Stars & Stripes

Joe was horrified and crushed by the whole affair. Cody had been his best friend. Zane felt sorry for him, even though he was more relieved to find that Joe’d had nothing to do with any of it.

Beverly sat on the porch swing with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, staring. They had checked her for shock and deemed her in good health, then left her to sit there.

Zane eased into the seat beside her, watching the commotion in the yard in silence for a few seconds. Ty was sitting on the porch steps, his shirt gone, his arm in a sling, and his ribs patched up until they could get him to the hospital. Mark and Joe flanked him. The three of them appeared to simply be sitting there in dazed silence. Sadie perched between Ty and Mark, babbling as they nodded in response. She wasn’t at all fazed, and she was recounting the events of the night as if it’d been a movie she’d watched rather than a terrifying experience she had lived through.

Zane knew one thing for damn sure: he would never make fun of Ty again for teaching a toddler how to jab a pressure point.

Annie and Harrison stood with the sheriff, relating what had happened, and many of the party guests had filtered back toward the house to tell their versions as well. The local press had not been allowed onto the property, but Zane knew they would all be loitering down at the gate. It wouldn’t be long before they got the story.

Beverly turned her head and Zane met her gaze. It was excruciating to look into her eyes and see nothing there but that emotionless mask hiding what she truly thought and felt. Zane never intended to inflict that kind of pain on Ty again.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.

“How about ‘good job’? Or ‘thank you’? How about telling me Ty’s a good man and you’re happy for me?”

Beverly stared for long minutes. Zane tried to find some hint of emotion in her icy blue eyes, but there was nothing there. She nodded curtly and looked away, holding her chin high, stubborn and proper as ever.

Zane sighed as the cold settled in his chest. Beverly had never known anything but ranches. Like frontierswomen before her, protecting the homestead was first and foremost, even if it meant sacrificing the things they loved. She was still doing that, protecting her ranch and her family’s legacy. She had simply lost sight of what her family meant.

He looked down at the bandage wrapped around his thigh. The bullet had gone straight through, narrowly missing an artery. He’d been lucky and would only be limping for a while. Ty had fared much worse, all for the sake of Zane’s family.

He nodded, looking over at Beverly one last time. “Good-bye, Mother,” he murmured before standing and limping away.

Ty and Zane spent most of Sunday night, Monday, and the majority of Tuesday in the hospital. Each of them had several bags of IV fluids pumped into them, and when Zane heard a commotion down the hall, he knew that someone had just ordered a new cast put on Ty’s hand. Since Ty had lost a lot of blood and had nowhere to run, Zane was fairly certain he’d wind up in another cast.

Wednesday was almost worse than the hospital—from which Ty had checked himself out early, against medical advice—spent filling out official statements. Ty cursed and muttered the entire time they sat in the barely air-conditioned trailer that served as the sheriff’s outpost for the ranch community. The sheriff had offered to come to them, but Zane knew Ty wouldn’t make a very credible witness while still confined to a hospital bed.

After some intense questioning, one of the Cactus Creek hands had revealed where the stolen tigers were being kept. Tish and her people had already transported the other three tigers back to their homes. Barnum had been deemed a hero by several local news stations, and Ty and Zane were both in a hurry to get out of town before the national press caught wind of the story.

The sheriff’s deputies had gone with Harrison to the pump house, and after a little searching they’d found an entrance to the underground system of caverns carved in the limestone. The river that had been the source of the spring was still trickling; it had merely dug deeper as it beat through the soft stone.

Within the caverns, they found hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cocaine.

Zane knew Laredo was controlled by the Gulf cartel, the same cartel that had dealings with Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. The tenuous connection to his work in Miami was frightening, as was the mystery of why that much product had been shipped so far into the Hill Country. He left the sheriff and the San Antonio field office with enough information to watch over the connection in case it wasn’t a coincidence.

When they were finally able to leave the sheriff’s office, all that was left for them to do was tell Zane’s family good-bye and go home.

