Chasing McCree (14 page)

“
Stinker,” I glared down at
the old collie and told him to behave. “Sorry, he’s the odd one of
the bunch.”

She laughed. “It’s okay.”

“
Chase!” I turned around. A
couple men rolled up next to the truck on ATV’s. One was my cousin
Grant, who acted as ranch foreman. The other was John. He was
Grant’s right hand man, especially when it came to
calving.

“
What do we have here?”
Grant had red hair, a bushy red beard, and was the closest thing to
a brother to me. He was in his early thirties, and had stepped up
to help when I left for Florida.

“
Briar, this is my cousin
Grant, and our foreman, John.” I introduced them. “Briar is going
to spend her summer with us.”

Grant grinned, shaking her hand.
“Welcome to McCree. You’ll be a breath of fresh air around here
Miss Briar. My mother, Millie, will love to have another lady
around.”

John was a little more standoffish and
smiled, “Nice to meet you. I’ll take care of Ash for you,
Chase.”

I thanked him and left Grant to
whatever he was doing, leading Briar up the stairs and across the
wide porch. She paused as I opened the front door for
her.

“
Something wrong?” I asked,
taking in her wondrous expression.

She smiled, sweeping her hand in a wide
gesture. “It’s like a postcard.”

Rocking chairs and swings lined the
porch. An old barrel had a piece of wood nailed to it and was
painted to look like a checkerboard. My father had made it for me.
I’d never get rid of it.

Briar left me by the door, heading
across the porch for Aunt Millie’s cat, Whiskers. I liked cats, but
that one was a pain in the ass. He’d scratched me on more than one
occasion, sometimes just for walking past him.

He liked Briar though. She picked him
up and petted his fur.

“
He’s so sweet.” She
giggled, scratching his head.

I kept my distance. “He’s an ornery old
goat.”

She set him on one of the porch swings
and came back to me, stepping in the foyer. “What?”

“
I hate that cat. We don’t
get a long.”

“
Why?”

“
Ask him, I’d love to
know.” I shut the door behind us. “Millie?”

“
Kitchen,” she shouted.
“I’ll kill you if you’ve got dirty boots, Grant.”

I grinned. “She isn’t paying
attention.”

Briar smiled, following me through the
living room. Her jaw dropped at first sight of the chandelier made
out of antlers and the bearskin rug. She ran into me when I
stopped, staring at the deer head mounted over the
doorway.

“
I’ve gone from looking at
a postcard to being on a western movie set.” She spun in a circle,
taking everything in. “Those aren’t fakes, are they?”

I shook my head. “My family likes to
hunt. Uncle Jerry made the antler chandelier. The buck over the
fireplace was my first. The bear got onto our property and killed a
cow. Millie ran outside and took him down with a twelve
gauge.”

Briars face was comical. “You’re
kidding.”

“
No, ask her
yourself.”

She shifted and bit her lip, “Will you
teach me how to shoot?”

I laughed, honestly caught off guard.
“Really?”

“
Yeah, I mean, I don’t want
to kill anything…”

“
No problem.” I took her
hand and pulled her along to the kitchen. Millie had her back to
us, and was hovering over a pot on the stove. “I smell
chili.”

“
And cornbread,” she
stiffened and whipped around. “Lord have mercy! Get over
here!”

I crossed the room and picked up the
little, but tough woman in a hug. I set her back down and she wiped
her eyes. “Miss me?”

Millie nodded, “I knew you wouldn’t be
gone long.”

I stepped aside and smiled. “Millie,
this is my friend Briar.”

She sputtered, looking between us. “You
never told me your friend was a girl.”

I laughed, “You didn’t ask.”

She grabbed a wooden spoon off the
counter and swatted me, “I have half a mind to…goodness. Just like
your father.”

Briar hugged Millie and thanked her for
letting me stay. “I didn’t want to intrude.”

“
Hush, I am pleased as
punch to have you with us for the summer. We don’t get many
visitors.” Millie patted her gray hair. It was coming out of the
tight bun she always kept it in “Well, we don’t get any visitors
outside of extended family. And your parents are alright sparing
you for two months?”

Briar nodded. “Oh, they won’t even
notice I’m gone.”

Millie frowned. “You must do things
differently in Florida. Go say hello to your uncle, take Briar with
you, Chase. I’ll make sure her room is ready.”

Briar protested, trying to tell Millie
not to worry, but my aunt wouldn’t hear it and shooed us from the
kitchen. I took Briar upstairs to the office we ran the ranch
from.

“
Knock, knock.” I said,
leaning in the doorway.

Uncle Jerry was at his desk shuffling
through papers. “I thought I told you to get cleaned up for
dinner…”

“
Nope.”

Jerry looked up and frowned.

“
Howdy partner.”

“
Chase,” He stood, grabbing
his cane and rounding the desk. “Did you just get in?”

“
Yeah,” I hugged him and
looked back at the door. Briar was hesitant to come in, but she
slipped up next to me and shook Jerry’s hand.

His eyebrows went up. “Well, who is
this pretty lady?”

“
Briar Thompson,” she said.
“Nice to meet you.”

“
Charmed,” Jerry laughed.
“And glad to have you.”

“
She’s a city girl, so go
easy on her.” I told him, knowing he’d put any free hand to work
around here.

A few minutes later Millie poked her
head in and stole Briar away to show her the guestroom.

“
So, what have I missed?” I
sank into the old green couch under the window and kicked up my
feet to rest them on the coffee table. I was beat. Not that I
minded driving, but I wasn’t getting behind the wheel of a truck
for a couple days if I didn’t have to.

“
You’ve been gone six
weeks,” Jerry said. I’d asked him not to tell me anything going on
at the ranch. Unless it was something really bad, like a fire or a
death. I already missed it, and I was trying hard for my mom to
think about something else.

