One Last Sunset (The Long Ranch Series Book 1) (11 page)

Everything she’d found on the internet led to the same thing. Contamination of soil and water. That funny smell, the guys watching her from the truck… all of it made her uneasy.

A flash caught her periphery as sunlight reflected off a windshield. Across the street, her cousin’s truck was pulling into the local hardware and supply store. Sunny popped out of the driver’s door instead of Walt.

Since a watched fax would never print, she took leave of the clinic and crossed the street. Sunny was unhooking one of the flat bed carts from the others when she tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey,” she said with a bit of a smile. “Supply run?”

“Kind of. I’m fixing up the cabin.” He blushed. “Clay wants to live there and since I’m only in town for a few weeks they figured I could do the work in exchange for living there.”

“Right.” Mel tried to tamp down the gut ache she felt from the few weeks comment. As long as he was on her ranch, they could be together…It was then she realized he hadn’t so much as kissed her cheek or gave her a hug. They’d had sex. Had they even really talked? Weren’t they more than just—

“Look, Mel,” Sunny began.

At his expression he wore, the gut ache she was feeling increased.

“What happened…it can’t—”

“Are you serious? You…” Mel looked around to make sure no one was in earshot, then lowered her voice. “Wow—well, I guess old Sunny’s back, isn’t he?”

“Old Sunny? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you have a rep. Guess MeMaw’s right, you can’t change an animal’s nature.”

“Can’t change…” Sunshine bit his lip, then reached for her. “How about you—”

“No, how about you instead. I can’t believe I slept with you. Came on to you. I should have known.”

“Should’ve known what?”

“I grew up with you, Sunshine Parker. I know you better than you know yourself,” she sneered from hurt. Her chest felt as if it were filled to the brim with fire. There was a part of him she knew deep down that wanted to settle down. Maybe she’d been deluding herself. But the fantasy of riding off with Sunny as they built their own house on the Long Ranch kept her childish dreams alive. Even as she said the words, she couldn’t believe they were coming out, “You’re a Parker and I knew better than to even think you had the capacity to love for more than a few hours.”

Taking off across the street, a horn honked and tires screeched. Tears were muddying her eyes and all she wanted was to be away. Away from Sunny and her stupid thoughts that they could be more. That she was more to him than another conquest. She was sure at this point, he was scared she’d tell her family, but she couldn’t handle the embarrassment. Admitting she’d slept with him, then faking they’d been stuck playing cards for a few hours in the cabin was too much. There’s no way the boys wouldn’t figure it out. Even though she’d never followed Sunny around too much growing up, the boys would soon make the connection anyway.

Suddenly, she felt two hands grabbing her upper arms and flinging her around. She was pressed against the side of the clinic. Her breath caught as she felt a hard leg spread hers while her shoulders pinned hard against the building. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she tried to see who was attacking her. White hair with tanned skin was all she could make out.

“Mellie, if you want to be treated like a grown up, start acting like one,” Sunny barked. “I want to be with you.” His Southern accent was laced with a deep growl.

“I’m just not going to be out in public before I get the sack to ask your damn daddy for permission. And yes I’m a fuckin’ Parker which means I’m a damn coward when it comes to all things Long.” With a hard push, he released her and started to pace as his fingers tangled in his hair.

She wiped at her eyes trying to clear out her vision. The stone lodged in her throat sent fire shooting in every direction, which made it hard to focus on what she needed or wanted to say.

Hands surrounded her face as Sunshine’s strong lips claimed hers and she didn’t know if the building or his cock was harder. Either way, being pinned between the two sent rushes of electricity through her body. Her nipples scratched against the fabric of her bra crushed against his firm chest. Spinning from emotions crashing like waves, all Melody could do was grip Sunny’s arms praying she’d be able to stay standing.

Leaving her lips, he trailed kisses down her neck as his hand untucked her shirt and kneaded her engorged breasts. “I want to hold your hand in public,” he whispered before nipping her earlobe. “Claim you as mine and mine alone, but I can’t right now. I don’t have anything to offer.”

“You’re all I need,” she cried.

“But you deserve more than a broke down cowhand that’s only way to make a living is being gone two thirds of the year.” His head rested on her shoulder. “Melody, please be patient. You still need to see if you can stand me for more than a few hours here and there.” Stepping back, so they had space between them and he could look her in the eye, he let his hands slide down her arms slowly. As if he were treasuring the feel of her body. He reached the edge of her short sleeve shirt and captured her hands in his. The cool pools of his eyes shimmered. “We also need to see if we can go more than five minutes without trying to jump each other.”

“I remember quite a few years when we could do that.”

