by Casey Hagen
Now seemed to be as good a time as any.
Could Slade look any more uncomfortable with the shift in conversation? His eyes darted about. He had backed away another foot.
A reluctant hero.
“Well, I hate to run out on you, but I have a ranch hand I need to deal with, waiting in my truck,” he said as he scratched his stubble-covered chin.
“It’s fine, Slade. I’m okay now.”
“Good enough,” he muttered, making his way off the stage. “Miss?” he called out to her.
She turned back to him. “Yes?”
“What’s your name?”
She smiled. “Ryan.”
He smiled back. “Ryan, huh?”
He took a slow perusal of her. She felt a blush rise to her skin and knew damn well the pink would only highlight the smattering of freckles on her face, no matter how much makeup she wore.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Ryan suits you.” With those final words he turned, and disappeared out the door.
“Ryan, my office. Now!” Duncan, the owner of Lucifer’s, looked fit to be tied. She hurried back stage, lay what was left of her guitar on her guitar case, and ducked into his office where he paced back and forth behind his desk.
His nearly-black eyes shot daggers at her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, attacking patrons like that?”
She froze. “Seriously? How is this my fault? Did you see what he was doing to Kelsey?”
He slapped his hands onto his desk. “He didn’t mean any harm by it. He was just fooling around.”
“She couldn’t get free. That’s not fooling around.”
“It was none of your business!” he bellowed.
“It’s anyone’s business who witnesses that. Maybe it’s time you start standing up for your employees instead of letting them be pawed at like prostitutes in a whore house!” she yelled back.
“You have ten minutes to get out of my bar.”
“Gladly, just give me my pay and I’ll be on my way.”
“Your pay?” he scoffed. “Your pay evaporated the minute you put your hands on one of my most frequent customers.”
“We had an agreement.”
“Prove it.”
He had her there. They had verbally agreed and she knew better. She had gotten used to the good ol’ boy dealings in the past couple weeks. Apparently, it was only a matter of time for that to bite her in the ass, too, but damn was she tired of it. What was it with the men in her world anyway? They all thought they could do what they wanted, when they wanted, and it didn’t matter who they had to trample to do it.
“You know what, Duncan? You go ahead and keep my money. You need it more than I do. A man like you doesn’t earn friends; he pays for them.” With that parting shot, she left him blustering. She gathered her guitar pieces, arranged them as best as she could in her guitar case, and pushed through the crowd, out the front door.
One of the deputies halted her in her tracks. “Miss, we need to get your statement and a few pictures.”
Her shitty night just got shittier.
2
Slade made his way out of the smoky shit bar on the outskirts of Fort Mavis. He hated the place. Why couldn’t his ranch hands spend time at Gentry’s or Wolff’s Roadhouse? Instead, they frequented Lucifer’s: the single-most unpredictable bar in the area. Almost anything went. The owner couldn’t be bothered to enforce any kind of order. High-paying customers ruled the joint, leaving a bar riddled with over-serving, recreational drug use, and, in the past, prostitution deals on the side.
His guys went for the cheap drinks. They made their way back to Rockland Ranch, peaceful-like, all of them, with the exception of his cousin, Matt.
Deep down, Matt was a good kid; he just made piss-poor decisions and thought he was invincible. Basically, he was young and stupid. Slade’s job as surrogate older brother, since his mother and father had taken Matt in at fourteen, was to make sure Matt survived that stupidity. Matt had been an only child of his over-indulgent aunt and uncle before they died in a plane crash, which made him a damn handful day in and day out.
With the music fading from the bar and the crunch of gravel under the boots he hadn’t managed to take off in seventeen hours, he pictured Ryan. Like he didn’t have enough on his plate between his meddling mother, his sassy housekeeper and cook, his mildly autistic daughter, Ivy, and an eighty-five-square-mile ranch to run.
