by Laura Wright
“Come on, girl,” Mac uttered, leaning in, digging her boots in further, using her shoulder to push the cow’s hind end.
Blue grunted beside her. “Give it a little more gas, Frank!” he called out. His eyes connected with Mac’s. “On three, Mac, okay?”
She nodded. “Let’s do it.”
“One. Two. Push fucking hard.”
With every ounce of strength she had in her, Mac pushed against heavily muscled cow flesh. Her skin tightened around her muscles, and her breath rushed out of her lungs. She clamped her eyes shut and gritted her teeth, hoping that would give her just a little extra power. It seemed like hours, but truly it was only seconds before the sucking sounds of hooves pulling from mud rent the air. Hot damn! The cow found her purchase, and groaning, she clambered onto the wood boards. Maybe the old gal darted away too fast and Mac wasn’t expecting it. Or maybe Mac’s boots were just too deeply embedded in the mud. Or, shit, maybe she was thinking about how she’d never do this with Everett again, this life and death moment that both of them loved so damn much it had bonded them forever.
Whatever the reason, when the cow lurched forward, so did Mac. Knees and palms hitting the wet black earth in a resounding splat.
“She’s out!” Frank called from the cab.
“No shit!” Mac called back, laughing in spite of herself, in spite of the thoughts about Everett.
Eyes bright with amusement, Blue extended a muddy hand, and Mac took it and pulled herself up.
“Good thing you have time for a shower,” he said, chuckling.
Mac lifted an eyebrow at his clothes caked in mud and sticking to his tall, lean-muscled frame. “Not you. You’re all set. Say, why don’t you head over to the church right now?”
“Come on, Mac,” he drawled, wiping his hands on his jeans as he started out of the mud hole. “I can’t go like this.”
Mac followed him. “What do you mean? You look downright perfect to me.”
“Shit, woman.” Standing on high, dry ground now, Blue took off his Stetson, revealing his short black hair. “You know I need a different hat. This one’s way too dirty for church.”
Mac broke out into another bout of laughter. It felt good to be joking after some hard-won labor. It felt right in this setting, on this day in particular. Everett would approve. Nothing he liked better than the sound of laughter riding on the wind.
Overhead, another sound broke through their laughter and stole their attention. And it wasn’t one Everett would think kindly on.
Frank glanced up from tending to the exhausted cow and shaded his eyes. “What the hell’s that?”
Mac tilted her face to the sky and the gleaming black helicopter with a name she recognized painted on the side in fancy silver lettering. Instantly, her pulse sped up and her damned heart sank into her shit-caked boots.
“That’d be trouble,” she said in a quiet voice.
“With a capital C,” Blue agreed, his eyes following the movement of the chopper, too. “Looks like the eldest Cavanaugh has come home to bury his daddy.”
“And bury us right along with it,” Mac added dryly.
“You think?” Blue asked.
“Hell, yes.” As the chopper moved on, heading toward the sizable ranch land Deacon Cavanaugh had bought a few years back, Mac’s gaze slid back to Blue. “He’s been trying to get his hands on the Triple C since he walked out its gate ten years ago. I’m guessing he thinks this is his big chance.”
“But he’s got all that property now,” Blue observed. “More land than we got here. A house being framed up, the whole thing fenced in for cattle.” He shrugged. “Maybe he’s over wanting to run the Triple C.”
Mac smiled grimly. “I don’t think he ever wanted to run this place, Blue.”
That had the cowboy looking confused and curious. “Then what? Why would he work so hard and offer so much money for something he didn’t want?”
Mac shook her head, dug the tip of her boot into the dirt, into the land she loved. “I don’t know. I’m not sure about his reasons. I just know they ain’t pure. I tried talking to Everett about it a few times, ’bout why Deacon was pushing him so hard, being such a slick-ass bastard—trying to take over the very home he and James and Cole had all run from as soon as they were able. But he brushed me off, said all his boys had been changed in the head after Cass was taken, and they weren’t thinking right.” Mac chewed her lip, shook her head. That explanation had never made sense to her, but she didn’t push it. Everett had gone through hell, and if he didn’t want to talk about it, that had to be respected.
