“I know.” Ian leaned forward in his seat, propping his forearms on the table. “That’s why I’m moving some of my business to Storm.”
Marcus blinked, unsure he’d heard Ian right. “Business? You mean cattle?”
“Yep.”
Marcus shook his head to clear it, but it didn’t work. “At the risk of sounding like I’ve already drunk too much...I don’t understand.”
“You know how we’ve talked about buying pastureland near Missoula to start up an organic, grass-fed beef or bison operation?”
Expanding the business had been something Ian wanted to do for a while, and they’d often talked about establishing a specialized branch of Briggs Canyon Ranch, named after a canyon settled by Ian’s ancestors in the late 1800s.
“Yeah.” He paused as Logan dropped off a bowl of mixed nuts. “We talked about it again just before I left.”
“Well, I could do it here instead. The Johnsons won’t let anyone run a large operation in the area, but I did a lot of research, and Storm is in the perfect location for a small, grass-fed farm. And I want you to run it.”
Marcus’s mouth went dry. For the last couple of years Ian had made it clear that he wanted Marcus to take over for him someday, but honestly, Marcus had been afraid to believe it. Too much of his childhood had been spent waiting in vain for his dad to follow through on his promises.
So to have Ian actually do what he’d said...it left him stunned. But more than that, it was Ian’s faith in Marcus that overwhelmed him.
“I don’t...I don’t know what to say.” His voice was scratchy and raw, and so much for not choking up. “You want me to run it?”
“Not just run it, son. You’ll be running it with me, not for me.” Ian looked down at his glass, and when he lifted his gaze again, the unrestrained emotion in his eyes startled Marcus. “You’ll be co-owner of the Storm business. That’s if you want it. No pressure.” He studied Marcus in that knowing way of his. “You don’t look too thrilled. You don’t have to do this—”
“No.” Marcus’s voice was little more than a frog’s croak now. “No, I mean, I want it. I just don’t know why you’re offering it to me. You could find someone better. More experienced—”
“But no one I trust more than you.”
Marcus’s hand shook as emotion crashed over him. Ian didn’t trust easily, so for him to say that about Marcus...it left him shaken. And when Marcus was shaken, he didn’t handle it well. He never had. Old insecurities boiled up and walls long fallen started rebuilding. His self-defense mechanism had always been to push people away, and before he could stop himself from saying it, it came out.
“I don’t need charity. I’m doing good here. I have a job and a girlfriend and—”
“Hey,” Ian said, his voice level. Calm. Exactly what Marcus needed. “It’s not charity and you know it. The only reason we didn’t go ahead with this idea in Montana was because I didn’t like the thought of moving you so far away. Not because I didn’t trust you, but because I liked having you around. But now you’re here and I still want my organic farm, so it only makes sense to set it up in Storm.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Marcus asked. “Why you came all the way to Texas?”
Ian reached down to the bench next to him and slapped a folder in the center of the table. “I came because I need your signature on some paperwork, and we need to have it notarized.”
“What papers?”
“I’m giving you power of attorney over all Briggs Canyon Ranch’s holdings, my estate, and pretty much everything else.” Ian pushed the folder toward him. “I also made you the sole beneficiary of my estate, so I’m bringing you a copy of the will to hang on to.”
Holy. Shit. Marcus’s mouth dropped open. He forced it closed, but damn, he was going to hyperventilate. He really was.
“But...your family. You have a sister and a nephew in Utah.”
Ian took a handful of nuts out of the bowl on the table. “I’ve never even met my nephew and I haven’t spoken to my sister in decades. She sided with my wife in the divorce and didn’t bother to even call when my son died.” He washed the nuts down with beer. “She will never see a penny of my money.”
Okay, he understood that. “But what if you meet someone...have kids—”
“Listen to me, Marcus.” Ian slammed his glass down on the tabletop hard enough to slosh beer on his hand. “It doesn’t matter. You will always have a place in my life—and in my will—equal to any natural born children I might have, and the Storm ranch will always be yours and yours alone.”
