Blackbird Lake (6 page)

“Let me know what time to show up for supper—” he began abruptly, deliberately cutting off the painful memories, but suddenly, with a burst of energy, the mutt tried to spring up onto the front seat of the truck, then almost didn’t make it and would have slid backward, except Jake grabbed him swiftly before he hit the ground. He lifted him up into the driver’s seat.

“Who invited you, fella?” His tone was gruff. But somehow he didn’t have the heart to set the scrawny creature down on the driveway again.

“I think you’ve got yourself a dog there, bro. Whether you want one or not.”

“Naw. He just knows me better than he knows you. He’ll be happy to hang with you guys once he meets the kids. Tell Ivy and Aiden they should start brainstorming names for him.”

But glancing over his shoulder, he caught an amused—and skeptical—grin spreading across his brother’s face.

Jake shook his head and turned back to the mutt crouched behind the wheel of his truck. “You want to drive this thing, pardner, or you going to move over?”

As if he understood, the dog lumbered over to the passenger seat and sat staring out the window as if he hadn’t a care in the world and was studying the sweeping view of the lavender mountains in the distance.

Behind Jake, Rafe laughed.

“You think this is funny?” But Jake was fighting a smile, too.

“You’ve been adopted, bro. Hold on while I grab your new dog a few days’ worth of pet food.” His brother was already striding back toward the ranch house. “Just to tide him over until you bring him back.”

Jake swore he could hear Rafe chuckling just before the screen door slammed.

Twenty minutes later, Jake turned off of Squirrel Road and onto Wild Mule Pass. He drove another two miles through lonely, beautifully wild country until he reached the bumpy gravel path leading to his cabin.

His grandfather had willed him nearly seven hundred acres of lush rolling grassland practically within spitting distance of mountains and lakes ripe with wildlife and fish. This gorgeous spot was only a ten-mile hike from Blackbird Lake and surrounded by jagged mountains, magnificent sky, and wildflower meadows that seemed to roll on forever into the hazy distance.

In addition to his own renovated cabin, there were three older, smaller cabins scattered across the property. He sometimes rented them out to fishermen, hikers, or tourists. But he’d never rented out his grandparents’ original cabin on Blackbird Lake.

Five years ago, Jake had hired the father and son construction team of Sam and Denny McDonald to transform his personal fifteen-hundred-square-foot cabin into a two-story, six-thousand-square-foot house. That was right after he nabbed his biggest championship purse ever and won a fat commercial endorsement contract for a premium beer. Now, after investing the bulk of that money, Jake had big plans for those other three cabins.

“Don’t get lost, buddy,” he told the mutt softly as he unlocked the massive solid oak front door and the dog brushed past him into the hall, his feet pattering across wide dusty hardwood floors.

The living room and dining room furniture had been draped in drop cloths while he was gone and the place had
a big, lonesome feel to it, thanks to the lofty ceilings and wide open, flowing floor plan.

Way too big for one cowboy. Even one with a dog.

But he didn’t expect to be spending too much time here this week anyway. He had too much catching up to do with his family, not to mention tracking Brady down and hauling the kid back in line.

So after showering in the upstairs master bath, changing into clean jeans and a blue and gray flannel shirt, he fed Bronco—only a temporary name for the dog, he told himself, just until his niece and nephew came up with something better—then made sure all the lights and plumbing worked everywhere before taking off again. He pointed his truck north toward rolling foothills and the Farraday place.

Sure, Bronco was curled on the passenger seat of his truck like he’d been there all his life, but that didn’t mean Jake was planning to keep the mutt.

It just didn’t seem right to leave him alone in that big house—not right away. From the looks of it, this dog hadn’t had anyone looking after him in quite a while, if ever, and he had to have some abandonment issues. Which was why Sage Ranch, with Sophie and Rafe and the kids around most of the time, was the place for him to light. Someone was always around; he’d have Tidbit and Starbucks to play with and never a lonely moment.

Hell, speaking of lonely…

Jake frowned as he turned onto the rambling drive leading to the Farraday home. It could have been a setting for a sad, spooky painting about desolation.

The clearing where the small frame house squatted was quiet. Too damned quiet. There was no sign that Brady was anywhere around. No sign of his Harley or any other vehicle. No windows seemed open, there wasn’t a light on, and not a sound came from the remote clearing surrounded by a lone treehouse and a scattering of cottonwood trees and pines.

Only silence. Except for the faintest rustling of leaves.

The sun slid lower in the September sky and a lone hawk
wheeled lazily as Jake stared at the Farraday place. The small frame house, shed, and garage seemed to stand watch over the clearing like three tired old gray soldiers.

Jake remembered the flowers Cord’s mom used to meticulously plant all around the ranch house. Roses, he thought, and some kind of big yellow flowers, bright and happy looking. All spring and summer, Mrs. Farraday was out there working on her garden.

He took the old porch steps two at a time, knocked on the door he remembered from his teenaged years. He rang the doorbell, but heard no sound from within. He wondered if the bell was broken. There was a missing floorboard on the porch. Not a good sign, considering Brady was a wizard with tools and carpentry and had built that tree-house for himself and his friends when he was only twelve years old.

