Long, Tall Texans: Hank & Ultimate Cowboy ; Long, Tall Texans: Hank

by Diana Palmer

  Eventually he’d been so worn down, he’d stopped crying. Stopped begging.

  Then Father had let him out.

  And he’d believed every word Father said.

  Even that his other family hadn’t wanted him. That they had sent him to Father to teach him to be strong and to join his army.

  But Hank’s?

  It sounded like his family loved him, that they wanted him back. That they hadn’t given him up.

  But Father would never let him go now.

  And one day Hank would stop crying and learn to do what he had to do to fit in.

  Just like he and the others had.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Julie struggled to pull herself together. Notifying any family member regarding the status of a missing loved one was difficult, but seeing Brody and resurrecting the painful memories of their past was even more difficult than she’d imagined.

  Especially because it made her long for the love they had lost.

  Not that she had ever seen real love in her life. Her parents had died when she was a baby and her aunt and uncle had taken her in. Her aunt was a sweet, mousy, cowardly woman who’d sat back and allowed her husband to run over her.

  Her uncle, a bastard, who had had no business raising a child.

  The night Brody had lashed out at her and the following weeks when chaos had descended, the TBI and cops had swarmed, questioning the family, even casting suspicion on Brody’s father, had been miserable.

  And her uncle had made it worse. He’d found out she was with Brody and had beaten her and called her a slut.

  Two weeks later, she’d left for college, knowing she had to start a new life. She’d sworn never to come back.

  Unless it was to bring Brody good news about Will.

  It was good news that he was alive, she reminded herself. And when they caught Will, then they could find out the truth about where he’d been all these years.

  In spite of the fact that she hadn’t seen or heard from her aunt and uncle in years, she found herself driving by their house. The small clapboard structure looked even sadder now. The paint that had once been white had faded to a dingy yellowish brown and was chipped and peeling off. The shutters were rotten, the yard was overgrown, and the flowerbed her aunt had once planted filled with weeds.

  Deciding it was time she faced her old demons, she parked, climbed out and walked up to the front door. The screen door was ripped, the winter wind swirling leaves onto the stoop. She knocked, then heard a man’s growl from inside and started to turn around and run like she had so many times in high school when her uncle had been on a drunken tear.

  But she forced her feet to remain still. She wasn’t a frightened teenager anymore. She was a woman who carried a badge and a gun.

  A second later, she heard feet shuffling, then the door creaked open, and her aunt stood on the other side. She looked stoop-shouldered, her hair had gone completely gray, and her eyes were even more lifeless than when she’d lived there seven years ago.

  “Aunt Mary,” Julie said.

  Her aunt’s lips parted in shock. “What are you doing here?”

  Her uncle grumbled something in the background, then lumbered up behind her aunt. “Who the hell’s at the damn door?”

  “It’s me, Uncle George,” Julie said, jutting her chin up in defiance.

  He narrowed his eyes, although they were blurred from alcohol. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved or showered in weeks.

  “It’s our Julie,” her aunt said. “She’s come home.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Julie said, hating to dash her aunt’s hopes. She’d always been the buffer—rather the punching bag—for her uncle. No doubt after she’d left, he’d turned his wrath on her aunt.

  She would always regret leaving her to face that.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” her uncle growled.

  “I came to talk to Aunt Mary,” Julie said, shooting her uncle a glare.

  “She doesn’t have anything to say to you.” Her uncle reached for the door to shut it, but Julie caught it with one hand.

  “Wait just a damn minute,” Julie said, no longer afraid of her uncle. She simply hated him now. “Aunt Mary, I want you to know that there are better things out there, that not all men are drunks and beat women.” Although God knows she’d seen plenty of that on the job. But she used Brody as a model.

  “If you ever want to leave this hellhole, you can call me.” She shoved her business card in her aunt’s hands. “I’ll do whatever I can to find you a nice, safe place to live.”

  “You bitch.” Her uncle raised his fist, but Julie pulled her gun and pointed it at him.

  “If you lay another hand on her and I find out,” Julie said, pinning her uncle with her eyes. “I’ll come back, and you’ll be sorry.”

  “Julie dear,” her aunt said in that tinny voice that told Julie her aunt had given up a long time ago.

  “I mean it,” she said. “Uncle George, you may think you can hide what you’re doing, but I have my sources now. If you hurt her, I’ll find out and I’ll be back.”

  Then she turned around and strode back to her car.

  Her uncle’s foul mouth spewed obscenities as she climbed into the sedan, but she ignored them and sat for a moment watching the house.

  For the first time all day, relief spilled through her and she smiled. Maybe Brody still hated her. Maybe he always would.

  But she would love nothing better than to haul her uncle in and put him in jail. She actually hoped he would pull something right now and give her a reason to arrest his sorry ass.

  But the house was quiet, and a few minutes later, her aunt walked out onto the front porch and gave her a wave. It was the first time she’d seen her aunt smile like that, and she realized she’d made her point.

  So she shifted into gear and drove away.

