Front Range Cowboys (5 Book Box Set)

by Evie Nichole

  “Apparently not for you.” Joe Hernandez put his hands on his hips and glared down at Cisco as though he were trying to rip him apart and see what made him tick. “You have apparently leg-shackled yourself in secret to some woman of no family and no fortune.”

  “You do realize that you sound like a ridiculous parody of some historical romance novel, right?” Cisco snorted. He was not going to allow himself to be intimidated by his father. Apparently, Ms. Lolly Landry had a big fat mouth to go with her horrible earrings and other miscellaneous jewelry.

  “Do you have any idea how many phone calls I’ve been fielding today about this crap?” Joe asked wearily.

  “Seriously?” Cisco thought to himself about people like Melody’s friend Allie who was probably waking up seriously hung over or something equally horrible to realize that she’d lost her job and her ability to feed herself because of one bad decision. “That is what you and your friends have to worry about in life? Whether or not I married in secret to someone you didn’t approve of?”

  “Did you?” Joe demanded.

  “Why would I even bother to tell you?” Cisco flung up his hands and struggled with the urge to punch his father. He figured all of the Hernandez sons had felt that at one point or another. “Have you stopped bothering Jesse about her land? Have you acknowledged that your adopted daughter is not your child and therefore not under your jurisdiction? Have you acknowledged that she is running her own ranch and pretty much doing for herself?”

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Joe snarled. He flung his hands at Cisco, pushing him back. “You could at least find something to throw at me that matters.”

  “Oh, but it does! You know why?” Cisco was feeling just as snarly as poor old Joe. “Because you don’t have any more of a say in Jesse’s life than you do in mine, or Laredo’s, or Darren’s, or even Cal’s. You don’t get to say what we do or say anymore because we are adults!”

  “You are my children,” Joe said fervently. The feverish gleam in his faded blue eyes was enough to give Cisco chills. “Jesse is my child.”

  “No. Jesse is not your child, and you need to get that through your thick head.” Cisco put his hand on his father’s chest and pushed to put some distance between them. “And I’m not a child. I might be your kid, but I’m a grown-ass man, Pops. That means you don’t get to choose for me anymore. You don’t get to say who I date or who I talk to. If I want to help a young woman who deserves some help, then I can.”

  “The whole city says you’re going to marry her!” Joe protested. He pushed Cisco’s hand away from his chest.

  The whole city, hmm? That was disturbing. Why did the city of Denver have nothing better to think about other than his love life? “I don’t care what the whole city says. I don’t even think Melody would marry me if I asked. She’s not into rich guys.”

  Joe grunted. “All women are into rich guys. If you wanted her, she would be yours for the taking.”

  “What is wrong with you?” Cisco fumed. “First she isn’t good enough for me, but then when I tell you that she wouldn’t say yes, you immediately jump on the wagon of yes she would? Be happy there’s nothing going on and go about your business.”

  “There’s something else.”

  How could there be something else? That’s what Cisco wanted to know. The man had come in here and insulted Cisco in just about every way possible. He was barely acknowledging that Cisco was competent enough to make his own decisions about his relationships. And now he wanted to keep on yakking. No thanks.

  “I think you’ve said enough.”

  “Weatherby is telling anyone who will listen that you’re trying to claim jump him on the Farrell place.”

  Cisco cursed out loud. At any other moment in time, that sentence would have been so preposterous as to be complete bullshit. Claim jumping had gone out with the rest of the mining practices and other Old West era less than kosher business practices. Of course, the original use of the term had involved the bushwhacking of some poor old miner who had only just recently managed to strike gold, silver, or something else valuable on a claim he’d been working thanklessly for a decade or more. At some point, the claim became valuable—and not always because it involved ore of some kind either—and then it was stolen. Some other man, woman, or entity would file a claim with the land office or just steal it directly from the individual. It was a horrible practice, and Cisco did not appreciate a man like Weatherby trying to pin that kind of behavior on Cisco.

