Denim & Diamonds Page 8

  Beth wanted to ask questions, curious about cattle rustlers, but the two men were intent. She glanced over at Beau. The tension showed in the set of his jaw. Aidan’s leg was jiggling up and down where it pressed against hers. He leaned slightly forward, his right hand braced against the dash. She clutched the door with her right hand, but was still thrown around as Beau took the curves faster than he should. She braced her left hand against the dash, too, and prayed that no deer would cross in front of them.

  The big white mailbox with a stylized “R” on it appeared in the glare of the headlights like a beacon and Beau tapped the brakes just enough to make the turn. They bounced down the long drive.

  Aidan pointed to the right and shouted, “There!”

  Beau stomped on the brakes, spun the wheel to the right and the truck slid to a stop. Beau yanked his door open, jumped out and hit the ground running. Aidan grunted and slid across the seat, then followed Beau at a run. Beth fumbled with the door handle, finally opened it and slid out. She reached the front of the truck and peered ahead. Beau, Aidan and an older man she didn’t recognize were highlighted in the blaze of the headlights. She walked towards the trio. The older man pulled the cowboy hat from his head and wiped his brow with his forearm, leaving a streak of red dirt across his forehead.

  As she walked towards them, the man looked at her, his scraggly gray eyebrows meeting in a V over his nose. His ruddy face was lined and his lips were curled back in a snarl.

  “And who the hell is that?” he spat, frowning at Beth.

  Beau motioned for him to calm down. “That’s Beth Jameson. The old man’s daughter.”

  The man’s voice was rough as gravel. He took a step towards Beth and snarled, “So you ain’t from around here. You bring any friends with you out here? Out to make a quick buck?”

  Beau stepped in front of Beth and put a hand flat against the older man’s chest. His voice was low, but strong and firm. “She didn’t have anything to do with this. Back off, Bert.”

  The older man snorted and turned away. He slammed the green gate shut and the metal clanged in the night air. Aidan leaned down and grabbed a length of chain from the ground. He stepped towards the gate, but Beau grabbed him by the arm and took the chain from Aidan.

  Dual creases formed as Beau’s eyebrows pushed together in a frown. He held the chain up to his nose and sniffed, then turned to examine the chain more closely in the glare of the Chevy’s headlights. With a shrug, he hung the chain back on the gate.

  He moved to stand beside Bert, who stood with one foot hung over the bottom rung of the gate. The older man leaned heavily against the metal, his shoulders drooped. Beau asked, “Are you sure they got all of them?”

  Bert shook his head, “I ain’t seen no sign of any of ‘em. Looks like the whole herd’s gone.”

  Aidan walked beside the gravel on the other side of the driveway. He called out, “Look here, boss!”

  Beau and Bert hurried across in front of the pickup, with Beth pulled along in their wake. Aidan pointed at a long trail of deep twin tire tracks in the soft dirt, “Looks like they used a semi.”

  Beau paced alongside the ruts then glanced back at the gate, “I’d say that’s over fifty, sixty, feet long. Gotta be a semi. Probably one

  of those double decker trailers to fit your whole herd in there. You didn’t hear or see anything?”

  “Dogs started raisin’ Cain an’ when I looked out the bedroom window, I saw red taillights goin’ down the drive.” His shoulders sagged as if the weight of the loss was real.

  Aidan patted the older man on the shoulder. “You’re insured, though, right?”

  The man sighed and nodded. As the two of them began to discuss the steps that needed to be taken, Beau walked along the fence, looking out into the darkness. Beth didn’t know how he could see anything out there. The full moon made the landscape glow, but there was still nothing but shadows.

  Suddenly, he shouted and ran back to the open gate. The other two men followed, Aidan at a dead run and Bert trotting behind him. Beth hesitated, but didn’t want to be left alone. As the trio began to disappear, she sighed and followed behind the older man, even though she could feel the moist ground sucking at her Coach flats.

  In the pale moonlight, she soon spotted the three men huddled around a dark mound on the ground.