“That was before…” His hands outlined the air around Melody’s breasts and hips, then came back to cradle her face. “I knew I was moron when I was younger, but if I would have had any idea you were going to turn out this hot, I might of never left Tender Root.”

“My dad says you’re a wanderer like JT.”

“That’s what I mean. I go to him right now asking to date you and he’ll say…hell no.”

Damn, she hated the cowboy code. Sure, her brothers had bible study with God only knows how many girls, but that didn’t mean they wanted to see them again. Worse yet, meet their family. Sunshine knew hers and she did know him. He wasn’t lying. Could he really care enough to go her father?

“You’re more than sex to me, Melody. I could get that anywhere.” His thumb stroked along her cheek to clear the last remnants of her tears. “We need to go slow. Our families have history. They may think this is incestuous.”

“It could be good. You’re already family to them.”

“Blood brothers and all those ties can be cut pretty quickly.”

“Not to sound like a twelve year old again.” Mel’s voice scratched a bit. “Are you my boyfriend?”

“No, not until I ask formally, I don’t want to do this wrong.” His hand caught her chin as she looked at the ground. “I refuse to have a secret girlfriend. That doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with anyone else. Unusual for me, I know.”

“Hey.” Mel smacked at his chest.

“I’m rarely in a city for longer than five days.” He leaned down and kissed her lightly. “There’s barely enough days left in my lifetime to discover all I want to know about you.”

“In and out of bed?”

“Have we made it to a bed yet?” he teased, then kissed her one more time.

Her head spun and her body tingled in remembrance of their afternoon. Letting out a gust of air as if breaking their touch caused him physical pain, he pulled back. “I need to get these supplies and head back to the ranch before Walt thinks I ran away. I’m a wanderer, right?”

Melody ran her fingers through the five o’clock shadow on Sunny’s jaw tickling her palm. Yesterday he’d been clean shaven, but the little bit of scruff was nice. “Maybe you’ve just been looking for something.”

“Guess I’m Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz,” he teased while his thumb stroking against her belly set off butterflies. “Everything I ever wanted was at home.”

Mel’s lips quirked into a small smile. “I’m everything you ever wanted?”

“I knew you for most of your life, but for the first time, I’m discovering who you are. And I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than you in my arms.”

Chapter Eight

Leaving Melody at the clinic was harder than Sunny expected. He’d never had a woman he couldn’t stop kissing. Thinking about a woman after she’d left his sight was strange. Damn, could he be falling in love with Smelly Mellie? Melody Renee Long hadn’t been Mellie for years, that’s for sure. He just wished he wouldn’t have missed those early years. Then again, he wondered if she would be as open to him as she was now. He would’ve never guessed she’d had a crush on him all those years ago.

Sunny had a list to work off as he loaded up the cart with asphalt shingles and roofing materials, paint, patch, and about a thousand dollars worth of supplies. His stomach tightened as the costs added up and the young clerk looked at him with the total.

“One thousand, two hundred, sixty five dollars and seventeen cents.”

“That added up quick,” Sunny sighed. “You got a coupon or something?”

“Nope, sorry.” She giggled, then tucked back a loose strand of hair.

“This man sleeps with whores, Carrie, don’t play with him.” A congested sounding guy with an accent spoke from behind Sunny, who turned to see the asshole from the bar.

“This from the man who keeps running into my fist.” Crossing his arms, Sunny stood his ground. “If you call Melody a whore again, I’ll have to find a new place to hit you.”

“She’s the one who keeps coming around me. Just yesterday she followed me to my job, kinda like a stalker.”

“You work for Conrad?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing at all.” Sunny turned back to the clerk. “This needs to be charged to the Long’s.”

“No money either.”

“Um—I’ll need to check with my manager,” Carrie said, calling over Chuck who’d worked there since Sunny was in junior high.

“You’re back in town?” Chuck smiled as he gave a big slap to Sunny’s back.

At six-five and close to four hundred pounds it took all of Sunshine’s muscle control to not fall flat on his face from the gesture of endearment. “Yes, I’m stayin’ with the Long’s, so I can fix up one of their buildings.”

“That why you called me over here, Carrie?” Chuck asked.

“You can double check with Walt if you want.”

“He’d probably be insulted if I did,” Chuck said as he nodded to Carrie.

She pulled up the Long account.

“Which building you fixing?”

“The cabin. You know, the main house is getting pretty full.”

“With no sign of it stopping. Has Tina decided if she wanted that shed?”

“Not that I’ve been told.”

“K, well Carrie, give Taylor a call from the back to help Sunny load up his stuff.” Chuck headed back to his office. “It was good to see you again, Sunshine.”

