Brash Read online

“Who’s the mongrel?” he asked good-naturedly.

  Grace grinned. “This is Belle. She’s a friend of mine.”

  Her father reached down and gave the basset hound, who had been waiting patiently beside the table, a pat on the head and a rub under the chin. Belle leaned into him and licked his hand. For a moment it seemed as though her father was as content and happy and clear as she’d seen him of late. But after a moment, his face fell and he pulled his hand away. “Those eyes . . . she looks about as miserable as I feel,” he ground out bitterly.

  Grace pushed back the wall of pain that threatened to steal her hope and faith. “Why are you miserable, Dad?”

  “Stuck in here when I have a job to do,” he explained, his chin lifting in that way it always did when he talked about his work as a sheriff. “People out there who need me. If I’m not sprung soon, I could lose my job, Gracie. Your mama doesn’t bring in enough midwifing.”

  God, it hurt her so much to hear him talk about the past as though it was the present. Thinking her mom was still alive. But hurt didn’t help him, and it sure didn’t do anything to protect his good name.

  “Dad,” she began gently. “I need you to tell me about Mr. Palmer.”

  His dark brows rose and he looked momentarily interested. “Caleb?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, honey, he is my very best friend.” A hint of a smile played about his lips. “Good man. Right good man. Always there for me. That’s how friends should be. Don’t you forget that.”

  Grace reached down and started stroking Belle’s head. “He’s done something terrible.”

  Her father didn’t even hesitate before answering. “No, no, baby. Not him.”

  “Yes, Dad,” she insisted, breath caught in her lungs, bracing herself for what was coming. “He hurt a woman.”

  “What do you mean, hurt?” He sat back in his chair looking utterly dumbstruck for a moment. Then his skin went cow udder white and he gasped. “Lord Almighty! He takin’ the blame for that, is he?”

  Shit. So her father had already heard about the attack. Grace would have to speak to Bev and Elisabeth. In his condition, he shouldn’t be hearing about such upsetting things from anyone but her.

  “He admitted it, Dad. There were witnesses and a police report. And the woman’s going to testify against him.”

  A sad smile touched Peter Hunter’s mouth. “How can she, baby? She’s dead.”

  A boulder the size of Texas rolled through Grace and sat there, festering in her belly. Her pulse pounded savagely in her blood. Instead of asking him to clarify his words or continue, she wanted, more than anything, to get up and walk out. But she had to ask, didn’t she? It’s why she’d come. To find out what he knew. To find out the truth.

  “Who are you talking about, Dad?” she began softly.

  “That girl, Gracie dear.” His gaze shifted to his magazine and he started thumbing through the pages once again. “Cass Cavanaugh.”

  Two

  “You two should be on an island somewhere,” Cole grumbled, dropping into a chair. “Those looks you’re passing between you gotta be making everyone in this place damn uncomfortable.”

  “What looks?” Sheridan asked, turning away from her fiancé to stare confusedly into the faces of her new family, who were all clustered around a table inside the decently packed Bull’s Eye.

  Cole just snorted. Love. It made his lip curl. The idea of it. The weakness of it. Could slice you in two, drop you to your knees if you gave in to it. How the hell his brothers had fallen off the face of the earth into that pit of bullshit he’d never know. But he wanted no part of it. Ever.

  Leaning in close to Sheridan’s ear, Cole’s brother James bit the lobe gently. “I think he’s referring to how I look when I’m staring at you, honey. Hungry,” he added on a growl. “And not for food.”

  Cole groaned. “Come on. I just got here. Can I at least order something before the two of you make me puke?” He grabbed a menu and ripped it open. He was starving. That’s what eight hours a day of training did to a guy.

  “Got a bug up your ass, little brother?” Deacon inquired dryly, one brow raised over amused green eyes.

  “Because I don’t want to bear witness to your mutual descent into the hell of wedded bliss?”

  Deacon’s lips twitched. “That’s cold.”

