Making the Matlock Ranch his would be his new mantra.
He swam as if his very life depended on it....
Chapter Two
“I tried my best, Aunt Marlene,” Reine said that night, “but Cash did’t want to get involved.” She realized her uncle had walked into the room in time to hear.
Jasper Matlock froze near the settee that looked too fragile to support him. He was nearly as tall as Cash, and nearly as broad-chested. That was where the physical resemblance ended, however.
Red-faced, he was glaring at her. “You went to see that good-for-nothing—”
“Blame me!” Marlene interrupted. “I asked her to go.”
That wasn’t exactly accurate, though Reine wasn’t about to correct her aunt. Confronting Cash had been her own idea, but Marlene hadn’t tried talking her out of it. Now she was being protective when there was no need.
“What did you two expect to accomplish?” Jasper demanded. “Did you think he’d roll over and play dead, maybe offer to the pay the ransom?”
Assuming they ever found out how much it was. The kidnapper hadn’t yet called back with a dollar amount—a fact that Reine didn’t want to examine too closely. Meanwhile, the inability to do anything positive toward assuring Gray’s safety had them all on edge.
“Jasper, is there a need to go to someone else for money?” Marlene asked, a thread of fear in her voice “I—I know the business has been worrying you for some time now. But how b-bad is it?”
Her aunt was none too steady. Her face was pale, her trembling hands matched her voice. The strain had taken its toll on her. Reine knew people often thought they were sisters rather than aunt and niece, but no one would ever make that mistake tonight. Tonight, Marlene Matlock appeared far older than her fifty-seven years.
“There may not be a need to pay the ransom at all,” Jasper stated with satisfaction.
Reine’s hopes rose. “You went to the sheriff?”
“Hell, no! I told you they said not to!”
“Then what are you talking about?” Marlene demanded.
“I been thinking on it—who would have reason to snatch Gray and why.” He was pacing, talking more to himself than to them. “Only one person.”
Apprehensive, Reine asked, “You have a theory?”
He stopped in front of her, stared her straight in the eye. “Look to Cash Abreu. What you shoulda been doin’ there, girl, was askin’ him where my son is stashed.”
“Our son,” Marlene reminded him from where she huddled on the sofa.
“Uncle Jasper, why would you think Cash knows anything about it?” His implication appalled Reine.
“The land.” Jasper socked a fist into his open hand. “He’s been after my spread for years. Maybe he got tired of waitin’ and figured himself out a plan.”
“You can’t possibly believe he would use Gray!”
“Why not? He’s capable of anything.” He shook a finger in her face. “The sooner you get that into your pretty little head, the better off you’ll be!”
“I don’t believe it,” Marlene said, echoing Reine’s thoughts. “Cash was never a cruel boy.”
Jasper turned on his wife. “He’s a man, not a boy! He wants this land, and there’s no saying what he’ll do to get what he wants!”
“You mean, like his father?”
A current sizzled between husband and wife, making Reine back off.
“I’m not apologizing again for something that happened thirty-five years ago,” her uncle said. “Everyone’s entitled to a mistake.”
“But what you did was not a mistake, Jasper,” Marlene ground out. “And now you want to believe Cash is as calculating and cruel as you were.”
The room screamed with the sudden silence that followed the accusation. Reine held her breath. Even though she’d known the truth for years, she shouldn’t be here to witness this private agony.
“You’ve never forgiven me, have you, Marlene?”
“I’ve never forgotten. There’s a difference.”
“Bull. I see the truth in your eyes, woman, and hear it in your tone.” Jasper shook his silver head in disgust. “If I’m such a monster, I don’t know how you’ve managed to live with me all these years.”
“Sometimes I don’t know, either.”
An expletive burst through Jasper’s lips and he stormed out of the room.
Marlene burst into tears.
Reine rushed to her aunt’s side, sat and put her arms around the woman who’d been a mother to her since her own had died more than twenty years before.
