Texas Thunder (11 page)

“I burn too easily. Besides, it looks like you could use a hand.” She glanced around. “Don't you think it's high time you cleared out all this crap?”

He followed her gaze to the large shelf filled with rodeo trophies. His first calf rope looped over the edge of the dresser mirror. A half-finished replica of a Model T car sat on the corner of a crowded chest of drawers. In the ninth grade he'd started the model as a class project, but he'd never been able to sit still long enough to finish the engine, never been good at anything that kept him chained to a desk or chair.

Which was why he'd always struggled in school.

He'd managed to creep by, but only after a lot of extra homework and the Rebel High Tutoring Team—a group of smart kids who'd come up with the idea to tutor their not-so-smart peers as a form of community service. An extra accomplishment to round out their already lengthy college applications. Callie had been their ringleader and his tutor.

“Dolly tried to pack up some of this stuff last year, but Pappy had a fit. He always hoped you'd come back one day and he wanted everything to be exactly the same.”

Because Pappy had never given up the hope that Brett would turn out to be a better man than his no-good dad.

He thought back to the church that afternoon and the mahogany casket sitting up at the front of the sanctuary. Today had been the first time Brett had been inside the church since the day of his own father's funeral.

He'd been thirteen at the time and his pappy had practically dragged him down the aisle to the front pew. There'd been no cheap plastic daisies for his father.

Only full bloom roses were fancy enough for a Sawyer. With lots of greenery and pinecones spread out across the stained wood. It had been close to Christmas and so the pinecones had made sense.

At least to Brett. No one else had really noticed the pinecones. They'd been too stunned by the fact that at the age of forty-five, Big Berle Sawyer was
dead.

Splattered all over the interstate by an eighteen wheeler after an all-night drinking binge.

The drinking hadn't come as a shock. No, it had been the fact that another driver would dare take the life of Rebel royalty. The Sawyers owned the town. They lived on the biggest spread and drove the fanciest cars and trucks and had the biggest egos. Especially Berle.

He shouldn't have been behind the wheel at all, but Brett's old man had been too headstrong to admit weakness. He could handle his liquor. Lord knew, he'd had enough practice.

He didn't need anyone taking his keys or telling him what to do. No one stood up to Berle Sawyer.

Even his wife.

Especially his wife.

Mona Sawyer had been pretty headstrong herself, even after living with an overbearing man like Berle. She'd tried to take the keys that night even though she'd known it would lead to a fight. To a beating.

She'd stepped up anyway, and he'd knocked her back down, literally, and the situation had escalated. Berle had yelled. Mona had screamed. Brett had tried to intervene, to lure Berle off Mona, but it had only made the older man angrier. He'd knocked Brett clear across the room and then he'd hit Mona while Karen had crouched in the corner.

Brett had passed out from the blow to his head and by the time he'd opened his eyes, the sheriff had arrived with the news of Berle's accident.

A shock to folks, only because they'd realized that the Sawyers were just people like everyone else. They had their own problems.

But Brett had always known. He'd lived with it. Sure, he'd tried to pretend otherwise. He'd bought into his own hype, just like his old man. He'd been a handful back then. Wild. Volatile. Crazy. A
Sawyer.
He'd done whatever he pleased, always thinking he was above the rules.

That he made the rules.

His father's death should have been a wake-up call, but it had only made matters worse. His mother left, eager to put her abusive marriage behind her, even if it meant leaving her children.

Especially if it meant leaving them.

She'd wanted no reminders of Berle, and Brett had been his spitting image. Likewise for Karen with her Sawyer blue eyes. Mona had left them both with Pappy and moved to Las Vegas.

While Brett spoke to her every now and then and saw her whenever he made it to Nevada for a rodeo, that was the extent of their relationship. She didn't show up for holidays or special occasions. She kept her distance, and Brett couldn't blame her.

His father's death should have been a wake-up call, a push to change his ways before he followed the same tragic path. But it had only made things worse.