The emotional overload was too much for Marcus. He felt as if his circuits were shorting out, leaving him unable to think and unsure what to feel. He had to get out of here. He needed air. Open space. If he was at the ranch, he’d be making a beeline for the stables to saddle a horse.
“I...excuse me.”
He got out of there like the pub was on fire. The last time he’d done this, it had ended in a brawl with Logan. But this time he wasn’t angry. He was happy. So why the hell was he freaking out?
He strode out into the parking lot and stood next to his car, marveling at how fortunate he’d been to knock on Ian’s door when he’d been down on his luck. Ian had taken him in, even though it had been apparent that he hadn’t needed more help.
Gradually, Marcus had learned Ian’s story, how he and his wife had married young and divorced two years later, and thanks to his military deployments, she’d been awarded full custody of their toddler son. She’d remarried, and Ian had suspected that her new husband was a shitbag who abused her, but he couldn’t prove anything, especially since he didn’t live nearby and was always overseas.
Then, one day while stationed in some sandbox in the Middle East, he’d gotten a video message from his eight-year-old son. The kid had been crying, terrified of his stepfather. Ian had managed to get emergency leave, but when the plane touched down in Los Angeles, he’d been met by cops who told him that his son had been beaten to death.
The stepfather, who was the prime suspect, had disappeared, and Ian had hunted the bastard down and killed him. Ian spent a couple of years in jail on a light sentence, and when he got out on parole, he returned to the family ranch in Montana and tried to put himself back together.
Somehow, Ian had survived, and if he could go through all of that and come out of it without losing his mind, surely Marcus could handle his own, relatively minor, problems.
He heard Ian’s boots clack on the pavement patio, but they stopped several feet away. Ian stood silently, the way Marcus knew he would, while he waited for Marcus to speak first.
They’d done this more times than Marcus could count. The first couple of times, Marcus had flipped out, screamed at Ian, getting in his face while the man just stood there like a damned statue. After failing to get a suitable, angry response, Marcus had stormed off. Which, of course, left him looking like a total dick when he had to face the guy again.
Frustrated by the awkwardness, Marcus had changed things up the third time. He’d taken a swing at Ian.
The punch never landed. In a blur of motion, Ian had taken Marcus to the ground, pinned him, and held him, face first, in the dirt until Marcus stopped struggling.
“You ready to stop being a complete jackass and start learning to deal with shit instead of fighting it?”
Marcus had growled...and earned some knee pressure against a nerve in his back he hadn’t even known existed.
“Say again?” Ian had said calmly.
“Yes,” Marcus had wheezed. “I’m ready.”
The pressure had eased up, but Ian didn’t let go. “Get this through your thick skull, son. You can get up, take another swing, and I’ll take you down again. We can do it over and over, and I can promise you two things. One, you’ll wear out before I do. And two, no matter what you do, I won’t hit you. I have a feeling you’ve been through enough of that already. So we can go a few more rounds of bullshit and I’ll win anyway, or we can skip all of
that and you can get up and talk to me like a man. It’s up to you.” He’d kept Marcus pinned for another ten seconds to give him time to process, and then he’d backed off.
Something deep inside had told Marcus that this was a turning point. It was a life ring in a stormy sea, and if Marcus didn’t take it, his future would be no different than his past.
So when Ian offered his hand, Marcus had taken it and let the other man pull him to his feet.
Which wasn’t to say that things had been easy afterward. A broken truck window and fist-sized hole in the kitchen wall were proof of that.
Marcus shuddered, so ashamed of those days. “I don’t deserve this, Ian. I was such an asshole to you. I pushed you away over and over. I took a swing at you. I broke your truck window, and your wall, and your—”
“All true,” Ian said calmly. “You were a disaster.”
“Then why?” Marcus shook his head, unable to fathom that anyone could be so patient. So decent. “Why did you keep trying? And don’t tell me I reminded you of your son. There’s no way he was like me.”
“He liked cows.”
