Taking the Reins(67)

Just as he settled on the edge of his bed, ready to pull his boots off, his cell phone rang. Picking it up, assuming it was one of the hands announcing that another horse had gone into labor just as he’d left, he answered without looking.

“Son!” His father’s booming voice nearly knocked his tired ass off the bed. “Where you been?”

“Same place I was last time we talked, Dad.” Definitely not the night for this. “You know, now isn’t a good night to talk. Can we catch up some other time?”

“Well, maybe. But I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while now. And I wanted to give you a fair warning about my visit. Though if you don’t have time now, I’ll just let it be a surprise. How about if we—”

“Stop.” Fuck. “Stop right there. Visit?”

“Well, ’course! I haven’t seen you in months.”

Over a year, Red silently corrected.

“Dad, when were you planning on getting here?”

Silence greeted him.

“Dad?”

“I’m . . . close.”

Cryptic as always. Mac was good with word games when it suited him.

Red pinched the bridge of his nose. I will not yell. I will not yell. I will not yell. “And you were going to tell me . . . when?”

“What do you think this call is for?” his father huffed. “This isn’t exactly the warm welcome I imagined, you know. My own flesh and blood . . .”

Red put the phone on speaker and set it down on the bed, upside down to muffle the sound. He took his boots off, pushed them under the bed, then stripped down to his boxers. When the faint buzz of his father’s voice stopped, he picked the phone back up.

“This really isn’t a good time to visit. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this right now.”

“Ungrateful. That’s what you are, boy. I taught you everything you know about horses, which is how you make a living, if I might remind you, and this is how you treat your own father?”

This is how you treat your own son? “I didn’t say you couldn’t come to visit ever. Just . . . not right now.” Not while so much was up in the air with Peyton. One crisis at a time.

“We’ll see if I ever call you again.” With that, his father hung up.

Red wasn’t concerned. Odds were, he’d receive a call in another week or two, asking for money to be wired to pay off yet another gambling debt, or to post bail, or to get Mac out of some other sort of trouble his father hadn’t yet come up with. His mind shuddered to contemplate . . .

When the phone rang again, Red could only think, Really, Dad? That was fast. But he saw it was the main house calling, not his father.

“Hello?”

“Red, it’s Peyton Muldoon.”

He smiled at the professional greeting. Like he wouldn’t recognize her voice—or her first name. “What’s up? Did Butterscotch go into labor?”

“What? No.” She sounded breathless, as if she’d been sprinting laps around the barn. Something in the background made a sort of high-pitched shriek that reminded him of a dolphin documentary he’d watched once.

“What the hell was that?” If that was a horse, something was very wrong.

“That,” she said through what he could imagine were clenched teeth, “was my nephew. Who won’t stop crying.”

“Ah.” He waited for her to get to the reason for the call, but she said nothing else. “Peyton?”

“What?”

He held back a laugh. “What’d you need?”

“Oh! Oh my God, I called you. Jesus.” He heard a thump. “I just . . . I don’t . . .” She broke off; then he heard something that sounded suspiciously like a watery sniffle. And finally, she whispered, “I need help.”

“Five minutes.” He hung up and reversed the disrobing process until he was taking off at a run for the main house. When he knocked on the front door and nobody answered, he waited a good three minutes, then tried the door. Unlocked.

“Peyton?”

Nothing. He took his boots off—just because Emma wasn’t staring right at him didn’t mean he was willing to face the woman’s wrath later—and wandered through the first floor. Not in her office, nor the kitchen or dining area. Hearing the wailing sound coming from upstairs, and someone walking around, he stood by the foot of the stairs and called her name out again, loudly. But she didn’t answer.

Okay then. Into the lioness’s den he went. Taking the stairs two at a time, he ignored the carved wood of the railing, the wrought iron that weaved in and out to create the banister, the oil paintings that stared at him like in some creepy haunted house. The entire effect of the first floor and the staircase, he realized, was bizarre and totally out of place for a working ranch. Too glitzy, too obvious. Trying too hard.