A Real Cowboy Never Says No (22 page)

Chase gritted his jaw, guilt wrenching away at him. "I know."

"What the hell, man? What were you doing with her at that pool?" Zane shook his head in disgust. "I went through the house looking for you. Her shit's everywhere. It's like she's claimed the place."

Images of Mira's fuzzy pink blanket draped over the back of the couch popped into Chase's mind, and a sense of rightness settled over him. He liked her belongings in his house. It made the house feel less empty. Suddenly, a yearning to talk to her rushed over him. He was in over his head, and he wanted to hear her voice. She'd lost her father, and she'd somehow kept her mom from giving up after the accident. Maybe she would have an idea. He suddenly wanted to talk to her, to get her advice, to hear her voice—

"Hey, Chase?" Travis interrupted. "Mira called and left a message. You want to listen to it?"

"Yeah." Instinctively, Chase reached for his phone, but he paused when he saw Zane's hostile glare.

"Really?" Zane challenged. "You're going to take her call while Steen could be taking his last breath? Dad put his women before us. Don't do it. Don't fucking be him, Chase." There was a hard edge to his voice, but beneath it was something stronger, the weight of a childhood they had all suffered.

Chase swore under his breath. Maybe Zane was right. Maybe Steen just needed it to be about him right now. But hell, he didn't know, and he couldn't afford to make a mistake. He needed to reach Steen, and he didn't know how. He looked over at Travis, who was holding out the phone. "She's been through something like this. Maybe she can help."

Travis's eyebrows went up. "Call her then."

"Help? Really? You think a woman can help Steen? A woman destroyed him." Zane's voice was bitter. "What the hell happened to you, bro? Since when do you call upon women as your savior? We're all we need. Us." He gestured to the three of them. "A woman is the reason Steen's given up in the first place, and now you want to bring one into this room?"

Chase ground his jaw, and shook his head at Travis, knowing that an argument with Zane wasn't what Steen needed to recover. "I'll get it later. Just check Caleb's number."

Travis's eyebrow went up. "You didn't take the hospital's call, and that was a mistake. You sure you want to skip this one?"

Chase frowned, studying his brother, fighting to think clearly. Right now, all he wanted to do was get on that phone and talk to Mira, but Zane's words made sense too. "You think I should?"

"I think that you made a promise to her kid, and that means you always take the call. You take mine, you take Zane's, you take Steen's, but you also take hers. I made a promise to her as well, and if you don't take the call, then I will." He held out the phone. "You or me."

Zane sat up, looking back and forth between them. "What are you talking about Travis? You're in with her too?"

"It's not about her. It's about that kid who is going to end up like us if we don't step in, so yeah, I'm in with her too." Travis took the phone back, and touched the screen. "I'll listen to her message." He began to put the phone to his ear, and Chase lunged to his feet.

"I'll do that." He grabbed the phone from his brother and put it to his ear, walking a few feet away to listen to her message. The moment she said his name, he knew something was terribly wrong, and his heart clenched in fear.

By the time she finished her message, he was already racing toward the door. He'd just reached it when Zane barked out his name. "Where the hell are you going?"

Chase stopped abruptly and looked back at the room. He looked at Zane, with his angry scowl. He looked at Travis, who appeared exhausted and drained. And he looked at Steen, who was dying in front of him.

If he left, Steen might die, and if so, he'd die without Chase by his side. He'd never know if staying could have given Steen the motivation to fight for his life. He'd hold his brother's death in his hands for the rest of his life.

If he stayed, Mira and the baby would be Alan's forever. He knew the old man would waste no time. The trap would be sprung within moments.

And yet, he had to choose.

Zane stood up and walked over to Chase. "Don't you dare leave."

His muscles straining with the need to run to Mira, Chase met his gaze. "The baby's grandfather is at my house. He found her. He's going to claim the baby."

Zane stopped, his eyes flashing with sudden anger. "He's there? At the ranch?"

"Yeah." Images of what was going down flooded Chase's mind, and panic surged over him, so intense he could barely think.

Travis swore. "You gotta go."

"What about Steen?" Zane said, not moving out of the way.

