Beckett Brothers: The Complete Series Page 8

  And Ava might be the only person who could help him fix it.

  “Ok,” she said, her mind spinning with ways to help him figure out what was going wrong before it all imploded. “Show me the way.”

  He led her to the auction auditorium, and a clerk set them up at a bidding station with a computer. Bran showed her how the bidding worked, then said there were two more lots to be auctioned off before it was time for the one he was interested in.

  “So are all these people ranchers?” she asked, looking around the room at a mix of people in cowboy hats, baseball caps, and the occasional business suit with boots.

  “Ranchers, foremen, some financial advisors,” he answered.

  “Do you know that guy over there?” she asked, pointing subtly to a man with a long dark braid falling down his back, a gray Stetson, and ostrich skin cowboy boots.

  “Nope, don’t think I’ve met him before.”

  “Oh good, we can play my favorite game,” Ava said. “All you have to do is look at someone you don’t know and make up a story about them.”

  Bran raised an eyebrow. “Uh…”

  “Like this. I think that man with the braid is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and the woman on his left is his sister that he hasn’t seen in a very long time.”

  “And how exactly would you know he’s Sioux?” Bran asked skeptically.

  “Because the Standing Rock tribe has a group of very active and vocal ranchers. They’ve been leaders in Native American ranching and farming.”

  His eyes grew wider.

  “And I’m guessing the woman next to him is his sister because they have the same nose and the same smile, and they’re around the same age. But they’re too formal with one another to be close, so there must have been some sort of break.”

  She could see Bran considering it all.

  “Now your turn,” she instructed.

  “Okay…the woman sitting by the door.”

  “All right. Tell me what you see.”

  He tilted his head, seeming to do an assessment of the elderly woman wearing a black blazer and holding a stopwatch in her hand.

  “She’s someone’s wife or mother they brought along to the auction.”

  Ava reminded herself to be patient.

  “Why do you say that?” she asked, hopeful he would redeem himself.

  “Because she’s too old to be a ranch worker, and while it might not be right, most ranch owners are still men.”

  Ava sighed. “But what else do you notice about her?”

  Bran looked confused.

  “Look at what she’s wearing. That blazer is the same black blazer that all the clerks and runners have on.”

  Bran blinked, and she could see awareness blossoming.

  “She also has a stopwatch in her hand, and every five minutes, she holds up her hand and flashes either one finger, two fingers, or three.”

  Ava silently willed Bran to see what was right in front of him.

  “So you’re saying she works for the auction house?”

  Ava smiled as gently as she could. “Yes. If I were guessing, I’d say she works for the auction house, and given her age and the expensive shoes she’s wearing, she’s most likely a member of the family that owns the auction house. She’s been doing that job for decades, and she’s what keeps the whole thing running like a well-oiled machine. No one questions her, and if the auctioneer doesn’t stay on time, he’ll get the sharp side of grandma’s tongue.”

  Bran chuckled and shook his head. “How do you do that? How do you see so much about someone just from watching them for a few moments?”

  “It’s part of my job—investigative reporting is a whole lot of observation and piecing together clues.”

  “I’m impressed,” he told her.

  Now it was time to ease into the hard part. “You know, you’re so good with Cam, you obviously understand people just fine when you care to.”

  His gaze grew sharp, and Ava dreaded what was going to come next.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Earlier, when Mr. Dawson was telling you about Rick’s sister and her kids, about how this trip is his favorite every year, and he always goes to Mr. Dawson’s dinner party…you didn’t know any of that, did you?”

  Bran glanced away, discomfort radiating from him. “I’m Rick’s boss, not his friend. Dawson can afford to be buddies with Rick. I can’t.”

  “What about your dad? Did he know those kinds of things about his cowhands?”

  Just then a bell rang, and Bran looked up at the auctioneer. “That’s the two-minute warning,” he told Ava, moving the mouse to bring his computer screen to life. “The lot I want is up next.”

  Ava didn’t want to rush this conversation, but she had to get it out, let Bran know what was heading his way.

  “Bran, all these interviews I’ve been having with the ranch hands? You have a lot of unhappy people working for you.”

  Bran was already distracted by the details of the upcoming lot, but he spared her a glance. “A, there are always unhappy people at any workplace. They love to bitch, and you’re a new sympathetic ear.”

  “Several are looking for other jobs.”

  His mouth tightened in a thin line. “They always are. It’s just bluster. Don’t worry about employee morale, worry about finding out where the money went.”

  Then the auction was beginning, and Bran’s attention was pulled away, his worldview unchanged, and his ranch still in danger.

  When Bran had come up with the idea of taking Ava to Fort Worth with him, he’d thought it would be a great way to spend time together. She could see another facet of his business, and he could learn what she loved about big cities.

  But the afternoon had turned into a clusterfuck with Ava critical of how he handled his ranch hands and him feeling resentful of her interference—even though he’d hired her specifically to interfere. Now as they walked through the hotel lobby, he wondered if he should offer to take her home. He’d bought what he’d come for. He didn’t have to stay for the next day of the auction.

