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fancy silver lettering. Instantly, her pulse sped up and her damned heart sank into her shit-caked boots.
    â€œThat’d be trouble,” she said in a quiet voice.
    â€œWith a capital C,” Blue agreed, his eyes following the movement of the chopper, too. “Looks like the eldest Cavanaugh has come home to bury his daddy.”
    â€œAnd bury us right along with it,” Mac added dryly.
    â€œYou think?” Blue asked.
    â€œHell, yes.” As the chopper moved on, heading toward the sizable ranch land Deacon Cavanaugh had bought a few years back, Mac’s gaze slid back to Blue. “He’s been trying to get his hands on the Triple C since he walked out its gate ten years ago. I’m guessing he thinks this is his big chance.”
    â€œBut he’s got all that property now,” Blue observed. “More land than we got here. A house being framed up, the whole thing fenced in for cattle.” He shrugged. “Maybe he’s over wanting to run the Triple C.”
    Mac smiled grimly. “I don’t think he ever wanted to run this place, Blue.”
    That had the cowboy looking confused and curious. “Then what? Why would he work so hard and offer so much money for something he didn’t want?”
    Mac shook her head, dug the tip of her boot into the dirt, into the land she loved. “I don’t know. I’m not sure about his reasons. I just know they ain’t pure. I tried talking to Everett about it a few times, ’bout why Deacon was pushing him so hard, being such a slick-ass bastard—trying to take over the very home he and James and Cole had all run from as soon as they were able. But he brushed me off, said all his boys had been changed in the head afterCass was taken, and they weren’t thinking right.” Mac chewed her lip, shook her head. That explanation had never made sense to her, but she didn’t push it. Everett had gone through hell, and if he didn’t want to talk about it, that had to be respected.
    â€™Course, that didn’t mean she hadn’t tried to work it out in her head a few times.
    â€œI always wondered if it was just Deacon’s way of doing business,” she continued. “How he makes his money. Buying and selling off pieces of other people’s dreams and sweat.” Her eyes lifted to meet Blue’s. “But he could do that anywhere. Why the Triple C?”
    Blue was silent for a moment. Granted, the cowboy knew some of the history with Deacon, his father, and the ranch, because Mac had filled him in when the former had started his war with Everett six years ago. But Blue didn’t know the particulars of the loss the Cavanaugh boys had endured before they’d left home. He didn’t know about the day Cass had been taken or the night Sheriff Hunter had come to their door with the news that her body had been found. He didn’t know that her killer was never caught, or about the morning they all sat in the very same church Everett Cavanaugh would be eulogized in today, over a beautiful white casket, their lives changed forever.
    But Mac knew. And hells bells, she’d shared that unending grief along with them. Her bestfriend gone before she’d seen her fourteenth birthday. It wasn’t right. For none of them. But neither was taking that grief out on people. Especially family. Especially a man as goodhearted as Everett.
    â€œSo you think this is Deacon’s big chance?” Blue asked her, his face a mask of seriousness now. “You think he’s gonna get his hands on the Triple C?”
    â€œNot if I can help it,” Mac uttered tightly.
    She watched the helicopter shrink to the size of a dime and then finally disappear behind the mountain. She didn’t know what Everett’s will was going to say, who he’d left the Triple C to. But she did know that whoever it was, they’d have her standing over them, watching every move they made. Making sure