All three brothers looked at him. He was so still, he looked as if he were already dead. His face was sunken, his skin pale, his arms limp. He looked beaten, not just from the stabbing, but from the last four years in prison. Sudden anger flooded Chase, and he looked at his brothers.

"I've been mortgaged up the ass on that ranch for five years," he snapped. "I've been holding over a thousand acres for you guys to come home to, and no one ever does. Steen won't even fucking let me visit him." He strode over to the bed and grabbed his brother's shoulders. "You fucking gave up before you even got stabbed, didn't you? Did you jump in front of that knife just to get it over with more quickly? Well, fuck that!" He released Steen and whirled around to face Zane and Travis, who were gaping at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Mira is the only one who has moved into that house and let me help her."

Zane's face darkened. "We don't need help, Chase. We're not kids anymore."

"No, you're not. I get it." He looked around the room at his three brothers, his family, the only people who had ever mattered to him. "But you know what? It's not just that. I've sacrificed everything to hold onto that damned ranch for you guys, for me, and for us. None of you have dropped a dime or broken a sweat over there. Mira was up all night with me saving my best stud, even though she's pregnant." As he spoke, he realized it was true. For the first time in his life, he had an equal relationship. "She's there for me as much as I'm there for her, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let her down."

He spun toward the bed and leaned over his brother. "Listen to me, Steen. I love the hell out of you, but you've been wasting away for too damn long. If you want to die, that's your choice. I can't stop you, and neither can the others. If you want to live, we're here for you, but you have to make the choice yourself, because I need to go save a life. Yours is up to you." His throat tightened as he set his hand on his brother's shoulder. "I love you, bro, no matter what you choose, but right now, it's up to you."

He squeezed Steen's shoulder, and then turned away. Zane was blocking the door, but Travis was nodding. "You gotta go," he said. "I'll keep you posted."

Chase nodded and strode toward the door. "Move, Zane."

"It's your
brother
."

"As you said, he's a grown man, and he has to make his choice. I can't hold his hand anymore. I can't hold any of yours." He grabbed his cowboy hat off a hook by the door and jammed it on his head. "I can't change the past, but right now, I can change the future for one kid, and that's what I'm going to do."

Travis pulled the door open and stepped aside. "Keep in touch."

"Will do." He slammed his hand on Travis's shoulder, and then, after a moment, the brothers embraced. It was quick, but real, a bond that would never die.

He raced out the door, and he didn't look back.

He wanted to. Hell, he wanted to look back at the brother he might never see alive again, but he didn't.

He knew what he had to do.

Mira pressed her phone to her chest as Alan walked into the kitchen, his smoothly polished black shoes clicking on the floor that belonged to cowboy boots, not dress shoes. Her heart thudding almost uncontrollably, she went still, watching him approach. "What do you want?" she asked, somehow managing to keep her voice steady.

He was wearing a custom suit, and his gray hair was perfectly coiffed. His skin had a slight grayish tint to it, and it was sagging more than it had the last time she'd seen him. He looked old, but deadly. "I want my grandchild."

Oh, God.
Her stomach dropped to her feet. "What are you talking about?" She met his gaze, not looking away.

"You're pregnant with AJ's child." Anger flashed across his face, but he quickly masked it. "Do you really think you could hide it from me by coming out here?" His voice was cold with loathing.

She schooled her features into a blank look, still trying to calm her mind. Panic wouldn't serve her. "Pregnant with AJ's child?" she repeated. "What in the world are you talking about?"

This time, he couldn't hide the flash of anger, and he stalked across the room toward her, his fingers curving as if he intended to grab her.

She quickly stepped around the granite island in the middle of the kitchen. "Don't touch me," she snapped. "This is my house, and you're trespassing. Leave now."

"It's not your house. It's Chase Stockton's, and he still owes a considerable amount on his mortgage."

