Her Right-Hand Cowboy (Forever, Tx Series Book 21) Read online

Ena curled her fingers into her palms. She wasn’t going to give Mitch a piece of her mind, even though she would have liked nothing better than to tell him what an infuriating idiot he was. Which only left her with one option.

  Ena turned on her heel and headed back to her vehicle—quickly.

  Mitch followed at a pace that others might refer to as walking briskly, but he cut the distance between them so effortlessly it didn’t even look as if he was walking fast.

  “Hey, was it something I said?” he asked. “If it helps, I can apologize,” he said, although he had no idea what he could have said to set her off.

  But because he had just lost a boss who over the years had become more like a surrogate father to him, Mitch was willing to apologize to Bruce’s daughter. He knew that having her here would have meant a lot to his boss. Besides, he had looked into Ena’s eyes, and while she probably thought she had covered up things well, he had glimpsed pain there. Having her run off like this wasn’t going to eliminate that pain.

  “I came to see the ranch house,” Ena informed him crisply. “And I saw it. Now I’m going to see my father’s lawyer and find out what he has to tell me so I know exactly where I stand.”

  “You’re talking about your dad’s will.” It wasn’t a guess on Mitch’s part.

  Ena’s antenna went up. The accounting firm in Dallas where she had worked her way up to a junior partnership had seen all manner of fraud. Fraud that had been the result of greed and a sense of entitlement. Initially, when she had first encountered it, she had been surprised by the way people treated one another when a little bit of money was involved. But eventually, she came to expect it, just as she now expected to have to fight Mitch on some level because he had probably come to regard the ranch as his own and had hung around, waiting for her father to die. He undoubtedly expected to have her father leave the ranch to him.

  Maybe, for all she knew, Mitch had even helped the situation along.

  Well, too bad, she thought. If her father had left the ranch to his “trusty foreman,” Mitch Parnell was going to have one hell of a fight on his hands.

  Calm down, Ena. You’re jumping the gun and getting way ahead of yourself, she silently counseled.

  But she wasn’t here to try to prove that Mitch had somehow brought about her father’s demise because he had designs on the Double E. She was here to try to make the best of the situation, sell the ranch and move on. With any luck, by the end of the week she could put her whole childhood behind her once and for all.

  Starting up her car, she half expected Mitch to run up to her window and try to stop her—or to at least say something inane such as “Don’t do anything hasty.” But as she pulled away, the foreman remained standing just where he was.

  She could see him in the rearview mirror, watching her and shaking his head.

  The smug bastard. Was he judging her?

  Deep breaths, Ena, she instructed herself. Deep breaths. You can’t let someone out of your past get to you. You’re here to listen to the reading of the will and to sell the ranch. The sooner you do that, the sooner things will get back to being normal and you can go on with your life.

  A life she had fought hard to forge, she reminded herself. On her own. Without asking for so much as a single dime from her father.

  She was proud of that.

  At the same time, the fact that she had had to do it on her own, without any help, or even an offer of help, from her father managed to sting bitterly. It reinforced her feelings of being by herself. She hadn’t always been alone. There’d been another child, her twin brother, but the baby had died at birth. While her mother had treated her as if she were a perpetual special gift from Heaven, she had always felt that her father resented that she had been the one to live and her brother had been the one to die.

  “Sorry, Old Man,” she caught herself saying as she drove into town, on the lookout for the attorney’s office—there had been no lawyers in Forever when she had left. “Those were the cards you were dealt. You should have made the most of it. I would have made you forget all about the son you never had. But you never gave me the chance.” She shrugged, her shoulders rising and then falling again carelessly. “Your loss,” she concluded.

  The next moment, not wanting to put up with the silence within her car a second longer, Ena turned on the radio and let Johnny Cash mute her pain.

  Chapter Two

  Mitch watched as Ena’s rather impressive but highly impractical car—at least for this part of the country—become smaller and smaller until it was barely a moving dot on the winding road.

  She had come back, he marveled. He’d had his doubts there for a minute or two after Bruce O’Rourke had died and Cash, her father’s lawyer, had sent a letter to notify Ena, but she had come back.

  Ena was even more beautiful than he’d remembered, Mitch thought. Hell, every memory involving her was sealed away in his mind, including the very first time he ever laid eyes on her.

  He smiled to himself now, recalling the event as if it were yesterday. It was a Tuesday. Second period English class. He’d been a new transfer to the high school and had just been handed his class schedule. He’d walked into Mrs. Brickman’s class fifteen minutes after it had officially started.

  Everyone’s eyes in the class had been focused on “the new kid” as he walked in the door, doing his damnedest to look as if he didn’t care what anyone thought of him, even though he did.

  And then, as his eyes quickly swept over the small class, he saw her. Ena O’Rourke. Blue eyes and long blond hair. Sitting up front, second seat, fourth row. He caught himself thinking that she was the most beautiful girl who had ever walked the face of the earth.

  He’d almost swallowed his tongue.

  It took everything he had to continue with his blasé act, appearing as if he didn’t care one way or another about any of these people.

  But he did. He cared what they all thought.

  Especially the blonde little number in front.