  Her cell phone was buzzing as she pulled onto the main road. She glanced at it, thinking it might be Aunt Mary or Brody, but it was her chief instead.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “You know that other kid in the robbery in Amarillo?”

  “The boy with the one we think is Will Bloodworth?”

  “Yeah. We may have an ID on him.”

  Julie’s heart stuttered. An ID might lead to an address. “And?”

  “It’s not good,” he said. “We think his name is Tray Goodner.”

  “At least you have a name. Where does he live?”

  “That’s just it. Tray Goodner disappeared from a neighborhood park five years ago.”

  A shiver ran up her spine. “You think he and Will were both abducted?”

  “It looks that way.”

  Julie’s head spun. “Good God. What if the unsub who’d kidnapped them had also kidnapped Hank Forte?”

  * * *

  THE NEXT TWO days seemed like years to Brody. As he rode to the stables to meet the group of teens he was working with today, he kept replaying the conversation with Julie in his head and berating himself for being so rude.

  She was right. He’d been a jerk. But seven years of not knowing what happened to his brother and imagining the worst had stretched his patience to the limits. The pictures of Will robbing that store taunted him.

  There had to be a good explanation. Will had been forced to steal to survive…. Maybe he’d been living on the streets and had to join a gang to keep himself safe….

  He checked his phone log for messages, but there was nothing. Dammit, he’d been such a jerk that Julie might have decided not to call him if they located his brother.

  The horses kicked up dust as he crossed the pasture, and he steered the quarter horse into the pen. Andrew Cogburn, the twenty-year-old counselor he’d assigned to this trio, threw up a hand in greetin
g.

  The horse they’d just brought in to work with kicked and whinnied, obviously unhappy to be trapped in a pen.

  Brody led his horse to another stall, dismounted and patted his side. “Take a break, Chester.”

  He glanced at the three boys. Fifteen-year-old Hudson “Huddy” Liverby had recently joined the BBL after being sent to juvy for carrying a knife to school. Fourteen-year-old Royce Canton had come with his little brother Tory at the advice of a school counselor who said they were both grieving over their father’s recent death. And Seth Tsosis, a twelve-year-old from the reservation, had arrived after his mother had written Brody begging for his help. Seth was having trouble with bullying at school because of his small stature.

  “Hi, guys,” he said as he approached them.

  Huddy scowled, his bad attitude obvious, while Royce seemed interested in watching the stallion bucking in the stall. Seth hugged the edge of the fence as if he was afraid.

  “I see you’ve met Lightning.”

  “He’s mad, ain’t he?” Royce said, wide-eyed.

  Brody chuckled. “He sure is.”

  “You ever ride him?” Seth asked.

  “Not yet,” Brody said. “We just brought him in.”

  “He looks like he’s in jail,” Huddy said with a smirk.

  “He probably feels that way,” Brody said. “He hasn’t been broken yet.”

  “You took him out of the wild?” Royce asked.

  Brody shrugged. “Not exactly. But his previous owner wasn’t very nice to him.”

  Seth stiffened. “What’d he do to him?”

  “He beat him,” Brody said, then gestured toward a couple of scars on the horse’s hindquarters. “A friend of mine found him at a rodeo and called me, and we decided to bring him here and see what we could do with him.”

  Huddy gave him a sour look as if he knew what Brody was trying to do and wasn’t buying it. But Brody had learned a lot about kids over the past few years, so he continued.

  “There are some other horses on the ranch that are safer and tame, ones you’re going to ride while you’re here,” Brody explained. “So this guy is off-limits for now, got it?”

  “I bet I could ride him,” Huddy said.

  Brody clenched his jaw. “But you won’t unless you have my permission,” he said firmly. “In fact the first thing you need to learn is a healthy respect for the animals on the ranch. They weigh a lot more than you or I do, and they’re powerful creatures. Be good to them and they’ll be good to you. But abuse them like the previous owner did and the animal will learn not to trust you.”

  Royce seemed to be absorbing every word he said, and Seth looked pensive but respectful. Huddy was going to be a problem, but hopefully time would mellow him. A few weeks on the ranch might just turn him into a man.

  Andrew motioned toward the pen. “It takes time to break a horse,” he said. “But listen, guys, Mr. Bloodworth is the best.”

  Brody forced a tight smile. “Actually my buddy Johnny Long is the best, but he taught me a lot.”

  “You know Johnny Long?” Royce asked.

  “The rodeo star?” Seth said.

  Brody nodded. “Yeah. He’s promised to help us with this guy.”

  “You mean we’ll get to meet him?” Huddy asked, losing the belligerence.

  Brody held back a smile. Johnny’s name always impressed the kids. “You sure will. But Johnny will expect you to learn the basics.”

  “He’s not scared of anything,” Seth said with big eyes.

  “Actually, that’s not true.” Brody lowered his voice so as not to make Seth feel as if he was chastising him. “It’s okay to be afraid of something bigger and stronger than you are. The key is not to let that fear rule you, and not to allow the animal to know. When an animal senses fear, he’ll use it against you just like people do.”

  Seth looked down at his shoes for a moment as if he was thinking about what he’d said. A minute later he squared his shoulders. “So don’t show you’re afraid.”

