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Chapter One
Matt Marshall pulled up to the gates and put the old-as-dirt Chevy truck in park. Like hell he could drive when his eyes kept misting up like they were. Must be allergies.
Yeah. Allergies in the dead of winter.
Maybe it was the wrought iron arch wrapped in holly and Christmas lights above the gates that built the heat behind his eyes.
Marshall Brothers Ranch. Three words that packed a lot of punch.
He hadn’t been a Marshall for a while now, at least not in anything but name. He hadn’t been a brother in even longer. Was this the right move? To come back home after a decade and a half?
“Too late now,” he whispered. His breath formed a smoky cloud, but he didn’t kick on the heat. Best not be getting too comfortable around here.
He sniffled, pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, and then threw the truck back in drive. The gates—adorned with a car-sized wreath and single red glass bulb on each side—opened automatically.
“Fancy, huh, Bennett?” he muttered to himself. “I might as well get used to it. Probably a lot more changes where that came from.”
How could there not be? Not only had fifteen years passed since he set foot on the property that had shoved him out on his ass to fend for himself, but his brother had turned it into a multimillion-dollar ranching conglomerate.
Safe to say he’d be shocked on more than one occasion the next few hours.
As if to prove that thought, he turned a corner out of the frosted, leafless trees, and his jaw dropped. On paper, he knew the success his brother had had with turning around the family ranch after their father left it—and the Marshall family—in ruins.
But this? This was some next-level shit.
A sprawling ranch house rose in view, complete with a stone and pine exterior and wraparound deck where it looked like a pack of dogs sunbathed despite the chilly winter air. The house had the elegance of modern wealth but the comfortable appeal of a family home that had stood the test of time. Leave it to Bennett to find a way to make the hellhole they’d survived as teens into something that would be featured on the cover of a home magazine.
Matt’s jaw twitched. He wanted to find something to dislike about it, but damned if he came up short. Of course, he hadn’t seen the inside, but the exterior was something he’d design himself if he had the land and money to burn.
You have the money.
He did, but buying land was a little too committed for his taste.
Three trucks, all the same make and model with full-sized cabs and six-foot beds, lined the gravel side of the house. There was an empty space, presumably for him.
He ignored the sharp tug in his chest as he let that thought roll around in it. But the heat behind his eyes didn’t get the message. Damn. Was he gonna sob his way through the whole morning?
Not a good look.
“It’s just a parking space, bud. Not a welcome mat with your name on it.”
Yeah, but it was close. No one else had ever left a place just for him. He pulled in beside the other trucks, allowing a small glint of pleasure that his own vehicle stood a couple inches taller than the other three.
That was when he saw the post in front of the spot. There was literally a sign with his name on it, along with an etching of a heron, his favorite bird as a kid.
He sighed out half a lifetime of hurt and displacement, but what was left—an unreadable ache—was worse. Did Bennett, or whoever made the sign, know those birds had guided him to each place he went after he left Marshall Ranch all those years ago?
Nah. That was impossible. How could his brother know something only his heart was privy to? They hadn’t talked outside their once-a-year Christmas catch-up over the phone. And yet, here they were, another season in front of them, and everything was different.
It was thanks to the oddest damn phone call Matt had ever received.
He sat in the chilly cab and reflected on how he’d landed back where he swore he’d never end up.
Bennett had called, his voice gruff and thick, too much like their dad’s to sit well in Matt’s empty stomach. He’d had a late start that morning—a fun night out with the Wallaces to celebrate the oldest’s engagement—and regrettably hadn’t eaten anything yet when the call had come in.
“What’s up, brother?” Matt had asked after Bennett had rambled about the good fall weather of late and blah, blah, blah. They didn’t talk like normal brothers, so he’d wanted Bennett to get on with it. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. We’re fine. I don’t wanna spoil anything, but Jax is a dad. I’ll let him tell you the details but thought you should know. We’re uncles. Go figure, huh.”
Matt had nodded. “Yeah, Jax called me a week ago. What else is up?”
“Why’s there gotta be anything else? Isn’t being an uncle a big enough deal?”
“It is. So, that’s why you called?” Matt had felt an itch to get off the phone, to sink back into the pillow-top mattress and pretend his past wasn’t able to reach him at all hours no matter how much distance he put between them.
At one point, he’d felt the pull of his brothers beckoning him back to the ranch, to his namesake. But then the time between them became a black hole, sucking every positive memory of his childhood inside it. He was better off alone, and they were better off without him.
