Heart So Sweet: Book 3 in the Great Plains Romance Series

by Corrissa James

  “Miranda runs the land on the other side of us, to the north of our land and your daddy’s land.”

  “You mean by that old watering hole?”

  Andrew frowned. “Exactly. She thinks she can just take our herd’s stragglers for herself.”

  Tate eyed Andrew for a moment. “Want me to talk to her? Put the fear of the law into her?”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “If you change your mind...” Tate shrugged, sharing a look that he hoped said he was on Andrew’s side.

  “Thanks, man, but we got it handled.”

  Tate waited, but Andrew didn’t elaborate. He knew Andrew was a braggart. It was just a matter of finding the right trigger. Tate glanced out the window again. “Huh. New to the area and already acting as if they own the place.”

  “Don’t worry. They won’t be here long. We’re making sure of that.”

  Tate hid his smile as he turned back to Andrew. “Let’s you and me have a little talk. Down at the station.”

  Tate deposited a red-faced Andrew in the county holding cell, ignoring his demands to be set free. The sheriff was having a hard time keeping the smile from his face. “Don’t worry. I’ll let your family know.” He wouldn’t be able to keep Andrew for long, not based on what he’d told the sheriff so far, but it still felt good to close the cell door and see Andrew’s face turn an ever deeper red.

  “I still get a phone call.”

  “And I’ll make sure to send a deputy back as soon as one is free,” Tate called over his shoulder as he headed back to the office area. He stopped at one of the deputy’s desks. Terry Kruse had only been on the job for a few weeks, and Tate was going to use his lack of experience to ensure that they could get enough evidence to put Andrew away for a while.

  “In twenty minutes, I want you to call Lucas Clark to let him know his brother’s been arrested.”

  Deputy Kruse looked up at Tate and nodded.

  Tate started to walk on, then stopped. “Don’t tell him the charges, though.”

  “Sir?”

  “Just tell him that you’re calling as a courtesy call. And speak only to Lucas.”

  “But–”

  “Just a little friendly advice, Kruse.” Tate slapped him on the shoulder. “Of course, if you want to waste your time and get an earful from one of the other brothers, that’s your choice. Personally, I prefer to deal with people who won’t talk back.”

  Kruse nodded in understanding.

  “Remember, twenty minutes.”

  “And what about Clark’s phone call?”

  “We haven’t officially arrested him. Yet.” Tate glanced back at the door leading to the holding cells where Andrew was still yelling. “He’ll get bored soon enough.”

  Twenty minutes later, Tate and another deputy were parked in the sheriff’s SUV down the road a bit from the lane to the Clark homestead. They didn’t have to wait long for Susannah’s truck to whip out of the lane. Tate could make out Lucas’s hulking figure in the passenger seat. He smiled. Just as he expected.

  He made a quick call to deputy Kruse, telling him not to let anyone speak to Andrew Clark until he returned. As an afterthought, he added, “And don’t let them know I’m not there. Let them think I’m in the building somewhere.”

  “You want me to lie, sir?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. Just ask them to wait and don’t volunteer any info.”

  Tate wasn’t normally a vindictive man, but he certainly was enjoying the idea of making Lucas and his sister feel as foolish as they had made him feel.

  Chapter Eleven

  Susannah was fuming when the deputy finally told them that Tate was not in the building after all and they’d have to come back the next morning to speak to Andrew. Her anger was sent over the edge when she and Lucas finally got home and realized that, while they’d been sitting at the courthouse, Tate had come to the farm and arrested Daniel and Jonathan. She had known Tate would be able to handle her brothers. She just hadn’t realized that he’d be handling her in the process. Sunday morning they were at the sheriff’s office by nine o’clock, but Tate was still making himself scarce. The same deputy nervously informed them that charges had been filed against all three brothers for vandalism and destruction of property. Their arraignment was scheduled for late Monday morning.

