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  He’d gone home, with that new idea fixed in his mind. Then his mother had talked about Christmas and she’d been so excited about a pageant her church had planned. He’d made fun of it—and her—for being ignorant enough to believe in superstition and myth instead of science. She’d burst into tears and gone running in the kitchen to Randall for comfort. Then she’d said things that destroyed any love Ren had left for her, things he’d overheard when he’d gone to apologize. She’d said that her second husband was kind and gentle, that Ren’s father had been cold and cruel and unfeeling. Ren, she said, was just like her first husband. Randall was everything a true son should be.

  Ren, devastated by what he’d heard, had gone out the door before they came out of the kitchen. He hadn’t seen or spoken to his mother since. Stupid, he thought, to carry a grudge for that long. His mother might die. How would he feel if he waited too long, as Delsey had?

  It was something to think about. But not tonight. He turned up the sound on the TV and listened, as the newscast explained what money laundering was, and related it to a huge bust that had netted the government millions of dollars in a recent investigation. A picture of a man flashed on the screen, a Comanche Wells citizen with a last name that Ren might have recognized.But he was looking at a programming guide for something to watch when it went by, and when he raised his head, they had moved on to another story.

  He changed the channel to a murder mystery he’d watched before and liked.

  * * *

  THE PHONE RANG. Ren pushed the pause button and picked up the telephone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi!” It was Randall.

  He chuckled. “How are you?”

  “Selling cattle. You’ll be proud. How’s my girl?” he added.

  Ren felt his body clench. “Your girl is fine. Did you know that she could draw like a professional artist?”

  “Yes, I did.” He chuckled. “Isn’t she awesome? When she feeds birds outside, she has to shoo them off the feeders. They aren’t afraid of her.” Ren knew that because Merrie had told him.

  “She drew a picture of Willis’s wolf.”

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have let her near Snowpaw. He’s got an attitude problem...”

  “He laid his head in her lap and let her pet him.”

  “Good heavens!”

  “She has a real talent with animals, too. Remember Hurricane?”

  “Yes. I hope the man serves time,” he added coldly.

  “No doubt he will. We couldn’t get near Hurricane even to get his bridle off. Your girl—” the words went through him like ice daggers “—walked right up to him and he let her remove it. I thought the boys were going to pass out. He threw one of them into a pile of tin. Had to have stitches.”

  “Tames wolves and paints beautiful portraits.” Randall chuckled. “She’s something, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  Randall hesitated. He wanted to tell his brother that she wasn’t like his other girls, that Merrie was special. But he didn’t know how to bring it up without putting his brother on the defensive.

  “Delsey said your mother called today,” Ren said. He never said “my mother.” He always said “your mother” when he spoke about her to Randall.

  He sighed sadly. Ren was never going to relent. “Yes. She’s not doing well. They found a growth on one of her breasts. They did a biopsy, to see if it’s cancer. She doesn’t know anything yet.”

  “I see.”

  Randall hesitated. He loved his brother. But in spite of everything, he loved his mother, too. He hated the distance between the only family he had in the world.

  “Tell her,” Ren said stiffly, “that I hope things turn out all right.”

  Randall’s heart lifted. “I’ll tell her,” he promised. Ren’s attitude had changed very suddenly. He wondered if Merrie had something to do with it.

  “Delsey said she refused to talk to her father. He died two days later. She said,” he continued, “that it was wrong to let time run out and never try to mend fences. Maybe she’s right.”

  Randall didn’t say anything. He just waited for Ren to continue.

  “I’ll think about it,” Ren said finally. “That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Okay,” his brother said softly. “That’s fine, Ren.”

  “I’m taking Meredith to a party tomorrow night, because I don’t want to go alone,” he said, trying to sound indifferent. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Randall replied. “Watch her around men, will you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s hard to put into words. She’s okay around the cowboys, I guess. Not so shy?”

  “No. She gets along with all of them. Even Willis.”