“Brady! Open up!” His fist hammered the door.

More silence.

Checking the shed and peering through the windows of the garage, he determined that both were deserted. He called Brady’s name one more time. And heard nothing.

“Guess, I’ll have to catch you later. Don’t think for a minute this is over,” he muttered under his breath as he started up the engine and swung the truck around, back up the drive. A new option popped into his head.

He knew just where he was headed after his visit with Travis and Mia and the kids, and his supper at Sage Ranch.

He’d call ahead to Denny McDonald and get the ball rolling on his new project. Considering the scope of it and the good it would do, he was pretty sure he could persuade Denny to rehire Brady, give him another shot. Then he’d reel the kid in when he caught up to him.

Jake had no intention of taking no for an answer. Whether he liked it or not, Cord’s brother was going to quit throwing his life away and do some good in Lonesome Way.

Just as he swung out of the drive and back onto the road, a beat-up old Silverado passed him from the other direction and turned in toward the Farraday place. Jake had only a
quick glimpse, but he thought he recognized the little brunette beauty behind the wheel.

Madison Hodge. She had to be about Brady’s age. She was Sheriff Teddy Hodge’s granddaughter—and Lonesome Way’s resident pageant queen.

Everyone in town knew Madison. She’d collected a slew of titles before she quit the pageant circuit. The glimpse he’d caught of that girl in the truck was nowhere even close to resembling the glamorously made-up, rhinestone-adorned princess whose photos he’d seen in the local newspapers Lissie used to send him. Tonight the girl’s famous sweep of thick, straight, dark brown hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and he hadn’t spotted even a lick of makeup on her face.

Why was she headed to the Farraday place? Were she and Brady friends?

Or maybe something more….

He suddenly wished she
would
find Brady at home. A female could be an excellent influence on a man. On any man other than himself, that is.

He loved women, loved the way they looked and smelled and felt and tasted, and he respected the way they thought and reasoned on almost every subject—except on that settling-down thing. Some women just didn’t get that it wasn’t for everyone, and Jake avoided women like that. He didn’t want anyone getting hurt. Ever since Melanie, he liked to keep his attachments simple, short term and no strings attached.

But if Madison Hodge was interested in helping Brady get back on track, he was all for it.
If she’s not up for it, though
, Jake reflected as he listened to Garth on the radio and the gentle snores of Bronco on the seat beside him,
I’ll just have to sit the kid down myself sooner rather than later—and I damn well will.

Madison punched the doorbell. Still broken, just as it had been when she stopped by three days ago.

Brady, come on. Have you even been home since then?

She rapped on the door until her knuckles reddened. Called Brady’s name.

Damn it, where could he be?

Only a deep, cool silence enveloped the clearing as the first crystal stars popped out in an amethyst sky.

Worry bit through her. She hadn’t spotted him in town even once since he got out of jail for decking her grandfather’s deputy. As far as she knew, no one else had seen him, either.

She’d slipped a note under his door after she learned what had happened to Cord. She’d come by again when she heard about Brady quitting his job with McDonald Construction. But there was no way of knowing if he’d even been back to find her note.

Not that he’d care.

She was probably the
last
person he’d expect to hear from. They hadn’t exactly been friends for years now, not
since the seventh grade. They hadn’t even spoken to each other since that day he’d gotten so mad at her years ago.

But before then—when they were kids—Brady had been her
best
friend. He was the one who’d always told her she had to stand up to her mom if she didn’t want to go the pageant route. He’d actually told her mom himself, when Madison hadn’t had the courage to do it. He’d spoken up for her—not, she thought ruefully, that Mabelle Jane Cullen had listened.

Pushing the memories of those days from her mind, Madison vaulted back up into her Silverado and roared out onto the road. Driving toward Lonesome Way and her small apartment on the edge of town, she knew she had other matters to worry about—like making it on time tonight to the last rehearsal with Eddie and the guys before the gig in Big Timber, and having to get up on that dumb stage at the Double Cross Bar and Grill within a matter of weeks and sashay across it during the charity dating event. In front of practically the entire town! Then stand there while men bid on her for a date, like a cow at auction or a painting or a piece of furniture on sale at eBay.

She loathed being the center of attention, detested being center stage. And she had all along, all through those awful pageant years.

Now, playing keyboard with her country band, the Wild Critters, in the shadows of a dimly lit bar—that was different. She
loved
it. It was music, for one thing, and music was in her blood. For another thing, no one was paying attention to her. She wore her jeans and a T-shirt every night, and no makeup, and was tucked comfortably away from the lights, with Delia and Eddie front and center, belting out the music, while Steve showed off his riffs on the drums.

The charity auction was a totally different thing. An
ugh
thing.

But since she volunteered every other weekend at the Lonesome Way animal shelter, she knew as well as everyone in town how badly the new facility was needed.

That didn’t make her any more eager to climb onto that
stage, but it did put things in perspective. And, she reminded herself, it was a minuscule problem when she compared it to what Brady was going through, losing both his parents, and then his brother and his job.

He needs help, she thought. He needs to know someone cares.

But that someone shouldn’t be her. Just because they’d been friends when they were kids didn’t mean he wanted her butting into his life. Or
nonlife, as the case may be.