Colton's Cowboy Code

The circular driveway in front of Brett’s family home—the Big House, as it’d been called since long before Brett’s birth, and where now only he and his dad lived, and his mom before her attack—was crowded with vehicles, including his half brother Daniel’s truck and the farm truck that Jack’s fiancée, Tracy, liked to drive around the place. Even his brother Eric had deigned to make a rare appearance, by the looks of it. Greta, they’d already been informed, couldn’t break away from her job until the next day, when she planned to swing through the Big House for a short stay.

Brett walked around to the back of the house, then climbed the four steps up to the wraparound porch. The stones in his stomach that had been sitting there since seeing Hannah yesterday seemed to double in size with every step. He swallowed hard, then opened the door and entered through the mudroom attached to the kitchen.

The aroma of onions and garlic and roasting beef wafted past his nose as he removed his hat and boots. Maria, the chef, must be slow-cooking a roast for supper, if he had to hazard a guess. For Hannah’s first meal there, he’d requested something hearty and homey that showcased the ranch’s prized steer, and judging by the mouthwatering smells, Maria was going to knock it out of the park.

A smile worked its way onto his lips at the sudden vision of the look on Hannah’s face when she’d crunched into that first slice of bacon the previous morning. Oh, man, he couldn’t wait to watch her reaction to Maria’s cooking. The anticipation of it was almost enough to quell his nerves over coming clean to his family about the many ways his life was about to get turned upside down.

From the kitchen, he crossed the foyer to the living room on the east side of the house, where a collection of male voices could be heard. As opposed to the kitchen, the foyer invariably smelled of fresh flowers from the arrangement that graced the circular marble table at the center of the grand entrance, which his mother insisted on having delivered weekly. To her warped way of thinking, the flowers were a display of power and wealth, but since Brett’s brush with death, he’d come to think of the arrangements as reminders of how beautiful and fragile life was.

Even after his mom’s attack, Edith had maintained the fresh flowers in the house. The only change was that the smaller arrangements that used to grace his mom’s room got sent to her room at Tulsa General Hospital.

He’d taken no more than three steps through the foyer when a blond ball of little-boy energy bounded toward him, squealing his name. Despite Brett’s nerves, he felt another grin coming on. Nobody made Brett feel like a rock star more than his five-year-old nephew, Seth, Jack’s only son. The two were fast friends, and had been since the day Brett first held Seth in his arms when he was nothing more than a red-faced potato head wrapped in a hospital blanket. He opened his arms as Seth launched himself into them.

“Hey, cowpoke.”

“Hiya, Uncle Brett!”

“Wait, what’s this in your armpit?” With that, Brett dug his thumbs into Seth’s prime tickle spot under his armpits. Seth squealed with delight, writhing and arching.

Brett redoubled his efforts. “Just a sec, I think I’ve almost got it,” he teased. “Lemme just dig in there a little deeper.”

Seth’s legs kicked out, and one of his feet accidentally nudged the marble table. The flower arrangement’s vase wobbled. Brett lunged for it as best he could while being careful not to drop Seth, but Jack was quicker.

Jack steadied the vase, casting his signature stern look at Brett that got right under his skin, as it always did. “Careful, you two. Edith works too hard to keep this place up to have you messing it up by roughhousing.”

As though Brett needed to be scolded like a child. He was about to say as much when Tracy appeared. She wore her dark blond hair pulled into a ponytail and a dark shirt and jeans that emphasized her pale, slim figure.

“Oh, now, Jack, they were just having a little fun. No harm done.” She rubbed his shoulder and offered him a sweet smile. Jack instantly relaxed, a phenomenon that Tracy got full credit for cultivating. Truth be told, Brett was fascinated by the soothing and centering effect she’d had on Jack since coming into his life the month before.

“Seth, why don’t you go outside and play so the grown-ups can talk?” she said to her soon-to-be stepson. “See if you can find your kitty friend, Sleekie, in the barn.”

Brett managed to ruffle the little guy’s hair before he bounded outside, half skipping and half jumping.

Brett followed Jack and Tracy to the living room that doubled as a library of sorts. When he’d been a kid, this had been a place of fascination for him in the house, the one room his parents had forbidden the kids from entering, not just because of all the breakable trinkets and pieces of art, but because it was where they retired with their guests for cocktails after the occasional dinner parties his dad was so fond of hosting.

His dad, Big J, was seated in his usual chair near the fireplace, chatting up Brett’s older brothers Ryan and Eric. Daniel sat apart from the others, bent over his smartphone and keeping to himself as usual.

Dad was still fit and youthful, even after a lifetime of working the ranch and raising six kids, largely on his own when Brett’s mother, Abra, decided to check out and skip town, which was a lot. Brett saw a little bit of all his siblings in Dad. They shared the same nose and same shape of their face, but Brett was the only one of the Colton kids who’d inherited his dad’s boisterous laugh and love of good times, or so Edith, their housekeeper, was fond of saying.