  Tate hadn’t been in the courtroom either, instead sending a deputy to handle her brothers’ arraignment. Susannah was convinced that he had coordinated their arraignment to fall to Judge Winthrop, who had a long history with the Clark brothers but had never been able to put them away for anything. The vandalism charge was all he needed, and he held them over without bail until the trial, which would take place the following week as the judge was anxious to put them away before his summer vacation. Susannah had stormed out of the courtroom, more furious that Tate was clearly avoiding her than the fact that her brothers were sitting in jail. They deserved their punishment; she didn’t.

  When they left the courthouse, she and Lucas drove straight to Dalton James’ ranch. Luckily, both he and his wife Trish were willing to talk to her, which didn’t surprise Susannah. She had saved their lives, even if her brothers had been the ones vandalizing their fencing. She sat with them on their wraparound porch, drinking lemonade while Lucas sat in Susannah’s truck. The whole scene seemed surreal, too elegant and refined for what she had to discuss with them. She didn’t know where to start, so she just stared at her lemonade.

  “I’m going to take him some lemonade.” Trish was making her way down the steps before Susannah could stop her.

  Dalton noted Susannah’s apprehension. “Don’t worry. She’ll just pepper him with questions, but nothing more than boring pleasantries.”

  Susannah winced. “I’m afraid she won’t get very far.”

  “Oh, my wife is as tenacious as they come.”

  She looked at how Dalton watched Trish, a secret smile tugging at his lips. She felt a pang of regret as an image of Tate’s stoic face came to mind. She shook her head, pushing the image from her mind. “Lucas doesn’t talk.”

  Dalton glanced at her. “Seriously, my wife doesn’t give up.”

  “Almost a decade now.” Susannah stared down at her lemonade.

  They sat in silence for several moments before Susannah continued.

  “He went to Afghanistan and everything was fine. He came home to a dead wife and a newborn daughter and hasn’t said a word since. Except to Jenny, his daughter. But even that’s in private.”

  Dalton reached out to squeeze her hand. She looked up at him, and he nodded toward the truck. Trish was leading Lucas to the riding ring, where Dalton’s prized stallion waited for them, pawing the ground. Lucas held out a hand, and the stallion nuzzled it, moving closer until Lucas could rub his head. Susannah smiled.

  Dalton looked at Susannah out of the corner of his eye. “Cyrus judges people better than anyone I know.”

  “Lucas has always had a gift with animals. He’s worked miracles on our farm. I swear, he reacts to a stampede before the cattle even know it’s happening.”

  “So it’s not just horses that he can work his magic on?”

  Susannah laughed. “No, but horses are his first love.”

  They fell into silence again, watching Lucas and Trish as they moved into the ring. Moments later, Lucas was on Cyrus’s back. Trish threw open the gate and Lucas took off through the field, giving Cyrus just enough rein that the horse felt free while still being under Lucas’s control. Dalton whistled in appreciation.

  “Just what I was thinking,” Trish said, walking back toward the porch. “I think I found our new hired hand.”

  “No, you can’t!” Susannah blurted.

  Dalton and Trish both looked at Susannah.

  “I mean—oh, that didn’t come out right.” She fumbled to set her lemonade down, sloshing the liquid over the side and down her pants. “It’s just, well, our farm—I can’t work it by myself, and it’s going to be bad enough now that–” She stopped, r
ealizing that this was not how she wanted to broach the subject with Dalton James, who was now frowning at her.

  Trish jumped up the steps and patted her husband’s shoulder. “Oh knock it off. You’re scaring the poor girl.” She glanced at Susannah and shrugged. “Men. They just don’t get it sometimes. I’d like to hire Lucas—he’s got a real gift—but you need to do what’s right for your farm. Maybe I can suggest that my husband talk to Sheriff Trudell. After all, I think your other brothers might be willing to call off their ‘extracurricular activities’ if our families are working together, yes?”

  Susannah tried to smile, but she was sure it looked more like a grimace. “Jonathan and Daniel would knock it off in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, my brother Andrew is the ringleader, and I swear that boy lives for trouble.”