  He approached the front desk, prepared to check in, but Ava was so quiet at his side, he stopped and reversed course, towing her by the hand to an alcove on one side of the large marble-floored lobby. He stopped and tugged her closer, gazing down at her jade green eyes, his gut in a knot.

  “When I asked you to come with me, I thought it’d be something we’d both enjoy. I want to spend time with you, get to know one another better. But if you’ve changed your mind, if you’re not comfortable or happy being here, all you need to do is say so. I’ll take you home this minute if that’s what you want.”

  She laid a hand on his chest, and Bran felt his heart lurch like a bird in a cage, frantically trying to get out.

  “I do want to be here. I’m sorry I’ve been so stuck on certain things. I think maybe I focus on work to avoid things that are uncomfortable.” She blinked up at him with those beautiful eyes, and it was all Bran could do to keep from kissing her witless right in the lobby of the Omni Fort Worth.

  “And I make you uncomfortable?” He really hoped not, but he had to ask.

  “Not you…” She paused, and he saw the faintest pink come to her cheeks. “The feelings I have about you, though. Those are uncomfortable—in a good way, I think.”

  Her gaze dropped to the space between them, to their still-clasped hands.

  “Is it because of Nathan?” he asked softly.

  She sighed the tiniest bit. “I should feel guilty. I should feel more guilty. I did love him.” She met his gaze again, and the hand that rested on his chest clutched gently at his shirt. “But I feel good when I’m with you. I want to touch you, I want to—”

  Before she could finish, Bran had given up whatever willpower he’d managed to hold onto and crushed his lips to hers. He wrapped his arm around her waist and yanked her against him, her graceful curves filling something in him that went far beyond their bodies, all the way to his very
core.

  As their tongues began to tangle, Ava gasped softly, and Bran went hard as steel in a second flat.

  “Can we check in now?” he asked, nearly breathless as he pulled away, his lips feeling swollen and electrified.

  “Please,” she answered, voice breathy and rough, her hips arching toward his.

  God, she was beautiful. And smart. And fascinating. Bran had never met a woman like her, and he wasn’t about to let her go. He knew she’d loved her husband because Ava wasn’t the type of woman who’d put up with anything less. But maybe, just maybe she had enough love left to give some to him too. And maybe, just maybe, Bran was ready to knock those walls the hell down for good.

  14

  A week after their trip to Dallas, Ava waved goodbye to Cam as her mother took him off to preschool. Walking back into the house, she wound up in the sunroom, where she had left her laptop the day before as she’d put together notes from the employee interviews she’d been conducting.

  She opened the file and began to read over the notes, trying to get an idea of how she would structure the article and what information should be included or left out. Her self-imposed due date loomed at the top of the page, sending a frisson of panic through her.

  Ava knew that if she didn’t get back into the reporting game within a certain time frame, her previous experience would fade in significance. Journalism moved fast in the era of the internet, and the competition was fierce. If you didn’t have ample experience within the last twelve months, you were doomed.

  She looked at the notes from the interview she’d done with Carlos, remembering the tenor of his voice, the way his mix of Spanish words and Texas twang wove together. Pulling out her phone, she pulled up the photos she’d taken of him, a profile picture with the barn and the setting sun behind it, a full-length shot of him waving his hat as he whooped at a bunch of cattle to move them from one pen to another, a closeup portrait as he focused on playing the accordion when he was teaching her about ranchero music.

  And suddenly, a vision emerged. Not just an article, but an entire book—a book about the modern West—an intersection of cultures and views and economies—ranching, immigration, small town life, environmental crises. Ava could see it in her mind, profiles of people like Carlos and Nadine, photographs that she would take of the landscape and the characters who lived there. It was the kind of grand, stylistic investigative reporting she’d always craved but had never been free to do when she was confined to assigned stories and a few meager inches of column space.

  Papers were dying, and Ava knew this all too well. Yes, she’d been laid off because she’d missed work, but it was also a convenient excuse to trim staff as Dallas’s second biggest paper struggled to stay alive. Was she being foolish to think Dallas’s biggest paper would be any different? Was she ever really going to be able to do the kinds of stories she wanted, with the depth she craved, working as a staff flack for a mid-sized city newspaper?

  At that moment, Ava began to let go of all her ideas about the future: who she wanted to be, what she wanted to be, and where she wanted to be. And if she were being at all honest with herself, she might have admitted that there was also an element of the person she wanted to be with in all of it. Ava Pearson was healing, and she realized the new Ava might be different from the old Ava. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  Bran watched as his workers unloaded the first of the new cattle he’d bought at the auction.

  “You think those Herefords will fatten up?” Rick asked as he stood alongside Bran.

  “They’ll be fine,” Bran answered dismissively. “We’ve bought Herefords from the Dawsons every year for as long as I can remember. They always bulk up nice just like they should.”

