Chapter One
Beau
Present day. Hallow Ranch. Hayden, Co.
“Come on, boy,” I ordered, kicking my feet back as I snapped the reins, urging Spirit to move. The mustang grunted, giving me attitude before moving, carrying me across pasture two. The sun was high today, the unbearable summer heat surrounding this land. The herd was moving slower today, hundreds of black cattle brushing against each other as Lance led the herd with his brother Lawson on the right side of it. Mags, another Hallow Ranch cowboy, was on the left side, urging the herd to shift to the right so we could corral them into pasture four. Denver, my boss and owner of Hallow Ranch, was at the back of the herd, keeping everything in line.
I remained on the outskirts of the pasture, waiting for one of the cows to break away from the herd. They were restless, had been for the last week since getting their vaccines.
“Beau!”
I looked over to Denver as he whistled for me, and jerked his head, his face hidden underneath the shadow of his hat.
“Let’s go, lazy ass,” I muttered to my horse, who had stopped for a second time, guiding the beast into a light trot. As I drew closer to the herd, my ears were filled with the pounding of their hooves, my nostrils filled with the smell of cow shit, the hot summer air thick around me.
This was home.
There would never be any other place like it.
As I got closer, I lifted my chin to Denver.
“What is it?” I asked, stopping Spirit to stand in front of Denver’s horse, Ranger.
Denver turned his head, his sunglasses pointed my way, but I knew his eyes weren’t on me. They were on the tree line behind me. “You see anything out there this morning?” he asked.
“A grizzly,” I answered. “Small, though. Not fully grown.” Denver muttered something under his breath, forcing me to add, “He was on the edge of the ranch, Denver. He’s probably looking for a female.”
“Let’s hope.”
Every morning, if the weather allowed it, I hiked up Denver’s mountain and watched the sunrise. It was a ritual I’d had for over ten years—even when I wasn’t working here.
“What else is on your mind, Den?” I asked, studying him. He was my boss, but he was also my family. Over the years, I’d learned how to read him, although not as well as Mags or his brother, Mason. Denver had been quiet all morning and didn’t stop by the bunkhouse for his second cup of coffee like he usually did. He would have one with his wife in the early morning, and then he’d have one with all of us.
Something was eating at him.
“It doesn’t feel right,” he answered, still looking at the tree line.
I shifted in my saddle, the hair on the back of my neck rising. “What doesn’t feel right?”
“Something is coming,” he said. The crack of a whip in the distance snapped him out of it, and he shook his head.
Clearing my throat, I twisted my torso, looking over to the herd. “When do we go to auction?”
“End of September.”
I nodded, looking over to Lawson as he called a cow, hollering, his voice echoing across the pasture.
“How’s your father doing?”
Denver’s question took me aback, and I found myself facing him again, my shoulders tense. “He’s doing just fine,” I told him. My father also worked for Hallow Ranch, and was one of John Langston’s best friends. That was, until the dark truth about my boss’ father came to light a couple years ago.
“His week is almost up,” the cowboy noted, still watching the herd.
Every year, my father took a week-long vacation outside of Colorado to visit the only woman he’d ever loved—my mother. I said nothing, staring at Denver. I could practically see the wheels turning in his head.
“You think he’s going to come back this time?” he finally asked.
My jaw tightened as I looked to the mountain, staring at the bare trees. A couple years ago, a man set this side of the mountain on fire—with Denver’s woman trapped in the forest—and the land was still healing. Denver had gotten Valerie out, thank God. Hopefully by next spring, we would see the trees bloom again. Until then, the scar was still there, reminding us all of that dark day.
“I don’t know,” I said, the truth slipping from my lips easily. “You know he’ll never leave this place, let alone me.”
Denver grunted, resting his hands on the horns of his saddle. “You’re thirty-one years old.”
“You’re thirty-six, almost seven, asshole,” I shot back. “Age has nothing to do with it.”
His lips twitched. “What I meant was, you’re a grown man. Maybe it’s time for the old man to let go.”
“You and I both know he won’t.”
“Want me to make him?” Denver offered.
Without looking away from the herd, I said calmly, “You fire my father, I’m shooting you in the kneecaps.”
A rough, deep chuckle came from him then. “You’d be dead before you pulled out your pistol, pretty boy.” He clicked his tongue, urging his horse forward. “Come on. We have work to do.”
I stared at his back as Ranger carried him towards the herd, an uneasy feeling swimming in my gut.
What was coming to Hallow Ranch?
“This is stupid,” the boy mumbled at the bunkhouse table, staring down at his open textbook. He had his fingers weaved through his thick, black locks, his mouth twisted in frustration.