Chapter 11

Harrison dismounted and wrapped his horse’s lead around the deck railing, then pulled a large manila envelope out of the saddlebag before he walked across the stone pavers toward the guesthouse. Zane chewed on the inside of his lip as he watched from the kitchen window.

Beverly hadn’t changed her mind after the attack on the ranch, too stubborn and too proud to admit that she might have been wrong. Or the alternative: she didn’t think she was wrong at all. If Harrison supported Beverly’s decision to write him out of the will and essentially out of the family . . . Zane shook himself, not even able to think about it.

“Hey,” Harrison said, voice gruff.

“Hey.” Zane’s wounded thigh pulled as he held himself straight and tall.

Harrison shook his head and reached out to pat Zane’s shoulder. “Relax, son,” he said.

Zane thought he might drop in relief right there. He swallowed hard and nodded, stepping back to let Harrison into the house.

Harrison walked to the kitchen table and dropped the envelope onto it. “You two doing okay?”

Zane glanced up the stairs to the loft. “Yeah. Ty hit the bed and fell asleep before I could make him take his boots off. He lost a lot of blood.”

Harrison pursed his lips, which made his mustache twitch. Zane smiled fondly. “Got a little time?” Harrison asked.

“We’ve got another hour or so until we need to go to catch the plane.”

“I’m glad I came right over, then. Sit down, Z. We need to talk.”

The apprehension hit Zane again like a hammer. He edged into one of the chairs, babying his leg.

Harrison sat opposite him, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “I’m proud of you, son. What you did was damned brave.”

The words warmed Zane to his toes. “I could say the same of you. I never realized how lucky I was to have you as a role model.”

Harrison raised an eyebrow, and his mustache twitched again.

Zane grinned. “Thank you for teaching me how to stand my ground, Dad.”

“Garretts got iron in their spines. You remember that.”

Zane nodded.

“What your mother’s done is a terrible thing, Z, and I won’t excuse her for it.” He sighed and shook his head. “Not that it matters much to her what I think.”

“Dad, what happened to her?”

“She’s always been a person who saw things in black and white, Z. Either it’s good for business, or it ain’t. You must remember what that felt like.”

Pain shot through Zane’s chest. He did remember. It had been a cold world. The only people who’d ever been able to see through his own icy exterior had been Becky and Ty. Was his father able to do the same with his mother?

“Are you happy, Dad?”

“I always have been.”

“But—”

“The love of my life is my ranch, Zane. It’s all I need to be happy. Beverly runs the money side of it and she’s good at it. I run the people side. Horses run themselves.”

Zane nodded, finally seeing a glimpse of the real marriage between the two of them. He didn’t understand it, but he believed his dad when he said he was happy. He stared out the glass wall over the rolling hills, seeing nothing but blurry grass and trying to ignore the awful, hollow feeling in his chest.

“I don’t put my nose into her side of the business, and she leaves her opinions out of mine. But this is one decision she won’t be making alone. I won’t allow it to tear my family to pieces.”

Zane blinked at him in shock.

“If she wants to take the Carter name and all that goes with it from you, she can.” He reached out and clasped Zane’s shoulder. “But you’ll always be a Garrett. Nothing she does or says can ever change that.”

Zane nodded, blinking against the stinging in his eyes.

“Now, when you were born, your granddaddy set up the Garrett Ranch in a revocable living trust,” Harrison said, his grip on Zane’s shoulder loosening. “I’m the successor trustee, so I’ve run the Garrett Ranch right along with the Carter Ranch ever since your granddaddy passed. But they’re still two completely separate entities.”

Zane frowned. “So you own the Garrett Ranch separate from the Carter Ranch?”

A smile played around the corners of Harrison’s mouth. “No, Zane. You own the Garrett Ranch.”

Zane stared at Harrison, his mind gone blank. “What?”

“You own it. You’re the beneficiary of the trust.”

