by Honor James
Knowing that Brendan would stop Cornelius well out from the herd, the stallion wasn’t made for cutting cattle, he went to meet him. Grinning bigger and bigger as he got closer, he slid off the mare and embraced his older brother. “Son of a bitch, as I live and breathe, the prodigal son returns.”
That got him a smack on the arm with the Stetson Brendan was wearing and a grin. “Shut up, you ass,” his brother said with a laugh.
“Damn, had I known you were coming out today, I’d have been at the house,” Connor said quite seriously.
“I got finished up early so I figured I’d just head out.” Brendan shrugged, stuffing his hat back on his head and his hands into his jean pockets.
Eyeing up his brother Connor knew that if anyone else got a look at him they’d never imagine he usually lived and breathed in business suits. The jeans were well worn, the boots scuffed, the shirt soft looking from many washes and the Stetson old and slightly sweat stained. The perfect image of a cowboy.
“Well, at least you remembered how to put on a pair of jeans. Been worried we’d have to teach you again since you’ve been living in the city so damned long,” he teased.
That got him a glower. Ranching full time might not be in Brendan’s blood like it was in his, but they’d both been raised on the land and loved and respected it equally. Besides, while Brendan was a city slicker on the best of days, he still knew how to work the land and do the jobs that needed to be done. Up at the crack of dawn and in bed in the dead of night. It was how they’d been brought up and how they’d live till they died.
“So, how long you out here for?” he asked, curious.
“Dad didn’t tell you?” Brendan asked with a smirk.
“Uh, no, should he have?” Connor asked, narrowing his eyes. He had a feeling he’d need to beat his father given the look on his brother’s face.
Chuckling, Brendan shrugged. “Figured he’d warn you I was going to be around for the next two months.”
Connor felt his mouth fall open and his eyes go wide. “Two months!” he practically shrieked before glancing at the herd. A couple of the cattle shifted but other than that, no sign he’d freaked them out.
“Yup, two whole months, little brother,” Brendan was laughing now.
“I’m killing him, I’m fucking killing him,” he grumbled.
“Aw, none of that,” Brendan teased, hooking an arm around his neck to hug him close. “I’d really hate to have to throw your ass in jail for the rest of your life.”
Fuck this shit. Shifting, he tackled his brother and soon they were having one of their famous scraps in the dirt until they were both laughing like loons. It was the way they were, likely how they’d always be.
Lying on his back on the ground, hat over his eyes Connor shot out a hand and hit his brother’s arm. “Welcome home, old man.”
“Shut it, you young whippersnapper,” he teased right back.
Chapter Two
Seeing both Graymont brothers back at their father’s farm had her heart racing. Knowing how close that they were had her panting. They had recognized her at Patty’s wedding but thank Jesus and lots of her training that they didn’t recognize her now. Heavens she was sure that even Patty wouldn’t recognize her, and hadn’t when Bethany had showed her the disguise that she was using.
She heard Mr. Graymont calling out to her and took in a deep breath. Damn. That was so not what she wanted. One thing about the patriarch of the Graymont family was that the man could scent when someone was interested in one of his progeny, it didn’t help her that she was in love with both of the man’s sons. Yep, she was worried.
“Did you need me Mr. Graymont?” she asked demurely as she stepped into the office and closed the door at her back. The shoes she was in added to her height, the padding in her clothing made her seem as if she were larger than she was and she was thankful for them but also hating them all the same. She hated them at this moment because she could feel the sweat trickling down her back from the padding.
“Come on in and take a seat, kiddo.” Daniel’s eyes watched every move that the petite young woman made and when she eased into a large leather seat in front of him he began. “So you looked much better at Patty’s wedding, Bethany.” His grizzly smile was there and he waved his hands to her when she popped up to race away. “Don’t you even move. I mean it or I am going to tell my boys just who you are and have them have this talk with you. Now I knew when Patty asked me to hire you on that you weren’t what you seemed but this old man here didn’t put it together till I saw you at my girls’ weddings. That’s when it hit me who you were.” His eyes grew soft. “I’m so sorry about your momma passing. She was truly a good woman just like my wife. Your father though, sorry, girl, but he’s a right bastard.”
“You’re telling me,” she whispered.
“Now then. I think that it’s time for the two of us to talk while my boys are out on the range checking over the cattle and on a fence that I had Blake pull down last night so we would have some time to talk. What’s going on? And don’t say nothing because there is no other reason why you would be in padded clothing and ridiculous shoes that make you look taller so talk.”
“Yes sir.” Bethany folded her hands in her lap and fidgeted. Finally she knew that only the truth would be acceptable to this man. Patty knew everything as did her new husbands and they had all warned her that Daniel would find her out but she was so certain he wouldn’t. He hadn’t seen her in years after all.
“Well you know that I was always painfully shy in school right?” she asked softly, not really asking for an answer but asking the question all the same. “I was skipped ahead a couple of grades which is why I was in Patty’s grade even when I’m a couple years younger than her.” She licked her lips and shifted slightly. “What you don’t know was that my father was even more of a, well mean man, than you think.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to curse in front of Daniel Graymont, she respected him far too much for that.
