Texas-Sized Secrets

“Everything.” Before she could say more, tears welled in Mona’s eyes and spilled over. She brushed them away with the back of her sleeve. “Damn it, I never cry.”

“It’s the baby talking. All those hormones play hell with a woman’s emotions.”

“Shh. Don’t say that too loud.” Mona glanced around the room to see if anyone had heard Catalina’s remark.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell. Especially since you won’t tell me whose it is.” Catalina’s eyes narrowed. “Was it Jimmy Raye over at Bar M?”

“No. And forget it. I’m not telling anyone. That particular secret will go with me to my grave.”

“Damn. And I thought best friends shared all their secrets.”

“I can’t afford for this one to get out.” Mona’s gaze dropped to where her hands twisted together, more tears slid down her cheeks.

“Okay, okay. I won’t push it. Now tell me what’s got your chaps in a twist.”

“I just came from the bank.” She gulped and forced calm into her voice. “They’re going to start foreclosure proceedings on the Rancho Linda if I don’t make the balloon payment that’s due in thirty days.”

“Madre de Dios!” Catalina slammed her palm against the tabletop, all of the Latino in her coming out in the one phrase. “As if you don’t have enough problems. Why won’t they roll it over into a new mortgage?”

“From what I gathered, they’ve lost faith in my ability to manage the ranch. What with the rustling and hiring a new ranch hand.”

“Was it the advertisement that got them in a froth?” Catalina’s chocolate-brown eyes lit. “I have to admit, it reminded me of the Wild West.”

Her fit of desperation had backfired, and now Mona regretted placing the ad. However, she didn’t regret hiring the man with the gun. His green eyes haunted her thoughts, vaguely familiar, as if she’d seen them before, when she knew she hadn’t met him until he’d shown up in the canyon. “Something like that.”

“I heard you actually got a man to apply for it.”

“I hired one.” Mona didn’t want to go into the details. She wasn’t altogether sure why she’d hired Reed Bryson on the spot. For now, she attributed her brash move to desperation.

“So what’s he like? Does he look like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne from one of the old westerns?”

“No. And it doesn’t matter what he looks like, I have bigger troubles.” She inhaled and let out a deep breath. “How can I come up with fifty thousand dollars in thirty days?”

“Have you tried one of the other banks in Prairie Rock? If they won’t help, you may have to go to Amarillo.”

“I’ve never applied for a loan, which means I don’t have a credit history. I’ve only been paying on the loan my father set up.” She dropped her head into her hands. “I can’t believe I didn’t pay closer attention to the terms of the loan. I’m doomed.”

“Cut yourself a little slack. It’s not as if you’ve had a lot of spare time on your hands.” Catalina snorted. “So who is your cowboy? Anyone I know?”

“Why are you asking? You already know it’s Reed Bryson. By now everyone in town should know.” She smiled sheepishly.

“I just wanted to hear you say it. So, you hired Reed?” Catalina’s brows rose up into the fringe of bangs that swooped to one side of her pale olive forehead. She fanned herself with one of the plastic-coated menus. “He’s hot.”

“You know him?”

“He broke up a few fights in Leon’s Bar over the past couple months while I was working my weekend shift. How could I miss him?” A grin spread across her face. “How’d you catch him? I couldn’t get him to ask me out no matter how hard I tried.”

“I didn’t ask him out, I hired him.” Her cheeks warming again, Mona glanced toward the window.

“Your face is turning red. What else did you do? Fess up, girl.”

Mona sighed. Her friend knew her too well. “I kinda told Sheriff Lee that Reed and I were living together.”

“You did what?” Catalina chuckled. “I’d loved to have been there when you did. That man’s been chasing you like a rutting bull for the past few months.”

“I know. He doesn’t get the meaning of the word no. So when he came out about the missing cattle, I made up the story.” Mona tried to shrug it off, but Catalina wasn’t having any of it.

“And Reed? He went along with it?” Her friend sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. “From what he told me, he didn’t want anything to do with relationships. Seems contradictory, if you ask me.”

“It was a lie. I made it clear to him that I only wanted him to provide a front to keep the sheriff out of my hair. Nothing else.”

“Well, good for you. Maybe something will come of the little game you’re playing. You could do worse than have him as a husband.”

