Diamond in the Rough (Diamond J #2)

by Lori L. Robinett

  She turned on her heel and clambered up into her big rig. As soon as they opened the gate in front of her, she grabbed the shifter and the big machine jerked forward, empty trailer rattling. She pulled around the building and rolled to a stop in the middle of the nearly empty gravel lot. She looked around and, when satisfied that no one was paying attention to her, swung down out of the cab and landed in the gravel with a thump. Again, she glanced around, then strode across the lot to the office.

  Inside, she found a mousy woman with dirty blonde hair, buck teeth and eyes magnified by Coke bottle glasses. The woman glanced up when the bell over the door tinkled to announce Lana’s presence. Her eyes widened briefly and she swallowed visibly. “Can I help you?”

  “Delivered a trailer load of cattle.” Lana wiped her hands on her jeans. “Need to use your bathroom before I hit the road.”

  The woman directed Lana down the hallway. After Lana relieved herself, she walked past the woman without another word and quickly pushed out the door. The family’d been using this sale barn to move stolen cattle for nearly a year now, and they had a valuable ally in Bobby Rafferty, the owner. He was a distant cousin and blood counted for a lot in their circles.

  Of course, it helped that they had proof that he’d been moving cattle as “certified” with falsified records for years.

  As she walked across the parking lot, she gazed toward the east. Fingers of orange reached into the blue sky, pushing away the darkness. Cows mooed in the paddocks, jostling each other as they jockeyed for position at the feed bunks. She glanced at the open shelter protecting the animals from the harsh rays of the sun that would soon be beating down on them. A flash caught her eye and she squinted.

  The shorter kid that had helped her unload her shipment was leaning against the barn. He held something in front of his face, but what? She narrowed her eyes and peered at him. His attention was on her rig. He reached up with his other hand and made a pinching motion. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she realized he was holding a cell phone. She clenched her fists and strode across the lot, her boots crunching in the gravel. His head swiveled toward her and he quickly lowered his phone, then slipped it in his shirt pocket.

  He averted his eyes as she stepped in front of him. She poked her bony index finger in his chest. “Think you can take pictures of my rig? Find it that interesting, do you?”

  His eyes widened as their gazes connected. “No, ma’am. Just taking a selfie.”

  She squinted at him, then held out her hand, palm up. “Gimme the phone.”

  He shook his head and straightened. Red colored his cheeks, and she knew she’d called his bluff. She reached for the phone and snatched it from his pocket. She spun away as she worked at the screen, trying to figure out how to reach the photos that he’d taken, but the crunch of tires on gravel drew her gaze.

  A deputy sheriff’s patrol cruiser pulled into the lot.

  The kid snatched his phone back and vaulted over the fence.

  Lana hesitated a moment, looking after the kid, then glanced back at the patrol car that had pulled to a stop in front of the office. It was too risky to stick around. She walked across the lot, forcing herself to stroll as if she had all the time in the world. She reached her rig and climbed up, then wasted no time getting the rig rolling. She glanced in the rearview mirror as she pulled out of the lot and pointed the rig toward home.

  She needed to talk to Rondo, but she was pretty sure that their sweet deal at Rafferty’s stockyard had just turned sour.

  Lana pointed the big rig east and pursed her lips as she considered the situation. Their group had used the northern Missouri stockyard to move a lot of cattle over the past year, cattle they liberated from various ranches throughout Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. They’d even taken a couple of herds from Iowa and Nebraska there. Working in a no-brand state made their business less risky.

  The family had done well with Rondo leading them, but Lana turned the rustling enterprise into a well-oiled machine. They raised cattle of their own at the compound, so they could mix legitimate stock with stolen to raise less suspicion. Of course, they’d always stripped incoming animals of ear tags or any other identifying marks. Rebranding allowed her to exercise her creative juices. Over the last year or so, she’d turned it into an art form, utilizing their small collection of basic brands to cover existing brands.

