by Lori Wilde
Kenny stood, his chair scraping loudly across the cement floor. “Hey! Don’t get high and mighty with me. You aren’t married—you don’t understand what it’s like. Besides, Emma and I are separated. She’s the one who left me, remember?”
“I wonder why.” Brodie snorted, turned on his heels, and stalked out the door.
The room fell silent. Nobody looked at Kenny.
“Guess you’ll be wantin’ me to cash you out, huh?” Lou grunted.
“What the hell for?” Frowning, Kenny knocked back the rest of his beer.
“You’re not going to the hospital?” Kenny’s cavalier behavior shocked Deannie, but why? She shouldn’t be surprised. He was Rafe Trueblood’s son.
“Aww.” Kenny waved a hand. “Emma labors for a good ten hours, and Brodie overreacts. I got lots of time. Ante up, everyone.”
SOMETIMES, Brodie Trueblood wanted to take his older brother by the front of the shirt and shake him silly. Unfortunately, Kenny had inherited their father’s disreputable tendencies, drinking and gambling chief among them.
Now it seemed Kenny had added womanizing to the list.
Gritting his teeth, Brodie blasted from the parking lot. Who was the hot young redhead sitting next to Kenny? Brodie didn’t recognize her, and he knew most everyone in Rascal.
That skimpy little outfit she’d been wearing spoke volumes. The emerald green color set off her fiery hair, and the silky material slid across her skin like rippling water. Though he’d tried not to notice, the deep, plunging V-neckline announced to the world she was proud of her cleavage and rightfully so.
He had to admit Kenny’s good taste. The woman was a stunner. Even in the dim bar lighting, her well-sculpted features arrested him, from her high cheekbones to her slender, aristocratic nose. She was far classier than the typical barroom groupie.
Question was, what in the hell was she doing with Kenny? Finding out his brother had a third child on the way would probably put a crimp in her feelings for him.
Brodie turned his pickup truck toward Presidio County Hospital. Somebody ought to be there with Emma since his brother wasn’t man enough to own up to his responsibilities. Sometimes the thankless chore of single-handedly redeeming the Trueblood name was an exhausting job.
Why did Kenny treat his wife so shabbily? Couldn’t his brother see the pain he was causing the mother of his children? Shame for his brother’s behavior burned Brodie’s craw. He hoped like hell Emma never found out about that redhead.
Again, Brodie wondered about the beautiful stranger. There was something provocative about her. The tilt of her head, maybe, or the gleam in her eyes. No matter. He knew the type—sexy as hell but interested in only one thing—money.
Yep. That redhead spelled trouble. Hadn’t Rafe dallied with a long string of such women? They’d brought problems.
Brodie winced.
He hated remembering the bad things his father had done to his mother. Cheating on her, gambling away the grocery money, disappearing for days at a time, then turning up drunk as a skunk. Or else Mama would get a call from one jailhouse or the other, wanting her to come post the old man’s bail.
The only thing worthwhile Rafe Trueblood had ever done was win Willow Creek Ranch and even that was an ill-gotten gain.
But despite the underhanded way his father had gotten the ranch, Brodie loved Willow Creek with all his heart. The place meant everything to him.
It was home.
Until Rafe cheated the ranch away from Gil Hollis, the Truebloods had lived a roller-coaster life. Moving from one shack to the next, flying high when Rafe hit it big in a poker game, subsisting on rice and beans for weeks when he lost money on the ponies.
Then one drunken night, Rafe had lucked out and buffaloed poor Gil Hollis into betting his entire inheritance on one hand of cards.
At last his mother had a home of her own. He and Kenny had finished high school in Rascal. For the first time in his life, they’d lived in one place long enough to make friends. Although it had been tough in the beginning. Not many of the townsfolk were happy to hear that one of their own had been swindled by an itinerant gambler like Rafe Trueblood.
Brodie had tried to justify his father. Losing the ranch was Gil Hollis’ own fault, he’d rationalized. The man should never have gambled away something as precious as Willow Creek. Then he’d discovered that Gil Hollis had only started drinking and gambling after his wife’s tragic death in a riding accident.
