Reining in the Past (Saddle Up and Ride, Book One)

By reading any further, you are
stating that you are at least 18 years of age. If you are under the age of 18,
it is necessary to exit this site.

An Excerpt From: REINING IN THE PAST

Copyright © CAROL LYNNE, 2009

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's
Cave Publishing, Inc.

Chapter One

Ray Justice
looked from the daunting stack of papers to the setting sun out the large
window of his office. There was a time when he was under the impression
that once you became established in your job, the work evened out. Not so,
at least not for employees of Brockway, Lee and Thompson.

The
advertising firm was one of the top in the nation and Ray was riding a
pretty impressive wave of awards for his ad campaigns. His gaze moved to
the dormant drafting table on the opposite side of the room. He was paid a
hefty salary to come up with new and innovative campaigns, so why was the
majority of his day spent doing paperwork?

His
ringing cell phone broke up his little self-absorbed pity party. He frowned
at the caller display, not recognizing the long distance number. “Probably
a damn telemarketer,” he mumbled. Still, a phone call was better than
tackling the rest of the waiting paperwork.

“Ray
Justice,” he answered, swinging his feet to the top of his glass and chrome
desk.

“Raymond
Eli Justice, Jr.?”

“Yes.
May I help you?”

“My
name is James Krueger, from the Law Office of Krueger and Westmoor in Red Lodge, Montana. I’m representing your late
father’s estate and I was hoping to set up a meeting with you after his
funeral.”

Ray
stifled a gasp before it could escape. “I’m sorry,
you must have the wrong Ray Justice. My father died over twenty-three years
ago.”

“Are
you Raymond Eli Justice, born in West
Seneca, New York,
January 23, 1982?”

“Yes,
that’s me, but like I’ve already told you, my father died when I was
three.” He almost hung up on the guy. Ray hadn’t discussed his namesake
since he was seven years old and had made his mother cry.

“I’m
sorry to be the one to inform you this, but Raymond Eli Justice, Sr., died
two days ago on his ranch in Montana.”

*
* * * *

Still
numb from his earlier conversation, Ray pulled his car into the small
detached garage and turned off the engine. His gaze settled on the tools
over the workbench to his left. Lined up like soldiers, the tools had been
the only things he had that were his father’s.

Ray
took pride in making sure they were maintained in a way that would make his
dad proud. Getting out of the low-slung sports car, he ran a hand over the
sharp, oiled implements that he’d never learned to use. Why had he left
them?

With a
sigh, Ray turned and grabbed his briefcase out of the passenger seat. After
locking up the garage, he let himself into his boyhood home. Everything
looked somehow different to him.

It had
been over eight years since his mother’s death and very little about the house
had changed. Ray tossed his keys onto the yellow Formica and chrome table
and headed upstairs to the attic.

If his
mother had secrets he’d uncover them in the boxes she’d kept stored in the
seldom-visited space. Using a chair from his desk, Ray grabbed the short
cord of the trap door and pulled. The rusty hinges gave a squeal as the
ladder began to unfold. He hopped off the chair and settled the bottom of
the ladder against the scarred wooden floor.

He
wasn’t sure what he’d find in the old trunks, but something told him his
life was about to change.

*
* * * *

Ray
bent over his mother’s grave and removed stray debris from the simple
headstone. When Isabella Justice had passed away, Ray had still been in
college and unable to afford anything elaborate. Now the stone shamed him.
He earned a tidy sum, so why hadn’t he thought to repay his mom for all the
years of hard work she’d performed in his name?

“I
finally dug through all those old boxes you had stored.”

He
leaned back on his heels and stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. “Why
didn’t you tell me? Why lie all these years?”

The
divorce papers he’d found in his mother’s attic had been a surprise
discovery. He’d spent the remainder of the evening trying to come to terms
with his mother’s betrayal.

He started
to walk off, but stopped and turned back. “Maybe you were just trying to
protect me. I get that, really I do. But don’t you think I deserved to know
my dad was still alive? Or was it easier for you to think of him as being
dead?”

Ray
sighed and studied the surrounding grave markers. “I’m taking some time
off. Hell, I’m not sure I’ll even have a job to come back to, but I need to
go. His funeral’s Monday and for some reason, I think it’s important for me
to be there. I don’t know why, maybe I’m going to spit on his grave, or
maybe just for the chance to see what was more important to him than we
were.”

* * * * *

Ray
tossed the map onto the passenger seat and made a left. He drove under the large
J Bar Ranch sign and with sweating palms. When he’d stopped in the small
town of Red Lodge
for directions, the guy seemed to know just where Ray needed to go. Was the
J Bar that well known?

He
winced as the undercarriage of his rented luxury sedan scraped against the
rutted dirt road. Good thing I took the added insurance. He crested
a rolling hill and gasped as the J Bar came into view, buildings of all
sizes laid out in a storybook valley below. Crap. He’d wanted to
hate the place, but how could anyone not see the beauty of the ranch?

