Inheritance

by Sean Michael

  Inheritance

  By Sean Michael

  Cash McCord’s life is pretty much perfect. He owns the family ranch, loves his work, and invites the occasional cowboy into his bed. But everything is turned upside down when his brother Jack and Jack’s wife Val are killed in a car crash, leaving behind six kids.

  Cash is made guardian of the children, along with Val’s brother, Brad Rafferty—a man who couldn’t be more different from Cash if he tried. A Yankee, Brad is a video-game developer who works twelve-to-fourteen-hour days at his desk. They lock horns as soon as they set eyes on each other. Neither man is happy to have the other around, but neither is willing to give up custody of his nieces and nephews.

  It’s up to these two polar opposites to keep the kids together and give them a family again. But first they’ll have to keep from killing each other.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  More from Sean Michael

  About the Author

  By Sean Michael

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  Prologue

  FUCK, BUT Cash did love himself a nice, well-hung cowboy.

  Cash let the little bronc rider shuffle him across the floor, humming along with the jukebox. There was a sweet, heavy prick rubbing and loving on his thigh, a smooth-shaven cheek on his chest, and shit, but it looked like he was fixin’ to get lucky tonight. Real lucky. He’d seen that boy ride.

  The lights went down, and Mr. Buckin’ Bronc’s hand slid down to squeeze his ass a little.

  Oh hell yes.

  He pushed back, jonesing on the smell of horse and hay and Old Spice and soap. They hadn’t shared more than six or seven words, but then, they hadn’t had to. They were talking just fine.

  Least until his front pocket started vibrating.

  Cash ignored it, kept rubbing and dancing. Then it went off again.

  And again.

  And again.

  That pocket cowboy looked up at him, tilting his head. “Jealous boyfriend?”

  “Not fucking likely.”

  “Wife?”

  He snorted. “Right. Let me check this.” He didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was the same as his brother and sister-in-law’s.

  He flipped the phone open. “I swear to God, Jackie. This best be good.”

  “Mr. McCord?”

  Well, that wasn’t Jack. “Yeah. Who the hell is this?”

  “This is Frank Boucher from the Bangor Police Department. I’m afraid I have….”

  Cash sorta stopped actively listening after that, just turned and headed for the door, for his truck. For his house. For his suitcase.

  It wasn’t until he was back on the road, heading for Austin-Bergstrom, that it really hit him.

  Jack and Val. Dead.

  Both of them.

  Jesus Christ.

  Cash’s fingers tightened on the wheel.

  Jesus Christ.

  Chapter One

  FOR BRAD Rafferty, the last five days had been a fucking blur.

  The call from the cops, identifying Val and Jack’s bodies. Telling the kids.

  As long as he lived, Brad didn’t think he’d ever do anything as hard as telling those six children their mother and father had been killed in a car accident and weren’t coming back.

  The wake, the funeral, people coming and going and leaving a metric fuckton of food behind. Funny how quiet the house seemed now that most of them were gone.

  “Bradford!”

  He winced at his mother’s voice. “In the drawing room, Mother.”

  “Mr. Radcliffe is here. He wants to see you and Cash McCord in the kitchen. I’m going to help the babysitter put the kids to bed, and then I’m going home.” She put her hands on his cheeks and tugged him down, kissed his forehead. “Call me on my cell when you’ve finished with the lawyer.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Fuck, he wanted a shot of whiskey.

  In the kitchen, he found Radcliffe and McCord already at the table.

  He nodded to the lawyer, then to the cowboy. McCord, Jack’s brother, was a good-looking man. Better than Brad remembered from the wedding. Of course, he’d been a little wasted at the time. McCord was sucking back coffee at a fierce rate, weathered face looking all the better for being haggard.

  Brad poured out a cup of his own, promising himself something stronger when this was over. He sat across from McCord and gave Radcliffe a sharp look. “This about my sister’s will?”

  “Either that or it’s about my brother’s,” McCord said. Was that wit or sarcasm? You never knew with Southerners.