Braking for a stoplight at the corner of Ninth and Gardenia, Brodie remembered the day he’d gone to his father and asked him to give the ranch back to Mr. Hollis and his daughter. Dang if he could recall that little girl’s name.
Rafe had laughed in his face and called him a “bleeding-heart pansy.” Brodie frowned at the ugly memory. Dear old Dad. Quite the sentimentalist.
Unable to help Mr. Hollis, Brodie had done the next best thing. He’d vowed to make Willow Creek one of the most successful ranches in Presidio County. Over the years, no thanks to Rafe and Kenny, Brodie had achieved that goal.
Willow Creek now boasted over six hundred head of cattle and four hundred sheep. His hay crop was phenomenal, his business acumen legendary. Last year, when most farms and ranches struggled to break even, Willow Creek had cleared over one hundred thousand dollars in profit. Brodie Trueblood had done Gil Hollis proud.
Yes, he’d accomplished what he’d first set out to do at the naïve age of fourteen. He’d been interested in the operation from the very beginning, spending most of his spare time with the ranch foreman, Cooter Gates.
He learned about cattle and hay and what it meant to be a good rancher. By age eighteen, the year his mother died of cancer, Brodie was running the ranch, while Rafe and Kenny spent their time in honky-tonks and pool halls, living off the sweat of his brow.
The light turned green, and Brodie accelerated.
He’d thrown so much of himself into Willow Creek, he’d had no time for a personal life. Now, at twenty-nine, Brodie wondered what it would be like to have his own wife and kids. For the first time, he was jealous of Kenny. Jealous and angry at the way his older brother mistreated his family blessings.
Would he ever find his true love? A kind, tenderhearted woman like his mother. A woman who longed for a family and would cherish Willow Creek as much as he did.
Oddly enough, the image of that redheaded girl back at the bar flitted through his mind.
Don’t be ridiculous. That gal might be up for a good time, but he needed to get tangled up with her like he needed a frontal lobotomy.
3
The stack of poker chips in front of Deannie kept growing.
Teasing derision had turned to grudging respect as she won hand after hand. For fifteen years, she’d sat in her tiny bedroom way into the wee hours of the night shuffling, dealing, learning the rules.
For fifteen years, she’d followed her father from bars to honky-tonks to the back-alley gambling parlors, and she’d absorbed everything like a sponge, thirsty for the key to her revenge. For fifteen years, she’d thought of only one thing—winning Willow Creek Ranch back from those worthless Truebloods.
Deannie Hollis had come here with a mission, but suddenly she discovered she was also having fun. It was worth every ounce of effort she’d put into perfecting her skills to watch the look on Kenny’s face as he lost again and again.
Her only regret—that Rafe Trueblood wasn’t the one sitting beside her.
“Where’d you learn to play poker like that?” Lou grumbled, drumming his hammy fingers on the table and frowning at her over his fan of cards.
“My daddy taught me.”
“Who’s your daddy? If he’s from around here, I bet we know him.”
“Er…” Deannie hesitated, scrambling to invent a fictitious name. “Joe McCellan.”
Lou shook his head. “You ever heard of the guy, Kenny?”
“No, but I’m sure Rafe knew him. Where did you say you were from, Deannie?” Kenny angled her a glance.
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“Midland. How many cards do you want?” Deannie asked, grateful for an excuse to change the subject. She was terrified they would catch her in a lie.
“I’m tapped out.” One man threw down his cards in disgust.
“Me, too.” Another player nodded.
“Too rich for my blood,” added the man who’d called her sugar.
“I’ll take four cards,” Lou said.
Deannie swung her gaze to Kenny. Her pulse sped up. She didn’t expect to win the ranch back in one game. She knew it would take time and probably a lot more liquor than was swirling in Kenny’s bloodstream.
But she’d already taken him for seven hundred dollars. Not a bad start. “Well, Mr. Trueblood?”
