Taming Blackhawk

That one word wrapped around his chest like a steel band and squeezed. Alive. His brother and sister were alive.

Dust swirled around him as he raked numbly at the old straw, then replaced it with new. After he’d read the letter this morning from Beddingham, Barnes and Stephens Law Offices in Wolf River, Texas, he’d shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans. He hadn’t looked at it since, but he knew every sentence, every comma, every word by heart.

But only one sentence mattered to him, only one that kept running through his mind, over and over…

Seth Ezekiel Blackhawk and Elizabeth Marie Blackhawk, son and daughter of Jonathan and Norah Blackhawk of Wolf River County, Texas, were not killed in the car accident that claimed the lives of their parents…

There were dates and the usual legal mumbo-jumbo, requests to contact the law firm as soon as possible in order to discuss the estate. But what the hell did he care about an estate? Seth and Lizzie were alive.

Seth would be about thirty now, Rand knew. Lizzie maybe twenty-five or six. Over the years, Rand had never allowed himself to think about his sister and brother or the night of the accident. But there were times, late at night, when even a bottle of whiskey couldn’t chase the persistent demons out of his head.

And then he would remember—the lightning bolt, the sound of screeching wheels and crunching metal. His mother’s scream and Lizzie’s cries.

Then silence. A deafening, sickening quiet that pounded in his ears to this day.

How many nights had he woken in a sweat, the sheets ripped from the mattress, his heart racing and his hands shaking?

Too damn many.

Even now, as he thought about Seth and Lizzie, about the letter in his pocket, his hands shook and his heart raced.

“Rand?”

Startled from his thoughts, he glanced up at Mary Sloan’s soft call. At sixty-one, she was still an attractive woman. Her raven hair was peppered with gray; her skin looked healthy and tanned, with deep lines around her blue eyes. She looked exhausted, he thought. But then, she usually did. Ranching was hard work, long hours and little pay. In her twenty-nine years of marriage, she’d never known any other life.

Mary and Edward Sloan had adopted Rand Blackhawk immediately following the accident. Mary had always been good to him, Rand thought. Raised him like her own, loved him.

Edward Sloan had been another matter entirely.

“Are you all right?” she asked, and took a step closer.

His first reaction was to say that he was fine. That everything was fine. Isn’t that what everyone had always done in the Sloan family, pretended all was well, when in fact, it was anything but?

“I don’t know what the hell I am, Mom,” he said honestly. Or even who I am.

Mary knew about the letter, who it was from, what it said and what it meant to Rand. “It’s one-fifteen,” she said after a long moment. “Are you coming?”

Was he? His hand tightened around the handle of the pitchfork.

“Yeah.” He stabbed at a flake of straw and tossed it into the stall. For her he would. “I’m coming.”

“Rand—” She took another step closer. “I—”

She stopped again, not knowing what to say.

Hell, he didn’t know what to say, either.

“It’s all right, Mom. You go on. Soon as I finish here, I’ll be in.”

She nodded, turned slowly to leave, then stopped at the sound of car tires crunching on the gravel driveway outside. They both looked at each other.

“Are you expecting anyone?” she asked.

“Not me. You?”

“No.” Her eyes, which had looked so tired just a moment before, now simply looked sad. “I’ll go see who it is. Maybe it’s one of Matthew or Sam’s friends.”

They both knew that was doubtful. His younger brothers, Mary and Edward’s birth sons, had both left the ranch years ago. Like himself, they’d come home only yesterday. No one knew any of the Sloan boys were back in town.

Once again she turned to leave, and once again she turned back. “We’ll talk later. All right?”

Rand nodded. He watched his mother suck in a deep breath, straighten her shoulders, then walk out of the barn.

He stabbed another forkful of straw and tossed it. They’d talk, no doubt about that. He had no idea what they would say to each other, but one thing was certain, they would talk.

Grace Sullivan pulled her rented black Jeep Cherokee in front of the two-story farmhouse and parked. Tipping her sunglasses up, she took in the name carved roughly on a strip of pine over the front porch: Sloan.

Finally.

She closed her eyes on a sigh of relief and cut the engine. She’d been all over Texas looking for the legendary Rand Sloan. Even if he didn’t live here, maybe someone who did could help her.

If anyone lived here.

She stepped out of her car into the blistering August sun and slid her sunglasses back down to shield her eyes as she looked at the house. Its once-white paint had begun to peel, the screens were torn, and the composition roof needed repair. The flower beds had long turned to weeds and dust, and the corrals were empty. On the porch a wooden swing with faded blue cushions swayed slightly in the breeze.

Her gaze swept back toward the mile-long dirt driveway she’d followed off the main road. A cloud of dust still hung in the heavy air from where she’d driven in. The land was flat, dotted with cactus and thornbush, and stretched as far as the eye could see. Grace listened, but the only sounds she heard were a hawk shrieking overhead and the squeak of the wooden sign moving gently in the hot wind. The place looked and felt deserted.

Not that there would be much taking place in this heat at this hour on any ranch, she reasoned. Still, she would have expected some kind of activity. Maybe a ranch hand smoking in the shade of the large oak tree beside the barn, or a horse nuzzling a patch of grass. But she saw no sign of life at all. Not even the customary mangy ranch dog had rushed up to bark at her.

Not your typical ranch, she thought as she closed her car door and headed for the house. But then, from everything she’d heard, Rand Sloan was not your typical man.

“May I help you?”

Grace turned and saw the woman standing at the edge of the house, her expression wary but not unfriendly. She was a tall woman, Grace noted, slender, but not delicate. Her short, dark hair was starting to gray; she wore black slacks, a short-sleeved cotton blouse and black cowboy boots.

“Hello.” Grace smiled at the woman. “My name is Grace Sullivan. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not yet you’re not.” The woman moved closer and offered a firm handshake. “Mary Sloan.”

A wife? Grace wondered. Sister? She knew so little about the man. “I’m looking for Rand Sloan. Does he live here?”

The woman smiled, as if Grace had said something funny. “Rand hasn’t lived here for fifteen years.”

Disappointment stabbed at Grace. Not another dead end, she thought. She didn’t have time for another dead end.

“Would you have any idea where I might reach him?” Grace asked. “It’s important that I speak with him right away.”

“Take a number,” Mary said, then nodded over her shoulder. “He’s in the barn.”