Marcus blinked. “What?”
Ian let out a long, deep breath. “You want to know why I didn’t give up on you? Because believe me, I gave it a thought once or twice. But it was the way you were when you were alone with the cattle or the horses that made me see the real you. See, no matter how angry you were, you never lost patience with the animals. If anything, they calmed you down. Think about when and where we had our best talks.”
“Sitting on the corral fence.”
“Yeah.” Ian’s voice, still behind Marcus, was a little closer now. “Whenever you were upset, no matter what time of day or night or no matter what the weather, you always went out and sat on the fence and looked at the mountains.”
“The cows liked it when I scratched their backs with my boots.”
“That’s how I knew I was right about you. You understood that doing something nice made you feel good. A lot of men hurt things to make themselves feel better. Men like Hector. And the bastard who killed my boy.” His hand came down on Marcus’s shoulder. “When I say you reminded me of my son, it’s because I saw the good in you.”
“You saw the bad in me, too. It’s still there, Ian. It’s not like it’s a constant struggle to keep it at bay or anything, but sometimes when I get really mad...” He blew out a breath and stared at the hood of his car.
“That’s normal, kid. Jesus, who doesn’t want to throw a punch now and then? And there are times when you have to. Just don’t beat yourself up over it.”
“Beat myself up?” He turned to Ian, but he couldn’t look him in the face. “I nearly beat up my sister’s boyfriend a while ago. And every time I see Senator Rush I want to pound him into the dirt for how he treated Dakota. And for being a slime in general.”
“You’re not giving yourself credit for not doing those things. It takes more strength to rein yourself in than it does to give in to your anger.”
Marcus laughed and finally looked up at his mentor. “Look at you, all Obi-Wan.”
“I’ve just learned a lot of hard lessons.” Ian hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets. “What’s really going on with you, Marcus? Something’s been eating at you. Is it me?”
“No,” Marcus said, taken aback. He didn’t think he could ever be angry with Ian again. “Hell, no. It’s just...everything’s going so good. Like a fairy tale. This is too good to be true, you know? But then there’s my dad. And Brittany.”
“What about them? Are you and Brittany having trouble?”
He shook his head. “Not really. I mean, it’s not us. It’s her family. They’re trying to tear us apart. I’ve been telling people I’m not worried about it, but the truth is that I’m afraid that one day they’ll succeed. And the thing with my dad...” He swallowed. “I’m scared, Ian. Shit, I’m scared.”
Marcus felt like a fool admitting that. He hadn’t even admitted it to Logan. Or Brittany, to whom he could tell almost anything. But Ian didn’t even bat an eye, not that Marcus expected anything else.
“You’re stronger and more disciplined than he is,” Ian said. “You know how to defend yourself. You don’t need to be afraid of him anymore. He can’t hurt you.”
Marcus snorted. “I’m not afraid of him. And that’s what scares me.” He looked Ian in the eye, knowing this was the one person in the world who wouldn’t judge him. “I’m afraid he’ll come back, and I’m afraid of what I’ll do if he does.”
Chapter Eleven
Ian gripped the steering wheel hard as he drove away from Murphy’s, anger steaming in his veins. It had killed him to watch Marcus struggle to accept love.
Oh, he’d seen those reactions before, back when Marcus was still half-feral, like an abused dog dumped in the woods. He’d been wary, reactive, and self-destructive. When faced with kindness, he retreated or lashed out. It had taken a long time, but eventually he’d learned that Ian’s kindness wasn’t a trick to lure him in and then hurt him.
But this was different. Marcus had known he was important to Ian, but he’d clearly not known how important. Or maybe he hadn’t believed it. It wasn’t as if he’d had a good, or even marginal, role model when it came to men.
Hector Alvarez was damned lucky he wasn’t in town right now, because Ian didn’t know if he was strong enough to resist the impulse to hunt him down.
And he really didn’t need to go to jail again for the same crime.
