The Cowboy's Hunt

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  “Watch out for the mud.”

  Donovan stifled a groan. That was all he needed—to get stuck in the mud with a team of overzealous hunters.

  “How many do you have coming?” Nate asked.

  “Six.”

  Nate whistled. “Good haul. If you keep that up for the rest of the year, you’ll have this paid off in no time.” He patted the wall.

  “That’s the plan,” Donovan said. “As long as Emily stops with the nonsense.”

  “That one’s always been wild.”

  “I don’t mind wild. I mind her protesting my business.” Last hunt she stood outside the hunting lodge as they were heading out with a sign that said “Meat is Murder.” The hunters in his party laughed at her. What was she expecting? These guys paid twenty-five hundred dollars to spend the weekend so they could stock their freezers with venison and pork. At least she’d stopped trying to sabotage his hunting blinds and tree stands. After her stunt a few weeks ago, Emily had been unusually inactive. It felt like the calm before the storm. He almost missed their battle of wills. But luckily, he’d got his Emily fix in when they went hot air ballooning on Monday morning.

  It could have been romantic if he hadn’t half expected her to try to push him out of the gondola. But when the pilot fired the propane burners, the unexpected noise had caused Emily to jump into his arms. He’d held her for a good minute before they’d both come to their senses. She had felt nice in his arms. He wouldn’t mind holding her again.

  “She’ll find something else to occupy herself once she realizes she’s wasting her time.”

  “I hope so.”

  “She’s going to the bank tomorrow to see if she can get a loan to buy her wind turbines. That should keep her out of your hair.”

  Donovan wasn’t sure any bank in their right mind would give an unemployed twenty-three-year-old that kind of money, but he saw how determined Emily was when she put her mind to something. If anyone could convince a stodgy old banker to trust her, it would be her.

  “I’m going to go the H-E-B to pick up some beer for the weekend. You want to take a ride?”

  “Nah, I’m beat. I’m going to grab a hot shower and call it a night. I just came by to give you this letter. They delivered it to the house instead.” Nate handed him a thick #9 envelope.

  Glancing at it, Donovan forced himself not to react when he saw the return address—Charlie Lincoln, Beaumont FCI. He stuffed it in his back pocket. “Thanks,” he said as casually as he could. “I’ll walk out with you.”

  Donovan braced for the questions, but either Nate didn’t know FCI stood for Federal Correction Institute or he’d decided to mind his business. Either was good with Donovan.

  “See ya around,” Nate said, climbing on to his horse.

  Donovan gave him a half wave and got into his truck.

  Forcing himself to drive slowly, Donovan pulled down the long freshly paved driveway. He was deliberately not thinking about his father’s letter or wondering how he had found him after all these years.

  When he passed the ranch house, Emily came running off the porch to flag him down. He would have liked to hit the gas and leave her in a cloud of dust, but it was either deal with it now or deal with it later. With a sigh, he stopped and rolled down the window.

  At least the view was good. She wore short cut-offs that showed her shapely legs and a tight pink cotton T-shirt. Her long blond hair was braided, but strands were flying around her face. She looked flushed and out of breath. His mind went straight to the gutter.

  “Let me guess, you want to check my emissions to make sure the truck is compliant?” he drawled.

  “Shit no. We’re out of fireball and if I have to spend another minute in that house sober, someone isn’t going to survive.”

  He grinned despite himself. “Hop in.”

  After climbing into the truck, she buckled up. He continued down the long driveway to the road. “What’s going on?”

  Emily sagged back in her seat and he noticed she had a spattering of freckles over her nose. She rolled her light blue eyes and made a face at him. “My father wants to ride out tomorrow morning—on a horse instead of in his truck. My mother is trying to talk some sense into him. Janice is throwing numbers and statistics at him about relapses and survivability of a third heart attack.”

  They passed by the rodeo school and saw Trent and Kelly taking pictures of their daughter, Alissa, riding a sheep and laughing.

  “Traitors,” Emily grumbled good-naturedly. “They bailed an hour ago.”

  Donovan had a momentary pang of jealousy for the happy family, before he stuffed that away. Trent was a good guy, and Kelly had always been nice to him. Their kid was cute as a button and he shouldn’t begrudge them this time together.

  But he did.

  Because he never had anything like it. Family bonding time in the Lincoln family consisted of pickpocketing wallets during state fairs and rodeos, or running a con in out-of-town gas stations and shopping markets. Until, of course, it all went to shit.

  “So, where to?” he asked.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The store to pick up some beer for this weekend. I could swing by the liquor store if you want.”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t.” There were worse ways to spend a Thursday night than with a pretty girl grabbing booze. Like reading a letter from his old man in prison.

  “I was hoping to talk to you about your hunting excursions.”

  Then again…

  “We’ve been through this,” he said. “I thought we came to an understanding when the hogs chased you up a tree.”

  Emily sighed. “You seem like a really nice man.”

  “I’m not.”