  “I’d say so,” Mac agreed, her blue eyes sparkling as she slipped her arm through Deacon’s.

  Of course she’d say so, Cole thought. His sister-in-law, who also happened to be the forewoman of the Triple C, was all happy and agreeable now that she’d married her childhood crush. Forget the fact that her new husband had only a few weeks earlier tried to destroy the one thing she loved above all else. The Triple C.

  ’Course, Deac wasn’t interested in that anymore.

  Love.

  He sneered. Changed things for a while maybe. But it wasn’t something a person could count on to last. The pain would find you soon enough.

  “Don’t pay him any mind, y’all,” James said, scooping up his beer and taking a swig. “He’s one week from a fight.”

  Tipping back his hat, Deacon’s eyes widened with understanding. “Ah, right.”

  “What?” Sheridan asked, looking from one brother to the next. Deacon’s beautiful assistant had been around the brothers for only a short time. She had a lot to learn. Not that she wasn’t capable. Filly was damn smart.

  “What’s the one week about?” she continued.

  “Fists Cavanaugh here is just livin’ in the world of the deprived, is all,” Deacon told her with a grin.

  “Poor baby,” James added, his ocean-colored eyes flashing with the opposite of sympathy.

  Shithead.

  Cole ordered a burger with cheese but no bun from the passing waitress, then turned back to his family—the ones who had called his ass home tonight. “First of all, go to hell. Second, let me know when y’all are done chappin’ my ass, ’K?”

  Mac looked utterly nonplussed as she popped a French fry in her mouth. “Someone better clue me in here. Was/is Cole poor and/or deprived?”

  Sheridan, who was seated on the other side of her, explained, her business voice cranked up to high, “I believe it might have something to do with the rules fighters follow before a match. The things they abstain from.”

  “You got it, honey,” James said, dropping a kiss on her cheek.

  “Like what?” Mac asked.

  “Oh, come on,” James said on a laugh. “You ain’t that innocent, are you, Mac?”

  She reached past Sheridan to punch him in the arm. “Shut up.”

  James chuckled. “Your woman’s got some power behind that muscle, Deac.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” the man returned.

  “Alcohol is one, I imagine,” Sheridan continued, her tone still edged with boardroom coolness.

  Cole groaned. Christ. Nothing sounds better than a cold beer right now.

  “And sex is probably another.”

  Except that.

  Fuck.

  “Is it sex or alcohol, Cole?” Deacon asked, then drained the rest of his beer.

  “Kill me now.” Cole grunted.

  “No can do. Fontana wants that chance,” James said. “So just keep the faith and—”

  “Keep your fly zipped?” Mac tossed out in a questioning voice, grinning like a cat.

  The table erupted into laughter.

  “Is this the reason you guys wanted me back here tonight?” Cole demanded peevishly. “To jerk my chain fifty ways to Sunday?”

  The question quickly blanketed the laughter. Eyes dropped to drinks and the tabletop. Of course that wasn’t the reason they’d asked him to come home, and Cole knew it. He took a swig of his ice water. Wished it was tequila.

  “Palmer.” Deacon said the word in an almost m
enacing voice.

  Teeth tightly clenched, Cole uttered, “You able to get in to see him?”

  “Yep.”

  Cole’s gaze came up, narrowed. “Shit. And?”

  The man’s once amused expression was now stone cold. “I got in, but he refuses to see me.”

  Cole rapped the table. “Goddammit, Deac. With all your money and connections you couldn’t get that done.”

  “His rights supersede my influence.”

  “Rights,” Cole ground out. “That piece of shit shouldn’t have rights. He knows the truth about Cass.”

  “That’s what he claimed,” James said quietly.

  What was this? Cole stared at the blue-eyed horse whisperer who had found love like some people find God. “You don’t believe it now?”

  The man shrugged. “I had him in a chokehold at Deac and Mac’s wedding, for Christ’s sake. I was amped up, ready to take him out—”

  “Should’ve done it,” Cole ground out.

