Three Cowboys

Chapter Four

“Howdy.”

Morgan took in Cody, sitting cross-legged at the top of the landing, mini cowboy boots and mini Stetson, worn jeans. If he’d ever thought of kids, he thought of them as strange little people, but he had to admit, Cody had character. He held a plate on his lap with half a pancake and traces of something sticky that looked like it could have been maple syrup at one point.

“Cody.”

The kid scrambled to his feet, balancing the half pancake precariously, sticking his tongue out with the effort. “I brought you breakfast.” He held out the plate once he was standing. “Mom said I couldn’t wake you up because you had a late night. But she said it would be okay to wait for you here.”

“Appreciate that.” He’d been up for hours, actually, working on his laptop, researching Calderón, calling in favors. He would have come out earlier if he knew the kid was waiting. “Would that be my breakfast?”

“I had some. I had to wait a long time. But I left you plenty.” The kid gave an angelic smile.

“No problem, buddy.” He took the plate and shoved the half pancake into his mouth on his way down the stairs.

He wore jeans and a worn shirt he’d found in his old room last night, and a cowboy hat. The ranch hands would talk to him more easily if he looked like one of them.

Dakota stuck her head out the door. She was freshly scrubbed, hair in a ponytail, ready for the day.

He licked the syrup from his bottom lip and thought about how much he wanted to kiss her again. How much he wanted to do more than kiss her. Soon, he promised himself.

She held out her hand for the empty plate, a smile playing on her amazing lips. “Look who found his inner cowboy.”

“Thank you for breakfast.”

“Can I go over to Maria’s with Morgan?” Cody wanted to know.

“Maria is Miguel’s wife. She watches Cody sometimes while I work.” Dakota adjusted the kid’s hat. “I usually walk him over.”

“I’m heading that way anyway.”

“Thank you.” She bent to Cody, gave him a big smacking kiss on the cheek. “You mind Maria. I expect you to be good.”

The little boy hugged her back with full enthusiasm, not a drop of awareness yet at that age. The love between the two was palpable, and it set off some strange longing deep inside Morgan.

“I’ll come over later and we’ll have lunch together.” Dakota stood. “You have a fun day. Both of you.”

“You be careful to keep your door locked,” Morgan said, when all he wanted was a send-off like Cody had gotten. “And you have fun, too,” he added.

“Sure.” Dakota flashed a half smile as she drew back into her place. “Doing the year-end accounting is usually a laugh riot.”

He wanted to stay, to talk with her more, but Cody took his hand and was pulling him forward. “Maria has new kittens behind the kitchen. She lets me feed them.” He looked toward the corral. “Will you take me riding later?”

His tone was so full of wistfulness, it made Morgan smile. “We’ll have to talk to your mom first about that.”

His little hand felt strange hanging on to Morgan’s calloused fingers. He wasn’t used to being around kids. For the first time in a long time, it made him think of family. He was definitely in the wrong profession for that. Then again, as he’d told Dakota, the job wasn’t going to last forever.

“I asked Santa at the feed store for a horse,” the boy confided in him, his eyes wide with hope and excitement. “And I’ve been really good. Brush my teeth every night and every morning. I even comb my hair.”

“I’m sure Santa appreciates that,” he said, not having any idea what kind of response the kid expected.

“I just don’t want the horse to get hurt when Santa drags him down the chimney.”

“I’m sure he...uh...has his ways.”

“Like magic?”

“Sure.”

“Can he shrink a horse?”

“I bet he could.”

The kid thought about that for a few seconds. “Can he make it grow back big? If he can’t, I’d just have a pony. I want a big horse. I’m a big boy, not a baby.”

Sure looked like a baby to him, but Morgan was wise enough not to say that.

“If you see Santa, can you tell him I was good? Really, really good.”

He nodded solemnly. “I’ll tell him the whole combing and everything.”

He delivered Cody to the kitchen where, to his surprise, he got a goodbye hug and kiss on the cheek. And a look full of admiration, as if he was a hero or something.

Immediate, unconditional acceptance and unreserved love. He was humbled, wasn’t sure if he deserved the vote of confidence, but it felt incredibly good all the same, after what he’d been through in the last couple of weeks.

He was still thinking about that as he went to find Julio, who wasn’t the least excited to see him. They had a long chat. Morgan needed to make sure he knew everything the kid knew, that Julio wasn’t hiding anything. At least the assassination attempt the night before spooked the youngster enough so he was fairly forthcoming. Albeit not terribly useful. He knew this and that about Calderón, but nothing about where the man might have moved Brittany. No workable leads.

