Must Love Mistletoe

Excerpt

Chapter One

Cal Casey eased his pickup to a stop as the school bus slowed and came to a halt at the T-intersection of highway 21 and Casey’s Lane. Didn’t bother Cal as far as traffic was concerned, because once he turned onto the highway he’d be heading in the opposite direction to the bus. No, what gave him pause was that—far as he could tell—the driver had stopped the bus for absolutely no reason.

The only school-age kid in the valley these days was his neighbor’s son and that kid was nowhere in sight. Which meant that the boy was either sick, running late, or had decided schooling could wait—again.

How many times this term had Sam decided that farm chores were more important than school learning? Had to be a dozen that Cal knew of and probably twice as many he didn’t. The fundamental problem being that Sam’s priorities were rarely wrong. A cattle trough with a burst water pipe did need fixin’. A broken fence needed mendin’. A mare who’d been struggling to put a foal on the ground for hours couldn’t just be left. Straying cattle needed to go back where they belonged.

And with Red Evans presumed dead and gone these past few years and his widow Beth taking every extra nursing shift at the hospital in Marietta that she could get, who else was going to do the work that needed doing?

It wasn’t unheard of for ranching kids to do a solid day’s work. If Sam had been in his teens and strong and smart and capable, it might have worked out just fine, but no.

Samuel Calvin Evans was ten.

Putting his foot to the pedal, Cal cut in closer to the bus and lowered his window. The bus doors swung open with a hiss of hydraulics to reveal driver Jennie James.

“Rebecca Green called and said she left him here not five minutes ago,” Jennie called out. “Said she stayed over to look after Sam last night but her ma had a fall and she had to leave early, and Beth’s held up on the surgical team dealing with that fatal car accident on the I3.”

First he’d heard of any of that, but, yeah. Probably.

There were rules about leaving kids waiting alone for a school bus out in the middle of nowhere in winter. Cal had no beef with such rules. Protect the little children and all that. A mantra that currently appeared to be taking over his life, which was weird given he had no kids or even a wife. “You get moving, Jen. I’ll find him and bring him in.”

“No offence, Cal, but you’re not his parent.”

“No, but I’m his neighbor and his godfather and there’s heifers heading up the pass and they shouldn’t be, and Sam’ll be going after them. Sooner I go get them all, the better.”

“Do me a favor and put your guardianship—or whatever it is—in writing with the school, okay? I need a paper trail saying that when I talk to you, I’ve been talking with someone who’s responsible for him.”

“You got it.”

“Don’t forget. Because I know where you live.”

He grinned at the threat and raised his hand to wave her off before doing a U turn and heading back the way he’d come. He hadn’t noticed footprints on his way to the turnoff, but he had noticed a disturbance in the snowbank where a kid might have pushed through and crouched down so as not to be seen. Snowfall had been especially heavy so far this October, meaning more work and early cattle feeding for everyone in the valley, and a higher shoulder of snow to either side of the road leading into the valley.

He wouldn’t be lying to say that he and most everyone else had expected Beth to leave the Evans ranch after Red had gone missing in the mountains. She had a mother and sister in Kalispell, and Red’s brother and his family lived in Calgary. None of them were close enough to help her with the ranch or even a bit of babysitting.

No one would have blamed her for getting out.

Cal had done what he could without overstepping, but Beth was stubborn and altogether too independent. Just because there was a man-sized hole in her life didn’t mean it was Cal’s job to fill it. She’d as good as told him to stop helping, only last week.

May as well tell him to stop breathing.

He saw Sam walking up ahead once he rounded the bend, and the kid looked back and had the good sense to look nervous as Cal pulled up alongside him. “Get in.”

“I saw the cows heading for the pass—”

“You and I both. Get in.” He gave the order softer this time, and Sam complied. It had been so easy to be the boy’s favorite person when Red had been alive. No laying down the law—that was Red’s job. Only the fun stuff, the easy stuff, but nothing about Sam was easy these days. The kid was growing too fast—jeans above his ankles and his jacket barely reaching his belt. Gym shoes because he’d either made bad choices with getting dressed this morning or his boots were too small. Did Beth not notice? “Where’s your mom?”

“She’s in surgery helping reattach a guy’s arm.” The boy spoke with pride and well he should have, but a person could work too much, and Beth had been skating that edge for a while now.

Sam held his bare hands up to the dash heater and his fingertips were white.

“Where are your gloves?”

“Dude, it’s October.”

