Front Range Cowboys (5 Book Box Set)

by Evie Nichole

  Cal frowned. “You and Melody are too close in age. If your mother had another child, she must have either been older than Melody’s mother or there were a few years in there somewhere.”

  “Does it really matter? My mother was probably pregnant with me when Melody’s mom got herself in the family way. Regardless, my mother must have stayed with her friend while she was pregnant. Call Melody,” Jesse insisted. “We have to call her. I have to know if there’s anything in that house about my mother.”

  Cal pulled out his phone. He sent off a quick text to Cisco. Then he had to wait. There was nothing to do but wait.

  “Well?” Jesse asked expectantly.

  “I texted Cisco.” Cal shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything for me to do beyond that. Do you?”

  “Ugh!” she moaned. “The waiting is horrible. I think I’m going to die trying to figure it all out.”

  “Should we clean up this mess?” Cal gestured back to the house and to the piles of cards and letters on the dining room table.

  “No. I think we should keep going.” Jesse turned and walked back into the house. “Who knows what we’ll find next. Maybe we’ll discover that your parents had twins that were born before you, or something equally weird.”

  Cal could not help but smile at her ridiculousness. “All right, then. Let’s go back in and hit it. Then we’re going to shower.”

  She gave him an arch look. “Uh, you’re going to be going home to do that task. I’m totally not having some man messing up my bathroom and then leaving towels all over the place along with half of the dirt that he didn’t manage to wash off inside the shower.”

  “What?” Cal was affronted. Then he could not hold back the laugh that wanted to burst out of him. “As I recall, you were the one who trashed the bathroom every morning. My God! The place smelled like a tropical garden when you finished, and there were cosmetics lining every single surface of the countertop!”

  “There was not.” She put her hands on her hips and did her best to look indignant, but could not manage it. “Okay, so maybe I did leave stuff lying around. That was many, many years ago. And what would you know about that? You moved out to the bunkhouse just to get away from your own brothers because they were pigs.”

  “I’m certainly not going to argue that point.” Cal would have been the first one to call his brothers pigs.

  Something caught his eye. It was an old photograph framed and hanging on the far wall of the dining room. He had never really noticed it before. Had it always been there? Sometimes it was difficult to tell what Jesse had changed when she had moved into the place and what she had left exactly the same.

  “What are you looking at?” Jesse frowned at him. “And if you try to tell me that the house is dirty and you’re just staring at the poor job I do of cleaning it, then I’m going to kick you right back out that front door.”

  “I’m far too smart a man to criticize a woman’s housekeeping,” Cal told Jesse. Then he pointed to the photograph. “I’m trying to figure out where I’ve seen that before.”

  “Oh.” Jesse headed for the picture and peered closely at it. “I found that in my folks’ stuff. It was with some other old photographs. I thought it looked really cool because it was taken right here on the porch way back when the house was new, so maybe five generations ago?”

  Cal peered at the people in the picture. But it wasn’t the people who told him as much as the brands on the horses did. “Jesse,” Cal said slowly. “This is a photograph of the Weatherbys, the Farrells, and the Collins families.”

  “What?” Jesse practically shoved him out of the way. “The words scrawled on the back say that it’s a Collins family reunion taken the year this house was built. The picture is old. In fact, I think it’s probably a reprint. Look at the quality.”

  But there was no getting around the facts, regardless of whether or not they were etched in sepia or not. “Your family is related to the Weatherbys and the Farrells. We just have to figure out how, and I think we’re going to know a lot more about the whys of what’s going on.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  There were very few things that felt as good as a shower when it had been way too long since you’d last had one. Now that Jesse was all showered and wearing clean clothing and her hair was not hanging in big greasy locks around her ears, she felt as though she could focus completely on the task at hand.

  “You okay?” Cal asked as he turned his truck onto the dirt-and-gravel access road that led across the finger of Weatherby land that sat between the Collins place and the Farrell ranch.