When Morgan was done with him, he went to find his brothers. He found them on the deck in the back, drinking coffee. Wyatt was cleaning a rifle. They had the door open behind them, with a clean line of sight to the front door. They were positioned so they could keep an eye on both who was coming into the main house, and the cabin, too, at the same time.

Morgan appreciated the guard duty. “Where’s Justice?”

“In town picking up medicine for one of the horses.”

“Anything serious?”

Bull shrugged. “Didn’t sound like it.”

On a ranch this size, there were always sick animals, the vet a weekly guest.

“When are you leaving for Mexico?” Wyatt asked.

“We’ll see.” After he’d gotten up, he’d connected with a friend at his unit. He was expecting close-up footage from a military satellite, information that would narrow his search area on the other side of the border. But after what had gone on last night, he wasn’t sure now was the best time for him to leave. “We need to figure out who Calderón’s man is on the ranch.”

Wyatt pulled some papers from his pocket. “Here is a list of all the employees. The dozen men we hired for the cleanup are in bold.” He gave one sheet to Morgan, one to Virgil.

“I’ll talk to them.” Morgan ran through the names, glanced at the clock. The men would be out and about by now, but he didn’t want to wait until they all came in for dinner. He didn’t mind driving out. It would give him a chance to see how much damage the fire had done on McCabe land.

Wyatt stood. “I’ll drive into town and run background checks from the office.”

Bull turned to Morgan. “What do you want me to do?”

“Watch the house and make sure Julio stays alive,” Morgan said. “Keep an eye on the cabin, too.” Handing that job off cost him. He didn’t want to let Dakota and Cody out of his sight, but he trusted Bull. “You’re pretty damn quick with a gun, if I remember right.”

“We’re going to work this as a team.”

“Rusty will pop,” Wyatt said suddenly. “He has a record.”

Morgan almost asked why, then remembered. Rusty used to have a brother. They’d gotten into a ton of trouble when they’d been kids, even went to jail together. Rusty chose the straight and narrow at one point, while the brother headed deeper into bad business. He’d died in a shootout with the cops the year Morgan had left the ranch. He’d forgotten all about that.

Bull’s phone rang. He picked it up, listened. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Wyatt got up. “Anything about Brittany?”

“Her cell was used yesterday in a small village on the other side of the border.” Bull looked at Morgan.

Morgan had planned on taking the Mexican side, was planning to head over this morning. But last night had changed things. Until the assassin on the ranch was caught, he wanted to stick around here. “I can take care of background checks. You drive down and see about that phone. If anything pops, if you need me, you give me a call. Wyatt can stay here to watch the ranch.”

His brothers exchanged a look then nodded.

Morgan snapped a picture of the list of names with his cell phone and sent it to his connection. That should take care of that. Then he headed off to the bunkhouses while Bull headed to his pickup. Wyatt scowled after them from the door.

The bunkhouses stood empty. Morgan went through the two buildings with care, scanning the men’s belongings, looking for anything unusual. Weapons he found aplenty, but there was nothing strange about that around here. They all looked legit, mostly rifles, with a couple of pistols here and there.

The Beretta he’d knocked from the assassin’s hand, with its filed-off serial number and the silencer, was in another category. That had been meant for a hit job.

Morgan moved from room to room, making sure he didn’t miss anything. Nothing stood out. No expensive stereo or fancy designer boots that would have indicated extra money coming in from Calderón. He spent maybe twenty minutes per building, then jumped into his SUV to head out to the far pastures where most of the new men would be working.

The cattle had been herded together to whatever grass the wildfire had spared. Most of the land stood charred, big sections of the fence missing.

The first man he ran into was Davey Chapman, a new hire, rolling out fresh barbed wire.

“We had a break-in at the cabin last night,” Morgan said after he introduced himself. “I’m just checking around to see if anyone might have seen anything.”

“Not me.” Davey spat dust. “Had some beer with the boys before we called it a day. Slept like a baby.”

Morgan’s gaze dipped to the man’s hand, hardened with calluses. Could Davey have been the man he’d fought on the stairs the night before? Hard to say. “You been a ranch hand long?”

“Since I dropped out of high school,” the lanky twenty-something admitted. “Like the open land. Working in a factory or some closed-up office would kill me. Couldn’t handle that.” He shook his head with a half grin.

“You always worked around this area?”

“At the Kinckner ranch.”

“How come you left?”

“Old Kinckner didn’t like it that I was sweet on his daughter. I’m trying to save enough money to buy my own spread. Prove to him I can amount to something.”

Nothing about his body language said that he was lying. Morgan remembered Kinckner. Ornery old man. Almost as ornery as Justice. The kid didn’t sound like prime assassin material. “If you see anyone acting strangely, catch anything out of place, you come to me.”