  She heard Beau hiss, “Son of a bitch!”

  Bert echoed his sentiments with a loud, “Damn!”

  Aidan murmured softly, his voice cracking with emotion, “Poor thing. Poor thing.”

  As she got close, the mound began to take the shape of a cow. The poor animal’s throat had been slit and the ground was stained dark with the animal’s blood. She blinked then whirled around and put her hands on her knees as she fought to keep from getting sick.

  An arm wrapped around her waist, supporting her and comforting her. Though she expected to see Aidan, whose voice had betrayed the emotions he felt, she stood up to find Beau supporting her.

  “What—” She sucked in a deep breath and tried again, “What happened to that poor cow?”

  He sighed. “Steer. It was a steer.”

  She looked from Beau to Aidan, searching their faces for a reason. “But why? What happened?”

  Bert’s eyes blazed, then he reached down and touched the animal’s side gently. “Wasn’t no reason for them to do this. Nothing but meanness. God damned meanness.”

  Beau and Aidan shared a look, then Beau turned Beth away from the animal and guided her back towards the glowing headlights of the Chevy.

  Muffled sobs sounded from the older man. Beau looked at Aidan and jerked his head towards his truck. “I’m going to take her back to the Diamond J. You go up to the house and get—”

  Aidan fell into step on Beth’s other side. “Already ahead of ya, boss. I’ll go up to Bert’s machine shop and get the backhoe. I’ll help Bert take care of the steer.”

  As they parted ways at the open gate, Aidan said, “This is bad, boss. This is too close for comfort.”

  Beau shook his head as he looked over his shoulder at the faint outline of the old man in the field. “You have no idea.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Talk around the breakfast table the next morning focused on the stolen cattle. Beth listened to the conversation, but watched Beau. That moment they shared on the porch had been amazing, but what exactly was it? He had been drinking, and she felt vulnerable after the debacle with Quinn.

  But everyone else’s mind was on the rustling. It was worrisome enough to think about thieves in the area, but the image of that steer was burned into her mind. From the sound of Beau’s voice, he was having trouble with it, too.

  His voice was thick as he described the carnage the night before. “And poor Bert. It was all he could do to hold it together.”

  Aidan interjected, “He held it together better than I would have.”

  Beau nodded and jabbed a piece of sausage with his fork, then stuffed it in his mouth.

  Beth chewed, then swallowed and asked, “Is cattle stealing a common thing around here?”

  Charlotte answered, “It hadn’t been until just the last year or so. When times get tough, people get desperate.”

  “Crime’s crime, no matter what the times are,” Aidan grumbled. “But what they did to Bert’s steer—”

  “Was uncalled for,” Charlotte finished.

  Beau stood up, stalked to the back door and yanked it open. He turned back towards the group and said, “Sitting here talking about it doesn’t do anybody any good.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement and he slammed the door behind him. Aidan looked at Charlotte, eyebrows raised. She shrugged and began to clear the table. No one spoke. Forks and knives clanked while everyone finished their breakfast and hurried off to find work to keep them busy and out of Beau’s way. Beth hovered behind.

  She pushed away from the table and helped Charlotte scrape the dishes into the trash. “What happened was horrible, but Beau is taking
this kind of personally, isn’t he?”

  Charlotte accepted the dishes from Beth and put them in the dishwasher. “Cattle rustlin’ is personal – it messes with a rancher’s livelihood. And after these men feed and water and help birth the calves, they think of the cattle as individuals.”

  Beth emptied the crumbs from the biscuit basket into the trash. “I thought rustling was just something that happened in the old West.”

  “City people think about ranching like it is in old movies, but it’s big business ‘round these parts. And where there’s big business, there’s gonna be somebody wantin’ to steal.”

  Aidan poked his head in the back door. “I’m gonna ride the fences to look for anything that needs mended.”

  “Great – I’ll come with you,” Beth offered, eager to be useful. She also hoped to learn a little more about Beau. As she jogged down the steps, her inner thighs protested.

