Knox just blinked at him.
“Gilly and I are ready to settle down, start a family, and I want my kids to know the childhood I had. Working the ranch side by side with my dad—”
“You played football! I worked the ranch!” Knox fought to cut his voice low. Took a breath. “Reuben, you left because you hated working the ranch—”
“I left because you drove me away,” Reuben said quietly, something of a lethal tone to his voice.
Knox felt it like a gut punch.
“I wanted this ranch too. I loved working with Dad, and if I hadn’t broken both my legs while I was working the ranch, then he would have never turned to you.”
“Rube—you wanted to go away, play college ball. The ranch was never on your radar.”
“It is now.”
Knox opened his mouth, not sure how to form the words that boiled inside. Finally. “Fine, yes. Come back as our foreman.”
Reuben shook his head.
And Knox never wanted to hit his brother more than he did at this moment.
“Hey, guys, so long as we’re sharing secrets, I’ve got one.” Ruby Jane to the rescue, but Knox just couldn’t tear his gaze away from Reuben.
Of all the arrogant—
“So, you know how I said I’m a travel agent…that’s not quite accurate…”
Knox looked at her. Frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s just…a cover story. Sorta.”
Now she had Reuben’s attention too.
“What—are you a spy or something?” Wyatt said.
She made a face, lifted a shoulder.
“I knew it!” Tate said, then cut his voice lower. “I knew it. I thought I saw you in Vegas once—”
She glanced at him, raised an eyebrow, and he went silent.
“You’re a spy? With the CIA? The FBI?” Reuben said darkly.
“CIA. And not a spy. An analyst.”
“More travel agency speak?”
She gave Knox a half smile. “That’s all I can tell you, but I thought you should know.”
“Why, so if you disappear we know who to blame?”
“Or maybe where to start looking for me?” She laughed.
No one else did.
“That’s great, RJ. It’s not enough that Ford is out there risking his life and that Tate disappeared for three years and shows up with the skills of a mafia thug, but now you’ve decided to make us live in secrecy.”
“Tate was a mafia thug?” Wyatt said.
Knox shook his head, turned back to Reuben. “No. You can’t come back. Not as the boss. Dad wanted me to run it.”
“Dad defaulted to you when I got laid up. You took this ranch, just like you took Chelsea!”
Knox jerked back, shook his head, his eyes meeting Reuben’s, hot in his.
Gilly put her hand on Reuben’s arm. “C’mon, Rube. That’s not fair.”
Her soft words put a dent in his anger. He pursed his lips. “Fine. Yes, I know.” He blew out a breath. “Shoot. Bro, I didn’t mean that—”
“I think you did. I think you’ve been spoiling for this fight for over ten years. You want to finish it, we can.”
Reuben recoiled. Drew in a breath.
“Geez, you just can’t say you’re sorry, can you?” Reuben snapped.
“And you just can’t let it go, the fact that finally, I was as good—no, better than you! Finally.”
Knox didn’t know where those words came from, and they hung there, ugly and sharp-edged, with everyone staring at him.
The air had gone out of Rueben’s argument, his face pained.
Knox shook his head. “Do whatever you want, Rube.” Then he turned and headed out of the den.
He couldn’t face Kelsey right now and what she might say to him, so he turned and headed out the front door. Crossed the grass to the parking lot and hopped in his truck. The keys lay on the seat, and he scooped them up, turned the ignition, and threw some gravel as he backed out the drive.
“Knox!”
His name lifted into the night as he drove down the road, not sure where he was headed. Just…away.
Except their land extended for a couple miles and by the time he got to the end of the gate, he felt a little silly, like he might be a fourth grader having a tantrum, so he turned the truck around and headed toward the airfield.
Toward the best memories he had.
Gilly’s plane sat on the runway, a red-and-white striped Otter that she used to herald smokejumpers to the sky and drop them over a blazing fire to save the planet.
He pulled his truck up next to the plane and got out, now breathing less like he’d been punched.
He ran his hand over the wing. You have the yoke, Knox.
