Christmas At Cade Ranch

At James’s signal, Jewel nodded then fell back slightly. The maneuver allowed him to begin arcing the cattle her way into an open, snowy space, turning the stampede in on itself so they’d mill instead of run.

More important, it’d stop them from mingling with the Brahman herd owned by their archenemies and neighbors, the Lovelands. Their bitter family feud went back over a hundred years, beginning with a tale of deception, theft and murder, the rivalry still fresh as it played out in water access disputes and missing cattle.

James pursed his lips and whistled long and high, urging on the Border collies. They lunged at the longhorns’ ankles, dodging horns, driving the livestock to the right. With the bluff drawing alarmingly close, they needed to make the turn in the next thirty seconds or it’d be too late. Devastating tragedy. Not on his watch.

He squeezed Trigger’s heaving sides and rode harder still, James’s body steaming and slick beneath his plaid shirt and flannel-lined jean jacket. He ignored the deep ache in his shoulders and the way his teeth ground with each jarring stride. All around him rose the thick, musky scent of animals. Their eyes rolled and they bleated loudly, showing no signs of slowing.

Out of the worsening blizzard, his youngest sibling Justin emerged, a lone, dark figure between the herd and the bluff’s edge.

“Get out of there!” James bellowed.

He ripped off his bandanna and waved at his reckless brother. Immediately, the wild swirl of icy wind and blowing snow snatched away his breath. Anger and concern roared in his bloodstream. Cool, unaffected Justin, however, didn’t budge. He sat slim and ramrod straight in the saddle and stared down the charging herd as if he dared them to mow him over. The fool. Their departed father taught them better when they’d begun working the family’s ten-thousand-acre ranch as kids.

Some said Justin had a death wish. Given his reckless antics since losing his twin, Jesse, James agreed. But he wouldn’t let anything happen to his little brother, to any of them, ever again. However, when he got Justin to safety, he’d kill him.

James kicked Trigger with his heels, dragging forth the blowing horse’s last bit of steam. At his command, Trigger neighed, then veered directly at the lead cow, obeying without hesitation. Make-or-break time. James flashed his red bandanna at the cattle, flaunting the “fish” to make them more afraid of him than whatever had spooked them.

The livestock balked, then broke to the right. The rest of the herd dashed pell-mell after their leaders, turning back. Confused and confronted by themselves, they slowed, raising the snow, tearing the naked brush, letting out hoarse bawls as they began to mill and spread farther down the white valley, no longer in danger. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Justin chasing off any stragglers who approached the bluff. James released a long breath.

Jared flashed by, effortlessly driving the group he’d wrangled back into the now-organized mob. Jewel pulled her mount around in a neat circle, scooped up her trampled hat, then trotted up beside James. After rounding up the last of the strays, the Cades corralled the bawling, red-and-white-spotted herd and guided them back on the long trail home.

Silence reigned as the herd’s lowing dropped down to its usual buzz. The Cades settled into their saddles and thoughts. Thick snow poured from the sky and clung to their hat brims, their noses and shoulders. They followed a meandering, beaten trail down the mountain slope.

The pungent scent of spruce filled the air and seeped into James’s nose, making his shoulders drop, his rigid spine bend and flex. He felt pummeled, his muscles tender and worn out the way he liked best. This was the right kind of tired, the type that followed a long, honest day’s work. It sometimes let him escape his worries about the ranch, his siblings and his grieving mother by falling into oblivious sleep.

The world dimmed further as the sun, buried underneath heavy-bellied clouds, slipped behind Mount Sopris’s craggy top. The valley floor billowed away, raw and untamed, growing gray in the dawning dusk. Walls of ice on stone, gleaming with the last of the light, enclosed the valley, stretching away toward the long, low Elk Mountain range.

The place was wild, beautiful and open with something nameless that made the highland spaces different from any other country to James. That made it home. The isolation, the vast, untouched stretches of valley and bluffs, soothed his restless spirit, lowered his guard and gave him peace.

He felt a bone-deep kinship with the land. It configured his DNA. His ancestors had labored, sacrificed and fought to protect it, to claim it as their own. It was his responsibility to maintain that legacy and pass it on to the next generation. No threats would cross its border again, not so long as he drew breath, he vowed, his own personal cowboy’s prayer.