“We had a foot of fresh snow overnight. What’s your point?” The turn off to the Casey ranch was coming up on the left and Cal took it, heading for the house he’d grown up in. His mother still lived there and had a basement rack crammed to overflowing with boys’ clothes of all shapes and sizes. Waiting for her grandsons, she always said. He didn’t think she’d mind if they raided it. She could ring the school while they were at it and tell them Cal would be late. Savannah Casey had raised five hellions. He knew for a fact she’d be used to that bit.

Sam cut a hopeful figure as they made their way into the kitchen, because this particular kitchen was never without cookies.

Cal might have been somewhat hopeful too.

“Well, would you look what the snow brought in. My two favorite people.” His mother smiled as she put the lid back on what looked to be a crock-pot of beef and bean stew.

“Hello, Mrs. Casey.”

“Hey, mom. Sam missed the bus and Beth’s still at work.”

His mother reached for the cookie jar and unscrewed the lid. “Let me guess. You want me to call the school and let them know he’ll be late.”

Cal nodded, as she held the jar in front of an eager Sam. “That kind of thing’s just better coming from you.”

“And you know this how?”

“I know this instinctively.” Sam took a cookie. Cal nabbed one too. “Mind if we raid the clothes in the basement?”

His mother cast an assessing eye over Sam and grasped the situation in a heartbeat. “There’s plenty there. Some of Jett’s old gear might be best. It’s the newest.”

Sam’s eyes grew wide. “Jett’s gear,” he said with deep reverence, and Cal barely held back an eye roll. His youngest brother was a downhill skier with a fist full of Olympic gold medals to his name. There was no topping that. The only achievement Cal could boast of was that he was bigger than all four of his brothers and had the approximate shoulder width of an ox.

Big, dumb, and dangerous when riled, the uncharitable might have called him. Didn’t tire easily. Useful when it came to hard slog and outdoor work.

Face like a weathered mountainside, even if the occasional woman had told him he had kind eyes.

He summoned a wry smile for Sam’s enthusiasm for rummaging through Jett’s old outdoor gear. No point loading the kid up with insecurities Cal had carried for so long they were almost old friends. “Want to take a look?”

Sam nodded, his mouth full of chocolate chip goodness.

“What time will I tell the school to expect Sam?”

“’Bout lunchtime.”

His mother looked at the kitchen clock that read a little after seven. “Lunchtime,” she echoed.

“Give or take.” He nodded, happy with his estimation, and alongside him the small, wise little boy nodded too. “We have to put out a bit of feed and bedding, get those cows back in their paddock, and fix the fence first.”

Priorities were important.

***

Two hours later, after they’d spread hay, saddled and loaded the horses and driven up the mountain to Hooper’s Pass, and then cut across the ridge to where Cal figured the cows would be, he was beginning to regret not taking Sam straight to school. Not because the boy couldn’t handle Old Plod the horse, because he could. Not because he feared the kid wasn’t warm enough in his new old clothes. It was because Sam’s smile spoke of deep contentment, and when he wasn’t looking like Christmas had come early, he just plain ran his mouth.

“Save your breath for school,” he advised, when the topic of animal tracks in the snow and had been done to death.

“Did you like school?” Sam asked.

“I liked it well enough. I finished school,” he added, just in case Sam had other ideas.

“Did you get good grades?”

“I passed.” Which had been no small achievement given what little study he’d done. “My grades weren’t as good as my older brother’s. Or two of my younger brothers. Gotta admit that stung at the time. Still does.”

“Why?”

“Well.” Cal took the time to reposition his hat and shape his reply. “TJ’s a vet now, and Seth’s construction company can build just about anything. Mason travels the country buying and selling stock for a big multinational and no-one’s better at running the numbers and calculating margins than him. Stayin’ at school and getting good grades gives a man options.”

“What about Jett?”

“Jett’s a thrill-seeking Olympian. Different skill set.”

“What’s your skill set?” asked Sam.

Ouch.

Even though Cal was proud of everything his hardworking, talented brothers had achieved, comparing himself to them out loud and in public was never fun.

Wasn’t much fun when he compared himself to them in silence either.

“I guess I’m good at taking care of things. Like the animals in my care and the land in this valley. People too. I see to the little things that need doing.” It wasn’t nothing. “If I’m the one sweating the small stuff, it makes life that easier for everyone else in my world. I like watching the people around me soar.”

“I want to do what you do when I grow up.”

Cal almost choked on his bark of startled laughter.