  The Rafferty stockyard had been her idea. Bobby Rafferty was her contact. She was the one who cultivated him after she found out he forged certification documents for the cattle run through his barn. She was the one who brought him into the fold, after she found out his mother was a Saunders, a dogleg relative of Rondo’s mother.

  She chewed her lip as she considered the little prick with the phone. And the Deputy Sheriff. Maybe that was a coincidence, but she had a bad feeling.

  And she’d learned a long time ago to trust her gut.

  By the time she reached the Cardwell County line, she’d made up her mind. It was time to find a new contact. They couldn’t go back to the Rafferty stockyard, and she was pretty sure it would be a good idea to stay out of northern Missouri completely for a while. Maybe it was time to do a little recon and locate other outlets for their stolen stock.

  She turned off the interstate and wound south on a narrow blacktop road. Telephone poles flicked past. The corn crop looked good, with strong green stalks poking out of the soil.

  The family had tried growing crops but had no luck. Rondo said it wasn’t in their blood. Maybe he was right. Then again, the red dirt in their compound wasn’t good for growing much of anything, plant or animal.

  The unmarked gravel road appeared next to a break in the fence, largely hidden by a stand of pin oaks and scrub trees. She swung the semi wide to make the turn, then rumbled slowly along the road, which was little more than twin rocky ribbons separated by dirt, with grass and weeds trying to take over. There wasn’t enough traffic to keep the road clear, and the family was just fine with that.

  The scrub trees on either side of the road pushed in, grabbing for the rig. Signs of civilization disappeared as she drove. There were no telephone poles, no electric lines, and the strands of barbed wire strung between ancient posts sagged tiredly. A dozen or so cows, some black, some red, ignored the rumble of the semi as she rolled past. After a few miles, the trees opened and revealed a clearing where half a dozen mobile homes squatted in a semi circle.

  Home.

  She pulled the tractor-trailer up next to a tin-sided lean to that served as the main outbuilding for the family. By the time she’d rolled to a stop, two tow-headed kids and a young woman with thick dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail had come out to meet her.

  The oldest, a boy just starting to show the muscles he would have as a man, held up a hand in greeting as she hopped down. “Want me to take it to the washout? She can help.” He motioned to the girl at his side.

  Lana tossed the keys to the boy. “Be careful,” she cautioned.

  His wide grin showed his crooked teeth. The girl hurried around the front of the truck and scrambled up into the cab, obviously not wanting to be left behind.

  Lana turned to the woman. “Rondo here?”

  The woman held up a hand to shade her eyes from the bright sun and nodded. “Inside.” Without waiting for a reply, she continued on her way, bony hips swaying.

  Lana strode across the dusty yard, her short legs eating up the distance in no time. The trailer she shared with Rondo was the newest in the compound, a super-single, ninety feet long and sixteen feet wide. While the other homes had metal roofs that were loud during storms, their home had a shingle roof. It was her favorite thing about the home. The spring storms with pounding hail scared her, though she wouldn’t admit that to anyone.

  Not even the man she shared a bed with.

  She tugged the screen door open and stepped into the air conditioned coolness of the living room. Rondo sat in his oversized camouflage recliner, a beer in one hand and a remote control in the othe
r. His gaze focused on the flat screen television hanging on the opposite wall. Baseball. One glance told her the Royals were playing. She squinted at the screen. They were losing. That wasn’t good.

  Maybe now wasn’t the time to discuss the stockyard and Bobby Rafferty.

  His eyes flicked at her, then back to the television. “Another beer.” He sat his empty bottle on the wooden end table beside him.

  Her temper flared, but she tamped it down. It wouldn’t do to let Rondo know he’d irritated her. Not yet, anyway. She snatched his empty up on her way to the kitchen, then pulled two cold beers from the refrigerator. She returned to the living room and handed him one, sat on the sofa and twisted the top off of her own. Her eyes burned from lack of sleep, but she lifted the cold drink to her lips and took a long pull.

