Roz Denny Fox (6 page)

“Whoa, dude!” Mojave dutifully stopped dead on the trail. “Not you,” Jacob laughed, bending forward to stroke the bay’s neck. When Charcoal trotted back and sat staring up at him, Jake shook his head. “You, too, boy? Too bad you guys can’t talk. You’d tell me soon enough how crazy I’m acting over a woman who’d like nothing better than to see my backside trucking down the trail. She may have warmed up after I pulled those veggies out of the bag, but if you noticed, she didn’t request our return.”

Jake let Mojave amble through the deer grass for a while before they crossed a dry wash and turned north. The sun beat down mercilessly. Jacob thought the humidity had climbed to seventy percent. He shucked off one leather glove, removed his hat and blotted sweat from his brow with the crook of his arm.

“Feels like monsoon weather,” he muttered, settling the hat firm and low over his forehead. “I wonder if our Mrs. Ryan is prepared for the big rains that blow in here off the Baja. What do you think, Mojave?”

On hearing his name, the horse whinnied and swished his ears.

“I guess you’re right,” Jacob continued as if the gelding had spoken. “Better to keep my nose outta her business. She has Ben’s truck and trailer. The old guy must’ve given her directions. If she was stabbing in the dark, she wouldn’t have found her way to the Blue Cameo so easily.”

The threesome covered another few miles before Jacob spoke again. “There’s just something sad looking in the lady’s eyes, don’t you agree, guys?” Jake urged Mojave into a canter up a long steep incline over the ridge into the valley known as Hell’s Gate. “But there’s the matter of her calling herself Mrs. Ryan. Where do you suppose Mr. Ryan is? What kind of husband lets his wife prospect all by herself? Even more curious, why isn’t she wearing her wedding ring?”

The horse blew out a long breath. Cresting the hill, Mojave automatically quickened his pace. Jake knew why. In the distance Dillon’s horse, Wildfire, grazed on a picket. Dillon wasn’t yet visible. Jake figured he’d holed up in the shade of a stand of black walnut trees. Likely he was whittling a car or a truck or some part of a train set from the ever-present hardwoods he carried in his saddlebags. Their granddad Cooper had taught both boys to whittle at an early age. Dillon was much more adept at it than Jake. As kids they’d played with wooden toys; now Dillon carved a batch each year, and Eden distributed them to needy children at Christmas.

In fact, that was how Dillon and Eden had met. She’d moved to Tubac from Albuquerque to open her own jewelry store and had dived right into community affairs, collecting for the yearly toy drive. One October afternoon she’d arrived at the Triple C, all golden-hair and sweet smiles to beg for a donation of Dillon’s toys. Jake recalled wishing he could carve as well as his brother did. Eden Priest was the most beautiful woman Santa Cruz county had seen in a decade. She was nice, too. And talented. Successful in her own right. Both brothers had thrown their hearts at her feet; it was Dillon’s she’d picked up.

Jake grinned now, thinking about all the sneaky tricks he and Dillon had pulled trying to get into town without the other knowing. Some women would have strung them both along. It’d happened before. Eden wasn’t that sort of woman. She chose Dillon fair and square. She took Jake out for a cup of coffee at the local café and let him down gently.

He remembered feeling lower than a worm’s belly all the way home. He hadn’t planned to tell anyone in the family. But his mom had either been perceptive or Eden had told her. Nell Cooper arrived home from a long day spent throwing pots to cook her youngest son’s favorite meal. Afterward she’d coaxed him into taking a moonlight walk with her, during which she convinced him there’d be a woman in his future as wonderful as Eden. Believing that, Jake had decided to shake Dillon’s hand and be happy for him. He vowed to find himself a woman who had both Eden’s qualities and his mom’s.

It was going on two years now. There were times Jake thought he’d set himself an impossible task.

His brother strode out from under the trees and raised a hand in greeting, even though a half mile still separated them. Unlike the volcanic terrain Jake had recently ridden though, this land was barren of all but an occasional scrub brush or cactus. Distance was hard to measure. It was why so many people who crossed the border illegally, seeking work in the larger Arizona cities, died of exposure or of dehydration. On the desert floor temperatures in the summer and early fall soared upward of 115 degrees—exactly the reason Hayley Ryan’s spring was so important to the Triple C. There was precious little hydration in the area. And not a drop of water to spare.

Jacob covered the gap in short order.

