Westin Legacy

by Alice Sharpe

  “Then take me out to the barn and bring me up to speed. I plan to help with the haying. I used to know my way around a tractor, you know.”

  A smile lifted Birch’s lips for a millisecond. “We can use the help. Come on, Adam, we’ll—”

  “I can’t,” Adam said so quickly Echo decided he was as anxious to escape these two querulous old men as she was. He turned to Pete and added, “We discovered someone was looting the burial cave this winter. I need to ride out and check the safeguards Pierce and I put in place. What with haying, there won’t be another opportunity for the next few weeks.”

  Echo saw her chance. “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  “I’m going on horseback.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Do you still ride?”

  “Of course.” Sort of…

  He glanced down at her sandals. “You’re not dressed for it.”

  “I have boots and jeans in the truck.”

  “It’s a long ride—”

  “Oh, come on. I can keep up. I was pretty good on a horse.”

  “That was a lifetime ago,” Adam said.

  “I was a natural. Uncle Birch told me so.”

  Birch actually chuckled as he took off his hat, rubbed the red mark it had left on his forehead and pulled it on again.

  “Well, Pete, let’s you and me go find Cody and Jamie. Leave these two to pick up where they left off—squabbling.” With that, the two older men walked toward the outbuildings, both with ramrod-straight backs, both with hands jammed in their pockets.

  Adam’s gaze followed his father and uncle.

  “So,” Echo continued, “are you going to take me with you or not?”

  He looked straight into her eyes. “You’re as pushy as you were when you were a skinny kid with pigtails.”

  “I prefer to think of it as highly focused.”

  “Self-delusional, too,” he muttered. “Okay, hurry and change. I’ll go saddle a couple horses. You want a broken-down mare or maybe a pony would be more your speed?”

  She grinned, pleased he could still dish it out. “Give me a stallion, buddy, I can handle him.”

  “I bet you can,” he murmured as he walked away.

  ADAM RODE AHEAD OF THE BLACK gelding he’d saddled for Echo. Bagels was a spirited horse and under normal circumstances, Adam might have chosen another for what he guessed was an out-of-shape rider. But time was short and besides his own mount, Solar Flare, Bagels was the only horse in the barn even remotely suitable.

  He smiled to himself at the phrase “out of shape.” One look at Echo De Gris in her jeans had confirmed what the earlier glimpse of her bare legs had blatantly announced. Whatever his cousin Echo was, she was also a damn good-looking woman.

  Take the glossy short black hair that fell fetchingly across her forehead. Or her black-as-coal eyes, glinting with mischief. Or her slender back and strong arms. Before now his notice of her had been that of a slightly older boy stuck “babysitting” the brattiest little girl in the West. She’d matured into a very attractive woman if you didn’t count that willful streak of hers. Look at the way she’d coerced him into this ride.

  “Hey up there,” she called.

  He turned in his saddle to face her and caught a glimpse of her breasts jouncing softly as she rode. Nothing wrong with that, either. “What’s up?”

  “What’s that little yellow building over there?”

  “Ice fishing shack. We drag it over the lake when it freezes up, cut a hole in the ice and go to it.” He turned in the saddle, but she once again hailed him and he turned back.

  “What about that house over there on the point?” She indicated with one hand and swayed slightly in the saddle. The gelding snorted.

  “What about it?”

  “It looks new. Whose is it?”

  “Mine.”

  “Hold up a minute,” she insisted. He rode to the top of the next rise and waited for her.

  “I’m in a hurry,” he reminded her.

  “Then ride, I’ll keep up. Tell me about this house of yours. It looks huge. You must be expecting to raise a big family.”

  He shrugged.

  “What’s your girlfriend think?”

  “I don’t have a ‘girlfriend.’”

  “Don’t you like girls?”

  “Yes, I like girls,” he said. “There’s just no one special right now.”

  “Did you build the house for the one that got away?”

  “No one got away,” he said, casting her a look. “I haven’t met anyone…yet.”

  “You built the house before you even met a girl you wanted to marry?”

  He applied a gentle kick to Solar Flare to increase the speed. Echo did the same to her horse and managed to stay alongside him although her position in the saddle was precarious at best.

  “Do you know I produce television shows?” she asked a little breathlessly.

  “I thought you were a decorator of some kind.”

  “Nope.”

  “Is that your new job in New York, producing television shows?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What kind?”

  “I did nature shows in San Francisco, but in New York I’m moving to food.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m going to produce a cooking show. You know, on cable.”

  “I’ve never heard of a cooking show,” he said honestly.

  “You must live under a rock. There are whole channels devoted to cooking and eating and restaurants and all the rest.”

  He shook his head.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “last year, in Frisco, we did a three-part special on birds. I produced the segment on Bowerbirds. Have you ever hear of them?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She waved a hand in the air and slipped again, grabbed the saddle horn and steadied herself. The horse tossed his head as if to ask what in the heck she was doing back there. “The male Bowerbirds really go all-out building these fantastic nests to lure a female into mating with them,” Echo said a little breathlessly. “Each nest is different, too. The males decorate them with colorful trash they find or maybe with flowers or dead insects…anything to attract a potential partner.”

