Dark Paradise (28 page)

then start all over again.

He would hand the mare over to Tucker to cool her out and to give the

old man a break. Tucker didn't like to admit his age, but J.D. saw it

creeping up on him a little more every day, bending his back a little

more, stiffening joints that had already taken too many years of abuse.

In another job, Tucker Cahill would have been forced to retire by now,

but there was no such thing as retirement for a cowboy. cowboy was who a

man was as much as
 
Tucker Cahill who wouldn't retire any more than he

would quit having blue eyes and a crooked pecker.

Besides, the Stars and Bars was Tucker's home as much as if he were a

Rafferty, J.D. thought. He had spent the best years of his life and then

some working this ranch for damn little pay, and he would stay here

until the pallbearers carried him off feet first. It was up to J.D. to

make that possible. It was his responsibility to take care of the old

man, to see to it that he had a roof over his head and food in his belly

and a purpose in his life, just as it had been Tucker's role to play

surrogate father when Tom Rafferty had been too lost in his obsession to

do the job.

The weight of that and every other responsibility pressed down on his

aching shoulders for a minute. Just a minute. He didn't allow any

longer, couldn't afford the time. Brooding didn't get a job done.

He turned the mare toward the out gate and was struck by the sight of

Marilee sitting up on the far rail of the branding corral, laughing at

something Will said to her. He couldn't hear her over the bawling of

cattle, but the husky sound tumbled through his memory, striking chords

inside he would rather have left untouched. Even through the coating of

grit in his mouth he could remember the taste of her kiss.

Will made a wild gesture with his arms, his wide, handsome grin lighting

up his face as he entertained his audience of one. Jealousy stormed

through J.D. like a charging bull. He would never have called it that

out loud, but a spade was a spade. From the day Sondra and Tom had

brought him home from the hospital, Will had been the center of

attention, a magnet for any spotlight.

He basked in even the smallest glow, and everyone laughed at him and was

charmed by him. No one seemed to care that he aspired to nothing or that

he gambled away two months worth of bank payments at a crack or that he

was about as trustworthy and reliable as a stray tomcat.

Letting himself out the gate without dismounting from the mare, J.D.

jogged the horse around the outside of the pens and pulled up when he

reached the pair perched on the top rail. He shot Marilee a narrow look,

withering her smile on the vine, then dismissed her without a word and

turned to Will.

"You sit here hanging your butt over the fence while a man pushing

seventy does your job for you?
 
What the hell are you thinking about?"

Will's face set in hard, tight lines to mirror his brother's look. "I

was thinking I hadn't had two minutes' rest since I landed on my feet

this morning. I was thinking it might be polite to say hello to our

guest-"

"Yeah, right," J.D. sneered. "Like a fox just wants to say hello to a

quail-"

"Well, hell, J.D., if you're jealous, maybe you ought to do some-"

With a jab of a spur J.D. jumped his horse ahead and sideways, pinning

his leg against the fence. Ignoring the pain, he cuffed Will across the

kidneys with the back of his arm, knocking him from his perch into the

corral.

"I'm mad as hell, that's what I am," he snapped. "Get off your lazy ass

for once and do your job instead of letting an old man take up the slack

for you."

Will glared at him over the bars of the fence. His cap had come off in

the fall and his dark hair spilled across his forehead. His face was

almost as red as the T-shirt he wore, embarrassment and rage pumping his

blood pressure up.

"Fuck you, J.D.!" he spat out. "I work like a goddamn dog around here "

"When you're not out playing rodeo or down in Little Purgatory."

"-not that I ever see anything for it-"

"No shit, you lose it all playing poker-"

"You're not my boss and you're not my keeper, and if I want to take five

stinking minutes to talk to somebody, I'll do it!"

Marilee watched the exchange from the uncomfortable position of

outsider. She had the distinct feeling their fury had its roots in

something deeper than her ability to distract Will from his work. She

knew all about sibling rivalries and resentments. Growing up the odd one

out among the Jennings girls, she had felt her share of ill feelings toward

Lisbeth and Annaliese. The Rafferty brothers undoubtedly had their own

version of the same story. Will, the gregarious, charming rascal, and

J.D., so stern, so rigid - it wasn't hard to imagine them clashing.

She just didn't particularly want to be an eyewitness while it happened,

or the spark that touched it off.

"Hey, guys, look," she said, straddling the fence, raising her hands in

a peacemaking gesture, "I didn't come here to make trouble-"

J.D. shot her a glare. "Well, you damn well managed to do it anyway,

didn't you?"

"Don't blame Marilee," Will snapped. "It isn't her fault you're an

ornery son of a bitch."

"No, and it isn't her fault you think with what's between your legs

instead of what's between your ears."

"If my being here is a problem," Marilee said, "I'll just go.

"Your being in Montana is a problem," J.D. snarled half under his

breath.

The remark cut. Marilee held herself rigid against the urge to wince;

she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She raised her chin a notch,

looking down her nose at him.

"Yeah, well, when somebody dies and makes you king, you can have me and

all my kind exiled."

