by Laura Wright
“The strange part is,” she continued. “I’ve never seen them again, even growing wild, until today.” She chewed her lip. “It just kind of startled me.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, Miss O’Neil,” he said, reaching for her hand, “these flowers were most definitely meant for you.”
Air caught and held inside Sheridan’s lungs. No one had ever said anything like that to her before. Or looked at her with raw, unchecked honesty. What she hadn’t told him was that every night after the bouquets stopped coming, her mother would tuck her into bed and tell her not to fuss. Tell her that romantic gestures were not all they were cracked up to be. She should know. Daddy had brought her flowers all the time, and look where that had gotten her.
Sheridan had held this belief inside her for more years than she cared to count. She hadn’t thought it was a big deal. But as her eyes lifted to take in the vase of Indian paintbrush once again, she wondered if the things her mother had said to her under the guise of wisdom and experience and wanting a better future for her daughter were really just symptoms of a bitter heart. A broken heart.
“Come on, Miss O’Neil,” James said, snagging her attention and rotating his hand so that their fingers were interlocked. “Let me show you to your room.”
• • •
The effortless speed of the mustangs never failed to impress him. James rode alongside the herd into the coming sunset, checking fences, checking water, making sure none of them had any medical issues like the one he’d just released back into their group. He did think one of the mares looked pregnant. If so, that was going to be something that might require the good town veterinarian to come out and take a look at before the birth. The mare probably wouldn’t even let him get within ten yards of her new baby.
Thorough check complete, James broke off from the herd and headed back to the barn. He just needed to feed, water, and brush out his horse, and then he could get home.
Sheridan was back at the bunkhouse. She’d encouraged him to go out, do what he needed to do. But even so, he didn’t like leaving her for long. It wasn’t that he believed her unsafe. Hell, he, Deacon, and Deac’s lawyer had all been keeping pretty close tabs on Caleb Palmer, making sure the bastard stayed behind bars. But James’s concern was more about Sheridan’s emotional state. Even though she understood that piece of shit couldn’t get to her, it didn’t always quiet the fear. Not after what she’d experienced.
As he was coming up on the barn, he saw that both of his brothers were hanging out in the doorway, standing side by side talking, their Stetsons hiding their expressions. No doubt they were waiting on him, but for what reason he wasn’t sure. Cole had better not be fixing to come back home. James had Sheridan all to himself in the bunkhouse and he was going to make sure it remained that way.
He slipped off his horse and strode up to them. “Did I miss a meeting for the Cavanaugh Brothers Club?” he asked.
Cole snorted. “Shit, brother. You know you were denied entrance into that club a long time ago. That’s what happens when you fail the initiation.”
“Right,” James said, deadpan. “Could never manage to burp the theme song to Deadwood.”
“I thought it was the theme song to Gilmore Girls,” Deacon put in, looking from one brother to the other. “That’s what I did.”
James laughed. “Poor Cole. Couldn’t tell the difference.”
“Shut up, the two of you,” Cole muttered good-naturedly.
“Houseguest settling in okay?” Deacon asked with a touch of seriousness.
“Think so,” James said, leading his horse into the barn. “Heading back there after I finish up here. I’ll let you know.”
Both men followed him, and Deacon helped with getting the mare into a clean stall. Then crossed his arms on the top of the stall door.
“Before you do, we need to talk.”
James took off the saddle and lifted it over the door, handing it to Cole. “’Bout what?”
“The vet,” Cole said, placing the saddle on a sawhorse. “And Blue. All that’s unsettled ’round here. All that’s up in the air and not dealt with for too many damn reasons to count.”
The knot that had formed the moment James had heard about his father’s death squeezed with tension. “The vet says she made a mistake. That her pop was just ramblin’ nonsense.”
“You believe that?” Deacon asked, as though he didn’t. Not for a minute.
“I don’t know what I believe. Shit, I don’t know what I want or what I’m doin’ here.”
