Cowboys Mine
Authors: Stacey Espino
Evernight
Publishing
Copyright© 2014 Stacey Espino
ISBN: 978-1-77130-700-0
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor:
JS
Cook
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All
names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Out of
suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are
seared with scars.
—Kahlil Gibran
COWBOYS MINE
Stacey Espino
Copyright © 2014
Prologue
12 years earlier
Eva glanced at the clock on her night side table
with heavy eyes. It was well past midnight, the gentle cast of moonlight giving
her bedroom a wash of grey. A strip of light from under the door caught her
attention—and then the yelling from downstairs.
She crept from her room, wincing when the hinges on
her door whined. There were two voices—one was her father, the other Colton
McReed from the next ranch over. What was he doing at their house at this ungodly
hour? She pressed her body against the wooden rails of the stairwell, where she
could get a glimpse of the kitchen below. Darkness shrouded her on the second
level, the cool hardwood chilling her bare thigh.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Colton?” Her
father’s voice was controlled but she recognized the serious edge to his tone.
It was the same voice he used when he caught her lying or skipping out on her
chores.
“
What?”
“You broke the windows in my tool shed, and you’re
going to pay for them.”
Eva gasped when she heard the accusation. Colton was
fourteen, four years older than her. She worried that her father might give him
a whooping.
“Well, I ain’t! What are you gonna do about it? Hit
me?”
“You’re drunk. Come morning you’ll work off your
debt on my land,” her father said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t care about any debt. And I sure as hell
don’t care about you or your land!” Colton was belligerent and loud enough to wake
the dead. She hoped her mother didn’t catch her spying on something Eva knew
was none of her business. When she caught movement at the edge of the kitchen,
she realized Colton had shoved her father. She gasped aloud and then slapped
her hand over her mouth. Her heart raced as she tried to get a better look.
“I know about your daddy, son. Everything will be
okay.”
This comment appeared to enrage Colt. She heard the
wooden chairs topple over, and then violent shoving and harsh grunting ensued.
“You don’t know anything!”
Her father had to tackle him and hold him down on
the floor, but he continued to try and throw punches. Colton may still be a kid
but he was as big as her father at fourteen. From where his face was pressed to
the laminate, she swore he looked straight up at her, even though she knew she
was concealed in the dark shadows.
“It ain’t your fault.” She wasn’t sure what was
happening, but her father’s voice held a note of sympathetic understanding
despite the circumstance.
“I hate you! I hate you!”
“Everything will be okay,” her father repeated,
holding down his thrashing body.
Colton struggled like a mad man, throwing out curses
that rang her ears, but her father held him still. Then, seemingly out of
nowhere, he lost his steam and began to cry.
She’d never seen a man cry before, not her father,
Colton, or his twin brother. It took her by surprise. Colton wept in deep,
desperate waves, as if he’d lost his very soul. Her dad shifted his weight off
Colt’s back and pulled him into an embrace as they both sat on the kitchen
floor. He held Colt’s head to his chest and let him cry, not saying a word.
It wasn’t until years later that she learned it was
the night Jess McReed ran out on his family.
Chapter
One
Present Day
Colton reached across the table for another tea
biscuit. Eva’s mother swatted his hand as he pulled back, but he only laughed
before settling in his seat. His spurs chimed and leather chaps creaked as he
adjusted his chair.
“You realize you have a home, Colton McReed,” her
mother said in mock irritation.
“Yes, ma’am, but you know how much I love your
cooking.”
“You can leave some for the rest of us for God’s
sake,” North grumbled as he forked scrambled eggs into his mouth.
“Watch your mouth, young man.” Her mother scolded
him despite the fact he was twenty-six and twice her size. But Colton and North
McReed were like part of the family. Eva barely noticed their presence because
they were as natural in her life as her own reflection.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
Everyone continued to eat in comfortable silence after
her mother returned to the sink to tend the dishes. Her father was already out
on the fields, tilling the land he’d harvested last week. All Eva could think
about was the trip she’d be making in a few days. Her nerves were rattled considering
the long drive and unexpected variables that could come up. She’d be entering her
two cows in a competition at the annual rodeo in Chester. The prize was fifteen
hundred dollars, and any extra money was welcome on a working farm. It was a
chance to make her father proud and prove to him she wasn’t a little girl any
more, but a capable twenty-two year old woman.
It was a two hour drive to the rodeo, located in one
of the larger cities to attract tourists. Eva had never been out of her
hometown. All she knew was farming and her small circle of friends and family. Thinking
of the trip both excited and terrified her.
“You tell the boys about your entries?” asked her
mother without turning her back. The clang of pots and pans was the only sound
left in the kitchen.
Eva gritted her teeth, wishing her mom hadn’t
mentioned the trip. Colt was frozen in place, his fork half way to his mouth.
North had already pushed his plate away and sat straighter, both hands braced
on the edge of the table. The McReed brothers were like overbearing watchdogs,
convinced it was their right to approve of every move she made.
“No, it never came up.” She quickly gathered her
dishes and cleaned her spot, eager to put as much distance between her and the
house as possible. From her peripheral vision, she could see their attention
was still fixated on her.
“What entry?” asked North.
She sighed dramatically. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Then she grabbed her sweater off the coat tree by the side door and slipped
out. The air had a note of coolness in it now that summer was nearly at an end.
She had a million things to do—mucking out, cleaning the chicken coop, and
putting up the storm windows in preparation for the fall season.
First she had to feed the dogs.
“Hey, little miss. You didn’t answer me.” North’s
deep voice was followed by the smack of the screen door falling back into
place. She kept walking.
Eva crouched low in the spare stall where they kept
the dog food and began scooping it into the metal bowls. A moment later,
North’s large shadow blocked out the light from the bay doors.
“Go away, I’m busy.” She knew he wouldn’t leave her
alone until he knew every detail of her trip. Part of her enjoyed tormenting
the brothers. The Lord knows they’d done enough of it to her over the years.
They’d dressed one of the pigs in her favorite dress for Halloween, filled her
boots with manure, and trapped her in the hayloft without a ladder. Although
they weren’t annoying teens any more, she still thought of them as oversized
terrors.
“It’s cute that you think I won’t find out what
you’re up to.” North leaned against the side of the stall, buttoning up his
checkered jacket.
When she heard the sound of spurs echoing in the
center of the barn, Eva knew she was outnumbered. She dropped the feed scoop into
the bag and pushed past North. “Colt, tell North to leave me alone. I have too
many things to get done without entertaining him.”
Colton wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled
her flush to his body, giving her a friendly kiss on the forehead. “We’ll both
leave you be after you fill us in on your entry. I know it wouldn’t have
anything to do with the rodeo in Chester, now would it?”
She rolled her eyes and let out the breath she held.
“I’m entering Bessie and Ruby. The grand prize is fifteen hundred dollars.”
Colton shook his head. She looked up into his blue
eyes, but they were already narrowed and set. “How do you plan to get there?
Your daddy taking you?”