Chapter 1 #2
I'd been fourteen, old enough to notice things. The way Mom had jumped at sounds. How she’d kept looking out the windows like trouble was coming and only she could see it. The way she’d looked at Dad, like she despised him.
Then she’d vanished. Dad said she'd packed her bag and left us. No matter how many times we’d asked what had happened, he'd just repeated the same line. “Don't know, but she ain't comin' back so get used to it.”
Shoving those shitty memories from my brain, I grabbed my ledgers and headed to my office. A warm, buttery scent drifted down the hallway, and my stomach grumbled.
Bella was baking cupcakes again.
Hopefully, they were those lemon ones she'd made the other day with that creamy icing. Then again, everything she made was amazing.
Just like Bella.
She'd only been at Koolaroo about two weeks, but there was a mysteriousness about her that had gotten under my skin. She smiled with her whole face when she was in the kitchen. But sometimes, her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. There was a shadow there, deep and wary.
Resisting the temptation to check out what she was cooking, and check her out, I strode to my office, plonked the ledgers onto the desk, dropped into the chair, and cracked open the top book.
Same story as yesterday. Same story as last month.
Koolaroo was in financial trouble.
Feed costs were climbing. Cattle prices were dropping.
To top it all off, some loan shark greasy enough to slide under a closed door had been hounding me for overdue payments on a loan Frank had taken out three years ago.
The first time I’d heard about it was when the bastard had marched through our open front door like he owned the place.
I had no clue what Dad used the hundred grand for, but he'd needed it fast, and now we were being strangled by interest rates and payment plans that should be illegal.
I ran the numbers again, hoping I'd missed something.
Nope. I hadn't.
Even if we sold half the Brahman herd, we'd barely cover this quarter's payments. Maybe not even that. Frank had known we were in financial trouble. I'd told him dozens of times, but he’d always brushed me off, making one bullshit statement after the other.
Maybe that's why he’d pissed off and left, before the shit really hit the fan. He had told me never to discuss the finances with my brothers and sister, had said they didn't know numbers like I did. He’d acted like I was some kind of magician who could make money just appear on the books.
Mitch and Cassidy had asked me to ride out with them yesterday. Said we needed to look for our old man together. Cass said it would be good to hang out under the stars, like we'd done together before Mitch had nicked off to the army a decade ago.
I told them I had bookwork that needed to be done, which was true. Someone had to keep this financial house of cards from collapsing. But the real reason, which made no damn sense, was that I'd imagined I could keep Bella company.
It was a pathetic pipedream. She was well out of my league.
Clenching my jaw, I shrugged off the bullshit and opened another spreadsheet on my computer, forcing my mind back to the numbers. I'd completed the profit and loss statement for last month this morning. Thank Christ Dad wasn't here to see it.
Then again, Dad could be dead.
And that brought a whole set of problems I didn't want to think about.
Another whiff of vanilla curled into my office, and I salivated. Shoving away from the desk, I decided to see if I could steal a cupcake. The last two times I'd done that, Bella had pretended to scold me, but then she’d smiled, and I knew she liked it.
Tires crunched on the driveway outside. Frowning, I turned toward the window. We weren't expecting anyone, and people rarely arrived at Koolaroo unannounced.
Maybe it was Bob Ackerman, the police chief from Winton Police Station. Mitch and the others could've called him if there was something to report. I checked my phone, wondering if I'd missed a call.
Nope.
Then again, the area they’d ridden to had no signal.
I moved to the window to see if I recognized the car.
I didn't.
The black Dodge Charger wasn't the kind of car normally driven to our ranch. The car was completely out of place among the trucks and work vehicles that populated our yard. It was a wonder that thing had made it over the hundreds of miles of corrugated dirt road to get here.
The dusty Charger stopped out front, and the windshield reflected the afternoon sun, making it impossible to see whoever was inside. They took a few moments to open their doors, and for some reason, that rattled me.
Finally, two men climbed out, wearing dark suits and white button-down shirts that immediately set my teeth on edge. Their fancy shoes had no business on sunburned land like ours. Even their hair was slicked back like they'd stepped out of a different decade entirely.
Wrong. All wrong.
The kind of wrong that made the hair lift on the back of my neck, and my pulse kick into a higher gear.
I'd had my share of bank managers and loan sharks arriving unannounced over the years. I could recognize their kind. They smiled at you while they cut your knees out from under you.
Usually, this was where I'd call on Dad or Kayden to sort them out. Frank had a knack for making unwanted guests piss off, and not always without spilling blood.
