Brooke’s Bliss (Nights in Bliss, Colorado #15)

Prologue

Wyoming

Shane Kent pulled the gloves off his

hands as he walked into the barn. Despite the heavy, warm material, his fingers

still felt stiff. There wasn’t much that could keep a Wyoming winter from

freezing a man’s bones.

Why did it seem warmer in Colorado? He knew on an

intellectual level that it wasn’t, but the time he’d spent at Stef Talbot’s

always seemed so much warmer. Likely since in the first couple of years they’d

known the man he’d been more than happy to share his lovers with them. Stef

Talbot was Bay’s mentor when it came to art, but he’d been an excellent tutor

at other things for Shane.

Since the man had married, he’d been happy to sponsor them

at a couple of clubs, but he was far more private. Now a good deal of the

warmth Shane felt came from Stef’s wife, Jennifer, and his parents, Sebastian

and Stella. Oh, most people would call Stella Benoit-Talbot Stef’s stepmom, but

she was his mother in every way but biology.

Biology meant nothing, and Shane knew it. Not that he’d been

as lucky as Stef.

Don’t expect me to give a damn about you, you piece of

shit.

Shane took a long breath and tried to let the memory go.

He’d been five, maybe. Perhaps a bit older, but his stepmom never let him

forget that while he and Bay shared a dad, Shane was the product of her

husband’s affair.

He shook off the snow. The barn was quiet at this time of

night. He should have headed to the bunkhouse where Bay was undoubtedly sitting

on his bed sketching while the young cowpokes played cards and drank until they

passed out.

They were getting far too old for this shit.

The last piece of work Stef sold for Bay had brought in five

thousand dollars.

Which they immediately had to put into buying a new truck

since the craptastic one they’d been driving for ten

plus years finally died.

They couldn’t get ahead no matter what they did.

They were never going to get that sweet wife and house and

family that actually gave a damn. They were going to be the old men of whatever

ranch they happened to be working at. Always changing. Best he could hope for

was to find a place where they felt comfortable and work until they died.

He was almost certain it wouldn’t be Kingman Ranch.

There was something wrong here. Something felt off. Off? He

was almost certain Kale Kingman ran this ranch in fairly criminal ways and

didn’t mind getting rid of what he considered baggage.

“We have a problem.”

Shane went still at the sound of the ranch foreman talking

quietly. The voice floated down from the upper level where they kept a lot of

the feed and equipment they needed for the ranch. Kingman was a top-of-the-line

ranch with three big barns. This was the biggest and was equipped with what was

essentially an elevator so they could move heavier stock up and down from the

storage spaces.

There was a horse barn with every comfort he could imagine.

And there was that barn no one was supposed to go into.

“We always have a problem,” another voice said. Andy Mills.

He was the foreman’s right hand. Andy and Dennis were the epitome of older

career cowboys. Dennis lived in his own place next to the bunkhouse, while Andy

had the only private room in the building that housed the ten ranch hands who

lived on property. There were more who commuted in, but the hands who lived

here were considered the inner circle.

Well, except for him and Bay. They’d been told they were in

a probationary period and would be so for the first year. After that they would

consider making them real Kingman men.

At the time he thought they’d watched too much Yellowstone.

He was starting to wonder if the dudes who made Yellowstone

had gotten the idea from Kale Kingman.

“It’s the new guys,” Dennis said, and then his voice went

too low to hear.

Shane froze, and it had nothing to do with the sub-zero

temperatures outside. He stood stock-still, trying hard not to even breathe.

He’d thought about sneaking out or calling up to let them know he was here.

But he and his brother were “the new guys.”

Bay didn’t see the problems, but then Bay saw the world

through his weird-ass artist eyes and often missed the reality of situations.

While he was trying to capture the essence of a place, Shane was having to make

sure that place didn’t eat them alive.

He wished he could flip his stepmom off and let her know her

precious baby boy was only alive because the bastard saved him.

But she was dead and no longer cared. And it wasn’t like

she’d been great to Bay either. She was drunk most of the time, and when she

wasn’t taking her rage out on Shane, she was weeping to Bay about how terrible

her life was and how it was up to him to fix things, and why did he have to

spend so much time with that bastard?

“Are you sure?” Andy’s voice could be heard.

“Yeah. I don’t think the idiot knows.” Dennis’s voice came

and went, with Shane catching maybe half of it. “…witness. You know…about

witnesses.”