  “That’s actually a bit backwards,” Cisco muttered to Joe. “Weatherby has been trying to buy the Farrell place.”

  “They’re dead.” Joe’s tone was flat and emotionless. “Died a few months ago in a home in Aurora. I would assume Weatherby could pick up that ranch from the estate. It’s not like the Farrells had family.”

  “They had a granddaughter who is now the rightful owner.” Cisco scratched the back of his neck. “It’s complicated. But if Weatherby is spreading that rumor, I assume he’s tying it to the heels of that crap about the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company stealing everything from land to his horses.”

  “Yep.” Joe nodded grimly. “We found fifteen hundred head of cattle so far that had our brand but were rebranded with the Flying W.”

  “What?” Cisco could barely wrap his mind around such a thing. “He’s stealing our cows? Where the hell are we finding them?”

  “That’s the thing,” Joe snorted. “He’s turning them back onto our property but making it look like we’ve been stealing his stock.”

  Cisco’s brain cranked into motion, and he realized what purpose the Farrell ranch had been serving to Denver’s finest piece of crap law enforcement officer. “So, let me get this straight.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The Flying W hands have been stealing our cows, rebranding them, and then returning them to us.” Cisco had to admit that it sounded idiotic. “Then Weatherby is kicking up a fuss and telling everyone we’re the thieves?”

  “The stock inspectors can use a light to see which brand came first. You know that. It’s modern technology. I suppose we could just freeze brand, but that’s expensive.” Joe suddenly seemed to be thinking that freeze branding wasn’t so bad. “At the moment, it’s taking us forever to be able to sell anything because it has to go through about a dozen stock inspectors just to prove it’s ours to sell in the first place!”

  “So, he’s gumming up the works,” Cisco muttered. He scratched his chin and made his next suggestion. “Melody—the Farrells’s granddaughter—and I went out to the ranch the other day. It’s in good shape. The only person we saw out that way was Weatherby. He came up awful fast. I bet he was already there.”

  “Why?” Joe was frowning. Two big furrows cut a swath through his weathered forehead. “The Farrell ranch is the opposite side of the property from where Joe’s main camp is at.”

  “Yeah, but what if he was using Farrell land—which has essentially been vacant for five years—to hold cattle that are going through rebranding? I bet you anything those stock inspectors have checked every inch of the Flying W looking for that sort of setup. Am I right?”

  “Damn it all to hell,” Joe muttered. “That bastard!”

  “It also explains why he’s in such a lather to get that property under his control for good. If he’s got a setup going and he’s not done yet, he’d be real keen not to screw things up.”

  “That man wants those rodeo contracts so badly that he’s willing to slander the Hernandez name up one side of Colorado and down the other just to make them think we’re dirty dealing.”

  “It’s not working,” Cisco reminded his father. “You might be going through some extra crap with the inspectors. We might be inconvenienced as hell, but if we hold on and hang in there, he can’t last forever. At some point, he has to let go of the idea that he can beat you. He’ll lose the contract and it will be over.”

  “You sound so confident.” It was odd, but the way Joe stared at Cisco made him
uncomfortable. “I don’t feel quite that confident.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Cisco told his father. “You’re so confident that you’re an absolute ass about it. So, for now, let this go. All right? I’ll keep working on this Farrell ranch angle. Melody wants her grandparents’ place, and I aim to make that happen for her.”

  “Why do you care so much about a ranch that isn’t even yours?” Joe wanted to know. His hand was on the door handle and he was preparing to leave. It was the best thing that had happened all day long in Cisco’s office.

  “She’s a good person, Dad.” Cisco wondered if his father was even capable of understanding that. “She deserves to have her dreams come true. And if that’s her dream, then who am I to say that it’s wrong?”