’Course, that didn’t mean she hadn’t tried to work it out in her head a few times.
“I always wondered if it was just Deacon’s way of doing business,” she continued. “How he makes his money. Buying and selling off pieces of other people’s dreams and sweat.” Her eyes lifted to meet Blue’s. “But he could do that anywhere. Why the Triple C?”
Blue was silent for a moment. Granted, the cowboy knew some of the history with Deacon, his father, and the ranch, because Mac had filled him in when the former had started his war with Everett six years ago. But Blue didn’t know the particulars of the loss the Cavanaugh boys had endured before they’d left home. He didn’t know about the day Cass had been taken or the night Sheriff Hunter had come to their door with the news that her body had been found. He didn’t know that her killer was never caught, or about the morning they all sat in the very same church Everett Cavanaugh would be eulogized in today, over a beautiful white casket, their lives changed forever.
But Mac knew. And hells bells, she’d shared that unending grief along with them. Her best friend gone before she’d seen her fourteenth birthday. It wasn’t right. For none of them. But neither was taking that grief out on people. Especially family. Especially a man as goodhearted as Everett.
“So you think this is Deacon’s big chance?” Blue asked her, his face a mask of seriousness now. “You think he’s gonna get his hands on the Triple C?”
“Not if I can help it,” Mac uttered tightly.
She watched the helicopter shrink to the size of a dime and then finally disappear behind the mountain. She didn’t know what Everett’s will was going to say, who he’d left the Triple C to. But she did know that whoever it was, they’d have her standing over them, watching every move they made. Making sure that this land she’d come to love so damn much was taken care of properly.
“Let’s drive this cow home to her friends, boys,” she called out. Determination coursing through her, she walked over to Gypsy and shoved her boot in the stirrup. “Let’s do the job we’ve been hired on to do, then go pay our last respects to our boss, our friend, and hand-to-God, one of the best men I’ve ever known, Everett Cavanaugh.”
Two
Deacon exited the Long Horn and strode across the lawn to the long, metal garage that housed his cars. He was pleased to see that in the six weeks since he’d last been on the property, much had been done to the house and barns. All three were framed in, and as he was flying over, he’d seen fencing around the entire property. Next he’d have his guys get on a foreman’s house, working pens, guest cottages, a pool area, and maybe a landing strip. If they kept up this pace, in nine months he’d be spending his weekends in River Black.
He tossed his bags into the back of the custom charcoal Dodge Ram Laramie he’d instructed his staff to have readied and waiting outside. It had been a few months since he’d been behind the wheel of the diesel engine and those stellar three hundred and fifty horses, and damn, he was looking forward to it. No matter how citified he’d become in the past ten years, in his heart and guts, he was one hundred percent country boy.
He slipped the key into the ignition, felt and heard the engine roar to life all around him, then hit the gas. Dust and gravel kicked up behind him as he peeled away, leaving his new, uncomplicated property for the lush, spiteful ranch he’d once called home. The ranch he’d loved, then feared, then despised, then ran from, then tried to
take control of. Shit, could this be it? Could the place of death and pain and cruelty finally be leveled to the ground?
The air rushing into the Ram’s cabin was sweet and always so achingly familiar. It filled Deacon’s nostrils, entered his lungs, and wrapped around his guts, squeezing the hell out of him. That was the thing about River Black—no, about the Triple C. Beauty was plentiful and endearing, but it masked the secret evil that lay beneath all too well and all too easily. Surrounded by spring-fed lakes, rugged mountain crags, and lush, expansive rolling grasslands, the Triple C Ranch sighed with contentment and prospered—even under the weight of a twelve-year-old unsolved abduction and murder and its terrible aftermath.
The dense memory of his little sister, Cass, assaulted him as he passed through the wrought-iron front gates of the Cavanaugh Cattle Company. Granted, the forever-thirteen-year-old girl was always near to his cold heart, her free and gentle spirit propelling him forward, reminding him of the vengeance he sought and the salvation he would soon find. The grand property spread out before him on both sides of the drive. Time had been kind to the Triple C. Fresh paint glistened on the well-kept fencing, the miles of grassland looked thick and fertile, and every structure he passed, or spied in the distance, appeared well appointed and well kept.
