Beef Stolen-Off (6 page)

“How are we going to play this, Danny? Since I know these people, I think I should ask the questions,” Jordan said, groaning when the pickup hit a bump on the back road to Santana Circle Ranch and her head connected with the roof. “You think you could slow down a bit? I’m pretty sure Rusty’s not going anywhere anytime soon.” She added an extra touch of sarcasm as she rubbed her head.

“I thought you’d lose that smart mouth when you became a big-time reporter.” He chuckled. “Oh wait—I forgot. You write personals.”

She slapped his shoulder playfully. Too much time had passed since her brother had teased her, and she’d missed it. “I have my own column, loser.”

“Yeah, writing recipes you’ve never heard of and have no clue how to cook.”

“Shut up! At least I didn’t get my job because I came cheap.” She paused and then laughed out loud. “Okay,
maybe that is how I got the job, but I still think you should let me do all the talking.”

“No way! I’m the one investigating this cattle-rustling ring. My job, remember?”

“Yeah, but I’m the one who held my date in my arms while he was dying.” She huffed. “And
I’m
the one who got the invite to come to the memorial service and the luncheon. My original plan was to bring Victor until you whined like you did when you were eight and Mom wouldn’t let you go hunting with Dad and the ‘three musketeers.’” She tsked. “Don’t make me regret my decision.”

Danny pressed his lips together in a move Jordan recognized as his retreat-and-reload tactic. She prepared herself for his zing back.

“You might have a point,” he said, disappointing her a little. She loved the back-and-forth one-upmanship they usually shared. “But for the record, Patrick was only eight when Dad took him on his first hunting trip.”

“Mom always called you the sensitive one. When she thought she’d never get her little girl, she decided to keep you away from all that macho stuff.” Jordan paused, remembering how her mom had shifted all that focus onto her, dressing her in frilly clothes like a baby doll. But she lost that battle when the testosterone in the McAllister house overpowered the estrogen, and her brothers discovered Mama’s little girl could throw a precision touchdown pass in traffic better than any of them.

“Okay, I get it. If any of Rusty’s partners in crime are there today, I’m sure the last thing they want is to get chatty with me.”

“My point exactly,” she agreed. “That’s why we shouldn’t tell them you’re here for an investigation. Let’s just say you’re hanging out with me while you job hunt.”

He made a sharp right turn off the road and stopped in front of an ornate gate with a huge, wrought iron banner swinging above that read S
ANTANA
C
IRCLE
R
ANCH
.

“Whoa! You said this guy was rich, but you didn’t say how freakin’ big this ranch was.” He pointed to the clumps of black cows grazing to the left of them in a pasture that seemed to extend as far as the skyline.

“You obviously weren’t listening when I said he was one of the biggest cattle raisers in the state,” she said, but even she was impressed.

“And Rusty was his right-hand man?”

“Yes, and from what I gathered at the ball the other night, the two were tight.”

“Hmm. Wonder if Santana was in on the rustling.”

“You don’t even know for sure if Rusty was involved.” Jordan turned to face her brother. “Why would he risk ending up in jail when he had the perfect setup here? It was crystal clear Santana thought of him as more than an employee. And don’t forget the male ego. Most guys would flash that kind of money around to impress a date. He didn’t.” She shook her head. “I’d bet good money he wasn’t involved.”

“Because he didn’t pull out his wallet to impress your skinny bones? Ha! Maybe he wasn’t interested. Did you ever think of that?” He snickered and then got serious again. “Our sources tell us his name showed up on several questionable bills of sale for Wagyu bulls that were probably stolen.”

“Wagyu bulls?”

Danny turned down the gravel road, and a ranch house came into view several miles away. “Wagyu cattle are like the Rolls Royce of cows. Think Kobe beef and go one step better.”

“I thought Kobe beef was imported from Japan.”

“It is, but plenty of ranch owners raise their own around here.”

