“What’s so funny?” Clay asked.
Owen turned to find his twin at his side. “How’s your nose?”
“It hurts,” Clay said. “At least the bleeding’s stopped. Did you figure out what that kid’s problem is?”
“He’s a little loco, I guess,” Owen said. “He thinks you’re behind the theft of those VX mines.”
“That’s crazy, all right,” Clay agreed with a disbelieving shake of his head. “Still want to have a beer?”
Owen sighed as he remembered why he’d come to the bar in the first place. To seek solace from his brother for the death of his friend Texas Ranger Hank Richardson—the man who’d been shot between the eyes by whoever had stolen those VX mines. “Yeah,” Owen said. “A beer sounds like a good idea.”
Owen felt Clay’s comforting arm around his shoulder as they headed back inside. They collected a couple of beers at the bar and grabbed a booth that had just emptied, where they could have a little more privacy.
They didn’t say anything for a while, just listened to the nasal performance of a favorite Clint Black tune on the jukebox.
When the song ended, Clay took a long swig of beer, set his bottle down on one of the silver dollars that was laminated into the tabletop, and said, “I can’t make it to Hank’s funeral tomorrow, Owe.”
Owen felt his throat tighten with emotion. He kept his eyes lowered, so Clay wouldn’t see how devastated he was by his brother’s news. He wasn’t sure he could handle the funeral on his own. He wanted his brother beside him in case he needed a strong shoulder to lean on.
“I don’t think I’ll be missed,” Clay said. “Every police officer in Texas is liable to show up here in Bitter Creek tomorrow to pay their respects to Hank.”
None of them is my brother, Owen thought. I can’t turn to one of them, if I start to fall apart. “Isn’t there any way you can rearrange your plans?”
“’Fraid not. I’ve got some business in Midland tomorrow with Paul Ridgeway.”
Owen took a sip of beer while he contemplated Clay’s revelation. Paul Ridgeway was the FBI’s special-agent-in-charge of coordinating all the law enforcement agencies investigating the theft of the VX mines. He had also almost been Clay’s father-in-law.
Clay had been engaged to Paul’s only child Cindy until she’d been murdered a year ago, two weeks before their wedding. Paul had tracked down his daughter’s murderer, who’d turned out to be a vagrant, and shot him when he resisted arrest. But he’d had a difficult time dealing with his daughter’s death, and Clay had spent a lot of time with him over the past year, keeping him company on hunting trips and attending football games. Offering comfort.
The same comfort Owen needed now. The same comfort Owen had offered his brother at Cindy’s funeral. He’d been there when Clay fell to pieces the morning Cindy was buried. He’d hoped to have Clay’s support when he buried his best friend tomorrow.
Then he remembered Luke Creed’s accusations. Owen knew Clay hadn’t stolen the mines. That was absurd. But maybe Clay knew something about their theft. After all, it was soldiers in Clay’s National Guard unit, a heavy mechanized engineer battalion that specialized in laying mines during combat, who’d discovered the mislabeled crates of nerve gas mines.
“Does your business with Paul have anything to do with those missing VX mines?” Owen asked pointedly.
“My business with Paul is absolutely personal,” Clay said with a grin that acknowledged the contradiction in terms.
“Which means you’re not going to tell me.”
“Nope.”
“You’re a secretive sonofabitch,” Owen said.
“Yep. At least to the secretive part.”
Owen dutifully laughed. “I wish you could be there,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Owe. I can’t.”
Owen concentrated on tearing the label off his beer. His nose stung, and his throat ached. The grief he felt was terrible. But he wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t.
It had been so long since he’d cried, he wasn’t sure he could. And he had an awful, frightening feeling that if he let even one drop fall, he might not be able to stop the humiliating flow of tears. It had happened once before.
When he was nine, he’d gone hunting with his father and shot his first white-tailed buck. He hadn’t killed the deer, and it was thrashing in the underbrush and shrieking in agony—something he hadn’t known a deer could do.
