Chapter Thirteen
Jory slept and Calhoun palmed his keys. Kai rose up expectantly from his bed, looked at Jory and then cocked his head at Calhoun. He’d always loved that expression on Kai’s face. There was eagerness, but a touch of cynicism as if Kai thought Calhoun’s idea was ill-conceived, but as his ride or die, he’d always give his best.
Relief that Kai had made it washed through him and he squatted to give the dog some love. This morning’s errand wasn’t dangerous. His gaze lit on Jory, naked, hair all over her face, sprawled across the bed. She looked cute and tempting and abandoned, and for a moment, he imagined joining her.
A nap.
He rose up, wincing now that Jory wasn’t awake to see him and, after a pause, he snagged the wrap and Velcroed it tightly around his ribs. After another pause, he wrote Jory a note. It felt weird to share where he was going. He’d never done it with a woman before. He just left.
As he drove back into town, his mind seesawed about the note. Had he done the right thing? Would he have told one of the Coyotes? Unlikely. But he and Jory had crashed through more than one barrier, and leaving the note had felt necessary.
“Don’t overthink. It’s just sex.”
Excellent sex. Amazing sex. But still sex, yet as he heard his excuse, it rang hollow. Jory was more than a bed romp, and he was going to have to wrestle his doubts about keeping it simple back into a dark corner of his mind.
“Head in the game,” he murmured, something Jace had often said as if top-secret missions that could blow your body to bits at every second were some sick game.
Two hours later, armed with pictures on his phone and a few hard copies and a raging headache, Calhoun loaded two bags of clothes from the western-wear store into his truck, and googled directions to the Telford Ranch. He’d been invited for lunch and a meeting with Rohan and his dad to discuss the caretaker position, ranching needs and potential for cattle rustling. It made him feel like he’d slipped back a century or two.
He frowned at the shopping bags that Kai sniffed suspiciously. Rohan had texted him a ‘supply list’ that he’d want ‘if you choose to accept this mission.’ He’d even included the Mission Impossible theme music.
It was weird to see the former, almost silent, sniper whose countenance had usually had the expressiveness of a granite wall be so playful.
But now he had two more pair of jeans, a Carhartt vest and barn jacket, four western-style plaid shirts, work cowboy boots instead of the fancy ones Wolf had bought all of them to commemorate Jace, and a Stetson that he wore angled down on his forehead to block the sun. He probably looked like he was cosplaying a cowboy.
The manager, Joanie, had teased him a little, asked if he’d model for the shop’s social media, and he’d had to stifle the temptation to rip her phone out of her hand.
His quiet ‘No’ had unsettled her—probably something about his delivery, and the alarm that had flashed in her eyes had had him moving across the store and picking out a few more Henley-style shirts that he hadn’t planned on purchasing. He hadn’t meant to scare her, but he didn’t do social media for a reason.
He still didn’t feel comfortable with so many purchases. Calhoun had lived light for so long, and he didn’t have any specific plans, other than waiting to see how his submitted auction bid worked out, so many clothes were wasteful. He was about to get in his truck, when he saw a real estate sign. The auction had been online, but Styles Realty looked local. They’d know if anything was coming up for sale in the future or if there was someone who could be nudged to sell at the right price.
Locking his truck and with Kai on his heels, he crossed the street—this time looking both ways like he was seven years old again.
Half an hour later, he had information and a loose plan.
It was the best he could do to take care of his brothers.
And maybe yourself.
Usually, he ignored his inner voice that often seemed to tempt him away from the path he’d carved out with grit and sweat and blood and loneliness, but today, it gave him something to think about.
A house.
A business.
Civvy friendships that involved socializing, not just guarding his brothers’ backs.
A woman.
His mind screeched to a stop.
Jory was as isolated as he was. She kept reminding him that Marietta was just a job to her. Temporary.
Temporary with pleasurable fringe benefits. And he needed to get to the Telford Ranch for his meeting so he could catch up with Jory later. It was her first night she wasn’t working, and he wanted to make it special.
“Unless I discover that there are bodies buried out there,” he muttered, and then he turned up the satellite radio station so that he could listen to Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters sing and shout about ‘One of These Days.’
“Amen,” Calhoun said as he listened to the lyrics.
*
Calhoun turned offthe truck and stared through the windshield, eyes narrowed. Jory wiped damp palms on her sundress—the only one she owned—and wished she’d worn jeans. Two of the women bringing bowls of covered food out of the small farmhouse to the extra-long picnic table wore jeans and T-shirts, but Jory, who rarely socialized, had thought she should make more of an effort.
Her mouth felt dry, and it was hard to swallow.
“Are you sure I was invited?”
“Of course.” He slanted her a look, and she felt like she had a giant button on her chest blinking ‘insecure.’
“All the Coyotes are here at Jace’s mother’s home to begin to plan his memorial—he had a funeral, and the town came to honor his service. We also want to honor him our way, but of course we will include his mother in our plans.”
It was some comfort perhaps that he seemed as reluctant to get out of the truck as she was. She didn’t really know anyone here other than through one brief meeting, except Rohan, and she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to act around Calhoun. Were they together? The spectacular sex over the past couple of days sure made it feel like they were.