  No. He could not say that someone else’s dream was right or wrong. He could only say that he felt frustration that the two of them did not share the same dream.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Starting the morning was not easy to do. Melody kept rolling over on her uncomfortable little sofa bed and trying to decide whether or not she should just stay there all day long. She did not have to be at work until almost two in the afternoon. It was part of Janice’s attempt to cut Melody’s hours back to only forty. No more double shifts. No more open-to-close marathons. Of course, that pretty much meant no more money, but there was nothing Melody could do about that.

  Or was there? There was always the possibility that she could still find a way to make the ranch a reality. It wasn’t necessarily the draw of the ranch. She just wanted the house. Maybe that was what she needed to focus on. Maybe Weatherby didn’t understand that. Maybe he thought that she wanted to kick him off the leased land. That thought would be bound to make any businessman who was also a rancher feel threatened.

  Flopping onto her back, Melody glared at the ceiling. “Maybe it’s all because of Cisco Hernandez. Maybe if I spoke to Weatherby without any Hernandez drama around, he would be different. The guy is a cop. He can’t really be a crook. He wouldn’t last very long as a cop. Would he?”

  Ugh! Why was she talking to herself? It was silly. She hated how she very often wound up having long, rambling conversations with herself because she didn’t have anyone else to talk to. That was depressing. Actually, her whole life was depressing. It was time to make a change. She had to stop letting other people make decisions and unravel her confusing situations. It was time to do things for herself.

  Unfortunately, that required getting out of bed. Normally it did not bother her that she slept on a sagging sofa bed. It was horribly uncomfortable. Usually she was just so tired that it didn’t make a difference. She could have slept on the floor and her body would not have noticed. Lately though, she had been getting more opportunity to sleep. She had been spending hours in the bed when before it had felt like minutes.

  That was enough to decide her. Melody sat up and flung her legs over the side of the sofa. She rubbed her face and managed to gain her feet without falling over. It was a very near thing. Her back was aching horribly as she stood there, and it was tempting to sit back down. Unfortunately, she had a bad feeling that sitting back down would not help.

  The Farrell’s house had all of that furniture in it. There were beds and tables and dressers and practically every kind of chair imaginable. There was a kitchen with a real refrigerator and a double oven. Two ovens! She wouldn’t even be sure what to do with one of them! And the idea of sleeping on a bed every single night tucked beneath a down comforter or a blanket on cold evenings was like sheer heaven.

  Melody pulled on clothing. Not a uniform for once but real clothing. She didn’t have much. There was simply no reason. She had been working at the coffee shop for years. The black pants and green or blue polo shirts had become the mainstay of her wardrobe.

  It felt strange to pull on a pair of jeans. They were looser than she remembered, which was odd. Melody was not a thin person. In fact, she would have called herself rather chunky at one point, but in the last few years since graduating high school, turning eighteen, and getting out on her own, she had started to slim down in a way that did not suggest healthy eating habits.

  Her stomach rumbled as if it were trying to remind her that she hadn’t eaten anything yet today because she wasn’t at work. Of course, there wasn’t any kind of real food in the apartment either. The only thing in the cabinet was her meager supply of noodle soup waiting to be heated in the microwave with water and the contents of the little spice packet.

  With a deep sigh, Melody shoved her feet into her only pair of shoes and started to walk out the door. But when she pulled her front door open, there was a shocking surprise waiting on the doorstep.

  “Allie?”

  “I got kicked out of my apartment,” Allie moaned. She was sniffling and sobbing in a heap on the ground. “I don’t have anywhere to go. Will you let me stay with you?”

  This was not the first time that Allie had attempted to move in with Melody over the years, but the idea was preposterous. Melody’s place was one room. It was only a few hundred square feet and was packed full with Melody’s small collection of belongings. There was no room for anyone else, their stuff, or even their breathing.

  “Please?” Allie whined. “I don’t have a job. I don’t have a place to live. I don’t have any money. And now I don’t even know how I’ll change that.”

  Melody struggled not to roll her eyes. She loved Allie. They had been friends for years, but all of a sudden, Melody was tired of taking care of other people. She had her own shit to worry about.

