those cold mornings when he was barely old enough to walk. He and his father would come out here.
Asa would saddle up a horse, then lift Rourke in one strong arm and swing up into the saddle. Together they would ride fence until long after the dew on the grasses dried, the sun rising high and warm over the ranch and the sound of the breakfast bell pealing in the air.
Rourke breathed in the memory as he watched his brother unsaddle the bay, more recent memories of the prison barn trying to crowd in.
“Rourke,” J.T. said, looking up as he swung the saddle off. “Welcome home. So you’re back.”
He’d heard more heartwarming welcomes. “Thanks.”
His brother studied him. “You staying?”
He shook his head.
J.T. made a face and started to walk past him.
“The old man doesn’t want me here. Remember? He disinherited me. I’m not his son anymore.”
J.T. sighed, stopped and turned. “He was upset. He didn’t even do the paperwork. You aren’t disinherited. You never were.”
Rourke tried to hide his surprise.
“You know how he is,” J.T. continued. “Says things when he’s mad that he doesn’t mean.”
“Yeah, well, I just saw him and I didn’t get the impression he’d changed his mind.”
“He also can’t say he’s sorry any better than you can,” J.T. said.
Rourke had been compared to his father all his life. He hated to think he might really be like Asa McCall. As if he didn’t have enough problems.
“I assume you heard he had a heart attack,” J.T. said. “He can’t work the ranch like he used to. I’m doing the best I can with Buck’s help, hiring hands for branding, calving and moving cattle to and from summer range. But Dad’s going to kill himself if his sons don’t start helping him.”
Buck Brannigan was a fixture of the ranch. Once the ranch foreman, he was getting up in age and probably didn’t do any more than give orders.
Rourke looked out the barn door, squinting into the sunlight. “Dad would rather die working than rocking on the porch. Anyway, he’s got other sons.”
J.T. swore. “I’d hoped you might settle down, move back here and help out.”
Rourke shook his head. “Even if the old man would let me, I’m not ready right now.”
“You’re determined to stir it all back up, aren’t you?”
“Someone owes me eleven years,” Rourke said.
“Well, even if you do prove that you were framed, those years are gone,” J.T. said. “So how many more years are you going to waste?”
“I didn’t kill Forrest.”
“Don’t you think Cash tried to find evidence that would have freed you?” J.T. demanded. “Hell, Rourke, a team of experts from the state marshal’s office were down here for weeks investigating this case, but you think that, after eleven years, you’re going to come home and find the killer on your own?” J.T. shook his head in disgust, turned and walked off.
Not on his own. He was going to have help, he thought as he rubbed the mare’s muzzle and thought of Cassidy Miller. He’d kissed her right here in this barn when she was thirteen.
Another memory quickly replaced it. Cassidy on the witness stand testifying at his trial.
“SO THE DEFENDANT READ the note that had been left on his pickup windshield and then what did he do?” the prosecutor, Reece Corwin, had asked her.
Cassidy hesitated.
“Remember you are under oath. Just tell the truth.”
Rourke could see that she was nervous, close to tears. Her gaze came to his, then skittered away.
“He dropped the note, opened his pickup door, got in and drove away,” she said.
“Oh, come on, Miss Miller, didn’t the defendant ball up the note, throw it down, jerk open his pickup door so hard it wouldn’t close properly the next day and didn’t he drive out of the bar parking lot spitting gravel? Didn’t he almost hit several people coming out of the bar?”
“Objection!” Rourke’s lawyer, Hal Rafferty, had cried, getting to his feet. “He’s telling her what to say.”
“Overruled. We’ve heard this from other witnesses. Answer the question,” the judge instructed Cassidy. “And Mr. Corwin, please move on.”
“Yes,” Cassidy said, voice barely audible.
“And what did you hear him say before he left?” the prosecutor asked. This part was new. This part would put the nail in Rourke’s coffin.
Cassidy licked her lips, her eyes welling with tears as she looked at Rourke. “He said, ‘I’ll kill you, Forrest.’”
“Speak up, Miss Miller.”
“He said, ‘I’ll kill you, Forrest.’ But he didn’t mean it. He was just—”
“Thank you. No more questions.”
Cassidy had left out one important point his lawyer had been forced to remind her of on cross-examination.
“Who wrote the note that was left on my client’s pickup windshield, Miss Miller?” Hal Rafferty had asked.
Again tears. “I did.”
“And what did that note say?”
Cassidy twisted her hands in her lap, eyes down. “Blaze is meeting Forrest up Wild Horse Gulch.”
“You sent my client to the murder scene?” Rafferty demanded.
“Objection. There was no murder scene until your client got there.”
“Sustained.”
“Why did you write that note, Miss Miller?” the attorney demanded.
She stared down at her hands, crying now, shaking her head.
“What did you hope to gain by doing that?” Rafferty asked.
Again a head shake.
“Answer the question, Miss Miller,” the judge instructed.
“I don’t know why I did it.”
“Did someone instruct you to do it?” the attorney asked.
Her head came up. Rourke saw her startled expression. “No. I…just did it on impulse. I thought he should know what Blaze was…doing.”
“You