The horses nickered as they clomped past barren aspen clumps, tails swishing. “That was fun,” Jewel drawled. She swayed in perfect rhythm with her enormous steed. It was the ranch’s largest mount, which, of course, made it the only one the petite roughrider would mount.

“Then you don’t get out much,” Jared said, then flinched to avoid Jewel’s trademark shoulder jab.

“Just wait till we get home. We’ll see how tough you are,” Jewel huffed. She rammed her misshapen hat on her head and pulled the brim low over her braids.

“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Jared protested, riding with the easy grace born of years in the saddle. His perfect white teeth flashed in his lady-killer grin.

The family’s Romeo had left a swath of broken hearts across the valley. Jared’s ease at meeting women, at achieving anything in life, was downright irritating. Opportunities like college football scholarships and a starting NFL position seemed to fall into the small-town hero’s lap.

“That’s your excuse? Pathetic.” Jewel rolled her eyes and brushed snow from her horse’s forelock. “Don’t know why girls throw themselves at you.”

“Must be desperate,” Justin said through a yawn, looking ready to fall asleep despite today’s excitement. A thick belt of snow encircled his hat brim.

“Who is it this time?” teased Jewel, wagging a finger. “Mandy? Mindy? Mona?”

“It’s Melanie,” Jared clarified. He rubbed the back of his neck, then gave a rueful laugh. “Nope. It’s Melody.”

“See.” Jewel snapped her fingers. “They’re all starting to blur together. Even for you.”

She burst out laughing and Justin joined her. “Seriously, dude. Pick a girl. Any girl.”

“They pick me, bro.”

A wild howl pealed down the slope and Trigger’s ears shot up. It was loud and harsh, then softened to a mourn, lonely and haunting. The hair on the back of James’s neck rose. Wolf.

A pack of coyotes barked in answer, a sharp, staccato yelping chorus, the piercing notes biting on the chilly early-evening air. Trigger sidestepped, nickering, and James swiftly brought him under control on the slippery terrain.

“You’re so full of yourself,” scoffed Jewel once they’d settled their jittery horses. Their hooves clattered against the frigid slope.

“And you’re so full of—”

“Knock it off.” James’s fingers tightened around the leather straps in his left hand. “We’ve got more important things to worry about than Jared’s love life.”

Had his mother gotten out of bed this morning? Eaten? Dressed?

“At least I’ve got one, big bro.”

James opened his mouth but the denial dissolved, bitter on his tongue. Jared was right. Since Jesse’s murder, he’d worked nonstop to shore up the ranch and didn’t have time for anything, or anyone, else. He loved his family. That was enough.

So why did he sometimes wish for a confidante? A hand in his? A person to hold...someone to share a bag of peanuts with at a football game. The pelting snow slackened.

“Let’s pick up the pace or Ma’s meat loaf will be cold,” he said, needing to deflect, hoping that by saying those words they might be true and she’d had a good day.

“If Ma’s cooking... Didn’t see her up this morning.” A line appeared, bisecting Justin’s brow.

“Yesterday wasn’t one of her good days.” Jewel patted her horse’s sweat-streaked neck. “She was going through Jesse’s phone again. She still thinks those pictures are his son.”

James shook his head. “If that was true, Jesse would have told us.” Jesse had messed up a lot, but James didn’t believe his brother capable of turning his back on his own child. Besides, Jesse loved kids, all living things, in fact... Jesse keeping his child a secret made no sense. There had to be another explanation for the photo.

“I don’t like Ma getting her hopes up,” Jewel fretted.

“Obsessing is more like it,” James worried out loud. “Like when Jesse was alive.”

A collective moan rose from his siblings. Their mother’s fixation on healing their brother had taken a horrible toll on her physical and emotional health.

James’s hands tightened on the reins. He’d convince her to put away the phone and stop torturing herself. With the holidays approaching, this false hope came at an already painful time.

Jared deftly guided his horse away from a depression in the snowy field. “Should we get Ma help?”

“No. She’s getting stronger,” James insisted. They didn’t need outsiders poking through their business. Once they got through Christmas, Ma would improve. He’d make sure of it. “She’s been mostly keeping up with routines.”

