Chapter 3
Colt
SEVEN YEARS LATER, PRESENT DAY…
I was a grumpy bastard. Was officially diagnosed by my family long before my own friends fucking agreed.
Not that I cared. I’d known it my whole goddamn life, and I wasn’t shy about showing people just how grumpy I could be.
But as the firstborn son of a ranching family in Texas, yeah, you better believe that hard ass attitude was drilled into me every waking moment of my entire childhood.
Now, that childhood was well over thirty years behind me, but as a deputy with the Clarence County Sheriff’s Department, it still served me well.
“You’re a dick, Colt.” Lucas Mandarano thrashed back and forth in my hands as I led him towards the cell he’d be spending the weekend in.
“I’m not the idiot who got drunk at noon and started a fight at Davney’s, now am I?
You’re lucky Gunner and Gage stepped in when they did.
Heard you were fixin’ to throw a stool through a window—and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that could have easily caught you a third degree felony charge. ”
“Fuck them, and fuck you, too.”
“Mm. Enjoy your stay at Casa Clarence County. It’s going to be a lovely weekend outside, fall’s really setting in. Too bad you’ll be stuck in here with a fucking terrible hangover.”
I slammed the cell door a little louder than necessary, chuckling at the grumbles coming from Lucas. It made up for the fact that my shift was meant to be over an hour ago.
“Colt, you got a minute?” My boss, Hank Porter, stood with his arms across his chest. Hank wasn’t the warmest person, either, but ever since his wife Daisy came into his life, he smiled from time to time.
It still was eerie as shit when it happened.
I no longer had my wife, so smiling wasn’t something I had to worry about anymore.
“Yeah, of course. What’s going on?”
“I figured we could do our turnover brief now. I know you’re on your way out the door, but since you have to be back here bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow at 7:00 AM, I figure it’s now or never.”
Right. Turnover. Hank was leaving for two weeks…a family vacation with his wife and kids. And as the chief deputy, that meant I was taking over in his absence. I tried not to groan.
Sure, each promotion was nice. But I hated dealing with bureaucracy. Put me in the field. Let me investigate. Let me break up bar fights. Hell, let me write speeding tickets. Just get me out of the damn office.
“You look like I’m about to put you in front of a firing squad,” Hank laughed.
“Nah. Just a long shift. I’m looking forward to sleep.”
“Aright, let’s get this briefing underway so you can get outta here as fast as possible.”
Two hours later, my mid-shift was finally over. I’d have a few hours to flip my body back to day shift mode, instead of the weird hours I’d been working over the last week. Because in the morning, I’d be expected to report back to the department to attend to everything Hank normally took care of.
I groaned, my feet pounding against the pavement as I walked towards my truck. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Hank couldn’t have something to fill me in on already, could he?
No. It wasn’t Hank. Pete Murphy was calling me.
Weird, because it was the middle of the month.
My stomach soured for a second, thinking something bad might have happened to Violet.
Her dad and I still talk to each other about once a month when I go check on his old place right down the road from my family’s ranch, but there was no reason he should be calling me today.
“Pete. Everything okay?” I asked as I answered the call.
“Colt! I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time?”
“No, not at all. I’m just heading home from work.”
“Oh good. Good. Look, I was hoping maybe you could swing by the cabin today. You know, the Logans called me last week and said there had been some break-ins recently on our road. I’ve got someone who wants to use the place for a while and just want to make sure they’ll be safe there.”
“Someone?” My heart rate doubled as I hopped into the cab of my truck. Please tell me she’s coming home. Tell me she’s finally coming back to me.
“Yeah, you know how it is. I barely ever get down there anymore. Figured someone else might as well get some use out of it. Let me know if there’s any damage, okay, son?”
I loved that he still called me that, even as I crossed over into my forties and hadn’t technically been a part of his family in years.
“Of course, I’ll let you know what I find. There is a great security firm here in Silver Springs that I can recommend if you are looking for a security system. Could remotely monitor things from your favorite golf course in Arizona.”
He laughed. “That sounds awesome. I’ll have to look them up when I figure out how to use my tablet. Got that damn thing for Christmas last year, and I still can’t work it. Anyway, thanks, Colt.”
“Any time, Pete.”
Damn. It wasn’t Violet. I shook my head, trying to clear away a lifetime of memories as I headed out to her parents’ place.
She hadn’t grown up in Silver Springs like I did.
My whole life was spent out on the Silver Ridge Ranch.
As the eldest son of the town’s founding family, I think everyone was shocked when I went into law enforcement.
My family knew I loved living on the ranch, but I wouldn’t be happy ranching my days away.
No. That was something my brother Beau enjoyed. And sometimes my sister Jessie—the baby of our family—would help out, too, with all the misfit animals she collected over the years.