He
noticed a group of cowboys gathered around the largest barn and pulled up
close to them. A press of a button and the driver’s side window slid
smoothly down. “Excuse me. Are any of you Alfred Deacon?”

A
young cowboy chuckled. “Alfred? Is that Deacon’s first name?” The man
turned back to his friends. “Hell, boys, we’ve got some teasin’
to do.”

The
majority of the cowboys were laughing as they walked off. Ray couldn’t
believe they were going to just ignore his initial question. “I take it
he’s not here.”

One of
the men stepped closer to the car and pointed toward the barn. “You’ll find
Deacon in the tack room. He’s always the last one to show up for lunch.”

“Thanks.”
Ray rolled up the window and turned off the engine. He watched through the
rearview mirror as the group of cowboys walked into a small building across
the dirt road.

With a
deep breath, Ray climbed out of the car and reached back inside for his
suit jacket. After attempting to get as many wrinkles out of his charcoal
gray pants as he could, he entered the barn. He glanced around. What the
hell is a tack room?

“Hello?
Mr. Deacon?”

“Back
here,” a deep voice responded.

Ray
grinned for the first time in two days. Alfred Deacon’s voice sounded
exactly like one of those cowboys from the movies, low and gravelly, like
Deacon had smoked too many cigarettes in his lifetime.

He
walked to the back of the barn and down a slight slope into what he assumed
was the tack room. Ray’s first glimpse of his father’s ranch manager surprised
him. Deacon appeared to be in his mid-thirties, much younger than Ray
would’ve guessed, and gorgeous. “Mr. Deacon?”

Deacon
glanced up from the saddle he was working on. “Fuck.”

Ray’s
eyes rounded. “Excuse me?”

Deacon
shook his head and walked toward Ray, hand extended. “Sorry. You threw me
there for a second. You’re the spitting image of your dad.”

Ray
shifted uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t know.”

Deacon
stopped and dropped his hand to the side. “Yeah. I guess you wouldn’t.
Sorry about that.”

Ray
shrugged. Sympathy was something he’d never felt comfortable with and for
some reason, getting it from the six-foot-four gorgeous cowboy with dark
chocolate eyes made it even worse.

Now it
was Deacon’s turn to look uncomfortable. He hooked his thumb in his front
pocket and nodded toward the doorway. “You eaten?”

Ray
shook his head. “I came straight from the airport in Billings. I wasn’t sure how long it would
take and I wanted to make sure I made it here before dark.”

Chuckling,
Deacon waved for Ray to follow him. “This is Montana, not the end of the earth.
Although some winters when the snow reaches the roofline, it starts to feel
like it. Why don’t you join me for lunch in the cookhouse?”

“Okay,
if you think no one will mind.”

“Mind?
Hell, you own the place now. After lunch I’ll take you over to the main
house and help get you settled.” Deacon climbed the steps to the small
building he’d seen the cowboys enter earlier. He stopped and poured some
steaming water into a bowl and began to wash his hands in the makeshift
sink.

After
Deacon was finished, he stepped back. Ray wasn’t sure if he was expected to
wash his hands or not, but decided to follow suit just in case. He took off
his suit jacket and glanced around for a place to hang it.

“I’ll
take it.”

“Thanks.”
Ray handed off the jacket and rolled up his sleeves before mimicking the
procedure Deacon had used.

“Do
you mind telling me how my father died?” Ray asked.

“You
don’t know?”

Ray
shook his head. “I was just told he died.”

“One of
the hands found him down by the river. He’d evidently had a heart attack,
fell from his horse and hit his head on a rock.”

“So
what killed him, the heart attack or the fall?”

Deacon
shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter. Dead is dead.”

Once
Ray’s hands were dry, he reached for his jacket.

“That’s
okay. I’ll hang it up for you.” Deacon opened the screen door and walked
through a small mudroom where he stopped to hang the expensive jacket on a
wooden peg.

Ray
winced at the thought of the thousand-dollar piece of clothing being
treated like an ordinary denim jacket. He followed Deacon into the large
room filled with long tables lined with chairs.

“I’d
like you all to meet Ray Justice, Jr.,” Deacon introduced him.

Half
the jaws in the room dropped. The cowboys began firing off questions.

“What?
RJ had a son?”

“Why
didn’t we know that?” another man asked.

Deacon
held up his hands and shook his head. “RJ didn’t do anything without good
reason and you know that. Now stop acting like a bunch of jackasses and
introduce yourselves.”

The
first young cowboy he’d spoken to on the ranch stepped forward, his hand
extended. “I’m Cody Williams. Been working at the J Bar for close to six
years. I handle the guests.”

Ray
shook the man’s hand. “Guests? I thought this was a cattle ranch?”

“We
open the ranch up to paid guests from the end of May through mid-October.
Ranching alone isn’t enough anymore to make a spread of this size
profitable, so we use the added revenue the guests bring in to keep us
afloat,” Deacon explained.

Ray
glanced around the room. “So where are the guests? Do they eat in another
dining hall or something?”