  Either way, Radcliffe didn’t react to it in the least, his face not cracking the smallest smile. “Jack and Val McCord had a joint will in the event their deaths coincided. You are both named in the will, which is why I asked to meet with you together.”

  “Just us?” Brad asked.

  “Yes. As well as the children, but under your guardianship.”

  McCord shook his head. “I don’t want nothing of Jackie’s, man. Nothing. Anything he left me, give to them babies.”

  “I don’t think you understand, Mr. McCord. You and Mr. Rafferty have been named as the children’s guardians.”

  Brad leaned in, elbows on the table. “What?”

  “Excuse me?” The brim of McCord’s cowboy hat went back, the cowboy’s blue eyes going wide. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Jack and Valerie named you two as joint custodians of the children. The house, the money, everything is in your hands. Once Branson is twenty-one, the children will have access to generous trust funds, and you will split whatever is left of the rest, including the proceeds of the sale of the house. Providing, of course, that you’ve raised the children together.”

  Brad knew his mouth was open, but he couldn’t make any sounds come out.

  Cash stood, whirled around, and slammed the coffee cup into the sink. The mug shattered. “I can’t deal with this right now. I can’t. I—shit. I just lost the last of my fucking family.”

  “Can’t deal? Can’t deal?” Brad shook his head. “You think those kids upstairs can deal?”

  Brad got a look, and then he got the finger. Selfish son of a bitch.

  He stood up himself, chair going flying behind him. “Why don’t you go back where you came from?”

  “Fine. I’ll go. You have somebody pack the kids enough for a few weeks, and I’ll get them out of this godforsaken place.”

  “I don’t think so—this is their home. And I’m not letting any backwater hick take them out of it.”

  “Jesus, you know I loved Val to death, but Jack was fucking crazy for letting her convince him to move up here.”

  Radcliffe cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. Please. I know this is a trying time for everyone, but trading insults isn’t going to solve anything. Jack and Valerie made it very clear that they wanted the children to be kept together. They also made it very clear that they wanted the two of you to look after them together. That it would keep the children in touch with both sides of their heritage.”

  Brad sat back down, the enormity of it hitting him again. Val and Jack were dead, leaving six kids behind.

  The cowboy hat dipped as McCord stared into the sink. “What the hell were they thinking?”

  Right, like either of them were really thinking about dying. Honestly dying and making orphans of their kids. Brad decided he needed that whiskey pretty damned badly now, and he was done waiting. “Was there anything else?” he asked the lawyer.

  “There are papers to be
drawn up and signed, and it will likely take several weeks before you have access to any money, but no, there isn’t anything else.”

  “Money’s not a problem.” He wasn’t loaded like Jack and Val had been, but he could certainly cover living costs for a while.

  It was the being guardian—excuse him, coguardian—to six of the thirteen-and-under set that had him worried.

  McCord turned on his heel, headed out into the chilly night, and slammed the door behind him.

  “I’ll see myself out, shall I?” Radcliffe said.

  Brad nodded at Radcliffe and said, “Thank you,” not even watching the lawyer go as he started looking through cabinets. There had to be booze in here somewhere.

  He was going to find it and get drunk off his ass.

  “UNCLE CASH?”

  Cash fought the groan, fought the urge to growl and let his head pop off. “Yeah, baby girl?”

  “Belle says Daddy ain’t coming home. I told her Momma said she’d be home soon.” Beth was only five, looking enough like her daddy to make his heart hurt.

  Fuck.

  He rolled up in his bed, opening his arms and tugging her into the mess of blankets. “Oh, honey. I…. Shit, your momma and daddy went to live with Jesus, baby. They’re watching you from heaven.”

  “You said a bad word.”

  “Yeah, I do that sometimes.” Fuck him raw.

  The baby started crying and Brad went stumbling past the door toward the nursery, cursing a blue streak.

  Beth’s eyes went wide. “Uncle Brad said lots of bad words!”