But she knew he could walk away at any time.
“Let’s do this.” Calhoun swung out of the truck, and Jory opened her door at the same time. Kai bounded out, and before Jory was fully out of the truck, Calhoun was there, catching her as she slid to the ground.
“That’s my job.” He smiled, and her heart settled into an easier rhythm, and when he curled his fingers through hers, she relaxed even more.
And then everything happened at once. Ten Nubian goats came running from a fenced-in area near a small barn, bleating and jumping up on hind legs to get attention. Another truck arrived—with Ryder and Edi—and soon Jory was swept up in introductions, greetings, feeding and petting the goats, and then washing her hands and tossing the last salad and scooping out little balls of goat cheese, rolling them around in olive oil and spices and then putting them in a halved and cored cantaloupe.
“Wow.” Jory looked at the appetizer. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Gourmet.”
“My mom and aunt are really going to town on the goat cheese.” Willow smiled fondly at the two older women who had been organizing the salads and sides.
Calhoun and the other men grilled steaks and chicken outside.
“Mandy and I started a little business. We’ve been experimenting with different herbs in our goat cheese and with consistencies. We will have our own booth at the farmer’s market. Huck and Calhoun are going to help us set up the booth tomorrow.” Willow’s aunt Barbara had looked a little stiff and stern when Jory had first walked into the kitchen to offer to help, but she smiled now as she opened a second fridge and showed off their different-sized wheels of cheese and also the plastic containers with small goat cheese balls marinating in infused oils made by Shane, the wife of another of Calhoun’s friends.
“Tomorrow is our first day,” Willow’s mom Mandy trilled. “We don’t know what to expect, but Barbara has been doing a lot of social media for our business—taking pictures of the herb garden and of course the goats. They are quite popular on Instagram.”
“They have a huge following.” Willow laughed and kissed the top of her mom’s head. “They blew by my followers in less than a week, and this time last year, I was still a championship barrel racer.”
The energy in the room dipped and everyone quieted. Jory immediately thought of how this year had unfolded. Last May, Jace had been alive. All of Calhoun’s friends had still been part of a Special Forces team. She’d been working in a busy Helena hospital and in the process of helping her mom finally selling what remained of their land to Taryn Telford so they could buy something smaller and have a fresh start.
Had she done the right thing persuading them?
Had any of them?
Maybe there wasn’t a right answer to so many life events. People just had to make the best decision on the information they had at the time.
And now that she was back, temporarily, she’d realized how much she’d shut herself off from everything but her studies and her work.
I’m making changes.
She looked out the window at Calhoun listening to some story one of his friends was telling. She couldn’t help feeling she was making too many changes too quickly.
It was thrilling, scary and yet, she didn’t regret it. She was tired of being alone, and she was the only one who could take the next steps with or without Calhoun on her side.
*
Calhoun hadn’t realizedhow dysfunctional he still was from his previous life as a civvy. In the military life had been prescribed. Rules. Regulations. Expectations. If a soldier didn’t adhere to the rules they could die or get team members killed or be dishonorably discharged. He hadn’t done much socializing in the military except in a bar with his brothers.
Sitting around a table, handing around platters of food ‘family style’ was something new. Dinners when he’d been a child had been a minefield with his father calling the shots. Here everyone seemed friendly, especially Huck’s mother-in-law. She asked questions, listened and told stories about Jace.
“I think I’m more F’ed up than I realized,” he murmured to Jory as she took a wedge of corn bread for her plate, divided it, and put the bigger piece on his plate.
He stared at the still-steaming bread. Such a simple gesture. It should not choke him up.
“How so?” Jory asked licking a little butter off her fingers before looking guiltily down the length of the table and wiping her hands off on her napkin. That too was sweet.
Kai had already been fed some cut-up chicken, sweet potato and a roasted carrot. He now lay, relaxed, head on his paws, under the table, and Calhoun’s tension eased more. Kai was safe. Content.
I am too.
The thought startled him.
“Dinners at my house weren’t like this growing up.”
“Mine either,” Jory said. “It’s nice. I feel like I’m in a magazine ad.”
“My family is large, extended and turned family dinners into emotional war zones. Fighting. Manipulating. Undermining.”
It was rare for him to share anything about his past with anyone.
Jory ran a finger along the back of his hand. “I’m happy you aren’t there anymore, Calhoun. You are meant for friendship, not strife.”
For a moment, he was too choked up to speak, lost in the velvet midnight of her eyes.
“Well.” She ducked her head a little and tucked an errant curl behind her ear. “As peaceful as a pack of coyotes can be.”
She looked down the row at everyone and then over at the goats who kept bleating for attention. “It’s so alive here. So vibrant. I don’t think anyone could be lonely here.”
Her wistful look nailed him in his chest. Jory wanted this. After a lifetime of feeling on the outside, she was finally on the brink of stepping inside. And he could help her with that—find out what happened to her father and brother. That might help her to heal the rift with her mom. And maybe with closure she might decide to stay in Marietta. Build her career. Make friends. Buy a home. Find a man. Make a family.
