Branded Read Free Page B

Farther down, over the grand stretch of fertile pastureland, near the creek, he could just make out thebunkhouse and a decent-sized guest cottage. The hundred-thousand-acre property and forty thousand heads of cattle had to be worth upward of thirteen million, and over the years, Deacon had made one offer after another to his father, near to doubling that sum. But the old man had refused. No doubt, Everett Cavanaugh had known in his sour gut what his eldest child had planned.
    Another mile in, Deacon spotted a few cows on the north ridge. They looked peaceful, mouths full of green, no idea their lives were about to change in just a few hours with the reading of a will. It was going to be interesting to see if Everett had left even a blade of grass to Deacon. Not that it mattered, of course. Even if the entire ranch were given to James and Cole, Deacon knew his brothers wanted nothing to do with the place. Both of them were so far removed from River Black now, and from the home that had become a living hell after their sister was taken, Deacon hadn’t been certain either one of them was coming. Not until he’d gotten a call from James a few days ago.
    As he headed over the rise, the sprawling family ranch house burst into view. Even though Deacon had been to River Black nearly every month for the past six years, he was never welcome on the property, and he looked on it now with fresh eyes. The exterior had been changed to dark graystone, and the porch had been redone, but everything else looked exactly the same. Even down to the hanging baskets of red geraniums his mother had always had strung across the beams and those two ancient handmade rocking chairs sitting side by side out front. It was like stepping back in time, and Deacon felt his gut clench with pain, then expand with a strange adolescent warmth. That house called to him like a lover. A hateful, spiteful lover with her arms outstretched. He knew her body well and was more attracted to it than any of the chrome and glass dwellings he worked and lived in now. It was a damn shame.
    He hit the brakes, stopping the truck a few hundred yards from the front door. His gaze traveled the landscape, catching on a pair of horses and their riders coming up over the hill toward the barn. He wondered momentarily if he knew either rider. If maybe the cowboy on the left was James or Cole. But as the pair drew nearer, then pulled up sharp near the hitching post on the far side of the barn, Deacon’s body stilled. He didn’t know the man in the white Stetson, but he sure as hell knew the woman. He hadn’t seen her for a year or so, and even then it had been just a quick pass by in town. But forgetting Mackenzie Byrd, the foreman of the Triple C, his sister’s best friend, and one of the biggest pains in his teenage ass, wasn’t possible.
    Deacon’s eyes moved over her. Dressed in a green tank top, blue jeans, and chaps, she was a far cry from the scrawny kid with mud in her hair and the devil in her large blue eyes. The kid who used to give him a verbal beating every time he tried to steer Cass away from that too-tight friendship.
    She slid down from her horse and granted Deacon a perfect view of her very fine ass. No, this wasn’t a girl. This was a full-grown woman. Tall, tanned, and tight, her lean muscles earned working on the land. Movement to her right drew Deacon’s eye, and he observed the broad-shouldered cowboy she was with. Grinning, the man leaned in, his hand finding Mac’s shoulder, his fingers dipping dangerously close to the curve of her right breast, and said something near her ear. Whatever it was, it made Mackenzie laugh, her pink, always-wicked mouth kicking up at the corners. Deacon continued to watch the pair, wondering who the man was. No. Wondering who the man was to Mackenzie.
    Crossed arms suddenly dropped onto the ledge of his open window, and a gravelly voice he knew all too well broke through the soft sound of the