had a bottomless appetite and a head for mischief. He shook his dark hair from his face and grinned. “So, Barrett. For once it’s not me that broke the rules. What’s it feel like to be a trespasser?”
Owen laughed as their father joined them. “Good thing you didn’t run across any of Joe Hatcher’s booby traps.”
“Those are rumors,” their father said with a frown. He scrubbed a hand over a scalp of stubbly gray hair that had not thinned in spite of his seventy-three years. “Joe is a good man, or used to be. Top-notch saddler until his life took a turn.”
“If you say so,” Owen said.
“I do say so, son,” he said quietly. “Everyone’s life takes a turn now and then, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.” Owen looked at the table, probably feeling again the enemy bullets that had carved a trail into his leg and left him scarred and limping. Keegan understood, too. He was adopted into the Thorn family at age sixteen when there was no one to care for him but Evie and Tom Thorn. In Barrett’s case, one careless turn of a drunk driver’s wheel had brought his life to a full stop.
Yes, he agreed. Life could take a sudden turn.
Owen and Jack stood as their mother ushered Shelby in and seated her in one of their vacated chairs.
At last he could get a good look at her. Trying not to stare, he drank in the details. She was slender and fine boned, probably somewhere close to five feet seven inches. Now he could see that her eyes were the green of forest moss, her hair brown. She’d pulled it into a wet ponytail that swept the flannel shirt his mom had loaned her. A navy blue pair of sweatpants, which his mother must have dug up from somewhere, engulfed her legs.
“I think she’s going to be okay,” Evie said. “But I would lobby for a hospital visit to be sure there isn’t a concussion from where she was struck on the head.”
Struck on the head? What kind of person would hit a woman? That notion made his stomach flip. And the fact that she thought he’d done it? He cleared his throat and introduced everyone properly.
Shelby nodded solemnly at each brother and his parents.
“Thank you,” she said, her gaze finally landing on him. “Especially you, Barrett. I...I thought...” She twisted a finger in the hem of her borrowed shirt. “Well, anyway, thank you.”
He nodded. “What were you doing on Hatcher’s property?”
His mother shot him a scolding look. “Can you offer her a cup of coffee before you start the interrogation? Even cowboys should have good manners.”
Ignoring the smiles from his brothers, he poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Shelby.
“Thank you,” she said, the slight quirk of her lips indicating she was enjoying seeing him chastised. “I thought I was still on my uncle’s property. I got caught up in my work and I didn’t realize I’d strayed. Lost track of the time, too.” She looked thoroughly embarrassed.
Her uncle? Which of their neighbors was her relation? He was about to ask when a loud pounding on the front door made her jump, spilling some of the coffee.
“Don’t think that’s the cops yet,” Owen said. “I called them, but they’re working an overturned lumber truck on the main road that has traffic stopped in and out of town.” He opened the door.
Joe Hatcher stepped in, white hair plastered over his skull. His angry gaze swept the kitchen until it fastened on Shelby. “I was out checking my property. Saw Barrett pulling you out of the ravine. You got no business on my land, like I told you last week. You trespass again and you’re gonna get hurt,” he snarled.
All the brothers stepped a pace forward.
“You’ll be civil,” their father said, “or you’ll leave.”
“Civil?” Hatcher’s eyes narrowed. “I gotta be civil when she can trespass on my land? Go poking around in my mine?”
“I wasn’t anywhere near your mine and I didn’t mean to stray onto your property. That was my mistake. I was taking some samples along the road and I got disoriented.”
Samples? For what purpose? Barrett wondered.
“Fool thing to do. You deserve what you got,” Hatcher said.
Shelby stood and lifted her chin. “So was it you who hit me from behind and locked me in the trunk of my car?”
“’Course not,” he said. “If I’d known you were on my land, I’d have shot you.”
Evie gasped and Barrett started to speak, but Shelby faced Hatcher, a glint of fire in her expression. “There is no need for threats. I apologize for trespassing. I was taking some surface samples and I didn’t realize I was no longer on my uncle’s property.”
“But let’s be clear,” she continued. “That isn’t your mine. I have every right to enter and collect samples and I will do that in the near future.”
“You gonna tell me I don’t own the property that’s been in my family for a hundred years?” he snapped.
“Of course you own the land. That’s why I came to see you last week, but you wouldn’t talk to me. As I would have explained if you’d answered your phone or read your mail, you don’t own the mineral rights. My uncle does, and he wants an assay of the ore. That’s my job and you don’t have the legal right to interfere.”
Hatcher’s mouth worked, brows drawn into a ferocious scowl. “I don’t care what the law says. If you step on my property again, I’ll kill you.”
Barrett’s pulse hammered as he grabbed Hatcher by the arm. “That’s enough. You’re leaving.”
Hatcher shook away Barrett’s grip but stalked to the front door with Barrett following. “Get your car off my property,” he called to Shelby. Before he stepped outside, he poked Barrett in the chest. “You won’t be so eager to help when you know who her kin is,” he hissed.
Barrett stared him down. “Doesn’t matter. You’re not going to come into this home and threaten a woman’s life.”
Muttering, Hatcher stomped down the porch steps.
Barrett shut the door, Hatcher’s words replaying in his mind. As he returned to the kitchen, a trickle of suspicion slithered through his belly. It couldn’t be. “Shelby, who is your uncle?”
“Ken Arroyo,” she said. “Do you know him?”
Barrett could feel the weight of his family staring at him. Time seemed to slow as if the hands of the old carriage clock were being held by some invisible force, his breaths ticking along in rhythm.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I know him.”
“You’re neighbors,” she said uncertainly, “even though he’s not here for part of the year. You must be friends, then?”
“No, not friends.” The furthest thing from friends.
She cocked her head slightly, long tendrils
