Man on a Mission Read Free Page B

yourself—something Mark could not do. At this point in his life he couldn’t risk trusting anyone.
    He had to find out what Marietta had wanted to tell him that night. She’d implied whatever it was put the entire ranch operation at risk. Whatever it had been had caused her death and Mark’s near death.
    He couldn’t allow anything to distract him from his goals, including a shapely blonde with springtime eyes and an aura of vulnerability. He had to find a murderer. As Marietta warned him, he couldn’t trust the sheriff. Nor could he believe Broder’s theory that a missing ranch hand had been responsible for the murder.
    By the time Mark had showered once again, washing off the scent of the stables, and had changed his clothes, he realized it must be getting close to dinnertime. As he checked his reflection in the bathroom mirror, his stomach clenched with tension.
    Family powwows had never been particularly pleasant, and Mark didn’t anticipate this one being any different. Although his brothers and sister had rallied around him when he’d been in the hospital, upon his release they’d returned to their separate lives.
    Now, with the terms of their father’s will, they were forced to deal with one another. They would either learn to work together in order to keep the ranch alive, or they would choose to continue their solitary lives and the ranch would die along with their father.
    As Mark went down the stairs to the dining room, he shook his head ruefully. It was rather amazing to him that Adam, in his death, was attempting to make them all what they had never really ever been in his life—a family.

Chapter 2
    â€œI ’m not about to give up my law practice to shovel horse dung here,” Johnna Delaney glared at Matthew. She had the same bold, dark features as her brothers, and at the moment those features were twisted into a frown. “I can’t imagine what father was thinking of when he wrote this will.”
    The evening meal was finished, and the Delaney siblings had all gathered in the study to discuss the future.
    â€œWell, I’m not exactly champing at the bit to work the ranch,” Luke drawled lazily as he poured himself another drink.
    Luke, Mark’s younger brother, was a sometime musician, a sometime carpenter and an all-the-time hell-raiser. Had it been a hundred years earlier, he probably would have been a gunslinger.
    As had been the custom, particularly in the pastthree weeks, the conversation swirled around Mark, rather than included him. Nobody asked his opinion, offered him suggestions or spoke directly to him at all.
    He was virtually invisible, as he’d felt for most of his life as the middle son sandwiched between the two strong personalities of his older and younger brothers.
    â€œThen we just let it all go?” The muscles in Matthew’s jaw tightened visibly. “All Father’s hard work and dreams, all the years of planning and struggling, we just let it die with him?” He glared first at Luke, then at Johnna.
    Johnna flushed and looked down at the glass of wine she held. “I’m not moving back here, Matthew. This dude ranch was always yours and Mark’s and father’s dream, not mine.”
    Walter Tilley cleared his throat. The diminutive lawyer sat in a wing chair near the fireplace. Until this moment he’d been so quiet, Mark had nearly forgotten he was in attendance.
    â€œIf I might interject,” he said calmly. “Johnna, your father’s will does not stipulate that you must live here at the ranch. You can remain in town and still adhere to the conditions outlined by your father.”
    â€œI’ll listen,” Luke said, a wry grin curving his lips. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but losing the money the ranch is worth to Aunt Clara doesn’t sit much better with me than giving up my time for a year to work the ranch.”
    Walter smoothed his thin