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  “Got a cell phone?” Slade asked.

  “An old prepaid. Won’t do much more than the basics.”

  “Use it. A new one would just draw attention. And when I give you my phone number, memorize it. It can’t be found written down or entered on your phone. There can’t be any connection between us. Understand?”

  “Understand.” Lute’s pulse raced as Slade wrote his phone number on a piece of paper napkin. He sipped his beer, savoring the chilled taste. This was really going to happen. He would be more than just a shit shoveler. He was on his way to becoming somebody.

  After the news ended, Natalie switched off the TV and stood gazing out the darkened front window. It was after 10:30 and she was dressed for bed in her nightgown and robe. But Slade wasn’t back and she was too wired to go to sleep.

  They’d settled their earlier quarrel outside the barn over a supper of Burger Shack pizza, spinach salad, and a bottle of Cabernet that one of Slade’s clients had given them for Christmas. Just as the tension seemed to be easing, Sky had called from the Tyler ranch with word that the mare was having problems.

  When she’d grabbed her keys to leave, Slade had blown his top again. She’d invited him to go with her, but when he’d refused, there was nothing she could do but race out the door, gun the engine, and go.

  “Don’t count on me being here when you get back!” he’d yelled after her. Well, he was true to his word. The candy-apple-red Ford pickup he kept shined to a high gloss had been missing when she’d pulled into the garage.

  No need to wonder where he’d gone. He’d be at the Blue Coyote, drinking and flirting with the waitresses. Slade rarely got drunk, and she doubted that he got past first base with any of the women. He’d soon be home as usual, muttering apologies and wanting sex, which she’d give him to seal their truce.

  Natalie was a woman who took her marriage vows seriously. Six years ago, when she’d promised to love and honor Slade Haskell, she’d meant every word. She’d faced the reality that Beau wouldn’t be coming back for her. And Slade had been there—handsome and likeable, with roots in the community and enough ambition to take over the family business from his father. They could have a comfortable life together, she’d told herself.

  Was it really Slade she’d fallen in love with, she asked herself now, or the person in those mental pictures?

  But she was committed to making her marriage work. Slade wasn’t a bad person. Neither was she. They deserved to be happy, or at least satisfied with each other. Surely they could find a way.

  Meeting Beau again had been like pouring acid into an old wound. The memories of how she’d loved him, and how he’d hurt her, felt as fresh and hot as ever. She’d almost convinced herself that she was over him. But she was wrong. He’d made her feel like a silly little nineteen-year-old fool all over again.

  The sudden glare of headlights and the growl of a big engine in the driveway pulled her thoughts back to the present. Natalie forced a mental shift as the garage door opened and closed. Her husband—a decent man who loved her in his way—was home, and they’d had enough contention for one night.

  She would do her best to make peace.

  The Eastern sky had just begun to pale from the slow rising of the sun when Beau wandered into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. He’d hoped for some quiet time alone, but Will was already at the table, digging into a trencherman’s breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, and pancakes dripping with maple syrup.

  “That looks like a recipe for instant heart attack, brother,” Beau observed as he filled a mug from the electric coffeemaker. A place had been set for him, but he didn’t plan to use it. He hadn’t eaten a big breakfast since he’d gotten out of the military.

  “It hasn’t bothered my heart yet.” Will dunked a forkful of pancake in the yolk of his egg. “Tori tried to turn me into a health nut. But the granola and green tea didn’t take.”

  “Dad used to eat like that.” Beau took a seat. “Is that what killed him?”

  “You didn’t hear?” Will’s thick, black eyebrows shot up. “The old man was living on booze and pain pills by the time he died. The coroner’s report listed his death as an accidental overdose. But his heart and arteries were fine. You missed a lot, being gone.”

  “I’m aware of that.” Beau sipped his strong, black coffee. “I was in Iraq when he had his accident. Otherwise I might’ve come home.”

  “Just as well you didn’t. There wasn’t much you could’ve done. We hired folks to help him. But he was in constant pain. God knows he wasn’t easy to live with before the accident. Afterward, well, I think you can figure that out.”

