Rain Shadow Book 4 (The Barringer Brothers)

by Tess Oliver

  “Yeah.” It was all Gage could muster for the guy, so I concluded he wasn’t a friend.

  He made a point of smiling at Angel before he and his buddies walked out.

  “Barringer, didn’t see you over there,” another voice came from the row of black barstools that lined the counter. “That colt is ready to break.” The man’s bushy gray hair was tucked under a cowboy hat, and his boots looked shiny and unused.

  Gage acknowledged him with a chin lift. “Told you, Redmond, I’m not breaking that colt until you have him cut. I’m not dealing with a stallion. Don’t have the time or patience or death wish.”

  “I know. The vet gelded him last month. He’s ready to go.”

  A young woman walked into the room and some of the male patrons greeted her enthusiastically. “Thank god it’s Friday!” they shouted simultaneously.

  Angel and I looked at each other in puzzlement.

  “Did we sleep through Thursday?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  She looked to be about Angel’s age with blonde hair tied up in a bun, large dark brown eyes and curves in all the right places. Jericho nearly slipped out of the booth as he watched her float past.

  “Bring him out this weekend then.” Gage was still holding a conversation with the horse owner. Jericho ignored the fact that he was still talking and elbowed him to get his attention. Gage waved him away like an annoying bug. “You still feeding him all that grain?” Gage asked the man.

  “Yep, I needed to get some weight on him.”

  “Well, stop. It makes them too hot—”

  Jericho, who’d obviously decided that the crutches gave him protection from harm, elbowed Gage again. This time my brother grabbed Jericho’s fist and twisted his arm at an abnormal angle. Jericho winced in pain. “Are you going to stop elbowing me? Because those crutches are going to be that much more annoying with a broken arm.” Gage released him.

  Having had his arm twisted into a pretzel, did not put a damper on Jericho’s quest for information. “I just wanted to know the name of that piece of sugar behind the counter who just put on the apron.”

  Gage glanced in the direction of the blonde. “Tell you what, why don’t you go call her a piece of sugar, and she’ll probably tell you her name. She likes that kind of stuff.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure, and then she’ll hand you your balls wrapped in one of those bar napkins,” Gage said.

  Angel laughed.

  “So, the flattery approach isn’t going to work on her?” Jericho surmised, obviously not deterred by Gage’s rather vivid description of the consequence.

  “Calling a girl sugar isn’t exactly a form of flattery,” Angel said. “Just go talk to her, Richo. And be yourself. Girls fall all over themselves for your attention. You must be doing something right.”

  “Yeah?” Jericho looked at Gage for some sort of affirmation. He’d taken an instant liking to my brother, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was sort of a replacement for Cash, who I knew Jericho missed. Gage seemed to like Jericho too, but my brother always had a strange way of showing it.

  Gage raised a brow. “What the hell are you looking at me for?”

  “Just figured you knew her, that’s all.”

  “Friday’s the widow of a friend of mine. He died a year and a half ago when his truck slid off the road in a blizzard. Go ahead and talk to her. Just don’t be disappointed. She hasn’t dated anyone since David died.”

  “Did you just call her Friday?” I asked.

  “Yep, that’s what they call her around here. She used to just work on weekends and whenever we saw her in here, we knew it was Friday and the start of the weekend. So she earned the nickname. Her real name is Kristina.”

  Jericho grabbed hold of the crutches, levered himself out of the booth and swung around in the direction of the counter. The girl glanced up from the glasses she was filling but then returned her attention to her task.

  “What are the odds he’s going to get her number?” I asked.

  The fake leather seat squeaked as Gage leaned back against it. “Not good. Many have tried but everyone has come up empty handed.”

  “Yeah, but Jericho is not everyone.” Angel said. “Do they have bands and entertainment here? I noticed some wood tiles on the floor like a makeshift stage.”

  “Occasionally, they get some singer or band to play. Some are good and some aren’t, but it’s one of the few places in the area to hang out.”

  Rita returned with the food.

  “Hey Rita,” Gage said, “what’s happening with this place? Is it up for sale yet?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet.” Lines crinkled along her eyes as she smiled at Gage. “You still thinking of buying it?”

  “Yep,” Gage said confidently. “You’ll let me know when it comes on the market, right?”

  “Working for Gage Barringer?” She fanned herself dramatically. “You’re damn right I’ll tell ya. Only wish I could afford it myself. From what I’ve heard, the granddaughter didn’t even know she was getting the place. I haven’t seen her since she was a little girl.” She reached to the next table, grabbed the steak sauce and put it down in front of Gage. “Never really knew why Russell stopped talking to his daughter, but he hardly ever got to see his granddaughter.” She smiled at Angel. “Isn’t that sad, a grandfather not getting to see his kin?”

  Angel’s mouth dropped open for a second, but she recouped quickly. “It’s tragic.”

  “Can I get y’all anything else?” Rita glanced across the room to where Jericho stood leaning over the counter talking to Friday. She hardly looked up at him, but I had to give him credit for persistence. “They’d make a cute couple,” Rita said, “I wish that girl would find someone. Sometimes she looks so sad and lonely.” With that she left the table.