His lip lifted in a sneer. How the hell could something that had seen a devastation like Cass’s death, then witnessed the subsequent cruelty by two grieving parents who believed their three remaining children to be responsible, blossom over the years? Shouldn’t it be rotting out like a Halloween pumpkin come spring? Maybe his mother had been right. Maybe her words to him in the months following Cass’s death all those years ago were true. Maybe he and James and Cole had been the true blight on this landscape, and now that they were gone, it could flourish.
Well, he’d see soon enough if that were the case.
About a mile in, Deacon passed the barns, both painted cherry red, both expanded to accommodate big equipment and at least two dozen horses. Farther down, over the grand stretch of fertile pastureland, near the creek, he could just make out the bunkhouse and a decent-sized guest cottage. The hundred-thousand-acre property and forty thousand heads of cattle had to be worth upward of thirteen million, and over the years, Deacon had made one offer after another to his father, near to doubling that sum. But the old man had refused. No doubt, Everett Cavanaugh had known in his sour gut what his eldest child had planned.
Another mile in, Deacon spotted a few cows on the north ridge. They looked peaceful, mouths full of green, no idea their lives were about to change in just a few hours with the reading of a will. It was going to be interesting to see if Everett had left even a blade of grass to Deacon. Not that it mattered, of course. Even if the entire ranch were given to James and Cole, Deacon knew his brothers wanted nothing to do with the place. Both of them were so far removed from River Black now, and from the home that had become a living hell after their sister was taken, Deacon hadn’t been certain either one of them was coming. Not until he’d gotten a call from James a few days ago.
As he headed over the rise, the sprawling family ranch house burst into view. Even though Deacon had been to River Black nearly every month for the past six years, he was never welcome on the property, and he looked on it now with fresh eyes. The exterior had been changed to dark gray stone, and the porch had been redone, but everything else looked exactly the same. Even down to the hanging baskets of red geraniums his mother had always had strung across the beams and those two ancient handmade rocking chairs sitting side by side out front. It was like stepping back in time, and Deacon felt his gut clench with pain, then expand with a strange adolescent warmth. That house called to him like a lover. A hateful, spiteful lover with her arms outstretched. He knew her body well and was more attracted to it than any of the chrome and glass dwellings he worked and lived in now. It was a damn shame.
He hit the brakes, stopping the truck a few hundred yards from the front door. His gaze traveled the landscape, catching on a pair of horses and their riders coming up over the hill toward the barn. He wondered momentarily if he knew either rider. If maybe the cowboy on the left was James or Cole. But as the pair drew nearer, then pulled up sharp near the hitching post on the far side of the barn, Deacon’s body stilled. He didn’t know the man in the white Stetson, but he sure as hell knew the woman. He hadn’t seen her for a year or so, and even then it had been just a quick pass by in town. But forgetting Mackenzie Byrd, the foreman of the Triple C, his sister’s best friend, and one of the biggest pains in his teenage ass, wasn’t possible.
Deacon’s eyes moved over her. Dressed in a green tank top, blue jeans, and chaps, she was a far cry from the scrawny kid with mud in her hair and the devil in her large blue eyes. The kid who used to give him a verbal beating every time he tried to steer Cass away from that too-tight friendship.
She slid down from her horse and granted Deacon a perfect view of her very fine ass. No, this wasn’t a girl. This was a full-grown woman. Tall, tanned, and tight, her lean muscles earned working on the land. Movement to her right drew Deacon’s eye, and he observed the broad-shouldered cowboy she was with. Grinning, the man leaned in, his hand finding Mac’s shoulder, his fingers dipping dangerously close to the curve of her right breast, and said something near her ear. Whatever it was, it made Mackenzie laugh, her pink, always-wicked mouth kicking up at the corners. Deacon continued to watch the pair, wondering who the man was. No. Wondering who the man was to Mackenzie.