  Bernice bustled in with a wire basket of fresh eggs from the coop. She paused at the sight of them together in the kitchen. She’d come to work at the ranch after her husband died more than thirty years ago and was as much a part of Rimrock as her older brother Jasper. “My, but it’s good to have both you boys in here again. What can I fix for you, Beau? Bacon? Eggs? You like them over easy as I recollect.”

  “Coffee’s enough for me, Bernice. And yours is the best. I can’t get it this good for five bucks a shot in D.C.”

  “So you’ve decided?” Will lowered his fork to his plate. “On the basis of Bernice’s coffee?” Impatient at the lightness of Beau’s response, Will snapped. “Dammit, you said you’d let me know this morning, Beau. I’m waiting.”

  Beau could almost picture his father sitting in Will’s place. He sucked in his breath, knowing that once the words were out of his mouth, they’d be binding.

  “Let’s say I’ve decided to stay for a while. My job entitles me to two weeks off for bereavement. I hadn’t planned on taking it, but I’ll call the office today.”

  “And?” Will was bristling with impatience.

  “I’ll stick around long enough to give this place a try. At the end of that time, I’ll make a final decision. Fair enough?” It would have to be. Beau was already having doubts, wondering whether he and Will could get along over the long term.

  Will sat silently, frowning as he mulled over what he’d heard. At last he shrugged. “Not quite what I’d hoped for, but I guess, for you, it makes sense. At least your timing’s good. We start spring roundup today. You’ll have plenty of chances to get those callus-free hands dirty.”

  Beau sighed, already knowing what he’d let himself in for. “Suits me. I’m wearing my old boots, but I’ll need some gear—chaps, gloves, a hat, a saddle . . .”

  “No problem. We’ve got extras in the bunkhouse. Think you can remember how to work cattle?”

  “It’ll come back to me.” Beau remembered his teenage years on the ranch, riding herd until his butt blistered and his stomach caved in from hunger. Bull Tyler had been a hard taskmaster, even tougher on his sons than he was on his cowhands. Something told Beau that Will would be the same.

  Picking up his empty plate, he held it out to the smiling cook. “Fill it up, Bernice. Looks like it’ll be a long, hard day.”

  They were just finishing their plates when Erin came bounding in the back door. Bits of straw clung to her sweatshirt and her uncombed hair. Her cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes sparkling.

  “How’s your new foal?” Beau asked her.

  “Fine. He’s eating now.” She splashed her hands at the sink and wiped them on her jeans before flinging herself into a chair at the end of the table. “Sky let me brush him. He said I need to touch him a lot and spend a lot of time with him before I go back to school on Monday. That way he’ll remember me. It’s called imprinting.”

  If imprinting was to be done right, it had to begin within forty-five minutes of a foal’s birth. Beau realized that was why Sky had brought Erin into the stall so soon last night.

  Will frowned. “That mare could get protective of her baby. You’re not alone out there with that horse, are you?”

  “Really, Daddy, I’m almost thirteen!” Erin poured herself a glass of milk and laced it with chocolate syrup.

  “You won’t be thirteen till next
January, and I asked you a question, young lady.”

  “All right. Sky was there at first, but he had to go help with the remuda, so he called Jasper. Jasper was with me the whole rest of the time.”

  “Good. I want to know that somebody’s always with you in the barn.” Will rose and carried his plate to the sink. Erin was already digging into the pancakes Bernice had set in front of her.

  “Have you named your foal yet?” Beau asked.

  Erin grinned. “I have. His parents have Spanish names, so I’m going to call him Tesoro. In Spanish that means treasure.”

  “Why, honey, that sounds just perfect,” Bernice exclaimed. “Wait till your mother sees him!”

  Will shot her a half-irritated look, a shadow passing across his face, before he pinned his glance on Beau. “Are you coming, Beau? We still need to rustle you some gear from the bunkhouse.”

  “I’m on your six.” Beau pushed his plate aside and rose from the table. As much as he would have liked another cup of coffee, it was clear Will wanted to get the day’s work started.

