Texas Tall - Janet Dailey Page 0,36

looked as if he’d barely slept. Will came down the icy steps to meet him. “Bad?” he asked, meeting his brother’s eyes.

Beau nodded, his mouth pressed into a tight line. When he spoke, his voice cracked like an old man’s. “More than bad. Lightning strike. I counted seventeen dead around the burnt spot in the pasture. Hope to God there aren’t more, but we won’t know for sure till the sun’s up.”

Will’s knees had gone weak. He braced a supporting hand on the Jeep’s warm hood. “Damn,” he muttered. “That’s all we need to push us over the edge.”

Behind him, the front door opened and closed. Tori had come out onto the front porch. Her gaze took in the frozen landscape and the stricken faces of the two men at the bottom of the steps. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

Beau gave her the news. She’d been a ranch wife long enough to know what it meant. No dramatics, just bear up and move on. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do—”

“Just make sure Erin’s all right, and keep her inside today.” Squaring his shoulders, Will turned back to Beau. “Let’s get the men together. We’ve got a herd to save.”

The two brothers climbed into Beau’s jeep Jeep and headed toward the bunkhouse, tires crunching on the icy ground.

* * *

Heartsick, Tori watched them go. The death of that many prime cattle would mean disaster for the future of the ranch. The cows and heifers, many of them pregnant, were the backbone of next year’s herd, the spring calves a promise of profit next fall. And the two pedigreed Hereford stud bulls, if either was lost, would cost a small fortune to replace.

Will was tough, like his father. He hid his emotions behind a stoic mask. But Tori knew he was devastated. Last night’s losses, coupled with the summer’s drought and fire, would put the ranch’s survival in serious peril. Couple that with the legal charges hanging over him, and Will would be staggering under his invisible burdens.

Until the moment she’d stepped outside this morning, Tori had been preoccupied with what had happened last night in Will’s bed. How could she have dropped her guard that way? What, if anything, would Will expect going forward? And how would it affect her growing relationship with Drew?

Now, compared to the morning’s disaster, last night was no more than a pebble in her shoe, to be cast aside and forgotten. Like the storm had done, it had come and gone. There was nothing to do but put it behind her and move on.

But Will’s hidden anguish tore at her heart. There was nothing she could do about the problems with the ranch. But as his lawyer it was up to her to see that he didn’t pay for killing Nikolas Tomescu. Whatever it took, she couldn’t let him down. She would question Erin, question Abner and his deputies, inspect the crime scene, scour every legal book she could find for a precedent. She would fight for Will’s innocence with everything she had. He had killed in defense of their daughter, and she wouldn’t give up until he was cleared of all blame.

* * *

Ralph Jackson slumped on a barstool in the Blue Coyote, so tired he could barely drink the free Tecate that Stella had shoved in front of him. At ten on a Thursday night, most of the customers had cleared out. The others would soon be gone, too. Nobody was paying any heed to the scruffy cowhand hunched over his beer.

“Cowboy, you look like you just got drug through a manure pit behind a mule.” Stella studied him across the bar. Her silk blouse was so tight over her ample bosom that Ralph could see the outline of her nipples. He averted his gaze, reminding himself that the woman was old enough to be his mother.

“Been workin’ my ass off all week for those damn Tylers,” Ralph said. “Diggin’ trenches with the backhoe and shovin’ in those stinkin’ dead cows. Hell, I oughta get double pay for a dirty job like that.”

“But you don’t, do you?” Stella clucked sympathetically. “How many cattle did they lose?”

“Nigh onto twenty, most of ’em hit by lightning. And I was on the crew that got to bury ’em.”

“Poor boy.”

For some reason she looked pleased. But that’s natural, she thought, remembering that Will Tyler had gunned down her brother.

A week had passed since the storm. Now, as was typical for