  And because she had suddenly become so very important to him, he deliberately acted as if he didn’t give a damn what any of these people thought of him. Especially her.

  With a Navajo mother and an Irish father, Mitch felt as if he had one foot in each world and yet belonged nowhere.

  He remembered Ena smiling at him. Remembered Mrs. Brickman telling him to take the empty seat next to Miss O’Rourke.

  Remembered his stomach squeezing so hard he could hardly breathe.

  Wanting desperately to come across as his own person and not some pitiful newcomer, he had maintained an aloof aura and deliberately kept everyone at arm’s length, even the girl who reduced his knees to the consistency of melted butter.

  Why had he ever been that young and stupid? he now wondered. But life, back then, for an outsider hadn’t been easy.

  It hadn’t become easier, he recalled, until Bruce O’Rourke had gruffly given him a chance and hired him to work the ranch shortly after his parents died, leaving him an orphan.

  Funny the turns that life took, he mused.

  Mitch observed Wade McCallister making his way over to him. The heavyset older man looked more than a little curious. He jerked a thumb at the departing vehicle. “Hey, boss, was that—”

  Mitch didn’t wait for the other man to finish his question. He already knew what the ranch hand was going to ask and nodded his head.

  “Yup, it was.”

  Wade had worked off and on at the Double E Ranch for a long time. Long enough to have known Bruce O’Rourke’s daughter before she was even a teenager.

  Turning now to watch Ena’s car become less than a speck on the horizon, Wade asked, “Where’s she heading off to?”

  “She’s on her way to talk to the old man’s lawyer,” Mitch answered. Even the dot he’d been watching was gone now. He turned away from the road and focused his attention on Wade.


  Wade’s high forehead was deeply furrowed. The ranch hand had never been blessed with a poker face. “She’s gonna sell the ranch, isn’t she?” the older man asked apprehensively.

  “She might want to,” Mitch answered. “But she can’t.” His smile grew deeper. “At least not yet.”

  “What do you mean she can’t?” Wade asked him, confused.

  Wade had known Bruce O’Rourke longer than Mitch had. But Wade didn’t have a competitive bone in his body and he wasn’t insulted that his normally closemouthed boss had taken Mitch into his confidence. As a result, Mitch had been devoted to the old man and everyone knew it. While the rest of them had lives of their own apart from the ranch, Mitch had made himself available to Bruce 24/7, ready to run errands for him no matter what time of day or night. No job was too great or too small as far as Mitch was concerned.

  “The old man put that in his will.” He had been one of Bruce O’Rourke’s two witnesses when his boss had had the will drawn up and then had him sign it. Afterward, Bruce had expanded on what he had done. “He said the ranch was hers on the sole condition that she stay here and run things for six months.”

  It sounded good, but it was clear that Wade had his doubts the headstrong girl he’d watched grow up would adhere to the will.

  “What if she decides not to listen to that—what do you call it? A clause?” Wade asked, searching for the right term.

  Mitch nodded. “A clause,” he confirmed. “If she doesn’t, then the ranch gets turned over to some charitable foundation Mr. O’Rourke was partial to.”

  The furrows on Wade’s forehead were back with a vengeance. “Does that mean we’re all out of a job? ’Cause I’m too old to go looking for work with my hat in my hand.”

  Mitch shook his head and laughed at the picture the other man was attempting to paint. “Too old? Hell, Wade, you’re not even fifty.”

  Wade wasn’t convinced. “I’d have to pull up stakes and try to find some kind of work somewhere else, and I’m comfortable where I am.” The ranch hand’s frown deepened. “Like I said, too old.”

  “Well, don’t go packing up your saddlebags just yet,” Mitch told the man he regarded as his right-hand man. “Even if the ranch does get sold down the line, whatever organization takes over is doubtlessly going to want the ranch to keep on turning a profit. But don’t worry,” Mitch assured the other man. “The old man was banking on the idea that once his daughter gets back to her roots, she’s not going to want to let this place go.”

  Wade, however, wasn’t convinced—with good reason, he felt. “You weren’t here when she left. To be honest, I’m surprised the old man’s daughter came back at all.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Mitch said, thinking back to his own childhood and adolescence. It had taken him time to make peace with who he was and where he had come from. Now he was proud of it, but it hadn’t always been that way. “Our past has a greater hold on us than we’d like to believe.”

  But Wade was still far from swayed. And other problems occurred to him. “Even if she does wind up keeping it, she’s bound to make changes in the way the ranch is run.”

  Mitch was used to Wade’s pessimism. It hadn’t been all that long ago that he had been just like Wade, seeing the world in shades of black. But then Bruce had taken him under his wing and everything had changed from that day forward.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mitch advised. “Let’s just see how her visit with the old man’s lawyer goes.”

  Wade took in a deep breath, centering himself. “Okay, you’re the boss, Mitch.”

  Mitch grinned. “That’s right. I am. At least for now,” he allowed, deliberately playing on the other man’s natural penchant for gloom and doom.

  For Wade’s sake, as well as for the sake of all the other men who worked under him at the Double E Ranch, Mitch maintained a positive attitude. The old man had taught him that there was nothing to be gained by wallowing in negative thoughts, saying that he himself had learned that the hard way. If things went well, then being negative was just a waste. And if things didn’t go well, there was no point in hurrying things along. They’d catch up to him soon enough.