Witness? First, who was the idiot? It could be either of

them. It wasn’t like Dennis thought much of anyone. They were all dumbasses.

The only smart one was Meli. She’d been the only woman in the bunkhouse, and

she’d packed up and left one day, saying she decided to go home. He had no idea

why she’d left, but he was kind of jealous of her.

What would he have witnessed?

He thought briefly about the glint of metal in the boxes he

moved from the back of Dennis’s truck. He’d been helping out, lifting the heavy

box so Dennis wouldn’t have to. He hadn’t meant for the cover to slip slightly

so he saw that hint of gray, smelled the scent of gun oil.

Was that what he meant by witnessed?

Those guns could be for anything. It was a ranch. Of course

they had guns.

He’d gotten the impression they weren’t rifles.

“We need to make a run,” Dennis said with some finality.

Andy sighed. “Seriously? You honestly think that dumbass…”

Shame washed through him. How many times had he been told

how dumb he was?

Well, he wasn’t so dumb he didn’t realize what making a run

meant. He’d heard the rumors. His damn ears worked, and the other hands talked.

Oh, he’d thought it was all gossip meant to bring some drama to an otherwise

dull existence, but he was putting it all together now.

One of the things that Kale Kingman liked when hiring his

hands was no real strong family ties. At least in the men who lived on

property. He’d heard one of the hands who commuted ask why he couldn’t move out

here and Dennis had told him maybe when his momma passed on he could live here.

It seemed like nothing more than a cruel taunt at the time.

What if it was something more?

“I ain’t taking them out tonight.

I suppose we have to do both of them,” Andy said with a long-suffering sigh.

“It’s too fucking cold. You want to… Maybe you should think about waiting ’til

spring.”

Dennis snorted. “Tomorrow’s soon enough.” The sound of boots

moving across the wooden floors above crackled through the barn. He was walking

to the stairs. “Tell ’em you’re taking them into

town. Don’t make a mess.”

“Damn it, they’re good,” Andy said.

“One of them is, but unfortunately, I don’t think he’s going

to stay on after his brother disappears. It’s precisely why I advised Kale to

not hire fucking brothers,” Dennis shot back. “Tomorrow.”

Shane slipped out of the barn, his gut in knots.

He’d fucked it up again, and this time it could cost Bay his

life.

He moved through the snow, circling around the barn so it

would look like he was coming in from the north field where he’d been repairing

a fence. He prayed his face didn’t give away the panic he felt.

* * * *

Bailey Kent stared at his brother. “What do you mean

they’re…”

Shane slapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes going wide. “Shhh. I don’t care if it seems like everyone is sleeping.

You know this place has ears on at all times.”

It was two in the morning, and his brother had been acting

completely weird since he’d come back in from the north field. He’d been weird

through dinner and hadn’t wanted to play cards with the others. He’d barely

touched his beer, and Shane was coming to love his beer more and more. It kind

of worried him how much beer his brother could go through lately, but Shane not

even finishing one was concerning.

He was pretty sure his brother wasn’t going on a health

kick. He had his “it’s all about to fall apart” face on. He’d had that

expression on his face way too often the last couple of years.

Not that anyone else seemed to notice, but then that might

be because Shane didn’t have a ton of facial expressions. He was a stoic dude.

Still, Bay couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t close to his brother, so he

could tell. He could sometimes feel when Shane was in turmoil.

They were only half brothers, but they almost never

mentioned that to people. When some folks they met thought they were twins,

they never corrected them. Just because they hadn’t shared a womb didn’t mean

they didn’t share everything else.

“We need to get out of here,” Shane said in a whisper. He

was kneeling beside Bay’s bed. Bay always took the lower bunk and Shane took

the top. Like when they were kids and he made Shane sleep on the top bunk so it

was harder for his mom to come in drunk off her ass and start beating on him.

She was short, and Shane had learned to sleep close to the wall.

Bay blinked, trying to wake up. It looked like he was going

to need all of his faculties to deal with whatever had Shane’s panties in a

wad. “We should talk about this in the morning.”

They had so much work to do and it would be cold as hell,

and all he wanted to do was go back to sleep because sometimes when he dreamed

he saw her.

“We are leaving tonight.” Even at a whisper he could hear

the finality in Shane’s tone. That was his “we’re going to do my will” voice.

Bay bit back a groan and started to slide out of bed as

quietly as possible. It didn’t take long to pack since they lived like college