“And that’s all that counts, right?” Justin asked out of the side of his mouth. “That she follows your schedules?”

“They keep things running smoothly,” James protested. A night wind hummed softly through the gnarled, stunted cedars they passed.

Yes. He was a micromanager. No denying it. But if he’d been more vigilant, he would have spotted the threats to Jesse, like his connections to the Denver-based drug group who’d tracked him to Carbondale, then killed for unpaid debt.

And then there was his own, more direct role in the tragedy—a failure he’d never forget—or forgive. “I’m protecting us. Plus, the schedules help Ma.”

He closed his eyes against the sudden vision of Jesse, pale and still in his coffin. They’d all struggled to make it through that day and every day since, especially around the holidays when he’d passed away.

Giving his mother direction, a routine, gave her a purpose, something positive to focus on. Seeing her wander the house, or worse, staying in bed, with that empty look in her eye as if her heart had been scraped right out, broke him in two.

“Meat loaf,” Justin said solemnly. “Yeah. That right there is a real lifesaver.”

James nudged Trigger and trotted ahead, leaving his siblings behind in the gathering darkness. They meant well, and he wouldn’t trade them for anything. But they didn’t understand the need to keep a tight rein on the ranch, the family and especially Ma. He didn’t give two hoots if they ate meat loaf. They’d lost too many Cades already. With his mother lumbering through life like a zombie, he feared they’d lose her, too, if he wasn’t extra careful. Better to worry too much than not enough, he’d learned in the hardest way possible.

He would always be vigilant in preventing negative forces from infiltrating their clan as they had with Jesse.

His brothers and sister quieted and joined him a moment later, fanning out on either side, their solid support palpable. Despite the tweaking, quarreling and outright brawling, especially Jewel and that fierce uppercut of hers, they always had each other’s backs.

The terrain grew gentler, rolling. Below, on the level floor of the valley, lay the rambling old ranch house with cabins nestling around and the corrals leading out to the soft, snow-dusted hay fields, misty and gray in twilight. A single light gleamed like a beacon.

Home.

His spirits lifted.

An hour later, showered and ravenous, he tromped up the front porch of his family’s main house. Built with rough-hewn cedar, it seemed to spring from the earth, a part of the landscape, its lines as majestic as its surrounding mountains.

Log pillars held up a steep, snow-covered portico and peaked gables broke up the roofline. Numerous windows gleamed in the dark. They must have cost a fortune when they’d been installed. 1882. The year his gold-mining, prospecting ancestor stumbled on a lucky strike that’d made his fortune and allowed him to purchase the property.

He pushed through the screen door and stopped short at the scene before him. No set table. No meat loaf. Where was his mother? She must have had another tough day. His chest squeezed.

Then his eyes alighted on his ma holding hands with a dark-haired young woman.

“James!” Ma exclaimed and stood, as did the stranger. She was slim and tall, her midnight hair a thick tangle around a beautiful face the color of a candle’s glow, her obsidian eyes wide. They shifted out from under his direct gaze, her nervous reaction instantly jangling his suspicious nature. A child stopped waving a wooden spoon like it was a sword and stared with large, unblinking eyes, as though sizing up a threat.

“Is it that time already?” His mother’s hand fluttered to her cross necklace and she twisted it. “We must have gotten sidetracked. Sofia, this is my second eldest, James. James, this is Sofia Gallardo, mother of Jesse’s child, Javi, my first grandson and your nephew. Isn’t it a miracle?”

And just like that, the safe haven he’d labored to create turned itself inside out.

CHAPTER THREE

PULL BACK. STEADY. Steady. Don’t come off the vein.

Blood rushed in the half-full syringe, curling red. Sofia held her arm still and slowly pushed the plunger. She wanted to make this last. Anticipation sizzled over her nerves.

Pull it out again. The blood swirled back inside.

Now. Squeeze.

This was what she wanted. Yes. Here it was. The rush. It flooded up her arm and tingled.

Then it hit. It was like a mini explosion of unadulterated pleasure.

Everything turned blissful and beautiful. And she loved everything. It was a pure joy to be alive, to have a body; a heavenly awareness.

The hand of God, cradling her to sleep.

Sleep.

No.