He'd been even wilder. More volatile. Living on the edge, pushing his luck. He'd driven his truck too fast. Broken too many rules. Bedded too many women. And drank way too much moonshine.

More.
That had been his motto back then.

There wasn't a dare he wouldn't take or a thing he wouldn't do or a woman he couldn't have.

Except Callie Tucker.

She'd been the exact opposite of the girls he'd always taken a shine to. She'd been pretty in a quiet, natural way. No overabundance of makeup or skin-tight jeans or slinky tops. She'd been far too mature to play into society's stereotype. Rather, she'd been fixated on college, on getting the hell out of Rebel and making something of herself and so she hadn't given a lick about pep rallies or parties or football games.

Instead, she'd read and studied and kept her nose to the grindstone. She'd worn plain jeans and shapeless T-shirts, her hair always pulled back into the same lifeless ponytail. Her parents hadn't had much money and so she'd never worn the latest designers or driven a hot car. But none of that had mattered. She'd still looked at him as if she knew something that he didn't, as if she were better than him.

The notion had snagged his attention faster than any short skirt or low-cut blouse. Because Brett had had his share of both by the age of eighteen, and what he'd really needed was something else. Something different.

Some
one
different.

He'd signed up for tutoring and then he'd spent the next six weeks sitting across from Callie Tucker every day after school. He'd turned on the charm, smiling and flirting and chipping away at the wall she'd fortified between them.

But there had been more than just the cat-and-mouse game between a boy and a girl. They'd actually talked, too. She'd told him about her grandfather's addiction to the shine he brewed up in the woods behind their house, and he'd told her about his dad's abuse and his mom flying the coop, and how Pappy was trying to make up for both.

Of course, it wasn't all the talking that had convinced him to ask her to prom. He would have asked anyway because Callie Tucker was the only girl he'd wanted back then.

He just hadn't realized exactly how much.

Until that night.

Until she'd kissed him and touched him and turned him on to the point that he'd gone over the edge.

He'd grabbed and groped and come right there in his pants.

He'd felt the helplessness deep inside of himself at that moment. The same feeling he'd seen in his dad's eyes that night right before he'd slammed his fist into his thirteen-year-old son's face.

Because he'd been beyond control.

He'd been a slave to the anger roiling inside of him, a slave to the alcohol, a slave to his own damned shortcomings, just as Brett had been a slave to his lust that night with Callie.

He'd known in that instant that if he unfastened his pants and sank deep inside her, he wouldn't be able to stop. There would be no pacing himself, no slowing down to help her accommodate him.

He would have taken her hard and fast, and she would have hated him for it because she'd been so young and innocent. Because he would have hurt her, just as his father had hurt his mother.

And so he'd shoved her out of his pappy's prized Caddy, gunned the engine, and peeled away. Not the most gentlemanly thing to do, but better than rip her clothes off and push her past the point of no return.

That's what he would have done.

What he'd wanted to do.

And why he'd packed his bags and hit the road shortly thereafter.

He'd been too much like Berle and it had been time to turn things around. To change the course of his life before he followed his old man beyond the point of no return.

He'd done just that.

He'd climbed onto the back of each and every bull and fought for control over everything in his life, and while he'd failed miserably at first, he'd eventually started to gain some measure of discipline. He'd held on a little longer each time until finally, he'd done it.

And he intended to keep doing it.

“He was doing okay when I came home,” Karen's voice drew him back to the moment. “He remembered where I was going to school and my major. He was even talking about how you used to beat him at Go Fish.”

“Yeah, well, he let me win.” Pappy had let everyone win. Just as he'd let Berle beat him at cards every Friday night. He'd coddled and spoiled his only son to the point that the man had felt entitled. And he'd done the same with his grandson.

Not that Brett blamed Pappy for his own selfishness. The old man was just doing what he thought was right.

