeing the two older people still so obviously in love almost brought on the tears again. Instead, Chelsea thought about proving Jack’s innocence to the world. Actually, just to Cody—and Jack.
“You wouldn’t remember who was working on the Wishing Tree that summer, would you?” she asked, getting caught up in the idea.
Lloyd rubbed his stubbled jaw. “Ten years ago?” He turned to Roberta. “That was about the time you and I got into the stock business. I was still working as ranch manager down the road from the Wishing Tree and you were still camp cook…. Wait a minute. That was the summer you had that fire on the north forty,” he said to Chelsea. “I remember now. C. J. Crocker hired on as a hand for you dad. I’d forgotten about that.”
She tried to put a face to the name. “C. J. Crocker.”
“Tall, gangly, with a face like a horse,” Lloyd said, not unkindly. “He’s a rodeo clown these days—often on the same circuit as Jack. You know someone else who’s on the circuit is Ace Winters. Didn’t he work for your family?”
Chelsea nodded excitedly. “I do remember him hiring on just before Jack, now that you mention it.” She hadn’t had eyes for anyone but Jack. If she remembered correctly, Ace had quit not long after Jack left—and not on the best of terms.
“Ace is a crackerjack bull rider,” Lloyd was saying. “Almost as good as Jack, although Ace would definitely argue the point.”
“Between Ace and C.J., one of them might remember who else was on the ranch that summer,” she said, more to herself than Lloyd. Her father always hired about a half-dozen men for the season.
“Lloyd, don’t go getting her hopes up,” Roberta warned. “Ten years is a long time and there’s a good chance none of them knew anything about any rustling.”
“She has a point,” Lloyd agreed. “But from what you’ve told us, Ray Dale couldn’t have been working alone. He’d have had to have help to get a bunch of cattle into Box Canyon.”
Her hopes soared. “Someone has to know.”
“I hate to be the one to throw the cold water on this,” Roberta said, “but if you’re right, one of the cowhands was a rustler. I doubt he’s going to just confess. Nor would he take kindly to you asking a lot of questions.”
Lloyd smiled sheepishly at his wife. “She’s right. I don’t know what I was thinking. You start asking questions about cattle rustling and you could raise some hackles.”
“Or get yourself hurt,” Roberta said.
“Don’t worry.” She put down her mug and got to her feet. “I’m my father’s daughter.”
Lloyd laughed as he stood. “That you are. Ya know, Jack’s been quizzing me for years about you. With my folks living just down the road from your ranch, he was always wanting to know how you were doing and what you’d been up to. He wasn’t the least bit surprised when you graduated with honors in accounting.”
Chelsea felt her heart lift like a rocket. So that was how Jack had known about her. She smiled and thanked them for the coffee—and the shoulders to cry on.
“Maybe our paths will cross again,” Lloyd said.
Maybe.
As she left the Crandells’ bus, she glanced in the direction of Jack’s dark motor home, his words echoing in her ears. You wouldn’t last a week in my world.
CHAPTER SIX
IT STILL HURT. The things Jack had said. But now she had a plan. Something she could do. And she felt considerably better.
“I need to know who worked on the ranch that summer,” she said the moment Cody picked up the phone at the ranch.
“Hello, sis. I’m fine, thanks for asking.” She could hear him grumbling under his breath. “So where are you?”
“Lubbock. I found Jack.”
Cody made a disgusted sound.
“I also found Ace Winters and C. J. Crocker,” she said.
“I didn’t know they were missing.”
Cute. She waited him out.
“So was the reunion as touching as you thought it would be?” he finally asked.
Why did Cody have to be like this? Because they were brother and sister, she reminded herself. Sibling rivalry and all that.
“It was much more than even I had anticipated,” she said honestly. She could tell Cody was dying to ask her if Jack had confessed all.
“So when will you be home? Do you want me to come get you?”
She closed her eyes to fight her irritation. Cody was so sure that Jack was guilty on all counts. That Jack had broken her heart. Again. Well, at least Cody was right about that. “Jack wasn’t rustling our cattle.”
“Didn’t we already have this conversation?” her brother asked. “What did you think he’d say, Chels?” He let out an impatient sigh.
“I’m staying on for a few days,” she told him. “Maybe a week.”
Cody swore.
