Front Range Cowboys (5 Book Box Set)

by Evie Nichole

  He could not stop watching her as she moved. The sight was strangely erotic. There was something about the way her hips swayed as she moved through the house that was provocative in a very basic way. She didn’t have to try to be attractive or arousing. She just was. It was an effortless thing about the way she moved and the way she carried herself.

  Cisco had to remind himself why they were going into the kitchen. It was important to keep himself on task. Or at least that’s what he kept telling himself. She walked into the open airy space at the back of the house, and he knew that she hadn’t been in here before. Her steps slowed as she entered the welcoming space.

  There was a big butcher block table in the center of the room. An island separated the eat-in portion of the kitchen from the stovetop, double oven, and the ancient refrigerator. The floor was old wood. Cisco would have bet good money that it had come from a barn somewhere on the property. The oak was solid, and though it was dusty, it would clean up beautifully.

  “Wow.” Her whisper of amazement made him smile. Then she turned and stared at Cisco with a look of total wonder on her face. “This is incredible! Is that what you wanted to show me?”

  “Not exactly.” He had to rouse himself from his contemplative study of her eyes and try to recall why he’d been so adamant that they come in here. “The lights don’t work, but the refrigerator is still running.

  “It is?” She reached for the old handle and gave it a tug. As he had earlier, she coughed as a wave of stale-smelling air wafted out. “Ew, it smells!”

  “It’s old.” He chuckled a bit and felt as though her adorable wrinkled nose should probably not be as attractive to him as it was at the current moment. “So, it’s going to need a good cleaning, but someone obviously realized that if you turned it off for a period of say three or five years, that it would be unlikely to turn back on ever. Yet someone also realized that it would likely be cheaper to shut the breakers off in order to keep something from accidentally coming on and costing a fortune in electricity.” He moved toward the thermostat on the wall. “See? It’s set at sixty-eight degrees. I bet it comes on to keep the pipes from freezing.”

  “So, basically, you’re saying that someone intentionally kept the house in working order.” She turned a slow circle. “Why? Why would anyone care? Were there documents in there that suggested someone was paying the electric bills? Who has been taking care of the house, and if they care about the house, why does it not matter there are back taxes due on the land?”

  “I’m not sure.” He didn’t have a ready answer for this particular puzzle.

  Cisco looked at the wonderful kitchen with the sun spilling through the windows. It was a very well-positioned room. The obvious care that someone had taken with not only the architectural design but also the upkeep of the place was obvious. This was one of those situations where the actual evidence didn’t quite add up to the reality of the situation.

  “I’ll admit,” Cisco told Melody. “I expected the roof to be falling in and animals to have moved into the place. So far, there are no signs of critters or anything else. I haven’t been upstairs yet though. Shall we try?”

  Melody was busy opening pantry doors. She discovered a half bathroom in the tiny hallway between the kitchen and the back door. This seemed to excite her. She bounced on the balls of her feet and turned around to look at him with her eyes shining in obvious pleasure.

  “There’s another bathroom!”

  “Actually, I would imagine there’s a shower in there too,” he mused. “They sometimes call those mud rooms. It’s so the menfolk don’t have to track mud and dirt through the whole house when they come in from the barn.”

  “Oh!” That seemed to fascinate her. “So, basically, the men would take a shower and then streak through the house for clean clothes?”

  “Only if the womenfolk were mean and didn’t leave them some clean duds in the bathroom,” he teased.

  She put her hands on her hips and laughed at him. “I’d have totally stolen your clothes and made you streak.”

  “Oh, really?” He raised an eyebrow. She had never been quite this bold around him. It was both startling and very endearing. She was being silly. She was excited. Normally she carried such a weight on her shoulders that any happiness or exuberance seemed tempered by real-life worries. He could not resist the opportunity to tease her back. “And what would you be hoping to catch a glimpse of when I ran past you without any clothes?”