Silence had filled the space between their cell phones, and what was roughly two thousand miles could’ve been the moon and back for all the closeness Matt felt for the guy on the other end.
“No. No it’s not. I need a manager for MBE.”
Matt had rubbed his eyes, ran a hand through hair that felt as wild as his heart. “Jax mentioned he was leaving for Austin with the kid. Bummer.”
Even through the line, Matt heard Bennett’s disappointed sigh. Another Schultz Senior trademark.
“Jax’s situation isn’t a new one. The guy was always gonna go chase the wind.”
Matt had heard the unspoken words, you two are alike that way.
“But he came back anyway. It’s his time to do what he needs to do for his family.”
And there it was. The thing his brother had been waiting to say to him for fifteen years. It didn’t sting as much as it once might’ve. Back when the guilt had clawed at his chest every night he laid down alone, on the road, the fear of what would become of his mom and brothers thick in his throat.
Now it was a dull ache that throbbed but didn’t hurt. He’d survive this one.
“Okay. I have a few names for you, but they’re all on roundup until the holiday.”
The second round of silence had sent a flash of fear across Matt’s skin, waking him up.
Please. Don’t ask. If you ask, I’ll have to come.
“I know the usual suspects. Only one I trust.”
Matt’s eyes had closed tight, but that hadn’t been able to keep the truth from pelting the back of his skull.
“Tyler Easton?” Matt tried.
The low chuckle was all Bennett, not their dad this time. It was enough to worm its way through the family-sized wall Matt had erected to keep himself safe.
“Nope. That kid’s as flighty as Jax with a black Amex and a month off work. His name’s not on the deed, either.”
At that point, Matt had been glad he hadn’t eaten yet, or he might’ve lost it.
“When do you need me?” he asked.
Bennett had made it more than halfway to asking; Matt walked the rest of the way to meet him.
That’d been it. They’d ironed out the rest of the details, and Matt hadn’t ever considered backing out of the job, with one brief exception when he’d learned Jax was staying on. He tried to reason that he was sticking it out because a few cases of PPH had been discovered in the herd. He’d never seen it in live cattle outside of his master’s program field work, so why not stick around and see if he could help? He’d been helping on the vet side of things with the Wallaces and dabbled with a couple ranches before that. One more class and he’d have his vet license—something worth exploring here, maybe.
But a deeper truth flicked at his heart. Matt had committed to something—to the family he’d abandoned—so he was sticking it out.
The how he’d arrived back in Deer Creek didn’t matter anyway. He was here, so he might as well rip off the bandage.
Opening the truck, he was surprised at the difference in temperature. It was a helluva lot cooler in Deer Creek, Texas, even this close to Christmas, than it was in New Mexico when he’d last stopped for gas. He shivered. It might be cold enough to chase the stoic summer seekers from town, but it wasn’t chilly enough to eradicate Matt’s demons.
He stretched, and unable to prolong it anymore, walked up to the front of the house. The screen door slammed open, and he stepped back to avoid getting pummeled by the gangly body running for him at top speed, his head turned back toward the house.
“You got it, Dad. But call if you change your mind about the pancakes.”
The kid turned around just centimeters away from colliding with Matt.
“Oh, sorry.” His eyes went wide, and Matt’s throat went dry as he stared back at his brother’s face—if the past fifteen years hadn’t happened. “Holy crap. You’re my uncle Matt.”
Forget dry. There was a whole damn desert lodged in Matt’s throat, making it impossible to do more than nod.
“Dad!” the boy called.
Ren. His name was Ren, Matt recalled. And not just any boy but his nephew.
“Nan! Come here!”
Two figures raced toward the door, but Matt couldn’t make out who they were because his vision was suddenly blurry. He blinked a few times in quick succession and promptly lost whatever semblance of cool he had left.
His youngest brother came into focus first, but it hardly made sense to think of him as young anymore. He was an inch taller than Matt, though not as broad. Still, he’d packed on sixty pounds of what looked like hard-earned muscle since he was a teen. Jax laughed and drew Matt into a tight hug that served to squeeze out a few rogue tears from both men.
Matt cleared his throat. “You grew up.”
“I’ve heard it’s what happens, but I still don’t believe it. Not until I look at this kid,” he said, patting his son on the shoulder. “Can you believe I’m a dad?”
Matt shook his head. The list of what he couldn’t believe was growing by the second, each one throwing his axis off tilt by a fraction of a degree. He was starting to tumble.