Kenny laid his cards facedown on the table. “Thanks to your phenomenal card-playing abilities, I’m afraid I’m out of money, Miss McCellan.”
Her bottom lip twitched. She couldn’t let him get away, not this easily. “You could always put something up for collateral.”
“What’s my Apple watch worth to you?” he asked, turning his wrist over. His eyes widened. “Glory, look at the time. I’d better get on to the hospital before Emma dominoes.”
Deannie laid a hand on Kenny’s.
He looked up.
Their eyes met.
“Play one more hand,” she urged.
“Why, so you can clean me out, watch and all?”
“Oh, right. You’re a rich man, Mr. Trueblood. I’d bet what you’ve lost this evening is mere pocket change.”
“Then you’d lose that bet, Miss McCellan.” Kenny arched an eyebrow in a sardonic expression.
Deannie threw back her head and laughed. “Please, don’t pull my leg. I’ve seen your family
homestead. I’m sure your father left you sitting pretty.”
“So that’s your game.” Kenny nodded. “I figured you were up to something.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come on, it’s obvious the way you play cards you’ve been hustling us.”
She fluttered her eyelashes. “A girl has to make a living. So, are you in or are you out? I take cars, boats, even ranches.”
“I hate to tell you this, darlin’, but if you’re gold diggin’, you’re barking up the wrong Trueblood. The old man left the whole kit and caboodle to my little brother, Brodie.”
BRODIE WAS a horse of a different color.
Deannie gnawed a thumbnail, chewing off her Cherry Delight fingernail polish. She sat in the parking lot outside the Lonesome Dove, over two thousand dollars in cash resting in her lap, but her victory was hollow. No matter how well she played cards, she could never entice Brodie into gambling. She’d sensed that about the man from the moment she’d clapped eyes on him.
The sun dipped toward the western horizon. Long shadows slanted across the parking lot. Car doors slammed and cowboys laughed as more people arrived. Deannie could hear the steady throbbing beat from the jukebox as the front door opened and closed again and again.
What now?
Where did she go from here? Fifteen years of hard work shot straight down the tubes. A lump of emotion dammed her throat at the thought that her plans had been for nothing.
“Rafe Trueblood, you son of a gun, why did you have to die before I got here?” Deannie spoke aloud.
There had to be a way to get to Brodie. If not through gambling, then something else. She would discover his weakness and exploit it because Deannie would not rest until Willow Creek Ranch once more belonged to a Hollis.
But how?
Deannie glimpsed herself in the rearview mirror. To be social, she’d had a beer while playing cards. The alcohol blushed her cheeks with a faint rosy glow. She had repeatedly raked her hand through her hair, and now her auburn tresses tumbled down her shoulders in hedonistic disarray.
Many men had praised her beauty, telling her she looked exactly like a young Nicole Kidman, only shorter, but Deannie had never felt comfortable with her appearance or their compliments.
In her heart, she was still that gawky freckle-faced tomboy in braids. She believed that men, especially Kenny Trueblood types, dished up flattery like candy, hoping to entice gullible females into their beds. Hadn’t Daddy warned her to protect her virtue at all costs?
What if she used her looks to attract Brodie Trueblood?
The thought was unexpected but logical. Although Brodie differed greatly from his father and brother, he was still a man. A man who could be charmed by the wiles of a woman determined to get what was hers—Willow Creek Ranch.
“Are you seriously thinking about marrying Brodie Trueblood?” Deannie spoke to her reflection in the mirror.
Because nothing short of marrying him would achieve her goal. A strange sensation raced through her at the thought. Married to that potent male?
Oh my.
She could divorce him later. The judge might give her the ranch in the divorce settlement when he discovered she was really Deanna Hollis, and the ranch was rightfully hers.
Her hands trembled. Did she dare do something so bold?
“It’s the only answer.” Excitement built inside her. But how did she go about getting Brodie to propose marriage?
She needed a plan. She had to place herself in his vicinity. Repeatedly. How was she going to accomplish that?