As they walked toward the front steps, they scanned the ranch house with the kind of systematic attention that spoke of training and purpose. That made me scrap the idea that they were from the bank.
This was much worse.
I contemplated staying inside, pretending nobody was home. But we never locked our doors. If these guys wanted in, they'd get in. I couldn't even call Mitch or Kayden for backup.
I walked down the hallway to the front door, bracing myself for a confrontation I didn't want to have.
I stepped through the open doorway. “You blokes lost?”
The men halted on the bottom step, and the taller of the two smiled in a way that was both surprisingly pleasant and bloody creepy. “Are you Mr. Branson?” His voice was smooth and cultured with an Italian accent. He spread his hands in a gesture of openness that somehow felt like a threat.
“Who are you?” I said, dodging the question. Anyone who drove this far knew there was a Branson somewhere on this land.
“We apologize for arriving unannounced.” The words rolled off his tongue like honey. “But we’re here to see our sister, Bella.”
My heart stumbled.
Bella's family?
The other man had a scar that ran through his left eyebrow, missing his eye by a bee's dick. He was lucky he wasn't blind. “We’ve come a very long way to see her.”
Their reason for being here should have brought relief. Bella never talked about her family or her hometown. She’d just shown up one day, asking for work, all nervous energy and sweet smiles, and started baking like her life depended on it.
But I'd experienced enough of Frank's mind games and Kayden's cover-ups when one of his disasters came undone to know when someone was bullshitting me. And I had a feeling these two blokes were lying.
But maybe this would make Bella smile for real. Maybe it would chase that permanent sadness from her eyes, which made me constantly want to ask if she was okay.
I swallowed the unease, trying to find logic in the suspicion twisting my gut. Maybe it was just the way they were dressed. Or the inappropriate car they’d chosen to drive all the way out here.
Maybe I was so used to strangers only bringing bad news that I'd forgotten not everyone came with an agenda.
I offered my hand. “I'm Declan Branson.”
The tall one took my hand first. His grip was firm, controlled. “A pleasure.” He didn't offer his name.
The scarred one shook next. His hand was calloused, but his grip was weirdly soft. Like his hands were made for violence, and he was deliberately restraining it. Again, he didn't give his name.
“Is Bella here?” the scarred one asked.
“Yeah, can we see her?” the tall one added, taking another step forward.
That single step made my hackles rise. Too eager. Too aggressive.
“Yeah, she's here,” I said. But I didn't elaborate.
I should've asked more questions. Should've demanded to see identification or called someone. But these were her brothers. Family. Maybe they were who she'd been missing. The reason for that lost look in her eyes.
So, I gestured toward the house, setting something into motion that felt like an unmanned bulldozer rolling downhill.
They walked behind me, close enough that I could smell their potent cologne that seemed so out of place. Their proximity crawled up my spine like a warning.
Maybe I was just paranoid. They were Italian. Maybe they treated personal space differently over there. Maybe I was reading menace into nothing more than cultural differences.
I led them to the dining room instead of the kitchen. “Take a seat,” I said, forcing what I hoped passed for a smile. “I'll tell her you're here.”
“We're fine,” the tall one said.
“We just want to see our sister.”
“So you said.” I kept my tone level, drawing on the many times Dad had put me in my place with just one glance. “Stay here. I'll get her.”
The tall one raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “Yes, yes, of course. Sorry, we're just excited to see her. It's been a while.”
“Does she know you're coming? She didn't mention—”
“No, no.” The tall one let out a chuckle that didn't reach his eyes. “We like to surprise our little sis. It's tradition in our family, yes?”
The scarred one nodded, but his attention was on scanning the room. Like he was cataloging doors and exits.
Like a man who expected trouble.
Or was planning to cause it.
My jaw tightened. This felt wrong. They felt wrong. But I couldn’t tell them to piss off just because they were making me uncomfortable. They were her family. She'd been so alone here, so haunted. Maybe this was exactly what she needed.
“You okay?” the tall one asked, his smile pleasant but his eyes watchful.
“Yeah. Fine.” I forced myself to nod. “Just surprised, that's all. Bella never mentioned she had brothers coming.”
“Like we said. Surprise.”
The word hung in the air like a threat.
I turned, and my boots sounded heavy on the floorboards as I headed toward the kitchen. Bella hummed a tune that drifted down the hallway, some melody that sounded both sweet and sad.
I'd screwed up plenty of things in my life.
I hoped to hell this wasn't about to be on the top of the list.