closing his eyes as the liquor burned its way down his throat.
His brother Adam, who worked the ranch with Cody and their father, was off on a backcountry hike in Hawaii, unreachable by phone. That meant Cody would need to contact his other brother, Pierce. The detective’s call couldn’t have come at a worse time—the ranch was gearing up for calving season, which was coming in a month or so.
“Family comes first,” he muttered. It was an uneasy point in ranching life. The herd came first, too. Made things a juggling act.
Pierce was half owner of a business currently operating overseas. He could take time off for an emergency if he wanted to. That was the rub. Would he want to?
He had to. Someone had to be in charge since their father was laid up. The place couldn’t run itself.
Clicking nails on the hardwood floor and a wet nose thrust against his arm announced Bonnie had come into the office. Cody ran a hand along the pale yellow Lab’s smooth head, then set the empty glass on the sideboard. Back at the desk he didn’t even bother to review his planner—whatever was on the books for the next few days would just have to happen without him. He had to go. This might be his last chance.
He moved aside the painting of the old hunting lodge that hung behind the desk and worked the combination on the safe hidden under it. Reaching inside, his fingers closed on a small box. He stared at it a moment, then slowly tucked it in his jeans pocket as the dog watched him with deep brown eyes, tail gently wagging.
“You can’t go with me, Bonnie,” he murmured. “Not this time.”
He would pack a bag, drive to Woodwind and catch a plane. Somehow, someway, he had to find the right words, say the right thing, end this nightmare.
But first he’d call Pierce home.
Chapter One
Pierce Westin stared down at the cattle gate for a long time. Was his brain frozen, were aching muscles clouding his vision or had someone cut the chain and wrapped it back around the steel railings to make it appear it was still secure?
He swung himself off his horse, waded through the snow that had backed up against the gate and grabbed the metal with gloved hands. The last links on either end dangled loose when shaken. It had been cut, all right.
Well, maybe the winter policy had changed since he’d lived and worked on the ranch. Maybe it was always kept this way now. He’d only been back a few days—how did he know?
Except the cuts looked new. He studied the snow, both on his side of the gate and on the Bureau of Land Management side where the ranch had grazing rights. He couldn’t see any fresh tracks besides his own.
His horse, a tidy pinto named Sam, bumped Pierce’s hat off his head and whinnied softly against his neck, his exhalations forming a cloud of vapor in the cold air. Pierce caught the hat before it hit the ground and pulled it back on. Okay, okay, no time to worry about this now, he had a chopper to meet and Sam was apparently on duty to remind him of it. Back in the saddle, Pierce moved off down the canyon.
He’d been away from the ranch for most of fifteen years, hence the protesting muscles in the saddle. He wouldn’t be here now except for Cody’s call, and for a second he flashed on the situation he’d left behind in Italy. He immediately pushed aside those concerns—no use stewing about something he couldn’t change from thousands of miles away.
An hour later, Pierce reached the airfield in time to witness a huge helicopter descending from the turbulent skies—there was a storm predicted for late the next day. No point in muttering curses at Cody for leaving nothing but cryptic notes about who was arriving on the chopper, but man, it would have been nice to have a name or a reason for the visit. Even a contact number so he could cancel would have been nice.
The blades were still whirling when Pierce pulled his horse to a halt beside Jamie Dirk. Two generations of Westin men had depended on Jamie’s common sense and work ethic to keep the Open Sky running, but the old guy hadn’t changed much in the past fifteen years.
Jamie stood beside his bay mare. Pierce knew the preferred mode of transportation had shifted from horseback to ATVs over the years. He was riding the pinto for old time’s sake. He suspected Jamie was riding the mare because that was what a ranch hand was “supposed” to ride and there was little doubt that a horse was better with a cow than a machine or even a man if it came to that.
Jamie looked up at Pierce from beneath the brim of his disreputable brown hat, shifted the ever-present toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and grumbled, “’Bout time you showed up.”
“You know anything about the gate over past Saddleback?” Pierce asked as he dismounted. His boots landed on a thin layer of day-old crunchy snow, a far cry from the three-foot drifts he’d steered clear of at higher elevations.
“The one leading to the BLM land? What were you doing all the way out there?”
“Just looking around, getting a feel for things again. It’s been a while, you know.”
“What about the gate?”
“The chain’s cut.”
Jamie’s brow wrinkled. “That’s odd.”
“I thought so, too.” Pierce tried to catch a glimpse of who might be inside the chopper. “I wish I knew who the hell we were standing here to greet.”
“Maybe I should take off and see about that gate.” The old guy was happier in a saddle than on the ground.
“Stick around,” Pierce said, handing Jamie the pinto’s reins. “These people won’t be here long, not when I explain about the storm.”
“Speaking of that storm, I sent a few of the men to the higher pastures to bring the heifers closer to the ranch. Those first-time mothers need help now and again.”
Pierce nodded. He understood Jamie was keeping him in the loop and he appreciated it, but except for that chain being cut, there wasn’t a thing he could tell Jamie that Jamie didn’t already know.
Pierce had taken a dozen steps onto the field when he heard another engine and turned to see the arrival of a ranch vehicle. The young driver looked sullen as though being asked to transport visitors was beneath him.
The sound of the helicopter door opening reclaimed Pierce’s attention and he turned in time to see a man jump out of the chopper. Dressed in black from the sunglasses plastered on an expressionless face to the leather coat strained across burly shoulders, he scanned the field like a vulture, shaved bald head reflecting what little light fought its way through the gloom. Other than the old hangar, which housed the ranch helicopter, and a wind sock whipping around as the weather picked up, there wasn’t a heck of a lot to see.
Which begged the question in Pierce’s head: What was he doing standing out here in the frickin’ cold, waiting for a bad version of Mr. T to give the place a once-over? He took a deep breath of icy air. “Welcome to—”
“Stop right there,” the man growled.
Pierce felt his forehead furrow. “Excuse me?”
“I said stop. Let me see some ID.”
The