Thankfully, the next shape materialized amid the tears and held him tight to her chest before he could fall all the way.
“Mom,” he whispered into her hair.
His mom, Grace Marshall, had always been a tall, elegant woman—a formidable support or opponent depending on how she felt about you—but Matt had to stoop to embrace her. She felt slight but strong in his arms, and the idea that he’d missed out on these hugs because of his father and their stupid feud…
He let the tears fall so he wouldn’t.
“Welcome home,” she said, pulling back but keeping her palms on his cheeks as if she wanted to look at him better.
He did the same. She’d aged, the lines around her eyes telling a story he wasn’t privy to. She also wore an obnoxious red and green Christmas sweater, belying yet another change. His mother didn’t do hokey, and yet, the Sleigh the Patriarchy in bright letters above a young Mrs. Claus on a sleigh said otherwise.
She rubbed his damp cheeks with the pad of her thumb. “You look hungry. Come on in and I’ll get started on breakfast before the cavalry arrives and starts hounding you.”
She sniffled at the same time he did, but he was grateful for her steadiness where he all of a sudden felt unsure. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him and knew he had a lot to answer for.
But until he knew what that answer would be, he didn’t want to mess it up by saying the wrong thing. And then he felt another gaze. A new presence in the room that shifted the air. It wasn’t like it sucked all the oxygen, just reappropriated it. As if everyone else felt it, too, their eyes all drifted to the doorway, where a shape shrouded in shadow emerged.
Bennett.
His mom patted him on the shoulder and stepped back to allow the brothers to greet each other. Where hugs and long embraces had been natural—needed, even—with the rest of his family, Matt was at a loss for how to greet Bennett. He was the older brother, which should have carried with it an air of gravitas, but facing the man in front of him, it wasn’t remotely true. Bennett had been the man of this house for a decade and a half, and Matt was merely a visitor, an interloper.
The one who’d left.
His limbs registered the disparity, went rigid. Still, he broke through the stony exterior his defenses had erected and closed the gap between him and his brother.
“Hey. Like what you did with the place,” he offered.
Jax, Ren, and Grace all looked on, the tension thick as the muddy water coming off the ridge when he drove into town. They’d gotten so much rain—a good thing considering the drought the ranches in Texas usually combatted.
“Yeah, I threw in a couple improvements since you were here last,” Bennett said. His mouth twitched, and damned if the corner of it didn’t kick up in a subtle smile. Grace laughed and the tension diffused. “Good to have you here, Matt. Want the tour? We’ve got a bit of weather headed our way that’ll make things more difficult by tonight.”
Matt smiled through a wave of gratitude. When he inhaled again, the cold damp of the creek peppered with decay from fallen leaves permeated his senses. He was home again. A place his heart recognized, even if his head tried to refuse.
It would be okay. There was a lot—of drama, tension, and history—built up between the family, but it was nice to know that as long as Bennett needed Matt, he could be here without it feeling like a prison sentence.
It wasn’t like he and his brother were going to be roped at the hip, either. According to Bennett’s plan, Matt would mostly work alone, which he preferred to anything else; it was why he liked contracting—no one could chime in about the way he did things, no one was there to disappoint, and most of all, the less he was around others, the less he’d be forced to realize he didn’t really fit in anywhere—even his old home. But since this gig was a combination of working on the ranch itself and helping Bennett with the managerial stuff so he could finish out Maggie’s pregnancy from home, Matt would be living on property for the time being. That meant some semblance of peace was necessary if he was gonna ignore the thrum in his bones to head for the hills and not look back.
“Hell yeah. I wanna see Texas’s most successful ranch for myself.”
“Lemme get my guys in order, and I’ll walk you down. You want a coat? It’s windy down by the creek.”
Matt’s stomach clenched. “No. I’m good, thanks.” He needed the cold to remind him why he’d left, why he couldn’t get too comfortable here, even if it wasn’t as painful as he’d expected.
Bennett put his hand on Matt’s shoulder—as close to a hug as either was likely to give. And it should’ve been nice, but combined with Bennett’s question about staying warm, it felt like someone was holding a lighter close to his skin.
Matt didn’t have many memories of his dad—his childhood was a time he’d worked hard to forget because of his old man. He had even fewer positive memories associated with the guy. But once, just one frigid morning when Matt was twelve, his dad had stopped Matt at the door before his chores. He’d put a gentle hand on Matt’s shoulder and gave some semblance of a smile.