You could stay.
It wasn’t the first time he’d had the thought.
But when he looked at his brothers, laughing, talking, breaking bread, their wives and children by their sides, he wondered if he could dare take the risk.
“How’s your father keeping, Rohan?” Mandy McBride asked into a rare lull in the conversation later in the evening when they all sat around a fire pit and ate their ice cream and brownies for dessert. Cross and Shane also had the fixings for s’mores and their daughter Arlo was holding Huck and Willow’s baby while she and Lucas, Rohan’s adopted son, played a modified game of keep-away from Arlo’s dog, Beast, by kicking a small rubber ball between them.
He and Jory sat next to each other on Adirondack chairs, Kai between them, watching the game but not budging.
“Not cool enough for you, huh Kai.” She scratched his ears.
Rohan answered, “He’s good, Mrs. McBride. He’s taking on less of the day-to-day ranch work now that Boone and I are both working the ranch, and we have more teams for the stock-contracting business so he’s not so much on the road. He’s more focused on the bull breeding with Kane Wilder.
“We also have another experienced ranch hand coming on board.” Rohan looked hard at Calhoun.
“Ouch.” Jory laughed. “That look burned.”
“Look at you, defending your man,” Gin cried out, nudging her husband, Rohan.
“It’s so good to have all of you here, isn’t it, Barbara?” said Mandy McBride. “This is what we imagined when we moved back home to our original homestead. Having a small farm, a manageable business to supplement our income, and friends. Jace is so pleased.” She leaned back in her chair, smiling, eyes closed as the fire crackled.
“It’s happy here, now.” Mandy opened her eyes and looked around at all of them. No one had yet to speak after her use of present tense. “Not cursed.”
“Mom, the McBride Ranch wasn’t cursed,” Willow said shooting a quick look at Rohan and mouthing sorry.
“It wasn’t always, though it wasn’t a happy place. Too many restless spirits, but there was a darkness, a malevolence that started creeping toward us, strangling the happiness. It started twenty-two, no, twenty-three years ago.”
“Mandy, let it go.” Her sister patted her hand. “Let the monsters sleep.”
“I’m thinking more of ghosts,” Mandy said as if this were a normal conversation to have with her dead son’s friends. “I didn’t want to sell the land to your father, Rohan, because it’s cursed, and your family has always been so happy, but when he came on the land and walked around and talked to me, I could feel the darkness slither way. He has too much light and life power, and his family wasn’t planning on living there.”
Calhoun tried to think of how to phrase a question that wouldn’t make him sound insane.
Willow looked at Arlo and Lucas who’d joined the circle, squishing together in the one chair and roasting marshmallows.
Huck put his arm around his wife and whispered in her ear, but Calhoun’s attention homed in on Willow’s mom. He’d heard she was a little…off. Spacey. Not dangerous. But just…marching to a different beat, polite people would have said. ‘Stark-raving psycho hippy-dippy hippie’ his dad would have growled.
“Why do you say that, ma’am?” he asked.
“Mandy,” she corrected with a smile. “You boys are always ma’aming me. It’s so sweet but aging. I’m fifty-four, not seventy-four. I had Jace the fall after I graduated high school. But I felt the difference in the land when Jace was in middle school. It changed him too. He was always sensitive. It was a shadowed, creeping dread. Jace went quiet. Started fighting with his grandfather, and his father stepped in too harshly. Jace pulled away from us. It was the curse that had settled in the land.” She nodded sadly. “I’m happy to be back here on the original homestead of my grandparents. They were strict and quite exacting but never cruel or unkind.”
“Another marshmallow.” Willow popped to her feet. “We also have herbal teas and decaf coffee.”
“Decaf,” Huck huffed.
“Not for you,” Willow said sweetly. “I want you up all night.”
Cross and Rohan roared with laughter and fist-bumped a rather stunned-looking Huck, but Calhoun kept his no doubt speculative gaze on Mandy.
He didn’t believe in curses. But if Jace had seen something or participated in something unsettling and had been vowed to secrecy twenty-some years ago, that could account for his hostility, shutting out his family and years later vowing to discover the truth. He said he’d been wild in high school. He’d been in trouble with the law, earning him a mountain of community service hours and a strong suggestion of joining the military.
He had the pictures of the old property boundaries. Maybe there was a clue there or on the back access road Jory had shown him. And then there was the truck. It was easier to hide a body, even two bodies, than it was to hide a truck. But there was a lot of land out here. And small, struggling ranches had a lot of privacy and run-down outbuildings.
“You look like Kai when he’s alerting,” Jory commented.
Guilt shot through him at the same time his protective instinct rose. She wanted to be part of the search for truth, but he didn’t want her hurt.
“Thinking it might be time for a s’more.” He kissed her palm. “Can I make one for you?”
He rose up so he could avoid her too-discerning gaze and tried to still his churning thoughts as he gathered s’more supplies.
Tomorrow he’d continue to hunt, he promised Jace. Tonight, he was going to savor his friends, aching because the man who had brought them together could no longer join them.