Danny slowed down near a mass of cars lining the side of the road. After parking the truck in the first available slot, about a mile from the house, he got out. Jordan followed suit, pulling at the hem of the black jersey number she’d worn on her first assignment at the newspaper, swearing it had shrunk. Since it was the only black dress she owned other than the slinky black skirt she’d bought for the Cattlemen’s Ball, she hoped it wasn’t too short for a memorial service.

Nothing says white trash like slutty funeral clothes.

No sooner had they started the trek to the house than an elderly man wearing jeans and a S
ANTANA
R
ANCH
golf shirt pulled beside them in a three-rowed golf cart.

“Hop in,” he said, flashing a smile that covered almost the entire width of his face. “I’m Farley Williams.”

Danny allowed Jordan to step up first, then quickly followed. Once they were settled, the driver sped away with a jolt, causing Jordan to grab the seat in front of her to keep from falling out the side.

“Sorry about that,” he apologized. “Sometimes the gas pedal sticks.”

He rounded a curve in the road without slowing down, but this time Jordan had a grip on the seat in front of her.

“Shame about Rusty,” he said. “I always did like the kid.”

Jordan leaned forward to hear. “I only met him a few nights ago. How well did you know him?”

The old-timer shook his head. “All his life, it seems. I remember when his mother first brought him to the ranch. He couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. Mr.
Santana made an exception to his rule about his employees bringing kids to work because nobody cooked like Maria. That woman made the best damn tamales around, no doubt about it.” He smacked his lips before a long sigh escaped. “I watched Rusty grow into a fine young man.”

“So, does his mother still cook for Santana, Mr. Williams?” When the cart hit yet another bump, sending her momentarily airborne, Jordan decided this man must have a built-in radar system for finding every single pothole in the road.

“Mr. Williams is my grandpappy. Call me Farley.” The old cowboy lowered his eyes, shaking his head. “Maria Morales had a stroke about six months ago. Last I heard she was in a wheelchair and required round-the-clock care.”

“What about Rusty’s father? Does he work for Santana, too?”

“Oh, hell no,” the driver said, drawing out “hell” like it had three syllables. “He and Mr. Santana had a falling out years ago.”

Jordan’s body slammed into the back of the driver’s seat when the golf cart stopped abruptly in front of the big house.

“Well, here you are,” Farley said. “The service is around back in the entertainment room. Mostly everyone is there already.”

Danny stepped down and helped Jordan out.

“Thank you for the lift and the interesting conversation,” Jordan said.

“No thanks necessary.” The old cowboy jerked the cart forward and then drove off, hollering over his shoulder, “I’ll pick you up when the service is over.” He disappeared down the road, heading back to the area where several new cars had pulled over behind Danny’s pickup.

“Okay, so what’s our plan again?” Jordan asked, linking arms with her brother. “I’m dying to find out what kind of beef Rusty’s dad had with Santana.” She laughed at her own play on words. “Good cop, bad cop?”

Danny halted. “You watch way too many TV shows, Jordan. Let’s just concentrate on the service and keep our eyes and ears open. If our sources are correct, the cattle-rustling ring is too big for a solo thief. I guarantee someone in the crowd—probably a slew of someones—knows something about Rusty’s extracurricular activities. We don’t want to scare anybody off.”

Jordan was about to argue they still hadn’t confirmed Rusty was even involved when Bella opened the door and immediately hugged Jordan as though they’d been friends for significantly longer than one evening. She was decked out in a black skirt and a frilly, charcoal silk blouse that definitely had not come off the racks at Macy’s. The midcalf black leather boots that showed off perfectly shaped legs were probably custom-made, too.

“Hello, Jordan. Lucas will be glad to see you again. He thought when you turned down his offer to send the limo, you weren’t coming.” She turned to Danny, licking her lips as she took her time checking him out. When her eyes finally settled on his face, she asked, “And who do we have here?”

“Danny McAllister,” he said, offering his hand.

