Chapter One
“Let’s see whatwe’ve got here.”
Ryan O’Connell, a tall, lean man with the rangy build of a seasoned ranch hand, bent his head over the sheets of paper on the conference room table. A careless lock of brown hair untangled itself to dangle unnoticed above a brow crinkled in concentration.
Sheriff Dan McKillop listened with mounting incredulity as his friend listed off the newly founded Endeavour Ranch’s assets—115,000 acres of land, 3000 cows, 800 heifers, and 150 range bulls. That was for starters. Annual crop yields consisted of 25,000 tons of alfalfa hay and 700,000 bushels of wheat and barley. Not to mention, one hundred acres of cleared land that contained an airbase with three runways and hangar facilities.
“I still find it really hard to believe that someone bought three ranches, rolled them into one, then gifted everything to us in their will,” Dallas Tucker, the third member of their trio, said.
Dallas wasn’t the lone skeptic at the table. Even after three months of meetings with lawyers and accountants, Dan found it hard to believe, too. Only Ryan seemed to take it in stride—which, considering his connections, raised a number of concerns.
The three men sat in the small, windowless conference room of the Custer County Sheriff’s Office located off Yellowstone Drive in the small town of Grand, Montana. Coffee dripped in the pot, tendrils of its rich aroma drifting idly on currents of warm air billowing from the room’s purring heaters.
Dallas, a family doctor in Sweetheart, had driven eight hours especially for the meeting at the lawyer’s office in Billings. He was bunking with Dan for a few days. Meanwhile Ryan, who’d been at loose ends since giving up a position as an operations manager for an auction and rodeo house, had flown in from Houston, Texas. Grand had three motels and he’d opted to stay alone at the one closest to what passed for downtown because he claimed Dallas snored.
They’d all been tight buddies since their undergrad days, nearly fourteen years ago now. Of the three, Dallas and Ryan had always been the risk-takers. Dan wasn’t exactly risk averse—he’d raised his fair share of hell as a kid—but these days, he liked to think of himself as the calm voice of reason. While Dallas had settled down quite a bit, he wasn’t as sure about Ryan.
“It’s not like we’re suddenly rich. There are conditions attached,” Ryan reminded them. “We’re required to provide search and rescue and smokejumper operations for the state, a free medical clinic, and a group home for troubled teens, all out of the proceeds. We have to live on the ranch, too. Money has been set aside for a new house—or houses, whatever we agree on—and six bunkhouses for staff.”
Dan poured three cups of coffee and passed them around. The conditions were what made him less wary. It wasn’t as if Ryan’s estranged family members were known for philanthropy. Far from it.
But still.
“How are we supposed to meet all of those conditions and manage a ranch operation this size, too?” Dallas persisted.
Ryan’s dark eyes filled with humor. “You do realize there’s already staff running the Endeavour, right?”
“Are you willing to give up your family practice in Sweetheart to start over in Grand?” Dan asked Dallas.
“To live on a ranch, raise a few horses, and run my own clinic?” Dallas didn’t even take time to blink. Shaggy black curls bobbed as he nodded. “Hell, yes.”
Why was Dan not surprised?
“Who do you think left us the ranch?” Dallas mused.
Dan couldn’t begin to imagine.
Ryan took a slow, thoughtful sip of his coffee. “Likely Judge Palmeter. Remember him?”
“Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.” Dan rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose anything’s possible.”
Judge Ian Palmeter had been presiding the day the trio had been dragged into court for stealing a police cruiser and underage drinking. A frail old man with white hair, stooped shoulders, and a gaze that could put the fear of God into an atheist, he’d delivered a blistering lecture in a deep, booming voice, asked them where they saw themselves in the future, then ordered each of them to fifty hours of community service. They found out much later that he’d also had their records cleared.
Joyriding in the police cruiser had been Ryan’s idea. Back in those days he’d been pretty wild—although Dan confessed that he’d been a willing enough participant. And for his part, Dallie could be talked into anything. After a few underage drinks in a sketchy part of the city at a bar where IDs were optional, they’d seen the empty, unlocked cruiser parked in front of a convenience store. Ryan had hopped into the driver’s seat and waved them both into the back.
Not one of their finer moments, true, but it had been fun while it lasted. Dan had learned his lesson, though. He was careful to keep his cruiser’s keys in his pocket and the door locked no matter where it was parked, although stealing the cruiser no longer bothered him nearly as much as the drinking and driving. He came across too many DUI fatalities in his line of work to look back on their crime with any pride.
“Given the terms of the bequest, Palmeter somewhat makes sense,” Dallas said. “The judge was a good man.”
“We kept in touch.”
“Really?” Dan and Dallas both looked at Ryan in surprise, mostly because he’d offered up a piece of personal information without them having to forcibly extract it.
Ryan shrugged his shoulders. “He looked into our prior histories. My background wasn’t as pristine as yours and he was curious about it.”
Not many people knew Ryan’s story. He’d told them a little about it—just enough for them to fill in the blanks. He and his mother had moved to Montana from Chicago when he was six or seven. There’d been a name change involved, a lot of secretiveness, and a vague reference to a family mob connection that Dan suspected Ryan wasn’t as uncertain about as he pretended. In fact, if Dan were to put money down, he’d bet that Ryan and his mother had entered the witness protection program. That was why he and Dallie never asked too many questions.
And why they were a tad skeptical about the source of their windfall now. Ryan’s Chicago connections weren’t the type to let go of family.