Trial by Fire (5 page)

“Say what?”

“That he’s white.”

Mr. Sheffield looked at him. “Son, he is white, way whiter than you.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, Daddy.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

God almighty, he’d had this very discussion with his oldies. More than once. “I’ll wait for the go-ahead, for sure.”

“The go-ahead for what? What did I miss?”

“You were fixin’ to grab me one of them muffins out of the bread box.”

“Dammit!”

They both looked at Holden when he burst out with the word.

“I forgot your friggin’ pie.”

Sheffield waved one hand. “They’ll deal with it tomorrow. They’ll be closing around three.”

“I can run into town to grab it, if Sarah Jane can pop back in and watch Chloe, or I have to run Lachlan back to town, and she’ll be up by then, and I’ll pick it up then….” Holden looked utterly exhausted all of a sudden.

“Hand me my fucking muffin, boy.”

“Yes, you evil old man.”

“If anyone else is making a run into town, I can just hop in with them,” Lachlan said, somehow wanting to lighten the load.

“Holden can do it. There’s nothing pressing out there. We’re still getting ready for our first set of shows.” Mr. Sheffield ate his muffin, leaning against the counter, just like his son. “Haven’t run a rodeo without Landon in a long, long time.”

Holden grimaced, the most amazing facial contortion. “I’ll be right back.”

Lachlan understood. Every time he thought about Adelaide being dead, it was like a sucker punch to the chest. “Where is she?” he asked Mr. Sheffield. “Adelaide. Was she buried or cremated?”

“Cremated. They wanted their ashes sprinkled on the different arenas they rode at, so they’re here, waiting for me and Margery to go on the road.” The man’s dark eyes got a little shimmery, but he managed a smile. “Stupid kids.”

“When she was a teenager, she always said she wanted her ashes spread at Fraser Island. We went there every year for the family holiday. She said it was the most beautiful place on earth.”

“Well, then y’all should have a wee bit of them to take there too.” He got a shaky smile. “It ain’t like they give a damn, man. They’re where they belong. This shit, it’s to make those of us left behind feel better, that’s all. We did order headstones for the family plot, though, and we’ll put a bench in there, so there’s somewhere to sit and have a rest, should folks feel the need.”

“Thank you.” That was the best thing he could have hoped for. “I’ll take you up on that, and I’d be honored if you’d let me pay for half the memorial.”

“Just start another fund for the baby. She’s the one we have to all take care of now.”

“I’ll take care of her, Daddy. She won’t ever need for anything.” Holden was back, tanned face near gray underneath.

“I know that, Son, but this feller is rich as Croesus. Might as well get him to help.”

Holden closed his eyes for a second. “Don’t you have to go do figures or something, Daddy?”

“Naw. Y’all are welcome to muck out stalls if you’re bored. I’ll watch the baby.”

“I—you ready to head back to town?” Holden looked at him, and those dark brown eyes looked just like those of an unbroken horse, ready to toss a bit of crazy about. “I’ll text Sarah Jane and see if she’ll come keep an eye out for me.”

“Sure, mate. That way you can pick up that pie.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. Give me ten.”

“Anything you need.” He felt a bit like he was humoring a lunatic, but no one needed Holden to throw a wobbly. Not now.

Because he was barely holding his shit together, and, to be honest, Holden’s stubborn strength was the only thing keeping him upright.

Time to go get some rest, regroup, and figure out what the fuck to do next.

HOLDEN
ran the stairs of his house, sweat pouring off him like it was storming inside. Chloe was here in the guest room that was fixin’ to be a little girl’s room, the Aussie uncle was in the extended stay hotel, and he was running.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

God, he didn’t want to do this. He wasn’t a dad. That was Landon. Landon was Chloe’s father. Landon was made for this. Him? He hadn’t figured out what the fuck he was good at yet.

He was a fair roper, a shit bull rider, too little for the military, too tall to be a fucking midget wrestler. Hell, he just….

Running.

He was running. Up and down. Eventually this would work his shit out. It had to. He had a little girl to raise.

Not that his folks hadn’t volunteered. Shit, he could send Chloe off to Oz to live with her rich as hell relations if he really wanted to be a coward, but it wasn’t about that. He was the one Addie and Landon had trusted with their baby. So be it. It was his job, and he was so deep in love with that girl that he couldn’t bear to lose her.