J.D. set his jaw and turned away from her, not liking the fact that he

felt even a little chastened by her words.

A whole host of uncomfortable and unfamiliar feelings crawled like ants

inside his skin. He shouldn't have jumped on Will in front of the whole

crew. Work in the branding pen had come to a standstill while everyone

watched them and waited for the outcome.

This was what happened when a woman came prancing around; men lost their

heads.

"Now, boys," Tucker said diplomatically, ambling away from the empty

squeeze chute. He clamped a hand on Will's shoulder, turned his head,

and spat a stream of tobacco juice. "Maybe what we all need is a good

hot meal and a chance to sit on something that ain't movin. I got a big

ol' pan of my famous lasagna in the oven. Ought to be ready about now.

Why don't we all go on up to the house?"

J.D. had no appetite for food or for company. He started to tell the

others to go on, when his mare raised her head and stared off toward the

northwest, ears up.

She whinnied loudly, a call that was immediately answered by several

different equine voices.

From the cover of pine and fir trees emerged a group of riders. There

were six in all and a pack mule bringing up the rear. Even from a

distance J.D. could make out Bryce at the front of the entourage. The

sun gleamed off his long pale hair and wide white smile. He rode a

handsome chestnut that danced beneath him, impatient with the leisurely

pace of the rest of the group.

It took them several minutes to close the distance, but no one at the

ranch said a word while they waited. At least not until the riders were

close enough for all their faces to be made out.

Will's breath caught hard in his lungs as he recognized Sam riding among

the pack on a leggy Appaloosa. Her eyes locked on his for a second, then

she glanced away, pulling her horse back to hide behind a dark-haired

man on a bay.

Sam, his Sam, with Evan Bryce's crew?
 
It seemed inconceivable in every

way. She wasn't one of them. She was a cocktail waitress, for Christ's

sake!
 
She was a tomboy poor girl from the wrong side of town. She was

his wife.

"Hello, neighbor!" Bryce called as he rode up, his grin brimming with

bonhomie.

"Bryce," J.D. acknowledged, not even bothering to tip his hat to the

ladies in the company, though he ran his gaze across each face.

The strong-featured blonde who was often with Bryce rode beside him now,

her gaze bold and amused as she met J.D.'s eyes. Behind her was a

skinny, giggling redhead in a man's white dress shirt that she hadn't

bothered to button at all, just tied in a knot at her midriff. She

leaned over in her saddle and whispered something to a dark-haired man

who had "city" written all over him in spite of his western-cut shirt.

Bringing up the rear with a pack mule loaded down with picnic baskets

was Orvis Slokum, who had worked on the Stars and Bars for a time before

he had tried his hand at robbing convenience stores. Bryce had hired him

right out of prison and got his name in the paper for being a great

humanitarian.

Beside Orvis, obviously trying to make herself invisible, was Samantha.

She ducked her head, staring down as if the cap of her saddle horn had

suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the world. But there was

no mistaking the way she sat a horse or the long curtain of black hair

that fell over her shoulder to obscure one side of her face.

J.D. cut a glance out the corner of his eyes at Will, who had turned

chalk white beneath the morning's layer of dirt.

"What's going on here?" Bryce asked, looking amused by the quaintness of

it all. "A big roundup or something?"

"Work," J.D. growled, curling his fingers over the pommel of his saddle.

"You may have heard of it once or twice."

Bryce laughed, unoffended. "Mr. Rafferty, I concede you know more about

ranching than I do. But then, I know more about getting rich than you,

don't I?
 
My friends and I are out enjoying the fruits of my past labors

as it were, taking a little tour of my land."

A muscle ticked in J.D.'s jaw. "You got a might lost."

The smile that curled the corners of the man's mouth was almost feral.

"Not at all." He let the remark hang for a second, but went on before

J.D. could call him on it. "We're only passing through on our way to the

Flying K."

J.D. could hear Lyle Watkins clear his throat in embarrassment. He

wanted to look to his old neighbor with accusation. See what you're

letting in here?
 
But he couldn't look away from Bryce.

"We just thought we would do the neighborly thing and stop by to let you

know," Bryce said.

J.D.'s fingers curled a little tighter on the swell of his saddle. He

wanted to yell at the man to get the hell off his land. He could feel

the shout building in the back of his throat, but he swallowed it down.

Control. He'd lost his cool once already today. He wouldn't lose it now,

not with this man.

"You don't own the Flying K," he pointed out calmly.

"Yet."

"Well," J.D. drawled on a long sigh, affecting a boredom he didn't feel.

"We could sit around here all day and talk about nothing, but I'd rather

eat pig shit than spend time with your kind, so if you'll excuse us,

we've got work to do."

He waited just long enough to see the color rise behind Bryce's tan

before he started to rein his horse away.

"Am I to take it, then, that you wouldn't be interested in coming to my

little party tonight, Mr. Rafferty?"

"Go to hell!"

"Too bad," Bryce said tightly, his smile looking like plastic. He jerked

his gaze to Marilee as Rafferty rode past him toward the back of his

band. "I hope Mr. Rafferty's opinion doesn't extend to you, Marilee.