“Yo, brother,” Dillon called, holding his ground until Jake had galloped all the way into his makeshift camp. “Took your time getting here. I’d about decided we’d got our wires crossed.”

“Spoken like a man who’s been forced to play the hermit against his will. You haven’t been gone from home a week. Couldn’t be you’re missing someone special, now could it?” Jake laughed and jumped back from the teasing punch Dillon threw at his left shoulder.

“You know I’m homesick as the devil. How’s everything at the Triple C?” In other words, how was Eden getting along without him?

“You know, Dillon,” Jake said in a thoughtful voice, “I think Coronado misses you. Why, it’s a crying shame how broke up that parrot’s been this week.”

“Very funny. You know the bird hates me.” Dillon grasped Jake’s shirtfront in both hands, nearly lifting him off the ground. Charcoal charged the men, baring his teeth and barking wildly. Dillon lost no time in releasing his brother.

“Tell me about Eden,” he pleaded. “What did she send me? And don’t hold out. She promised, and Eden never breaks a promise.”

Jake knew when to back off and play it straight. He unbuckled Mojave’s cinch, hauled the heavy saddle under the trees and dropped it beside Dillon’s. Quickly he extracted a pink envelope from one saddlebag. So maybe he wasn’t finished teasing. He passed the scented missive under Dillon’s nose, then drew it back and pretended to take a deep whiff himself.

“Give that to me.” Dillon snatched his letter out of Jake’s hand. He promptly put space between them, literally turning his back on his brother while his read it.

Grinning like a crazy man, Jake flopped down with his back against a tree trunk and uncorked his canteen to take a long swallow of the cool water. He’d give Dillon time to read and reread his message from home. There was a limit to his pranks. But the thing was four pages long. Eden must have written a page for every night Dillon had been gone. Though he didn’t want to, Jake suffered a stab of jealousy.

He supposed it was understandable. Growing up on an isolated ranch, he and Dillon had gone through all of the normal competitive stages that young boys and then young men developed. At times their poor mother had despaired of their surviving the sibling rivalry. But they had, and had emerged stronger men. They’d ultimately grown to be best friends. So what Jake felt now wasn’t personal. He figured it was more that he’d reached the time in his life when the male in any species needed to find a mate and make a nest of his own.

The idea came so clearly that it surprised him. He’d believed himself content to drift along, playing the field, so to speak.

He was concentrating on his thoughts and didn’t hear Dillon at first.

His brother finished folding the letter and tucking it away. “Jacob, my man, what are you mooning about? Where’s the sack of vegetables Eden says she sent me?”

“Oh, that.” Jake knew he’d have to account for the missing produce. Suddenly he was reluctant to tell Dillon anything about Hayley Ryan. He didn’t want his brother making a big deal over nothing.

“Hand it over, dude. I really don’t know how the cowboys of old went for months eating out of cans. Call me spoiled, but I’ve gotten used to picking stuff out of the garden. Man, I can almost taste those beefsteak tomatoes.”

Jake didn’t see any way around it. He cleared his throat a couple of times. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Well, don’t get your mouth too set. I don’t have the stuff Eden sent.”

“You left it at home?”

Jake supposed he could delay the inevitable by letting Dillon think he’d ridden off without the package. But he’d always been one to take his punishment rather than lie. It seemed pointless at any rate, since he’d told his dad he’d fill Dillon in on the situation at the spring. He opened his mouth and out poured the story of Ben O’Dell’s demise—and Hayley Ryan’s appearance.

“Let me get this straight. You and Dad just let that woman squat on the section of land Ben promised would be ours?”

“She isn’t exactly squatting, Dillon. She filed legally. Instead of the claim being in Ben’s name, now it’s in hers.”

“Did she show you the papers?”

“No. But she has Ben’s truck and trailer. Why would she lie?”

“Why wouldn’t you ask to see proof?” Dillon’s eyes, a shade darker than his brother’s, clouded as if heading into a storm.

Jake touched the still-swollen knot over his ear. “She showed me all the proof I needed,” he said wryly. “The business end of a shotgun.” Because it seemed almost funny now, Jacob spun that tale, too.

Laughing, Dillon slapped his knee. “What I wouldn’t have given to see that.”

“I’m sure. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t be spreading the story around. It was an accident. Could have happened to anyone. She aimed over my head and hit a branch.” He gingerly fingered the lump on his head again.

“Maybe you won’t mind telling me what insanity possessed you to have a second go at her today. Why in heaven’s name would you bring her food?
My
food,” he said irritably.