  “My mom thinks so.”

  “I let her, so she saves me a piece of her apple pie.”

  “It is pretty good,” Emily said. “I could bake you one.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  “It would be the Trojan apple pie.”

  She giggled. “I don’t know how that sounded in your head, but I’m picturing a pie full of condoms.”

  “You have issues,” he said, but she had him smiling again.

  “I have full-on anthologies.” Emily sighed dramatically. “So would you, if you grew up with a father like I did.”

  “Yeah, you had it real bad.” Had he managed to keep the bitterness out of his voice? Fuck it. He didn’t care.

  “I know you and my father have an agreement and that the rent you’re paying is helping us keep the ranch. Of course, now with Trent coming into some money from riding Corazon del Diablo for eight seconds, we don’t need a renter as much as we did before.”

  “Too bad. I have a three-year contract.” It would take him half that to earn back his investment, but after three years, he should be able to leave the Three Sisters Ranch with a nice chunk of change. Any thought of staying permanently had fizzled as soon as he saw the letter from his father. If his father had managed to track him down, it was only a matter of time before other people did, too. Other people he’d spent a great deal of time avoiding. Samuel Barton came to mind.

  Nope. Not going to go there. Damn, he hadn’t let that name come into his head in a long time. That stupid letter was throwing him off his game and leaking into the protective walls he had put around off-limit thoughts.

  He needed to get lost again—lost enough that his father couldn’t find him.

  Although, he was going to miss Emily Sullivan’s bare legs. That was for damned sure.

  “What if I had a business proposition that would be more lucrative than hunting?”

  “You’d have better luck with another type of proposition,” he said.

  “Very funny.”

  “I wasn’t joking.”

  “Anyway,” she sighed in exasperation. “My father gave me sixty acres for my wind farm. I won’t need all of that for the turbines, but that’s the minimum we need to make sure the air
flow currents aren’t obstructed.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?” He drove through the town of Last Stand and considered stopping at the Last Stand Saloon for fireball shots and then finding out if Emily would taste like cinnamon when he kissed her. Donovan had already decided that if he was going to have to read the letter, he was going to treat himself. He couldn’t think of a better treat than kissing Emily breathless.

  “I’d like to make you a partner,” she said, as if she was rolling out a grand adventure. Maybe to her, she was. “If you give up on your hunting business and invest in my wind turbines, I will cut you in on the profits once we lease the turbines out to the power companies.”

  Donovan wasn’t a stranger to the long con or a short con, but maybe Emily really believed she was offering him a great deal. He decided to play along as they headed out of town to the H-E-B. “How much investment and how much profit?”

  She leaned toward him eagerly and he fought to concentrate on the road. He was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra. “Janice ran the numbers for me. If we put up twenty turbines, we’re looking at about a hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year. I want to put up at least fifty. But there’s no way I’m going to get a loan for that amount. So my choices are to build this up piecemeal or get investors and do it at once for maximum profit.”

  He didn’t know if he was offended that she considered him an easy mark or if she really believed the bullshit she was slinging. “You didn’t answer my question,” Donovan reminded her gently.

  “The turbines are going to cost about forty grand each.”

  “You’re not going to get a loan for much more than that,” he scoffed. “You’ll pay it off in five years and then you’ll have to start all over again with your second turbine.”

  “I was hoping you could buy in, fifty-fifty.”

  “For how long?”

  “Forever. That’s the beauty of getting in on the ground floor.”

  Those were terrible terms. For her. If he was a venture capitalist with a million dollars to invest, he’d jump all over that. Half of the profits in perpetuity? He’d make his money back in three years and then a two hundred thousand paycheck for the rest of his life. Shit yeah, he’d give up the hunting business for that kind of payday. There was only one problem.

  “I don’t have that kind of cash,” he said regretfully.

  His father could make it work. Or, at least, he could have convinced everyone involved that he did, back in his day. Of course, a lot of people would get hurt and lose their livelihoods and maybe even their lives.

  “Shit,” she said. “I was hoping to get you to buy one.”

  “You’re thinking on a small scale. You want to find a Texas billionaire to partner up with. Not me.”

  “You know any?”

  He used to. His father kept a notebook on all the whales, as he called them, with their weaknesses and net worth. If Barty Billionaire liked stacked blondes and had a weakness for betting on the long shot at the races, Donovan’s father knew the best way to exploit it.

  “No,” Donovan said.

  “Shit,” she said again. “I thought I had a win-win situation here.”

  “I’ve already invested forty large into the hunting lodge and I need to have full hunting parties to make a profit. But once I do, I might take you up on that wind turbine action. Once my lease is up.” It was an easy payday, and if he set it up so the money was wired into his account, his father couldn’t use it to track him down. Even in jail, Charlie probably still had access to his vast network of contacts—to people who owed him favors. That was probably how he found him this time. Someone must have seen Donovan’s hunting lodge advertisements or something and traded information with the old man.