“Sure thing, Mr. McCabe.”

He nodded goodbye to Davey and strode back to his car.

Half a dozen men worked at digging posts farther down the line. He drove over to them, introduced himself, made sure he had their names. He didn’t expect a full confession just because he’d shown up, but he needed a feel for the men—who was open, who had something to hide, who got nervous at having to talk to him.

He zeroed in on Tom Bellamy pretty quickly. The man was in his midthirties, eyes shifty, shoulders tense. He kept stepping back, as if wanting to be as far from Morgan as possible. His name was bolded on the list, a new hire.

He kept glancing at his truck.

“Didn’t I see you outside last night?” Morgan bluffed.

The guy shrugged, looking at his feet. “Not me.”

“Maybe you went out to your truck for something.”

The man glanced toward his truck again, a beat-up Silverado, his mouth tightening.

“How about we look at that truck?” Morgan suggested in a tone that made it clear he would only accept one answer.

Tension thickened the air. The other men had their loyalty to their buddy, not liking that the boss’s son was giving one of them grief.

Bellamy knew it. He looked Morgan over, measured him up. “You got no right doin’ nothin’ in my truck.”

“Someone broke into the cabin last night. I got a right to protect my family. You got something to hide?” He kept his tone cold and his gaze colder. “We can do this now, or we can call the cops. The only thing I’m interested in is who broke into that cabin.”

Bellamy shot him a look of dark resentment, but then limped off toward the beaten-up, blue pickup.

“What happened to your leg?”

“When we were rounding up the cattle after the fire, one of the bulls didn’t want to come.” He stopped by his car and nodded.

Morgan opened the door that had been left unlocked. He looked under the seats, then into the glove compartment, found the bag of weed pretty quickly. He held it up.

“Got banged up on the rodeo circuit. Can’t afford the doctors, but I gotta have a little somethin’ for the pain now and then. Was getting better before that damn bull knocked me down.” Bellamy spit on the ground. “You gonna bust me?”

Morgan tossed the bag back where he’d found it. “I won’t call the cops.”

He dialed Dakota instead. “I want you to cut a check to Tom Bellamy. Please pay him through the end of the week with another week of severance thrown in. He’ll be leaving us. Take the check over to Wyatt when you have it ready. Thanks.” He hung up before she could have asked questions.

“Ranch work is too dangerous for someone under the influence. Do yourself a favor and figure out your problems,” he told the man. “Take the rest of the day to pack up and move out of the bunkhouse. You can see my brother about your check.” If Justice didn’t agree with him, they could argue about it later.

He ignored Bellamy’s angry scowl, walked to his SUV and moved on, looking for the rest of the men. His phone rang just as he spotted another small herd of cattle in the distance.

“Got those background checks you asked for,” Troy, a friend of his, said on the other end. “Rusty Fisher had some brushes with the law a few decades back, but nothing since. Tom Bellamy has been arrested for disorderly conduct a couple of times, drunken fighting at rodeos, and possession. Harlan Bender was charged with manslaughter in 2008 for breaking his old man’s neck, but let off after a mistrial. Other than speeding tickets and the like, that’s about it.”

“Appreciate it. I owe you one.”

“Don’t think I won’t collect.” A bark of laughter sounded on the other end before the line went dead.

Morgan kept on going, slowing only when the herd shifted and revealed a new-looking RAM 3500 Laramie Longhorn, one of the finest pickup trucks ever made. With actual longhorn horns attached to the grill. Now that was something you didn’t see the average ranch hand drive.

He pulled up next to the sweet-looking pickup and got out, walked up to the man who was putting out feed.

“Not enough grass, huh?”

“If we had some rain it would green back up, but for now, we have to supplement,” the man said, knocking his hat back and wiping his forehead with his sleeve. He was about the same age as Morgan, with a lean build, tanned from working outside year round.

“Morgan McCabe.”

“Harlan Bender.”

Bingo.

“Nice car.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Harlan said.

“And now?”

“Might be a little overkill.” He gave a wry smile.

Morgan sensed no unease, no hidden signs of aggression, no secrets behind the guy’s frank gaze. “Justice must be paying his ranch hands better now than I remember.”

“Hell, no. If anyone knows the value of a dollar, it’s the boss. That’s why he’s been successful over the years, I suppose.”

“And you?”

Now the man’s gaze narrowed. “And I what?”

“What did you do to become this successful?” Pickups like this ran close to sixty grand.

A defensive look hardened Harlan’s face. “Don’t see how that’s anybody’s business.”

Morgan watched him. He could have come on hard, but he wasn’t interrogating terrorists. The man was one of his father’s employees. So he decided to go in mild, toughen up later if he saw a need.