Dad gave Brett a wave and his signature beaming smile. “I saw you race out of here this morning before dawn. You get some kind of sticker in your paw about something?”

Brett most certainly did have a sticker in his paw, but his big announcement could wait until after they learned more from Ryan about the search for his mom’s attacker. He dropped into the center cushion of the sofa between Eric and Ryan. “Checking the fences. Can’t be too careful after that one was tampered with during last week’s storm.”

Dad harrumphed as though he didn’t buy Brett’s pat response. Brett just smiled serenely at him.

“Losing one pregnant cow was enough for a lifetime,” Jack grouched.

“She wasn’t pregnant when she was swept away in the flash flood,” Brett corrected.

“Yeah, what’d you name that calf you birthed in the gully?”

“Twister, and she’s doing just fine, thank you very much. And now that you mention it, what do you say we focus on Twister and the five pregnant cows I saved, rather than the one we lost, Jack? Maybe you could take a hiatus from busting my chops all the damn time.”

Jack scowled at him. “Maybe you could start giving me reason to trust you.”

“All right you two, that’s enough. Don’t forget that your mother is lying unconscious in a hospital bed,” Dad barked. “Ryan, let’s get to it. What’s the latest on the investigation into her attacker?”

“Right, okay,” Ryan said, scooting to the edge of the sofa. With his elbows propped on his knees, he flipped through the small notebook that was an ever-present accessory of his shirt pocket. “I don’t know an easy way to break this to y’all, but you know how some of you were doubting that the hit man who tried to kill Tracy last month was the same perp who attacked Abra and robbed her room? Well, those same doubts have arisen among my investigative team. And we have some proof of that.”

Brett had been among the earliest to voice his doubt that the hit man had also targeted their mom, but convincing the police to drop that lead and concentrate their efforts on an unknown perpetrator had been like trying to herd a group of pregnant cows in a thunderstorm—which he knew since he’d had the honor of attempting both feats. “What kind of proof?”

Ryan gave a look around, as though some interloper might be eavesdropping on their meeting. Not that there were interlopers to be found, but he still lowered his voice. “The gold locket with Greta’s picture in it that was stolen on the night of Abra’s attack turned up at a pawnshop. Greta’s picture had the eyes gouged out, making her likeness unrecognizable, but the inscription on the back was a dead match.”

Dad cursed under his breath. Jack scrubbed a hand over his chin, his eyes narrow and his expression distant.

“Pawnshops have security cameras, right? So this is great news,” Brett said.

“Yes and no. We were, indeed, able to identify the suspect using the pawnshop’s external security camera to identify the man’s car’s license plate, and we brought him in for questioning last night.”

“And this is the first we’re hearing about it?” Dad grumbled.

“Who is he?” Eric asked.

“A dead end. The guy’s name is Dell Cortaline, a small-time oxy addict we’ve seen before. He’s not our guy, though. There’s no way. He’s not smart enough to get in and out of this house without leaving fingerprints or some other trail of evidence.”

“Then how did he get the locket?” Brett asked.

Ryan rolled his tongue around the inside of his bottom lip. His gaze locked onto Dad. “He claimed to have found it in the bushes outside Tulsa General Hospital.”

Brett leaped to his feet before he knew what he was doing. “What? That’s...”

Jack stood and joined Brett behind the sofa to pace. “What that is is a new threat. Someone’s trying to get at Mother in the hospital.”

“That was my thought, too,” Ryan said grimly.

“I’m assuming your boss agreed to put an armed guard outside her room? To make sure she’s safe?” Dad said.

Ryan rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s easier said than done. This isn’t a big enough red flag to justify putting an armed guard outside her hospital room door 24/7, but I have put the hospital on alert. Abra’s in intensive care, which is highly monitored by the staff, anyway, both with door locks and cameras. Visitors don’t have easy access to the rooms in the ICU. I really believe she’s safe in there.”

“I’m there a lot, too,” Eric said. “I’ll keep a closer eye. But I agree with Ryan. The ICU is practically impenetrable.”

Dad shook his head. “I don’t understand. Abra wasn’t the kind of person who’d have a target on her back. But if her attacker went to the hospital where she’s at, then that makes it personal, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe, maybe not. It’s possible that Abra saw the perp’s face and he’s afraid she’ll be able to identify him. Could be that when he discovered how difficult it would be to get to her inside the ICU, he abandoned his plan and tossed the jewelry. That theory leaves me with more questions, but that’s one of the more solid theories we’re considering at this point.”

“Any news about the possible DNA the police tech found under Mom’s fingernails from the attacker?”

“Detective Howard is doing her best to expedite the results, but DNA testing is notoriously slow. As soon I know, I’ll let y’all know, and that’s a promise.”