Whose Number Is Up, Anyway?. Stevi Mittman

      Undoubtedly Chance was anxious to get back to his new bride and daughter, and Reed could hardly blame him.

      He admitted to a bit of healthy jealousy as he watched Chance rejoin Pru and kiss her as if they’d been apart for years instead of mere minutes. Somehow that kind of love had never come his way. Working six or seven days a week as he usually did, Reed doubted that he would ever have time to look for it, either. Maybe he was destined to be another old bachelor cowboy.

      The band started up as he filled his plate with Felice’s finest. Reed dipped his head in time to the music. He looked over to the dance floor as Pru and Chance stepped up, followed by two other couples. So much for his brother’s appetite, Reed thought, grinning to himself.

      His plate in hand, Reed was leaving the buffet, when he felt as if he was being watched. The short hairs at the back of his neck shot to attention. Warily, he turned to meet the gaze of a burly man with pale eyes and a white buzz cut. Then Reed realized the man was standing behind the makeshift bar. It was only the bartender, for pity’s sake.

      The man waved him over with one hand, lifted an empty glass with the other.

      Feeling foolish, Reed complied.

      “You must be brother number three. Hugh Ruskin—I tend bar over at the Silver Slipper.”

      Ruskin held out a hand heavy with expensive rings that Reed wouldn’t expect to see on a bartender. He gave the man a quick shake.

      “Reed Quarrels. That old saloon is still going, huh?”

      “A man’s got to have a place to quench his thirst, even in a small town like Silver Springs,” Ruskin said. “So what’s your pleasure?”

      “Whatever’s on tap will do.”

      Ruskin filled a mug. “I hear you’ve been working up in Colorado, running the show on some spread ten times the size of this one.”

      “For the past few years,” Reed agreed, wondering why he should be the focus of town gossip. “Though someone exaggerated the size of the Evergreen.”

      “Still, when you’re used to running a major operation like that one…”

      Ruskin was peering at him closely as if waiting for him to spill his guts. Say how unhappy he was to be back or something. Reed figured the bartender got some kick out of keeping his finger on the pulse of the town, having juicy tidbits to spread around to his patrons.

      Could the man really know about his hesitancy at returning? About the problematic dynamics between him and Bart? Or was he just fishing?

      Not about to fuel any gossip, Reed picked up his mug and sipped the head off the beer. “You know what they say…nothing like home.”

      Something flashed through the other man’s pale eyes. Something that unsettled Reed.

      And the bartender’s thumbs-up sign and his “Gotcha there, my friend,” seemed a little forced.

      Wondering about Hugh Ruskin—where he came from, what he was doing tending bar in a backwater town like Silver Springs—Reed saluted him with the beer and left the bar. Uneasy still, he made a mental note to ask Bart or Chance about the bartender later.

      In the meantime, he quickly scanned the crowd until he spotted Alcina, who was sitting at the end of a table under a couple of big cottonwoods. Her long fingers with perfectly manicured nails were worrying the stem of a wineglass as if she was distracted. The plate before her was half-empty and pushed far enough in front of her to indicate she’d finished eating.

      Her golden-blond hair was pulled up into a French twist, but fine wisps curled at her temples and down her long, elegant neck, which was circled by a single strand of pearls. He’d bet they were real, too. Her finely cut profile was free of the barbecue sauce that had decorated it earlier. A lovely woman, indeed, Reed thought appreciatively, not having seen her the last time he’d come home for a visit. The seat next to her was vacant.

      He hesitated, mulled over the advisability of the notion that struck him, and in the end, headed for her table.

      Listening to Reba Gantry, the flamboyant owner of Reba’s Café, who was waving around a half-empty whiskey glass—she could drink nearly as much as a man and often did—Alcina didn’t even notice his approach until he asked, “Mind if I join you?”

      She started, her gray eyes widening on him for a moment. Recovering quickly, she indicated the empty chair. “It’s your spread.”

      “Only by default.” He set down his plate and mug and slid into the vacant seat, where he got a better look at her finery. “You cleaned up real nice, but it looks like Hope ruined your party dress for good.”

      She shrugged. “It’s not the end of the world.”

      “Some women would think so.”

      “Good thing I’m not some women.”

      Good thing, Reed agreed, digging into Felice’s homemade enchilada, Alcina interesting him even more than before. He realized how little he knew about her even though they’d grown up in the same town. Then, he hadn’t been interested in an older woman—to a teenage boy, three years difference in age had been a whole generation. Now three years was nothing.

      “We missed you at the church,” Reba said, taking a swig of whiskey and holding it in her mouth for a moment.

      “Something came up,” he said vaguely, swallowing a mouthful of posole. “Mighty fine duds there.”

      He admired the café owner’s ability to pull off wearing such an eye-popping rose-trimmed purple dress. Then, as he remembered, Reba had always had a natural flair for the dramatic.

      “You’re looking fine yourself, honey,” Reba said. “It’s real good to see you again.” She indicated the big man who sat next to her. “I’d like to introduce you to my dear friend, Cesar Cardona.”

      “Howdy,” Reed said.

      Cardona looked to be in his late forties, a quantity of silver lightening his thick dark hair and full mustache. Wearing a black suit, the short jacket trimmed with silver braid and silver and turquoise conchos, he was definitely Reba’s male counterpart, Reed thought with amusement.

      But Reed’s enjoyment faded when the café owner said, “Cesar is bringing new life and jobs to the area around Silver Springs. He’s a land developer—”

      “Let me guess,” Reed cut in, giving the newcomer a piercing stare. “Land of Enchantment Acres.”

      Cardona’s teeth flashed white against his sun-warmed skin. “So you’ve heard of us.” The meatiness of the hand he reached across the table was softened by a heavily jeweled watchband.

      Taking it, though reluctantly, Reed realized the raw power of the big man. “Saw the sign driving in. I can hardly believe Gonzalez sold. His family owned that land for nearly two hundred years.”

      “That land kept Luis Gonzalez poor.”

      “I guess it depends on your definition of poor,” Reed argued. “Being land-rich in God’s country in this part of New Mexico goes a long way to making up for the things a man can’t afford to buy himself.”

      Cardona shrugged and spread his hands. “Well, now Luis can buy whatever he wants.”

      “I wonder what that might be,” Reed muttered, stabbing his fork into the mashed potatoes.

      While Gonzalez’s spread had been small—little more than four thousand acres—ranching was the only life the man had ever known and he was barely fifty. What would he do with his days for the next twenty years? Reed himself couldn’t imagine working at anything but ranching, which occupied his whole being. When he got busy, he might not even get into town for weeks and never once miss it.

      As if she sensed his rising tension over the matter, Alcina veered the discussion in a slightly different direction. “Are the new properties