“Gray’s all I have, all I ever really had....” As if suddenly aware of the niece holding her, Marlene quickly added, “Until you came along, of course.”
Reine gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I know you love me, Aunt Marlene. And Uncle Jasper loves you.”
Reine did believe that, even as she believed the gruff and sometimes-unkind man loved her, as well.
“Jasper tolerates me,” her aunt said.
“He’s an idiot to treat you like he does.”
Reine wished she could say that he just didn’t know any better, but she didn’t believe it. Jasper Matlock was a crafty devil who knew exactly what he was doing at all times—and sometimes it seemed that he chose not to be human. Not that she would admit as much to her aunt.
Instead, she said, “Even an idiot knows a good thing when he sees her.”
“Then why isn’t he sitting here with me? Why aren’t his arms around me instead of yours?”
Reine couldn’t answer that any more than she could explain the way Cash had walked away from her so easily. To be fair, Cash had been forcibly pulled away, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have come back for her.
“We should be going through this together,” Marlene said. “Jasper should be thinking about Gray’s safety.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“But he’s more concerned with other things. I don’t really think it’s the money. It’s that he’s obsessing about Cash again.”
“No more than Cash obsesses about him, I’m sure. It’s Uncle Jasper’s way of coping. He’d rather be angry than appear vulnerable.”
“You believe that?”
“I do. Uncle Jasper loves Gray,” she said.
“But what if something happens to Gray? What if it already has?”
“I’m sure it hasn’t.”
Though she was sure of no such thing, Reine was set on soothing her aunt.
Marlene rose and walked to the windows even as the sound of a car engine grew closer.
“Reine, someone’s just arrived,” she said softly as the engine was cut. “Sam Valdez. I wonder what he wants.”
“I’ll find out.”
Reine headed for the front entrance and opened the door for the neighboring rancher.
Despite his Hispanic last name, Sam Valdez bore no resemblance to his father’s ancestors. He appeared to be pure Anglo, with his blue eyes, short, rounded nose and dark red hair. Having reached middle age, he showed some gray at the temples and a little thicker waistline than she remembered, but he still appeared a man to be reckoned with. He was over six feet tall and more powerfully built than even Cash.
“Why, Reine,” Valdez said, his pale eyes narrowing on her, “it’s been a while.”
“That it has, Mr. Valdez.” She had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t exactly pleased to see her. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to offer my help. I heard about Gray.”
Wondering how far the word had spread, she said, “That’s very kind of you, but I’m afraid this just isn’t a good time for company.”
Valdez moved around her, saying, “I’ll only stay a few minutes.” He approached her aunt, who still stood at the window, staring into the night. “Marlene, tell me what I can do for you.”
“I wish I could say.” Hands clasped in front of her as if she were holding herself together, Marlene turned to face the rancher. An odd light filled her eyes. And unshed tears.
“To tell you the truth, Sam, I’m surprised you’re here at all.”
So was Reine. She didn’t ever remember Uncle Jasper being friendly with him.
“We’ve been neighbors a lifetime.” Valdez stepped forward to engulf Marlene’s hands in his. “No matter our occasional differences, neighbors help one another in times of trouble. I believe I heard something about a kidnapper.”
Marlene nodded. “It’s so late. He still hasn’t called back with the ransom demand.” Freeing her hands, she began pacing and gave Reine a stricken expression. “Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Probably tryin’ to make you nervous is all, Marlene. Make certain you come over with the goods. Is that where Jasper is, scraping up cash?”
“I—I don’t know. And what if the man Jasper spoke to isn’t a kidnapper at all?” she asked, sounding a bit desperate. “What if he’s merely an opportunist who heard about Gray’s being missing? He could have made that call, then gotten cold feet.”
“If that’s true,” Valdez said, “then where is Gray?”
Her aunt swallowed hard. “What if my son is...dead?”