  “Definitely your butt.” She nodded emphatically. “I have this feeling that your butt is really amazing in the flesh.”

  He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but that definitely wasn’t it. “My butt?” He turned to try and look at the body part in question, which was super awkward, all things considered.

  “You called me very appealing earlier. Remember?” She took a few steps closer to him. Now he could smell her warm feminine scent. “What if I think you’re appealing too?”

  “Maybe I would be flattered.” It was hard to get the words out. His throat was tight, and his tongue felt too big for his mouth.

  She moved even closer, until she was standing so close that he could see the top of her head. Then she lifted her chin and looked right up into his face. “Maybe I do. Maybe I really want to touch your face.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t mind if you do.” He swallowed. Was he about to pass out? It was difficult to tell. “Maybe I would like it.”

  She lifted her hand. The movement was so slow and so deliberate that he felt himself unconsciously holding his breath. The first brush of her fingertips against his skin was startling. He loved the way it felt when she brushed his whiskers. He hadn’t shaved that morning. Now he was glad.

  Melody ran her fingers over his jawline. Brushing his chin, she smiled as she touched the slight cleft before moving on to his cheeks. She raised her other hand and let it join the first. She cupped his cheeks. The way she stared up at him left a mark on his soul. He’d never been stared at quite like that before.

  “It’s scratchy but soft too,” she whispered. “I like it. I like the way it feels on my palms.”

  Her hands moved up his jaw toward his ears. He felt a tingle shoot down his spine. Everything from his head to his toes tingled. His fingertips were buzzing. He longed to touch her, but he didn’t want to startle her either. So, he settled for gently placing his hands atop hers where they rested against his face.

  “Cisco,” she whispered. “There’s no future for people like us.”

  He didn’t answer right away. What was he supposed to say? Hadn’t he had the same thought earlier? Weren’t her words absolutely true? He did not want her to feel as though she had to “pay” him for what he was doing for her. It wasn’t like that.

  “Maybe future is the wrong word,” he whispered. “Maybe we should stop thinking about the future and just think about right now. Is there a future for us in the next five seconds? Probably. After all, you’re still going to be talking to me in five seconds. Right? You’ll still be touching my face?”

  “I want to be,” she admitted. “I want to keep touching you. I want you to touch me too.”

  “Like how?” He almost couldn’t get the words past his lips.

  “I don’t know.” She tilted her head to the side. “Maybe my cheek?”

  He didn’t waste a single second. Cisco cupped her cheek in his hand and ran his thumb over her lips once again as he had in the back bedroom. He loved the way her full lip felt beneath the callous on his thumb. He loved the way she sucked in a little breath at the last second almost as though she were surprised by the sensation she was experiencing.

  “That’s a good place to start,” she admitted in what seemed like almost a shy voice. “Your hands are soft.”

  “My hands are calloused,” he argued. “But your face is incredibly soft. That must be what you’re feeling.”

  “I can’t feel my own face through your fingers!” Her eyes sparkled as she laughed.

  When her lips pa
rted, he gently ran his finger over the whole cupid’s bow of her lower lip. She shivered a bit. Her hand reached up and grabbed his wrist. There was a look of surprise on her face, and suddenly he could not resist one second longer.

  Cupping her face in his hands, he lowered his lips to hers. He very gently kissed her mouth. It was just a chaste brush of the lips. He did not push things. He didn’t let them get out of control. This was not the time to let his desire overcome his self-control. He needed her to know that he respected her first and foremost, because he suspected that nobody else had.

  Cisco pulled back very slowly. To his surprise, Melody came with him for just the briefest second. Her expression was slightly bemused and very, very sweet. She exhaled a little sigh, and Cisco suddenly felt as though he were on top of the world.

  Of course, that lasted up until the moment he heard someone pounding on the front door. There were heavy boots on the porch and then a deep voice yelling into the living room.

  “Who’s trespassing in here? I see a Hernandez vehicle out front! You dirty thieves better not be trespassing on my land! I’ll shoot first and ask your corpse the questions later on!”