  As they strode across the yard side by side, Beau couldn’t help noticing the rather grim-lipped expression his brother had.

  “Is there a problem, Will?”

  “Just thinking about that damned foal,” he admitted in a near mutter. “I’d planned on gelding any colt that was born so he’d be gentle enough for Erin to ride.”

  Beau nodded in understanding. “And now you can’t afford to geld him. A palomino stud can be worth his weight in gold, especially if he can pass that color on to some of his babies.”

  Beau knew there was no guarantee of that. Palomino was a color, not a breed of horse. And breeding golden horses was as chancy as rolling dice in Las Vegas.

  “I’ll just have to convince Erin that she can have the next foal born,” Will concluded in that same pigheaded tone Beau had heard their father use.

  “That would be a waste of your time. She’s already named him,” Beau reminded him. “You aren’t going to change her mind now.”

  “I can’t have her taking on a stallion as her first horse,” Will replied with an emphatic nod. “You know what a handful a young stud colt can be. Unpredictable as hell, even rank sometimes. Too many blasted things can go wrong. Erin could end up getting hurt bad.”

  Beau shrugged off his brother’s concern. “You’ll just have to cross that bridge when it comes. If it comes. Right now the foal isn’t even a day old. Put some trust in Sky’s training. He isn’t going to let Erin have the colt until he’s sure she can manage him. Things will work out. You’ll see.”

  Will gave Beau a pained look. “I can tell you’ve never been a father, especially to a girl. So many blasted things can go wrong. And in a few years, when she’s old enough for boys, it’ll be ten times worse.”

  “And she has her mother’s looks.” Beau shook his head, savoring the rare chance to needle his brother. “Given a choice, would you rather she’d been born plain as mud like you?”

  “Don’t ask. And I don’t even want to guess what Tori’s going to say about all this. She’s even more protective of Erin than I am.”

  They walked in silence a moment before Beau spoke. “What happened between you and Tori anyway? You never said.”

  Will cast him a stormy look. “It’s over. Dead and buried. So mind your own cattle.”

  In the last two centuries, little about the annual spring roundup on a cattle ranch had changed. Its purpose remained the same: to gather all the cattle that had wintered in sheltered canyon pastures in preparation for moving them to their summer graze on the plain above the Caprock. Once the gather was made, the herd would be sorted, culled, and counted. Pregnant cows and heifers would be separated from the rest, and any calves or yearlings that had been missed the previous fall would be branded, vaccinated, tagged, and, if destined to be steers, castrated. For the cowhands and bosses, that meant long days of backbreaking work, days that could stretch into two weeks, or even longer.

  After only three days in the saddle, Beau was sore and bone-weary. Yet, despite the discomfort, he was secretly pleased that he remembered how to cowboy. Admittedly he was a little rusty, but the old skills were coming back—along with a level of contentment that was rare to him.

  Between the clear spring days, the hard physical work, and the easy camaraderie with the cowhands, who weren’t above teasing the “dude” in their midst, Beau could feel his tightly clenched nerves unwinding. It was as if his whole body had begun to breathe again; he was even sleeping the whole night through without waking up. Truthfully he couldn’t remember feeling this at ease with himself in years.

  He wasn’t about to admit it to his brother, but Beau was enjoying this break from Washington and those long days of sitting behind a desk dealing with stacks of dreary paperwork and harried people who wanted everything yesterday. And the open country around him was a welcome change from that hellish D.C. traffic.

  Open was something of a relative term, Beau acknowledged. This particular section of the ranch they were working stretched below the escarpment. It was a veritable maze of gullies, draws, and box canyons. And every inch of it needed to be searched.

  In his side vision, he caught a glimpse of rusty red hide. He snapped his head around just as a pair of steers trotted out of view, heading up a brushy side canyon. Touching a spur to the horse’s flank, he reined the gelding after them. Jutting rocks marked the canyon’s entrance. Beau had already ridden past them in pursuit of the cattle before he recognized the distinctive formation that identified his exact location on the ranch. Abruptly he reined his horse to a plunging stop to look around, letting the half-forgotten knowledge come flooding back.