  “Get up off the floor,” Melody snapped at Allie. “Seriously. Have you just been lying there on my doorstep feeling sorry for yourself?”

  “I didn’t want to wake you up.” Allie sounded defensive.

  Allie managed to pull herself to her feet using the doorjamb. She was still weaving and shaking when she walked. Melody was reminded of Cisco’s thought that there was some other substance at work here. In the past, Melody had never known Allie to do anything more serious than weed, but there was always the possibility that Ryan had stepped up his game trying to make Allie dependent.

  Melody shut her front door. She pointed to the tiny table with two chairs in the “kitchen” portion of the room. “Sit down. When was the last time you ate something?”

  “I don’t remember.” Allie took a seat and slumped onto the table. There was something distinctly pouty about her attitude.

  “You better stop acting like a spoiled brat,” Melody warned her friend. “I swear I will dump you right back out on the street and leave you there if you act like I owe you something.”

  “You’re the one who swapped schedules with me the other night!” Allie sat trembling in the chair and managed to point accusingly at Melody. “You got me fired.”

  Melody rolled her eyes because she had her back to Allie and her friend could not see. Then she shoved a package of noodles into a big hard plastic bowl and put it in the microwave. It took very little time at all to heat the stuff up and then place the bowl of food in front of Allie. In that short amount of time, Melody managed to figure out what she needed to say to Allie. Or at least what she could say without losing her temper.

  “Allie, your shift started at four in the morning,” Melody reminded her friend. She took the chair on the opposite side of the table and watched as Allie began hungrily devouring the noodles. “Are you telling me that I ruined your life because I went to work at four in the morning for you and made it so you didn’t have to be there until noon? Are you actually claiming that you would have made it in by four o’clock when you couldn’t get there by noon? You did not call Janice. At all. You never called. You never went in to try and smooth things over. I bet you still haven’t tried to call Janice. If you went in there and proved to her that you’re done with whatever thing you’ve got going on right now, she might change her mind!”

  “I don’t want to talk to Janice,” Allie mumbled. “She’s mean.”

  “She’s a
boss.” Ugh! Melody could not believe she was defending Janice’s behavior. The dragon lady was a horrible manager. She wasn’t a people person or a team player, and it showed. She was just a boss. Unfortunately, that did not mean she was wrong. “I don’t like how Janice runs the place either, but it isn’t my call to say whether or not she does it right or wrong, Allie. I’m not a manager. I’m just an employee.”

  “You’re on her side,” Allie said nastily.

  Melody wasn’t getting anywhere like this. It would be better to try and figure out what was going on with Allie’s living situation. “So, tell me how you got kicked out of your place. Ryan was only there for a few days, right?”

  Allie sucked up a noodle and swiped the back of her hand over her mouth. She refused to meet Melody’s gaze. This was not looking good. Finally, Allie muttered under her breath.

  “What?” Melody snapped. “I can’t understand the mumbling. So, maybe you’d better speak up.

  “I said,” Allie snarled, “that Ryan has been there two months.”

  “Two months!” Melody gaped at her friend. “What? Were you hiding him under your sofa?”

  “He was working!” Allie shot back defensively. She quickly sucked up the remaining noodles as though she thought Melody would take them away. “He was working for a friend. The job fell through last week.”

  “Let me guess,” Melody grunted. “He got caught doing drugs at work.”

  “It wasn’t true!” Allie was almost surely obsessed with this guy. If nothing else, she was absolutely codependent. It wasn’t good at all, and it was starting to drive Melody crazy.

  “Look.” Melody reached across the table and grabbed Allie’s forearm. She gave it a light squeeze. “That man is trouble. Apparently, you haven’t been paying your rent for two months. I’m guessing you missed month number three too. I don’t know what your payment deadline was, but the grace period was probably the fifteenth. Right? So, Ryan was smoking and drinking and God knows what else with your rent money. You didn’t pay it. And then you started using again. Now you’ve lost your apartment.”