  Holy shit. That sounds like Paul Weatherby!

  Chapter Thirteen

  Melody had been frightened a lot of times in her life. She didn’t live in the greatest area, for starters. Then there was the simple fact that she had been in foster care for most of her life. She had lived in some horrible group homes. She had dealt with some seriously creepy and even dangerous foster parents and foster siblings. This whole threat of violence thing made her feel both angry and vulnerable all at the same time.

  Clutching Cisco’s hand, she held her breath and waited to see what he would have to say about the intruder. She wasn’t trespassing. She wasn’t! This was her land and her house. It had belonged to her grandparents, and now it was hers. So, who the hell was standing on her front porch claiming that she was on their property?

  Cisco exhaled a grunt, and Melody realized that he didn’t look afraid. He looked irritated. And perhaps he even looked downright annoyed. He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. Then he smiled.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I think we may be on the verge of some answers.”

  She took a breath to speak, but he shook his head. So, instead of saying anything, she let him take the lead as they exited the kitchen for the living room. It wasn’t incredibly bright in the living room. Most of the dying sun was spilling through the west-facing windows at the back of the house.

  The front door was still open as they’d left it. Now there was a man standing silhouetted in the doorway. He was almost as tall as Cisco and very broad. But where Cisco always looked as though he were packing around muscle, this man looked as though he were given more to chunk than to muscle.

  “Well, well, well.” The man folded his hands over his chest, and Melody could see that he actually had a handgun strapped to his waist!

  What. The. Hell? This was not the Wild West! This was modern Denver. Or the suburbs. Or rather it was outside the city limits and the burbs, but it still wasn’t Dodge City in the days of gunfights and bank robbers!

  “Paul Weatherby, I wish I could say I’m surprised to see you here, but that would be a lie. How nice to see you.” Cisco’s tone was so mild that Melody was almost confused. Were they friends?

  “You’d better get your thieving ass off my property, Francisco Hernandez.” The man named Paul was growling like a junkyard dog. Apparently, there was no love lost between these two. How odd.

  “And can you explain to me,” Cisco drawled in a voice that made Melody think of a courtroom drama, “how this property has come to be yours?”

  “I made an offer. The owner accepted.” Paul shrugged. He took a step into the house and leaned against the newel post of the staircase leading to the second floor. “The Farrells were old. They didn’t have any relatives. It was pretty cut and dried.”

  “Interesting,” Cisco continued. “So, you made an agreement with people who were in a nursing home?”

  Something flickered behind Paul Weatherby’s eyes. Melody caught a glimpse of it. And if the subtle stiffening of Cisco’s body was anything to go by, so did he. The man was hiding something. Or perhaps he didn’t actually know what he was hiding. If he’d been dealing with Watson, he might have heard as many lies as Melody had.

  “The Farrells are dead.” Weatherby waved a hand in a dismissive gesture that made Melody want to pick up a lamp and lob it at his head. “They don’t have any kin. I made the deal with their estate lawyer.”

  Cisco took a few steps forward and put one booted foot up on the ladder-backed chair sitting in front of an antique rolltop desk. “Here’s the issue, Paul.”

  “Issue?” Weatherby did not look amused. Melody realized that Cisco had managed to put himself between her and Weatherby. Given the man’s tone and increasingly irritable expression, that could not have been an accident. “What issue? I own this place. You’re trespassing. Case closed.”

  “Except you don’t own it.” Cisco rested his forearms on his thigh and stared straight at Weatherby. “The estate lawyer either lied to you or the two of you are in on this bullshit deal together.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Farrells had a granddaughter, Paul.” The room was absolutely, eerily silent after Cisco’s quiet announcement. “And I find it difficult to believe that you weren’t aware of that, given the fact that your agents have been hounding the young woman for a week or more.”