That's all he'd ever done. He'd been a straight shooter. A good man who'd carried on the reputation his own grandfather had established after he'd given up the moonshine business and steered them into a legitimate line of work. Pappy didn't deserve half the shit life had dumped on him, and he sure as hell didn't deserve the Alzheimer's.

Brett couldn't change the hand he'd been dealt, but he could fix the ranch.

If he could figure out what the hell was going on and who might be stealing their cows.

“You know any of the boys Pepper's got working for us?” he asked his sister.

“I know all of them.”

“No, I mean personally.”

She gave him a sly grin. “Let's see, there's Cade Willet, not the best kisser, but passable. And Danny Monroe. He's a sloppy kisser, but I think with a little practice he could be halfway decent.”

“You're not funny.”

“Yes, I am. You just don't like the idea of your baby sister kissing anyone.” She ran her hands through her long dark hair and pulled the strands over her shoulder. “So what's the sudden interest in the ranch hands?”

Brett thought about mentioning the missing cattle, but he wasn't about to worry his sister. That, and the fewer people who knew his suspicions, the better. He wanted to watch the guys, to see what played out. He didn't want anyone forewarned because Karen might whisper a sweet nothing while lip-locking with one of them. He shrugged. “Just wondering. I haven't been here long enough to get to know any of them, so I thought I'd ask.”

“If you want to know about any of the guys, just ask Dolly.” She walked over to the bedroom closet and started fingering the old boxes stacked inside. “She feeds them all supper every evening out at the bunkhouse before she comes back here to Pappy.” She pulled one of the boxes free. “If anyone could fill you in on them, she might be able to.” She held up the familiar hatbox, a smile playing at her lips. “Remember this?”

Brett watched as she opened the box and pulled out the ancient straw Resistol sitting inside.

He stared at the worn Bud Light patch on the front and the various nicks and scratches. He'd worn that hat during every cattle drive back when he'd been a kid.

He'd worn that hat right up until he'd left Rebel, Texas, for good.

“Pappy had Dolly box it up and put it in here in case you ever came back home for more than a day or two. He just knew that someday you would want to hang up your buckles and be a real cowboy right here at the ranch. He always said this hat was more fitting for a cattleman.”

“Thanks.” Brett put the hat back into the box. “I appreciate it, but I'm no cattleman. I'm going back out on the circuit just as soon as I straighten things out here. I just got a new deal with Wrangler.” The biggest, in fact, of his career. He was going to be their spokesman for the next five years.

If he signed the contracts.

The notion struck and he pushed it right back out.
When
he signed, which he would do soon. Maybe tonight, as a matter of fact. All he had to do was pull out the documents and look them over as his lawyer had instructed. Initial a few changes, and bam, the deal would be done.

If Tyler McCall didn't beat him to the punch.

Tyler was his cousin of a cousin of a cousin, who'd been on his ass ever since he'd started riding the circuit a few years ago. The man was young and hungry and hell-bent on catching up to Brett and beating him out for first place.

Not that Tyler was getting his chance anytime soon. Brett was going for buckle number three, and he was signing that deal. The deal of a lifetime.

“Wrangler, huh?” Karen smiled. “Talk about the big time.” She shrugged. “No way could you give that up.” She plopped the lid on top and set the box on the dresser before heading for the door. “Even if it's only temporary, I'm glad you're home now. Sleep tight, big brother.”

If only.

But sleep wouldn't come.

Instead, he heard his pappy's voice from down the hall, followed by Karen's soothing words as she tried to calm the man down.

He had the gut instinct to go to the old man, to
do
something. But that was the thing—there was nothing he could do, not at the moment anyhow. Brett didn't have the first clue how to deal with an irate Pappy. No, better to wait until the man calmed down and then Brett could talk to him, maybe try to figure out if his grandfather could clue him in as to who might be stealing cattle.

Yeah, and I've got some prime pastureland in the middle of the Sahara that you might be interested in.