  “Yeah, honey. Lemme go see what I can do, huh?” Shit, he needed a shot or a smoke or something to clear his head. He stood up, picked up the wee one, and headed in after Brad. God knew they didn’t need to wake the twins.

  Brad was a big man: tall, broad-shouldered, lots of muscles. He made quite the picture in his boxers, leaning over the change table.

  The diaper change looked awkward as heck, though less awkward than Brad’s first one had the other day. He shushed little Branson. “Hush, baby boy. Shh. Shh. Before you wake the whole house. I need a couple of hours without kids everywhere, okay? Please? Give your uncle Brad a break.”

  “Lemme have him, man, before he wakes the twins.” Cash swapped Beth for Branson, and she curled into Brad’s arms just so.

  Lord, this was a clusterfuck and a half.

  Brad sat in the rocker, patting Beth’s back lightly as he started to rock. “Why’re you up, Beth?”

  “I was looking for Daddy. I found Uncle Cash.”

  Cash closed his eyes a second, squeezing the baby a little. Yeah, he remembered that—looking for his own daddy after the accident when he was nine and finding his eighteen-year-old brother on the sofa, waiting to tell him the news. Jesus.

  Jackie, y’all should’ve been more careful.

  Brad made a soft sound. “I’m sorry, Beth. Your daddy’s not here anymore, but he asked me and Uncle Cash to look after you and your brothers and sisters, okay? He wanted to make sure we took really good care of you.”

  “Are we going to go to Uncle Cash’s farm with the horses?”

  Over Beth’s shoulder, Brad met Cash’s eyes. Cash looked back. He’d told Brad it would be best for the kids to come back to Texas, start a new life. Brad had made it clear he disagreed.

  “This is your home, Beth,” Brad said. “Don’t you want to stay here?”

  “I… I want Momma.”

  Cash frowned. “She’s tired and little and wore out. She don’t know jack.”

  “Like the rest of us,” muttered Brad, starting up his rocking again. “How about a lullaby, Beth? ‘Rock-a-bye Baby’?”

  “Bye-a-bye baby.” Beth nodded, petting Brad’s chest. “Want Momma.”

  Cash sort of slid to the floor, cradling the baby. Christ, this was all sorts of fucked.

  “Me too, baby. Go to sleep,” murmured Brad before starting to sing, voice low, mumbling through some of the words, maybe the ones he didn’t know. It worked. Her little head dropped to Brad’s shoulder, her arms going lax at her sides.

  Cash slept a little, scrunched up there with the baby in his arms, neck and back reminding him he wasn’t eighteen anymore.

  Brad’s hand on his shoulder woke him. “I got Beth back to bed, and the baby’s asleep. Why don’t you put him down, and I’ll buy you a beer.”

  “’Kay.” Cash was sort of running on autopilot, nothing in him but a ball of hurt.

  He put the baby down and followed Brad down to the kitchen. Brad got them each a beer and then led him to the den and the matching easy chairs. Just right.

  “You think this is going to get any easier?” Brad asked.

  “There are six little kids that someone has to put through college. It’s not going to get easier.”

  “Some sleep would help.” Brad took a long drag from his beer.

  “Yeah.” Cash actually grinned but shook his head at the same time. “I want to take the kids home with me, man. Jackie loved the ranch.” Hell, he didn’t even know what Brad did for a living.

  Brad shook his head. “Uproot them again, right now? Just like that? Take them away from everything and everyone they know?” Brad leaned in. “Val loved this house. Loved their life.”

  “And she got everything she wanted, man. Jack moved for her, gave it up for her. I don’t have any family left.”

  “No family? What are those babies? They’re yours as much as they’re mine.”

  “That’s what I mean, man.” Cash leaned in too, meeting Brad’s eyes. “They’re all I got left. Let me take them home.” He couldn’t live up here in the midst of all these Yankees.

  “I can’t let you take them. I love them too, Cash.”