Don’t go to sleep.

Don’t. Go. To. Sleep.

Sofia lurched upright in bed, and her gasp cracked through the small, dark room. Her heart thrummed, deafening in her ears, almost painful. Was she having a heart attack?

Had she taken a bad hit?

She groped for the syringe and came up empty. Where? Where? Where?

“Mama?”

She shoved her hair from her hot face and peered at the small shape hovering by her bed.

“Javi?”

His eyes looked as big as saucers. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She hoisted him up and pulled him close. “I just had a bad dream.”

Terrifyingly real.

Remembering the good was worse than the bad.

“A monster?”

“A big one,” she said, recalling the horrible creature she’d once been—thinking of nothing, no one, but her next fix.

She rested her cheek on Javi’s head and strove to calm her breathing. Kids needed their parents to protect them, but in her case, it felt the other way around. She’d gotten sober for Javi, and because of him she stayed on the straight and narrow.

“I can sleep with you till you feel better,” he whispered around what sounded like his thumb. A flash of worry popped inside. The old habit reappeared whenever he felt stressed.

“I’d like that, sweetie. Thanks.”

Ten minutes later, Sofia stared up into dark and listened to Javi’s soft, regular breathing.

Another addiction dream.

She squished her pricking eyes shut. Foolish her for hoping the nightmares would end after she’d left her drug-ridden neighborhood. She’d finally escaped, yet her addiction followed, a zombielike thing lurching toward her up US 285 from Albuquerque to drag her and Javi down.

No.

She had to stay one step ahead and get farther away than Colorado. Another coast. Maybe even a different country.

You cannot fall.

Though you could, whispered another voice. You know how easy it would be. An innocent mistake, even. Never meaning harm, exactly...

Prescription pills were more addictive than heroin.

She clamped her hands over her ears, a useless move since the taunting rose from within, the horrible refrain of her lonely life. She blew out a breath, disentangled Javi’s limbs from hers and slid out of bed. She needed air.

After slipping on a thick robe and slippers, Sofia eased out of the room. She padded down the staircase, pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the porch.

The black night folded around Cade Ranch like velvet, as cold and soft as a bat’s wing. The storm had cleared, and overhead, glinting stars clustered. She inhaled the aroma of the rich, slumbering earth. It seemed to hold the mystery of nature and life, a smell that, in a strange way, soothed her some, gave her a tiny bit of hope. As if she, like the rest of the world, could afford to settle down, too, for a bit.

She leaned on the banister and peered into the night. Her heart lifted at the majestic vista. The Rocky Mountains’ shadowed outlines scaled the distant horizon. They surrounded the ranch’s valley in a semicircle, stone sentinels guarding against the outside world, shielding and protecting this isolated countryside.

But could they protect her—and Javi—from herself?

It was a constant gnawing fear.

One she bore alone.

But how strong could one person be?

Why didn’t you ever tell them about us? she silently asked Jesse, her eyes on the sky, her leaden heart at her feet. Why didn’t you come back for us? Were you ashamed? Incapable? Afraid?

She wished she and Javi could settle here, but Jesse’s tragedy was also her tragedy. His addiction story hers. Shared history. She could never be someone else, someone worthy of being Javi’s mother, around a family who’d already lost a drug-abusing son, people who knew who she really was, who she might turn into if she wasn’t careful.

At a light cough, she jumped. A dark figure detached itself from the shadows, and she stumbled back, panic scrambling over her skin. A newel post stopped her flight. When she spun around, a firm hand landed on her upper arm and checked her momentum.

“It’s me. James.”

His rich baritone cut through her flustered fog. James. One of Jesse’s older brothers. The strict, reserved one. He hadn’t said much earlier as she and Joy had slapped sandwiches together to feed the rest of the boisterous Cade clan. In fact, he hadn’t spoken at all. As he ate, he’d simply watched while his siblings peppered her with questions. They’d seemed to accept her and Javi immediately. James, however, had held back, his shuttered expression hard to read.

It’d made her nervous.

He made her nervous.

Her past experience with controlling men like her father had taught her to be wary of them as triggers for her addiction.

She shivered and crossed her arms. You’re free now, she reminded herself, firmly. Javi got you sober. No more worrying.