I drove past my mom’s diner. Yes, Dolly’s was the best place to eat at in Silver Springs, and no, I wasn’t biased because she’s my mom.
And nine out of ten people in town would agree with me.
My family’s legacy was all over this town.
Hell, it wasn’t just the diner—the main street through Silver Springs was named Ford Avenue after my family: the Fords.
My brother, Lachlan, owned an auto body shop, though it had been closed for years since his accident.
My other brother Hayes was a firefighter.
Our grandparents had once run the mercantile in town, and they’d be rolling in their graves if they knew it was now a shared office space.
Even with the reminders of my family all throughout this town, every time I drove through, I still saw the reminders of her.
Reminders of her at the middle school, where we met the first day after she transferred into my seventh grade class—also known as the best day of my life—until our first kiss later in high school that happened in the hay loft of my family’s barn.
Christ. Vi wasn’t back. I didn’t need this goddamn trip down memory lane. I turned the radio up, but completely tuned it out the closer I got to the cabin.
We were lucky; being best friends who lived only two miles down the road from each other had its perks.
It really became fun when we were teens and could sneak out to meet up at the springs my family kept just for swimming in.
They were separate from the spring that everyone came to get drinking water from, and Vi and I would go skinny dipping under the moonlight.
Yes. The very springs the town of Silver Springs were named after were on the Silver Ridge Ranch. Most people in town stopped into the well house that was down the road, across the street from the twenty or so acres all our houses were spread across.
The springs fed cold, crystal clear water to the well house, and the water had been a nickel a gallon for almost a hundred years. My great-great grandpa had sworn that the water was healing. And I’d believed the legend myself.
Right up until the water hadn’t helped Vi. I hadn’t had a drop of the stuff since.
My fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly I felt the ache in my teeth. Christ. Why the hell was I getting myself so worked up on memories?
I flipped on the turn signal, jostling down the driveway faster than I probably should have. Pete was right. There were a string of break-ins recently, and I should have come and checked out here myself before he had to call me.
Parking my truck next to the line of trees surrounding the driveway, I hopped down. A quick walk around the cabin showed everything still secured from when I was here two weeks before. The wind picked up, cold enough that I tightened my jacket around myself.
Novembers in East Texas really were a mixed bag, but this year, it felt colder than normal.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
“Ford,” I answered.
“Hey, you got plans tonight?” my brother Hayes asked.
“Other than getting my old ass to bed for a few hours so I can flip to days, nope. Not a thing. Thought you’d be heading into the firehouse.”
“Nah. Finally got a night off. Beau was thinking about bunking with the guys out at the bunkhouse, but I convinced him we’d be fun company, too. I’m gonna grab a couple of steaks and some beer from my place, and then I figured we could head to Lach’s.”
“Yeah. Okay. Did you ask Jessie and Hawk?”
“It’s kind of a brothers only event.”
“You’re almost forty. It’s just a family dinner at this point. Don’t you want to see Beckett?”
“Of course I do. But Jessie’s on a tear about not swearing around him. I can’t deal with it tonight. We got shit we need to address with Lach, anyway. You’re going to see Jessie this week for your dinner with them. What’s the difference?”
That was true. My sister, her husband, and my nephew came to dinner once a week at my place. It was a tradition Jessie had started after Violet left, and now that they were all living on the ranch, it was something I looked forward to every week.
“Yeah, shit. Fine. But I’m telling Jess I wanted to include her, and that you froze her out.”
I closed the cabin door behind me, setting my hat on the counter before I marched over to the thermostat and turned the furnace on. The house was at sixty-three degrees, which wasn’t terrible, but that probably wasn’t going to be comfortable for whoever was coming.
The low battery alarm started flashing.
“Cold. That’s just mean, Colt. You’re in a pissy mood today, aren’t you?”
I opened the first drawer in the kitchen, trying to remember where I stored the batteries from the last time I changed them out.
“Damn it.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Look, I gotta go. But I’ll see you at your house later, okay?”
“Alright.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and tucked it back in my pocket.
The first drawer was a bust, but I hit the jackpot with the second drawer.
It only took a minute to swap out the batteries, and I could already feel the cabin warming up as I walked around, checking on the rooms. Everything was exactly how I’d left it at the beginning of the month.
I grabbed my hat off the counter and a flash of silver out the window caught my eyes. Perfect. Whoever was staying looked like they made it, just in time for me to have to say hi.
I stepped out onto the porch, and time stood still.
My throat closed up and I shoved down the urge to cough.
My mind must’ve been playing tricks on me, because there, standing with her eyes closed and her face tilted towards the sun, her beautiful red hair cascading down her back so far it disappeared behind the car between us, was the one person I’d been dying to see every day for the last seven years.
“Violet?”