  “Well, then, what the hell are we going to do?” He couldn’t walk away from them.

  Brad rubbed his face. “I don’t know, Cash. I just don’t know.”

  “Well, at least we’re on the same page, huh?” He drank deep, letting the booze hit his throat. “Goddamn Jackie anyway.”

  Brad nodded. “Goddamn them both.” Eyes closed, Brad sat back.

  “So what do you do, man?” Jack never talked much about Val’s people, never let much on about the big guy.

  “Software developer. Games.”

  “Wow.” He guessed those folks needed to be smart. God knew he was the poor relation around here.

  “It pays the bills. Val always said it figured I’d pick a job where I could keep being a kid.” Brad’s face twisted. “God, what I wouldn’t give to have her bitch at me one more time.”

  “Yeah, she could rant and rave some.” He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. “Jackie was almost nineteen when our dad died. He… he was good to me.”

  “Shit, he died in a car accident too, didn’t he? Jack didn’t talk about it much.”

  “Yeah. Truck flipped.” He drank again, keeping his eyes open, not blinking a bit.

  “Man, I’m sorry.” Brad finished off his drink. “How old were you?”

  “Nine.” Same age as Belle.

  “Damn. This has to be like that same nightmare all over again.”

  “Something like that, except then I had Jack to help me.” Now he had those babies.

  “Yeah, well you’re not on your own now either.” Brad chuckled a little. “Even if we’re not each other’s first choice.”

  “I have a ranch. The family place.” There had to be something they could manage.

  “Give it a rest, Cash. We don’t have to settle it tonight.”

  “Bossy bastard.” He chuckled, though, head falling back against the cushions. “Shit, a week ago I was fixin’ to get laid by the sweetest little cowboy….”

  “You’re gay?”

  Cash looked over, eyebrows arching. He wasn’t in the closet, not with Jackie. “Yeah, and if you think for a goddamn second I’ll let anyone hold it against me….”

  Brad snorted and shook his head. “Keep your pants on, Cowboy. I’m trying to figure out why it never came out.
Up. Although given they obviously never told you about me either….”

  “No. No, Jackie and I were always busy.” Always goofing off. Fishing. Riding.

  “Yeah, well, now we both know.”

  “Yeah, I reckon.” He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he knew.

  Brad finished off his beer. “Man, I don’t think I can move. I might spend the rest of the night right here.”

  “Yeah.” He understood that. “That should be okay, huh? The kids’ll find us.”

  “The TV’s in here, isn’t it? They’ll be able to find us fine.”

  Brad stretched out, body long, muscles in all the right places and showed off nicely in the boxers and T-shirt. Cash sighed, eyelids drooping as he gazed at Brad, and started to doze off. Soft snores threatened to keep him from actually sleeping.

  “Christ, man. Don’t make me smother you.”

  He didn’t have to, though; he was too tired to do more than crash.

  Chapter Two

  SIX KIDS.

  Who the hell in their right mind had six kids?

  Not that he’d say anything against his sister, but God knew Brad couldn’t keep up with them. He couldn’t believe she’d not only done it but had thrived on it. Of course it probably helped that she’d had them one at a time instead of six at once. Well, except for Brian and Brenna; twins sort of came together, though by then she’d had three already.

  Still, she had to have known by then what was causing it. Brad started to laugh. Oh God, he was losing it.

  “What’s funny, Uncle Brad?” Beth asked, and he shook his head.

  “Nothing, hon. I’m just tired.” He closed the book and kissed her forehead. “Sleepy time now, okay?”

  Please, let them have a night where they got to sleep through. Just one night. Surely that wasn’t asking too much.

  “Okay. Love you.”

  Oh.

  He smiled down at her and stroked her cheek gently. “Love you too, Beth.” So maybe six kids wasn’t that crazy. He turned out her light, left the door open halfway, and wandered down the stairs, not quite sure whether he wanted to go to bed or pretend to be a normal adult and stay up.