Deacon’s eyebrows shot up. “And yet you moved my assistant into your house.”
James’s jaw tightened and he looked Deac straight in the eye. “You want her to feel safe, right?”
“ ’Course I do.”
“Well, she feels safe with me.” Don’t know why. Don’t care. “I won’t walk away from that until she’s ready to walk away.”
“I’m not trying to get you to walk away from Sheridan or anything else,” Deacon insisted. “I hate to admit it, but having us all back in River Black right now is a good feeling. I won’t say right. But it’s good.”
“That’s ’cause you’re feelin’ all sentimental,” Cole said in an overly sweet voice. “Tenderhearted. It’s how all men get when their foot’s caught in a trap.”
Deacon turned to glare at him. “A trap?”
“Oh, sorry. I mean, loooooove,” Cole added, then promptly snorted.
Deacon turned to James. “Punch him for me. I can’t get violent this close to my wedding.”
Cole tipped his hat back and laughed. “That’s right. Don’t want to risk getting that pretty face smashed in. Though, if you’re fighting me, there’s no risk.” He grinned wickedly at James. “Just a promise.”
Though he enjoyed the shit-tossing between himself and his brothers, maybe even missed it over the years, James steered them back to the present. To the digging that had been put on hold while Sheridan was in the hospital. “Obviously, we can’t make the vet talk about something she won’t talk about.”
“That’s right,” Cole acknowledged, coming up to the stall door, standing beside Deacon. “So we go around her.”
James nodded. “I think that’s the only way. I’ve looked into seven different care facilities within a hundred-mile radius. Assuming she’s keeping him close by.”
“I’m sure she is,” Deacon put in.
“There’s no Peter Hunter registered at any of ’em.”
“Damn woman,” Cole spit out. “I bet she put him in under a fake name. Maybe even moved him from where he was after we started asking questions.”
“I’ve looked into all of his financial records,” Deac said. “They stopped about a year ago.” He eyed them both. “I could dig into hers.”
“I don’t know,” James said. “If Dr. Hunter gets wind of any of this and calls the authorities, someone might be going to jail instead of to the altar. Maybe Cole and I should do it.”
“Hell, no,” Deac said as if he’d just been sucker punched. “We do it together or not at all.”
“You could check into this Sweet character,” James suggested.
“The boy Cass told Mac about?” Deacon asked. “He was made-up.” He looked at Cole. “Had to be. No one could find him. No one even heard about him—or saw him. He was supposedly going to school with us for a time. Did you know him? I didn’t. Shit, J, everyone in town was questioned by the police. No one knew this kid.”
It wasn’t like James hadn’t said the very same things to himself. But lately, he’d started to wonder. “If Sheriff Hunter was hiding something or covering up something, then maybe . . . I don’t know. Maybe we start asking around. Not just in River Black but the surrounding counties.”
Cole nodded. “Yeah, I agree. Cass had a damn good imagination, and she wanted to be like Mac—Mac liked Deac . . . maybe she wanted someone
too. But if we’re doing this, really doing this, we have to take the case apart.”
“What about Mac?” James asked Deacon. “You gonna tell her any of this?”
Deacon seemed to toss this idea around in his mind for a minute before he answered. Then he pushed away from the stall door and said, “Let’s see if we can get to the sheriff first. See if there’s anything to tell. Maybe the vet’s right. Maybe he’s out of his mind, rambling about things that never were. Maybe things he’d wished he’d done different.”
Cole eyed him, a streak of danger in his black eyes. “So, what? Is that what you’re hoping for in all this? That the truth stays hidden?”
“Jesus,” James said with a snort. “Talk about seeing shit where there ain’t no stink.”
Cole shrugged. “Just asking questions.”
“Come on, Cole,” Deacon said in that older brother to baby brother kind of way. “This is hard on all of us. Scares the shit out of all us. Christ, if we could really, finally, know the truth—”
“Hey, boys.”