His father had refused to kill the buck for him, saying it was up to him to end the animal’s suffering. Tears had spurted from his eyes as he held the knife to the deer’s throat, unable to cause the pain that would end its pain forever. He’d seen the disappointment in his father’s eyes.
Worse was yet to come. His father had agreed to kill the buck for him the moment he stopped crying. Owen had tried to stanch his tears, but every time the deer shrieked, his throat clenched and more tears fell. Until at last he’d found himself on his knees with the knife in his hand slitting the deer’s throat himself to end its torment.
Once the deer was dead, his tears had stopped abruptly. Nothing that had happened to him since—no joy or pain or sorrow—had wrung a tear from him. But he’d never lost someone so close to him before, and Hank Richardson’s death was turning out to be a lot harder to handle than he’d expected.
Owen was glad his beer was gone, because it was impossible to swallow past the knot of anguish in his throat. It felt as though a steel band were tightening around his chest. Hank would have given him one of those fierce, rough hugs that men share when emotions are running high, and no one’s about to admit they’re hurting so bad inside they can’t breathe.
But Hank wasn’t here. And it did hurt to breathe.
He felt Clay’s hand tighten around his forearm. “It’ll be okay, Owe. Not right away. It takes a while. I know.”
Owen swallowed painfully. He felt his eyes watering and bit his lip hard to keep the tears at bay.
“How’s Julia holding up?” Clay asked.
He raised tortured eyes to meet his brother’s gaze and said in a raspy voice, “How do you think?” It was easier to handle the pain if he turned it into anger. Easier to rage than to cry. “She’s eight months pregnant, for God’s sake! I told Hank he should let someone else go into the Big Bend after those stolen munitions, especially with Julia so close to her time, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”
“Texas Rangers are notorious for that sort of glorious sacrifice,” Clay said quietly. “I mean, heading off into the wilderness alone to hunt down the bad guys. It’s too bad Hank got ambushed. Is there any evidence from the scene you can use to help you find his killer?”
“We found a note in Hank’s handwriting in the lining of his hat that said, ‘Find the perfect lady, and you’ll find the thief.’”
Clay frowned. “Does anyone know what that means?”
“Not a clue,” Owen said. “But I intend to find out.”
“On your own?”
“Rangers work alone,” Owen said. “It’s the nature of the beast.”
“Under the circumstances, I’d think you’d want some backup,” Clay said.
“Are you suggesting I should bring along a posse?”
Clay smiled. “The thought had crossed my mind. What makes you think you’ll have any better luck finding those stolen munitions than Hank had?”
“Hank must have gotten close, or they wouldn’t have killed him. I’ll start where we found his body and work the trail from there.”
“Will you have any trouble getting assigned to the case? I mean, the Big Bend is a long way from your normal hunting grounds,” Clay said.
“I’ve already arranged it with my boss, and he worked it out with the FBI.”
Clay took another swallow of beer. “Will you be okay tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Owen said, his throat swelling with emotion again. “I just wish I could go to sleep and wake up and discover this is all a bad dream.”
But it wasn’t a dream. Hank was dead.
>
Owen was afraid he would break down like some sniveling kid, if he didn’t get away. He stood abruptly.
“Owen?”
In his brother’s eyes he saw all the pain he was suffering reflected back at him. He felt like howling but gritted his teeth and kept the sound inside. “I have to go.”
Clay stood, and the twins exchanged words without speaking, a gift they’d shared from the womb.
Take care of yourself, Owe.
I will, Clay. You know I have to find the man who killed Hank. I owe him that.
I wish I could be there for you tomorrow. Are you sure you’ll be all right?
“I’ll be fine,” Owen said aloud. “I’ll be even better when I find the man who killed Hank. He’s going to pay for what he did. If it’s the last thing I ever do.”
Chapter 2
A SINGLE BULB ILLUMINATED THE SWOLLEN belly of the mare, lying on her side in a deep bed of straw. The mare made a soft, grunting sound as her belly rippled, but the sharp contraction did nothing to move the foal along the birth canal. Too tired even to lift her head, the suffering beast stared with expressive, defeated eyes at the woman kneeling beside her.