  She hated making long drives on her own, but Rondo insisted he couldn’t spare anyone to go with her last night. Once she sat down, the exhaustion was almost overwhelming. All she wanted to do was go crawl in bed, but she knew if she did, she’d be unable to sleep come nightfall.

  Rondo sighed heavily as he twisted the cap off and dropped it on the table. His eyes never left the baseball game playing on the television. “How many head did we end up with?”

  “Full load. Just shy of a hundred and fifty head.”

  “How shy?”

  “A hundred forty-seven.”

  Rondo took a long drink, then looked at Lana. “You shoulda gotten a few more head on there. That trailer’ll hold one sixty.”

  Lana held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. “That’s at total full capacity, and we had some good sized animals in this load.”

  “When’s the sale?”

  “Saturday.”

  He dipped his chin and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Where’d you tell ‘em to send the money?”

  Lana felt her hackles rise. She knew this operation inside and out. She knew what the risks were, and how to minimize them. “I gave them the PO Box in Webb City.”

  Rondo had been a powerful man in his younger years. Though he remained thick and stout, the ruddy skin drooped under his chin. Gray now peppered his dark red hair and his thick mustache was nearly white. His most striking feature was his dark green eyes. He winked at her. “That’s my girl. Always thinkin’.”

  She cleared her throat. “This was my last run to that yard. Something was off. A new kid working the yard.”

  A muscle twitched under his eye and he stared at her. “Bobby Rafferty is family.”

  She blinked but met his gaze. “I know. Not sayin’ anything against Bobby, but a deputy sheriff pulled in just as I was leaving, and I caught a new kid taking a picture of my rig.”

  Rondo rocked back in his chair and looked at the television. “You take care of the kid?”

  Lana swallowed hard. “Couldn’t.” Lana shook her head, angry at herself for feeling nervous. “That deputy pulled in and I thought it was best to get out of there.”

  He stroked his mustache a few times with stubby fingers, then said, “What’s done is done. We’ll let things cool off a bit there, but I’m not turning my back on Bobby Rafferty. You can take the next load to a different sale barn next time, but then we’ll go back to Rafferty’s place.”

  Lana pushed to her feet. It was just like Rondo to sit here like a king, giving orders and issuing edicts while she was the one out there on the front lines taking all the risks. “I’m not going back to Rafferty’s.”

  Rondo snorted. “Oh, yes, you will.”

  She’d been doing this for far too long. He might think he ran the family, but he didn’t. She was the one who took care of everyone. She was the one who scoped out the targets for their missions. She was the one who drove the truck. She was the one that knew where all their accounts were held. All that information was kept in a journal she kept under her seat in the big rig. And if he thought she was going to risk it all because he had some sense of loyalty to Bobby Rafferty, he had another thing coming.

  Besides, if she played her cards right, she might end up able to retire to a life of luxury now that Beau had a stake in that fancy schmancy horse ranch, the Diamond J.

  But before that could happen, she’d run one more load of cattle. And this time, the check would be made out to her, not Rondo.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Toby’s Birthday

  Gina waved the smoke away as she pulled the cake from the oven. “Damn it!” She dropped it on the hot pad and perched her fists on her hips, then glanced at the clock. Not quite 10 am. She shook her head.

  “Good thing you started early.”

  Gina turned as Midge walked through the door. “What are you doing here? You were going to watch the store for me.”

  Midge shrugged. “I left Dottie there. She’s there so much, she knows what to do. I thought you might need some help here.” Her gaze landed squarely on the dark rectangle of cake sitting on the counter, and she scrunched up her pixie nose.

  Gina pulled another mixing bowl from the cabinet while Midge rummaged for another box mix. The two worked together, Gina mixing and Midge adding ingredients. The only time they stopped talking was while the beaters hummed for two minutes. After Gina dumped the batter into the pan Midge had greased, she popped it in the oven and set the timer.

