Page 21 of Silent Deception
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RYAN PULLED TO A STOPon the crest of the hill overlooking the Four Aces. Below him lay white-fenced corrals, horse barns, and loafing sheds, and farther on, the cattle pens. On another gentle rise, the sprawling brick house that had once been his home.
It sure didn’t feel like home anymore, though, and after a week of living under that roof, he figured he’d be happier just about anywhere else.
Trevor put in twelve-hour days as the foreman, then went home to his wife and family. Garrett still hadn’t shown up after his last rodeo, and after supper, Adelfa always retired to her cottage at the back of the main house. Mom had been living in Dallas for years.
That left only Clint, who holed up in his office until nearly midnight working on his upcoming reelection campaign and fielding countless phone calls that came in on his private office line.
The house felt hollow, echoing with memories. It offered far too much solitude now. Too much time to think. To second-guess.
And to mourn.
Shaking off his melancholy thoughts, he promptly ended up with yet another—Kristin. Leland had suggested that Kristin might have received some embezzled money from her father, but that sure didn’t seem plausible.
She was homesteading a rundown house in the middle of nowhere. She drove a rusted truck and mostly wore old T-shirts and jeans. There hadn’t been any evidence of new bikes or expensive toys for Cody at that place, and Ryan had a feeling that if anyone had a chance to enjoy something nice in that family, it would have been the boy.
According to Trevor, Cody was in Hayden’s class at school, but the similarity pretty much ended there. Trevor’s son was a handful. Wild and exuberant, he was always looking for adventure, his eyes full of mischief, and he had a fast comeback ready at any time.
Standing out on the field alone this afternoon, his chin raised at a belligerent angle and his hands jammed in his pockets, Cody looked like the loneliest kid Ryan had ever seen. There was anger in him, too, and defiance...yet he’d seemed almost pathetically grateful when Ryan had offered the use of his cell phone. What was going on there?
Abuse came to mind. But Kristin had never seemed the type, and there didn’t seem to be a dad in the picture anymore.
Ryan felt a twinge of anger. She’d kicked him aside like a pile of dirty laundry when she learned that he wouldn’t inherit any part of the ranch. After that, she’d gone after the first rich boy she met. And apparently, that hadn’t lasted, either.
And now the one suffering was that young boy.
The children...it was always the children who suffered most. He closed his eyes against the war images that still haunted his nights, but he couldn’t block the sounds. The screams. Bowing his head, he immersed himself in the guilt and the horror of it all. There was nothing he could do to change things. Nothing he could do to bring them back.
All he could do was remember...and remember. Until the day he died.
The roar of a truck shook him out of his private memorial. In the rearview mirror, he saw a cloud of dust boiling skyward behind a pickup that had to be doing nearly seventy on a gravel road.
Muttering under his breath, he threw his truck into gear and pulled way over to the side, praying the driver didn’t lose control at the crest of the hill.
Seconds later, gravel hit the side of his truck like a barrage of buckshot as the vehicle thundered by.The fool.
Ryan followed the other driver home and parked next to him. He was out of his truck and at the other driver’s door as the guy stepped out. “I hope you were racing to a fire,” he snapped. “You could’ve killed someone driving like that.”
The man hoisted a bull rope onto his shoulder, turned, and gave him an arrogant grin.Garrett.“Just clockin’ good time out of town. Most people are smart enough to get out of my way.”
Ryan’s anger blazed. “But everyone deserves to live, punk. You’re just too dumb to realize it.”
Garrett's eyes widened, then he tipped back his head and laughed, his brash cockiness unfazed. “Well, aren’t we lucky. The big hero is back. I can’t wait to see what happens around here now.”