  “I’m surprised Nate isn’t worried that your gun-toting clients will shoot the cattle.” She crossed her arms in front of her.

  “Probably because we’re nowhere near the pasture lands. The land we hunt on isn’t good for cattle. Not yet anyway.”

  He pulled into the liquor store parking lot. He was going to need something a little stronger than Ranger Creek beer if he was going to read the letter from his father. Of course, there was nothing saying he had to read it. He could toss it in the wood stove and pretend it never came. Although, Donovan figured it was better to read it and not be surprised if his father actually had something important to say. Like, he was being paroled and he’d be here next month. Suddenly, Donovan wanted nothing more than to read the letter, just on the appalling chance that’s what it said.

  Emily followed him into the store and wrinkled her nose at him when he picked out an expensive añejo tequila. “I can’t drink that stuff.”

  “It’s an acquired taste. You should come down to Mexico with me. I’d teach you to drink.” Donovan was a little surprised that he meant it. He had a moment to fantasize about her in a string bikini drinking on a beach in Cozumel with him. Hell yeah.

  “I know how to drink. Have you ever had T’alla?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Come to Ethiopia with me and I’ll introduce you to it. It’ll knock you on your ass.”

  “Sounds good to me. What is it?”

  “It’s a home-brewed beer. We can work you up to the katikala, which is a grain alcohol, about eighty-four proof.”

  “Even better.” If his father was on his way, Ethiopia sounded like a good alternative. “Are there beaches in Ethiopia?”

  She looked at him like he was stupid. “It’s landlocked. The closest beach would be in the next country, over in Eritrea.”

  “Are they nice?”

  “I heard they were. But it’s almost impossible to get a visa to go there.”

  “Why?”

  Emily shook her head. “It’s a rough place.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t want to storm in there and push for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

  She gave him a sad smile. “I’d never be seen again.”

  Sometimes, he forgot she wasn’t the flighty wild child she pretended to be. “You’ve seen some shit,” he said with growing respect.

  “I saw a lot of great things, too. Have you ever been to Africa?”

  “The farthest I’ve ever gone was Mexico on vacation and Canada for work.”

  “What did you do in Canada?”

  “Hunt.”

  She made a face. What did she expect?

  “So what else did you do in Africa, aside from drink?” he asked.

  She pushed past him to go to the whiskey aisle. She took a bottle of fireball and a bottle of Jim Beam honey. “A lot. I was a community health volunteer. We did programs to educate the locals on sanitation, HIV and AIDS, malaria, those kinds of things. I especially liked working with the women in their gardens, though.”

  “Was it hard to be a vegetarian there?”

  “Not really. I had to plan around some of the spicy meat stews. But there were a lot of lentil dishes and plenty of vegetables. I had kinche for breakfast, which is like oatmeal. It was harder being so far away from my family. Even though they drive me crazy, it was tough to live in a village, day in and day out, and see loving families without missing mine.”

  Donovan had no frame of reference on that, so he didn’t say anything. To save himself a trip to the H-E-B, he grabbed a couple of cases of beer. If his hunters wanted anything else, they could order it or go out themselves.

  “What about your family?” she asked as they were checking out.

  “What about them?”

  “Do you miss them?”

  The question shouldn’t be as complicated as it was. “My mother is dead.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Emily said, her hand on her chest in shock.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “I don’t miss him at all.”

  Chapter Three

  Emily didn’t mean to drink so much fireball last night, but Donovan had plunked her back at home and her p
arents had still been arguing about her father’s “lack of respect for the doctor’s orders.” So she locked herself in her room and drank alone, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about Donovan Link.

  They’d had a nice conversation that wasn’t centered around both of them being adrenaline junkies. She would have liked to continue it, sipping fireball on his porch and enjoying the night. She thought she was really connecting with him on a personal level. She didn’t want to be archenemies anymore. She liked their “dates” and how he made her feel when they talked about things that didn’t make her want to scream in frustration. There had to be a way they could come to a compromise that didn’t involve him killing animals on her family’s land.

  She should have asked to hang with him for a while and came back when her parents were asleep. But she had a feeling she would have wound up staying the night and that would have led to a complication she wasn’t sure how to handle. Every time she looked into his gray eyes, she felt a sizzling connection she wanted to explore.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about getting naked and sweaty with Donovan. But she was afraid he’d distract her from her mission to save the ranch. Now that she was back from Africa, she wanted to impress on her father and the rest of her family that she was ready for more responsibility.

  Growing up, Emily and her sisters had gained experience taking care of the cattle and bringing them from pasture to pasture with the ranch hands. If she was the manager of the ranch, she wouldn’t go out every day like her father did. That was Nate’s and the ranch hands’ area of expertise. She trusted Nate to handle that and bring any problems to her attention. Her father had the opposite opinion. He wanted to do everything, see everything, control everything. After almost forty years, it was now taking its toll. Once their finances were in order, she could concentrate on taking the reins from him and giving him the much-needed break he deserved.