It didn’t matter; she drove all of his commitments to the recesses of his crowded mind. Haunted and on the run from something, Ryan had a fighting spirit. Her rich singing voice still echoed in his head. His focus should have been on looking for Matt, but she sang out with that soft voice and captivated him. The hum of conversation, the raucous laughter, all of it faded away as her voice cut through, demanding attention.
As if her voice wasn’t enough, those delicate arms masterfully worked the strings of her guitar in a flawless dance, holding most of the crowd spellbound.
Including him.
In that moment, he forgot why he was there. Focusing on her had become his only priority. And yeah, he had to admit that he admired more than just her arms and voice. Those pretty tan legs, crossed, with her sandal dangling off of her toe as she kicked her foot to the beat. Her slim neck, with wisps of hair clinging to the sheen of perspiration there.
His jeans grew tight. Well, that was too bad. He may be fascinated by her, but he didn’t have time for romantic entanglements. His plate overflowed with more bullshit than he could handle most days. If he was going to tangle with a woman, it needed to fit on his calendar somewhere between don’t fuck up the ranch and don’t damage Ivy’s psyche. He was pretty sure he was succeeding at the first; time would tell on the second. After that…she needed to be wife and mother material. He owed that much to his daughter after picking the disaster she currently had as a so-called mother.
After Ryan’s last song, he had turned his attention back to the crowd, looking for Matt, only to spin back around when he heard the commotion behind him. He stood there and blinked, shocked to see Ryan with her arm wrapped around Cutter Frayley’s neck. Shock turned to coldblooded rage when Cutter’s hand wrapped around Ryan’s beautiful throat. Slade pushed through cluster of people as they surrounded the scene, none of them doing anything to help Ryan as she struggled for air.
Cutter didn’t know how lucky he was that Slade hadn’t killed him, because killing had been his first instinct. Before long, word would get around that they had tangled, and when it did, Slade might just have another mess on his hands and no slots on his calendar to fix it.
Slade arrived at his truck to find Matt taking a picture of his dick. He banged the passenger-side door of his truck. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelled into the partially open window.
“What? It’s funny,” Matt said as he buttoned up his pants.
“Any woman who digs seeing some jacked-up picture of your dick taken in a dark truck while you’re half-drunk isn’t someone you want to spend your time with.”
“You say that now, but check her out.” Matt turned his phone screen to Slade as he climbed up behind the wheel. Clearly Matt had had more to drink than Slade realized if he was planning on hooking up with the woman on the screen. Slade didn’t want to be mean, but damn, that image might very well be a permanent scar in his overtaxed brain.
The lesson…crotch shots are best left to Playboy.
“Matt, do me a favor. Have a look at that in the morning when you’re stone-cold sober. If you still want to go for it, far be it from me to stand in your way. Fair enough?”
Matt frowned. “Is it that bad?”
Slade laughed. “Worse, my man, so much worse.” He pulled out onto the asphalt and headed northwest for his own piece of paradise eight miles outside of Fort Mavis. He hoped with each mile the events of the evening would fall away, but they didn’t.
Maybe Slade had enough luck on his side that tonight’s escapade wouldn’t spill over onto his impending cattle de
al with Cutter’s uncle. After all, the initial deposit of one-hundred-thousand dollars had already been made.
Edmund Frayley was set to deliver one hundred head of Texas Longhorn to his ranch in two weeks. Everything was almost in place. The fencing surrounding the ranch had been mended. The fifty-five-thousand acres had been divided into three sections by barbed wire for the rotating of stock.
So many ranches overcrowded their cattle and horses, but not Slade. At one time, one head in ten acres was the recommendation. Then one in twenty. His ranch, after this delivery, would stand populated at one head in one hundred acres, leaving him plenty of breeding room and plentiful land to maintain grass-fed cattle. The cattle delivery was the last step. Then he could find a routine, some sort of normalcy, and maybe a bit of breathing room in his hellish schedule.
He had survived six long months of working eighteen-hour days, seven days a week, and he was more than ready to work regular days. As regular as ranch days could be, anyway.