“Humor me on this.”
“I’ve been doing that my whole life.”
“Well,” she tried to joke, “no reason to stop now. So who did Dad hire that summer other than Jack, C. J. Crocker, Ray Dale Farnsworth and Ace Winters?”
“I don’t remember and I don’t care. Cripes, Chels, it was ten years ago. What could it possibly matter now?” He swore again. “You aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“Oh, shoot, I’ve got to go. If you come up with any names, call me on my cell phone.” She hung up before the coming lecture, turned off her cell phone temporarily and found herself a motel not far from the rodeo grounds.
The problem with being alone in a strange motel room in a strange city was that it gave a person too much time to think. She turned on the TV but quickly turned it off again, too antsy to follow even a sitcom plot tonight.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t forget one word Jack had said to her earlier. But damned if she was going to cry again. He didn’t want her in his life. Okay. But she still had to find out who’d been rustling cattle that summer with Ray Dale Farnsworth.
Whether Jack cared or not, and she now suspected he just might, given what Lloyd had told her, she planned to clear his name. She couldn’t go home until she could prove that Jack had nothing to do with the rustling. At least she would have the satisfaction of proving Cody wrong.
She didn’t get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning, finally waking up late from a bad dream involving Jack and Terri Lyn and…a bull? She shook her head, feeling like a black cloud was tracking her.
In the light of day, her big plan from the night before seemed anything but feasible. Finding the men who’d worked the ranch that summer shouldn’t be so hard, but how was she going to get the truth out of them?
She showered, ordered an early lunch and called Dylan. As much as she feared what else he might have found out about Jack, she preferred to hear it from Dylan rather than anyone else. Dylan was out of the office so she left a message that she would call him later. She kept her cell phone on just in case Cody might relent and call.
It dawned on Chelsea that she had access to the names of the cowhands her father had hired ten summers ago through payroll at the ranch. She found a computer store in the phonebook, called and reserved a computer.
For the next few hours, she linked up with her home computer and went through the files. The older files were harder to find since they’d been before her time, when her father had just started to computerize the ranch.
But she finally found the names and wrote them down. Ace Winters. Jack Shane a.k.a. Jackson Robinson. C. J. Crocker. Tucker McCray. Ray Dale Farnsworth. Lance Prescott.
>
She already knew where to find C.J., Ace and Jack. Ray Dale, of course, was dead, which only left Lance and Tucker.
* * *
DYLAN DROVE to the prison. What he planned to do was a gamble, but unlike mobster J. B. Crowe, his resources were limited. Even from prison, Crowe would be keeping tabs on Sebastian’s activities.
Dylan was waiting in the long narrow room when J. B. Crowe was let in. Crowe wasn’t a big man, just five foot ten, but everything about him was intimidating, even in prison garb. Crowe lifted a brow when he saw Dylan sitting behind the glass barrier.
For over a year Dylan had worked undercover to try to bring down the mobster. They weren’t strangers. They were enemies. Dylan despised the man and would have liked to see Crowe go to prison for a lot more than the black market baby ring he’d been running at the time of his arrest.
Dylan picked up the phone on his side of the glass and waited for Crowe to do the same.
“You like prison, Crowe?” Dylan asked. “You sure don’t dress as nice as you used to.”
“Did you just come here to talk about fashion?” Crowe asked.
“No, I came here to gloat. One of your former associates has offered the feds enough evidence on you that you’ll never see daylight again.”
The mobster didn’t even blink. “Even if that were true, why would you bother to come here to tell me?”
“Because I wanted to see your face when I told you that Sebastian Cooper is turning state’s evidence and taking you and your organization down,” Dylan said, playing his trump card and hoping the hell it worked.
“Sebastian Cooper?” Crowe said. “I don’t know anyone by that name. I’m afraid your visit was for nothing.”
Dylan shrugged. “My mistake. Sorry to have wasted your time, but then, time is about all you have, right, Crowe?” He signaled to the guard and left the mob leader in the bare room, still holding the phone.
Outside the prison, Dylan waited anxiously for the call from his snitch inside. All those years as a cop were finally paying off. The call came not ten minutes later.
“Crowe just contacted someone on the outside. He’s sending out word to keep tabs on a guy named Sebastian Cooper.”