James glanced past Deac and Cole to see Sam walking into the barn. As usual, the aging cowboy looked bone weary. But there was an appreciative gleam in his eyes when he took in the three of them together.
“Sorry to break up all this brotherly love,” he said. “But, James, you got a phone call up at the house.”
At the house? Who would be calling him there? “They say who it is?”
“Nope.” Sam grinned. “But I asked. Some woman named June Dupree.”
James cursed and shouldered the mare’s bridle.
“Girlfriend?” Deacon asked with a slight edge to his voice. “If so, you’d better let Sheridan—”
“She’s a producer,” he said tightly. “Hollywood. Wants me for a show. Some bullshit reality thing. Horse Whisperer in Hollywood. She’s fucking relentless.”
Cole looked impressed. “You thinking of doing it?”
“Not sure I’ll have the time, little brother.” He motioned for them to step back so he could get out of the stall. “After all, we got an ex-sheriff to stalk, the truth about a boy named Sweet to uncover, a long-lost brother to find and deal with, new land for the mustangs to search out, and a wedding to attend.” And then there was Sheridan.
Sheridan. She was the warm, happy light in all of the gray.
“Damn, that sounds daunting,” Cole remarked dryly.
“What do you want me to tell her?” Sam asked.
“Tell her I ain’t interested,” James said. Not now anyway. “Tell her if and when I am, I’ll get in touch. Right now,” he said, grabbing a currycomb, “I’ve got my family to see to.”
Fourteen
“Dammit,” Sheridan grumbled as she turned off the burner, grabbed a wad of paper towels, and started mopping up the red sauce that had splattered all over the stove and floor. Hell, maybe it had made it into the hallway, with all that frenzied boiling.
This was so not the way she’d wanted to spend her first night in James’s bunkhouse. Seriously, for someone who could multitask, color code, come up with a surefire marketing strategy for just about anything, all while talking a client down off a ledge, she was a total disaster in the kitchen.
But she’d wanted to try. Wanted to prove to James that she could . . . well, it was sappy, but maybe take care of him a little bit too.
She was just spraying cleaner on another patch of red she’d found over by the dishwasher, when she heard him opening the screen door. She scrambled to her feet, but there was no way to hide the tomato-stained towels in her left hand or the cleaner in her right.
“What’s all this?” he asked, walking into the kitchen.
She noticed the flickers of amusement in his eyes. So basically he knew exactly what this was.
She flung her hands—which were still holding the towels and cleaner—up in the air. “I am a terrible houseguest.”
“See,” he began, coming at her, taking the cleaner and towels out of her hands. “That’s the thing.” He moved past her to the trash can. “You’re a guest, Sheridan.”
“I suck.”
“My point is you shouldn’t be doing anything.” After setting down the cleaner, he tried to get the truth out of her. “But for curiosity’s sake, what exactly were you trying to do?”
“Oh, the usual. Embarrass myself, start a fire, get kicked out my first night.”
His brows lifted. “Wow. Ambitious.”
She leaned dramatically against the counter. “Make spaghetti and garlic bread.”
“I love garlic bread.”
“Dammit!” She hurled herself at the oven and ripped open the door. She felt around at the long loaf covered in foil, then at the interior of the oven. “It’s cold. Okay, perfect.” She stood up. “Forgot to turn it on.”
James laughed and closed the oven door. “Why don’t you let me take over here?”
“No, this was my thing.”
“I promise I’ll make it all better.”
She looked at him with what she imagined were supremely pathetic puppy eyes. “Please don’t tell me you’re a cook as well as a horse genius and a gorgeous . . .” She stopped midsentence, her eyes going wide.
His lips twitched. “A gorgeous what?”
The humiliation factor just kept going up and up. “Girl rescuer,” she said with a resigned sigh. “A gorgeous girl rescuer.”
“I like that.” He laughed and reached past her and took two glasses out of the cupboard. He handed them to her, then grabbed a bottle from the counter and proceeded to uncork it.