“When mom died her inheritance reverted to me. Everything. The ranch, the bank accounts, everything. The sperm donor didn’t know this and honestly I don’t think mom did either. This was something that grandfather Mason built into his wills.” Her mother’s father. She recalled him fondly. He had died when Bethany had been five and her father had refused to allow her and her mother to attend his funeral. Instead her mother took, no she wouldn’t think about that.
“When he found that out he was furious. Viciously and murderously furious. Oh I have no doubt at all that he would have killed me on site but for the fact that if I died as well and mom had no other children then everything went to charity. Every. Single. Dime. Including the ranch.” The Mason Ranch was as massive as the Graymont Ranch but they not only bred horses and cattle but she had learned later that there was oil in the ground, a lot of it from what she heard.
“Since I was home for mom’s funeral he decided that I wouldn’t go back to my life. He decided that I should instead be of use to him. Oh, don’t get me wrong I refused. At first.” She shivered. “He had my entire home packed up including all of my cameras and brought them to the ranch. One night while I was tied to a chair he forced me to watch as he burnt everything. He even tossed my fish in there,” she whispered with tears trailing down her cheeks. “I know, silly to cry over goldfish but they were mine. Granted they were dead because whoever packed didn’t think that the water would warm or cool. But whatever.” She was fixating and that wasn’t good.
“He laughed and told me that if I didn’t comply with his wishes my cat would be next and then after that he would start in on the people I loved, including Patty,” she whispered. Accepting the tissue that Daniel passed her she wiped at her eyes and pushed the glasses off of her head and into her wig. “So I asked him what he wanted. I still didn’t know about the will by the way. I just.” She shrugged. “I found out about that later,” she whispered.
“He told me that I had to do just as he instructed. He told me that he had ensured
that I was well married into the Yagerman family.” She saw Daniel flinch and nodded. “Lucifer Yagerman is who he married me to.” At least the animal’s name fit him. “I understand that you will want me to leave. I understand that you won’t want to bring this trouble to your family but I cannot and will not go back there.” She whispered.
“Now don’t go putting words into my mouth, young lady. However I have to know everything,” he said and pulled her wig off and undid the shoulder-length brown hair that shone in the light of the sun she was sitting in. “There you go. You look just like your momma. She and my Charlotte were the best of friends and I always told her just like my wife did that we would take care of you and I will. Now, get it all out girl so that I know what’s coming our way.”
“He doesn’t think that I’m smart enough to hide under his nose,” Bethany admitted quietly. Taking a deep breath however she continued. “I was married two hours later. Went to my wedding with a broken leg and black eye. Falling down stairs after running into a door or something like that they told the minister.” She wiped at her eyes again.
“To them I was utterly stupid. A useless cow to be their servant.” She smirked. “So.” She had to have a moment to pull herself together so that she was telling him everything. “He took me off of my father’s hands. While my father knew about the money and lands, Lucifer didn’t.” She refused to call him Luc as so many others had. “To him I was just a means to an ends. To him I was just going to give him a son and then there would be something happen to me and I would never be seen again.” She shrugged and took a breath.
“So we were married on Lucifer’s farm. One of his hands did the ceremony and I never signed anything.” So it wasn’t legal, or so her mother’s attorney had told her. “And then right there in front of God and everyone he stripped me, tied me down and branded me like he would his cattle.” She shuddered. “Needless to say it wasn’t an easy time.” She skipped over a lot and then said, “I ran into one of Grandfather’s attorneys by accident one day at the grocery store. Oddly enough Lucifer had been busy talking up Betty Hammond and he saw me. He asked me what happened and I begged him for help. I won’t lie. I begged. I had tried going to the Sheriff in the county we had moved to but he and Lucifer were friends. That was very bad.” She shivered. “So when I saw Mr. Mattingly I begged for help. He assured me he would and then two nights later I was pulled out of that hot mess by a hired team that had been Special Forces at one time. They pulled me out and I met up with Mr. Mattingly.”
She took another tissue from him and thanked him before continuing. “When they went to hide me Mr. Mattingly agreed that the best place would be in plain sight. Your two new ranch hands were former Marine’s with Blake, they are my protection while here. And yes, Corbin, Blake and Patty know everything. We just kind of thought it was best to keep it from you and your son and the others because.” She shrugged. “Well you already were ready to shoot a man that had hurt Patty and they knew that you and I had always been thick as thieves as well.” So often she had wished that Mr. Graymont was her father instead of the monster who was. “So therefore you weren’t told. And that’s my story,” she whispered. “I understand if you want me to go. I really do. Enough trouble has been brought to your door without adding this.” And now all she could do was wait.
“You are not going anywhere, Bethany. You are right where you need to be and here is where you’re damn well staying. But you do need to make a decision,” Daniel said. “You need to decide whether to keep using that getup or to ditch it. Because I have to tell you, it’s not doing a thing for you.”
“Well then I’m ditching it because this thing is seriously hot,” She grumbled. Looking to him she asked, “Are you sure? You aren’t upset with us for not telling you?” She could handle a lot of things, but having Daniel Graymont upset with her was not one of those things. At his look she blushed and nodded. “Okay. Well dinner will still be ready at five. I have to go and get all this off and showered and changed into my real clothes if I want to have a ghost’s chance of ensuring that it’s done by then. Thank you,” she said softly and turned and all but ran out of the office.