  Aidan slid into an odd looking vehicle, and relief swept over her. This vehicle looked rider-friendly, like a 4-wheeler on steroids, almost a truck but not quite. Even had a little truck bed.

  She laughed, “What is this?”

  He smiled a crooked grin and said, “Fun, huh? This here’s a Mule. Know why they call it a Mule?”

  She shook her head as she slid onto the bench seat, then glanced around. Beau was nowhere in sight.

  His grin widened. “Well, you know a mule is what happens when a donkey and a horse get together? Well, this is what happens when a pickup and a 4-wheeler get together!”

  The dynamic had changed. He was treating her like a colleague, almost like a friend. Perhaps she had passed some test the night before when she insisted on going along to Bert’s. Perhaps it would make Beau look at her in a different light, too.

  She turned her attention to the man to her left. “How long have you been here, Aidan?”

  The Mule lurched forward. “Several years now. Grew up in St. Louis, then moved here as soon as I was old enough to be out on my own.”

  The path along the fence was barely discernible, little more than a dual track in the tall grass. The Mule rolled along, jostling Beth. She gazed out over the ranch, the rolling hills of green pastures, dotted with grazing horses. White fences stretched in all directions. In spite of the nagging worry that she might be out of her depth, she was determined to run this place and make it hers.

  Aidan broke the silence, “You haven’t been here before, have you?”

  Beth shook her head. “No. My father and I weren’t close.”

  He nodded. “I understand.”

  How could he understand? How does a child get to the point that she doesn’t even acknowledge her own father? She had thought her life was complete and she didn’t need him, yet here she was, on his ranch, wondering what it would have been like to visit while he was alive. Wondering what she missed.

  “Really,” he insisted as he glanced over at her. “My parents disowned me when I was 19. I understand.”

  The corners of her mouth pulled back in a wry smile. Perhaps he did understand. Her therapist would probably have a field day with him, too. Dr. Hagan had told her during their last session that she needed closure, that the broken relationship with her father was the basis for her bad choices in men. He told her she was spending her entire life searching for the home that she’d never had.

  Maybe Dr. Hagan was right. Would earning her father’s inheritance give her that closure? Being here certainly made her feel closer to him. Earning that inheritance would be like she had finally earned his affections.

  The Mule lurched to a stop and Aidan hopped out, then pulled a tool from the bed of the ATV. He pointed the tool at the fence. “See that?”

  She turned to look and saw that the top of the fence had pulled away from the post. “That doesn’t look good.”

  “Nope. That’s why we gotta ride the fences on a regular basis.” Aidan pulled the woven wire tight. “This place is home now. Has been since Beau and your daddy took me in. Your daddy always treated Beau like a son, and they both made me feel like family, too.”

  “I’m glad my father was able to help.” Beth slid off of the seat and wondered if the family comment was a dig. “Now, what can I do to help?”

  “Here,” he nodded towards the wire fencing. “Pull this tight while I hook a new clip onto the post.”

  She did as she was told, but the wire cut into her bare fingers and she let go. Aidan didn’t chastise her. Instead, he reached between the seats of the Mule and produced a pair of worn leather gloves. “Here, wear these.”

  “Thanks,” she said, as she tugged the gloves on. She grasped the wire again and pulled it tight.

  Aidan slipped the clip onto the T-post and twisted with the fencing tool. “What are you going to do with this ranch if you get it?”

  Her hands dropped to her sides and she blinked, taken aback at his forwardness. “I don’t know.”

  “You going to sell it? Divide it up and sell it in pieces like what happened to the Flying B down the road?” Without looking at her, he tossed the fencing tool into the bed. “It’s none of my business, I know. Just wondering what the future might hold.”

  The clang of metal on metal made Beth flinch and she realized that he had voiced the fear that everyone on the ranch was probably feeling. Honesty was the best policy. She shrugged and said, “One step at a time. I’ve got to get through the year first.”

