The Cowgirl's Little Secret(30)

"Cord? Can we talk?"

"Not now, Jolie."

He'd never been so damn angry in his entire life. His old man had done some spectacularly stupid crap in his time. But this? Cord had no words-and any he might have wouldn't be coherent. The icy rage swirling in his gut left little room to think. Cord punched the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel and barked, "Call Chance."

Chance answered, sounding neither awake nor alert, which pissed Cord off for some reason. He yelled into the Bluetooth microphone, "Did you have anything to do with this?"

The sound of a jaw-snapping yawn echoed in the truck. "Do you know what time it is? What are you talking about, Cord?"

"Cash and some men showed up at Jolie's. They took CJ."

"Oh, hell, bud. What's our old man done now?"

"He filed some goddamned legal paper. Did you have anything to do with it, Chance?"

Stunned silence hummed in the truck, followed by bitter cussing streaming through the speaker. Cord had been thinking the same curse words. He swallowed and added, "I'm going to kill them, Chance. Both of them." He hit the end button and refused to answer when the screen lit up with an incoming call from Chance.

"You don't really mean that, Cord." Jolie sat twisted in her seat so she could face him. She looked pale in the dim glow of dashboard lights.

"The hell I don't. That's my son, Jolie. Our son. You're his mother. They took him from you." He had to breathe around the burning knot in his chest before he could continue speaking, but then realized there was nothing else to say. He clamped his jaw shut and pressed the accelerator a little harder. The truck sped up and the white lines on the highway blurred beneath the big vehicle's tires.                       
       
           



       

At the ranch, Cord skidded to a stop in front of the main house, barreled out of the truck and sprinted for the front door. He didn't wait to see if Jolie was behind him. He hit the door with his booted foot and it crashed open. Miz Beth and Big John stood in the foyer. She was wringing her hands and John looked as if he was going to be sick.

"Where is he?"

"He's fine, Cord. He's asleep in his room." John's soft rumble attempted to convey a sense of calm, but he was as agitated as his wife.

Jolie's sobbing gasp kept Cord from storming up the stairs. He turned and pulled her to his chest, circling his arms around her shoulders. "Shh, baby. It's okay. We'll get him and go home."

"No. You won't." Cyrus stood in the arched doorway separating the entry from the great room. He glared at Jolie before flicking his gaze to Cord. "She's not welcome here."

"Fine. We'll get CJ and go."

The sound of screeching brakes outside sounded like nails on a blackboard. Cord didn't care. He just wanted to get CJ and go home with Jolie.

Cash stepped up to join his father and Cord saw red-literally. Before anyone could react, he strode to his brother and coldcocked him with a right hook to the jaw. Cash went down as if he'd been poleaxed. Cord turned to his father. "You're nothing but a dried-up piece of cow turd, old man. I'm going upstairs to get my son, and then his mother and I are taking him home. I'm done with you."

"Cord-"

Chance was suddenly at his side. "Think, Cord. Just shut up and think."

Cyrus puffed up and opened his mouth but didn't get the chance to speak as both Cord and Chance rounded on him and said in tandem, "Shut up."

Cash began to stir. Chance offered him a hand up, which Cash ignored. He remained sitting, butt on the floor, knees bent, his forearms resting across them. He stared at Cord, surprise showing in his expression.

"When the hell did you learn to punch like that?"

"Shut up, Cash. I'm about two seconds from kicking the crap out of you." Cord looked around to apologize to Miz Beth, but realized she and Big John had disappeared. Jolie stood just inside the front door looking shell-shocked.

He faced his father. "What the hell were you thinkin', old man? Oh, wait. You weren't."

Cyrus bristled and jutted his chin, his expression as aggressive as the clenched fist he shook at Cord. "I'll tell you what I was thinkin', Cordell. And I'll tell you what I did. What you should have done months ago when that trash blew back into town with your bastard. I'm making sure my grandson grows up to be a Barron. A legitimate Barron. You should have given him your name-our name as soon as you found out. You should have made that boy yours."