I nodded. “A lot can happen in that
time.”

He sat on the edge of the desk. “Well,
we lost one of our hands, Pat.”

“
How?”

“
He was hitting the bottle
again. I told him to clean up his act or leave. Bunkhouse was minus
one person the next morning.”

“
Shame, he was a good
worker when he stayed sober.” I shook my head. “Then what
happened?”

“
Well, the new guy, Rick,
is nice enough.”

I was sensing a but. We’d hired Rick
just before I left for Florida. They’d needed an extra hand with me
gone. “You don’t like him.”

Jerry rubbed the back of his neck. “I
don’t know…something about the guy has me on guard the more I’m
around him. He’s a little shifty.”

I nodded. “I’ll spend some time with
him tomorrow. Anything else?”

“
Yeah, we got a
mustang.”

This time my eyebrows went up.
“How?”

“
Won her in a card game
against one of the Callahan men.” Jerry said, trying not to laugh.
“He seemed glad to be rid of her.”

I snorted. My uncle and his card games.
He won more than he lost, and had come home with the strangest
things. This wasn’t the first horse either. But a mustang someone
wanted rid of? Hopefully he wouldn’t be a nightmare to train.
“Jerry…”

“
She was free.”

“
Famous last words,” I
grinned.

“
Rick wants to give it shot
and break her.”

I hated breaking horses. I liked to
approach it more like my father and grandfather. Bond and build
trust. The breaking shouldn’t kill the spirit of the animal. Jerry
was on the same page, but in this case I figured he’d hit a brick
wall. He could be short on patience now with his bad
hip.

I had no idea how Rick went about
training and breaking, but I wasn’t going to let him at any of the
horses until I saw what he could do. I’d seen some nasty animal
abuse at fairs and rodeos. Enough to make me vomit. “It’s up to
you.”

Jerry shook his head. “Your
ranch.”

I rolled my eyes. Jerry was an O’Brian.
He married into the family, but after thirty-five years on the
ranch, no one gave his last name a second thought. “Don’t say that.
Besides, you won the horse.”

“
Well, yeah, I just don’t
want her.” His eyes twinkled. “Consider her a welcome home and
early birthday gift.”

“
You’re unloading a horse
on me?”

“
No, I’m begging you to
take her. I’m too old. I can barely ride as it is now.”

I smiled. “Okay, I’m convinced… now
what about the buyers?”

“
You’ve got plenty offers,
some more crazy than I ever seen.” He reached across the desk and
picked up a stack of papers. “They are chomping at the
bit.”

“
No is no.” I said,
wondering if they’d ever let up. This was my ranch and I wasn’t
going to sell it for anything. Its value was immeasurable. Those
bastards on my back, thinking I’d break under pressure or give in
to greed, had another thing coming to them.

Jerry nodded, pleased, and tossed the
stack into our favorite circular file. The one that went right to
the shredder. “Have you seen Grant?”

“
Yeah,”

“
He tell you the big
news?”

I sat forward, “Uh, no.”

“
Holly is pregnant with
number three,” Jerry slapped his knee. “I’m praying this one is a
girl.”

Jerry had two grandsons from Holly and
Grant. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”

He pushed off the desk and shoved his
hands in his pockets, limping over to the window. His hip wasn’t
the same after an accident two years ago when he was trying to fix
the roof of the barn. I’d been pissed, and Grant didn’t talk to his
father for three days. It was our job to patch the roof, but Jerry
liked to do things himself. That time it cost him dearly, and he’d
learned his lesson. “So, you want to tell me about you and the city
girl?”

“
Not much to
tell.”

Jerry glanced back at me, “Spill the
beans, and don’t leave anything out. You never bring people home
with you.”

Ten minutes later I’d given him the
rundown.

“
Just like your father.” He
smiled.

“
Not quite.” I said, also
smiling.

“
You’re not the first
McCree to bring home a girl.” He said. “McCree’s are famous for
stealing women.”

I shook my head. “So one of my
ancestors ran away with a married woman…so what? The O’Brian men
were famous for rustling cattle.”

Jerry sighed. “Just don’t make the same
mistake your father did.”

I wasn’t going to start flying planes
anytime soon, but I knew that wasn’t what my uncle was talking
about. “Jerry, Briar and I are just friends.”

“
You like her.”

“
Doesn’t
matter.”

“
The hell it don’t,” he
grunted.

“
She’ll leave, and the
chances of me seeing her again are slim.”

“
Okay, but just in case,
I’m going to warn you now, make sure you know what you’re doing and
spell it out plain for the girl. You father was a good man, but he
left a lot out by way of explanation to your mother when he married
her. She had no clue, poor girl, what she was getting herself
into.”

I nodded. “Briar knows who I
am.”

“
She knows that you’ll
never give this place up? That you, at such a young age, have a
man’s responsibility?” he limped across the room and sat next to
me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “If you wanted to walk away
from the ranch, I wouldn’t blame you.”

I shrugged, “I know I’m young, but
honestly Jerry, I wouldn’t know how to do anything else or live any
other way. This place is my home. It’s in my blood. I can’t live
without it.”

“
Spoken like a true
McCree.”

“
Briar needed to get away
for a little while, and I guess I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye
to her yet. But she will know the ranch more than my mother did.
I’ll make sure she sees the good and the bad.” My mom met my dad at
a rodeo in one of the neighboring cities. She’d been on vacation
with friends, and found herself the wife of a rancher a few months
later. He hadn’t even shown her the ranch before they were
married.

I saw something in Briar though,
something I doubt she saw in herself. She was strong and brave, and
a hell of an adventurous spirit. If anything, she’d learn more
about herself here than she would anywhere else.