  Besides, who knew? Mitch thought. Maybe coming back here would help heal whatever was broken within Ena’s soul.

  “C’mon,” Mitch urged, turning toward Wade. “We’ve still got work to do.”

  * * *

  Forever had built up since she’d been here last, Ena thought as she drove down the town’s long Main Street. The last time she’d been here, the town’s medical clinic had been boarded up, the way it had been for close to thirty years. From what she could see by the vehicles jammed in the small parking lot, the clinic was open and doing a healthy business.

  She smiled to herself at her unintentional pun.

  And that was new, Ena noted as she continued to travel along Forever’s Main Street. Slowing her vehicle, she took a closer look at what appeared to be—a hotel?

  Surprised, she slowed down even more as she passed a small welcoming three-story building. Yes, it was a hotel all right.

  Was there actually an influx of tourists to Forever these days? Enough to warrant building and running a hotel? Was it even profitable?

  Ena looked over her shoulder again as she passed the new building. She had never thought that progress would actually ever come to Forever. Obviously she had thought wrong.

  The law firm where she was supposed to go to see her father’s lawyer was new, as well—as was the concept of her father actually having a will formally drafted and written up. If her father had actually wanted to put down any final instructions to be followed after his demise, she would have expected him to write them down himself by hand on the inside of some old brown paper grocery bag, its insides most likely stained and making the writing illegible.

  To see a lawyer would have taken thought on his part, a process that she had a hard time crediting her father with. Anyway, to draw up a will would have been an admission of mortality, and from the bottom of her heart, she was certain that her father had honestly believed he was going to live forever.

  He’d certainly conducted himself that way while she lived here.

  Ena realized that she was driving past the diner. She caught herself wondering if that, too, had changed. Was Miss Joan still running the place? She couldn’t bring herself to imagine that not being the case. Miss Joan had been a fixture in Forever for as long as she could remember.

  When she’d been a young girl, Ena could remember that she’d been afraid of the sharp-tongued woman. It was only as she got older that she began to appreciate the fact that everyone turned to Miss Joan for advice or support, even though, at least on the surface, Miss Joan was a no-nonsense, opinionated, blustery woman who could cut to the heart of any matter faster than anyone she’d ever met.

  Ena made a mental note to stop by the diner when she finished with her father’s lawyer. She wanted to see for herself if Miss Joan was still running the place.

  And, while she was at it, she wanted to ask Miss Joan why she at least hadn’t gotten in contact with her to tell her that her father was dying of cancer. Never mind that she hadn’t given the woman her address or phone number and had maintained her own silence for ten years. Miss Joan had her ways of getting in contact with people. She always had.

  After pulling up in front of the neat, hospitable, small freshly painted building with its sign proclaiming Law Offices, Ena carefully parked her sports car.

  As she emerged out of the vehicle, she saw a couple of vaguely familiar-looking people passing by. They were looking in her direction as they walked. By the expressions on their faces, they appeared to be trying to place her, as well.

  Getting this uncomfortable bit of business over and done with was the only thing on her mind at the moment. She looked away from the duo and went up to the law office’s front door.

/>   Ena had barely rung the bell when the door swung open. She found herself making eye contact with a tall, good-looking, blond-haired man she didn’t recognize. The man had a friendly, authoritative air about him despite his age, which she judged to be somewhere around his late thirties.

  Ena dived right in. “Hello, I have an appointment with Cash Taylor,” she told the man.

  Warm, friendly eyes crinkled at her as he smiled. “Yes, I know. I’m Cash—and you’re right on time,” he told her. “That isn’t as usual as you might think.” Cash opened the door all the way. “Won’t you come in?”

  “Thank you,” Ena murmured, making her way into the small homey lobby. And then she turned toward Cash, waiting.

  “My office is on the right,” he told her, sensing his late client’s daughter was waiting for him to tell her which direction to go in.

  There were two main offices in the building. Cash had one, while the sheriff’s wife, who had initially started the firm when she married Sheriff Santiago, had the other. Both were of equal size.

  “This is new,” Ena heard herself saying as she followed Cash into his tastefully decorated office.

  “It is,” Cash agreed. “Although I can’t take credit for it. My partner started the firm when she decided to stay in Forever after she married Sheriff Santiago.”

  “Sheriff Rick’s married?” Ena asked, surprised by the information.

  Cash nodded. “Married and a father. So am I.” Not that she probably remembered him, Cash thought. However, there was someone she probably did remember from her early days in Forever. “You might know my wife. She was Alma Rodriguez before she decided to take a chance on me,” he told her with an engaging smile.

  The surprises just kept on coming, Ena marveled. “You’re married to Alma?”

  Cash was obviously proud of that fact. He nodded. “You’ve been gone ten years, is it?” As he sat down at his desk, he checked the notes in the open file before him. “I guess you have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “I don’t plan to stay here long enough to catch up,” Ena politely informed him. “I’m just here long enough to get the property ready to put up for sale and then I’m going back to Dallas.”