Hero's Return

The box sitting in the passenger-side seat looked battered. He opened the door and hesitated for a moment before picking it up. For its size, a foot-and-a-half-sized cube, the package was surprisingly light. As he lifted the box out, something shifted inside. The sound wasn’t a rattle. It was more a rustle like dead leaves followed by a slight thump.

Like his sister had said, there was no return address. Tucker’s name and the ranch address had been neatly printed in black—not in his brother’s handwriting. The generic cardboard box was battered enough to suggest it had come from a great distance, but that wasn’t necessarily true. It could have looked like that when the sender found it discarded and decided to use it to send the contents. He hesitated for a moment, feeling foolish. But he didn’t hear anything ticking inside. Closing the SUV door, he carried the box inside and put it behind his desk.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Lillie asked, wide-eyed.

“No. You need to take Dad home.” He started to pass his sister but vacillated. “I wouldn’t say anything to him about this. We don’t want to get his hopes up that Tucker might be headed home. Or make him worry.”

She glanced at the box and nodded. “Did you ever understand why Tuck left?”

Flint shook his head. He was torn between anger and sadness when it came to his brother. Also fear. What had happened during Tucker’s senior year in high school? What if the answer was in that box?

“By the way,” he said to his sister, “I didn’t arrest Dad. Ely voluntarily turned himself in last night.” He shrugged. Flint had never understood his father any more than he had his brother Tuck. To this day, Ely swore that he was out by the missile silo buried in the middle of their ranch when a UFO landed, took him aboard and did experiments on him.

Then again, their father liked his whiskey and always had.

“You all right?” he asked his sister when she still said nothing.

Lillie nodded distractedly and placed both hands over the baby growing inside her. She was due any day now. He hoped the package for Tucker wasn’t something that would hurt his family. He didn’t want anything upsetting his sister in her condition. But he could see that just the arrival of the mysterious box had Lillie worried. She wasn’t the only one.

CHAPTER TWO (#u5116cf9d-d5b1-50f9-bf71-3d2d10e4b2be)

TUCKER CAHILL SLOWED his pickup as he drove through Gilt Edge. He’d known it would be emotional, returning after all these years. He’d never doubted he would return—he just hadn’t expected it to take nineteen years. All that time, he’d been waiting like a man on death row, knowing how it would eventually end.

Still, he was filled with a crush of emotion. Home. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it, how much he’d missed his family, how much he’d missed his life in Montana. He’d been waiting for this day, dreading it and, at the same time, anxious to return at least once more.

As he pulled into a parking place in front of the sheriff’s department, he saw a pregnant woman come out followed by an old man with long gray hair and beard. His breath caught. Not sure if he was more shocked to see how his father had aged—or how pregnant and grown-up his little sister, Lillie, was now.

He couldn’t believe it as he watched Lillie awkwardly climb into an SUV, the old man going around to the passenger side. He felt his heart swell at the sight of them. Lillie had been nine when he’d left. But he could never forget a face that adorable. Was that really his father? He couldn’t believe it. When had Ely Cahill become an old mountain man?

He wanted to call out to them but stopped himself. As much as he couldn’t wait to see them, there was something he had to take care of first. Tears burned his eyes as he watched Lillie drive their father away. It appeared he was about to be an uncle. Over the years while he was hiding out, he’d made a point of following what news he could from Gilt Edge. He’d missed so much with his family.

He swallowed the lump in his throat as he opened his pickup door and stepped out. The good news was that his brother Flint was sheriff. That, he hoped, would make it easier to do what he had to do. But facing Flint after all this time away... He knew he owed his family an explanation, but Flint more than the rest. He and his brother had been so close—until his senior year.

He braced himself as he pulled open the door to the sheriff’s department and stepped in. He’d let everyone down nineteen years ago, Flint especially. He doubted his brother would have forgotten—or forgiven him.

But that was the least of it, Flint would soon learn.