She linked one arm with Danny’s, casually brushing up against him as she did so, and the other arm in Jordan’s and then led the way down the long hallway. As soon as they entered the entertainment room, Jordan’s mouth dropped. It was bigger than the local theater in Ranchero.

Painted a deep maroon, its walls covered with the mounted heads of what looked like the entire animal
kingdom, the room had at least twenty-five rows of theater seats, each with a retractable tray like those in the front rows of airplanes. The only light in the room besides that from the two skylights on the twenty-foot ceiling came from the sconces lining each side wall.

The massive screen spanning the entire front wall told Jordan that Santana watched a lot of movies in here, and she was pretty sure most of them weren’t PG.

“It’s nice to see you again, Jordan,” a sexy southern voice drawled.

Jordan pivoted to greet Carole Anne Summerville, but the woman had already turned her attention to Danny.

Sheesh!
This was a funeral and already two women had practically devoured him with their eyes. What was this—trolling for mourners?

“Carole Anne, this is my brother, Danny. He’s staying with me while he’s in town on an—for a few weeks.”

Crap!
She’d come this close to telling Carole Anne the real reason Danny was in town. She glanced toward her brother, wondering if he’d caught her mistake. The look he sent her way said he had.

“Jordan never mentioned she had a brother and certainly not one that looked like you,” Carole Anne said, inching closer to Danny, giving Jordan an up-close-and-personal look at her ensemble.

Wearing a dress cut low in front to show off her impressive cleavage, Carole Anne looked like she might have just stepped out of
Sports Illustrated, Swimsuit Edition
and thrown the dress on over a G-string bikini.

She was with a man in his late fifties with flecks of gray dotting his jet-black hair around his ears and at the base of his temples. “This is my father, Jerald Summerville. Daddy, this is Jordan McAllister and her brother, Danny.”

At well over six feet tall, he towered over them as he extended his hand first to her and then to Danny. “I haven’t seen you around, Jordan. How did you know Rusty?”

Jordan noticed the catch in his voice when he said the dead man’s name. “I was with him at the Cattlemen’s Ball on Saturday…” She stopped herself from adding “the night he died.”

Jerald Summerville lowered his eyes, but not before Jordan was sure she’d seen tears welling. When he glanced back up, they were gone. “I loved that boy like he was my own flesh and blood, and he should have been…”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Summerville. In the short time I spent with Rusty, I could tell he was a gentleman and—”

“Call me Jerry,” he interrupted. “Rusty was the son I never had.”

Jordan stole a look Carole Anne’s way in time to see the hurt flash in her eyes before she recovered and attempted a smile.

“He would have been family if Carole Anne hadn’t gone and screwed things up with him.”

“Daddy,” Carole Anne said, her voice unable to hide the hurt this time. “I did no such thing. If you remember correctly, it was Rusty who decided he wasn’t ready to settle down.” She grabbed her father’s arm and pushed him toward the front row. “Come on. Go sit down over there, and I’ll get you a drink.”

“Make it a double,” he said, allowing her to nudge him to the front.

When they were too far away to overhear, Bella shook her head. “That girl practically runs his company, and he still makes her feel like she’s not good enough.”

Before Jordan could respond, she felt a hand on her
shoulder. Turning, she came face-to-face with Cooper Harrison, decked out in his cowboy finest.

“Where have you been?” Bella asked with a touch of irritation in her voice. “Lucas is already upset enough today without worrying about you.”

“He didn’t need to worry. I said I’d have the food here on time, and I did. Traffic on I-35 was a killer, though. A tractor trailer hauling produce jackknifed near McKinley and spilled the entire cargo across the interstate. There were vegetables everywhere.”

“Cooper, I’d like you to meet my brother, Danny,” Jordan said, trying to defuse the tension between him and Bella.

Cooper accepted Danny’s outstretched hand. “Nice meeting you. I’m sure I’ll see you again.” He scanned the room, spotting Carole Anne up front now, waving furiously to get his attention. “I’ll talk to you later. Carole Anne is going to kill me for being late.” He started in the direction of his fiancée and future father-in-law.