  “My point is, he could’ve said he knew who killed Cass just to get my hands off his neck. Could’ve been a bluff.”

  “Bullshit.” Cole couldn’t believe his brothers were thinking this way. “He knows something—and so does his best friend, Sheriff Hunter.”

  Deacon dropped an arm across Mac’s shoulders and sighed. “It’s possible. But we can’t get to either of them. Because of you and James and that unwelcome visit to Hunter’s care facility, there’s a restraining order out against us. And Palmer’s wife and daughter are no longer working at the bakery. The place is closed indefinitely.”

  “What?” Cole hadn’t heard that.

  “Couldn’t take the scandal,” Mac told him. “All the questions. A couple of reporters came down from Dallas. Palmers ain’t sophisticated people. It was too much.”

  As the waitress placed the burger before him, a sinking feeling started to move through Cole. What the hell was going on here? He’d been away for a few days training, and he’d come back to roadblocks and no plan. They had to get to Palmer, find out what he knew—what he believed.

  “Sure, there are lots of maybes and possiblys going around here, but that doesn’t mean we don’t check out every lead we got.” His eyes shifted between the two men. “Or maybe things have changed in the past couple of days? Maybe you two are so caught up in your new and shiny lives, you want to put our sister on the back burner.” He sneered at his brothers. “That what happens when you’re getting laid regularly? Your brain shrinks and your balls disappear?”

  “Hey!” Mac called out.

  “Don’t go there, little brother,” Deacon began, his tone a low, clear warning.

  “You know damn well we want the truth,” James added.

  Cole laughed at them all. It was a bitter, ugly sound, and he didn’t much care for it.

  Mac was staring at him hard.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “You think I don’t want to know the truth about my best friend?”

  Her voice was clear and true, but the flash of pain-laced defiance made Cole falter. Made him wonder if he’d gone too far. Seems he was doing that quite a bit lately.

  Deacon released a weighty breath and played with the empty beer bottle beside his glass. “It’s just going to take a different plan of action. A new strategy. And while we’re working that out, we need to decide the fate of the Triple C.”

  “My workplace, let’s not forget,” Mac added quietly, her eyes still heavy with all the talk of Cass.

  Deacon pulled her in close. “No one’s forgetting that, darlin’.”

  “I say, give it to the Cavanaugh bastard and be done with it,” Cole said without heat. He couldn’t care less about the C. Not right now anyway. He felt frustrated and mixed up about what was happening—what had been happening over the past month. He wanted the truth about what had happened to Cass, and yet there was a deep, dark place inside him that didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to face the fact that he hadn’t been there for his twin, hadn’t protected her from the bastard who’d ripped her from his life . . .

  When he glanced up, he found the four of them staring at him.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “That brother of ours has been livin’ here for most of his life. None of us wants the place. Mac’ll stay on with him running things.”

  “We can’t be sure of that,” Deacon said. “Besides, one of us does want it.”

  Cole stilled. “Who?”

  James looked first at Sheridan, then at Cole. “We do.”

  We! Good fucking Christ. These women were changing everything. Messing shit up—messing with heads. First Deac was going to destroy the Triple C. Then Mac stepped in, and now he had a new ranch built and was sticking around town. James hadn’t given a shit about the Triple, and now with Sheridan wearing his ring, he wanted to stay here in River Black and—what, make it their home? Damn lovebirds. Hadn’t they all silently agreed to keep away from this town? This goddamned town that had destroyed them all? They didn’t belong here . . . not anymore. At least Cole still believed that.

  “The horses . . .” James began. “They need to be looked after.”

  “So visit them,” Cole ground out. His appetite was gone. “You don’t have to live there.”

  “Don’t have to, true,” James agreed with a nod. “But I think I want to. We want to. Split time between here and Dallas, like Deac does.”

  Heat vibrated through Cole’s body. He looked at James, then Deacon. “I feel like I don’t even know the two of you anymore.”

  “You’re overreacting,” Deacon began.