Right?

Her recent nightmare, however, told another tale.

And now she stood alone with James in the dead of night. Anxious awareness zipped along her nerve endings.

“What—what are you doing out here?” she gasped, her words full of air and apprehension.

Moon rays illuminated the tall, rangy man. He had wide shoulders, a slightly crooked nose and incredibly long eyelashes that would have made a handsome man look effeminate. Instead, they made this rugged cowboy a tiny bit beautiful. His full lips twisted. “I live here.”

She checked her eye roll. “Right. Well. Night.” She turned to leave but his voice stopped her.

“Tell me about Jesse.”

“What do you mean?”

“The stuff you left out earlier because Javi was listening. Why didn’t Jesse tell us about you?” He leaned against the railing, folded his arms on his chest and peered down at her from his great height. She could make out the pronounced curve of his biceps beneath his white thermal shirtsleeves. He looked strong. A man used to getting what he wanted... And now he wanted her to talk about a time she’d rather forget.

Not happening.

Thinking, talking, reliving her darkest hours was like walking backward on broken glass, each word drawing blood.

She licked dry lips. “I don’t know why he kept us a secret.”

You threw him out... Told him never to contact you again until he was sure he was completely sober...heartless woman...

“Jesse loved children.”

Not Javi...not more than drugs, anyway, and the pain of that thought pierced her side. “Jesse’s not here to explain himself. There’s nothing more I can tell you.”

“Or nothing more that you want to tell me.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, stung by his answer. It struck too close to the truth.

“I’ve been called a lot of names in my life.” He squinted at her. “Fool isn’t one of them.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“That you’re hiding something.” He leaned a hand on the newel post behind her, his proximity hemming her in. She ducked from beneath his arm and spoke over her shoulder, avoiding him, just as she dodged all confrontations. Physically remove yourself from bad situations, her rehab counselor had told her, before you explore other ways to escape.

She’d hung on to those words all these years. They were some of the rare bits of sobriety advice she’d received, given she’d never attended any NA meetings. Without childcare, she’d struggled to go. Besides, she’d told herself she didn’t need extra help when she only had to look at her child to know why she had to stay sober. “I’d better go in.”

“Please stay.”

“No, really, I—”

“Humor me. You are under my roof...”

She bristled at his tone, recalling it from her youth, the oppressive sound of her father. She’d checked out of her prison-like, motherless childhood the only way she thought she could, starting with prescription pills a school friend promised would take everything away, including a painful sports injury. It’d seemed innocent at first. Fun. Rebellious without causing any real trouble. Who didn’t have pills in their bathroom cabinets? And the painkillers had taken away everything...including herself. When her need to stay numb had gotten too expensive, she’d turned to heroin, a cheaper, deadlier fix.

“This is Joy’s home,” she protested to James, projecting calmness despite the pressure building inside.

“I run the place, and I’m part owner with my brothers and sister.”

“Joy invited me. I’m her guest.”

“And how did that happen?” He lifted one of his thick, slanted eyebrows.

“I lost my wallet. Otherwise we’d be in Oregon.”

“You didn’t plan on meeting the rest of us? Even for your son’s sake?” Suspicion edged his voice.

“No. It’s just that I...we didn’t have time.”

“Right. The tickets to Portland.” The way he drew out the city’s name made it sound like a fictitious place, a destination she’d fabricated. “Who do you know there?”

“That’s none of your business,” she murmured through rigid lips. The wind picked up and fluttered strands of hair in her face. She shoved them behind her ears.

“It is, if it involves a relation of mine.”

“Javi’s your nephew,” she gasped. So now he didn’t believe Javi was Jesse’s son? Fury corroded her tongue. She hated feeling backed into a corner. Trapped like she had been during her childhood.

“I only have your word for it.” His sober voice descended on her, as heavy as a gavel.

“And his birth certificate.”

“And where’s that?”

“My wallet.”

“The one that’s missing...” He cocked his head, studying her.

“I’m leaving.”

He held out a hand. “You misunderstand me.” Something about the plea in his voice halted her feet. She’d heard it before, in her own head, that same desire for someone to understand her. “I don’t know you, where you come from or who your people are. Since Jesse’s murder, I don’t trust strangers.”