  This small arroyo lay along the ranch’s boundary line that butted against Prescott’s land. The canyon itself was Y-shaped, dividing into two branches. He glanced up the left branch, recalling that it ended in a sheltered rock wall where he and Will had gone as boys to view the Indian petroglyphs scattered over its surface, making up their own wild stories as to the meaning of them.

  But it was the second branch that claimed the whole of his attention now. Where once a clear stream of water had tumbled down from the rock and spilled to the pool on the canyon floor, now there was nothing but a dry wash, overgrown with scraggly brush and mesquite. Rusty strands of barbed wire blocked the path that had led to the stream. A crudely painted sign hung crookedly from the fence’s top wire:

  NO TRESPASSING

  PROPERTY OF PRESCOTT RANCH

  Beau glared at the board, surprised that he could still feel the anger of years ago so strongly.

  “It still smarts, doesn’t it?” Will’s voice traveled across the stillness.

  Turning, Beau discovered that his brother had ridden up to join him. “How many times did Bull pound in our heads when we were kids that no Tyler ever sold an inch of Rimrock land—that a Tyler would cut off his roping hand first. That little canyon and its water was Rimrock property.” Beau jabbed a finger in its direction, his voice tight and low with barely suppressed anger. “And Bull sold it. And not just to anybody. No, he sold to Ferguson Prescott, the man Bull hated. And the purchase price was one dollar and ‘other valuable considerations.’ What the hell was he thinking?”

  “It never made sense to me either,” Will admitted.

  “Didn’t you ever ask him about it?” Beau challenged as his horse moved restlessly beneath him.

  “Once. A few months ago, I was going through the files and ran across the original bill of sale. I figured it was time I learned the truth behind it, so I took the bill of sale in to him. The minute I showed it to him, he started swearing, telling me it was none of my damned business and I wasn’t to ask him about it again.”

  “Swearing and shouting at people were the two things Bull did best,” Beau said, easily visualizing the scene Will described. “I’ll bet he threatened to kick you out if you brought it up again.”

  “More or less,” Will admitted.

  But it was the lac
k of any resentment in his voice that Beau couldn’t understand. “That’s where you and I are different. When he told me it was his way or hit the road, I told him what he could do with this ranch and his money and took the road.”

  “So that’s how it happened,” Will murmured.

  “With a lot more yelling back and forth.” He hadn’t expected to feel all the old bitterness so strongly. “The essence was that he didn’t give a damn if I was his son, that there was no way I was going to live off him.”

  “That’s in the past. Nothing good comes out of dwelling in it,” Will stated, pragmatic as always.

  “Unless you can learn something.” Beau let his glance wander over the dry streambed and the crudely painted sign on the barbed wire fence strung across it. “To get this land from Bull, old man Prescott must have had something on him.”

  “Like what?” Will sounded skeptical.

  “Some secret Bull didn’t want people to know. It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Beau declared, then voiced the question that automatically came to mind. “Wonder what it was?”

  “I doubt if it was anything like that.” Will dismissed the possibility with a shake of his head. “More than likely Bull lost a bet to him. You know what a sore loser he was. And losing a bet to old man Prescott would stick in his craw big-time.”

  “It might have been that simple,” Beau conceded, then frowned, trying to remember another tidbit from the past. “Am I wrong, or is this the canyon where legend has it that lost Spanish gold is buried?”

  The legend had been part of Texas for as long as anyone could remember. The story went that a band of lost Spanish explorers, pursued by Indians, had become trapped in the canyon and managed to hide the chest of gold coins they were transporting before the Indians attacked and wiped them out.

  “That’s the way the story goes—if you believe that stuff.” The line of Will’s mouth crooked in cynical derision. “There isn’t an ounce of truth in it. But who knows, it could be why old man Prescott wanted it. I know for a fact he had a couple men with shovels out, digging all over the place and sifting the dirt through a box screen. I later heard they never found a damned thing.”