His phone rang where it sat down on the hall table, and he slipped on the third-to-last step, going down on his ass.

“God
damn
it!” he screamed, then stopped, eyes wide as he waited to make sure he hadn’t woken Chloe.

Thank God that little one had started life on a cattle ranch; she was used to bawling. He climbed to his feet, stiff as a board, and caught the phone just in time to miss the call. Ryan Jacques’s name came up on the incoming, and he knew there would be no voice mail. He just hit the callback button.

“Jesus Christ, man. Don’t you ever just answer your motherfucking phone?” The gruff, raw voice was like a balm to his senses somehow, familiar and bracing and right.

“Kiss my ass, you bitch. Why are you bothering me?” He staggered into the kitchen, grabbed a water bottle, and plopped his butt down right on the tile, Stumpy and Button coming over to flop down beside him. Harry and Colorado would be upstairs, guarding Chloe with their lives.

“You haven’t sent me a picture of that baby in two days. I was starting to worry you’d thrown yourself under a combine.”

“That would be entertaining. It’d piss Mom off, though. Addie’s family showed up. A brother. I hit him.”

Which, yeah, Ryan already knew about that, but Holden was still shell-shocked and shit, so it bore repeating.

Ryan chuckled. “You hit him again?”

“No. No, I let him see Chloe. I had to, you know? He’s her uncle.”
Tell me I did the right thing, man. I need someone to do that for me.

“Well, yeah. I mean, who really knows what family politics Addie had going on, but Chloe needs to know her mom’s people, buddy.”

Oh. Yeah, that was exactly what Holden wanted, and the words soothed his ruffled feathers some.

“That’s sort of what I thought. I mean, fuck, she was his sister.”

“Right.” Ryan paused. “You need me to come? I can finagle some time off.”

“Oh, hell, I don’t know. I don’t know dick anymore. My folks are a wreck, and I’m trying to figure this out, you know? How do I take a baby with me when I work?”

“You hire a nanny that doesn’t have as many grandbabies as Maria. There’s got to be someone eager for the job.”

“Yeah, if Momma would just chill out about the idea. Addie was apparently opposed to having too many noncowboy folks.”

“Addie was a stay-at-home mom who rode once in a while,” Ryan said drily. “You run a ranch, and you have an aging set of parents who run a rodeo company who just lost the son they were going to turn it over to. Your mom can suck it up.”

“Yeah. Shit, man. What am I going to do?” Him and Landon, they’d had a plan, a system worked out on how they were going to deal with shit. Now, everything was horked.

“Hire someone if you have to. Hire tons of ’em. Hell, you have a zillion employees. One of them is bound to be management material.” Ryan sounded so sure. “Look, I can come down on Monday, according to Shay.”

Shay was Ryan’s superhuman assistant, a forty-something lesbian with steel-gray hair and a mind for details. She kept the former Marine on schedule in classic military fashion.

“Can you? I could… I could handle a visit.” Surely Lachlan would head home by then, right? Hell, if he didn’t, Ryan had a bullshit meter that wouldn’t quit.

He’d know if Lachlan intended to do them dirty.

“Sure, man. I’d love to see you and Chloe.” Ryan had met the baby at Landon’s funeral, but that was it. None of them had been at their best. Hell, at the funeral, Holden had been coming off a three-day drunk.

“Well, holler and let me know when you think you’ll be down. I’ll make sure I’m about.” Ryan was always welcome, but right now he would be a calm, reasonable presence, and Holden thought he needed it. “I’m keeping shit together, but it won’t take anything to tip the balance.”

“I got your back, buddy. I’ll call Sunday and let you know what time. In the meantime, send me pics.”

“You got it. She finally got that bottle thing down, so that makes for sleeping.”

“Oh, good deal.” Ryan had a lot of younger siblings. Like, a lot. Some born when he was in his late teens. He’d given Holden a ton of tips on bottle-feeding. Then he’d called Sarah Jane, and they’d figured out a schedule.

“Yeah. Yeah, I…. Tell me something about your life, man. The last month all I’ve done is talk.”

“Well, I just finished up a job for an heiress. She wanted to make sure none of her kids was trying to poison her. Cops thought she was dotty, but turns out she had low-level arsenic poisoning.”

“No shit? Was it the kids?”

“Her brother-in-law. Wanted his kids to inherit, not hers. Some kind of rat poison he shipped in from China.”