His mortgage? Could he take Chase's ranch? No. That was impossible. He was bluffing. "I live here. You don't. Leave." She looked at her phone, saw that she was still on the call with Gary, and spoke again, more loudly. "I am going to call 9-1-1 if you don't leave here in one minute—"

Alan moved suddenly, lunging across the island and grabbing her arm. He ripped the phone out of her hand and threw it across the room. It shattered against the stone fireplace, and he grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her skin like talons. "Shut the hell up, Mira. I'll give you one chance to make the right choice." He shoved the envelope at her, pressing it against her breasts. "For one million dollars in cash, you will assign me guardianship of my grandchild. The moment it's born, you walk away, and never come back."

Her mouth dropped open. He actually believed she would abandon her own child for money? Obviously, he did, which showed exactly where he placed the value of his own child in that hierarchy. "First of all," she snapped. "I would never trade money for my child. Second, it's not AJ's baby. It's Chase's, and we're getting married." Her voice didn't waver, and her gaze was unyielding.

For a moment, Alan's eyes narrowed. She could tell she'd taken him by surprise, and she waited, resisting the urge to babble in defense of her lie. She'd learned from her dad that liars usually talked too much, wrapping themselves up in fabrications that unraveled when more information was revealed. People who told the truth let the facts speak for themselves.

So, she said nothing else.

"A DNA test will clear up that situation, won't it?"

Crap. How dare he be intelligent enough to know about basic science?

He jerked his chin toward the back door, and she was startled to see that his two suited escorts were now in the doorway, waiting for his command. "Find out how old an unborn baby has to be before we can do a DNA test. I'm sure we don't have to wait until it's born."

Bastard!
Of course he'd want a DNA test. "You can't run one without my permission, and I'm not giving it to you."

"You're unfit to be a mother," he said, his fingers still digging in. "I have reams of evidence of you buying illegal drugs, coming home drunk, and using your dying mother's pain killers to fund your own habit." He released her to pull a document out of his envelope. "I have over twenty affidavits from people who will attest to your substance abuse problem, as well as evidence that you were defrauding the insurance companies to steal money from your mother's medical funds to pay for it."

He slapped the document in her hands, and she looked down, her heart sinking when she saw the names of assorted prominent people from town listed, and their quotes. How much money had he paid them? Were there so many people willing to sell themselves for money? Apparently, there were. "They lied."

"They swore under oath." Alan leaned forward. "You have two choices, Mira. Take a million dollars cash and disappear. Or you can fight me, and I'll destroy your reputation until the courts ban you from ever coming near the child again. That kid will grow up knowing that his mother was an addict who thought her next high was more important than her own kid. I can do it. You know I can."

Her mind started to spin, and she felt dizzy. She wanted to protest that Chase would never let it happen, and that Alan couldn't violate the sanctity of the marriage vows, but the words died in her throat. If she roped Chase in deeper, he'd destroy Chase as well. He'd take the ranch, destroy his reputation, and steal everything that mattered to him. Especially because it
was
AJ's child and that might give Alan power she didn't want him to have.

"If you sign the papers giving me guardianship, I'll tell the kid that his mom was a good woman who died in a plane crash. He'll never know otherwise."

Never know her own child? Or have it grow up thinking that she was an addict? "Chase is the father," she managed. "Not AJ. You have to leave."

Alan grabbed the front of her shirt and jerked her over to him. "You will sign the papers, Mira. If the DNA test shows Chase is the father, then I'll walk away and tear up the contract, because I don't want his filthy spawn. You can keep the money. If it's AJ's kid, then the deal is a go."

"No!" She tried to twist out of his grasp, but his grip tightened. "I'm not signing anything!"

Alan snapped his fingers, and one of the other men walked up. He was holding a tablet computer. Silently, he turned it so that Mira could see what was on the screen. It was a detailed email outlining countless instances of substance abuse, including an incriminating paragraph about how she was pregnant with the heir to one of the most dominating empires of the south, and how the baby's future was at risk because of her substance abuse problems. The recipient of the email was the editor-in-chief of a major national newspaper, and the producer of a national investigative television show. "I have twenty-two more emails ready to send right now to other media outlets. The campaign will begin this instant. Once word gets out about how messed up you are, you'll have
no chance
to ever see the kid again, and you'll be locked down in my house until the baby is born."