“Now don’t you go thinkin’ like that, Marlene,” Valdez said gruffly. “Your boy’ll turn up, you wait and see.”
Reine stared down at her thumb and imagined a tiny scar there. All for one and one for all. She would know if Gray was dead, wouldn’t she? She wasn’t ready to believe it.
“Nothing is going to happen to him,” she said softly. “We won’t let it.”
“How will we stop it?” asked her aunt.
“I don’t know yet.”
That was why she’d gone to Cash. He would be able to figure it out, she was certain, if only he cared enough to try. Why didn’t he? she wondered yet again.
“Maybe you ought to leave it to the menfolk,” Valdez suggested none too subtly to Reine.
“That’s what I have been doing, but so far, they’ve come up with nothing.”
“You’re not thinkin’ of bringing in the sheriff, are you?” he asked intently. “That could foul everything up, bring harm to your cousin.”
“No,” Reine said, feeling a bit uncomfortable under his close scrutiny. “No sheriff.”
“Then what do you intend to do?”
“Whatever I must.”
And obviously, she’d do it alone.
Cash’s attitude still bitterly disappointed her. That his own brother didn’t seem to mean a thing to him broke Reine’s heart all over again.
Friday
HAVING SLEPT LITTLE enough to put himself in a foul mood, Cash went in search of his Uncle Nemesio first thing the next morning. His mother’s brother had taken him in when he’d been thrown off the Matlock spread. In addition to giving him a place to eat and sleep, Nemesio had made a man of him. He’d given him a man’s strength, a hunger for justice, and a trade—the nearly lost art of building with real adobe.
Now the tables were turned and Nemesio Escobar worked for Cash Development. As Vice President of Traditional Construction, he had a fancy title, received a generous salary, and was expected to do little more than keep an eye on things.
Cash knew that fact grated on Nemesio, who hated being some “charity case,” as he called it. Cash also knew that the older man chafed at not having done more with his own life, and he suspected Nemesio resented working for him at times. Yet, work he did. Hard.
Like his mother and old Ignacio, his uncle wouldn’t sit around and take life easy. He insisted on working side by side with his men from start to finish.
Arriving at the site where they made their own mud bricks, Chase stepped down from his customized truck and strode past the front-end loader that was scooping up earth from nearly five feet below the surface. They couldn’t dig deeper or they’d hit too much gravel.
“Mr. Abreu!” the driver yelled over the noise of his machinery. “Mornin’!”
“Hank. Where’s my uncle?”
The driver pointed to the small, weathered structure that served as the supervisor’s office.
Cash waved to the man and strode toward the shack, past the soil being dumped onto a vibrating screen where large stones were removed before it was deposited onto a conveyor belt.
Stabilizing adobe with cement was the newest technique used to keep the mud from washing away. While Cash appreciated the buildings constructed with traditional adobe and had a crew of men who still did restorations of the old structures, he was smart enough to realize that keeping up with the times for new projects was only good business.
He glanced at the nozzle injecting the soil with cement and watched the processed earth drop into a forklift scoop where another worker added water and straw, then drove the mixture to a metal form where he cast the actual bricks. They cured in the dry desert air for at least a week before being moved to the construction site.
The row upon row of stacked twelve-by-sixteeninch mud bricks reflected the size of the new site—a strip mall going up at the edge of Santa Fe.
Drawing close to the ramshackle office, Cash heard what sounded like an argument drift through the open doorway. The clatter and clank of equipment made it impossible to hear more than bits and pieces. Still, he recognized a woman’s voice. His mother’s.
What in the world was she doing here?
“...need that kind of help!” he heard her shout.
Cash frowned. His mother rarely raised her voice and never with her older brother. If his uncle responded, he couldn’t tell.
Consumed with curiosity, he picked up his pace, and upon reaching the office, filled the doorway.