“Fucking creepy, man. That’s some sick shit.” He couldn’t imagine doing that to somebody. He didn’t even like rat poison in the house ’cause of the dogs. And now the baby. Good thing he’d kidproofed his house when Landon and Addie had Chloe, so it was easy to bring her in.

Speaking of which…. “Hey, you can help me paint and shit. I need to do up Chloe’s room.”

“You got it. I live for that DIY crap.”

“Good deal. The crib’s in there, but the fucking room is beige. No baby wants beige.”

The little asshole designer motherfucker that he’d fucked for a few months had convinced him it wasn’t beige, it was mushroom. That hadn’t lasted long.

“Mushroom is no one’s friend,” Ryan intoned. Best friend. He knew about the designer too.

“God no.” He was finally cooling down, the tile actually a little chilly now. His butt had stopped throbbing too, so he rose to go find something to nibble. Holden kept forgetting to eat when he was alone.

That sounded so fucking weird, but it was true.
Oh, cheese ball. Please
, he prayed as he listened to Ryan jabber,
don’t let it be moldy.

“So, anyway, I’ll be there Monday evening at the latest. Okay?”

“I’ll pick you up. Just tell me whether you’re DFW, Love, or Texarkana.”

“You got it, Holden. Hang in there, okay?”

“You know I will.” He hung up and went to find some Tostitos or crackers or something. Cheese ball, crackers, and beer. The single dad supper of choice.

LACHLAN
sat at the table watching Mrs. Sheffield shell some sort of peas.

He was on his third day in a row at the ranch, and he was learning Chloe’s schedule as well as getting to know the hands, who all stopped in to see the baby. God knew he’d drunk more coffee in three days than he’d ever had in his bloody life.

He’d never been so desperate for a cup of real tea. He had a measly teabag with lukewarm water every day at the hotel, and he wanted to cry with it.

Lachlan cleared his throat. “So, when does rodeo season begin again?”

“We’ll head out in a couple three weeks. Our first few shows are always local. We try not to travel far until after the boys’ birthday.” Mr. Brandon was looking at the newspaper while Mrs. Sheffield shelled those peas.

He was waiting for Holden to come in with Chloe. Holden had taken the baby on horseback to watch the ropers in the pen. Who took a baby out on a horse at seven thirty in the morning?

Lachlan grinned. Okay, so her mum would have done, but still.

Holden came up onto the porch, stamping his boots, baby in this sling thing on his chest. “Fixin’ to storm, y’all. Lachlan.”

“Morning.” Back home a storm could mean problems. “Anything I can do?” He was sick of sitting on his bum.

“The boys are hustling the stock in, and Crazy is putting Pepper away. I’d hang here ’til it blows over, though. Just to be careful.” Holden looked down at the sleeping baby on his chest. “She’s not looking concerned, huh?”

Mr. Brandon snorted. “She knows she has a big sucker.”

“Hey, Crazy’s not here. Don’t bad-mouth him!”

That got him to laughing, Mr. Brandon and Holden joining in in short order.

Mrs. Sheffield, now, she just pressed her lips together and blinked, her hands moving in a blur.

Holden sat, looking as easy as a man could with a coffee and a baby. “You know when your folks are coming out yet, man?”

“I was hoping they could hop a flight Sunday, but it looks like Tuesday soonest.”

“Do y’all want to stay over to Landon’s instead of a hotel? Y’all could stay with me, but I got a buddy flying out from LA.”

“Ryan’s coming?” Mr. Brandon asked, about the time that Mrs. Sheffield began to scream.

“You will not open my baby boy’s house up to anyone! Especially not strangers! What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you looking to sleep with this one? He’s obviously not into boys!”

“Momma!” Holden’s voice was sharp, embarrassed. “What is wrong with you?”

Lachlan sat very still, not sure what to do. If this was his house, his dad would take Mum to another room and chat, but he didn’t want to do the wrong thing and make matters worse.

“What’s wrong is either of you acting like this man has a say in anything we do! He never once called her. Not once. Never came to see her. Now he wants to be family to her baby?”

Right. Enough was enough. Lachlan rose, slapping his hands down on the table. “She left without a bloody word. I had a PI looking for her for more than three years. When I finally get the bloody call, he tells me she’s dead. You’ve had weeks to deal with this, but it’s raw in my gut still. Don’t you point fingers at me!”