Bayleigh Creed had spent long hours studying at the veterinary college at Texas A&M and had been a licensed vet for more than a year, handling just this sort of emergency. The foal was turned so the hooves, instead of the nose, were presenting first. It was the equivalent of a human breech birth. Not an impossible situation, but a difficult one, that sometimes turned out badly.
“I know I should have called you sooner,” Summer Blackthorne said, as she sank to her knees beside the priceless championship cutting horse. “I thought I could handle it myself. I was sure I could handle it myself,” she said, an edge of defiance in her voice. “But I couldn’t get the foal turned.” The young woman lifted frightened eyes to meet Bay’s gaze. “Can you save her? Ruby is … She’s like family.”
“How long has Ruby been in trouble?” Bay asked, as she rolled up her sleeves and moved to the mare’s hindquarters.
“From the start,” Summer admitted in a low voice.
Bay clamped her jaw tight to keep from giving the young woman a piece of her mind. She’d gotten her fill of troublesome Blackthornes last night at the Armadillo Bar. Here was another one making her life difficult—Owen and Clay’s little sister—who just might be worse than all the rest put together.
Summer Blackthorne had a reputation for running wild. She’d dropped out of a dozen colleges. Well, maybe only a half dozen. But everyone in Bitter Creek, Texas, knew she was the apple of her father’s eye—and spoiled rotten.
But not totally uncaring of the harm she might have caused by her reckless behavior, Bay conceded, as she glanced at Summer’s anguished hazel eyes and ragged appearance. Blond curls had come loose from a thick ponytail, and her expensive, tailored white Western shirt had obviously been used like a throwaway rag to wipe her hands. But then, money for new clothes was easy to come by for the wealthy Blackthornes.
At least the girl had called Bay. Finally.
“I had no idea how quickly Ruby would tire,” Summer said, as she caressed the mare’s neck with a trembling hand.
“Let’s hope you didn’t wait too long.”
Bay had been shocked to receive the frantic call from Summer, since Blackthornes and Creeds never crossed paths if they could help it. But it wasn’t always possible to avoid each other. Especially when the Creed ranch was lodged, like a chicken bone in the throat, in the very center of the vast Bitter Creek ranching empire.
Three Oaks, the ranch where Bay had been born, was a small island in a sea of Blackthorne grass. It measured a mere five miles east and west and twenty miles north and south, but that hundred square miles of land had been bitterly fought over by Blackthornes and Creeds since the Civil War. And neither of them seemed willing to give up or give in.
The quarrel had once again become deadly eighteen months ago, when Summer’s mother had arranged the murder of Bay’s father. Actually, she’d been trying to kill Bay’s mother—whom she suspected her husband of secretly loving. But the man who’d been hired to do the shooting had missed and ended up killing Bay’s father, instead.
As far as the local sheriff was concerned, her father’s death had been a hunting accident—a hunter’s bullet tragically gone astray. The Creeds had learned the truth when Summer’s eldest brother Trace told Bay’s elder sister Callie—after he’d married her—that his mother had admitted to her family that she’d arranged the whole thing.
Bay fought down the surge of helpless rage she felt every time she remembered how Eve Blackthorne had escaped punishment for her crime. After what had happened last night, she wouldn’t have come near Bitter Creek, except she’d known it was the mare that would end up suffering if she stayed away.
“Why didn’t you call your regular vet?” Bay wondered aloud, as she began manipulating the foal to see if she could turn it, or whether she was going to have to help it be born feet first.
“I didn’t tell him Ruby was foaling before he took off for Houston. I thought I could handle it myself.”
It was stubborn pride, Bay decided, that had kept the girl from calling for help. Bay recognized the flaw because the Creeds had more than their own share of it.
“Bitter Creek is a big ranch,” Bay said. “Why didn’t you call one of your hired hands or your father or—”
“My father’s the last person I’d tell I can’t handle the situation,” she retorted. “And in case you haven’t noticed, it’s Saturday night. The hands are all in town spending their wages. Everyone else is tied up at that wake my brother Owen is holding up at the Castle for Hank Richardson, that Ranger who was killed in the line of duty. It’s really sad, because Hank’s wife is eight months pregnant, and now the baby’s going to grow up without a father.”