“I’m not in the market for a husband. I’m looking for a way to save my ranch.” Mona stood. “Speaking of which, I need to get moving. The men are out repairing the fences, and I have a loan to secure. Guess I’ll check out the competition here and then head to Amarillo.”

“What about lunch?” Catalina raced across the floor and grabbed a prepackaged sandwich from a glass-fronted refrigerator. “At least take this.”

Although the sandwich looked less than appetizing, Mona accepted it and dug into her purse for money to pay.

“It’s on me.” Catalina laid her hand over Mona’s, halting her search. “You know you’ll have to slow down pretty soon, don’t you?” She stared at the thickening waist Mona tried so hard to hide by wearing her shirttails loose.

Hiding her bulge wouldn’t be an option in the next couple of weeks. She’d be forced to wear bigger shirts and the maternity pants Rosa had purchased from a resale shop. Of all times to be pregnant, now wasn’t the best.

Catalina walked with her to the door. “I’d stop by this evening and check out your Mr. Bryson myself, if I didn’t have to work. Why don’t you bring him by Leon’s tonight, if you get a chance.”

“Don’t think that a smoky bar is the place to be at this time.” She ran a hand over her belly, the thought of cigarette smoke making the acid churn.

“I guess not. Then give Reed a kiss for me, will you?” Catalina laughed at the killer look Mona gave her. “Okay, be that way. Keep him all for yourself.” She glanced at the white truck pulling into a parking space several yards away. “Look out, there are the Lang Oil speculators from hell.”

“Damn.” Mona ducked behind Catalina. “Between Teague and Lang, they’re as persistent as a heat rash in the summer. Kuhn was pushing Lang as a potential buyer for the Rancho Linda. Not that I’d let that happen. Not as long as I’m still breathing.”

Catalina fluffed her bleached-blond hair and smacked her lips together. “Let me take care of them, you can sneak out through the kitchen.”

While Mona darted back into the diner, Catalina said, “Hello, gentlemen, come back for some of Dee’s apple pie?”

Hurrying through the kitchen, Mona almost slipped on the greasy floor twice before she made it to the back door. But she didn’t feel like listening to a sales pitch when she had bigger issues.

With the Lang Oil Exploration people inside Dee’s Diner, Mona hurried down the sidewalk to her pickup, shaking her head. Catalina had it all wrong about Reed Bryson. Dating and kissing were at the bottom of Mona’s list of things to do when she had a ranch to save.

Then why did Reed’s full lips come to mind when Catalina had mentioned kissing?

REED RODE BESIDE Fernando, slowing his horse the closer they came to the broken fence. The other two ranch hands would be here shortly with the pickup and tools to mend the fence.

Last night’s search for clues and evidence had yielded nothing. He wanted to go over the area again in the light of day. Assuming the sheriff and his crew of deputies hadn’t disturbed the ground too much.

When he was within a hundred yards he reined in his horse. “Let’s walk the rest of the way.”

Fernando nodded and climbed down from his horse, dropping his reins to the ground. The gelding munched on the prairie grass, his tail twitching like a metronome, swatting at horseflies.

“Miss Mona didn’t need this to happen.” Fernando stared ahead at the mutilated fence line and off into the distance as though he might spot the missing cattle.

“Does anyone need to be robbed?”

“No, but her being with child makes it twice as hard.”

Reed agreed silently. “Any idea who the father is?” He asked the question before he could catch himself. Internally, he rationalized that if the father of the child had a bone to pick with Mona, he could be a suspect in the current situation. What better motive than to ruin Mona Grainger to make her own up to the paternity of her child?

“No. As far as I know, she hasn’t told anyone. None of us knew she was even dating.” He turned his attention to Reed. “Why did you leave the sheriff’s department?”

“I had my reasons.” Reed squatted in the dust and stared at the disturbed ground.

“You worked as a police officer in Chicago before that, didn’t you?”

That bit of information wasn’t hush-hush. Folks in small towns could rarely keep a secret. With a new man in town, word was bound to get around. Especially with a big mouth like Sheriff Parker Lee. “Yeah.”

“The Texas panhandle is a long way from Chicago.”

In more ways than one. If not for his mother, Reed wouldn’t have come back. “I grew up in these parts. Came back because of family.”

Fernando nodded. “Family is important.”

Some of them.

“Miss Mona swore on her papa’s grave she’d keep the land in her family. It meant a lot to him and her mother. She wants to have something to pass down to her child.”