Crossed arms suddenly dropped onto the ledge of his open window, and a gravelly voice he knew all too well broke through the soft sound of the breeze. “Well, well, look what the Forbes list dragged in.”
Deacon turned and gave the grizzled old cowboy and barn manager a once-over. Same black Stetson, same deep, wide grin, and skin the color and texture of leather. “Good to see you, Sam.”
The shit-eating grin curved upward even further, making the man’s brown eyes flash. “Didn’t know if you’d be showing up for the funeral, Deac.”
A whisper of something dangerously close to grief moved through Deacon, but he shoved it away. “Come on, now. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Hope we’re talking about paying respects here.”
“No one expects respect out of me, Sam. You know that.”
The old man’s bright eyes dimmed and he clucked his tongue. “Don’t like that kinda talk, boy. Don’t like it at all.”
Deacon laughed, but the sound was hollow as hell. “How you doing, Sam? Gettin’ on all right?”
The question seemed to pull the aging cowboy out of his momentary irritation and into a subject he appreciated discussing. “Everything on this old body aches like a sonofabitch.”
“Maybe it’s time to pack it in and move to the coast, sit on the beach and watch the waves?” Deacon said, then waited a moment, knowing what was coming next.
“Beach and waves?” Sam’s disgruntled snort echoed inside the truck. “Shoot.” He unfolded himself from the window. “Don’t be talking nonsense to me, boy. I’ll die in the saddle and you know it.”
Deacon nodded, his smile genuine. “Yup. I know it.”
“Just like your daddy,” he added.
That whisper of grief was back, and this time it threatened to settle inside of him. “That where he died? His butt in the saddle?”
“That’s right.”
“How romantic.”
Tired brown eyes flared with heat. “Don’t be a shit, Deac.”
“Too late for that, Sam,” he tossed back.
“You and Everett had your issues, but he’s gone now. Show some respect for the dead or I swear I’ll tan your hide. I don’t care how old you are.”
Deacon released a weighty breath. Wasn’t the time or the place to tell one of his father’s oldest friends that he hadn’t had respect for Everett when he was alive, and he sure as hell wasn’t having it for him now, no matter what was whispering through him or what tricks his gut was playing. His attent
ion drifted back to the barn down the way and to the couple who were tying up their horses.
“You ignoring me now, boy?” Sam piped in.
“No. Just observin’ things.”
He could practically feel Sam’s gaze shift toward the barn.
“Things?” the old man drawled. “Or Mac?”
Mac. The name ran across his skin like a feather. “Mac?” he asked, deadpan. “You don’t mean Mackenzie Byrd?”
“’Course I do.”
Deacon made like he was squinting. “You sure?”
Sam paused, confused. “What you mean?”
“You sure that’s a girl in them jeans and tank top?”
“What the Sam Hill you talking about?” Sam cried. “’Course that’s a girl!”
Deacon shook his head, fighting a grin. It had always been so damn easy to mess with Sam. “Can’t tell from here.”
“Shit, boy,” the old man spluttered. “I’m fixin’ to give you a smack upside the head. I can tell that’s a girl, and I got cataracts. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could tell that was Mac from space. She’s got a figure a man don’t forget or look past, if you know what I mean.”
He did. He glanced back at Sam and felt the pull of familiarity and home course through him once again. It was a strangely comfortable feeling. One he’d have to watch and keep in check in the days ahead. “You’re talking like a dirty old man—you know that?”
“Naw,” Sam returned. “Just a man. A man who can still notice a pretty gal.”
Deacon turned back to the barn. Pretty didn’t come close to describing how Mackenzie Byrd had turned out. She was more along the lines of “stunning” or “fucking drop-dead gorgeous” if you asked him. But no one had, and he wasn’t about to state that fact out loud. Hell, he really shouldn’t be thinking it at all.
“She a good foreman?” Deacon asked.
“Best I ever seen,” Sam replied. “And you know I seen a few.” He sighed. “The girl is tough, smart, and she loves this land. Almost more than Everett did. Takes care of it like it’s her lifeblood.”
