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if he was a betting man, he’d say his friend was a goner.
While the two indulged in giggling and good, old-fashioned necking, Cooper discreetly looked away. The bar was dim and Pearl Jam loud. Tipsea’s was a legend in Norfolk, and since another team member’s wife purchased it, SEALs always drank free—a perk Cooper would very much miss. The grunge rock? Not so much. He was more of an old-school Hank Williams kind of guy.
His pals meant well by hosting this shindig, but the God’s honest truth was that he’d just as soon get on with things. No amount of beer or pretty women would sugarcoat the fact that what he had waiting for him back home in Brewer’s Falls, Colorado, was good, old-fashioned hell.
* * *
“HOW’S CLINT DOING?” Millie Hansen looked up from the stack of bills she’d been arranging in order of importance. The electric company’s blaze-orange shut-off notice took precedence over the two late-payment credit card notices.
“Finally asleep.” As she was near to sleepwalking herself, Millie’s heart went out to her sister-in-law, Peg.
“I can’t thank you enough for your help. Since Jim died...” She removed her reading glasses, blotting her eyes with her sweater sleeve—who could afford genuine tissues?
“He’s my dad. Where else would I be?” She arched her head back and closed her eyes.
At 10:00 p.m. on a blustery January Monday, the old Queen Anne home shuddered from the force of the Colorado plain’s wind. The desk’s banker’s lamp provided the office’s only light. Both kids were blessedly in their rooms—Millie didn’t fool herself by believing the older one was actually sleeping. Eleven-year-old LeeAnn was probably reading with the aid of a flashlight beneath her covers. J.J.—age seven—had crashed before Millie finished tucking him in.
She set her reading glasses atop her open, ledger-style checkbook. “Hate to bring up a sore subject, but did you ever hear from Cooper?”
Peg sighed. “Left a half-dozen messages. Does hearing his gruff voice mail recording count as contact?”
“What’re we going to do?” During the long days spent cooking and doing the dozens of other daily chores it took to keep the ranch running, Millie didn’t have time to worry, much less spare a thought for her absentee brother-in-law, Cooper. But at night, fears crept in, slithering into every vulnerable part of her soul, reminding her just how bad the past few years had been and how much worse her future could get. If they lost the ranch that’d been in the Hansen family for over a hundred years, she didn’t know what they’d do—where they’d even go.
“I ask myself that question every night when I’m up pacing, because worry won’t let me sleep.”
“Will we make it to spring?”
Shrugging, Peg leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “You know I’d stay if I could, but my savings is dwindling, and I still have a mortgage back in Denver. The hospital won’t give me more leave. Come Monday, I’m expected back.”
Millie swallowed the knot in her throat and nodded. “I understand.”
“Dad’s stable enough that I’ve arranged for a series of nurses and therapists to keep up with his rehabilitation here at home. His speech therapist said Dad’s making all the right sounds, so with work, in between official therapy sessions, you and I should be able to help him make the right connections. Hopefully, a few neighbors will step in to help with his general care during the day.”
And at night? Caring for a stroke victim was an around-the-clock job. Getting the Black Angus herd that would be their salvation come spring through what was feeling like a never-ending winter wasn’t exactly your average nine-to-fiver. Then there were her kids, whom Millie already spent precious little time with. The weight of her responsibilities bore down on her shoulders, making them ache. “Lynette mentioned she’d be willing to come over anytime we need her. I’ll give her a call.” Lynette was Millie’s best friend since kindergarten. She’d been a godsend after Jim died.
“Good. Maybe Wilma could help out some, too? I’ll drive up every weekend.” Wilma was a widowed neighbor who used to be in a quilting circle with the woman who would’ve been Millie’s mother-in-law—that is, if Kay Hansen had lived long enough to see her youngest son marry. Her death was never spoken of. Her passing had launched the beginning of the Hansen family’s unraveling.
* * *
EXHAUSTION FROM THE twenty-seven-hour drive did nothing to ease the acid churning in Cooper’s stomach. The cold, cloudy morning cast a gray pall over his already dreary hometown.
In the twelve years since he’d been gone, nothing about Brewer’s Falls had changed. Same bedraggled downtown with the century-old brick bank that also served as the post office and drugstore. Besides the feed store, Elmer’s Grocery, the diner, bar and community center, no other businesses lined the only road. The few kids were bused the two-hour round trip to attend school in Wilmington.
The half-block stretch of sidewalks was weed-choked and cracked, and the few trees were bare. Hanging baskets filled with the brown ghosts of summer’s bounty swung from the diner’s porch.
In all of a minute’s time, he’d left town to turn onto the dirt road leading to his family’s ranch. He’d forgotten the plain’s stark beauty, and yet he’d joined the Navy with the express purpose of finding that same beauty at sea.
The ugly-ass town with its homely jumble of buildings had no redeeming qualities other than, he supposed, the good people who lived there. A few old-timers. His little brother’s widow and her kids—the nephew and niece that due to his father’s hatred, Cooper had never even met.
If anything, the lonely town served as a blight upon the otherwise beautiful land. Hell, Brewer’s Falls didn’t even have a waterfall. The town’s founder—Hawthorne Brewer—thought the idyllic name might draw in folks wanting a quieter way of life.
The road was in even worse shape than he remembered, which served his purpose well, considering the rock-strewn surface forced him to slow his pace.
The school bus passed.
Were his niece and nephew on board?
For a moment, the passing vehicle’s dust cloud impeded his view, but when the dust settled, the life he’d spent years trying to forget came roaring into view.
At first, the two-story home, outbuildings and the cottonwoods his grandparents had planted were a distant speck. As they grew, so did his dread.
You’re not my son, but a murderer....
Bile rose in his throat while his palms sweat and his pulse uncomfortably raced.
The Black Angus cattle that, for as long as Cooper could remember had been the ranch’s lifeblood, huddled near the south pasture feeding station. The livestock’s breath fogged in the cold morning air. How many mornings just like this had he ridden out at dawn to check on them?
It seemed inconceivable that he’d once felt more at ease on the back of his horse than he now did at a depth of a hundred feet.
The closer the house loomed, the more evident it became that the ranch and its occupants had fallen on hard times. His big sister, Peg—an ICU nurse who’d long since moved to Denver—was the only family he talked to. She’d told him that after his brother’s death, his father had for all practical purposes shut down. Cooper had offered to return then, but Peg reported having broached the topic with their dad only to find him not just unreceptive, but downright hostile.
And so Cooper had continued his exile.
He pulled onto the house’s dirt drive, holding his breath when passing the spot where basically, his life had ended. Sure, he’d worked hard and made a new family with his SEAL team, but it was his old one he mourned.
The one he’d literally and figuratively killed.
He put his truck in park, letting it