He’d been twelve the first time his dad let him fly. Soloed when he was sixteen.
Just hold it steady.
I’m trying, Dad.
A truck pulled up next to his, and he didn’t turn as he heard the door open, the grass crunching under booted feet. Knox walked away from the plane, staring at their house tucked inside the hill, up to the Milky Way, and beyond.
“I’m sorry, Knox.”
He drew in a breath at Reuben’s voice.
“You’re right. I left, and you stayed, and you have done something amazing with this place. You’ve built it beyond what Dad could have asked or imagined. The truth is, all my life I’ve wanted to be like you.”
Knox glanced at him. Reuben had come up to stand beside him. “C’mon.”
“Okay, not your bull riding or football skills, but…you’re smart, Knox. Smart and solid and dependable and so much like Dad. I was so jealous when Dad took you under his wing after I got hurt. It was like you belonged beside him and I was the outsider.”
Knox looked down, shook his head. “Remember the rodeo down in Cardiff? I was…ten, I think.”
Reuben looked at him. “Um…”
“My first try at bull riding. Only then it was steer riding, but…”
“Oh yeah,” Reuben said. “I think it was my idea.”
“Yeah, but Dad was all over it. I remember you guys leaning into the chute, helping me adjust my bull rope, the bell jangling everywhere. You were shoving my hand up under the rope, Dad was telling me to scoot up, and I was sweating inside that crazy helmet thinking…I’m going to get killed.”
Reuben laughed. “If I remember right, you rode that thing for…almost eight seconds.”
“Six point four.”
“You had the makings, bro…” Reuben shook his head.
“You rode it all eight that day,” Knox said quietly, glancing at him. “And Dad’s comment as I got off the ground—he’d come running down the dirt to get me—was, ‘Keep it up, and someday you’ll be just like Reuben.’”
Reuben went quiet beside him.
“He let you drive the truck home that night,” Knox said.
Reuben nodded. “I had just turned twelve.”
“I wanted it.” Knox looked at him. “To be like you. To be you. You were larger than life, bro. And then…then suddenly I was you. I was taking Chelsea to the prom and driving the truck and Dad was teaching me to fly and…” He shook his head. “Maybe it did all belong to you.”
Reuben drew a breath. “No. It belongs to all of us. But Dad chose rightly when he asked you to take over.”
“Actually, he didn’t. I was just the only one who showed up. I made him a promise to take care of the place.”
“I’m back, with my own promises, Knox. Because you don’t have to do it alone. Not anymore. Let me help. Teach me what I don’t know, and maybe someday this will be the Marshall Triple M again.”
Knox looked at him. “Oh no, I’m not letting Tate run the place.”
“Hey!”
The voice shot out of the darkness behind him. “What are you talking about? I’m a great rancher.”
Knox turned and wasn’t really surprised to see Tate and the entire posse behind him. Gilly walked over to Reuben, a grin on her f
ace. Wyatt looped his arm around Ruby Jane’s neck.
“You can barely stay on a horse, Tate, let alone rope a steer.”
“That’s not true. I just…okay, so I won’t be the third M. Maybe Wyatt—”
“Not me.” Wyatt held up his hands. “I’m buying a condo in Big Sky.”
Tate came up to Knox. Grabbed him by the shirt. “But, if you need us, we’re here. You don’t have to carry it all on your shoulders, right?”
Knox nodded, the fist in his chest releasing a little.
Tate’s smile faded, and he looked over Knox’s shoulder, released his shirt. “What the—”
Knox turned, and his gut hollowed out.
“Is that—” Wyatt started, but Knox had already turned, started for his truck.
“Get in the truck!” Reuben shouted. “The barn is on fire!”
11
Not Gordo, please not Gordo.
The fire had reached the top of the southeastern corner of the barn by the time Knox pulled up the drive. Sparks bit into the night sky, the smell of cinder and ash and burning hay and wood saturating the air.
The rest of the Marshalls piled out of the bed of his truck—more out of Reuben’s as he too pulled up.