“Nope.
They eat right here with us. The last batch left this morning. We’ve got
another small group coming in tomorrow,” Deacon further explained.

Another
cowboy stood up. “Hi, Ray. I’m Neil, the J Bar cowboss.
I help coordinate the grazing fields with the manager, uh, that’d be
Deacon. I also take some of the guests along to put out minerals for the
cattle and stuff like that.”

“Neil
sells himself short,” Deacon butted in. “He’s also the best damn roper I’ve
ever known, as well as field vet for the cattle out in the pastures.”

A
handsome man with dark red hair stood and touched the bill of his baseball
cap. “I’m Jimmy. I only work the summer months. I’m a student at the University of Montana. While I’m here, I help with
a little of everything, from taking guests on trail rides to helping move
head from one pasture to another.”

“Pleased
to meet you.” Ray glanced at Deacon. “Head?”

“Ranching
term for cattle.”

Ray nodded,
feeling like an idiot. “Of course.”

“And
Griggs is our head horse wrangler. He’s also the only cowboy you’re likely
to see with a ponytail.”

Ray
grinned and shook the Native American’s hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Deacon
went on to introduce a few more of the wranglers. “We’ve also got some
part-timers who’re out mowing and readying the cabins for the arrival of
our guests in the morning.”

A
woman came out of the kitchen drying her hands on a small towel. “If you
two don’t stop flapping your jaws and eat, everything will be colder than a
well digger’s ass.”

Deacon
chuckled. “And the vision of loveliness behind the counter is our weekend
cook, Libby. During the week, Martha is the regular cook. Martha’s known to
everyone as Mother. When we have guests on hand, she has an assistant,
Donna, who comes in to help. Other than that, it looks like all we’re
missing is Beth, who runs the office, Taggert,
who’s attending his little brother’s football game, and the few part-timers
spread out doing chores. I’ll introduce you to them later.”

Deacon
picked up a plate and handed it to Ray. “We serve all the food
buffet-style, so help yourself. If there’s
something in particular you want, just ask Libby or Mother. They’re usually
pretty accommodating.”

Ray filled
his plate with salad, some green beans and the smallest piece of fried
chicken he could find before sitting in one of the empty chairs.

Deacon’s
long legs straddled the chair next to Ray as he settled in with his heaping
plate of food. He glanced at Ray’s plate and shook his head. “Not sure that
little plate of food is gonna get you through
‘til supper.”

“I
normally don’t eat lunch, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Ray ate a large bite
of his salad, impressed with the ranch dressing—it definitely hadn’t come
out of a bottle.

Deacon
reached for the basket of rolls and set it between them. “I’ll fill you in
on more of the basics once we get you settled.”

Ray
nodded. He removed the skin from his chicken and ate a small piece of the
meat. “So how many cows does this place have?”

“We
don’t call them cows, remember? They’re cattle or head.”

“Sorry.
Guess I have a lot to learn. I’ve never even been on a horse, except the
kind at the fair that go ’round and ’round in a circle.”

Jimmy
snorted and Deacon shot him a reprimanding look. “Well, you came to the
right place to learn. We’ve got horses for all skill levels. Later I’ll
introduce you to a few of my favorites.”

“I
need to call my father’s attorney and let him know I’m here. He wants me to
come by his office in Red Lodge after the funeral on Monday. Is that where
the funeral will be, in Red Lodge?”

“Yes
and no. Visitation is tomorrow night in Red Lodge at RJ’s favorite bar, but
the burial will be here on the ranch, Monday morning.”

“Here?”

Deacon
nodded as he swallowed a bite of food. “The J Bar has been in the Justice
family for four generations, you make it five. There’s a small family
cemetery up on the ridge. Shallow
Valley’s on one side,
the ranch buildings on the other.”

Four
generations?
Ray hadn’t even met his grandparents on his mother’s side. He couldn’t
imagine having something stay in a family for four generations. And five?
Ray knew that wasn’t going to happen. His life was back east, not in Montana.

Before
he could tell Deacon, the handsome man spoke again. “There’s been an outfit
out of Billings
that have been trying to buy the place for several years. I’ll bet they’ll
be shocked as hell to find out a fifth-generation Justice has shown up. I’m
sure that’s partly what James Krueger wants to talk to you about.”

Ray
pushed his plate away. What little appetite he’d had was gone. He knew he
needed to tell Deacon the truth. “Well, to be honest. The ranch might do
better in someone else’s hands. I work in marketing. I don’t know the first
thing about running a place like this. I thought I’d ask Mr. Krueger to
find a buyer for the ranch.”

Deacon
set down his fork and turned to face Ray. “I’m hoping you’ll reconsider.
The people who’re interested in buying want to put up a resort complete
with hotels, apartments and condos. There won’t be any ‘ranch’ left after
they’re finished. And as far as the ranch goes, you don’t need to know how
to run it. You’ve got people who can do that for you.”

Although
Ray knew he wasn’t going to change his mind, he couldn’t tell Deacon in a
roomful of men who depended on the ranch for their livelihood. “I’ll think
about it.”