“What if her child doesn’t want it?” Too often ranches were sold to big corporations when the children showed no interest in eking out a cyclical living on the land. As an only child, Reed had vowed to leave the panhandle rather than work alongside a father who couldn’t stand the sight of him. As soon as he’d graduated high school, he’d left, swearing never to return.

Funny how life came full circle and more often than not, he found himself eating his own words. Never say never. As much as he resented his father, Reed couldn’t deny his mother anything. When she’d had a stroke, he’d flown home to take turns with his father, sitting by her side in the hospital. When he’d had to leave to go back to Chicago, she’d begged him to stay.

In the end, he’d returned to be closer to her.

Reed shook off the past and focused on the smashed prairie grass all around. “Look here.” He pointed at holes in the dirt, spaced evenly in a wide circle. “Looks like they had portable corral panels.”

“Sí.” Fernando straightened. “They cleaned up well, didn’t they?”

“Too well. I don’t see tire tracks or hoof prints anywhere around.” He stood. All he found were a few footprints probably left by the sheriff’s team who’d investigated the site last night.

“As if they raked it before leaving.” Fernando crouched next to the loose barbed wire. “Look at this.”

Reed joined him for a closer examination. On one of the barbs was a tuft of coal-black human hair and a bloody patch of what looked like scalp. “Someone has a scrape on his head that’s pretty deep.”

“Sí.” The old Mexican nodded farther along in the dust. “They missed a track.”

The telltale print of a dog’s paw stood out as clear as a signature. Whoever the rustlers were, they had a herd dog. Every rancher on the plains had herd dogs.

An engine’s roar alerted him to the approach of a vehicle from the direction of the ranch house.

The ancient red-and-white ranch truck, with the fading sign of Rancho Linda on its side, lumbered across the grasslands, lurching to a stop next to the fence. Chewy, Jesse’s border collie, hopped out of the back and ran around the area, sniffing at the tracks.

While Dusty and Jesse unloaded tools from the rear, Reed walked the fence line, bending to inspect the snapped posts.

Dusty dug the blades of a posthole digger in the dirt beside Reed and brushed his gloved hands together. “Won’t take long to fix this fence. Jesse and I can handle it, why don’t you and Fernando check for any loose steers.”

Reed had intended to do just that, but he’d changed his mind. “No. I’ll help here, if you don’t mind.” He stared past Dusty to the foreman.

Fernando nodded and walked across the dirt to his horse, silently climbing into the saddle. He crossed over where the fence should have been and turned to his right. Following the remaining line of wire and posts, he disappeared over a rise.

Reed lifted his hat, brushed the sweat from his brow and grabbed the posthole digger Dusty had left beside him. Ten minutes later, he lifted the last clump of dirt from the hole and set the implement to the side. His muscles burned with the honest effort of physical labor. He hadn’t known how much he’d missed it until today.

While he fitted a post into the hole and packed dirt around it, Jesse grabbed the tool and went to work on the next hole, twenty feet away.

Jesse, Dusty and Reed worked at mending the fence. Several wooden posts had been snapped as if run over by something big. Some of the thin metal T-posts had been bent double. Dusty was able to straighten one, but the others snapped off, rust and weather making the metal brittle.

Wielding the posthole digger, Jesse dug through the hard earth, making a hole deep enough for another wooden brace post they’d brought along in the back of the pickup.

The constant sound of metal clanking against metal rang in Reed’s ears. Dust kicked up by their heels smelled of Texas and cattle.

Dusty pounded a new T-post in the ground with the heavy post pounder that fit over the post like a giant metal sleeve. He pushed the pounder up and off the post, letting it fall to the ground at his feet. “Going to Leon’s tonight, Jess? They’re having a wet T-shirt contest, from what I hear.”

“No.” Jesse raised his arms high and slammed the sharp blades of the posthole digger into the hard-packed dirt.

“Catalina works there tonight. Maybe she’ll enter the contest.” The sly way Dusty spoke made Reed glance up.

Was Dusty goading Jesse? Did Jesse have a thing for the pretty young woman he’d seen waiting tables at Leon’s?

Jesse’s hands paused on the upswing with the posthole digger. “Catalina won’t enter.” He rammed the diggers into the hole with more force than he’d been using.