Zane shook himself. “That’s not possible. There would have been paperwork.”

“Oh there is, and there has been since you were a baby. Trust takes care of itself,” Harrison said as he pushed the envelope under Zane’s hand.

“I own . . . own half the ranch?”

“The Garrett half. The Carter half was originally Garrett land, deeded to the Carters when we married as a dowry. Your mother inherited it and it folded back into the Garrett Ranch. Now, if something like, say, divorce papers got filed, the Carter half would revert back into the Garrett name, and that half is in my name alone. Beverly would walk away with nothing.”

Zane gaped, unable to say anything.

Harrison smirked. “We Garretts, we may be a lot of things, but we ain’t stupid.”

“Jesus, Dad.”

“Now, Beverly knows all that, and she knows if she raises a hand against you, or speaks against Ty as long as you’re with him, I got no need for her.”

“So . . . I own the Garrett half, and you own the Carter half?”

“That’s right. Meaning, one day, you’ll own the whole thing.”

Zane opened his mouth to speak, but failed. He’d never had any inkling the Garrett half of the ranch was the ranch in power. His mother always ruled the roost as if her family’s money fed it. It made sense now, all those years of her heavy-handed ways; she was compensating for having no monetary importance in the alliance of the families. Harrison’s mellow temperament made it easy for her to control things, and her savvy business sense had made it a good arrangement.

Now, though, Harrison was flexing his muscle. And it was a lot of muscle.

“Dad,” Zane whispered. He shook his head.

“Your granddaddy wanted you to have it, wanted you to know you had a place, no matter what.”

“What about Annie?”

“He left a significant cash inheritance for her. And I’ll do the same when I pass. She and Mark used it to set up her vet business. But the ranch follows the Garrett name.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Harrison sighed and leaned back in the chair. “I wanted you to live the life you wanted, Z. Texas held more bad memories for you than good. Becky was gone, Beverly wouldn’t leave you alone, and I knew here was the last place you wanted to be. But if you’d found out, you would have dropped it all and come back here, no matter how miserable it made you in the end, simply because it was your granddaddy’s doing.”

Zane inhaled sharply, trying to swallow down the swell of emotion. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

“Well. Now you know. The Garrett Ranch, and the Garrett name, are yours to do with what you will. The envelope’s got copies of all the legal paperwork, banking information and so on, but there’s really nothing you have to do. Beverly and I got it all set up to sustain itself and then some. I just need a few new hands, is all. Just like Cody.”

Zane laughed in surprise at his father’s rueful words.

Harrison winced. “Too soon?”

“Probably.”

“Ah, well. Three-quarters of profits are folded back into operations, the other quarter splits into three accounts: one for Annie, one for Sadie, and one for you to do whatever you want with.”

They sat in silence for long minutes while Zane tried to let it sink in.

“What about you, Dad?” he finally asked.

“What about me?”

“If the Garrett Ranch is mine, and Mother is . . . what do you have?” Zane was sure there were more questions to ask, but that one loomed large.

Harrison waved a hand. “What do I need when I’m running the place anyway? I got a son and daughter who love me. I got a grandbaby whose eyelashes are going to take over the world someday. And I have my horses.” He leaned forward and covered Zane’s hand with his own. “Don’t worry about me, Z.”

Zane laughed despite himself. “And I thought I was a stubborn ass.”

“You come by it honest.” Harrison sighed and patted Zane’s hand a couple times, and then glanced up at the loft. Zane could hear the topic change coming a mile away. Harrison met his eyes and smiled. “You hang onto him with everything you’ve got. Not every man gets a second chance.”

Zane eyes strayed to the loft, where Ty probably still lay sprawled on the bed. Zane smiled as the warmth of contentment spread through him. “I know.”

They lucked into plane tickets that took a short hop from Austin to Houston, and then carried on in a single leg to Charleston, West Virginia. Zane even upgraded himself and Ty into first class. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">