Bay gritted her teeth to keep from reminding the girl that because of Eve Blackthorne, she no longer had a father. It was typical of the Blackthornes to ignore what it was awkward to remember. And in a country without a king, only a family as domineering and dynastic as the Blackthornes would have the nerve to call their home “the Castle.”
On the other hand, Bitter Creek was an eight-hundred-square-mile cattle ranch with enough oil underground to please an Arab sheik. The house itself was huge, thirty thousand—odd square feet filled with Tiffany and Chippendale and a heritage that went back a hundred and fifty years. Bitter Creek certainly possessed all the elements of a fiefdom, and the Blackthornes were bona fide Texas royalty.
“An unbelievable number of cops showed up for the funeral,” Summer said, interrupting Bay’s thoughts. “Surely you noticed all those police cars in town today.”
Bay had noticed. And wondered. But she hadn’t stopped to find out, because she’d been on her way to an emergency at the Franklin ranch. A mule named Hobo, a family pet, had eaten a plastic bag that had gotten stuck in its throat. It had been a near thing, but Hobo was fine, and the Franklins had promised to dispose of their plastic more carefully.
She’d had another call after that, to the Henderson ranch, and another later in the afternoon from the Stephensons. The call from Summer had come just as she stepped out of the shower at Three Oaks. She’d pulled her wet, shoulder-length hair back from her face with a couple of butterfly clips and brushed her hands through her bangs to get them out of her eyes. She’d stared at the heap of dirty clothes on the bathroom floor for a full thirty seconds, then decided she couldn’t bear to put them on again.
So she’d donned a clean pair of jeans and a newly pressed Western shirt, yanked on her boots, and driven hard and fast to Bitter Creek. And found a young girl—alone in the barn with her beloved mare—in desperate trouble.
Bay cocked her head at the strains of plaintive fiddle music carried on the evening breeze from the wake at the Castle. Clearly, death was being mourned there. But damn it, new life was trying hard—and failing—to find a foothold here. Surely the girl could have found someone to h
elp!
“I can’t believe you couldn’t find one person who’d be willing to leave that wake to help out a poor dumb beast,” Bay said, unable to keep the edge from her voice.
“Of course my brother Owen would have come, if I’d asked him!” Summer shot back. “I couldn’t—I didn’t—ask for help. If you had any idea—If you only knew how hard it is for me to convince my father—Oh, never mind that now! Please. Help Ruby.”
The mare whinnied and tried to raise her head.
“Keep your voice down,” Bay said quietly. “You’re upsetting your horse.”
“What can I do to help? Give me something to do,” Summer pleaded.
“Talk to your horse. Encourage her.”
Bay could see from the look on Summer’s face that the girl didn’t think it was enough. But Bay knew that to please Summer, the mare would try harder to live through the ordeal to come. Unlike people, animals loved honestly, unjudgmentally, and without reservation. It was one of the reasons she’d become a vet.
“Easy, Ruby,” Summer crooned to the animal, as she smoothed a hand down the mare’s sweat-slick neck. “Easy, sweetheart. It won’t be long now. The doctor will help. Everything will be fine soon.”
Bay hoped Summer was right. One of the foal’s forelegs had somehow gotten bent at the knee. That would mean disaster, if she couldn’t get it straightened out. She had the bent leg in her grasp, but had to wait for a contraction to pass before she could begin to untangle it.
At that moment, the cell phone attached to her belt began to play “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” Bay smiled every time she heard the song. Yellow roses were her favorite flower, and her older brother Sam had arranged to have the tune programmed on the cell phone he’d given her for her twenty-fifth birthday.
Normally, Bay would have let the caller leave a message. But Luke hadn’t come home last night. Throughout the day, she and her mother and her brother Sam had been waiting for some word from—or about—Luke. But there had been nothing. After his scuffle with the Blackthornes, her brother had gone tearing off on his Harley-Davidson.
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