I shook my head, removing my hat and setting it on the hook next to my bunk. The workday was done, and the sun had begun her slow descent below the horizon. “Caleb, you chose to do this,” I reminded Denver’s son. He was nearly a teenager now, and somehow, Valerie convinced him to take summer school courses so he’d be able to graduate high school early.
“It sounded like a good idea at the time,” he shot back, glaring at me with his gray eyes, the same as his daddy’s.
I shot him a smirk before pulling my t-shirt over my head, ready to take a cold shower. “It’s a great idea, kid.” I tossed the shirt into the hamper next to my bunk. “I never said it wasn’t.”
Caleb groaned, leaning his head back so he could stare at the ceiling.
“Why are you in here anyway?” Lance asked as he emerged from the shower in just a towel, his tanned skin on display as he rubbed his secondary towel through his hair.
A second later, we could hear his brother shout from the bathroom. “Motherfucker, did you take my towel?”
Lance grinned as I chuckled. “He’s going to kill you one day.”
“Agreed,” Caleb said with a laugh.
“He can’t live without me,” Lance argued. “I’m his favorite brother.”
“Bitch, you’re my only brother,” Lawson yelled. “Bring me my towel, or Caleb gets to see what a real man looks like.”
Caleb looked at me, raising a brow. “I thought you said Lawson’s balls hadn’t dropped yet?”
Lance threw his head back on a rich howl of laughter as I looked to the ceiling of the bunkhouse. “Jesus, kid,” I muttered with a chuckle. When I looked back at the boy, I threw my hand out. “That was said in secret,” I said over Lance’s laughter.
Caleb shrugged, and Lawson screamed for his brother again. Thankfully, Lance gave in and walked back into the bathroom. “Hurry up,” I ordered. “I want to fucking shower in peace today.”
The bunkhouse door opened then, and Mags stepped in, his black cowboy hat in hand.
“Hey, Mags,” Caleb greeted happily. “You coming up to the house for dinner?”
Mags hung his hat up on a nail by the door and went to the sink, washing his hands. “Nah, bud. Maybe some other time, yeah?” he rumbled as he turned to face the table, drying his hands.
His dark eyes met mine. “You got a minute?”
I nodded. “After my shower, yeah.”
“I can wait.”
Lance came out of the bathroom, still chuckling as he went to his bunk and dresser. “Mags,” he greeted as he pulled on a pair of Wranglers. His brother emerged, his jaw tight as he stared at the back of his twin’s head, clearly contemplating murder.
“Be out in three,” I told Mags as I grabbed my shower bag.
Once I was in the bathroom, I undressed and stepped into the shower on the far left, the same on I used every day. As the water ran down my back, my muscles aching, I muttered, “I really need to get a new place.”
An hour later, I was sitting with Mags on the front porch of his cabin, a glass of whiskey in my hand, watching the sunset. The front door opened, and my friend stepped out onto the porch. We both sat there silently in the rockers, boots up on the railing.
Then, as the sky darkened into a purple, highlighted with oranges and pinks, he spoke. “When are you going into Denver again?”
I inhaled a deep breath, dropping my boots to the porch. “Whenever you want me to.”
“So you weren’t planning on it this weekend?” he asked casually.
I leaned forward, letting the glass hang between my knees. “No. I wasn’t.”
He said nothing, but then again, he never fucking had to. I ignored the pain in my chest and raised the glass to my lips, letting the burn of the whiskey take over. “Thanks for dinner,” I said, changing the subject.
A deep, short chuckle came from him. “It was just a fucking steak, Beau.”
I looked over to him, noting how relaxed he looked. “You have a hard time accepting gratitude, don’t you?”
His dark eyes sliced to me. “You have a hard time taking the leap, don’t you?” The question came out cool and calm, but all it did was piss me off.
“Is that why you wanted me over here? To talk about my failed love life?”
Mags didn’t move—not a single inch. He wasn’t fazed by my anger. “It’s been six years,” he reminded me.
I scoffed and threw the rest of my whiskey back. “I’m not talking about this with you.”
“Well, who else are you going to talk about it with?” he pressed. “No one else knows about the pain you’re in. You spend the majority of your time hiding it.”
Closing my eyes, I bite down, feeling the muscle in my jaw jump. “I know that.”
“Then do I need to remind you of the night you snuck out of the bunkhouse with a bottle of Jack and a gun? Who followed you out into that field and talked you off the ledge?”
Leave it to Mags to get straight to the point.
When I didn’t answer, he clipped, “Tell me who, Beau.”