  He nodded, silent as she slid into the seat. After the Mule began to roll, he said, “A lot can happen in a year. What about your job at that law firm in Kansas City?”

  “I needed some time away.”

  “So the job’s still waiting for you.”

  She changed the subject by asking him about the fences, the horses and anything else she could think of. Although she tried to listen to his answers, her thoughts kept going back to his comment about family. Would he help her? Would any of the employees help her? Or were they all loyal to Beau? Certainly Aidan would tell his friend about this conversation. How would he spin it? How would Beau take it?

  Life at the ranch settled into a somewhat comfortable existence over the next few weeks, though the relative peace was punctuated by occasional calls and bouquets of red roses from Quinn. Beau disappeared on Friday and Saturday nights, likely spending his time with the blonde from the park. Both pretended the kiss on the front porch had never happened. There were more reports of cattle rustling, but all in neighboring counties.

  One morning Beth walked into the kitchen while Beau was visiting with a middle-aged man wearing a suit. The two men were huddled over the kitchen table. Beau scribbled something on a yellow legal pad, then slid it across the table. Charlotte leaned back against the kitchen sink, a red checked dishtowel clutched in her hands. Beth hesitated in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt but curious about the visitor.

  The man in the suit sat back in his chair, “I don’t see any problem with it. Just let me know when you’re ready to proceed. Always a good idea to have your ducks in a row.”

  Charlotte’s chest heaved as a sigh escaped. “You’re absolutely right. This whole situation has been trying.“

  The chair screeched across the floor as Beau shoved away from the table, “What’s done is done. We just have to play the hand we’ve been dealt.”

  Fire flashed in his eyes when he turned and saw Beth in the doorway. The other two stood open-mouthed as Beau pushed past her. Charlotte and the man in the suit looked at each other, then at Beth. For a moment, there was silence in the kitchen, except for the slow drip, drip of the leaky faucet. The man slid his chair back and pushed himself to his feet as Charlotte turned to swipe the dish towel across the countertop.

  “Better get going,” he said.

  “Right, day’s a’wastin’,” she said.

  He nodded as he squeezed past Beth, “Nice to see you, Miss Jameson.”

  The tension in the kitchen was palpable, but it didn’t end there. It flowed past her, hung in the air like cheap cologne. She turned and w
ent after Beau. She found him on the front porch, his arms on the railing and one booted foot propped on the bottom rail. Though his position was casual, there was a strain in his muscles that betrayed his feelings.

  “Beau? Are you okay?” she asked.

  The only response she got was a snort. Something was going on. She watched the man get in a silver Cadillac and pull out of the drive. It looked familiar, but she couldn’t think of anyone she’d met so far that drove a car like that.

  “Those damned rustlers,” he growled.

  “I’m here if you want to talk,” she offered.

  He snorted again, and her heart ached to comfort him. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but froze, uncertain how her touch would be received. Her hand dropped back to her side and after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, she returned to the kitchen to help Charlotte.

  “Who was that?” she asked the older woman.

  Charlotte folded the dish towel and said, “That was Clyde Rankin.”

  Beth scooted the chairs in around the table. “He looked familiar. Have I met him before?”

  “I doubt it. He’s the banker.”

  Beth’s eyebrows inched up and she looked out the window at the cloud of gravel dust kicked up by the Cadillac. She’d never met a banker before that made house calls. Was he the reason for Beau’s brusqueness, or was it the rustlers?

  Beau’s anger about the rustlers was way out of proportion. Or maybe she really didn’t get it, not being a real rancher. Whatever the case, Beth was determined not to get sidetracked by him. She had a ranch to run.

  Over the first few weeks, Beth’s days began at the crack of dawn with Katie teaching her how to take care of the horses. She learned to mix grain based on each horse’s individual needs, clean their stalls, toss hay down from the loft. Katie taught her how to clean their hooves, check them for injuries every single day. Each animal had his or her own personality, and as she worked beside the ranch workers, she found that running the ranch was complicated, but rewarding.