Chapter Three
Riding along at his brother’s side Connor shot him a look. “So, really, why are you out here? I mean, usually when you take vacation and all, you come out for a couple of days and then head back.”
They were polar opposites. His brother Brendan had their mom’s looks, short blond hair and very distinct Nordic ancestry in his features. He was taller by three inches, built heavier in the chest and wider in the shoulders, could tan easily without burning, Connor hated him for that. Dark blue eyes that could go icy cold or warm up like a midsummer’s evening sky as day faded to night.
Damn it, he was getting poetic in his advancing years.
Now, Connor was definitely more like their dad. The reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes and just topping out at six feet even. He was built like Dad too, broad shoulders and leanly muscled. He’d be scrawny if he didn’t work fourteen-plus-hour days of labor on the ranch. And he always burned before he got his rancher’s tan of the season, but the thing faded out by the first three weeks of winter, every fucking year. Another reason he seriously hated the skin his brother had, Brendan kept the tan he got, though it faded a bit, all through the winter.
“Burnout,” Brendan was saying quietly as he pulled Cornelius to a halt and leaned on the saddle pommel.
“Say what?” he asked, forcing his head back to the conversation.
“Burnout,” his brother repeated. “I pushed hard on Patty’s case to get it through to trial and done before the baby came. I had to jump through hoops just to stay on the case because of our relation, but I had to do it, for her.”
“That’s why you had the co-counsels,” Connor said. When his brother looked his way he grinned. “What? I know you’re good enough that usually you only have the one there to keep things right at your fingertips and to take swings at the witnesses. But Blake mentioned you had four on this case.”
“Yeah, my boss was worried how it would look with me being lead counsel. We cleared it with the judge and the opposing counsel and their people though so that wasn’t the issue. My boss, though, wanted to cover all our asses and, therefore, the four co-chairs on it. Which did help, I was seriously fighting distraction through the whole case, and worrying about Patty and making sure Finch got nailed to the cross and not showing any favoritism and, fuck, shit loads of other things.”
“Obviously you made it happen.” Connor shrugged. “Finch will spend his life behind bars and, if he happens to get shanked a couple of times, so be it. Couldn’t happen to a better person in my personal opinion.”
“Jesus, you and Dad are fucking bloodthirsty aren’t you?” he asked. “Dad keeps saying he should have just shot him and saved everyone the time and effort.”
“He has a point. And I think it would have helped Patty sleep better at night too. She’s been having some bad nightmares of late, the closer it came to sentencing, much like the ones right after it all happened. Corbin says that the last couple nights though, she’s slept like the dead,” he said softly.
“Good, I’m glad she’s sleeping better.” Brendan nodded. “But yeah, I haven’t been so, talked to my boss and got a bit of a leave of absence from the firm. Hiatus if you want, vacation, whatever. Figured I’d come out here, help out doing what we all know in our bones to do for a while, and let my brain just rest and recoup. Plus the caseload at the office is light enough that no one’s too worried about me taking the extra time off.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here, even if you are going to be a pain in my ass the entire time.” Connor grinned.
“Please, I have never been a pain in your ass,” Brendan muttered. Sitting up in the saddle he pulled the reins and turned the stallion around.
“You are obviously not remembering shooting me in the ass, not once, but twice. The time you scared my horse who threw me into the wire fencing. The time…�
� he trailed off as he turned Pattycake to follow.
“Those were accidents and we were kids,” Brendan glared at him. “Are you seriously going to hold that shit against me for the rest of time?”
“Might,” he nodded, with a huge smirk.
“Well then, maybe I should mention the water balloon incident? Or giving Patty the haircut? Or the time you tried to burn the barn down, twice?” Brendan shot back.
Swallowing he thought about it. “Uh, no, let’s not,” he said and held his hands up in surrender. “I give, calling uncle and anything else.”
“Good.” Brendan shot him a grin. “’Cause I have dirt on you going back to the day you first learned to crawl. Don’t test me, shortcake.”
Connor winced at the old nickname, from his childhood when his hair had been bright red and his brother had said he looked like a strawberry on top of a shortcake, thus, shortcake. “Let’s get back to the house and see what’s needing to be done. Maybe Dad’ll even give you the rest of the day off, brother.”
Brendan snorted and shot him a look. “When has dad ever given one of a day off if we were fully capable and able and here?”
“Uh,” Connor was drawing a blank. He had to really, really think on that one. “Aha! Got one, the day you won the race out at Clancy’s farm. We all got treats and he let us go down to the pond to laze the day away.”
“Okay, that was one time, name another,” Brendan dared.
“Fuck you,” Connor said and smacked his arm with a laugh. “I about had a hemorrhage trying to come up with that one. I’m not going to finish the job by straining for a second time.”
“Keep telling you, if you’d use that head of yours for more than a hat rack.” Brendan laughed. Then he laid heels to the stallion and took off. “Race you!” he hollered out.