  “She’s different when it’s men her age,” Randall continued. “She gets all quiet and tries to hide behind me. She doesn’t like men coming too close to her. So keep that in mind, will you? Any party that Angie’s going to will have men who drink to excess. You know that already.”

  “I’ll take care of her,” Ren said curtly.

  “Okay. Thanks. She’s...special. You know?”

  Ren’s face hardened. “She’s nice enough,” was all he’d admit to his brother.

  Randall hesitated again. “She’s not like most of the women I bring to the ranch,” he started to say.

  “I know she belongs to you. Don’t worry about it,” Ren assured him.

  “It’s not quite like that,” Randall said.

  “Ren!” Delsey called from the staircase. “Willis called. There’s a truck pulling up to the main gate. A big truck. The driver says he has a delivery.”

  “What sort of delivery?” Ren asked at once.

  “Barrels.”

  “Barrels? Of what?”

  “Beats me. Willis doesn’t know, either. He’s headed for the gate.”

  “Tell him to stop right now. Randall, I have to go. I’ll speak to you later.”

  “Okay. Take care.”

  “You, too.”

  He hung up. “I’ll get my jacket. Tell Willis to call J.C. right now and have both of them meet me halfway to the gate. Hurry.”

  * * *

  REN LOADED HIS Winchester and put it in the truck beside him. He called Willis on the truck’s CB radio.

  “You armed?” he asked the cowboy.

  “Yes, and I told J.C. to bring his cannon with him.”

  Ren chuckled. “It’s just a .44 magnum, Willis.”

  “Looks like a cannon to me. Here he comes.”

  A big black SUV was barreling down the hill toward them, not sliding in the snow, even though the truck didn’t have chains.

  “Irritates the hell out of me that he doesn’t use chains and never slides off the road,” Ren muttered.

  “He grew up in the Yukon Territory,” Willis told him. “I don’t think this much snow even bothers him.”

  “Who were his parents? Inuit?” he asked, using the appropriate name for Eskimo people.

  He chuckled. “His father was Blackfoot. His mother was a little redheaded Irish woman.”

  “He’s not redheaded,” Ren remarked.

  “Not hardly,” was the amused reply.

  The SUV pulled up beside them. A tall, lithe man with short, straight black hair approached them. His jacket was pulled back over a huge .44 Magnum, and he carried a small automatic weapon in one big hand.

  “What do you think it is?” J. C. Calhoun asked Ren, nodding toward the truck, which was still sitting at the gate, idling.

  “I think it’s trouble,” Ren replied.

  “Then let’s go start some,” J.C. said, and he grinned, showing snow-white teeth.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE TRUCK DRIVE
R grinned at them out the window. “Hi,” he called in a friendly voice. “Sorry I’m so late, but there was a wreck over on the interstate. We sat for two hours while they cleared it.”

  “What are you hauling?” Ren asked the man.

  The truck driver saw all the guns and whistled. “Hey, I’m not a bandit,” he said, tightening his hands on the wheel. “I’m a genuine, run-of-the-mill truck driver making a delivery.”

  “We didn’t order any barrels,” Ren told him.

  “But, you did. See here. This is the purchase order.” He pulled it out of the truck’s pocket and handed it across to Ren. “Barrels.”

  Ren frowned. Then he looked at the purchaser’s name. He laughed. “This is Skyhorn Ranch,” he told the driver as he handed the paper back.

  “Skyhorn?” He frowned and looked around. “That man who gave me directions said to look for a ranch way off the road with a silo sitting far off on one side of the gate and a big tree on the other.”

  Ren looked around. “Yes, we have those. But so does Nat Beakly. He’s ten miles down the road, that way.” He pointed east. “His spread is the Circle Bar J.”

  “Oh, darn.” The truck driver sighed. “I’m going to be even later. Well, thanks for the help. Sorry to have bothered you.” He noted the guns. “You guys looking to start a war, or expecting an invasion?”

