that particular mystery alone for now, he thought about his encounter with the Lockhart woman and her kid the week before. “I didn’t even notice her eyes—” bull “—or anything else about her. It was remembering the times when I could have been hauled into the sheriff’s office for some stupid stunt.” He chalked his cue even though it didn’t look as if Case was going to stop clearing the table anytime soon. “Same as you.”
His cousin grinned slightly. “Yeah, but that was when Sawyer was sheriff. He’d have gone easy.”
Erik snorted. Sawyer was their uncle. A Clay through and through who put family above nearly everything. Except the law. “He’d have skinned us and hung us up to dry just to teach us a lesson.”
“Or handed us over to Squire.” Case was still grinning. “Let the old man teach us a lesson or two.”
Squire was their grandfather. And if his sons were a hard, demanding lot, they came by it honestly enough from him.
“Dad told me the other day he thinks Squire’s mellowing in his old age.”
At that, his cousin finally missed a shot. “Right,” he drawled. “And you didn’t notice the Lockhart lady’s pretty eyes.”
Erik ignored that and took over the table.
“So she’ll be bringing the kid out here tomorrow morning?”
“Yup.” He sank a ball and moved around to the end of the table, lining up his next shot.
“What’re you gonna have him do?”
“Shovel crap by hand for a few hours. Hell, I don’t know. Pick rocks outta that field I haven’t cleared yet.” He got pissed all over again just thinking about it and he blew the shot.
Case grinned. “Just hand your money over now,” he suggested as he took over the table again.
Erik grimaced and slapped a ten down on the side of the table. Then he returned his cue to the rack on the wall and went behind the wooden bar that Case, his father, Daniel, and Erik had built a few summers earlier. He grabbed a cold bottle from the refrigerator beneath the bar.
His cousin had the pool table cleared in seconds. “You want one?” Erik asked.
Case stuck the cue he’d been using in the rack. “I want a real beer. Not that prissy stuff you drink.”
Erik pulled out a longneck and slid it across the bar. “Don’t be sneering at my root beer,” he said mildly. They both knew that if he chose to, he could drink Casey under the table. “Ordered this up special on the internet from some place in Colorado.” He held up the dark brown bottle and smiled. “Home-brewed and smooth as cream. Lady who makes it is as old as Squire, or I think I’d be in love.”
His cousin rolled his eyes. He took the beer and they headed up the stairs, ending up in the kitchen, where Erik had a pot of chili on the stove. He wasn’t much of a cook, but a thirty-one-year-old man whose closest dining alternative was forty-minutes away tended to be able to scrounge a few things together. Between that and the frozen stuff his mother, aunts and cousins kept him supplied with, he managed well enough.
They filled their bowls and then went onto the porch that overlooked Erik’s land.
“You gonna tear that old barn down anytime soon?” Case asked after he’d shoveled in most of his chili.
They leaned back in the oversize chairs that Erik had bought from a woodcrafter in Gillette, their boot heels propped on the wood rail in front of them. “Sometime this summer, maybe.” The barn was the only structure still standing from when Erik had bought the property four years earlier.
He could have helped Matt run the Double-C. The Clay family ranch was the largest one in the state. But Erik had wanted something to call his own. “Gotten sort of used to looking at it.” That, or he was starting to get lazy. He always had plenty of other things around the ranch to keep him busy, anyway. Chores never stopped in his business. And now his heifers were starting to calve. Another month, and there’d be more calves to deal with. Plus, he wanted to get started on the addition to his house.
The work went on and on. But it was the life he’d chosen. And the life he loved.
Casey yawned and slouched down in the chair another few inches. “So what’re you gonna do about the window?”
Erik grimaced. “Haven’t decided.”
“Jessica’d make you another one.”
“She thought I was getting ready to propose,” Erik reminded. He still could hardly wrap his head around it. They hadn’t even been serious. At least, that was what he’d thought. “Last month, after the whole window incident, she told me to eat glass and die.” The window had been a heartfelt gift intended to pave the way for their future. She’d said a whole lot more when Erik had had to tell her how he felt—or didn’t feel—but what still made Erik feel bad were the tears in her eyes when she’d said it. He didn’t make a habit of hurting women like that, and he wished he could undo those few months of seeing her altogether. She hadn’t been a nutcase. She’d been a perfectly nice woman. But that hadn’t meant he’d been even remotely thinking marriage, now or way the hell off in the future.
And she’d flatly refused to take back the window. He hadn’t wanted it. So he’d contacted the church.
“Women think about marriage all the time, I hear.”
He blinked away the image of Isabella Lockhart that kept swimming into his head. He’d told Jess he wasn’t looking for a wife. He wasn’t all that interested in looking for a girlfriend, either.
And hookin’ up for a night or two with a woman raising an angry kid like that Murphy of hers just didn’t seem right. No matter how pretty she was.
He looked over when his cousin yawned again. “Keeping you up here?”
“Been up late all week working on a project.”
His cousin worked for Erik’s dad, Tristan, out at Cee-Vid. The company designed and manufactured computer games, and had made Erik’s dad a millionaire several times over. But Erik had grown up knowing the business was still a cover for what his dad really was. An intelligence expert. And even though Erik and Case never discussed it, he figured his cousin’s “projects” more likely involved Erik’s dad’s true calling than the computer games.
“Be glad Jessica lives over in Gillette,” Case had continued. “You won’t run into her unless you make the effort.” He pulled his boots off the rail and sat up. “Pretty as your face is, I’m headin’ home.”
“Wash that bowl,” Erik said. “I’m pretty but I’m not doing your dishes.”
Case grinned and headed inside the house. A few minutes later, Erik heard the slap of the kitchen screen door followed by the rumble of his cousin’s ancient pickup.
Erik waved as Case drove past, and then looked out over his land. The sun was still a big, burning ball of red hanging in the thin clouds on the horizon. Snow could easily fall this time of year, but the fields in front of him were starting to green, and his horses were grazing in the pasture. All in all, it should’ve been a completely pleasant evening.