  Midge picked up a package of red and blue bandanas from the kitchen table. “You decided to go with the cowboy theme?”

  Gina nodded and pointed to a roll of baling twine. “Yeah, Toby is still into them. Thought we could drape the bandanas over this, to make a banner to hang there on the wall.”

  Midge grinned as she reached into her oversized tote. She produced a box with a family of model horses. “I got him a set of Breyers. I was going to wrap it up, but do you want to use it as a centerpiece?”

  “That’ll be great. I got a couple of little straw bales from the craft store the last time I went to the city. They’re in my bedroom on the dresser. Why don’t you go get them while I put the tablecloth on?”

  When Midge returned, she arranged the miniature bales with the model horses. “So, what did you get the little cowpoke this year?”

  “Not as much as I wanted. You know, it’s been a tight year, money-wise, but—” Gina’s eyebrows rose. “I got him a cowboy hat.”

  It was Midge’s turn to grin. “Red?”

  “You know it!”

  “I know it’s a touchy subject,” Midge cleared her throat before she continued, “But did you invite Steve?”

  Gina sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I did. Despite the way I feel about him, he’s Toby’s daddy.”

  Midge unrolled the twine and began folding the crisp new bandanas over it. “Steve’s not a bad guy. Just a bad husband.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Gina kept talking as she walked to her bedroom. Her house was so small, with such thin walls, it was easy to carry on a conversation no matter what. “He could be a lot worse. And without him, I wouldn’t have Toby. He’s such a sweet kid. And he got an excellent report card - the teacher said he was helping the other kids sound out words.” She walked back into the kitchen, arms full.

  Midge cleared off a spot on the table, then reached into the junk drawer for tape and scissors as Gina spread out the wrapping paper. Midge said, “You’re totally responsible for that. Between your genes and the work you’ve done with that little boy, he’s a natural.”

  Gina pointed to the index cards taped to the front of each drawer and cabinet. “Putting labels on everything was a great idea. Thanks so much for suggesting that.”

  “It was nothing.” Midge shrugged, then leaned forward. “But enough about exes and kids. Have you thought any more about the hottie that came by the store yesterday?”

  Gina pressed her lips together and shrugged, trying to appear casual, but felt an ember of heat deep within her at the thought of him. “The guy from the Diamond J?”

  “Um, yeah.” Midge snapped the tea towel at Gina’s butt. “You need to get some ass. And he had a mighty f
ine one. Mmmm-hmmmm. Did you see how those Wranglers showed off his package?”

  “Midge!” Gina exclaimed. Her eyes widened in mock disgust, but she had to admit, she’d looked.

  And the package was impressive.

  Before she could say more, Toby burst through the front door. “Mommy! I’m home!”

  The little boy was short for his age, which gave him a stout, stubby look. His blonde hair curled around his ears, giving a halo effect that was not far from the truth. The boy seemed to take his role as man of the house seriously, and worked extra hard to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible for his mama. His bright blue eyes widened as he took in the scene. Almost immediately, he focused on the Breyer box set up next to the little straw bales, then he held up one finger and said, “Be right back! I forgot to tell Missus Randolph that you’re here and I’m okay.”

  He turned on his heel and darted back to the front door, leaned out and waved. He trotted back into the kitchen and scooted a chair out, then climbed up.

  Gina stepped toward him and rested her hand on his shoulder. “Happy birthday, little man!”

  The boy wrinkled his pug nose. “I’m six now, Mama. That’s too old for you to call me that.”

  Gina pressed her lips together to keep from smiling and nodded sagely. “Right, of course. Happy birthday, Toby.”

  Midge chimed in, “Happy birthday, Toby!”

  He looked at her, then at the box sitting on the table. “Is that my present?”

  Midge nodded. “Yup. And I thought the horses would make the centerpiece better, but I think it’d look better if they were out of the box. What do you think?”

  Toby swung his head around to look up at Gina. “Can I?”