Knox had already grabbed the hose that ran into the giant water trough for Gordo’s pen. He shoved it into Tate’s hands just as Wyatt ran to turn it on.
Reuben and Gilly were shouting directions even as Reuben headed inside.
The wind that gusted into the barn from the open doors fueled the flames, and they licked into the sky.
Reuben grabbed a pitchfork and headed up to the loft.
“What are you doing?”
“Throwing the burning hay out—we need water up here!” he yelled to no one in particular, but probably Knox.
But Knox had opened Gordo’s pen, walking through it to the other side. The animal shoved at him, panicked, but he pushed him away, opening the doors. “Get out!”
“Knox!”
The animal bolted into the yard, and Knox closed the pen and ran down to the end.
“I have to get Daisy and her bull!” Oh, why hadn’t he put them out to pasture already? He’d meant to, but he liked having the bull in the barn where he could keep an eye on his growth.
Now, smoke turned his eyes gritty, and he grabbed a railing, doubling over, coughing.
“Put something over your face!” Reuben yelled, also coughing. He was pitching hay out the window, even as water dripped down the side of the barn from Tate’s—and now probably Wyatt’s—hoses.
Knox covered his mouth with his arm and groped his way to Daisy. She was in a panic, slamming against the gate, and he opened it, flung it back.
She lunged out, and he went after the bull. It lay on the hay, its eyes wide. Knox jerked it up. “C’mon, little guy.” And in a second, the bull found its legs.
Tufts of hay dropped from the mow overhead and flamed in the middle of the barn, crackling, sizzling. Knox barely dodged it, pushing the bull out of the way as they escaped the building.
He grabbed the hose curled by the door, turned the water on full, and doused the mound of hay.
“Up here! We need some water. The fire’s getting into the rafters and if it reaches the ridge pole, it’s all over!”
Knox coiled the hose and tossed it up to Reuben, who caught the unraveling snake with one hand. He got a good view of his brother in that moment, backdropped against the smoke and flames, wide-shouldered, fearless, almost more alive in the middle of the flames than Knox had ever seen him.
Was he sure he wanted to give up his life on the edge of wildfire for…well, they might not have anything left after tonight.
He climbed up the ladder, took the hose from Reuben, and kept spraying the rafters as Reuben grabbed up the pitchfork again and tumbled the rest of the smoldering hay out the window, separating it from the unburned green mounds. The smoke clogged the mow, and with the steam, Knox could barely see Reuben, who kept shouting at him, pointing at glowing cinders and new burns.
The sound of bleating rose, churned panic through him, but he could do nothing for the family of baby goats.
His mother’s shouts rose, mixed with a male voice he didn’t recognize.
Oh, Hardwin, helping to rescue his mother’s pets.
The flames finally sizzled out, steam pouring through the barn, through the windows, water dripping from the hay mow, a summer’s work ruined. Sweat ran down Reuben’s face, but he grabbed the hose and ran water into the rafters, a final sousing.
They stood, breathing hard, meeting each other’s eyes, the water dripping out of the hose.
“How did this happen?” Reuben said.
“I don’t know.” Knox climbed down the ladder, stood in the shadows of the barn. He bent over, gripping his knees.
Reuben followed him down and laid a hand on his back. “You okay?”
“We could have lost Gordo. And the baby bull out of Hot Pete…” He blew out. “If you’re going to take over the ranch, you should probably know that we’re just on the line here. When Dad died, he left a double mortgage on the house. We had a number of cows who were bred out, and our only bull couldn’t keep up. Dad’s insurance went into the herd, and I took the rest and bought Gordo. And we’ve slowly climbed out of the red. But…” He stood up. Water saturated his arms, his shirt. “I had a lot riding on Hot Pete. His purses, his future straws. He paid off our first mortgage over the past two years. But we need the insurance on him to keep the ranch afloat, acquire another breed cow.” He sighed. “Not rebuild a barn.”
“The barn is insured, I hope.”
Knox nodded. But he let out another long breath.