  Rick didn’t say anything directly in response to this optimistic prediction. He continued to stand there, arms crossed, brow furrowed under his baseball cap. After a few moments, he spoke again. “I need to talk to you about the north acreage,” he said. “We’ve been putting the steers out there, and they’ve busted through several fences, wandered out onto the county road. I’m thinking it might be a good idea to take that acreage out of rotation for a few months, bolster those fences, and then put the mothers and calves there instead.”

  Bran waved to one of the unloaders. The man held up ten fingers, indicating they only had ten more to unload.

  “Just send a few guys out to check those fences. Make repairs. We’ve kept the steers in that field ever since my dad was alive.” He lifted a hand to stop whatever protest Rick was obviously about to make. “Fencing’s always in need of repair here or there. Put up as much new as you need, and it’ll be fine.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Bran saw a flash of red and turned to find Ava coming toward them, her hair tied up in a red bandana, her slim hips looking delicious in tight low-rise jeans.

  “Let me know when you have this new herd branded, and we’ll send them to the near field while we inoculate them.”

  He didn’t quite hear Rick’s answer because he was already moving toward Ava like iron filings to a magnet.

  “Hi, there,” she said, smiling up at him as he pulled up short in front of her. He knew he had a stupid grin on his face, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “What are you up to?” he asked, struggling not to touch her in front of his other employees. All he really wanted to do was press her up against the nearest pickup truck and bury himself in her.

  “Just taking a break from my article—which might be turning into more than an article, but that’s a story for another day.”

  “Any ideas about where my money’s gone?” he asked.

  She gestured toward the trail that wound back to the house, and he followed so they’d have privacy for their discussion.

  “I haven’t seen any signs that anyone is buying things they can’t afford,” she began. He nodded and gestured for her to go on. “I haven’t noticed that anyone has a drug or gambling problem. I haven’t sensed that anyone is keeping secrets, Bran. I’m sorry, but I can’t figure out where that money’s going, either.”

  Damn. Bran ground his teeth in frustration.

  “It’s okay,” he told her with a bitter smile. “I know you’ve tried, and if you got something to help your career, then that’s the next best thing to my mind.”

  She nodded, looking thoughtful for a few moments. “Can I tell you what I have seen in my interviews?”

  He tensed, instantly on the defensive.

  “Let me guess—I’m not sensitive enough to my cowhands.”

  She just looked at him, not saying anything.

  “I thought we put this to rest in Fort Worth, A. After the way we spent our weekend, I figured maybe you’d finally developed some trust in me.”

  He tried to ignore the burning sensation in his chest. After everything they’d shared in that hotel suite, he couldn’t believe she was still questioning him like this. Did she think he couldn’t run his own business?

  “Bran?” Her voice was soft. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I care about you, and I want you to succeed, but you have a problem, and it’s getting worse.”

  Bran’s mind went back to his brother telling him to let the walls down. Well, here was the proof that walls served a purpose. The first time he opened up to someone, and all Ava could do was criticize the way he was running his business. That same business had put a roof over her head and Cam’s when she was desperate for an alternative to her parents’ house. That same business had been paying her to do a few things on the ranch but mostly to put together an article so she could head back to Dallas and away from him. And maybe in the end, that’s all that mattered here—Ava wasn’t going to stay. It didn’t matter what she thought or what she wanted him to do. Just like everyone else in his life, Ava had other things to do and other places to be. The ranch was the one thing that was his constant, and that’s why no one could understand it the way he did.

  He mustered a smile. He wasn’t going to give in to
the urge to stomp off in a huff and prove to her he was unreasonable. “You know what, A? I appreciate everything you’ve done. You don’t need to worry about digging around anymore. Just write your article and send it in. I’ve managed this ranch for nearly seven years on my own. It put Scout through college, set up Hunter’s veterinary practice, bought both of my brothers their first houses, and puts a roof over a dozen or more heads every year.” He cocked his head, practically daring her to contradict him. “I must be doing something right.”

  Ava looked as if she was about to respond, but he cut her off. “I just remembered I forgot to tell Rick where to put some new fencing. I’ll catch up to you later.” He gave her a peck on the lips and strode back the way he’d come, not turning to see the look on her face. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to look at her again.

  15

  Ava’s heart had been broken, and she wasn’t sure if staying on at the ranch would be possible. She’d seen the moment he’d shut her out, the moment he’d decided they were done. He was too much of a good guy to be cruel about it; he wouldn’t dump her, he was merely going to fade away, into his work, back behind the barricades he’d erected that kept out most of the world.

  Maybe it was all for the best, Ava told herself as she watched Cam swing on the old swing set behind the main house. After all, her original plan had been to return to Dallas, to newspapers, not to hang around Gopher Springs trying to write an entire book. It had been ridiculous to think she could continue to work at the ranch while she put the book together. Silly to fantasize about building something with Bran when this was all supposed to be temporary.

  She heard raised voices and turned toward the sound, and Cam slowed down on the swing, both of them looking toward the parking lot where the employees parked.

  Standing up from where she’d sat on the back porch steps, she walked into the yard, toward the play set.

  “Mama?” Cam said, looking over at her as he came to a stop, his short legs dangling off the edge of the swing.