Christmas At Cade Ranch. Karen Rock

your number no longer worked.”

      “I’ve moved around a lot.”

      And Sofia couldn’t afford a phone, or this conversation. It brought up too much of her past. She needed to leave. Now.

      Joy’s eyes glistened as she studied Javi scuttling across the whitened ground on his hands and knees. The sky spit a few snow flurries. A first volley of more to come, Sofia worried. A low howl rose in her ears.

      “I—I—” Sofia was struggling to think of a graceful way to extricate herself when Joy buried her face in her hands and her shoulders shook. Overhead, a pair of cooing mourning doves alighted on a branch. “I’m sorry I upset you.”

      “No!” Joy lifted a tearstained face and a left-sided dimple appeared. “This is wonderful. It’s just hitting me that this is real.” She released a shaky breath. “Javi’s my first grandchild. Knowing there’s a part of my Jesse still here on this earth, well, it’s the first thing that’s made me feel alive in a long, long time.”

      Sofia’s heart felt like it might explode. “I wish we could stay longer and visit, but our bus leaves soon. May I call you when Javi and I are settled?”

      “I’d appreciate that. Will I see you again?” Joy rose.

      “I’m not sure,” Sofia temporized. She reached for her wallet and came up empty.

      Had she left it by the grave? Her eyes flew to the area and landed on Javi’s backpack. Perhaps she’d stowed it in there. The events of this anxious morning blurred. Her panicked thoughts knocked against each other, and her temple throbbed. When was the last time she’d had it?

      “Javi, have you seen my wallet?” she asked, hustling to the backpack.

      “Uh-uh.”

      She scrounged through Javi’s backpack and her purse. Nothing.

      “Our bus tickets were in there. Money. Identification...”

      “Let’s retrace your steps. If we can’t find it, you’ll stay at the ranch until everything’s sorted,” Joy declared in a tone that brooked no argument.

      “Wooo-hooo!” Javi shouted. “I want to see Daddy’s ranch! Can we, Mama? Can we?”

      She stared into two pairs of hopeful eyes. Her throat constricted as though someone slipped a noose around it and tugged. If she didn’t find her wallet, they’d be out of options, and this small town didn’t look like it had a shelter.

      Where would she and Javi sleep during the blizzard?

      It’s only one night, a voice whispered. A chance for Javi to see what a real family looks like and meet his aunt and uncles.

      Fine.

       CHAPTER TWO

      “MOVE IT! MOVE IT!” James Cade hollered as he thundered at breakneck speed alongside a stampeding herd of longhorns. His siblings’ bloodthirsty howls filled the broad valley. Pelting snow obscured his vision and froze his throat. He yanked up his bandanna to cover his nose and mouth, leaned low over his palomino’s neck and galloped flat out to redirect the rampaging group before they plunged off the bluff ahead. His heart drummed. Stinging sweat dripped in his eyes.

      “Hee-yah!” pealed his younger brother Jared, his lusty shout ringing above the bellowing cattle’s din.

      Their trampling hooves slapped the hard, rocky earth in a heart-pounding rhythm. At James’s finger point, Jared swerved away in the white murk and chased after a breakout group of cows and heifers, his face animated, eyes intent, back straight. He looked as unruffled as he had when they’d begun searching for the runaways who’d broken from their winter pasture hours ago. Of course, it’d take a lot more than a hundred out-of-control livestock to rattle golden-child Jared’s bone-deep confidence.

      As for him? Chaos got under James’s skin, made it itch. And whenever chaos hit, James’s restless thoughts didn’t quit until everything on the family ranch he managed was in its proper, predetermined place. The rules he’d instituted after his youngest brother Jesse died and older brother, Jack, left to seek justice were needed to protect his family and their way of life. Otherwise, their carefully pieced-back world risked falling apart again.

      “Yip! Yip! Yip!” hooted his sister, Jewel. She barreled at lightning speed along the right side of the cattle atop her large bay. Her dark eyes flashed, and her mouth curled slightly at the edges in a fearless smirk. She’d lost her black Stetson, he noticed, and snowflakes clung to her dark, braided hair. Red filled in the pale skin between her freckles. If she was tired after their grueling day, she wasn’t showing it. Not that she ever would.

      In fact, since Jesse’s death, she’d thrown herself into ranching as if possessed. As though she could somehow make up for the shattering loss.

      At James’s signal, Jewel nodded then fell back slightly. The maneuver allowed him to begin arcing the cattle her way into an open, snowy space, turning the stampede in on itself so they’d mill instead of run.

      More important, it’d stop them from mingling with the Brahman herd owned by their archenemies and neighbors, the Lovelands. Their bitter family feud went back over a hundred years, beginning with a tale of deception, theft and murder, the rivalry still fresh as it played out in water access disputes and missing cattle.

      James pursed his lips and whistled long and high, urging on the Border collies. They lunged at the longhorns’ ankles, dodging horns, driving the livestock to the right. With the bluff drawing alarmingly close, they needed to make the turn in the next thirty seconds or it’d be too late. Devastating tragedy. Not on his watch.

      He squeezed Trigger’s heaving sides and rode harder still, James’s body steaming and slick beneath his plaid shirt and flannel-lined jean jacket. He ignored the deep ache in his shoulders and the way his teeth ground with each jarring stride. All around him rose the thick, musky scent of animals. Their eyes rolled and they bleated loudly, showing no signs of slowing.

      Out of the worsening blizzard, his youngest sibling Justin emerged, a lone, dark figure between the herd and the bluff’s edge.

      “Get out of there!” James bellowed.

      He ripped off his bandanna and waved at his reckless brother. Immediately, the wild swirl of icy wind and blowing snow snatched away his breath. Anger and concern roared in his bloodstream. Cool, unaffected Justin, however, didn’t budge. He sat slim and ramrod straight in the saddle and stared down the charging herd as if he dared them to mow him over. The fool. Their departed father taught them better when they’d begun working the family’s ten-thousand-acre ranch as kids.

      Some said Justin had a death wish. Given his reckless antics since losing his twin, Jesse, James agreed. But he wouldn’t let anything happen to his little brother, to any of them, ever again. However, when he got Justin to safety, he’d kill him.

      James kicked Trigger with his heels, dragging forth the blowing horse’s last bit of steam. At his command, Trigger neighed, then veered directly at the lead cow, obeying without hesitation. Make-or-break time. James flashed his red bandanna at the cattle, flaunting the “fish” to make them more afraid of him than whatever had spooked them.

      The livestock balked, then broke to the right. The rest of the herd dashed pell-mell after their leaders, turning back. Confused and confronted by themselves, they slowed, raising the snow, tearing the naked brush, letting out hoarse bawls as they began to mill and spread farther down the white valley, no longer in danger. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Justin chasing off any stragglers who approached the bluff. James released a long breath.

      Jared flashed by, effortlessly driving the group he’d wrangled back into the now-organized mob. Jewel pulled her mount around in a neat circle, scooped up her trampled hat, then trotted up beside James. After rounding up the last of the strays, the Cades corralled the bawling, red-and-white-spotted herd and guided them