  Silence. Complete and total silence. It did not feel good. Instead, it was more like the calm that comes before the storm breaks and the heavens open up to drench the earth and drown anything foolish enough not to take cover.

  “The Farrells’s granddaughter isn’t interested in selling. She contacted me to find out what her rights really were. According to the records from Mr. Watson, she has the right to remain on the property. She is not required to sell. She is not required to hand over anything. It’s all hers, free and clear.”

  “Except for the taxes!” Weatherby stammered. He took a few stomping steps farther into the room. His fists were balled up and raised, but he hadn’t gone for his gun yet, thank goodness! “There are five years of back taxes due on this property!”

  “That’s an odd sort of coincidence,” Cisco said silkily. Melody could not help but admire his absolute confidence and unflappability. He did not sound bothered by anything that was happening. She was ready to pee her pants and run screaming out the back door.

  “Coincidence? What is your problem?” Weatherby demanded. “Did your asshole father send you out here to steal this land from me? It’s mine! I’ve been taking care of the house and paying the electric bills for years now!”

  “So, that’s what’s been going on,” Cisco mused. “I wondered. Did you lease the land, Paul? Because I have to tell you that there is absolutely no paperwork to that effect in the file. If Watson offered you a lease or you made a deal with him, he wasn’t upfront about it. It wasn’t legal. So, it wasn’t real.”

  Paul was sputtering. He now backed up a few steps instead of advancing. What was he doing? Then he pointed at Cisco and stabbed his finger as though he were trying to make his point that way. “It was a gentleman’s agreement! It doesn’t require paperwork!”

  “A gentleman’s agreement doesn’t work when property is being held in trust. You would have had to get an agreement for a lease with the Farrells. And they aren’t exactly alive to say yay or nay, which means that any agreement you had died with them. So, unless you had it in writing, it’s null and void.”

  “You bastard!” Weatherby hissed. “You lying, thieving Hernandez bastard! You’re all the same! You’re all trying to take what’s mine. You want Flying W land. You steal Flying W stock. You graze our lands and you lie about it all!”

  Melody was now cowering behind Cisco. She didn’t know what Weatherby was yelling about, but it didn’t seem exactly believable. Melody didn’t know C
isco very well, but he’d been straight with her from day one. Even when she’d been rude, he’d been polite and helpful. She had thought he was nothing more than a spoiled rich brat, but he was so much more than that.

  “It doesn’t matter what I am, Weatherby.” Cisco pushed away from the chair he was leaning on and took two steps toward his belligerent accuser. “The point is that you are the trespasser here. You are the one who doesn’t belong. So, get out of the house. Leave the property. And don’t come back. If you eventually purchase the property from the owner, fine. Then it’s yours. However, at this point, my client has no interest in selling. She would rather find out where the profits have been going for the last several years. So, if you would like to come forward and state that you had a gentleman’s agreement with the Farrells and have been paying them rent on a land lease, we welcome that information. In fact, you can contact my office first thing Monday morning and make an official statement.”

  For five seconds Melody thought that Weatherby was suddenly going to become a help to their investigation of what had happened in the time her grandparents had been in the nursing home. Then the man’s face tightened up into a mask of pure hatred and anger.

  “Not a chance,” he growled. “You’ll have to subpoena that information, if there is any. I’m not going to help you for one second. Do you understand me? I’m not going to provide you with anything. You can go to hell!”

  Before Melody could guess what he was going to do, Weatherby pulled the gun from his holster. He leveled the barrel of the weapon right at Cisco and paused.

  Melody put her hands over her mouth to stifle the scream that wanted to escape. The black hole at the tip of the barrel of the gun seemed to grow larger with each passing second as she waited to hear the deafening sound of a shot. What was this crazy person doing? Why would he think he could just shoot someone and get away with it? Her heart was clawing against her ribcage, and her eyes were watering as she struggled not to cry. The sour taste of fear entered her mouth, and she struggled not to cry out with the sheer terror she was experiencing.