Hazel was already getting up, taking Penn’s hand. Her smile never faltering, she said, “Chuck already apprised me of the situation. Y’all stay. I got her.”
“Thanks, Hazel,” Reed said, letting her take Penn.
Just then, Jude and Romy walked in, baby Charli asleep in the carrier on Romy’s chest.
“It’s already getting hot out there,” Jude commented as he took the seat Hazel had just vacated.
“Have a seat, darlin’,” Dad said, offering up his own for Romy.
“I better not. She has some sort of sixth sense. As soon as I sit down, she screams.” Romy stood behind the couch, patting Charli’s bottom while she rocked back and forth.
“Do you want me to take her, honey?” Jude offered.
She shook her head, resting her other hand on his shoulder. “I’m good. Let’s hear what your uncle has to say.”
Dad leaned forward, relaxing his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers in front of him. “When all of this started happening, I went to talk to your grandpa,” he began, exchanging glances with Jude and I.
Grandpa Lloyd had been in assisted living for about a year now. His dementia was getting worse. Guilt shot through me, knowing I needed to be better about visiting him.
“I needed to speak with him before he couldn’t remember anything.” Dad cleared his throat, a solemn look on his face. “The Matheuses used to ranch some of this land nearly eighty years ago. When I was a kid, with the success of the Willows Rodeo, your grandpa was looking to grow Thornbrush. Old Ernest Matheus passed and the family needed to pay off debt, so they held an auction for the land. Some of the land was claimed by the state, but the rest was bought up by Dad.”
“The Matheus family—like Junior and Jesse—are from here?” I asked, surprised. I hadn’t heard of them until Jesse came to work on the ranch.
Dad gave a brief nod. “Your grandpa agreed they could remain on the land and work for him … until, that is, about thirty years ago when they lost everything in a fire.”
“Where was that?” Jude’s jaw clenched, as if he already knew the answer.
“Where the burn pile used to be,” Dad said quietly, his eyes bouncing between Jude and Romy.
Jude flipped his hat around, his knee starting to bounce with nerves. Romy rubbed his shoulder to help ease his tension.
“The construction company that laid the foundation for our house excavated some old pipe,” he commented. “Pipe that ran to an old well.”
Dad continued, “I should have said something.” A furrow was deepening between Dad’s brows. He was not enjoying this conversation. “His only surviving son, Jack Matheus, perished in the fire. Jack’s wife and kids moved away after that happened. I didn’t think I’d ever see any of them again.”
“Did you know who Jesse was when you hired him?” Jude asked.
I looked toward the hallway where Hazel had disappeared with Penn. No wonder she was willing to step out. I’m glad Dad told her privately before telling us.
“I did.” A look of guilt washed over his face, his mustache turning down in a frown. “I knew there were some hard feelings between our families, but I was willing to set it aside, thinking time healed all, and this was a good way to repair old wounds. I didn’t realize Jesse knew the family history, but I suppose he would have been old enough to remember the fire. He was a hard worker and took great care of the herd. When I was moving Dad into assisted living, I told him, and he warned me, but I didn’t listen. I should have listened. He warned me that the Matheuses felt as though they still had a claim to the land.”
“Did Hazel know this at the time?” I asked, because I certainly didn’t. But I wasn’t the one dating Jesse.
“I let her know. She did tell me that he’d make comments every once in a while that he was mad that we let the old Matheus homestead become a burn pile, that we let the sagebrush grow over what remained and never rebuilt it. But when Jack was killed and the family left, I thought they were gone for good. There was no reason to rebuild.”
“Then Jesse was killed, Junior was harassing Romy—assaulted her—and let the horses out.” Jude’s face was growing red, his hands balling into fists on his thighs.
Romy stalled in her massage of Jude’s shoulder, her own body going rigid. The whole room went tense.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath, putting all the pieces together. My heart beat wildly. “Junior’s behind this.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Reed said.
I shot him a look. “We don’t bullshit here.” I could tell he’d already put the pieces together even though he was still new to Thornbrush. Anyone who was here long enough could see there was more going on.
“He seems to like digging his claws in,” Reed commented, glancing at Jude.
He jerked his head toward Romy behind him. “I told her,” he confirmed. “She knows about your ex-wife and Junior.”