“Wine?” she said as he poured the dark red liquid into each glass.
“Beer doesn’t sit right with pasta.” He pointed the neck of the bottle to the wall of windows, and specifically to the one she’d opened earlier. “Go. Out on the back porch. It’s a damn pretty night and I say we enjoy it.”
She hesitated, feeling like a jerk. Like a . . . culinary loser.
“I’ll be out in a few,” he insisted. “Save me a seat?”
“Okay, but I’m convinced that garlic bread will be amazing . . . you know, as soon as it’s cooked.”
His mouth curved up at the corners. “I’ll take care of it.”
Glasses in hand, pride shot to shit, Sheridan headed outside. He was right about the night. A gentle breeze was blowing, and the moon was a perfect crescent that illuminated the endless fields and the barn in the distance. She took a seat at the small table on the deck, and thought about how one would have to be crazy to leave here. Crazy or . . . really angry at something or someone. She suspected with James it was the latter.
“Water’s boiling, bread is baking,” he announced good-naturedly, stepping outside and heading her way.
Under the glow of the moonlight, he looked even more rugged, more handsome than usual. He’d changed into a pair of clean blue jeans and a dark blue button-down shirt. Maybe she should’ve stayed inside to watch.
She grinned to herself, then handed him a glass of wine when he sat down across from her. When their fingers touched, she felt it all the way down to her toes.
“I thought you said you were a bad cook,” she remarked with mock censure.
He looked momentarily confused.
“Or at least that was what was implied,” she continued with a wicked smile playing about her lips. “You know, with Cole moving up to the house. Elena’s amazing cooking beating your burned fish.”
“Oh, right.” His eyes regarded her over the top of the wineglass. “So maybe I wasn’t being completely honest about that.”
“Really?” She sat back, flinched ever so slightly at the bruising she’d momentarily forgotten was there. “Why?”
“I guess I wanted you to feel comfortable here.”
“I would’ve been comfortable with Cole.”
His expression darkened, and he to
ok a healthy swallow of wine. When he placed the glass on the tabletop with just a hint more force than necessary, she felt compelled to push him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m having a boy’s reaction, is all.” His eyes flipped up to meet hers. “I didn’t like hearing you say that.”
Her brows lifted. “That I’d be comfortable with Cole? He’s your brother. And a seemingly decent guy. Shouldn’t I feel comfortable around him?”
“Nah, he’s a good guy,” he ground out. “And you should feel comfortable around him. When you’re out at the Bull’s Eye or up at the main house or in town. But sharing living space, a bathroom, shower.” His nostrils flared. “Walking around in front of him in a towel or—hell—if he caught sight of something he shouldn’t . . .”
“Wouldn’t the same go for you, Mr. Cavanaugh?” she observed, her lips twitching.
He took another healthy swallow of wine and avoided answering her question.
“Okay,” she began thoughtfully, as though coming up with a solution to this problem was really high on her priority list. When, in fact, realizing that he had some feelings of jealousy and possessiveness where she was concerned made her extraordinarily happy. Granted, those two attributes in most guys could be a big turnoff, but coming from the cowboy sitting across from her, it was totally gratifying.
“How about I never walk around in a towel when you’re home?” she suggested.
A flush of red moved up his neck, and she started to laugh. She couldn’t help herself.
“Wait a sec,” she said, realizing how that sounded. “I don’t mean I’ll be walking around without a towel when you’re in the house. Naked. Well, I mean, I’ll have to be naked at some points. Showering in clothes is weird.”
“Sheridan?”
“Yep?”
His ocean eyes flickered with guarded wickedness. “You can be naked whenever you want.”
Momentarily struck dumb, she just stared at him.
He shrugged. “But if you are, I can’t promise I won’t look.” He stood up. “Now, I’m going to go and put the pasta on and check to see if that bread of yours is coming along.”