“We had a break-in at the cabin last night.” He kept his tone noncommittal.

Only honest shock showed on the man’s face. “Dakota or the kid hurt?”

He shook his head. “The guy ran off. Didn’t see him well enough in the dark, but it was someone from the ranch.”

Now the man laughed. “You think you saw me?”

“I’m not ready to come to conclusions yet.”

Harlan rolled his shoulders. “The truck came from money from an inheritance.”

“From the father you killed?”

Harlan drew himself taller, set his feet apart as sudden tension filled the air.

He was a hard one to get a feel for. Plenty tough, but not like a hired gun. There was nothing ruthless about him. “The old man had it coming, right?” Morgan tried to poke him to make him reveal more.

“It’s not something I’m proud of,” he said stiffly.

“He went too far? Tore into you for the last time?”

“He tore into my mother and sister. Smacked my mother down plenty of times when I was growing up. Thought things got better as they grew older. Then I stop in for a visit and she has a black eye and Sis has a split lip, and there he is, drunk again, telling me to get the hell out before I get my licks.” His lips flattened into a narrow line. “I should have controlled my temper.”

Morgan watched him for a second or two. “Are you likely to lose it again?” He didn’t want violent people around Dakota and Cody.

“It was the first time. I reckon it’ll be the last.”

Morgan believed him. “You see anyone acting strangely, you let me know.” He gave the man a parting nod, then walked back to his SUV.

He wasn’t one to judge. Growing up, he’d considered raising a hand to Justice plenty of times. There had been times when he’d hated his father. It was strange to come back and see him different. Left him with no place to put all the old anger.

He drove on, met Rusty on one of the dirt roads that could barely be called a road on a good day, and was nothing more now than some tire tracks on the charred ground. They both stopped, going in opposite directions, nodded at each other through the open window.

“Wyatt okay?” Rusty pushed his hat higher on his forehead. “Haven’t seen him this morning. He’s usually out with the cattle by this time of the day.”

“He’ll be at the house today. We had a break-in at the cabin last night. Someone from the ranch, most likely. You see anything?”

The man shook his head. “You keep an eye on them young whippersnappers. Don’t know half of them. They stick to each other. They’re here for the money today, gone tomorrow. Don’t care if they do a good job, either.”

“Let me know if you notice anything out of place,” Morgan said, and Rusty promised he would.

He only caught three more men, old ranch hands he’d known from his childhood, before his stomach began to growl for his missed lunch. He turned the SUV toward the heart of the ranch.

He ran into Dakota in the kitchen.

“How is it going?” She was finishing a tuna fish sandwich and made him one without him having to ask.

“Slowly. It’s a lot of land. Where is Cody?”

“Down for his nap on the living room couch. He likes sleeping in here. If I take him back to his room, he’s too worried he’ll miss something.”

“He wants Santa to bring him a horse.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Dakota laughed.

He watched her, drinking in the sound. “What would you like for Christmas?”

She looked at him for a long time, a wistful expression on her face. But at the end she shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen, either.”

Morgan felt the muscles in his back stiffen. Was she wishing Billy was still here? Jealousy washed over him. He reached out and took her hand across the table. Felt better when she didn’t pull away.

“How are things with Justice?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“I’m not sure where Cody and I would be today without him. Things were rough. I had nothing. He and Wyatt took me to the hospital when Cody was born. They stuck around in the waiting room all night.” Her voice thickened. “Your father paid the doctors’ bills. I paid him back little by little from my paychecks, but it meant the world to me. Can you maybe give him a little credit, if for nothing else than that?”

And suddenly he found that he could. Because Dakota was important to him. He did appreciate that Justice had done right by her.

“I just wish he’d found his softer side sooner,” he said.

“None of us are perfect. I make mistakes every single day with Cody. You’ll make mistakes with your kids.”

There wasn’t a single thing she could have said that would have scared him more than that. Because if he somehow became the luckiest bastard on earth and won her back, Cody would come with her. They were a package deal.

And he didn’t want to make mistakes with Cody. But he would. He would make a terrible father. All he knew was what he’d grown up with. And he refused to repeat that.

But without Cody, there was no Dakota. The thought left him poleaxed. Why didn’t he think of that sooner? Wanting Dakota was fine and well, but what about Cody? He had no right to mess up the kid’s life. Cody deserved better. Cold spread through Morgan’s limbs.

Miguel came in, and Dakota withdrew her hand. “I better get back to work.”

Not grabbing after her took effort. “Me, too.” Morgan stood, wishing for...impossible things. Maybe he should talk to Santa about that. He wondered if he could fit driving over to the feed store into his schedule.