When his dad died just nine months ago, Slade was still working in corporate America, and miserable as hell. His daughter’s autism, although mild, and now practically non-existent, made her a target for bullies, and because he wasn’t paying close enough attention he’d missed the signs that she had started to emulate the mean girls. The day the school called to tell him she had cut off another girl’s ponytail, he was done.
He was done with cities, done with long hours, and done letting a community of distracted parents and spoiled kids influence the most important person in his world. He had believed by staying with the pharmaceutical company he was building a solid future for his daughter. He had become a millionaire working for MedEdge, but the money came at an even higher cost.
Anything that damaged his daughter’s foundation had to go. So he’d returned to his roots. His father was a horse rancher before him. He owned and operated a twenty-five-thousand-acre ranch in Annona, Texas, handed down to him by his own father and his father before him. Little did Slade and his mother know that his father had managed to grow his wealth to the point where he bought the very ranch Slade now called home.
The minute he and his mother were given the news by the attorneys, his mother had latched on to the idea of selling their homestead, and making a fresh start at Rockland Ranch, offering Slade a rare opportunity to make a mark of his own.
Six months later, his days were filled with hauling Matt out of bars at least three nights a week, sleeping a meager five hours at night, and only seeing his little girl at meal times if he was lucky. Something had to give, and soon.
He rolled through the open iron gates of Rockland Ranch, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. Not a day went by when he didn’t give thanks for being out of the hot city.
Slade brought the truck to a stop in front of the sprawling ranch home he shared with his mother, housekeeper, and daughter. Matt wanted his independence, if you could call it that, and asked to live in one of the bunkhouses. There were plenty, so Slade agreed, probably saving their relationship.
Now, he just had to encourage Matt to get a handle on his extracurricular activities. “Hey, up and at ‘em. We’re home.”
Matt’s head wobbled as he looked at Slade with bleary eyes. “I could have been inside a warm, willing woman right now if it weren’t for you.”
“I couldn’t care less where you stick it as long as you don’t drive drunk and you make sure to show at work in the morning.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Matt muttered as he kicked open the door, leaving a dirty boot print near the handle. He dropped out of his seat, swayed, held onto the truck until he got his bearings, and wandered off toward the ranch manager, Levi’s, bunkhouse.
Slade almost called out to him, until he spied the near-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the floorboard of his truck. Matt had consumed far more than Slade had thought, and he’d lied about it.
Fuck it. Let him walk into Levi’s place. If Levi kicked his ass, well, Matt would have earned it.
Slade’s German shepherd, Smoke, wandered over from his favored spot on the wide front porch and sat next to him. Slade scratched his ears, grateful to the old guy for being the calm in the storm. He’d found him on the side of the road, half-dead after having been hit by a car and left to die.
Slade took him to the vet and, several thousand dollars later, Smoke was on the mend and homeless. Slade couldn’t stand the thought of going home and leaving the poor guy behind so, after verifying that he wasn’t chipped, he’d adopted him.
One of the best decisions he ever made.
“Come on, boy. Let’s go get a treat.” Smoke’s tail twitched at the word ‘treat’, but he stayed calm while he followed Slade into the house.
After grabbing a bone for Smoke, Slade dropped to the cedar bench in the mudroom and peeled off his boots. Next, he ditched the hat, hanging it on one of the dozens of hooks lining the white wood-paneled wall. He scratched his head where the hat had left marks. He needed a long hot shower.
“It’s about time you made it home, boy,” his housekeeper and cook, Myra, said over the rim of her favorite, “Don’t Mess with Texas” coffee mug.
Slade grabbed a mug of his own, poured a cup of the brew, and just like he knew Myra had done, he slid the bottle of bourbon out from behind the baked beans and poured a healthy dose into the cup.
He had met Myra in Fort Mavis, two days after rolling into town. Myra came around the corner of aisle four of the grocery store where he and Ivy stood in a stand-off over gummy bears.