“I bet she will. She’d do almost anything for money. Won’t she? That Catalina is a wild one.” Dusty shot a glance at Jesse. “Wouldn’t mind doing the tango with that little chili pepper.”

The young Hispanic’s face turned a mottled red. “Shut up.”

“She’s one fine-looking woman.”

“Leave her alone.” Jesse left the digger in the hole and stalked across the dirt toward Dusty.

A good four inches taller and with twice the bulk as the lean and trim Jesse, Dusty hiked his sleeves up his arms, not a shred of fear in his cocky expression.

“She’s better than you.”

“She’s no better than any of you Mexicans. Except she’s a lot prettier. If I want her, I’ll take her and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Red flushed beneath the dark tan of Jesse’s skin right before he swung. His fist skimmed past Dusty’s jaw as the other man deftly ducked to the left and swung a right hook into Jesse’s midsection.

Chewy leaped into the fray, tearing at Dusty’s arm, growling like a rabid wolf.

“Damn dog. I’ll kill the son of a—” Dusty swung his arm, pushing the dog out and away from him, the animal slamming against a fence post.

Reed dropped the post he’d been working and grabbed Jesse by the back of the shirt, jerking him out of the path of the bigger man’s next uppercut. “Cool it, Dusty.”

Chewy staggered to all four feet and shook out his coat before stalking toward Reed now, growling deep in his throat, his gaze sweeping from Dusty to Reed.

Reed nodded toward the animal. “Call off the dog, Jesse.”

For a moment Jesse hesitated, then he said in a stern tone, “Down, Chewy.”

“Need a bodyguard, Jesse?” Dusty taunted.

“Get out of the way, Bryson.” Jesse’s voice was low and threatening. “This is between me and the jerk.”

“It’s over. We have work to do.” Reed stood between the two.

Finally, Dusty shrugged and lifted another T-post from the ground at his feet. “Don’t know why you get all upset over her. Cat’s not all that great. She’s got too much attitude for her own good.”

“She’s got more class in her little finger than you have in your entire body.”

“Never said I had class, maybe that’s why I like hanging out with her.”

“Knock it off.” Reed waited a full minute until Jesse went back to work digging his hole and Chewy followed him. The dog planted himself next to the man, his black-eyed gaze following Dusty’s every move.

Once Dusty and Jesse seemed in control, Reed went back to the post he’d been working. He kicked dirt into the hole to pack the post in, wishing he could kick a little sense and manners into Dusty. The man was trouble. Why Mona kept him on, he didn’t know. Something smooth and black buried in the dust caught the sunlight and glared into Reed’s eyes. When he leaned over and brushed aside the dust, he found a square matchbook with white letters spelling out Leon’s Bar.

Dusty tossed the pole pounder beside Reed’s feet.

Anger bubbled up inside Reed at Dusty’s carelessness. The pole pounder wasn’t something you tossed close to others. If Reed had moved an inch or two, Dusty could have hit him in the head. The blow from the heavy steel could have killed him or rendered him unconscious with a caved-in skull.

“Find something?” Dusty asked.

Reed’s instinct where Dusty was concerned was one of gut-level distrust. He closed his fist around the matchbook and straightened, shooting a glare from the pole pounder to Dusty. “No, I didn’t find a thing. Did you?” He moved away from the man, pocketing the matchbook and tucking away a mental note to check out the story on Dusty Gaither.

Chapter Five

Exhausted and dispirited, Mona pulled up in front of the ranch house and shifted into park. All she wanted to do was stand in the shower for twenty minutes and fall into bed. Two hours of sleep the previous night wasn’t enough for a pregnant woman.

At five and a half months, she was just beginning to understand her limitations. She hated that she didn’t bounce back the way she had before she got pregnant.

Not until she climbed down from the truck did she notice a distinct lack of vehicles around the house and bunkhouse. The only truck was Fernando’s lovingly cared for, baby-blue 1967 Chevy pickup.

Before her foot touched the bottom step leading to the porch, Fernando rounded the back of the house. “Miss Mona, you’re back.”

“I am.”

“Any luck with the banks in Amarillo?”

“Not yet. Two agreed to take the application to their underwriters. They’ll get back to me sometime next week.” She tugged the ponytail loose at the back of her head and shook out her hair. “Where is everyone? Out pulling guard duty?”