“What?” Sam asked warily. “You don’t think I can take care of my mom and the ranch and all the things I love?”

“Course you can. You’re already doing it. I was just surprised, that’s all. Lotta people think doing what I do is a quiet choice.”

Most people didn’t compare him to the rest of his high-achieving family and put him at the top.

“That or be a smoke jumper,” said Sam after a good long while.

Now that was more like it.

***

Cal saw the heifers in the distance and waited for Sam to spot them and point them out. Three missing, according to the boy’s headcount of the remaining cows and Cal had no reason to doubt it. Beth had been selling off stock for a while now. There weren’t that many left to count.

“Found ‘em!”

“Good eyes.”

“Two of them,” Sam said next.

“Third one’s over by that fallen pine. On the slope there near the little stand of aspen, see? Stand up in the saddle and maybe you’ll see her.” Cal could just see her ears next to that little scrap of red. What was that? “You get ahead of the two on the track and I’ll get her.”

“Yes, sir!”

Cal turned his attention to the third cow again as the boy took off. What was that lying next to her all tangled up in broken tree branches of the fallen tree? It looked like…a cap? A cap and a jacket? He rode closer and the sitting heifer scrambled to her feet, unhurt. That was one worry gone, at least.

She moved toward the other cows, nice and biddable, making his job that much easier, except now he could see more clothing and a man shaped body beneath the branches, and he knew that Red Sox baseball cap. He’d sure as spring teased Red about it often enough. What kind of rugged Montana cowboy supported a baseball team from Boston?

But this was Red, who’d never been one to follow the crowd.

The same Red who’d gone hunting cougar one cold winter night and whose body had never been found.

It hadn’t helped that the weather had closed in that same night, with the arrival of one of the fiercest snowstorms the region had ever seen. The search and rescue teams hadn’t been able to set foot in the valley for days, and as for heading up mountain… Even the low ranges had been inaccessible for weeks.

Two summers and almost three winters had passed since Red had disappeared, and the mountain had kept its secrets.

Until now.

Here’s looking at you, Red.

Right here. Right now.

Long dead.

Didn’t have to be a coroner to see that.

The cookie he’d not long devoured threatened to re-emerge. If his heart thumped any harder his ribs would fail to keep it caged.

“Hey, Cal. Wha—”

“Back up,” he bellowed, startling the heifer into a jog—good job, Cal, you utter hammerhead—his attention now torn between Sam, the startled cow and the raggedy corpse all tangled up in the fallen tree. “Get behind the cows and push them back to the truck.” No way should Sam see any part of this. He needed to remember his father alive. “Now, Sam.”

“But—

“Go. We’re done here.” Red could wait. The cows could wait. Stopping Sam from seeing that was all that mattered now. “I’m right behind you.”

The return trip took half the time the outward trip had taken, with Cal’s horse enjoying the brisker pace and Old Plod stepping up to prove he’d once been the best horse on the ranch. Sam remained utterly silent the whole way back, and Cal had nothing to say either.

Ride hard, stay on task, and try and come up with a plan.

Be practical. Wasn’t he supposed to be good at that?

What needed to happen next, besides protecting Sam from a brutal memory that could never be erased?

Only after they reached the truck and tethered the horses and Cal had reached for the satellite phone he kept charged and in the glovebox, did Sam finally find his voice.

“There’s a body back there, isn’t there.”

The boy was practically vibrating with tension, and Cal took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Someone had to be strong enough to carry this motherlode, and he was the only ox around. “Yes.” He crouched down so they were eye to eye and held Sam’s troubled brown gaze. Beth’s penny-brown eyes. Red’s freckles. But otherwise, all Sam. “Sorry I yelled. I didn’t want you to see that.”

“Is it my dad?”

How sure was he? More to the point, what good would come of lying? “I reckon so.”

Sam’s eyes filled with tears, and then Cal had his arms full of sobbing boy, and, yeah. He held Sam close, gentle like, because in spite of Cal’s size and his strength he knew how to temper strength too.

He waited while a young boy’s hope for the return of his missing father washed away in a waterfall of tears.

He waited until his own heartbeat had steadied and Sam was tucked into the curve of his shoulder before making that first call to the authorities, his next one to Seth, and a third call to Mason.

What use was rock solid backup if a man never used it?

He was going to need all the backup he could get after making his next call to Beth.

Chapter Two

Beth Evans felt like she’d just come off a fourteen-hour high, as she stripped off her surgical gown and cap in the hospital locker room and tossed them in the waiting laundry bin. She’d crash soon. Slide right down off that adrenaline rush that came with long hours of intense surgery and a positive outcome, but hopefully she’d be home before that happened.