“You’re overwhelmed.”
Knox nodded.
“That’s what we’re here for, bro.” The words sunk in, found his bones. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
He again had the crazy urge to weep.
Reuben squeezed his shoulder.
Outside, Tate and Wyatt were winding up the hoses. Ruby Jane and Gilly had rounded up the goats, Gilly petting one as if she might be in love.
Daisy and her bull stood in the drive, not far away. Knox walked over to her, opened his arms, shook his hand to direct her. “Hup, hup.” She started to move toward the pen, and he clapped his hands, walking behind her. Reuben opened a pen, and she ambled in, her bull behind her.
Then he stopped to oversee the damage. In the darkness, it was hard to make out the extent of the fire. The headlights from the trucks poured over the pens, across the blackened walls of the barn. Could be mostly surface damage, but he’d have to wait until tomorrow to investigate.
“How do you think it started?” Tate asked, which was clearly the question of the hour.
Hardwin came over. “Did you bale your hay wet?
“I don’t know. I was on the road last fall. I left it to Lemuel.”
“How about electrical wiring? This barn is pretty old,” Ruby Jane said, coming over with a barn cat.
“I replaced all the wiring, I think.” He ran a hand behind his neck. “I don’t know.”
Tate stood on the outskirts of the group. “This is awfully coincidental, given that Glo and Kelsey’s bus also burned a week ago.”
“That was a propane leak,” Knox said, but…wait— “Where are they?”
Tate stepped back, looked around. “Glo?”
“Last time I saw them, they were sitting by the campfire,” his mother said.
Knox took off toward the house, but he cast a glance at the barn.
Kelsey liked the barn…
No, he would have seen her— “Kelsey?”
He rounded the house and headed for the campfire pit.
Just the embers smoldered in the rock pit.
Tate burst out of the house. “They’re not inside.” He looked at Knox. “Why do I have a terrible gnaw in my gut about this?”
“Maybe they just went for a walk.”
“In the dark? With the barn on fire?”
> “I’ll get the others. Spread out—they couldn’t have gone far.”
“Shh, Glo, stay quiet.”
Although, granted, it had to be hard for Glo to clamp her mouth shut with her arm bleeding, whatever had hit her causing her to pull her arm into her shoulder. And, Glo was bleeding—Kelsey could feel the ground beneath them getting damper.
“Do you see him?”
They were crouched under a bench at Gerri’s overlook, Kelsey practically lying on top of Glo to hide them both. And out in the darkness somewhere prowled someone who’d grabbed Glo as they’d sat at the campfire alone.
Someone with a gun.
Kelsey had seen him in the barest of light—gauged ears, an eyebrow bar, and a look on his face that suggested he meant business.
Kelsey wasn’t sure what business that might be.
She just knew he wasn’t going to drag someone she cared about away to do who knew what, so she did the only thing she could think of.
She stabbed him with her hot marshmallow skewer. Pitiful, she knew, but when he shouted and dodged away from her, Glo kicked him in the instep.
Which caused him to swear, cuff her, and turn on Kelsey.
She had picked up a nearby log and clubbed him with everything inside of her.
Grabbed Glo’s hand and ran.
They scrambled up the path etched out in the rock, nearly impossible to see in the darkness, and somewhere in there, she’d heard shouting.
Then a scream from Glo as she stumbled beside her.
Kelsey grabbed up her friend, clamped her hand over her mouth, and kept running.
Not until they reached the overlook did she pull Glo down and in the wan moonlight see what she’d grunted about.
Her flesh was torn, right through her shoulder, maybe even to the bone.
“Glo, I think you’re shot,” she’d said, and pressed her hand over the wound.
Glo had groaned again, just a whisper of what she probably wanted to do. Kelsey had to give her props for her guts.
And to think her biggest problem seconds before was trying to decide how to tell Glo that she wanted to turn down the NBR-X gig.
That she liked—no loved—living on the ranch. It brought back her life on the farm, the memories she harbored deep inside, and being with Knox…
Knox Page 20