* * *

AFTER HIS SISTER LEFT, Flint moved the battered cardboard box to the corner of his desk. He’d just pulled out his pocketknife to cut through the tape when his intercom buzzed.

“There’s a man here to see you,” the dispatcher said. He could hear the hesitation in her voice. “He says he’s your brother?” His family members never had the dispatcher announce them. They just came on back to his office. “Your brother Tucker?”

Flint froze for a moment. Hands shaking, he laid down his pocketknife as relief surged through him. Tucker was alive and back in Gilt Edge? He had to clear his throat before he said, “Send him in.”

He told himself he wasn’t prepared for this and yet it was something he’d dreamed of all these years. He stepped around to the front of his desk, half-afraid of what to expect. A lot could have happened to his brother in nineteen years. The big question, though, was why come back now?

As a broad-shouldered cowboy filled his office doorway, Flint blinked. He’d been expecting the worst.

Instead, Tucker looked great. Still undeniably handsome with his thick dark hair and gray eyes like the rest of the Cahills, Tucker had filled out from the teenager who’d left home. Wherever he’d been, he’d apparently fared well. He appeared to have been doing a lot of physical labor because he was buff and tanned.

Flint was overwhelmed by both love and regret as he looked at Tuck, and furious with him for making him worry all these years.

“Hello, Flint,” Tucker said, his voice deeper than Flint remembered.

He couldn’t speak for a moment, afraid of what would come out of his mouth. The last thing he wanted to do was drive his brother away again. He wanted to hug him and slug him at the same time.

Instead, voice breaking, he said, “Tuck. It’s so damned good to see you,” and closed the distance between them to pull his older brother into a bear hug.

* * *

TUCKER HUGGED FLINT, fighting tears. It had been so long. Too long. His heart broke at the thought of the lost years. But Flint looked good, taller than Tucker remembered, broader shouldered, too.

“When did you get so handsome?” Tucker said as he pulled back, his eyes still burning with tears. It surprised him that they were both about the same height. Like him, Flint had filled out. With their dark hair and gray eyes, they could almost pass for twins.

The sheriff laughed. “You know darned well that you’re the prettiest of the bunch of us.”

Tucker laughed, too, at the old joke. It felt good. Just like it felt good to be with family again. “Looks like you’ve done all right for yourself.”

Flint sobered. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Like Dad used to say, I’m like a bad penny. I’m bound to turn up. How is the old man? Was that him I saw leaving with Lillie?”

“You didn’t talk to them?” Flint sounded both surprised and concerned.

“I wanted to see you first.” Tucker smiled as Flint laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently before letting go.

“You know how he was after Mom died. Now he spends almost all of his time up in the mountains panning gold and trapping. He had a heart attack a while back, but it hasn’t slowed him down. There’s no talking any sense into him.”

“Never was.” Tucker nodded as a silence fell between them. He and Flint had once been so close. Regret filled him as Flint studied him for a long moment before he stepped back and motioned him toward a chair in his office.

Flint closed the door and settled into his chair behind his desk. Tucker dragged up one of the office chairs.

“I wondered if you wouldn’t be turning up since Lillie brought in a package addressed to you when she came to pick up Dad. He often spends a night in my jail when he’s in town. Drunk and disorderly.”

Tucker didn’t react to that. He was looking at the battered brown box sitting on Flint’s desk. “A package?” His voice broke. No one could have known he was coming back here unless...

Flint’s eyes narrowed as if he heard the fear in his brother’s voice. “I thought maybe you’d sent it on ahead of you for some reason.”

Tucker shook his head. “Apparently someone was expecting me,” he said, trying to make light of it when the mere sight of the box made him sick inside.

“Well, I’m just glad you’re back,” his brother said. “Whatever it was that sent you hightailing it out of here... We’ll deal with it as a family. I only wish it hadn’t taken you so long to return.”

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

“You think?” Flint sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I knew something was going on with you your senior year.”

Tucker nodded, his gaze shifting to the box sitting on his brother’s desk. He swallowed. “It wasn’t something I could talk about back then.”