But damn that son of a bitch to hell. Marcus didn’t seem to know where Hector had gone, and Ian wasn’t ashamed to admit he hoped the guy was feeding vultures in a ravine somewhere.
He turned left and saw the realtor’s office up ahead. Now he needed more than land for his new cattle venture. He also needed to find an apartment to rent. Sure, he could handle some of the new operation from Montana, but it made more sense to do it from here. And Marcus needed him.
And now that he was planning on a lengthier stay than he’d first anticipated, he could make some other plans.
Like paying a visit to Marisol Moreno.
* * * *
Hector Alvarez sat beneath the shade of a sun-bleached patio umbrella at the roadside burger joint where he’d stopped for lunch. He was two hours from Storm, and the closer he got, the more his anger consumed him.
Thanks to his bitch of a wife, he’d not only been run out of his own damn town, he’d wound up pissing off another asshole sheriff and spent six weeks in a goddamned jailhouse. Son of a bitch had confiscated his guns and trumped up an illegal weapons charge.
He took a bite of his barbecue bacon burger, trying to calm down and then made the mistake of looking down at the picture on his phone again. Bile filled his mouth at the sight of his wife—his fucking wife—with the very man who had run Hector out of Storm.
The average person wouldn’t see anything but two friends chatting inside Murphy’s Pub. Nothing to see here, folks.
But Hector knew better. The look Joanne was giving Dillon Murphy was one he hadn’t seen in years. The one that said she wanted to go down on her knees and put those plump lips where all women should keep them.
Fucking bitch. She hadn’t wanted to do that to Hector since their damned honeymoon. Oh, she did it, but only under protest. But she couldn’t protest with her mouth full, could she?
Anger pumped through his veins like acid as he slid his thumb over the phone’s sauce-smeared surface to bring up the second of two pictures Marylee Rush had texted to him. This one was of Marcus. He was at some sort of gathering, standing next to a dark-haired man whose hand rested on Marcus’s shoulder.
Who the hell was the guy?
Hector reached for a greasy French fry and went to switch his phone to call mode, but his thumb slipped and flipped to another photo he’d gotten yesterday. This one had come from an anonymous source, was grainy and blurry, but just clear enough to recognize one of the two people in it.
Instantly, his hunger turned to nausea, and he
dropped the fry. The picture was too disgusting to contemplate.
With a growl, he dialed the phone and waited for Dakota to answer. When she did, hearing her voice made him grin despite the fact that he was disappointed in her. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“Daddy?” she gasped. “Oh, my God, is it really you?”
“Yeah.” He kept an eye on the state trooper who had just pulled into the parking lot. Considering a crazy-ass sheriff had run him out of Storm, Hector wasn’t feeling too cozy with law enforcement types. Not that he ever did. “It’s me.”
“Where are you? Are you okay? Are you coming home?”
“Slow down, Dakota.” The cop gave him a passing glance as he got out of his cruiser and headed toward the food shack. “I’ll answer your questions, but first, tell me how you’ve been.”
There was a second of silence, and he wondered if she was planning on lying to him. “Oh, Daddy, it’s been so hard without you. I hate this town and I hate everyone in it. And it got so much worse after you left.” She inhaled. “Why did you leave?”
Because the sheriff is a self-righteous prick. But he’ll get what’s coming to him.
“It’s a long story,” he said, “but don’t worry. You’ll know soon enough.”
“Does that mean you’re coming home?”
Not yet. But soon. He was going to stay with a friend near Storm, where he’d watch and wait until the perfect time to drop in on his family.
“Well, that depends,” he said. “How’s your mother doing?”
“Fine, I guess. She’s working for Tate Johnson.”
He tasted bile. Tate was wealthy, handsome, and a real prick. Joanne better not be whoring for him. “What about your sister?”
“Mallory’s Mallory. She’s mad because she’s getting a B-plus in math.”
That made him crack a smile. Dakota had always been his favorite, especially since Marcus turned out to be such a disappointment, but Mallory was the most intelligent of his spawn. Hell, she was the smartest person in the whole family. “And Marcus?”