Tiredness rode her hard these days. No matter how much she tried to catch up on sleep, on chores, on parenting, she just couldn’t seem to get ahead. Being a nurse, running a ranch, being a mom—all doable, but not all at the same time. That was her main problem, never mind all the money problems bearing down on her like an avalanche.

She didn’t have enough feed to last a long winter, and winter had set in early this year. It was time to sell some of her breeding cows—the ones in calf to one of Cal Casey’s prize bulls—because there was no other stock left to sell besides the three horses, and Sam would never forgive her if she sold those.

He probably wouldn’t forgive her anyway when she put the ranch on the market.

Lose her boy to neglect because she was never there to parent him, or default on the dream of keeping his father’s legacy intact and lose him then. Those were her choices.

Her beautiful, biddable baby boy had been replaced by a stringy, brown-eyed kid with worry lines creasing his forehead and a smile that rarely surfaced. She could see his respect for her dimming beneath the weight of living on a ranch that was slowly falling apart.

Beth made it through the crunch of fresh snow in the hospital car park, groaning at the thought of having to fill up on the way home at the more expensive fuel station on the other side of town—the one she didn’t already have an overdue account with. She couldn’t cope with yet another run-in with old man Thompson who rightly wanted to know when she was going to pay him.

Soon.

Soon as she’d sold some more cows.

It was a testament to the weight of her problems that she didn’t see the man leaning against her truck until he straightened and stepped directly into her path.

Mason Casey. Eldest of the five Casey brothers and altogether too full of himself for everyday consumption. Beth didn’t have a lot of time for him, truth be told, but she could be neighborly when pressed and he was doubtless waiting around for a reason. “Hey, Mason, what’s up? I know that fence needs work and I’m going to get to it, I promise. I’ll see to it as soon as I get home.”

“It’s not the fence.” He jammed his hands in his coat pockets and looked uncommonly awkward as he met her gaze. “Your phone must be on do-not-disturb or something, so Cal asked if I could come and fetch you. Give you some news in person. He didn’t want to leave Sam.”

“Sam?” Why was Cal with Sam? “Sam’s at school. Rebecca put him on the bus this morning.”

“No, he and Cal headed up the pass after some heifers instead.”

Her heifers, obviously. Casey heifers wouldn’t dream of breaking free of the Casey ranch in search of food. They had food. Beth scowled. “Right. You can be sure I’ll have words with Sam about missing school and pulling Cal away from his work. I told Rebecca to put Sam on the bus before she left.” This wasn’t her first rodeo when it came to Sam missing school.

“That’s not why I’m here.” Mason didn’t seem to want to meet her gaze, and she got it, truly. She knew she looked a fright. Stringy, honey blonde hair, lifeless from being tucked beneath a surgical cap for hours. Eyes bruised with fatigue. Makeup nonexistent. A scowl from ear to ear because she couldn’t control her kid.

“Look, I get what you’re not saying. I’ll fix the fences. I’ll make different morning arrangements for Sam whenever I pull a night shift. I’ll do better.”

Mason raised his hand to scritch the back of his neck. “How about you jump in the passenger side of your truck and I’ll bring you up to date while I drive you out there.”

This was getting stranger by the minute. “Out where?” A new thought occurred to her; one she should have thought of earlier. Are they hurt?”

“Sam’s fine.”

“Is Cal hurt?” Cal was her favorite Casey by far. Always had been, always would be—even if she went to great lengths to keep him at arm’s length. Fact was, she kept her distance because he was such a good man. A better man than Red had ever been.

Avoiding him had become a necessity.

“They’re both fine. But there’s a bit of a gathering up at Hooper’s Pass and you need to be there.”

“A gathering of what? Snowclouds?” Why would a bunch of people get together up at Hooper’s on a day like today?

Mason scowled.

Guess he didn’t appreciate her sarcasm, but she was fast running out of patience. “It’s been a long shift. I’ve just spent ten hours on my feet in surgery and you’re talking in riddles. I’m too tired for riddles.”

“Look…”

Looking. Probably the handsomest man she’d ever seen outside of La La Land. Irritating jerk. Couldn’t hold a candle to the sheer visual impact of his bigger brother.

“I don’t know how to break this…”

“I’m a bad neighbor and you want me to sell. I get it. You’ll get first refusal, I promise.”