  Ren chuckled. “I run purebred Angus bulls here. Some of them are worth millions. We’re, shall we say, overly cautious.”

  “I noticed.” The driver nodded toward a prominent camera nearby. “Should I smile?” he asked.

  “Only if your face is well-known on the FBI website,” Ren said with pursed lips. “We run facial recognition software on everyone who comes near the place.”

  “Guess it pays to be cautious, huh?” the driver said. His dark eyes darted from one man to the next. “Sorry to get you out of bed.”

  “We’re up all hours,” Ren told him. “We have sharpshooters posted around, too.” He smiled coolly. “As I said, we’re cautious.”

  “Well, I’ll be on my way. Have a good night.” The driver waved and backed the truck up to the turnaround. He waved again and tooted his horn as he went down the road.

  “Something suspicious about that guy,” J.C. said curtly. “He was too curious.”

  “I noticed.” Ren turned. “Check the facial recognition software on this camera and see if anyone turns up.”

  “You bet,” J.C. said.

  “Willis, tell the boys to keep their eyes and ears open,” Ren added. “If this was a trial run, to see how we responded, there may be another attempt soon. Remember the camera I had checked, between the house and the stable?”

  Willis nodded.

  “I do, too,” J.C. said, looking at him with eyes almost silver, surprising in a face with an olive tan. “Too much to be a coincidence. He might have been on the property earlier and got spooked.”

  Ren looked at the truck driver in the distance. “I got the feeling that not much would spook that man. Willis, wait half an hour and call Nat Beakly. I’d bet you a full breakfast, including coffee, that the truck never shows up over there.”

  “I won’t take that bet,” Willis said, smiling.

  “Let’s get busy,” Ren said.

  They turned and went back to their vehicles.

  * * *

  MERRIE HAD COME DOWNSTAIRS to get a glass of milk when Ren walked in, still carrying the Winchester.

  “Something’s happened! Is he here? Has he found me?” she asked, her young face a study in fear.

  He stood the gun up in a corner before he went to her. He took her by the arms and pulled her against him. “It’s all right. We’ve got armed men everywhere. He won’t get to you. I promise.”

  “I’m not a coward, honest I’m not,” she said against the soft sheepskin of his jacket. “It’s just...I’d rather fight something I can see, you know?”

  “I do know.” He smoothed his hand over her back, and she stiffened. Odd how the sweater felt, as if it was uneven somehow.

  The phone rang. He kept an arm around Meredith as he answered it. “Yes?”

  He chuckled as he listened. “Okay, Willis. Thanks. And thank J.C. Guess I’ll be buying breakfast for you two in the morning. Sure. Good night.”

  He hung up. “It was a legitimate mistake. The driver thought we were Nat Beakly’s place. He said he’d been held up in traffic, and that much is true. I heard about the wreck on the scanner, had the whole interstate shut down for about two hours.”

  “Thank goodness,” she said heavily.

  He tilted her face up and smiled at her. “Go on up to bed.”

  She made a face. “I want some milk. I’m thirsty.”

  “I think I might have a milk cow in the pasture off the barn...”

  She gave him a droll look.

  He just grinned. “If you’re going to the kitchen anyhow, how about bringing me a beer on your way back?”

  “Sure!”

  He went to put the Winchester back in the gun case, which he locked. By that time, she had a cold beer bottle in one hand, unopened.

  “Sari says Paul doesn’t like anybody opening his beer before they hand it to him. It may be an FBI thing,” she added, smiling.

  He took the cold beer from her. “Could be. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” She hesitated.

  “Something else?”

  “Why don’t you buy cans instead of bottles?”

  He leaned down. “Glass bottles eventually disintegrate into the ground. If you drop a can, it’s bad for the ecology.”

  “Simple solution—don’t drop one!”

  He gave her a sardonic look. “I like the way beer tastes when it comes out of bottles. Cans make it taste tinny.”

