She bit down on her lower lip, eyes down, then slowly raised her lashes, those blue eyes huge in the cool darkness of the barn and swimming with tears. “I’m twenty-one. I’m tired of being treated like a kid.”

  Twenty-one. He stared at her, realizing it was true. He hadn’t even thought about how old she was, even though he’d known her since they were kids. She’d always just been the girl next door—well, the tomboy down the road at the next ranch, anyway. He’d pretty much always thought of her as a kid.

  On top of that, she still looked like a kid. For starters, she was only about five-five, lean and youthful-looking. But he knew it was more than that. She was the kid sister of the very protective McCall boys. That alone made any man with any sense shy away from her. Just as that alone should have made him nervous about having this conversation with her.

  “Have you mentioned this to your brothers?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes and shot to her feet. “Just forget it.”

  “Hold on,” he said, pulling her back down to the straw bale. “I’m not sure I’m the right person,” he said, adding quickly before she tried to hightail it again, “but I’ll help you if I can.”

  “You do know something about women, don’t you?”

  He smiled. “Something.”

  Her blue eyes pleaded with him. “Well, then help me. I want people to see me as a…woman.”

  Oh, man, Slim. He told himself that she wouldn’t be here asking him—of all people—unless she was desperate. “Okay,” he said uncomfortably. “Don’t take this wrong, but it could be the way you dress.”

  She looked down at her clothes. “What’s wrong with the way I dress?”

  “Well, for starters, you look like a boy. You have any of your own clothes? Or is everything you own handed down from your brothers.”

  Her jaw tightened. “I like roomy shirts.”

  He nodded. Either she was wearing a tight-fitting sports bra under one of her brother’s western shirts and canvas jacket or she had no boobs and didn’t even need a bra. “Don’t you ever look at magazines? Or try makeup and fixing your hair different?”

  “Of course. I looked like a streetwalker!” She let out a half sob, half laugh. A couple of big tears shimmered in her blue eyes. She ducked her head again, obviously embarrassed as she made a swipe at them. “I need one of those makeovers like on TV.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t need a makeover. You just need a little help. Look, if you’re serious about this—”

  “I am.”

  “—then I’ll help you,” he said with a groan.

  The relief in her face made him smile. Then realization hit him. What did he know about girl stuff? Clearly more than Dusty, which wasn’t much. Fortunately, he knew someone he could get to help them, a young woman he’d dated a few times who owned a boutique in Sheridan.

  “We’ll go down to Sheridan.”

  She stood as if ready to go right now.

  He wondered what the hurry was. “Can you go this afternoon?”

  She nodded, looking determined and a little worried.

  “I’ll pick you up after lunch.”

  She launched herself at him. He hugged her back in surprise and then she was racing toward the barn door. He smiled, thinking he didn’t see any reason for her to change. Personally, he liked her just fine as a tomboy.

  Over her shoulder, she called back, “If you tell a soul about this—”

  “It will be our little secret,” he said, getting up to follow her to the barn door. No chance he was going to tell anyone.

  She swung up onto her horse outside the barn and cut her eyes at him. “It had better be our secret, Ty Coltrane, or you will regret the day you ever met me.”

  No chance of that, he thought as he watched her ride away. He’d never met anyone like Slim. She was one hell of a horsewoman. And she had spunk and something he couldn’t put his finger on. Something that had always drawn him to her. Yep, as far as he was concerned, there was nothing about Dusty McCall that needed to be made over.

  As she disappeared over the horizon, he turned back to the barn. A bad feeling settled over him as he thought again of Rasmussen’s visit and Dusty’s.

  What had Dusty been doing in the corral last night after the rodeo?

  ASA HAD KNOWN the day would come when he would have to tell his family. Telling them he was dying seemed easy compared to the really bad news. Telling Shelby took ever ounce of strength he had left in him.

  “Remember Charley Rankin?” he asked.