  Dalton stood up. “Let me make a call and see what we can do.” He stepped inside the house, leaving Trish and Susannah alone on the porch.

  “So?” Trish raised an eyebrow in anticipation.

  “What?”

  Trish reached out and patted Susannah’s knee. “Oh come on, I saw that flush in your face when I mentioned the sheriff—there it is again. Gimme some details, girlfriend!”

  Susannah laughed nervously. She barely knew Trish, had only just met her last week when Trish’s ex-boyfriend tried to kill her. So how was it that this woman could seemingly read her thoughts? “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Trish frowned playfully. “Woman, if you and I are going to be lifelong friends, you have got to learn to share the juicy gossip with me!”

  Susannah rolled her eyes and groaned. “There won’t be anything to share since I think he’s avoiding me.”

  Trish eyed the other woman for a moment. “Avoiding, huh? That just means that when you two get together, there is going to be one hell of a fireworks show.” She laughed. “Oh, I see you’ve already experienced those particular fireworks.”

  Susannah was grateful that Dalton returned to the porch at that moment as her face was burning so brightly that her whole body felt like it was on fire.

  “Well, I spoke to the sheriff. He thinks he can get the state to drop the charges for Daniel and Jonathan, but that means Andrew takes the brunt of it. But he said he won’t do anything until he hears from someone named Annie, told me to tell you, so you could let her know to stop by.”

  “Stop by where?” Susannah hoped her voice didn’t sound as anxious and excited to them as it did to her, but one glance at Trish and she knew the other woman knew full well what Susannah was experiencing right now. Luckily, Dalton seemed none the wiser.

  “Dunno. That was the entire message.”

  Trish nodded and shifted in her seat. “So if you have Daniel and Jonathan to help with the farm, and say, maybe Lucas works here part time, do you think you can manage?”

  Susannah considered it for a moment. Daniel and Jonathan would probably get more work done without Andrew around to distract them. She’d have to pick up Lucas’s slack, but she’d give up sleep entirely if it meant that Lucas was happy. “Obviously I’d have to talk it over with my brothers, but it should work out okay. And they’d be stupid not to take the offer.”

  “As long as they understand that the destruction stops.” Dalton stared down at her, as if trying to drive his point home.

  “Oh, stop it.” Trish looked at Susannah and shook her head. “Seriously, they never learn.”

  Lucas returned, and Trish and Susannah walked out to speak to him. He listened to Trish’s proposal, his eyes lighting up when she mentioned training horses on the ranch. She told him they had a new group of horses coming in any day and they’d need to be broke and trained. Susannah’s heart surged as she watched the excitement growing in her brother’s face. But as soon as he looked at her, the excitement vanished, and she realized that he understood what it would mean for the farm. Trish took her cue and left the two of them alone so Susannah could explain the situation.

  “It’s really the best solution we can hope for,” Susannah finished. “Although Andrew won’t think so.”

  Lucas arched an eyebrow and smiled.

  “But this might give Daniel and Jonathan a chance to get out from under him. Something’s got to change, Lucas. We can’t go on constantly cleaning up after Andrew.”

  Lucas sighed. He looked out over the fields, then turned back to her and nodded once. Then he pulled her into a tight hug.

  “So it’s settled.”

  They turned to see Dalton and Trish standing a few feet from them. Lucas stepped forward to shake Dalton’s hand.

  “Good to have you aboard, Lucas, but remember, she’s the boss, not me.”

  Lucas nodded and turned to shake hands with Trish.

  Susannah watched, blinking back tears. For the first time in nearly ten years, Lucas would be working off the farm. It was a huge step for her brother, and she couldn’t have stopped the pride from welling up inside her if she tried.