  She grinned. “Can bigot,” she accused.

  He burst out laughing. “Get some sleep, Cinderella. Tomorrow night, you go to the ball.”

  “I hope my dress is okay,” she said worriedly. “Delsey said it would be appropriate, even though it’s, well, unorthodox.”

  His eyebrows arched. “How unorthodox?” he asked suspiciously.

  “It doesn’t show anything,” she said quickly. “Well, a little of my legs, but nothing else.” She flushed.

  That flush delighted him. He smiled at her. His black eyes twinkled. “A little of your legs? How scandalous.”

  She laughed self-consciously. “I guess it would have been, a hundred years ago.”

  “We’ll leave around six tomorrow,” he told her. “Delsey won’t have to feed us. Which is a good thing. She’s sitting with a neighbor who’s having surgery tomorrow morning. Delsey’s going to spend the night in her room.”

  “They let you do that?” Merrie exclaimed.

  “They do in Catelow,” he replied.

  “That’s such a sweet thing to do.”

  “The poor woman’s scared. She’s sixty and she’s never been ‘cut on,’ as she puts it. Some female problem that requires an operation. She’s Delsey’s third cousin.”

  “We don’t have any cousins or aunts or uncles,” Merrie said sadly. “Sari and I are all that’s left of our family.”

  “Randall and I are pretty much the last of ours. Except for his mother.”

  “She painted, didn’t she?” she asked softly. “It’s her studio that you’re letting me borrow.”

  “She painted.” He turned away.

  “Good night,” she said, not pushing her luck with him.

  “Sleep well,” he said, but he didn’t look at her again.

  * * *

  “WHOSE HOUSE IS the party going to be at?” Merrie asked Delsey as the older woman helped pin up her long hair in a style that looked like something out of the forties. It really suited the dress. />
  “Durward Phelps’s place,” she replied. “He has mining interests all over, and he owns at least two producing oil wells. He’s very rich. But he didn’t inherit it. He’s like Ren. He worked hard for what he has.”

  “He must be a nice man.”

  “He is. But his niece isn’t. I hope she isn’t going to be there tonight.”

  “It’s that woman, Angie, that Ren was mixed up with, isn’t it?”

  Delsey nodded as she put a jeweled pin on Merrie’s head. “There. Darlin’, you could grace the cover of a fashion magazine,” she said with genuine praise. “You look lovely.”

  “You’re sure I won’t embarrass Ren in this dress?” she asked worriedly.

  “I’m positive. Okay, grab your coat. Time to go.”

  “My knees are shaking, I’m so nervous. I don’t know anything about parties or dancing. I’ve never even been kissed in my whole life!”

  Delsey took a breath. “Well, at least you’ll know about two of those things when you get home, right?” she teased. “I wish I could be here so you can tell me all about it. I’ll be at the hospital with my neighbor. But you can tell me tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay. That’s a promise. Thanks so much, for taking me to get the dress, and for helping with the makeup and my hair.” She shook her head. “I’m just clueless.”

  “These things take time. You’re going to do fine. But if Angie comes after you, don’t you stand there and take it, you hear me?” she added firmly. “Bullies are full of hot air. You fight back and watch how quickly their superior attitude deflates.”

  Merrie smiled. “I’ll remember.”

  “Go have fun.”

  * * *

  AS LONG AS she lived, Merrie would never forget the look on Ren’s face when he saw her on the staircase.

  He’d been looking at something on the screen of his iPhone, but when he heard her coming down the steps, he looked up. His mouth fell open. His eyes absolutely ate her up from head to toe in the elegant red silk dress with its black frog closures and high neckline and side slits.

  “I know it’s not quite the conventional thing to wear to a party. Even a fancy one,” she faltered.

  He moved closer. He was striking in a dinner jacket, his hair combed, the faint odor of expensive cologne coming from him, along with the clean smell of soap. He looked devastating.