Texas Fierce (The Tylers of Texas 4)

“There’s Jupiter—your dad was savin’ him for last. And besides him there are about twenty cows and a dozen spring calves. The steers are all gone.”

“What about horses?”

“Four. All of ’em old.”

“Lord Almighty.” Bull barely noticed when Bonnie set their plates on the table. At least his father had kept Jupiter, the aging Hereford bull. As long as the surly old boy could do his job, and the cows were healthy, there would be more calves. But the time and money it would take to get the ranch running at capacity was staggering. He had $7,000 in the bank, saved from his rodeo winnings toward a decent truck. That would barely make a dent in what he needed for the ranch.

Maybe selling out to the Prescotts would be his only option.

“Eat your breakfast. You’re gonna need it.” Jasper was already digging his fork into the heap of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon, with a short stack of pancakes on the side. Bull gazed down at his plate. Jasper was right, but his appetite was gone. He forced himself to chew and swallow each bite.

What if he’d stayed—taken his father’s abuse and worked to make the ranch a success? Would his father still be alive? Would the Rimrock be a profitable, working ranch?

All he’d ever wanted was to be free of this place. But what if he’d made a different choice back then? What would he be looking at today?

* * *

After they’d finished breakfast, they left a tip for Bonnie and went back outside to the truck. “I’ll drive,” Jasper said, climbing in. “That’ll give you a chance to look around.”

Bull buckled his seat belt and rolled down the window as Jasper started the engine. The sun blazed in the cloudless sky. The morning was already hot. By afternoon, heat waves would be rippling off the molten asphalt streets.

“Doesn’t look like much has changed,” Bull observed as they drove out of town. “Same old houses. Same dried-up lawns and dried-up people.”

“Not much changes around here,” Jasper said. “Except that your dad’s in the ground and the ranch is within a gnat’s eyelash of goin’ under.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the ranch when you found me?”

“Would you have come back if you’d known? Or would you have already decided to sell out to the Prescotts?”

“Who’s to say I won’t do that, anyway? It might be the only choice.”

Jasper pulled off the road and turned to give Bull a stern look. “So you’d let them dirty skunks win, without even puttin’ up a fight?”

“Ask me again after I’ve had a look at the place.”

Bull didn’t say any more. It would be wasted breath to argue with Jasper before he’d had time to weigh his options. He was the boss now, he reminded himself. Jasper, for all his value as a friend and mentor, was his employee. For both of them, that would take some getting used to.

He waited until Jasper had pulled onto the road again and driven half a mile into the open country before he spoke.

“Speaking of dirty skunks, how are the Prescotts? Is Ferg still around?”

“Yup. I seen him last time I was in town. He was drivin’ around in a fancy red convertible with a couple of girls who looked young enough to still be in high school.”

“I thought maybe he’d have gone off to college or something. His folks could afford to send him, that’s for sure.”

“Can’t argue with that. But Ferg’s too lazy for college. Besides, why should he go when he’s set to inherit the biggest ranch in these parts?” Jasper gave Bull a knowing glance. “I take it you haven’t warmed any toward him.”

“No way.” Ferguson Prescott, the neighbors’ only surviving son, had been Bull’s boyhood playmate. But years before he’d left home, an incident so horrific that they’d vowed never to mention it again had torn them apart. Distrust had made them rivals, then enemies.

“Was my dad still feuding with the Prescotts?”

“Not so much after the heavy drinkin’ started. But he always said they’d get their hands on the Rimrock over his dead body.”

Jasper fell silent, as if realizing what his words had implied. Bull gazed out the window at the drought-yellowed pastureland and cedar-specked sagebrush flats. A loose cow grazed in the bar ditch where the grass, watered by spring runoff from the road, still bore sprouts of green. Jasper slowed down and swung across the painted line to avoid spooking the animal.

“The sheriff called my father’s death an accident,” Bull said. “That’s what you told me. Do you believe it?”

Jasper hesitated, as if weighing his reply. “I might . . . if I could figure out what he was doin’ on top of that cliff in the first