  She frowned. “The two of you owned that land together to the north.”

  Asa nodded. “Charley helped me buy up some other prime acreage that is now part of the main ranch. I bought the land from him when we dissolved our partnership.”

  “That must have been when Charley married and moved back east.”

  Asa nodded, realizing not for the first time that Shelby had kept close track of his life and the kids all the years he’d forced her out of their lives. It added to the weight of his guilt to know that she’d been watching them all from the sidelines, staying involved in their lives as much as she could. As much as he’d allowed her.

  He met her eyes, wanting desperately to tell her how sorry he was but never able to find words to encompass the extent of that sorrow—of that regret.

  Ashamed, he looked away.

  “I heard Charley and his wife were both killed when his private plane crashed,” she said when he didn’t go on.

  He nodded and plunged in, needing to get the words out before he didn’t have the courage. “When our partnership was dissolved, I didn’t have enough cash to buy him out, so I signed an agreement giving him the mineral rights to the ranch.”

  She let out a small gasp, her eyes widening with alarm as the enormity of what he’d done hit her.

  “It was collateral, nothing more,” he continued, not wanting to drag it out. “Just before he was killed, I mailed the last of the land payments. Charley had never cashed the checks. He didn’t need the money, so I guess it was his way of helping me out. With the last check, I also sent him a legal form to sign that would void the mineral rights agreement.”

  He looked at Shelby. He could tell by her expression that she knew what was coming.

  “Charley and his wife had a son,” she said. “Reese. He must be about twenty-five by now.”

  Asa nodded, figuring Shelby also knew that Reese had never gotten along with his father and been in trouble since he was young. “He found all the paperwork on the deal after his father’s death, including all the un-cashed checks and the unsigned document that would have voided the agreement.”

  “Oh, Asa,” she breathed.

  He nodded. “Thanks to the discovery of coal-bed methane, the mineral rights on the ranch are worth fifty times what I paid Charley for the land.”

  “He plans to drill wells on the ranch.” Shelby covered her mouth with her hand, eyes welling with tears. She knew better than anyone how much this ranch meant to him.

  She pushed herself up from the table and went to the window, her back to him. “There has to be some way to stop him.”

  “Even if I mortgaged the entire ranch, there wouldn’t be enough capital to buy him off. He always resented Charley. Charley’s dead. But Charley’s best friend is still alive. At least for a while.”

  She turned from the sink and sat down at the table again. Reaching across the table, she covered his weathered old hand with her still pale pretty one. “Have you told J.T.?”

  J.T. was their oldest, the one who had been running the ranch along with Dusty the past few years. Asa shook his head. “Other than my lawyer, you’re the only one who knows.”

  “You have to tell them.”

  He turned his hand so hers was enclosed in his rough weathered one. He squeezed it gently as he looked at her. He’d been so angry at her for coming back from the dead the way she had. Breaking their agreement without notice. Just showing up at the door. Giving him no choice but to let her stay because she’d learned about the cancer.

  Then when it had gone into remission, she’d stayed, refusing to leave him again. He’d been angry at her, not wanting her pity. Not wanting her to come home only to watch him waste away and die.

  Now he wondered what he would have done if she hadn’t come back. How he and the children would have gotten through this without her here. How could he ever tell her how much it meant to him? How much she meant to him?

  “You have to tell the children,” she said again.

  He nodded. The cancer was no longer in remission. The letter had only confirmed what he’d already known.

  He drew his hand back and stood. His eyes burned at just the thought of leaving her and the children with the mess he’d made. “I need a little more time.”

  It was so like Shelby not to say that he might not have more time. “Take all you need.”

  He smiled ruefully at that. He would need another lifetime and even then, he doubted it would be enough time to undo all the mistakes he’d made in this one.

  Instead, he had a few weeks. If he was lucky.

  Chapter Six

  Letty Arnold stared at the caller ID as the phone rang again. She’d been waiting for this call all her life. She just hadn’t known it.

