“Assuming you are newly discovered family, or we are newly discovered to you, you might be Cash’s brother.”
Brother.
For some reason the word hit harder tonight than it had at the Graff.His knees nearly buckled.
“Cash was in that situation a handful of weeks ago.I was witness with him when he met the Telfords and understood the full extent of what he’d lost and what he’d found.”
He stared at her.Overwhelmed by the simple way she diagnosed the conflicted mishmash of feelings.
“I’m Madelyn, the bride”—she made jazz hands—“and I don’t think I ever expected to say those words.Certainly not a month ago when I headed out on this odyssey with a man more potent than top-shelf whiskey, whom I was determined to both resist and redeem, but…” She shrugged, turned, and took a selfie of them before he could protest again.
“Just in case you are a long-lost brother that Cash always dreamed of,” she said.“Get over it.Pictures and questions are my thing.”
“Thank you for the warning.”
She laughed.“More of an explanation.”
She turned back to the action at the chute.She was easy to talk to if he felt like talking.But he didn’t trust her.Had they sent her over, so he’d lower his guard?He wasn’t hiding much.But holding information back was habit.Gave any negotiator an edge.And it wasn’t like he had any intention of helping the man who claimed to be his bio dad.
Why would he?
But he wasn’t sure how the man thought he could hurt any of Telfords.Anger rose fast and fierce.He’d been curious about his dad when he’d been a kid.He’d hoped for a visit, a rescue, even a picture would have helped to know he existed.
“Look in the mirror in twenty years,” his mom had told him ruefully.
And here he was, not only looking into a mirror reflecting similar versions of the man, but on the legacy soil that had birthed ancestors for six generations, but not him.
One son had stayed.Built a family.And the other had… done nothing of note except drift, seduce, and run—from what Telford could tell.
“Is this everyone?”
“The sons and most of the wives,” Madelyn said.“And some business partners for the bull contracting.It’s a large enterprise, but…” She continued to work while he waited for more that didn’t come.
“And you all live on the ranch at the main house I drove by?”
“That would be a squash and a squeeze.”She laughed.“The ranch used to be a lot bigger.Taryn’s grandfather got into some trouble and sold off some land, and his father struggled more and sold off more pieces.He came home after his father passed, brought a wife, and he cobbled together a successful living and has purchased some parcels back, but not all.Rohan bought some lost land, and he and Ginny are building a house there.She has a house in town.Both Witt and Boone have acreage adjacent where they’ve built homes.”
She looked at him over a shoulder, and her quicksilver smile made her look, for a moment, strikingly beautiful instead of interesting.
“Who would have pictured me as Telford family spokesperson a month ago?”
“My DNA test will take at least a few days.”
She continued to shoot pictures including a selfie of her, the men around the chute and then higher up, she included Ayana and the other women who’d joined them and had settled in to watch the first runs for the new bulls and broncs tonight.
“Except you feel it,” she said looking back at him.
Excitement lit his blood, though he wanted to deny it.The smells of the barn, the arena, the animals, and the dirt, leather, sawdust were familiar—like an echo.
“Yeah.You feel it.”
“Cash is the only other… maybe?”he asked when he could talk again.
“He’s confirmed.He had the last name as his middle name.So your moms both gave you a starting point to look if you wanted.”
God.
Why that thought when he’d never been spiritual or religious.Life was what he fought for.