I bent my head, letting out a breath. “You did, Mags.”
“Right. I also forced you to tell me everything about her. Remember that?”
Twisting my neck, I looked over at him once more. “I remember everything,” I murmured.
His eyes flashed, and he looked back to the field. “Today has been six years. That’s why I asked you over, dumbass, not to help me with the fence. I can handle my own fucking fence.”
“Remember when you first got to Hallow Ranch ten years ago and you barely spoke a word to anyone?” I quipped. “Can we go back to that?”
He didn’t even blink. “Yeah, right after you tell me what’s going through your fucking head so I know you’re alright.”
I looked away from him, studying the mountain. “I’m okay, Mags.” I blew out a breath, feeling my chest deflate. There was no use in trying to hide it from him. The fucker was like the world’s best detective. He could read anyone like an open book, and it pissed me off.
The man had enough demons, but he wanted to fight everyone else’s.
“You haven’t gone to Denver in a while,” he noted.
I looked down at my feet, jaw tight. “Haven’t needed to.”
“Haven’t needed to or haven’t wanted to?”
God fucking dammit.
I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to talk about it, trying to stall this conversation for as long as I could. If I was a smart man, I would just get up and fucking leave. I wasn’t being held here against my will, and I didn’t have to tell Mags anything. We both knew that, and yet? My ass was still planted in his fucking rocking chair. A few more minutes passed before I answered his question.
“I haven’t needed to,” I repeated, swirling my glass slowly.
Every other weekend or so, the boys and I would head into Denver to let off some steam. The twins did it to get laid, fucking whoever they could and leaving the next morning. I always started off the nights with them, going to a bar or two but not drinking much. Then, halfway through the night, we would part ways and I’d go to Brandy’s Coffeehouse. I’d stay there until two am when it closed, sitting in her favorite spot and sipping her favorite latte. Over the last six years, it was the only way I could be close to her without invading her life.
Then, when the coffeehouse closed, I would drive across the city to the neighborhood where we’d talked about starting a life and park in front of the house I wanted to buy her. It was vacant, had been for year. It needed a ton of renovations to make it livable again, but I would’ve done it. I would’ve busted my ass to make that pile of rubble into a home for her—for us.
“Do you think you could move on?” Mags asked, lifting his glass to his mouth.
A huff escaped me, a sound mixed with disbelief and a shred of hope. “There’s no moving on from a woman like her, brother. She was my one and only.”
We left the conversation with that, sitting in silence for a little while longer until the sun was finally set. I rose from my seat and grabbed my hat from the porch post, flipping it onto my head as I set my empty glass down beside his on the small table between the chairs.
“I need to hit the sack, man,” I said, walking past him.
He grunted a reply and rose from his seat as well, holding his hand out to me. “You sure you’re okay?”
I took it, giving it a firm shake as I clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I’m alright.” I walked down the porch steps, heading to my truck. “What’s that stupid saying? Time heals all wounds?” I called out over my shoulder.
“That’s a damn myth,” he replied, his voice echoing through the night.
I looked back at him. “Then I guess we’re both shit out of a luck.”
The sound that came from him next sounded awfully close to a chuckle. “Guess so.”
I got into my truck, fired up the engine, and drove through the ranch, heading for the bunkhouse. I parked around back and got out, my boots crunching the gravel underneath them as I rounded the building. I stopped on the side, leaning back against it. My eyes focused on the gravel, a partially lit from the flood lights of the barn.
In my distant memories, I could hear the gunshots. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Always three.
Two was never enough, and four was too much.
Minutes passed as I stared at the spot--the execution spot of Hallow Ranch. Aside from the profit we brought in from the cattle, we also offered protection, the kind law enforcement couldn’t provide. Whenever there was a problem in town—a threat to the people—the sheriff would call Denver. It was a longstanding deal—-under the table, of course, but no one batted an eye.
The last life we’d taken had been a business man from the city. He’d sexually assaulted some teenage girls in an alley on Main one weekend, and the next, he brought his buddies into town. We took care of the first one, and then a few weeks later, Valerie was attacked. Denver flew into town in a rage and killed the man in cold blood.
Three shots.
Three bullets.
Another soul reaped by a dark cowboy.
I’d gotten there just in time to see the fucker drop. I also had the pleasure of burning the body and spreading his ashes on the mountain. We hadn’t killed since, but Hayden had been a peaceful town after we’d taken care of the pipeline tycoon hellbent on destroying Hallow Ranch.
Still, Denver’s words from earlier echoed in the back of my mind.
Something is coming.