“You sleep with him too, Blanco,” the ranch hand behind chided. “Maybe I’m calling the wrong person puta.”

“Outside of Mel telling you to eat a dick up till you hiccup, what is your issue with her? A girl never tell you to take a flying leap before?” Sunny challenged. “Something tells me it’s a regular thing with you…or don’t you remember because of the repeated blows to your head?”

“Women don’t say no to me, ever.”

“Says the serial rapist,” Sunny retorted. “Maybe I should tell Conrad to look out for those heifers on his farm. Are you sure you don’t want to start working for Derek Ness instead? Or did you already lose a job working with sheep?”

The ranch hand reared back.

Sunny stood his ground, not even jumping when he acted as if he were going to hit him. Instead, Sunshine turned his head to look down at the fist an inch from his face. “I’m sorry, did you need me to finish?” Sunny inquired and slowly placed his chin on the man’s knuckles. “Ouch.”

“Your girlfriend is crossing a lot of lines. Tell her to go back to what’s she good at.”

“Only an infant would think animal husbandry and human copulation are the same thing.”

“I’m not talking about the police. There are more dangerous things to a black woman than a cop.”

At that, Sunny couldn’t do anything but shake his head. Fifty cent words were lost on the monosyllabic and Sunny loved them. He had work to do and this dipshit’s love of all things Melody—while he could understand the draw—were only his concern when she was in danger. Right now, she was in the clinic, so…

Sunny looked out into the parking lot and saw a truck with a livestock trailer attached. He may just need to go back to the clinic before he headed to the ranch. Doc Carlisle could protect Melody, but he was sure she was too embarrassed to tell him about the harassment. Long pride and all.

Mel was happy to see him, especially when five minutes later when the still-bruised Casanova came in to pick up the Winston’s heifer. With Sunny there, he actually behaved, probably for the first time ever. Through the exchange, the hair on Sunny’s neck rose when he saw Melody physically shaken around him.

“Why won’t he leave me alone?” she asked softly when Doc brought him to the holding pens. “I don’t get it.”

“Some men just don’t understand the word no,” Sunny said as he stroked his thumb across the top of her hand. “You know one call from Walt and Conrad would fire that guy faster than lightening if you told him what is going on. The guys only saw him going after me. I kinda have the reputation of getting myself in messes.”

“They still were there to help you clean it up.”

That’s what he feared. Losing the only brothers, he’d ever known. His mother loved him, but he was secondary to his father every time with her. “I better get going,” Sunny said as he watched the truck and trailer pull out of the parking lot. “Maybe you can come out and have supper with me later?”

“Beanie weenie?” She smiled.

Sunny’s heart soared at her grin.

“Tempting.”

“That is a Parker staple of life. You too good for it?”

“Not too good, just a bit old.”

“Maybe I’ll swing by the grocery store on the way home and pick up grown up food.”

“Seven?” she asked.

Sunny looked around the lobby to see even Velma was gone before he leaned over the counter and laid a kiss on her. Hmm. That wasn’t nearly enough to hold him until seven. Sadly, a noise from the back made him pull back.

Doc came out holding a stack of papers. “Mel, we have a big problem.”

* * * *

Thankfully, Doc hadn’t seen Mel kissing Sunny.

Sadly, he had to leave and even the tone in Doc’s voice hadn’t been enough to stop the tingling running down her spine. Damn, if Sunny didn’t make a girl’s brain a bit fuzzy even with a bruised, battered, and otherwise still healing lip. What would he do to her whole? When they’d made love he had to catch his breath a few times because of his ribs. The slow down had her gripping him praying for release. Had he been whole she might of lost sight from the orgasm.

She tried to read the lab reports in front of her, but saw numbers crossing and blurring out. Sunny’s cologne was still knocking her off balance with the smell of man.

“I got a call from the lab and they’ve notified the EPA already.”

The Environmental Protection Agency would need to be involved. It would have been Mel’s first suggestion. She worried about the lower levels on her ranch. They shouldn’t be drinking or cooking with the water. Maybe not even bathing. “I have to call my family,” she said.

“No,” Doc said firmly. “We can’t start a panic.”

“Quentin’s a baby. I can’t sit on this.”

“You weren’t even supposed to run tests from your ranch.”

“I had a feeling. The stream runs across a dozen ranches in this area before dumping into the Rio Grande.”

“Melody, we don’t even know what these numbers mean yet!”

“I can tell you if I drop a lit match in the creek running through the Winston’s land, I’ll start a blaze.”

That sobered Doc up. “We need to figure out how to fix the animals.”