  The look he cast her this time was longer. “Wait just a second. Are you comparing me to a bird?”

  She laughed. “Judging from that house you’re building, you’re aiming to capture a princess of your own and raise about ten kids.”

  “No princess, no thanks. When I marry it will be to a girl who was raised on a ranch and knows exactly what she’s in for. And as for kids, don’t tell me, let me guess. You don’t like them. They’re too much trouble. They get in the way of a career.”

  “Wrong, oh, wise one. I actually like kids.” Her forehead creased as she added, “Do you know what all that blustery stuff between my stepfather and your father was about?”

  Adam turned away from the lake, following the steep trail into the trees. “It sounded like it was about your mother.”

  “I think it kind of sounded as though they were talking about your mother.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “No one on this ranch talks about my mother.”

  Echo leaned sideways toward him. When he realized it wasn’t entirely on purpose, he put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back upright.

  “Least of all you?” she said.

  “Least of all, me.”

  “But—”

  “If your mother had run away with some cowhand while you were still a little kid, would you have spent a lot of time worrying about her?”

  “I guess it would depend on why she ran.” Echo gasped as the gelding made a small but jarring leap across a gully. “Understanding that very basic thing seems important to me.”

  “Not to me.”

  “My stepfather mentioned your mother sent a postcard after she left. From Canada, I think he said. Did anyone track it down? Why don’t you try to find out wher
e she went or if she’s dead or alive?”

  Reaching the top of the ridge, he once again waited for the gelding to catch up. When Echo was beside him, he met and held her gaze. “Get this straight. My mother died for me a long, long time ago. She chose life with a guy named David Lassiter over a family who loved and needed her. Now, if you want to ride with me, I think we should change the subject, don’t you?”

  Her black eyes flashed irritation. The gelding, apparently sensing her mood, pawed at the ground and snorted again. “I’m beginning to remember what you were like, Adam Westin. We always had to do everything your way, you always had to be the boss.”

  “I was older than you.” The horse was turning in a circle now, making ominous guttural sounds in his throat. “Echo, be careful—”

  “If your whole family is as sanctimonious about your mother as you are, no wonder she ran away!”

  “Forget my mother for a minute. Calm down. Your horse—”

  “I will not calm down. Maybe the two or three years between us was a big difference when we were little kids, but it’s nothing now,” she continued. “I have half a mind—”

  The horse had had enough. He bolted. Going fast.

  And in the wrong direction.

  Chapter Two

  “Whoa,” Echo shouted. She yanked on the reins automatically but all that seemed to do was make the horse toss his head. She looked down at the ground and wished she hadn’t. A blur of flying hooves, rocks and grass made her dizzy. Any half-baked idea she’d had of abandoning the saddle went away.

  Thank goodness the horse had the good sense to stay in the open. At least so far…

  Think. No way did she want Adam to save her although it probably beat plunging off a cliff.

  Should she try pulling on the reins again? Both reins at the same time? One harder than the other? Help!

  She couldn’t think straight. Her insides were bouncing around like ice cubes in a cocktail shaker. She was lost in panic mode just like the horse…?.

  So calm him down….

  Snatches of long-ago lessons finally fought their way through the electrical flash points in her brain. She needed to center herself in the saddle or she was going to go right over the gelding’s head the next time he tossed it. She managed to thread her fingers through a handful of mane down by his withers. Gulping with fear and effort, she attempted what seemed impossible, working to find a rhythm to the horse’s thundering gait and adapt herself to it, to stop fighting him. Give him time. All she had to do was stay on his back until he decided he’d had enough.

  Gradually it seemed the horse’s surges decreased. She gently but firmly squeezed her knees, concentrating like crazy on relaxing into his stride. She was suddenly aware of Adam riding the big red-gold horse alongside her and had no idea how long he’d been there. He didn’t try to grab anything, just little by little began backing his horse off and that, too, seemed to reassure the gelding.

  At last the gallop became a trot and the trot petered away to a nervous, staccato walk. Echo gently patted the gelding’s hot neck and made soothing sounds until he came to a full stop.

  Adam slowly got off his horse and took the gelding’s reins. She slid out of the saddle. Her knees buckled when her feet hit the ground. Adam caught her and for a few seconds, she leaned against him and breathed heavy.

  “Are you okay?” he muttered against her hair.

  No voice yet to answer.

  “I had no idea Bagels would respond to rider inexperience like that,” he said. “You did good, I mean for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

  “The compliments just keep rolling off your tongue,” she muttered. Now that it was over, she’d turned into a jellyfish. Eventually it occurred to her that Adam Westin was not stiff like his father or her stepfather, not at all. He was firm and lean, yes, but he was also incredibly tender and his arms supporting her were strong. Warm. Sexy.

  She pushed herself away, embarrassed to have such thoughts about him.

  He tipped up her chin and smiled down at her. The leap her heart took into her throat was so disconcerting she twisted her head away.

