Almost a Cowboy (18 page)

Hays kicked a heel into the concrete. His steel-toed work boot made a thudding noise. Once outside, he whirled on Utah. “You don’t need to tell me that we’re related. Looking at you is like looking at my dad.”

“Hearing your voice is like listening to my pa,” Utah replied.

Hays locked a fist on his hip. “What do you want? Money?”

“Hell, no. Hollis Davies is dead, and he’s left you something in his will. I’m here to ask you to come back to Utah with me.”

Hays’s blue gaze shifted between Utah and Caroline. “Who’re you?”

Jeezus, this meeting was going down like a bad business deal. None of the warmth or connection he’d felt with Bennett and Aurora lived between him and Hays.

“My name’s Utah Davies—your brother. This is Caroline.”

Hays snorted. “Suppose you came from Utah.”

“That’s right. Listen, let’s back up. Hollis Davies has a string of children across the United States. I’m finding all of you and bringing you together at the ranch for the reading of the will.”

“Doesn’t surprise me there are more of us. Dad always avoided questions about where he was going. I suspected he was two-timing my mom.”

“Who is your mom?” Caroline asked, pressing herself against Utah’s side.

“She’s dead. Died of a broken heart. At least that’s what I say. Doctors said it was alcoholism.”

So he’d had a hard life, which was apparent in his tone. Utah tried another tactic. “Can we sit somewhere and talk?”

“Don’t have the time to chitchat in the middle of a workday. Give me the address to this ranch of yours and tell me when you want me. If there’s money, I could use it.”

“If you need money to travel—” Caroline started, but he cut her off.

“I got it. This month. Give me the address.”

Utah related the information and got back into the truck without even shaking hands with his brother. Hays vanished around the corner of the warehouse as if he didn’t give Utah and the news another thought.

Blowing out a breath, Utah turned the key in the ignition. “That went well.”

Caroline folded her hands in her lap. “Yeah. I’m sorry, Utah.”

He glanced at her and covered both of her hands with one of his. “Say ‘I’m sorry, baby,’ and I’ll be all better.”

The corners of her mouth turned up in a sad smile. “I’m sorry, baby.”

•●•

With all of the information Caroline could gather on Camden and Emma Davies safely tucked in a computer file, she settled down with her article.

Well, it wasn’t
her
article. It was Utah’s story. And no way in hell could she release it as her own. But the words flowed so easily. The story needed recorded.

She closed the document and opened a brand new one. After the abrupt meeting between him and Hays, Utah had been more restless than Caroline had ever seen him. He’d practically crawled out of his skin for miles before she suggested they grab a hotel and that he go hike the trails of the local state park.

He’d agreed without hesitation, which only pointed to how disturbed he actually was.

Heaving a sigh, she considered a topic for her article. Hays had intrigued her, and not only because he looked so much like the man she loved. It was his bombshell that his mother had been an alcoholic.

Substance abuse was something she related to. She could write a damn solid piece on the paths taken by people who loved alcoholics. When it came to Hays, she didn’t have evidence that he’d landed in jail because of what his mother had put him through. But there were plenty of others Caroline could write about who had.

She began to type. For a whole hour she let the words flow. Somehow she managed to separate herself from her own past. She’d been lucky enough to escape a bad relationship, but many women and children weren’t. What happened to those people?

If she’d spoken with Hays alone, what would she have been able to extract from him? Would he have confided in her? Could she have broken through his rough armor? When his angry gaze had lit on her for a split second, she’d read pain in the depths. Hidden pain.

Maybe when he arrived at the Davies ranch, she could get him alone and talk to him.

After she’d written two pages, she stopped and sat back in the hard hotel chair. What she wouldn’t give for her plush sofa and Arial curled up on her chest. Being on the road was exhausting, and their goal was far from easily achieved.

They’d only met three siblings. Nine more were out there living their lives while she and Utah plotted to wreck their happiness.

Although, she had a feeling Hays hadn’t possessed any happiness to begin with. Sometimes people didn’t believe they deserved it, and she’d bet hard-earned money he was one of them.

Just like she was.

Fertile soil, open lands, big sky. For the first time in days Utah dragged in a deep breath. The truck windows were down, and the warm summer air blew through, swirling Caroline’s hair and making the hem of her dress twitch.

“This is cattle land.”

She folded her feet under her and angled her body to face him. She’d been moving from position to position for an hour.
Time for a stop. And a romp.
“You think Camden works with cattle?”

“Maybe.”

“He’s young. He might be a ranch hand.”