The color red edged his vision again. If he didn't stroke out, he was going to beat his father to a bloody pulp. "You're wrong, Cyrus. He's not just my son. He's Jolie's, too. CJ will be a Barron. But he's also a Davis. CJ is our son. Jolie's and mine. I'm not taking him away from his mother. I want to share him with her."

Jolie stepped to his side and slipped her hand into his as Cyrus glared, his face a study in disappointment.

"I'm done with the lot of you. The boy stays here. He's a Barron and he'll be raised as one. I'll make sure neither of you see him again. Take your whor-" Cyrus didn't get to finish the word as Cord's fist slammed into his jaw. He staggered back a half step before he straightened.

"You'll pay for this, Cordell. I will take away everything I ever gave you." His gaze brushed across Cash. "Clean this up, Cashion." With a final grunt meant to dismiss them all, he walked out the front door, his face a mask of disgust.

Cord shared a glance with Chance before staring down at his youngest brother. "You know, I thought it was pretty crappy when you had those foreclosure papers served on Cassie, but this? Damn, Cash. You are really rolling around the bottom of the outhouse now."

Cash wisely stayed on his butt. "Better me than a stranger, Cord. If the old man sent one of his thugs, we wouldn't know where CJ was. That's why I went to get him. And why I brought him here where-"                       
       
           



       

"What the-?" Cord forced his feet to take two steps back to put space between him and his brothers. "It would have been better not to do this at all. You could have stopped our old man. How could you do this to me? We're family."

Rather than kick-quite literally-his brother while he was down, Cord grabbed a decorative wooden box filled with doodads from a shelf and sent it crashing into the mirror hanging above a pine-and-deer-antler console table near the front door. The mirror shattered. "You're my goddamned brother, Cash, and you betrayed me."

Cash rolled to his feet in a lithe move. Without a glance at Cord or Chance, he strode to the door. He paused and stared back over his shoulder. "No, Cord. I'm not your goddamned brother. You and Chance and Clay are brothers. Chase and me? We never counted. We were always seconds." He walked out, slamming the door behind him, leaving Cord and Chance staring at each other.

Stunned, Cord found his voice first. "What was that all about?" As he asked the mostly rhetorical question, he remembered his conversation with Cash in their old playroom. Yeah, the twins were technically half brothers to him, Chance and Clay, but he'd never considered them anything but family.

Chance frowned. "I don't know where that came from. We're brothers. All of us."

"Exactly. I always thought it was us against the old man. All of us, Chance. After the old man married Helen, she was our mom, the twins our brothers."

Tunneling his fingers through his hair, Cord felt rocked to his very foundation and completely out of control. He didn't like either feeling. At all. He wanted to grab the world with both hands and twist it, shape it, stuff it back into the mold he'd created so that everything was nice and neat and running the way he wanted it.

Chance stared at the closed door. "He's sure got a chip on his shoulder about something, though. I'll call Chase in the morning, see if he knows what's going on with Cash." Chance stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Look, we need to talk."

Cord sneered, but also replied in a quieter voice. "About Cash?"

"No. About-" Chance raised his hand in a vague wave "-all of this."

"Cash and a couple of his goons scared the nanny and took CJ. On the old man's orders. Without my knowledge or permission. What's there to talk about, Chance?" He held out his hand for Jolie. "Let's get CJ and go home."

Chance's next words pulled his attention back to his brother. "I want to see the order, check to see which judge signed it. This whole deal smells like an overflowing porta-potty on a hot July day."

"You got that right."

Chance exhaled and rubbed his eyes before addressing Jolie. "You may or may not believe me, Jolie, but here's the truth. Yes, I had a paternity test done to confirm that CJ is Cord's. And yes, I drew up some orders petitioning for a name change and amended birth certificate. Cord asked me to hold off filing. I did. I wish now I hadn't. If we'd fixed things in the beginning, it never would have come to this. I'm also positive that Cyrus used one of his pet legal sharks to draft whatever the hell was filed. I'm sorry. If you'll let me, I'd like to look at the paperwork you were given. And I'd like the opportunity to fix the mess my-" He choked off the expletive. "The mess our father made." He offered her a bitter smile. "Sadly, I've been there, done that and my wife occasionally sleeps in the T-shirt."