“No. We brought the cows in to one of the closer pastures for the night. It was Dusty’s night off. Which wasn’t a problem until Jesse disappeared after supper. I’d guess they’re both headed for Prairie Rock.”

“What about the new guy?” Mona avoided Fernando’s gaze and saying Reed’s name out loud, as though saying it made it more of an intimate question. She sighed. Her sleep-deprived brain was making her loopy. If she wasn’t careful, she’d start thinking irrationally and more like a schoolgirl with a crush instead of a savvy landowner. A savvy landowner whose back and feet were killing her.

“Señor Bryson went to town as well.”

Mona’s head jerked up. “He did?”

“Sí.” Fernando crossed his arms over his chest. “I insisted. Since he needed to stop by and visit his familia I asked him to go on to Leon’s to keep an eye on Dusty and Jesse.”

Add a pain in the neck to her list of aching body parts. “So Dusty’s been pushing Jesse again?”

“I only caught the end of their argument earlier. I believe it had something to do with my hija.”

“Dios!” Mona plunked her straw hat back on her head and, ignoring every aching bone in her body and the gnawing hunger in her belly, she marched down the steps and climbed into her truck.

“Miss Mona, Señor Bryson can handle them. My esposa has dinner waiting for you. You must think about the bebé.”

“I’ll grab something at Leon’s.” Mona slammed the door and revved the engine, cutting off Fernando’s protests.

Of all the pigheaded male posturing. Dusty couldn’t let it go. He knew Jesse was in love with Catalina and she wanted nothing to do with him. Why did he insist on rubbing it in? Too often, his taunting ended in fistfights. Most often when they were at Leon’s with Dusty all liquored up.

Darkness cloaked the plains. The scent of dry prairie grass blasted into the open windows of the pickup. The wind helped to keep Mona awake on the thirty-minute drive into Prairie Rock. That and a full-blown, in-your-face desire to slap someone upside the head helped to keep her adrenaline flowing and her eyes open to watch for critters crossing the empty highway.

If she could have fired Dusty, she would have. She couldn’t afford to pay her hands much and Dusty hadn’t seemed to mind the pittance she could offer him. Reed as well. Until Reed showed up, she thought she’d have to spend the last trimester of her pregnancy on night-watch duty.

Still, she considered letting Dusty go. His redneck attitude had caused more problems than he was worth. Hell, if the bank foreclosed, she’d have to let them all go.

A brick wall of depression played havoc with her emotions and she sniffed several times before she grit her teeth and pressed harder on the gas pedal. She’d be damned if she gave in to her very own pity party.

SITTING IN THE WINDOW overlooking her tiny rose garden, Grace Bryson smiled at her son. The left side of her face didn’t respond, but the light in her eyes said it all. “I’m so happy you came to see me. Today, I walked in my garden for fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes. This from a woman who’d walked miles of ranchland tending the animals and working alongside her husband to make the spread work for them. Her words were halting and slurred, but she forced them out, like a climber determined to reach the top of a mountain.

As he took his mother’s hand, a lump the size of a wadded sock lodged in Reed’s throat. “That’s great, Mom.”

Her fingers curled loosely around his and she gave him a gentle squeeze. “Have you tried talking to your father?”

Reed bent close to hear her words, the slur in her speech making her difficult to understand. She’d come a long way in her recovery from the stroke over the past six months, but the doctor said she might never fully recover her speech.

Reed would take whatever he could get. This woman raised him and loved him unconditionally when his father had shown him little patience or understanding. Why should he talk to his father? They hadn’t had anything to say to each other since he’d turned eighteen and left home. “No, I haven’t spoken to him.”

“He wants to talk to you.”

If he’d been so anxious to talk to him, why had he left as soon as Reed arrived? “I’ll catch him later. It’s getting dark, do you want the light on?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He reached above her and tugged the chain for the floor lamp beside her chair.

His mother leaned back against the headrest. “You don’t have to wait here with me. William will be back soon. I could stand a little time alone.” She chuckled. “I like to take little naps now and then so that I can stay awake through my television shows.”

Reed smiled. “Okay. If you’re sure you’ll be all right.”

“I will. Don’t forget to talk to your father. He’s been meaning to speak with you since you came back. He just doesn’t know how.”

No kidding. Reed’s lips tightened. The only way he’d ever talked to Reed was to tell him everything he was doing wrong. Never a word of encouragement or love.