  Gage stabbed his fork into the steak. “I’m so fucking hungry, I might just eat Jericho’s if he doesn’t get back to the table by the time I’m done with mine.”

  Angel’s cheeks puffed out with a big bite of chicken sandwich. She swiped a drip of mayo from her lip with her pinky and swallowed. “It’s so good my eyes are watering.” She leaned in for another bite.

  “The food is great here. I guess it’s a good thing.” Gage carved off a piece of steak. “There’s nothing worse than dozens of hungry loggers. And if you don’t offer them big plates of delicious food, they’ll run you out of town fast.”

  Jericho’s crutches thunked on the wood floor as he positioned them beneath his arms.

  “He looks kind of bummed.” I looked at Angel to see if she agreed. She was pretty occupied by her sandwich, but she peered up at him over her bread.

  She shrugged. “Can’t tell.”

  Jericho got to the booth, slid onto the seat and rested the crutches against the table. “She asked me what happened to my leg, and I told her I got shot.”

  “Way to work the sympathy, Dude,” I said. “What’d she say?”

  “She told me I should be more careful when I’m cleaning my guns.”

  Gage burst out with laughter and drank some water to clear his throat. “Sorry, Buddy, she doesn’t give her number out to anyone.”

  Jericho shot a puzzled look at him. “I never said I didn’t get her number.”

  Now Gage sucked in a breath and had to clear his throat with another sip of water. “Can’t be. Let me see it. She probably gave you a fake number.”

  Jericho pulled a paper out of his pocket and showed it to Gage. My brother looked at it.

  “Well, color me fucking impressed,” Gage said.

  Angel was still gazing dreamily at her sandwich. “Told you so.” She took a bite and closed her eyes to enjoy the taste of it.

  Chapter 3

  Angel

  The
black and white gelding pranced nervously around the pen. Gage patiently waited in the center for the horse to tire. His dogs, Rake and Ranger, sat obediently outside of the corral watching him.

  I patted both dogs and then rested my forearms on the pipe running along the top of the enclosure. “He sure moves nicely.”

  “Yeah, he’s bred from some world champion cutting horse. His owner, the guy you saw at Raven’s Nest, likes to compete. He also has cattle, so a good cutting horse can come in handy.” The horse stopped along the edge of the pen. Gage walked toward the animal. “Whoa,” he said quietly. He slipped the halter around the horse’s head and patted its neck.

  Tools clanged in the shed where the motorcycles had been stored, and I could hear Luke and Jericho laughing about something. It was a relief to have Jericho safe with us and not with Dreygon. I’d never considered that he could be in danger at the compound, but I’d been so wrong. Obviously, no one was safe when it came to my murderous grandfather. The days out at the ranch and far away from the black cloud of the club had been pure bliss, but there was always that annoying feeling that anything could still happen.

  It was hard to tell how Jericho felt about all this. He’d grown up in the club life. Occasionally, I would catch a wistful, faraway look in his eyes, and it seemed he was thinking about Nevada. I knew for certain that he missed his bike and his friends back home, but with his injury and the lingering threat of Dreygon doing more harm, he was far better off with us.

  The horse stood still, with the exception of flaring nostrils and twitching withers, as Gage laid a saddle blanket over its back. He stood there for awhile to let the horse get used to the feel of it. Gage glanced over at me. Like his brothers, he was startlingly handsome, and this wild, rustic setting seemed to fit him perfectly. The black cowboy hat wasn’t too bad either.

  “Did you learn about horses from your grandfather?” I asked.

  “Nah, he didn’t know much about horses. He worked for the railroad for years. When he retired, he bought this place. He just wanted to live away from people and cities and noise. Our grandmother died a year after they moved out here, but he stayed on. He had a barn, but he didn’t get a horse until I moved in with him. Thought it would be a good way to teach me responsibility.” He slid the blanket off, and the horse stood stock still as he calmly placed it back on.

  “I’ve never seen a horse being broken before. I expected it to be a bit more—”

  “Exciting?” he finished. “It’ll get more exciting once I climb on his back. He’ll probably shoot me up like a geyser a few times. I’m just getting him used to the tack for the first couple days. It takes a lot of patience to do it right. You do something wrong, like tighten a cinch too fast or let the stirrup smack ‘em when you’re lowering it, and it can make them jumpy for the rest of their lives. I had a friend whose horse would fall right down onto its side if you tightened the cinch too fast.”

  “That would suck. So, if your grandfather didn’t teach you about horses, who did?”

  “The horses. I learned everything by trial and error.” He laughed, and the horse flinched at the sound of it. He patted its neck to calm it. “And there were a lot of errors and a few broken bones. Mine not theirs. But my grandfather had been right. Working with the horses was hard work, and it taught me responsibility. Kept me out of trouble. Something I’d been having a real problem with back home.”

  “Luke mentioned something to me about the Gage chair in the principal’s office.”

  He creased his brows in thought. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Sometimes I spent more time with the women in the office than with the classroom teacher.” His mouth pulled down at the sides, and it seemed he was thinking about the day his mom died.

  “My mom died when I was young just like you guys. It was really awful not having her,” I said.