  “Never better.” She glanced over at Cal and could not stop the wide smile that threatened to swallow her face whole. “I showered. Do you have any idea how good that felt? Oh my God! I think I washed off ten layers of dirt and animal hair. I can’t believe I didn’t get to shower after that horrible morning we spent dragging carcasses all over the pasture!”

  Cal steered the truck toward the Farrells’s little farmhouse set against a backdrop of low barns and livestock pens in the shadow of a craggy rock formation. The rocks had been chosen as a location for the home’s construction because they provided a wonderful wind and weather break almost all year-round.

  “This is a really nice little place,” Jesse commented suddenly. “When I was a kid and we used to drive out here all the time, it never really occurred to me how carefully someone picked this place.”

  “They spent some time on it,” Cal agreed.

  It had been a very long time since Jesse had seen an aerial map of the area. “Cal, do you realize that since Melody owns this place and she’s marrying Cisco, and you and I have a tentative agreement”—she could not stop the blush that threatened to turn her whole face red at that statement—“this means that the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company has a controlling interest in every single strip of land except that low spot we just drove through that belongs to the Weatherbys because of some strange assay rule back in the dark ages?”

  “Sweetheart,” Cal drawled. “I think you’ve probably hit on the reason for Paul Weatherby’s desire to get his hands on just about anything he can manage. If we’re right and those three families are actually related, then it used to be very much the opposite of how it is right now.”

  “No wonder Weatherby wants all of us gone.” Jesse could hardly imagine just how true that was. “The guy would have control of everything.”

  “Possibly,” Cal muttered.

  He pulled up in front of the Farrell house and put the truck in park. Cisco was already standing on the porch waiting for them when they got out. He waved them up onto the porch. He looked more disheveled than Jesse was used to seeing him. Apparently, the whole I-don’t-care-if-my-father-passed attitude he had been carrying around since Joe’s death was more for show than for real.

  “Melody is inside already,” Cisco told them. He gave a little eye roll. “I think this was right up her alley.”

  Jesse frowned. The woman enjoyed intrigue and family drama? That was sort of strange. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s been bugging me to come out here so she can keep going through all of her grandparents’ stuff. She never really knew them. Remember? So, this house full of knickknacks that gives me hives makes her want to jump for joy.” Cisco rubbed the back of his neck and shoved his fingers through his already messy black hair. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Jesse could not remember the last time she’d seen him in something other than khakis or a suit.

  Cal snorted. “You’ve been so busy with Dad and this whole livestock deal that you haven’t brought her out here.” Cal pointed at his brother. “I’m glad we could make her day, then. Hopefully she’ll make ours.”

  “Cisco!” Melody’s voice drifted out through the screen door. “Cisco, you have to come see this!”

  “She’s been saying that every five minutes,” Cisco said with a sigh. “So, don’t get your hopes up or anything.”

  Jesse slugged him in the gut. He grunted and double
d over. “You’re such an ass sometimes. Would you please just give the poor girl your attention for once? I know you love her. So, show it.”

  “I do love her.” Cisco’s face was drawn. “I keep waiting for the moment she finds something inside this house that’s going to hurt her. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  Suddenly, the man’s reticence made a lot of sense. Considering everything Jesse had been discovering about her own parents in the last twenty-four hours, she could see his point. That didn’t stop Jesse from shoving her way through the screen door and into the cozy farmhouse. She could remember going through that front door a million times.

  Grandma Farrell. That’s what Jesse had called the white-haired old lady with the faded green eyes and the warm smile. Grandma Farrell would always have cookies in the tin by the coffee maker. She wasn’t stingy with them either. Jesse would go flying through that front door, and Grandma Farrell would be waiting for her in the kitchen.

  Sheesh! Did the woman ever leave the kitchen? Jesse could barely ever remember her anywhere else in the old house. Her footsteps automatically took her into that warm, sunlit kitchen. She gazed at the faded countertops and felt like she was coming home. Then she spotted it.