“Beth, they found a body while they were looking for the cows. The way Cal tells it, the body must’ve been snugged into a fork in a tree and wrapped up in canvas. How it even got there is a mystery, but the tree came down recently, and, well. That’s what I came to tell you.”

What remained of her breath left her body in a rush.

She knew where this was going now.

She’d spent three years not knowing. Wondering. Grieving. Hoping and praying.

Cursing.

“They found a body,” Mason’s voice seemed to come from far, far away. “It’s Red.”

***

Beth only remembered pieces of the drive.

She remembered watching Mason put fuel in her truck and then thrusting hot coffee in her hand and telling her it was piss weak and barely hot but it was caffeine and to drink up because she needed to stay awake.

She remembered watching fat snowflakes splatter against the windscreen and being thankful she wasn’t the one wrestling the pickup up the mountain track.

A trio of emergency vehicles had gathered in the clearing, alongside a couple of pickups and a horse truck.

“Sam wouldn’t have ridden up this far on his own,” she muttered. “He couldn’t have done it so quickly.” A new thought occurred, a new focus for her pain. “Did Cal bring him up here? Sam’s ten. He’s supposed to be in school.”

Mason slowed to a stop beside the horse truck and cut the engine. “You’re the one who should be making sure that happens. Not your neighbors. Not my brother.”

Fear was beginning to push aside reason. Her guilty relief at finally knowing what had happened to Red was giving way to the stark reality that Sam had been the one to find him.

Sam, and the big man cradling the boy in his arms as if Sam belonged there.

She flew out of the pickup and slammed the door behind her, awash with guilt and regret, high on adrenaline and stupid with lack of sleep, her emotions a swirl of terrible dark-hearted turmoil.

“Why are you here?” She stormed up to them and pointed to Sam. “You should be in school. I told you to stop skipping school.” She turned her wrath on Cal next and let it build hotter, fiercer because he was older and bigger and any number of other things she’d never been brave enough to admit. “And you. Why on earth would you bring my son up here without permission? He’s my son. Mine. Not yours!”

“Mom—”

“Stay out of this, Sam.” Wild anger had to go somewhere and Cal was practically inviting it with his stoic, salt-of-the-earth silence. She wanted a fight. She wanted to yell. Somewhere deep down inside, she wanted to be held. “You’re never in the right place at the right time, are you? Missed Red’s wedding and you were supposed to be his best man. Took him out drinking six months later and made him miss Sam’s birth.”

“Not exactly how I remember it,” muttered Mason from somewhere beside them.

“Who asked you?”

But Mason was not built for stoic silence and stood his ground, his eyes narrowed and his jaw firm. “I was there for most of it and I know you’re talking b—” His gaze slid to Sam. “You’re taking your temper out on the wrong man. I know it. He knows it. You ought to know it too.”

“Mason, stop,” Cal rumbled.

The big man. The better man. She’d never hated her entire world more than she did at that moment. “Where were you, Cal, the day Red hightailed it up here hunting cougar? He called you. You were supposed to be up here with him, but no.”

“He was watching TJ ride bucking bulls two states away, Elizabeth.” Mason again, curter than ever. “Red knew that. He lied to you when he said Cal was going with him. It was a bad choice to hunt alone, no one’s disagreeing with that, but it was Red’s decision. Plenty of other people he could have called for backup, but he didn’t. He lied to you. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you stand there and say his death was my brother’s fault.”

She loathed the eldest Casey in that moment, almost as much as she loathed having to face the truth. That her husband was dead because he’d been a fool. That he was never coming back—slim as that hope had been. That this wouldn’t be the first time he’d lied to her over the course of their marriage—starting on the very day it began. But that would mean admitting to herself that Red hadn’t been a particularly honest man or a smart one, and she had Sam to protect, and wasn’t it better all ’round to keep on pretending she’d married a good man? “You dare discuss this in front of my son?”

“Your son will be a man one day. Men deal in truth.” Mason glared right back.

“Why is Sam even up here?” She turned again to Cal, the big, silent man responsible for all of her pain—and none of it. “Why is Sam seeing all this, feeling it, living it? What have you done? Why? Why is he here and not at school? You had no right!”

Everything was so very wrong.

“Mom.”

Sam reached her as her knees gave way, his thin arms wrapping around her as she buried her fists in the snow and hung her head low. She didn’t recognize the wail that came from her chest as her own.

“Mom, stop. It’s okay. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

But she didn’t see.

The world was turning white around her, and she couldn’t see a thing.