Her back to him, hands on her hips, his mother faced down his uncle, who seemed trapped behind a messy desk. A traditional Pueblo shirt stretched over his barrel chest, his long, silver-streaked black hair held back from his ruddy round face by a bandanna, Nemesio Escobar didn’t fit comfortably into an office setting of any kind.
And he obviously didn’t care for whatever his sister had been saying to him. He might not be saying anything back, but he sure was glowering.
Stepping into the tension-filled room, Cash said, “Mom, you didn’t say anything about coming out here today or I would have brought you myself.”
His mother started, and when she turned to him, her expression seemed almost guilty—no doubt about the shouting, Cash figured.
“Son, I—I didn’t expect to see you here, either.”
“So what’s up?”
“I promised Nemesio some of my homemade tamales next time I made them.”
The delicious smell filled the small room. Cash eyed the covered basket that balanced precariously on a nearby file cabinet. It was large enough to hold a week’s worth of food for a man. Undoubtedly, she’d brought enough for the whole crew to sample.
“Tamales for breakfast, huh?” he murmured.
“I have some things to do. I didn’t think I’d find the time to swing by later,” she said, sounding oddly defensive. “What about you? What are you doing here?”
“Just checking on things,” Cash hedged.
Nemesio, on the other hand, was his usual blunt self. “Luna told me about Gray.”
Grayson Matlock’s disappearance was the very thing that had kept Cash up most of the night. Actually, he’d hoped to hash out his feelings over the matter with the uncle whose opinion he respected, but his mother’s presence discouraged him from being open. He didn’t want to involve her.
So, when his uncle asked, “What you gonna do about it?” Cash muttered, “Leave it to Matlock.”
“Good.”
“Nemesio!” Luna hissed. “This is Cash’s blood you speak of.”
“But not yours and not mine!”
“What does it matter who mothered him?”
“Whoa!” Cash said, wondering if this was what they’d been arguing over. “I don’t want the two of you getting hot at each other for my sake.”
Sister and brother gave each other conspiratorial looks that left him out of their loop.
> “You see? Your son is being sensible,” Nemesio said.
Cash spoke with more conviction than he was feeling : “Gray’ll be all right.”
“You can’t know that,” his mother mumbled.
No, he couldn’t. It was the reason for his loss of sleep. But he didn’t want to get involved. It was too complicated. Getting involved might interfere with his plans.
And yet...
What if something did happen to Gray while he stood around with his finger up his nose?
Unclenching his jaw, he asked, “What is it you want me to do, Mom?”
She seemed torn for a moment. Then, avoiding his gaze, she said, “T can’t advise you.”
His mother not having an opinion on something was enough to take Cash aback, especially after she’d been yelling about it. A small woman, she had big opinions. This wasn’t like her, not at all. Then, again, she had good reason to want to stay out of this particular situation.
Better reason than he.
Even so, she softened for a moment, saying, “You’ll have to follow your own heart.”
Cash’s laugh was humorless. “You’re giving me credit for having one.”
Her serious dark gaze met his. “I know my son better than anyone.”
Indeed, she did. Cash grew instantly uncomfortable. Undoubtedly she was able to read his inner struggle without his ever saying a word.
Still, he protested, “Blood doesn’t make us brothers.”
Maybe if he said it often enough...
“You were brothers before you even knew the truth about Jasper. That will never change.”
“Leave the boy alone!” Nemesio suddenly snapped as he shot to his feet.
Boy? Cash gaped.
Everyone was in a weird mood, as if they’d all been infected by some damned virus, he groused to himself. Here his uncle was working for him—a a thirty-five-year-old man—and talking about him as if he were still a kid who needed his butt wiped.
“It is Cash’s decision alone to make,” Luna told her brother.
“Or not.” Nemesio drew himself together. While he wasn’t a tall man by anyone’s standards, he radiated power—and, at the moment, a great deal of satisfaction. “Maybe things are working out the way they should, for once.”
Cowboy Justice Page 3