“They live off the land. There’s no way to fix them without fixing the land.” She couldn’t understand why Doc was acting like this wasn’t a big deal. No one could live ingesting the poisons polluting the land out there. “The few that got pregnant are probably going to have issues and there’s no way these cattle can be slaughtered for human consumption.”

“The EPA guys will be here in a week.” Doc’s face screwed painfully as he stared at the figures. “Until then we have to keep this under wraps.”

“I’m telling my family. I have to.” Mel stood firm. “If it means I have to do my internship somewhere else, let me know, but I’m sorry. I can’t leave them out there like this.”

“Just your family,” he warned, but his voice cracked when he continued, “It can’t go further.”

“What happened to being an honest business? A lie of omission is still a lie.”

The bells above the door jingled and Cassandra Hughes walked in wearing a freshly pressed dress suit with her hair perfectly teased. With no term limits on mayors in the town, Mayor Hughes had ruled over Tender Root for as long as Melody could remember. The only change being her once rich honey gold hair had matured into a stark white that she wore beautifully. She and her husband had a smaller ranch on the same creek.

Strange that she made her way into the clinic.

“Good morning, Myron.” She smiled with all the reality a politician could muster.

“I thought I made an appointment with you, Madam Mayor.”

“I saw that, but I got a disturbing phone call today and I thought you might know why the Environmental Protection Area wants to come to my town.”

“Let’s go to my office and talk.” Doc turned and looked at Melody. “You too.”

After two hours of discussion mixed with phone calls to various smaller office holders, Mayor Hughes shook hands and walked out of the office. Doc was exhausted, but Melody had a better understanding of the panic that could set in. Speculations could lead to more problems than solutions. Two decades of being mayor hadn’t led to complacency on the part of Mayor Hughes, that’s for sure. Sharp as a tack, she considered every business that could be impacted on the short and long term. Even siting possible lawsuits and disaster funding.

Mel’s head spun with the overload of information. She’d known it wasn’t a little problem easily fixed by changing a diet in the animals. Tender Root survived because of the ranches. All the other businesses were tributaries. If they went down the town would be gone in less than a decade.

“Go home, Mel,” Doc sighed. “There’s nothing we can do here now. Not until the EPA is done.”

Melody drove home wondering what she’d do if they had to sell. Their ranch was the biggest and most profitable in the area. She’d never thought about who they all employed beyond the ranch hands. The meat processors, cattle auctioneers, store clerks… all of it stemming from the meat they raised. The meat that might be as tainted as the Winston’s. Conrad would know soon his animals couldn’t be sold. Living season to season… the words echoed in her head as she turned onto the Long Ranch and went to the main house.

Tina had Quentin wrapped in some sort of fabric swathed around her chest. She, Walt Jr., and Nessa were working in the planting boxes Sunny had finished. Four of them filled with potting soil should be safe. Junior had the hose in his hand and Melody blanched.

“Stop,” she called before Junior placed his lips on the cool water.

“I’m thirsty,” he said.

“I know, Junior, just—can you and Nessa go inside so I can talk to your mama?”

“We’s plantin’ umkins.” Nessa beamed, holding a vine plant still in the black starter pot. “I’s gonna make pies.”

“Tina, we need to talk.”

“Okay, Mel.” She sighed and took off her gardening gloves. “Calm down. It’s time for lunch anyway.”

In the house, everything seemed tainted now. When Tina had the kids wash their hands with her, Mel buried her head in her hands unable to watch. To her, everything needed to tested and retested. The cost would be astronomical, but nothing was worth her family. Quentin was now unstrapped from his mother and sitting in a high chair ready for lunch. His dark curls matted to his head from being out in the heat for so long. When Tina gave him juice instead of water, Mel visibly sighed in relief.

“You okay, Mellie?” Tina asked and laid her wrist on Mel’s head as if she were one of her own children. “Why aren’t you at the clinic?”

“Remember when I got stuck at the cabin?” Mel asked while Tina finished making sandwiches and cutting them into squares for the kids.

“Of course. The guys are still finding damage from the storm. It’s a good thing Sunny’s around. They don’t have time to do that little stuff, but if they don’t fix it it’ll be a big problem.” Tina finally had everyone served.

Mel waved off her offer of lunch.

Tina then sat down to eat, although she was mostly cutting fruit into smaller pieces for the kids. “At least that’s what Walt tells me. I think he just wants to help out Sunny without it feeling like charity. Now eat your grapes, Nessa.”

“I was getting samples for the lab.”

“Samples of what?”

“Water, grass, dirt.” Mel’s fingers wiped the condensation from the glass of sweet tea Tina had placed in front of her. “Hair from the cattle.”