“Regardless of the shotgun incident, she’s a woman.”

“Yeah, a woman sitting smack alongside the only fresh water for miles around.”

“Exactly. Wild animals aren’t my only concern. Granted, most illegals crossing the border aren’t looking for trouble. But who’s to say they’d consider a bitty woman trouble? Some might risk jail for her truck alone. Or a drifter might. Or the occasional homeless guy trying to live off the land.”

“You have a point.” Dillon ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. His hair wasn’t as dark as Jake’s. He’d inherited more of Nell Cooper’s coppery highlights. When he did start to grow a beard, like now, it was redder still. “What did Dad say?” Dillon asked. “He’s not going to let her stay, is he?”

“He and Mom went to Tombstone today. Dad’s planning to find out if Ben mentioned our deal to anyone. Then the folks are going on to Tucson. Mom’s been chafing to visit a new pottery-supply store she heard about. If Dad doesn’t get answers in Tombstone, he said he’d pay a visit to the county recorder. To take a quick gander at the record of claims.”

“Makes sense. If the woman’s not savvy, she might have slipped up somewhere. Left a loophole or something.”

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up. She seems knowledgeable about filing issues.”

“Did she happen to say what’s so all-fired tempting about that twenty acres? Ben worked it for years and he never found diddly squat.”

“We don’t know that for sure. The old guy was pretty closemouthed. Oh, he told some tall mining stories, but I can’t recall him ever giving away anything personal.”

“He talked a lot about his silver mine. I had the idea it produced all right, didn’t you? Why wouldn’t that revenue be enough for his granddaughter?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘all right.’ Don’t you think if it’d been making good money, he’d have stayed home and enjoyed the fruits of his labor a little more?”

“Prospecting gets in some men’s blood. It’s a lot like gambling. A fellow always thinks his really big strike is over the next rise.”

“I found Ben more down-to-earth than that. I mean, if he had gold fever, he would have spent more than a couple of months a year on his claim. To me it seemed he treated it more like a vacation.”

“Maybe. Gold fever, huh? So you think he was hunting gold?”

“I haven’t a clue. I just used that as an example.”

Dillon dug in his shirt pocket and pulled out a toothpick, which he stuck between his teeth. Modern cowboys, especially those who’d once smoked, had switched from tobacco to mint-or cinnamon-dipped toothpicks. Jake had never picked up the smoking habit. Dillon had, but quit at Eden’s request. But during serious talks, he sometimes reverted to it. He shifted the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other as he gazed toward the granite hills under discussion. “If communing with nature is all the yearly trek was to O’Dell, you gotta wonder why a woman snapped up the claim the minute the old guy cashed in his chips.”

“I don’t know when he died. She just said he had. Don’t tell me you’re getting gold fever, Dillon.” Jake sounded amused. “Strikes were never plentiful in this neck of the woods. The Blue Cameo is so remote, nuggets would have to be lying on top of the ground for anyone to convert the ore to cash. Hauling anything out of here over dirt roads takes money and guts.”

“It’s not so far to hook up with Interstate 19. No one’s ever found reason to lay out the money to improve the road, but that doesn’t mean no one would if they turned up something worth big bucks.”

“I’d have to see it to believe it. It’s not that I think a woman is less capable than a man of hacking into a ripe vein by accident. But I
am
skeptical of that woman being Hayley Ryan. If you could’ve seen her poring over elementary mineral and gem books, you’d agree. Plus, she’s a flyweight.” He shook his head. “I think if we wait a while, she’ll eventually give up and go home.”

“She might reach that conclusion faster, Jake, if you didn’t supply her with fresh produce. My produce,” Dillon reminded him.

“I know, I know. But if that was Eden camped there, would you turn your back and walk away, big brother?”

A sudden light dawned in Dillon’s eyes. “Are you saying you’ve fallen for this stranger?”

“No!” Jake protested. A bit too fast and much too vociferously. “We were raised to look out for women. So get off my back. You’d do the same—don’t deny it.”

Dillon gazed at his brother narrowly. The staring match lasted only seconds. Dillon capitulated with a shrug. “Then we’ll leave it at that. What’s your count of strays? I turned 1,010 head onto our leased grassland. Nine hundred and thirty to open range near Pena Blanca Lake. And twice as many near Hank and Yank’s dry spring. By my figuring, we’re down roughly five or six hundred head from the number Dad gave me.”