  “What?” Cal asked softly. “What do you remember?”

  “The tin.” Jesse felt as though her feet were carrying her right to the spot. She reached out and picked up the old butter cookie tin. “Grandma Farrell always kept her homemade butter cookies in here.”

  Melody appeared from the living room side to Jesse’s left. She was staring at the tin in Jesse’s hands as though she were having a little difficulty wrapping her mind around what was happening. “It’s really weird,” Melody began in a slow, careful voice, “that you have more memories of this house than anyone alive.”

  “We came here a lot.” Jesse exhaled slowly. “I haven’t thought about that in years though. It’s like being in the Hernandez household was so very consuming that I forgot everything else.”

  Cal chuckled. Then Cisco walked in behind his brother, and they shoved each other back and forth as if they were fighting over the same scrap of flooring.

  Melody pointed at the brothers. “I think I can see why. Look at them. It’s like there’s so much testosterone in the room I can’t even hear myself think.”

  “Right?” Jesse wrinkled her nose at the young woman. “You should see all five of them together.”

  “I don’t think I’m ready for that.” Melody shuddered. “But I do think I can help you out with the question of why you were here so much. Come and see what I found.”

  There was no way to resist that lure. Jesse followed Melody back into the living room. The young woman had obviously been digging in the china cabinet in the corner, because there was a whole collection of little porcelain figurines sitting on the coffee table. Jesse squatted down and gazed at them. She could remember some of these quite clearly.

  “Your grandmother got this one for her birthday one year from your grandfather.” Jesse let her fingertips lightly brush the ears of a beautiful white horse.

  “Really?” Melody looked interested, but she was busy pulling a huge book out of the bottom of the china cabinet. “You can tell me about it later. You have to see the family Bible first.”

  Jesse could actually feel Cal’s eyes burning a hole in the back of her clean T-shirt. She knelt beside Melody and carefully leaned over the Bible’s family tree section that recorded births and deaths. She spotted Grandma and Grandpa Farrell and Melody’s mother. She saw Melody’s birth added underneath in spidery, but very careful, writing.

  “There you are,” Melody murmured.

  Jesse blinked. Sure enough. Jesse Ann Collins had been added at the very bottom not far from Melody’s entry. Jesse followed her tree back up. She spotted her father, Rawling. And then she noticed that her father’s branch went up as well before heading back toward the main trunk of the tree. At one point, she realized that her grandmother on her mother’s side had been Grandma Farrell’s great niece. Melody was her cousin.

  “Holy shit,” Jesse breathed. “Paul Weatherby is my uncle.”

  “What?” Cal was suddenly leaning over Jesse’s shoulder to see what she was talking about.

  Jesse was pointing but had to force herself not to snatch up the book just to stare at the offending entry. “Look at that! Rawling Collins had four sisters. I didn’t even know that! The oldest one was a good fifteen years older than he was. She married a Weatherby. And that Weatherby was Paul’s brother.”

  Cisco made a low sound of irritation beneath his breath. “That bastard has to know.”

  “We probably would have known if Rawling had lived,” Cal mused. He had returned to a standing position and was now crossing his arms over his chest in what Jesse had always considered his I’m thinking pose. “So, all of these families are related. Why does that matter? Weatherby missed his chance to get the Farrell place. He doesn’t have a prayer of picking up the Collins Ranch either. So, what does that leave him with?”

  “Jesse?” Melody was waving to Jesse. “Did you have a brother or something?”

  Jesse froze. She looked frantically up at Cal. Cisco was frowning as though he were trying to put this together. Jesse cleared her throat and tried not to freak out. “Why do you ask?”

  Melody pointed to an entry beneath her mother that was not attached to her father. “There’s a little line here that kind of goes off into no-man’s-land. I didn’t see it right away because I was just looking for the marriage line and your birth. So, right out in the margin, it just says baby boy and gives the year as four years before you were born.”

