Page 37 of Between a Rock and a Hard Cowboy

“Wait. Please tell me we’re not going to try tofind himto hand over half of everything we’ve worked so damn hard for, right?” Ethan asked, showing which side of the debate he stood on.

“We wouldn’t know where to find him even if we wanted to,” Linc said.

It wasn’t like Emmett was gonna send them a Christmas card. And as far as Linc knew, their cousin only had lie-filled fake online profiles, so trying to track him on social media seemed pointless.

So if Emmett was MIA, possibly never to return, what was the point of this meeting?

“I know where to find him,” Wyatt said, answering Linc’s unspoken question.

Well, fuck.

“How?” Linc asked.

“I’ve had a private investigator looking for him since the day Olivia told me about what he’d done to her and the girls. It took a while, a long while, but the PI contacted me recently. He knows where Emmett is and he isn't far,” Wyatt revealed.

“How far is not far?” Ethan asked, eyes narrowed.

“Kentucky.”

Right next door to Tennessee. Just a bus ride away, which was the most likely mode of transportation since Emmett had managed to lose his driving privileges sometime in the past.

“So what if he does show up?” Linc asked since the possibility seemed more likely now than it had before.

He had no doubt that Emmett wasn’t above coming back to beg or borrow money or a place to stay, even from the family he’d screwed over.

For the first time since arriving, their father looked about to join the conversation. He stood, symbolically taking back control of the family and the discussion.

“Whether Emmett shows up on our doorstep tomorrow, or ten years from now, our course of action is the same. The will and the fact that it exists both stay locked away,” he began.

Wyatt opened his mouth to speak when their father held up one hand to silence him.

“Until I can find out the truth. If the will we found isn’t the one that was in force at the time of his death, why open a can of worms that could tie us all up for years in court?”

“How are you going to find that out?” Wyatt asked.

“I’ve got a request in with the county to visit the archives to see if any of John T’s papers are there. I also have a call in to the law firm who handled John S’s will. It’s a long shot but they might be the same ones who handled John T. And there are boxes of papers to go through at the hotel dating back a hundred years. I’m gonna search those. See what I can find.”

“I’ll help,” Wyatt offered.

“No,” their father said, his tone leaving no room for doubt. “I’m handling this.”

Wyatt didn’t look like he enjoyed being put in his place. Linc however, enjoyed watching it—at least with as much joy as he could muster given the shitstorm they’d fallen into.

“And what if after all this sleuthing you find that the will we found is valid? What then?” Ethan demanded.

“Then we take a vote. The four of us.”

Linc considered how that vote would go. It was the same question Eva had asked him earlier. How would his brothers and his father swing? For or against Emmett? How would he?

They’d lived a very comfortable existence until now. Unlike so many ranchers, they didn’t worry about money. Stock prices falling while feed costs rose wouldn’t make or break them because of the income from the hotel and the investments they’d made with the capital they’d inherited.

But that could all change. Or not, if they just forgot that will existed.

“Where’s the will now?” Wyatt asked their father.

“It’s safe.” That wasn’t exactly what Wyatt had asked, but it was obviously the only answer their father was going to give as he turned and glanced at the mantlepiece decor and asked, “Whose idea was this?”

“Eva’s,” Linc answered, the change of subject not going unnoticed.

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