  He nodded but didn’t add to the conversation. He didn’t seem like the type to open up easily about his emotions. In that way, he was very different than Luke. And from what Luke had told me about the tragic day when they’d lost their mom, Gage had blamed himself because his mom had been killed on her way to pick him up from the principal’s office.

  Gage picked the saddle up off the railing and walked slowly toward the horse. It sidestepped several feet, but Gage patiently followed it. Its feet skittered some when he lowered the saddle onto its back, but then the horse snorted softly and relaxed. It seemed to understand that Gage wasn’t there to do harm.

  “How about you?” Gage asked. “Where did you learn about horses?”

  “I guess my answer would be like yours. Chance taught me the do’s and don’ts pretty fast. My grandfather’s compound is out in the middle of nowhere, and I didn’t have much of a social life. So I spent a lot of time with my animals. Chance was only semi-broke when I got him. The guy was anxious to get rid of him. I thought he was awesome from the moment I sat on his back.”

  A motorcycle fired up inside the shed. The horse bolted forward. The saddle slipped off. “Goddammit, I told them not to start up the bikes until I was done.”

  The bike turned off. I glanced in the direction of the shed. Luke peeked out. Gage lifted his arms in a ‘what the hell’ gesture.

  “Sorry, we forgot about the horse.” Luke disappeared back into the shed.

  Gage walked over and picked his saddle and blanket up out of the dirt. This time it took longer to convince the horse to accept the tack, but Gage eventually won the battle of wills.

  He tightened the cinch, not enough for a rider, but snug enough that he could lead the horse around.

  “It seems like this one won’t be all that hard to break,” I said. “He seems like a mellow horse.”

  “Yeah, he hasn’t done anything stupid yet, which is a good sign. But all he’s doing today is wearing a saddle. It’s a whole different thing when you put a bit in his mouth and climb onto his back.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” Footsteps pounded the dirt behind me. I looked back over my shoulder. Luke and Jericho were heading toward the round pen. Jericho was relying less on the crutches and putting more weight on his leg. However, his limp was still profound, and it saddened me every time I saw it. But I had to remember not to show it. Jericho had caught me watching him through misty eyes as he walked into the kitchen the day before, and he’d been more angered about me pitying him than about having the limp in the first place.

  “You about done with the horse for the morning?” Luke asked. “Richo and I are ready to go play in the dirt.”

  “Give me a few more minutes,” Gage said.

  “Well, I’m going in to start a load of laundry. Otherwise I’ll be walking around naked soon.” I’d said it innocently enough but wanted to take the words back once they’d left my mouth. From the expressions surrounding me, I’d caught everyone’s full attention.

  “And that would be a problem how?” Jericho was the first to verbalize what they all seemed to be thinking, but a red hot glare from Luke quickly wiped the grin from his face.

  “All right, then. I’m going to leave you boys to your play day.” I headed toward the house.

  “Aren’t you going to watch us ride?” Jericho asked.

  I waved off the invite. “Just remember, you had an operation on that leg recently.”

  “The hospital is forty minutes away,” I could hear Gage say as I crossed the yard. “And if they air lift you out of here, you’ll get a really big bill in the mail.”

  Chapter 4

  Angel

  I was down to one highly impractical denim mini skirt, a long-sleeved t-shirt and my boots that had finally dried completely. The long miles of walking and hiking up Angel’s Ridge, and the terrible rainstorm, had really taken their toll on my beloved boots. I wasn’t sure they’d last much longer, and I doubted I could ever find another pair that fit me so perfectly. I would wear them unt
il the soles fell off and the lace hooks disintegrated. I pulled on the skirt and t-shirt and threw everything else into the washer.

  In the distance, the buzz of dirt bikes echoed off the mountainside. As much as I’d hoped Jericho was taking it easy, there was nothing in his nature that would make me think he actually was. And he, like most men, was highly competitive, especially, it seemed, when it came to Luke.

  I grabbed a banana from the kitchen and walked outside. Gage pulled up in an old golf cart. Rake and Ranger sat like sentries in the back. Gage’s dogs only had eyes for him. I could usually warm myself into an animal’s heart pretty quickly, but they were only slightly receptive to my strokes and friendly words. When Gage was near, they focused solely on him. While he was away at work, they slept until his return. It was actually kind of cool how nuts they were about him.

  “You want a ride out to the track? I decided it might be kind of entertaining to watch.”

  “Sure.” I climbed into the front seat and yanked at the hem of my skirt to keep it from inching up. Gage seemed amused by my modesty. “I’m not used to wearing skirts, but everything else needed to be washed.”

  “Hey, no complaints here.”

  We drove up onto the road. The scenery stole my breath every time I walked outside. It was still hard to get over not being confined inside the ugly walls of the compound. Now, more than ever, I had the feeling that they were there to keep people in rather than keep danger out. The longer I spent away from the place, the stronger the theory grew that I’d been Dreygon’s unwitting prisoner.

  When the sunlight hit the landscape just right, it was a swirl of deep buttery yellows and sharp greens with every shade in between. Occasionally, there would be a small shed or wooden shack or a stretch of fence line built from rustic planks of wood, but for the most part, nature rolled on uninterrupted.