“Could be.” Utah swung his head left and right, drinking in the surroundings. This land he could sink his teeth into. Driving through Kansas City had almost killed him. He’d white-knuckled the wheel and fought off Caroline’s request to drive. But he now understood why people got road rage.

Here, fence posts lined up for miles along the roads, and animals grazed in the afternoon sun.

Caroline untangled her legs and crossed them at the knees. Her dress rode up perfectly, giving a tormenting view of her round upper thighs. Utah’s cock stirred against his fly, and he shifted to ease it.

“At the next rest stop, we’ll go over the plan again,” he said. They believed two siblings lived in Missouri. Camden and Emma. They suspected they shared a mother, but it was possible they didn’t. And they could be living in Camden, a small city, or Emma, a smaller town with a population of under a hundred households.

Or they might live in another state altogether. This was the crux of their difficulty.

Utah wanted to avoid meeting either of them at a workplace. After confronting Hays at the construction company, he felt he owed his siblings more privacy. It wasn’t fair to dive bomb them in the middle of a shift and hope they dealt well with the news.

Blinking at the unrelenting green of the land, Utah went over the information they’d already gathered. Camden might be in his late twenties. They’d found almost nothing on Emma. She was still under the radar.

“Do you think Emma’s a minor?” Utah asked Caroline, not for the first time.

“I’m not sure. She might be. There’s a big age gap between Bennett and Aurora, after all. It might be similar with Camden and Emma—
if
they share a mother.”

“How do you find young girls? I mean, where would you look?”

Caroline snapped her head in his direction. “Facebook!”

“What?”

“Facebook! If she’s young, she’s probably on social media.”

He’d heard a little about the social media craze and understood it as much as he did search engines and controlling cursors with a touch of a finger.

Excitement ebbed off Caroline in waves. She dropped both booted feet to the floor and hauled her cell from her bag. Long minutes passed while she fiddled with the phone and Utah drove.

He sucked in deep breaths of fresh country air. The thought of going back to the mountains didn’t really appeal anymore. He wanted the open fields and a new challenge. He’d had enough of trapping and hunting. Raising cattle was something he could do.

His father had kept a small herd of beef cows, which supplemented his work driving truck. Now Utah suspected the money was needed to feed so many other children. Deirdre had given her assurance that Hollis Davies never let them go hungry or want for things like clothes and shoes. The money used to support so many hadn’t only come from hauling cargo.

Growing up, Utah had spent a lot of time with both his pa and ranch hands learning about the Angus herd. He could get some stock and start raising them on the ranch again.

First it needs fixed up.
Baling hay would be one of the top priorities. He couldn’t put cattle in such overgrown fields. The second thing he’d do was fix the mailbox. He was going to get the mail on a regular basis now. If someone died, he’d damn well know about it quickly.

Maybe he’d even get a cell phone. Keeping in touch with his family via texts and phone calls sounded good to him.

Caroline’s cell rang in her hands. Shock crossed her face. “It’s Clinton.”

“What?” Utah’s stomach twisted.

“It’s…your brother.” She punched the talk button and held the phone to Utah’s ear.

He took it. “Clinton?”

“Yeah, and Gunnison. We’re on a three-way call.”

“Oookay. What’s up?” His heart drummed in his ears.

“That little piss-ant Berger spilled the beans to us. Let the siblings out of the bag,” Gunnison ground out.

Fuck.
For a beat, Utah couldn’t think of what to say.

Caroline stared at him, waving and gesturing. He held the phone away from his ear. “What?” he mouthed.

“Speaker phone!”

He stabbed the button and then asked, “Did you beat the information out of Berger?”

“Hell, no. He’s a drinker. You give a man a fifth of whiskey, he’ll tell you anything.” Gunnison’s voice filled the truck.

Caroline shook her head at the depravity of it.

“So how much do you know?”

“Berger says our father sent you on a mission to find some secret siblings. That true?” Clinton asked.

Utah treaded carefully. More than anything, he wished he wasn’t having this conversation on a phone in the middle of Missouri. “Yeah, it’s true. I’ve found a few.”

“You have?” Gunnison’s voice sounded odd, as if he’d swallowed a bug.

“Three of them—two brothers and a sister. I’m in Missouri, rounding up another couple. Listen, I’d prefer to discuss this face to face. Give me a few weeks, and I’ll be home.”

“You aren’t running off again, are you, you son of a bitch?” Clinton asked, half-annoyed, half-awed.

“No.”
I’m taking over the ranch.

“You’re a real ass for not telling us about this before you left, Utah.”

“If I recall, you were too busy beating the hell out of me to listen, anyway. Now I’m ending this call.”

•●•