With Ivy’s ability to communicate stunted by her autism, “debates” tended to happen, but with her therapy they were few and far between now. When she was calm and well-rested, she had a much easier time keeping her thoughts straight. Heaven help them when she got tired or impatient and things fell apart. She often repeated herself, her thoughts and speech in a loop she couldn’t pull out of.
Myra stepped right in, knelt down in her house dress so she was eye level with Ivy, and introduced herself. Ivy, who had never been comfortable with strangers, took to her right away. So much so, she reached out to touch Myra’s hair and said, “You look like Aunt Jemima.”
Slade prayed for a hole to open up and swallow him right there on the spot. Of course, Myra just laughed and said, “Yes, pumpkin, I do.”
After a few minutes of chit chat, Myra admitted to being bored after having retired from her thirty-year career as the lunch lady of the local elementary school. Slade trusted his gut and offered her a job on the spot. She moved in later that night.
These late-night talks had been a tradition ever since.
“Ran into a bit of trouble at Lucifer’s,” Slade said.
“That place is nothing but trouble. Always has been. That Duncan Travers is a snake,” Myra said.
“Yeah, well, my run-in wasn’t with Duncan; it was with Cutter Frayley.”
Myra leaned back in her chair and raised an inquisitive brow. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that this might be the worst possible time to have a run-in with Cutter.”
“Tell me about it, but the minute he wrapped his hand around Ryan’s throat, it was out of my hands.”
“Who’s Ryan?”
He turned around a dining chair, wincing at the high-pitched scraping sound, and then took a seat with his arms folded on the back rest. “The woman singing at Lucifer’s.”
“Shit. I’m going to need more of that bourbon for this.” Myra pushed away from the table, took the bourbon out of the cabinet, and set it down between them on the table.
Slade took a long swallow of his doctored coffee and glanced around. “Did my mother call to say she arrived in California?”
“Yes, she did. She’s happy as a pig in shit. She said she’ll give you a call in a few days.” Myra poured almost a full mug of bourbon. Instinct told him to say something, but he bit back the urge. Her brand of payback, when slighted, sucked. Last time, she was sugary sweet to him, handed him his thermos, and only after he had ridden a couple miles did he fin
d out she had not rinsed all of the soap out of the thermos. Or she’d added soap. Either way, the message was loud and clear. Zip the lip.
“So spill it, boy. What’s the deal with this Ryan girl?”
Slade sat at the scarred oak table and relayed the whole incident to Myra. He left out his fascination with Ryan’s voice and his physical reaction to her, hoping Myra wouldn’t catch on to what he wasn’t admitting. With each new detail, Myra’s eyes narrowed and her grip on her cup tightened, until she shot out of her chair and started pacing.
“That boy, I tell you, it’s only a matter of time before he puts someone six feet under, if he hasn’t already and we just don’t know about it.”
Slade scratched the back of his head. “Well, tonight he’s in the custody of the sheriff’s department.”
“He’ll blame you for his sitting there,” she pointed out.
“I’m sure he will, but it’s a problem I’ll deal with tomorrow. Right now, I need to check on my baby girl, get a hot shower, and a good night’s sleep.” Slade tipped back the last of his drink and carried his cup the sink.
“About that pumpkin up there…Lisa called today. Said she was fixing to visit here soon.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Myra took the mug out of his hands and started washing it. “She sounded definite and she made it sound like it would be a lengthy visit.”
Slade pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt a damned headache coming on. “Son of a bitch.”
Myra dried her hands on the striped hand towel then hung it neatly over the hickory cabinet door. “Son of a bitch is right. Should I put some itching powder in the guest bed, just in case she follows through?”
Slade laughed, then covered it with a cough. “Better not, Myra, but I like the way you think. I’ll see you in the morning,” Slade said as he took his exit.
“Slade?”
He’d almost made it through the doorway out of the kitchen, but almost didn’t count. “Yeah?”
“What about Ryan?”
He glanced over his shoulder, not quite making eye contact with her. “What about her?”