Cowboy Sanctuary

“You should have seen Miss Jennie when she saw that snake.” Rudy grinned at Cameron. “Hit it with her first shot—using a pistol, no less.”

Refusing to be sidetracked, Jennie brought up the issue she’d discovered that morning. “What about the razor blade in my saddle?”

Cameron’s eyes widened. “Razor blade?”

Jennie nodded.

Her father didn’t have an answer for that one. His face set in a stubborn scowl. “I won’t have a Morgan on my property.”

“Seems like you’re in no condition to disagree.” Jennie leaned close to her father, her face in an equally stubborn scowl. “If I say he stays, he stays.”

Hank’s cheeks burned red beneath the tanned, leatherlike skin. “This is my ranch, girl. I make the decisions.”

“Oh quit your bellyaching, Hank, and take these painkillers.” Rachel Blainey was back in the room, handing Hank two tablets and a tall glass of lemonade. “Jennie’s right. You need help, whether you like it or not. Cameron’s offering at no cost. You’d be a fool to refuse.”

“What’s with the women in this house? Isn’t a man’s home supposed to be his castle?” Hank tossed the pills to the back of his throat and swallowed a gulp of lemonade. “I will not be overruled by a couple of women. I’m the boss and I can fire you if I want.” His bluster faded a bit when Rachel winced.

The older woman stood firm. “You have that right, but you’d be an even bigger fool to do it. Who would cook the meals?”

He nodded toward Jennie.

She shook her head and smiled. “You want to live to be eighty, don’t you?”

“Then Rudy can learn to cook.”

Rudy backed away, his hands held up. “Oh no, not me. I wouldn’t know a pan from a skillet. Besides, who would take care of the animals?”

Hank turned a hopeful look on Stan Keller, his foreman and longtime friend.

Stan shook his head. “All I can cook is canned beans and weenies. Care to eat that three times a day, seven days a week? I like Ms. Rachel’s cookin’. I like it enough I’d consider quittin’if she was to up and leave.”

Hank’s brows rose high on his forehead. “You won’t leave me. You’re practically family.”

“So’s Ms. Rachel,” Stan replied.

Hank snorted and stared around at the set faces. “Overruled on my on property. I don’t like it.” He pounded the arm of the recliner with his palm. “Morgans don’t belong on the Flying W.”

“Says who?” Jennie asked. “Whatever’s stuck in your craw better just get unstuck. He’s staying.”

WITH ONE HURDLE CROSSED, Cameron headed to the small town of Dry Wash to inform the sheriff of the attempts on the Wards’ lives. After the sheriff promised to make a trek out to the Flying W for further information, Cameron left for the Bar M Ranch to warn his family of the trouble headed their way. Frankly, he didn’t expect any warmer welcome from some of his relatives than he’d got from Hank Ward.

When he pulled into the yard and parked, a young woman with auburn hair and bright green eyes flew off the porch and attacked him before he could shut his truck door. “Whoa, wait a minute there, Molly.”

“Cameron!” She hugged him around the middle so hard he could barely breathe. “I can’t believe it’s you. Let me look at you.” She leaned back, her arms still around his waist, tears shimmering in her eyes. “You’re back and you look great.”

“Hey, carrot.” He ruffled his sister’s hair and set her away. “Let me get a look at you. What’s it been—two years?”

“Make that three.” Molly tossed her bright auburn hair, her green eyes flashing.

Cameron marveled at how much she looked like their mother. Happy and sweet—the spitting image of Emma Morgan.

“Last time I saw you was at my high school graduation.” Her gaze was accusing, tempered by her ready smile.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at college?”

“I finished my last exam two days ago. I couldn’t wait to come home, I’ve been so homesick.”

Cameron knew that feeling. “Denver’s not that far, knucklehead.” He rubbed the top of her head as he’d done when she was no taller then his belt buckle. Now, she stood up to his chin at five feet ten. No longer a gangly teen, she’d filled out in all the right places. “Hey, when did you grow up?”

She punched him in the belly and then raised the same hand to straighten her hair. “A long time ago, doofus. Come on, I know Mom will be over the moon to see you.” She hooked her arm around his waist and led him up the steps and through the front door of the two-story stone-and-cedar ranch house.

How many times had he hopped up those same steps two at a time growing up on the Bar M Ranch? Back then, he didn’t have a care in the world, never thinking past dinner or riding his favorite horse the next day. His chest tightened. He’d missed home.

Then why the heck had he stayed away so long?

“Hey, brother.” The sound of his older brother’s voice reminded him of the reason why. Logan Morgan stepped through the door leading to the kitchen. Instead of the hug Molly had given him, Logan held out his hand. “Been a while.”

Cameron grasped his brother’s hand and shook, his grip strong. A measure of a man’s worth, his father would say. “Molly was just reminding me how long.” Where had the easy camaraderie they’d shared in their youth gone? For over a decade, Logan had been cold and distant to him. Ever since he’d started seeing Jennie Ward. He might as well have committed treason or murder by the way Logan and his father treated him.

If not for his mother and Molly, Cameron wouldn’t have returned to the Bar M. Though he loved the land and enjoyed working with his hands, he’d been a stranger in his own home, ostracized for his association with the Ward girl, as they loved to call her. Even after he’d left to join the army and Jennie had refused to leave with him, his father and brother hadn’t forgiven him or welcomed him back into the fold. Old wounds only seemed to fester and grow deeper.

“What brings you home?” Logan dropped his hand and hooked a thumb in his belt loop.

“Do I have to have a reason other than to see my family?” Cameron asked.

“Usually. Molly’s graduation and Mom’s surgery were the only times you’ve been home over the past five years. We’re all healthy here and Molly doesn’t graduate college for another year or more.” Logan’s brows rose over deep brown eyes. Where Molly favored their mother, Logan was a mirror image of their father in looks and attitude.

Cameron fell in the middle. Black hair like his father, green eyes like his mother and somewhere in the center between the rigid views of Tom Morgan and the full-time mediator who was Emma Morgan. He was saved from an answer by a whirlwind of denim and chambray.

“Cam, honey! I can’t believe it’s you.” Emma Morgan strode into the room, her Dingo-booted feet tapping against the hardwood floors. The dust in her hair made it hard to determine how much was dust and how much of her auburn curls had turned gray. Without hesitation, she pulled him into her arms and hugged him close. “God, I missed you.” She held on for longer than usual until Logan cleared his throat, ending the touching reunion.

Cameron could have gone on a lot longer hugging his mother. Until she’d come through the door, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her smile and her down-to-earth ways. What you saw was what you got with Emma Morgan. She didn’t have a secretive, mean or tricky bone in her body. Molly was just like her and he loved them both all the more. “Hi, Mom. I missed you, too.”

When she pulled away, a tear made a trail down the dust on her cheeks. Reaching up she brushed it away. “Now see there, you’ll have me bawling like a newborn calf if you don’t watch out.”

Fighting the lump lodged in his throat, Cameron smiled. “Maybe I’ll join you.”

“While you two are crying, I have horses to tend.” Logan left without looking back.

Emma’s gaze followed him. “I don’t understand that boy.”

Her “boy” was all of thirty and then some.

“He needs to fall in love or something to take the edge off,” Molly said.

“Wish he would. Might bring him down a peg or two to meet his match in a female.” Emma’s attention returned to Cameron, her smile returning with it. “It’s good to have you home, son.”

“It’s good to be back.” Despite the bad feelings between him and the male members of his family, Cameron really was glad to be back in the mountains. “What have you been up to?” He stood back and stared down at her dusty jeans.