  Unfortunately her happiness didn’t last long. She left Lucas at the Jameses’ ranch for the afternoon while she tried to hunt down Tate, returning first to the courthouse, then heading out to his father’s house, and finally her own home. He was nowhere to be found, and he wasn’t responding to her messages left at any of these places telling him to call her. The constant up and down emotions, ranging from nervousness to excitement and then disappointment, frazzled her nerves until she was only left with frustration that was quickly becoming anger. That anger shifted into full-on rage when Jonathan and Daniel were dropped off by a deputy late that evening. She had spent the entire day trying to find Tate, but he had made himself scarce—she now knew it was intentional.

  Feeling guilty about not being in better spirits when her brothers came home, she claimed to have a headache. She quickly explained the situation to them, stressing that this was the one chance they had to make everything right, then turned in early for the night. An aching pain really was tormenting her, but the heartache was stemming from the belief that she had really messed things up with Tate, and now he wasn’t giving her the chance to explain or make things right. She went to bed, telling herself that a good night’s sleep would help make everything look better in the morning, yet sleep eluded her. Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered Tate kissing her, teasing her body, and the heartache grew until it threatened to consume her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tate endured more sleepless nights than he cared to admit. He threw himself into his work, doing so much overtime that he was leaving his deputies with nothing to do. Of course, none of them would tell him that. They barely spoke to him as they were too busy avoiding his seemingly never-ending foul mood. His mood lightened up a bit when Andrew Clark was sentenced to thirty days in county lockup, followed by a year of probation. However, when Tate touched base with Dalton James and learned that Lucas was thriving while working on the ranch, his bad mood returned. His plan had been to make the entire Clark family suffer, especially Annie and Lucas, for making him look the fool. But Lucas was feeling none of the repercussions, which made Tate angrier than he cared to admit, even to himself.

  He wasn’t sure how Annie had managed to turn such a bad situation into something good for everyone—everyone but him—but he was sure she was behind it all. With both Bruce Garrison and now Andrew Clark behind bars, the late night calls about rowdy troublemakers basically disappeared. A few would still come in on weekends, but the overnight dispatch operator was becoming just as bored as the deputies. Tate seemed to be the only one working himself into a state of exhaustion every day, but he knew it was because the nights terrified him.

  He couldn’t get Annie out of his head. Despite being convinced that she had used him to ensure the safety of her brothers, he still found himself making excuses to go places where she might be. He told himself that catching a glimpse of her would remind him of how truly devious she was. Except, of course, his body didn’t care if she was devious or not. It just wanted to feel her body next to his. Soon Tate stopped look
ing for her and instead started avoiding any place she might be. That approach didn’t work either.

  After the first week of avoiding her, the doubts emerged. Had he misunderstood the situation? He remembered how panicked she’d been when Andrew started knocking on the door. No matter how much he told himself that it had all been an act, he could not dismiss her fear. She’d been truly worried that Andrew would know that she’d been with Tate that night. But that scenario didn’t fit with his ideas of deception. In fact, it would have been better if Andrew had caught them in bed together. Tate would not have been able to be involved in the case against Andrew.

  He was spending another sleepless night in bed when he remembered that he didn’t even consider the Clark brothers as suspects until Annie mentioned the Jameses to Andrew that morning, when Tate was supposed to be hiding in the shower. She would never have brought that up if they were all working together to conceal the truth and deceive him. Tate swore as he threw off the thin sheet and pulled on a pair of pants. He’d been so focused on a single comment from Annie that he’d failed to see the forest for the trees, so to speak. Now he was determined to face Annie and get to the bottom of the whole conversation.

  He glanced at the clock. It wasn’t quite 4 a.m. He made a pot of coffee and drank two-thirds of it, watching the clock the entire time. At 4:47 he decided that if Annie wasn’t already waking up for the day’s chores, he’d help her along. He smiled to himself as he grabbed his keys. Well, he’d wake her up, but getting out of bed was a different story. And if she were already up and about, maybe he’d just bring her back to his cabin for a languid weekend.

  He threw open the cabin’s front door, then jumped back, startled. An older woman stood on his front step, her hand raised as if about to knock on the door.

  “Good morning, nephew.”