  “Yes. But that doesn’t mean being stupid or jumping into the ring with a big bull or a horse that isn’t tame. It means learning how to use your head and handle the animal. To do that, you have to treat them with respect.”

  Huddy looked sullen again as if he wanted to challenge everything Brody said. But Brody stepped inside the pen, and the horse rose on two legs kicking at him, and the boy’s eyes flickered with fear.

  “It’s okay, Lightning,” Brody said gently. He kept his distance, talking softly, as he circled the pen. “The first thing we need to do is to win his trust. And that takes time and patience.”

  He spent the next half hour talking to the animal and the boys, then led the group into the barn and introduced them to the horses they would learn to ride.

  By the time they left the barn and headed to the dining hall, Royce and Seth were chatting excitedly. Huddy had grown quiet, but the tentative way he’d reached out to pat one of the horses indicated he was at least winning his interest in the ranch.

  But as Brody watched the boys join the other campers, he looked out at the sea of kids and wondered what Will would think of this place.

  For years he’d seen his brother’s face on the streets, in stores, every place he went. For a while, he’d attended every rodeo he could find in Texas, hoping his brother would be in the crowd. In fact, a few months ago when Johnny had helped him host a rodeo as a fund-raiser for the ranch, he’d hoped ridiculously that his brother might magically appear in the stands.

  But he hadn’t.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets with a weary sigh. At least he knew now that Will was alive.

  And he would do whatever he had to in order to save him.

  Even if it meant putting aside his feelings and working with Julie to bring him in.

  * * *

  TWO DAYS had passed since Julie had left Brody. Two days of trying to figure out how they could catch Will.

  “We’ve managed to contain the media from showing his photo as of now,” Chief Hurt said. “But I don’t know how much longer we can hold them off.”

  “I’m surprised someone didn’t capture the robbery on their cell phone and it’s not already on YouTube,” Julie said.

  Agent Jay Cord walked in, looking haggard and worried as hell. “I just came from the Fortes’ house. The mother’s in bad shape.”

  As a moment of silence descended, Julie’s stomach churned. She wasn’t a parent, so she had no idea how it felt to lose the son you’d given birth to, but she did understand the mind-numbing terror and guilt a family felt when a child went missing.

  And how devastated she and Brody and Brody’s father had been the day they’d lost Will.

  “Have the parents, their friends and family all been cleared?” Julie asked.

  Jay nodded, then scrubbed a hand over his face. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. “We got a few tips on that Tip Line, but none of them panned out.”

  “How could a six-year-old disappear and no one notice it?” Hurt asked.

  Julie sighed, the familiar answers traipsing through her head. “It was a busy place, dozens of kids and families around. Kids running off to see the attractions, begging to do the rides, parents trying to keep up.” She paused with a huff. “These creeps are pros. They’re watching for the perfect opportunity. A balloon floats by and the kid chases it. He sees the ice cream vendor and takes off. His mother, father turn their heads for a second.” She snapped her fingers. “That’s all it takes.”

  “Some of them use tricks to lure the kids away from a group,” Cord cut in. “A prize, a toy, a puppy. They know how to catch a kid’s attention and earn their trust.”

  “He’s right,” Julie said. “Just think about it. A man in a uniform, a cop, even a vendor, those people seem safe to
children and to the adults around them.”

  Julie frowned, thinking back to the day Will had disappeared. “You know that could be it. The kidnapper could be someone who worked at the carnival, someone the kids would automatically trust.”

  “You mean like a vendor?” Cord asked.

  “Yes, or someone who got a temporary job working one of the rides or stands. If a man selling cotton candy or giving away balloons came up to Hank, he wouldn’t have been scared.”

  “And the perp might have a van stashed nearby,” Agent Cord said, following her line of reasoning.

  She removed the photos of Will and the other teenager, Tray, from the file on her desk and spread them out for Jay to look at. “These boys both went missing at different times. Will Bloodworth from a rodeo seven years ago. Tray from a park five years ago.”

  “You’re thinking they’re connected?” Cord said.

  “It’s possible,” Julie said. “So maybe we should look back at those sites. The rodeo, the park, the fair. See if there’s a connection like an employee, vendor service, even a delivery van.”

  Jay’s face brightened. “Hey, it’s more than we had an hour ago and a place to start.” He headed to the door. “I’ll get right on it. This could be the break we’ve been looking for.”

  Julie nodded, her adrenaline pumping. “Tell them to look at all the missing children cases in the past eight years. See how many of them happened at a public venue. There may be more victims attached to this guy.”

  “You’re a genius,” Cord said.

  Julie shook her head. No, not a genius. Just trying to connect the dots and find Will. He could be only one of a string of children this sicko had abducted over the years.

  Just thinking about their families and the pain they’d had to endure made her want to scream in rage.

  Agent Hurt’s phone buzzed, and he quickly connected the call. “Yes? Right.” A slight hesitation, his brows pinched. “Got it. We’ll be right there.”

  He closed his phone then looked at her. “Another robbery in Amarillo. This time there was gunfire. Let’s go.”