“It’s cold out there, son. Grab a coat, okay?” Matt had nodded and done what his dad had asked, because even then, smiles were rare as cloudy days and a gentle gesture like a hand on a shoulder was as surprising as a unicorn galloping up to join the herd.
Little did any of them know it was the last time their dad would do anything but scowl at the boys, his own failure that spring tainting everything, including his relationship with his family, a dull brown. It was also the last winter Matt had been shorter than his old man.
“Alright. See you out by the back patio in a sec.”
“You’re not going to give him a moment to settle in?” their mom asked.
“He’s here to work, and I’d be willing to bet he wants to stretch his legs after the drive. We can have a summit at dinner, Mom.”
Dammit. His kid brother still had his number. Matt scratched at his chest, where his heart beat wildly beneath his rib cage.
“Bennett Tucker, get your head out of your cows’ backsides. We’re sitting down to breakfast as a family and then you can get to work. Everyone agreed?”
Their mom’s brows almost touched, they were so close. The pressure on Matt’s shoulders alleviated a little. She’d always been the only one who could wrangle any of them into anything resembling order.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now, Ren, skip the pancakes and help me get the crepe griddle off the top shelf of the pantry.”
“You bet, Nana.”
A twinge of fear tickled Matt’s nose. He’d been gone so long. How was he supposed to sit through breakfast and not let remorse taint the taste of his mother’s crepes?
Bennett focused back on him. “We were gonna stop by the barn first so you could meet your partner, but I’ll call down and have her join us for breakfast so you can at least get to know one another before we see the rest of the place.”
“Partner?” Matt asked. Her? his brain added.
“Yup. Partner. A contracted vet we brought on.”
He knew the vets in the area, and there sadly wasn’t a female among them. The good ol’ boys’ club and all that. Horseshit as far as he was concerned, but then, he didn’t live here. He’d hardly earned an opinion on the matter.
“What’s her name?”
“Tessa Young. Hails from Wisconsin so at least she knows how to handle this cold front we’re facing down. You’ll like her—knows her stuff for sure.”
His limbs froze again. Matt knew the name on reputation alone; she was a contractor like him, a woman without roots. Her nickname was Dr. Doolittle, thanks in part to her reputation for fixing the unfixable. Rumor was she’d nursed a horse back to health and function after a broken leg, something he wasn’t sure he believed.
She was also a bit of a hippy, a little emotional and eccentric, and yet … somehow, she’d garnered a cult following of ranchers who sang her praises. How the woman seemed to fit in everywhere she went was beyond his understanding, but it didn’t matter since yeah, she knew her stuff—stuff Matt was hoping to work on in the veterinarian scope of things while he was at the ranch.
Instead, he’d have to work with her. Not by her or on the same compound but alongside her. Dammit. He ran a hand through his hair. He’d had a moment of hope when he’d first seen his brother, and it was quickly being overshadowed by the dread that usually accompanied thoughts of being back in his childhood home. “I thought I was contracting and working alone.”
“You’re part of MBE, Matt,” Bennett reminded him. “And we do what needs doing with who it needs doing with around here. Can you get on board with that?”
“I can. But my job here is to get MBE ready for winter, to square the herd from PPH and the books for the IRS. I don’t need a partner to do that.”
Especially not some Dr. Dolittle who probably talked to animals. Someone who might judge the way he did things and who had a stellar reputation to back up their claims.
Bennett sighed, his hands on his hips. He looked so much like their dad that Matt had to swallow back a wave of nostalgia that tasted a little like acid from his stomach. His gaze was a million miles away, and he took a deep breath in before turning back to Matt.
“The PPH is out of control, and we can’t rein it in.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly. So, we called in a vet to help with that and maybe get us a plan for kicking outbreaks like this in the future.”
Bennett gazed out over the front yard, toward the north fields. Matt could close his eyes and still see them the way they looked twenty years ago. What did Bennett see when he looked at them now?
“Okay,” Matt said. It wasn’t what he’d expected, but what did that matter? This was his penance for a lifetime of abandoning his family. And it was short-lived. He could do anything for six months. “I’ll meet her, then it sounds like we need to get to work.”
He’d meet whomever Bennett needed to and hope they wouldn’t distract him from what he was here to do: help his brother and get the hell out before Deer Creek sank its hooks into him and didn’t let him go this time around.
End of Excerpt
