Unforgiven

WT let out an exasperated sigh. “Stop worrying. No one is fool enough to cross me. Not even the damned state’s attorney general.”

“If you’re so powerful, why did you insist on me leaving eleven years ago? Why didn’t you let me stay and fight the allegations? If that’s all you thought they were?”

WT shook his head and angrily shoved away his plate.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the huge dining room was the click of Cherry’s silverware as she kept eating.

Carson wished he could walk away right now and not look back. But that was no longer an option. He would need a lot of money to leave the country. If WT wouldn’t pony it up, then he needed the ranch and the money he could get for it. He thought of his sister. He had to convince WT to give him the money so he could disappear.

“Dad?” The word came at a cost after refusing to call WT that for so many years. “Dad?”

His father turned on the only other person in the room. “Cherry. That your real name? It sounds like a stage name.”

Carson swore under his breath as he watched WT take off the gloves. WT would fight as dirty as he had to get what he wanted.

His father threw him a challenging look. But he was no longer that scared kid who’d been sneaked out of Beartooth in the cover of darkness. Ginny’s murder and a target on his back had changed him. Nor did he need to come to Cherry’s defense. She could take care of herself.

Cherry slowly licked her painted lips and turned her full attention to WT. She’d chosen a hot-pink low-cut top that barely covered her nipples and white capris that cupped her toned bottom. Her dyed blond hair was piled haphazardly on top of her head with stray tendrils curling down around her face. The fake eyelashes gave her a sleepy, half-soused look, but then again, it could have been the wine she’d consumed with abandon since they’d sat down to supper.

“I’m a dancer,” she said proudly, daring him to dispute it.

“A dancer?” WT repeated and added, “And I’m a high flier on the trapeze.”

Cherry smiled. “Carson told me that his great grandfather used to be in the circus but I didn’t know you—”

“He’s making fun, Cherry,” Carson said dryly.

She narrowed her eyes at WT. “Making fun of me?”

“No,” WT said. “My son. And by the way, my grandfather rode in a Wild West Show. Not a circus.”

Carson laughed and shot a wink to his fiancée.

At the head of the table, WT bellowed for Margaret to serve dessert.

CHAPTER FOUR

RYLAN TOOK OFF IN A dust devil of anger as Destry climbed into her pickup, her legs weak, her heart aching. Seeing Rylan again had sent her already spinning-out-of-control world even further into orbit. She couldn’t look as he drove on down the road toward the W Bar G. There was no stopping him, no way to call the ranch to warn her father and brother since she hadn’t grabbed her cell phone—not that she could get service often this close to the mountains. Nor could she beat him to the ranch.

She feared not only for Carson. Her father wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a trespasser. Especially a West toting a gun.

Running into Rylan like that had been a shock, one that still reverberated through her. She couldn’t tell if the trembling in her hands as she started her truck had more to do with anger—or fear. Or those old feelings that still lingered when it came to that tall, lanky cowboy.

There’d been other men in the years since Rylan had left, even one she’d been fairly serious about, but she’d always measured them against her first love and they’d always come up short.

But did she even know this Rylan? This man so full of rage and set on vengeance at any cost?

Unable to resist it any longer, she glanced in her rearview mirror.

To her surprise, she saw Rylan hit his brake lights up the road. She watched him in the mirror, waiting and praying he’d changed his mind about confronting her brother.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t understand what was driving him. But he was wrong about Carson. Her brother had loved Ginny.

For long minutes, they sat like that, both pulled off the road fifty yards apart. Both apparently debating what to do next.

“Please, Rylan,” she said under her breath, half plea, half prayer.

She let out the breath she’d unconsciously been holding as she watched him turn his pickup around and head back in her direction. She thought he might stop again, but he didn’t.

He didn’t even look at her as he roared past in a cloud of dust headed away from the W Bar G. He’d said everything he had to say, she thought as she watched him go, her heart in her throat.

What had changed his mind? Hopefully he’d realized after he’d calmed down that the stupidest thing he could do was go to the ranch gunning for Carson.

Whatever had changed his mind, she was thankful. Not that it took care of the problem. She knew Rylan was right. He wouldn’t be the only one riled up about Carson’s return. If Carson stayed here, he wouldn’t be safe.

She sat for a moment, then leaned over the steering wheel letting all the emotions she’d bottled up the past eleven years spill out. She cried for all that had been lost to her, to both their families. Finally, drained, weak with relief and regret, she sat up and wiped her eyes. She’d been strong for so long.

For years she’d told herself she could live without Rylan. She’d moved on with her life. She was happy. At least content. But seeing him, coming face-to-face with him, hearing his voice, looking into his eyes...

He’d always been handsome, but now his body had filled out. He was broader in the shoulders, his arms sinewy with muscle, his face tanned from working outside. There were tiny lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before, but if anything, they only made him more handsome.

His hair was still thick and the color of sunshine, his eyes that honey-warm brown that she’d gotten lost in from the first time she’d looked in them. Her heart had always swelled at the sight of him. She’d never stopped loving him—just as she’d promised. Today proved what her heart already knew. She never would.

Pulling herself together, she turned the pickup around and headed back toward the ranch. Thoughts of Rylan aside, she just prayed that this new evidence would prove that Carson was innocent.

* * *

AS RYLAN HEADED home, he thought about the first time he’d laid eyes on Destry Grant. She’d come riding up with the W Bar G’s ranch foreman at a neighbor’s branding on a horse way too big for her. She would have been five at the time to his six. He recalled how serious she’d looked.

What stuck in his mind was that she’d stayed at the branding all day, cutting calves into the chute as if she was ten times her age, and later, when one of the cowboys’ hats had blown off and spooked her horse, she’d gotten bucked off and hit the ground hard. Her face had scrunched up, but she hadn’t shed a tear. She’d climbed the fence to get back on her horse and ridden off.

He’d never seen anyone so determined.

What chapped his behind now, though, was that she hadn’t changed one iota when it came to that stubborn determination and pride. He hated that, when it came to her brother, she just refused to see the truth.

He’d left eleven years ago because he couldn’t bear being around her with his sister’s death standing between them. He’d always rodeoed, but after college, he’d joined the pro circuit. It had been exactly what he’d needed—traveling from town to town across the country, never staying in one place too long. If he needed company, there were bronco and bull riders to hang out with, and if he felt in need of female attention, there were always buckle bunnies and rodeo groupies who were up for a good time.

The rodeo had helped him heal. He’d felt badly about bailing on his family, but his mother and father had two sons at home and he’d kept in touch. The only people he hadn’t wanted to hear anything about were the Grants. Especially Destry.

His family had welcomed him back with open arms and the ranch was large enough that there was plenty of room as well as work. Not that he’d have moved back into his childhood room at the ranch, even if his mother hadn’t turned it into her quilting room.

He’d moved into an old cabin on a stretch of land adjacent to the W Bar G until he could decide what he wanted to do next. The cabin had a roof he could see daylight through and that required a bucket or two when it rained, and often at night he heard mice gnawing on something under the floorboards.

Still, it was better than most of the places he’d slept in while on the rodeo circuit, and he was home.

If only he didn’t feel in such limbo. He’d saved nearly every dime he’d made rodeoing so he had options. But he feared moving ahead meant dealing with the past, something he’d put off all these years.

He swore under his breath, as frustrated with the situation between him and Destry as he’d been eleven years ago. He’d known seeing her again would be difficult. Difficult? He laughed to himself at how that word didn’t come close to adequately describing their encounter.