  Cole’s phone vibrated and he glanced down at the readout. His jaw clenched as his eyes moved over the name. Jesus, the day was just getting better and better. What did she want? To tell him that she was coming into town tonight and he’d better stay thirty feet away from her at all times?

  This is Grace Hunter. I don’t know if you’re in River Black, but I’d like to meet w/you ASAP.

  The vet’s face popped into his mind. She had a real pretty face. The kind a man could stare at for hours and not get bored. Too bad she was a giant pain in the ass. He typed.

  I’m in RB.

  What was this? he wondered. Contacted by Grace Hunter out of the blue. The woman had wanted him nowhere near her after his little breaking and entering at her office, followed up by the visit to her dad. And then there was that little matter of the restraining order out on him. He couldn’t afford trouble a week before his fight. And how had she gotten his private cell number?

  Can you meet me @ 10 Ruddyfern Drive. 30 mins?

  What’s on Ruddyfern?

  My house.

  One of Cole’s eyebrows jerked up. This had to be a prank. He snorted.

  Will there be law enforcement waiting for me?

  No

  Handcuffs?

  Shit, he couldn’t help himself with that one.

  There was a second or two before she responded. Then . . .

  I can’t tell if you’re being funny or a jackass.

  How ’bout both? Just don’t wanna be arrested tonight, darlin.

  I’ve dropped the restraining order.

  Surprise roared through him. What the hell? Why would she do that? Really, was this a prank? Payback for what he’d done? Go and ask her, dumbass. He stared at the text. From what he’d learned about Grace Hunter, she didn’t play around. She was tough and serious and rigid—not to mention hard-core about protecting her dad from the big bad Cavanaugh brothers. He frowned.

  “You still with us, little brother?” James said, yanking Cole out of his reverie.

  Whatever it was the vet wanted from him, Cole was too damn curious—not to mention opportunistic—to ignore it. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “I gotta go.”

  “Wait—what?” Deacon sat back, arm still wrapped protectively around Mac’s shoulder. “We need to
talk about this. Make a plan of action. Get things settled with the Triple C.”

  Cole didn’t answer Deac. He was making a plan of action, and if it turned out to be something of use, he’d let his brothers in on it. He eyed James. “You want the Triple C? Take my part, take Deac’s part, and there you go. Done. Bastard Boy is out on his ass.”

  “Jesus,” James uttered. “You’re really out of your mind tonight.”

  Cole didn’t answer. Just turned and walked away. He was keyed up, wanted to know what awaited him on the other end of that text.

  “Hey,” James called after him.

  “Let him go,” Deacon said. “He’s not going to be rational until the fight’s over.”

  Passing by a few rowdy tables, Cole headed for the door. He wondered if what Deacon said was true. Or if sensible thinking was completely gone from him now, leaving only reactionary asshole. Either way, Dr. Grace Hunter had just opened the door to whatever he was at this moment and he was about to walk on in.

  * * *

  Crouched in the bushes at the side of the house, Grace Hunter watched the small shadow creep across the lawn toward her. Oh yeah, it’s over, buddy. This war between you and me.

  As if hearing her silent promise, the figure stopped, a bottlebrush tail shooting straight up in the air. Grace held her breath. Don’t you dare turn around. She had to get him this time. Make sure he didn’t cause any more trouble. Make sure he didn’t make any more babies. If only he’d be reasonable. But cats rarely were. Especially the toms. The males. Nothing could ever be simple and straightforward. One always had to connive and plot and threaten and convince.

  And even then, sometimes they don’t return your texts.

  Who are we talking about now, Grace? she chided herself. Cats or Cole Cavanaugh? It had taken every ounce of both her pride and her good sense to text Cole Knock-Out Cavanaugh and ask him to come by to talk with her. The guy was 190 pounds (she was guessing, of course) of gorgeous, hard-muscled, tatted-up trouble. But she knew he and his brothers weren’t going to stop looking for answers about their sister. Looking for answers in her father’s direction.