  Her hand shook as she picked up. She crossed her fingers and closed her eyes. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Arnold?”

  She held her breath, squeezing her eyes tighter.

  “This is Hal Branson with Branson Investigations.”

  She recognized his voice from the day she’d hired him. The same day she’d found out from the sheriff that she’d been illegally adopted.

  The truth about her adoption had only come out because of an investigation involving a local doctor. It seemed he’d taken babies from what he considered unworthy parents, telling them that their infant had died. Then he had given the babies to couples desperately wanting a child, couples he considered more worthy.

  The doctor had handled everything, including birth certificates that made it appear the new mother had given birth to the baby. If he hadn’t told the sheriff about her in a deathbed confession, she might never have known the truth. “Did you find my birth mother?”

  “Maybe,” Hal Branson said.

  Letty opened her eyes. “Maybe?”

  “I found a woman who gave birth to a baby at the clinic where the doctor worked on the day you were supposedly born.” He seemed to hesitate. “She was an unwed mother.” Just the kind of woman the doctor would have considered unworthy. “I don’t want to get your hopes up. The only way to be certain of your maternity will be DNA tests.”

  He’d already told her all of this. Why was he telling her this again?

  “Keep in mind that the date of your birth could be incorrect,” he continued. “You could have been a home birth. There are just too many factors. And with the doctor not keeping any records of the adoptions—”

  “Mr. Branson—”

  “Hal.” He sounded young and she wondered how old he was. For all she knew, she’d hired a kid. That’s what she got for not taking care of this in person. Not that she hadn’t checked out Branson Investigations on the Internet to make sure it was licensed, bonded and reputable.

  She hadn’t wanted anyone in Antelope Flats to know that she was one of the crazy doctor’s “babies.” And she hadn’t had the patience that day to drive clear to Billings to find a P.I. It was also easier to talk about this over the phone rather than in person.

  She knew she shouldn’t feel this way, but it was embarrassing not knowing who her parents were. Not knowing who she was.

  And she had to know. She’d always suspected that she didn’t really belong to the Arnolds. It wasn’t only their advanced ages and the fact that they were more like grandparents. She’d never looked like either of them or acted like them or even really understood them. The Arnolds were quiet, solitary, stable and bland. Both were short and round.

  Letty was thin as a stick, with a wide toothy smile, and had been all cowgirl from the time she could walk. Neither of her parents had ever ridden a horse in their lives and didn’t like rodeos. And while both of the Arnolds had light brown hair, Letty had a wild mane of hair red as a flame, a face full of freckles and emerald green eyes. Both Arnolds had brown eyes.

  The truth? She’d been relieved when they’d retired and left her the motel so they could move to Arizona. Not that they hadn’t been good to her. She loved them.

  That’s why she felt guilty about her feelings. They were the only parents she’d known and she felt as if she were disrespecting them by even looking for her birth mother.

  “Are you still there?” Hal asked.

  “Tell me how I can find this woman you think might be my birth mother.” Letty unconsciously glanced toward her reflection in the mirror on the wall. She had to know who she was. No matter the outcome.

  “Her name is Florence Hubbard. She goes by Flo.”

  Letty heard the slight catch in his voice and braced herself.

  “She…plays in a rock ’n’ roll band,” Hal said. “It’s called Triple-X-Files. I understand they play some rock, but mostly heavy metal music.”

  She could hear his distaste and smiled. “What kind of music do you like?”

  “What?” He sounded more than surprised, maybe even embarrassed. “Country,” he said almost sheepishly.

  Her smile widened. “Me, too. So where does this X band play?”

  “Well…there’s a three-day rock concert next weekend during a fair in Bozeman. Triple-X-Files will be there. If you like, I could e-mail you all the information. You can camp near the concert or stay in one of the local motels.”

  “Thanks, you’ve been very thorough.”