  “Four years,” Jesse whispered. She could not hold it in any longer. She stood up and looked at Cal. “It fits. It does. That’s why there’s a gap between Darren and Cisco.”

  Cisco’s frown grew heavy. “What are you talking about?”

  Jesse pointed to the Bible. “The missing baby boy is a child that my mother had with Joe Hernandez. He was given up for adoption. We found a reference to him in some letters that my mother had kept with her journals.”

  “Oh. My. God!” Melody squealed. “This is like one of those crazy daytime talk shows!” Then she seemed to realize the seriousness of what was happening. Clearing her throat, she waved her hand as if to dispel any overexcitement. “I’m sorry. I’m over it. I know this is probably a huge deal for everyone. I’m just feeling as though I’ve stumbled into some kind of crazy family secret.”

  “You have,” Jesse snorted. She put her hands on her hips and stared up at the ceiling. Deep breaths. That was what was needed here. She had to hold it together, and deep breaths were the only way to do it. “Okay, so, if we think about it with all of this new information.”

  “Hypothetical information!” Cisco cut in. “I have a hard time believing that there is a Hernandez brother number six running around out there.”

  “He’d actually be the real middle child.” Jesse had to admit that it sounded weird as hell to her too. “But I’m not lying, Cisco. Look at the evidence!”

  Melody was raising her hand and waving it around as though she were trying to get a teacher’s attention in a busy classroom at school. “Sorry, but I keep going back to the Paul Weatherby thing. If he was related to my grandparents and he was a friend”—she looked almost apologetic—“as much as that man can be a friend to anyone. I know for a fact that my grandparents trusted him. Wouldn’t he have known about this hypothetical baby?”

  “A boy,” Jesse murmured. “A boy older than I am.”

  “One who has a claim to both the Collins place and a spot on the Hernandez Land & Cattle board,” Cal added. “That’s a pretty powerful person.”

  “You cannot tell me you expect some stranger to come flying out of the woodwork and just claim to be our long-lost brother!” Cisco fumed. He threw up his hands. “That’s preposterous!”

  “Your mother didn’t think so,” Jesse pointed out. Suddenly, Avery Hernandez’s behavior with the med
ical examiner made a lot more sense. “I bet that’s why she was so adamant that Joe be cremated.”

  Cisco opened his mouth to argue, but then he snapped it shut. He had stood there the same way Jesse had and listened to the medical examiner talk about paternity suits and why people like Avery often wanted their philandering husbands cremated as soon as possible.

  Cal chuffed out a huge breath and started laughing. His deep-throated laughter rang through the Farrell home before coming right back to the living room and finding them all staring strangely at him as though he’d been touched in the head.

  “What?” Cal asked, sounding defensive. “I’m just trying to process the fact that our mother knows far more about what’s going on than we give her credit for.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” Jesse said darkly. “She doesn’t actually believe that I’m the long-lost child. She knows damn well that I’m not related to you guys. It’s my half-brother she’s worried about.” And then another thought occurred. This one was stranger and even more intriguing than the last. “I wonder what he’s like.”

  Cal shook his head and exchanged a meaningful look with his brother. “Forget that. I wonder where the hell he is.”

  “What do you want to bet that Paul Weatherby knows?” Melody suggested after a moment’s pause. “Maybe we should go ask him.”

  Now there was an idea that had some interesting possibilities. What if they did ask Paul Weatherby? What kind of answers might they get?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Well, now, this looks like an actual delegation. If you all had a leg to stand on, I might actually be impressed.”

  Paul Weatherby braced his shoulder on the doorjamb of those big double front doors and crossed his arms. The look of sheer judgment and snobbery on his face was so pervasive that it made Cal wonder if this hadn’t been an even bigger waste of time than the last time he’d been standing on this porch trying to get the man to see reason.