The Rancher's Redemption. Melinda Curtis

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СКАЧАТЬ imposing porch. Twenty or so vehicles parked in front. This must be the guest lodge.

      Farther behind the lodge, a huge gazebo shaded several wooden picnic tables. Beyond that sat a fire pit big enough to roast a pig in. Adults and kids milled about in T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops. In a nearby corral, two mares and two foals watched the afternoon proceedings with bright eyes and ears cocked forward, as if they couldn’t believe the West had been invaded by suburbia.

      Where were the blue jeans? The plaid button-downs with pearly snaps? The boots?

      “So much for the dude ranch,” Ben muttered.

      At the fork in the road, he steered to the right and drove on to a much smaller, white two-story home with green shutters and a wraparound porch. He took his foot off the gas and slowed to a crawl. The house was surrounded by lawn on all sides. He’d bet the big elm in the backyard still held the tire swing and that there’d be a picnic table and two benches near a modest fire pit, a place the Blackwells had enjoyed gathering around over the years.

      “Listen.” Mom had tucked Ben under one arm and Ethan under the other as the red flames crackled in the darkness. “Can you hear the owl hoot? He’s telling you he’s out hunting for food tonight.”

      “Boo!” Ben’s older brother, Jon, dug his fingers into Ben’s and Ethan’s shoulders from behind, like an owl striking its prey.

      Ben and Ethan screamed. But their screams turned into laughter as Jon ruffled their hair and handed them marshmallows to toast.

      “Jon, you need to take care of your little brothers.” Dad handed out sticks sharpened for s’more making. “And not wake up the babies.” The babies being Tyler and Chance, asleep upstairs.

      “Let the boy have his fun,” Big E said, smoking a cigar at the picnic table. “Ranch life has a way of making boys into men before you know it. And then they’ll have too many responsibilities to laugh.”

      His grandfather had been right. When Ben was twelve, his parents had drowned in a flash flood as they tried to cross Falcon Creek in their truck. After that, there wasn’t a lot of joking in the house for quite some time. Jon had taken on the burden of mother hen. Heaven knew the women Big E married, one after another, hadn’t been able to fill a mother’s role. Big E resumed running the ranch after his only son had died.

      Ben parked between two trucks in front of the white house—one newer and one on its last legs. Ben got out, grabbed his designer suitcase and expensive silver briefcase with his laptop inside and moved up the walk.

      “Late, as usual.” Ethan stood on the porch, looking like a true ranch hand. Dirt-smudged blue jeans, dusty boots, sleeves rolled up on a blue chambray button-down. The junker truck had to be his. Ethan tilted his worn blue baseball cap back and surveyed Ben as if he was one of his veterinary patients with an unknown illness. “You sure you don’t want me to roll out the red carpet? You might get those fancy shoes of yours dirty.”

      “Never joke about your lawyer’s shoes.” Ben climbed the porch steps, stopping one riser away from the top, just short of the shade. The last time he’d been on this porch had been the day he was to be married. They’d taken pictures—five brothers and the old man who’d finished raising them, who’d guided them, who’d betrayed each of them in turn. Ben had worn a tux that chafed his neck and shoes that pinched his feet. He should have known those uncomfortable clothes were a sign that his marriage wasn’t meant to be.

      “We can’t joke about our lawyer’s shoes? Is that kind of like saying never joke about a man’s cowboy’s hat?” Jonathon appeared in the doorway, a black-and-white dog at his side. He had the Blackwell dark brown hair and was dressed similar to Ethan, except he didn’t look as dirty. He stuck his gray Stetson on his head, looking the part of a respectable rancher.

      Jon had his own spread farther north and two twin girls he’d been raising alone until recently. Gen and Abby had to be about six by now. Ben’s assistant sent them birthday and Christmas gifts every year. With any luck, Ben would be breaking in a new assistant before long and instructing them to add the girls to his gift list.

      “Shoes say a lot about a man.” Ben gave his brothers a hard stare and let it drift down to their footwear. The last time Ben had faced these two, they’d tried to convince Ben that Zoe jilting him at the altar was a good thing.

      “She was only interested in your money,” Ethan had said.

      “If nothing else, her running away with Big E proves it,” Jonathon had added.

      “But you knew they were eloping,” Ben had spat back.

      It hadn’t been enough that Ben had suffered through the humiliation of standing at the altar as friends and family filled the church. His brothers had known their grandfather and Ben’s fiancée were running away together. And they hadn’t said anything!

      They’d let Rachel tell him.

      Rachel.

      For the love of Mike, she was Zoe’s best friend and his opposing counsel even then.

      Rachel had tossed her blond ringlets over one shoulder and glared at Ben. Gone was the casual camaraderie they’d had as teenagers; not surprising given she’d just lost the Double T’s water rights the day before. “Did you honestly think Zoe would move away from her family and friends to live with you in New York City?”

      Ben had to keep himself from shouting, Yes! Instead, he’d said through stiff lips, “Marriage to me seemed more likely than my twenty-seven-year-old fiancée eloping with my seventy-two-year-old grandfather.”

      Big E, Zoe, Rachel, Jon, Ethan. Five people he’d thought were family. Five people he’d never trust again.

      He’d done little more than exchange text messages with his brothers in five years. Even then, his replies were often brief—I’m fine. Can’t get away. Not coming home for Christmas.

      And then ten days ago, Ethan had texted and left voice mail, and then texted and left voice mail again: Big E has run away from home. Double T taking us to court over water rights. Help.

      Ethan’s second text and voice mail had come on a bad day. Ben had been coming down from the sixty-seventh floor in the elevator, escorted by Transk, Ipsum & Levi security, carrying a box with his personal belongings. His stomach had long since reached the lobby, having plummeted there when his boss told him he was being removed as lead counsel on a big case and—oh, by the way (as if it was an afterthought)—fired for unethical practices.

      Unethical practices? Being a lawyer was about bending the law to justify your client’s stupidity. The utility company had broken federal laws regarding safety standards and people had been killed. In their homes, no less. Leaving husbands without wives and kids without fathers. Ben had been brokering generous settlements with survivors, apparently, not to the client’s satisfaction.

      A cherubic face drifted through his memory. Big brown eyes. Gummy smile. That baby didn’t know what it meant to be orphaned yet.

      That child had made Ben rethink what constituted a fair settlement in a legal case that was spinning out of control, spun faster by Ben’s actions to make things right. And coming down in that elevator, he’d felt the need to lean on someone.

      In that moment of weakness, he’d stepped out of the building in midtown and called Ethan back, agreeing to return СКАЧАТЬ