  “It’s what you’re paying me to do.” Again, he sounded embarrassed.

  “You’ll send me a bill?” she said, thinking this might be the last time they talked if Flo Hubbard really was her mother.

  “Ms. Arnold—”

  “Letty.”

  “Letty, if I were you, I wouldn’t go to meet this woman alone. Do you have a friend or relative who could go with you?”

  She smiled ruefully at the relative part. None who lived nearby, none she was all that close to even before she found out they weren’t blood-related. She had no one who could go with her. Except Dusty McCall, her best friend.

  But she wasn’t ready to tell even Dusty about this yet. Dusty knew something had been bothering her. Letty wished she could confide in her friend. She wasn’t even sure what was holding her back. Maybe the need to find out who she was before she told the world that she was one of the babies the doctor had stolen.

  “If you would like, I could meet you there,” Hal said guardedly. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind. In fact, I think it might be good to have someone who isn’t involved in the situation there with you.”

  To her surprise, she heard herself say, “Would you?”

  “Of course.” He sounded relieved, almost excited, as if he wanted to see this through to the end. “Just tell me when and where to meet you.”

  They worked out a plan and she found herself torn between her anxiety at the thought of meeting her possible birth mother and her curiosity about Hal Branson as she hung up.

  For a moment, she thought about calling Dusty, telling her the news. She hesitated, feeling guilty. But the truth was, Dusty hadn’t been interested in much of anything lately except Boone Rasmussen.

  Letty told herself that wasn’t fair. She knew Dusty would just think she was jealous. But it was something else that bothered her about Dusty’s obsession with Boone. A fear that she might lose her best friend. But not to love.

  BOONE RASMUSSEN STORMED into Monte Edgewood’s ranch house, letting the door slam behind him. Hadn’t he known Coltrane was going to be a problem? The Coltranes of the world were always a problem.

  The ten-mile drive from Coltrane’s ranch hadn’t calmed him in the least. He’d driven too fast on the way to Monte’s, reckless from his anger. How dare Coltrane butt into his business?

  Coltrane had everything Boone had ever wanted—one hell of a ranch, money, standing in the community—and all of it handed to him on a silver platter when his old man died.

  Boone hadn’t been so lucky. His father hadn’t left him a thing. In fact, he’d had to pay out of his own pocket to have the old son of a bitch cremated. He smiled bitterly at the memory. He should have let the state deal with G.O. Rasmussen’s sorry remains.

  But Boone had gotten the last laugh. He’d spread that bastard’s ashes over the local cow lot. Ashes to ashes, so to speak. It was little consolation for the years his old man had worked him, paying him with biting criticism and the back of his hand, but it was something.

  The difference in their lives alone made Boone hate Coltrane. But now the horse rancher was snooping into the wrong cowboy’s life. No way was he going to let Coltrane ruin everything he’d worked so hard for.

  Monte looked up from the kitchen table. Boone saw the older man’s expression and felt his stomach clench. Something else had happened. Something to do with Devil’s Tornado? Or did this have something to do with Coltrane?

  Monte lowered his big head as if in prayer. “I guess you heard about Clayton,” he said with a wag of his head.

  Boone tried not to let Monte see his relief. So this was only about that ranting old drunk bull rider. He thought for a moment of pretending he hadn’t heard, but everyone in town was talking about Clayton’s death.

  “I heard,” Boone said, drawing up a chair at the table and sitting down, trying to mirror Monte’s sorrowful expression. “Did you hear what happened?” Monte had more reliable sources than Boone did.

  “His body was found in a ravine south of here. Guess he missed a curve,” Monte said.

  “Probably blind drunk.”

  Monte gave him a hard look, disappointment shining in his light eyes. “Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, son. Clayton had his share of demons like all of us, but he was a good man.” He reached across the table to drop a big palm on Boone’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze as he smiled sadly. It was clear to both of them that Boone would never be the man Monte had hoped.