  He released her at once. “Take the reins. We’ll walk the horses for a while to cool them off.” He smoothed the gelding’s long nose. “You okay now, Bagels? Got it all out of your system?”

  He started leading his horse up the path and she followed with Bagels, relieved her legs were working again. “I wish I’d known what to call him when he was running off with me,” she said.

  “I don’t think it would have helped.”

  “Probably not.”

  They continued on in silence. Bagels pressed his muzzle against her neck every once and a while as though trying to make up and she patted him. The sound of the horses’ hooves against the rocks and the birds overhead began to meld together.

  The adrenaline rush was gone and now she felt woozy, her feet like granite. “Tell me about this cave we’re going to,” she called, hoping for a diversion. “For starters, how much farther?”

  “Well, you and Bagels very cleverly took us by a different route than the one I had planned,” he said, glancing at her over his shoulder, his gray eyes amused. “We’ll be coming in the back way now. I guess we’ll walk a half hour or so and then ride an hour.”

  “It’s a distance, isn’t it?”

  “I tried to warn you.”

  “And when we get there?”

  “We check the lock I put on the entrance.”

  “What exactly was taken?”

  “There’s no way to know for sure because the contents have never been documented. Apparently, the tribe that used the cave summered here in the high valley. When one of them died, their body was wrapped in blankets and laid to rest inside the cave where there are dozens of fissures. Sometimes amulets or relics of one kind or another were buried with them. My great-grandfather came across the cavern a long time ago and since then, we’ve all been caretaking it. About thirty years ago, my father made it clear we were all to stay away from it.”

  “Did you?”

  “Not really. My brothers and I just stopped telling him about our adventures. For the most part, we did respect the burial cavern. It was the prospecting shafts we mainly took an interest in, and they’re in the main cavern. We didn’t advertise our activities to Dad.

  “Then last winter Pierce came back to the ranch when Cody was called away and I was hiking in Hawaii. Princess Analise showed up and for some reason they were both pretty vague about, he took her to the cave.”

  “I read about a cave in the newspaper stories that followed their exploits. The article didn’t say anything about burials or relics.”

  “That’s because we kept those facts to ourselves. But at that time, Pierce noticed activity. Since then, I’ve been keeping a closer eye.”

  “Are these artifacts valuable?”

  He shrugged. “Not overly so, not intrinsically, anyway. Nothing worth a fortune but none of it should have been lost. I’ve been asking my father to allow me to invite the university in to excavate and preserve the site for years, but he likes things the way they are.”

  “So it’s on Open Sky land?”

  “Absolutely. Our family has known about it for generations. I’m surprised Uncle Pete never mentioned it to you.”

  “Is your father the chatty type?”

  Adam laughed. “God, no.”

  “Neither is Pete. I guess it runs in your family except now that I say that, you can talk when you want to.”

  His lips twitched and he shook his head.

  They climbed a series of rocks, their horses picking their way behind them. Adam turned every so often as if to see if she needed help. She made sure she didn’t. Her femme fatale episode was behind her now. Onward and upward.

  He was quite a bit ahead of her when she noticed he’d stopped. Shading his eyes with one hand, he was peering up into the sky. “It’s getting late,” he called. “Let’s get to the top of this bluff and ride again. It
’s a little rocky so go slow.”

  “Slow is my new middle name,” she mumbled, and when she finally returned to the saddle, she did so with a smile on her face if not one in her gut. But Bagels seemed as happy as she was that the drama was over and plodded along behind Adam’s mount like a good horse.

  “It’s over the next ridge,” he said at last. They’d actually climbed high enough that snow still existed in shady pockets of land and the temperature dropped. They were soon over the ridge and coming down the far side toward the mountain that was apparently their goal. Echo breathed in big gulps of pine-scented air and marveled that it didn’t seem so remote and lonely here after all.

  It took her a second to notice Adam had stopped his horse dead in his tracks. She stopped as well, and for a second, admired the way Adam looked sitting in his saddle, the man and the horse in total harmony and striking against the green trees and brilliant blue sky. Eventually it occurred to her there was something ominous in the way he stared down the mountain. He was so still and vigilant…?.

  It began to unnerve her. Even the birds seemed to have stopped chattering in the treetops and both horses stood with their ears perked forward.

  Waiting…

  Just when she was about to crack, Adam turned toward her. “Someone is down there.” His voice was very soft.

  The leather saddle creaked as he leaned forward and unsnapped a strap on a long holster that held a rifle, although he didn’t take the weapon out of the scabbard.

  Okay, this was unnerving. And exciting. Really, she’d been positive she’d die of boredom over the next twenty-four hours and already she’d survived a runaway horse, enjoyed some banter with a good-looking relative and now they were going to catch a grave robber.

  “Adam?”

  “Shh,” he said.

  She lowered her voice. “I assume you’re talking about a bad guy?”

  “I think the odds are pretty good. Come on, stay close to me.”

  Try to get rid of me….

  Maybe instead of cooking shows she should divert into true-life action documentaries. The construction of coq au vin, while interesting, didn’t get the pulse pounding like this…?.