Starting her ten-year-old Ford sedan, the only possession her father had left her, Deannie pulled out of the parking lot, her mind racing. Had Brodie gone to the hospital to be with his sister-in-law? Or had he returned home to Willow Creek? Either way, she couldn’t go wrong heading toward the ranch.
On her way out of town, Deannie drove through a poverty-stricken part of Rascal. Threading her way through crooked backstreets, she finally found what she was looking for.
A homeless shelter.
Still there after fifteen years. The place where she and Daddy had taken refuge the first night Rafe had thrown them from their home.
Vividly, she remembered the horror of that night, clutching Daddy’s hand as he led her here to this dark, scary place that smelled of boiled cabbage and old gym socks. The workers served them overcooked stew and stale cornbread, but it had been food.
She and Daddy had slept together on a mattress on the cement floor. Deannie had sucked her thumb and cried for her pink ruffled canopy bed and her Shetland pony, Hero.
Rafe Trueblood had been responsible. It was all his fault they were on the streets, and life had never been the same again. That’s when her burning hatred had begun.
Fighting back tears, Deannie got out of the car, dashed up the uneven steps in the gathering darkness, and banged on the door. Paint, once white, now a dingy gray, peeled off the side of the building in long strips.
“Yes?” asked the young pregnant woman with a beatific smile who answered her knock. “May I help you?”
“Do you work here?” Deannie asked.
“I’m July Johnson Haynes, the director. Are you in need?” She wrapped her arm around her extended belly.
“No. I want to help.” Taking a deep breath, Deannie shoved the money she’d taken from the men at the poker game into the woman’s startled hands.
“My goodness, are you sure? This is a lot of money.”
But Deannie was already flying down the steps, her breath coming in spurts. She drove away without looking back.
IT WAS near midnight by the time Brodie turned off the highway and onto the graveled road leading home. A satisfied smile rested on his lips. Emma had done well, bringing another Trueblood into the world. A boy. Philip Brodie. Seven pounds, eight ounces, and in full possession of a great pair of lungs.
And even Kenny had finally shown up, just in time to take Brodie’s place in the delivery room. Grudgingly, he gave his older brother credit for that at least.
Yawning, Brodie turned the corner. His headlights reflected off a car parked on the shoulder of the road. The hood was raised.
Brodie slowed, squinting into the darkness. He didn’t recognize the car a
s belonging to a neighbor.
Someone stepped from the shadows.
A woman.
She raised her arms, shielding her eyes against his high-beam lights.
Brodie braked and veered off the road. Leaving his engine idling, he got out. “You all right, ma’am?” he asked as he walked back to her stalled vehicle.
“Thank heavens you stopped,” she said, her voice reedy in the cool evening air. She moved toward him. “My cell phone won’t hold a charge. I thought I’d be stranded here all night.”
“Not too many people live on this road,” he said. “Are you visiting someone?” The clouds rolled away from the moon, bathing the road in a silvery shimmer.
The woman tossed her head, her hair tumbling sexily about her shoulders. Her skin glowed ethereally in the gossamer moonlight. She looked like a fairy sprite.
“No.” She shook her head, and her curls danced bewitchingly. “I’m afraid I took a wrong turn, and then my car conked out.”
Something about her was familiar.
Frowning, Brodie tilted his head. She stood a few feet from him, shivering slightly, her arms crossed over her chest. “Are you cold?”
“A little.”
Brodie unbuttoned his flannel shirt, then stripped it off.
“Oh, please, you don’t have to give me your shirt.”
“No trouble. I’ve got a T-shirt on underneath.” He handed her his shirt.
Tentatively, she shrugged into it. The sleeves dangled way past her hands, giving her a lost-little-girl appearance. “Thank you.”
“Do I know you?” He studied her face in the moonlight. They were so close he could smell her scent, sweet as magnolias and twice as nice.
“I’m Deannie McCellan.” She extended her hand.
Her palm felt so soft in his. Soft and warm and pleasant.
“Nice to meet you, Miss McCellan. I’m Brodie Trueblood,” he said, surprised to find that his words got hung up in his throat.
“Hmm, I think we met, but we weren’t formally introduced.”