His fingers tightened once before his strength began to fade. “Call.”
“You can do it later. You’re too damn stubborn to let that ranch go before you’re at least a hundred, so stop worrying about it and let them fix you.”
One corner of his mouth had twitched, the smallest trace of his usual dry amusement appearing beneath the damage the stroke had done to his face. The surgical team pulled the gurney away before I could say anything else, leaving me beneath the harsh corridor lights with his warmth still lingering against my palm. I stood there until the doors closed, then forced my hand open and reminded myself that he had survived long enough to reach surgeons who knew how to give him the best chance possible.
Otis hadn’t needed to explain what he meant by our deal because I remembered the first time he’d mentioned it years earlier. Otis had studied the compound taking shape beyond the trees that lined the Black Crowns property at the edge of his land. He had watched the crews pouring foundations and running utilities for a moment before informing me that he had already decided what would happen to the ranch after he died.
“If Jack doesn’t want the ranch when I’m gone, you get first crack at it.”
“I’m not taking property from your family.”
“Didn’t say I was giving it to you, boy.” His eyes had narrowed beneath the brim of his hat. “Said you’d get the first chance to buy it before anybody starts cutting it into pieces.”
“You planning on going somewhere?”
“Eventually. That’s how dying works.” He had lifted one shoulder before returning his attention to the fence. “You offer what it’s worth if the time comes, and Jack decides whether to sell. That’s the deal.”
I had agreed because arguing with Otis once his mind was made up usually accomplished nothing except giving him entertainment. Somewhere along the way, I had built an image of Jack as the city-raised grandson Otis occasionally mentioned without much detail. All I knew was that Jack lived somewhere north, had spent summers at the ranch as a kid, and apparently occupied enough space in Otis’s plans to inherit the land he had protected for decades.
The surgery lasted several hours, but Otis survived it. Reaper told me the surgeons had stopped the bleeding and relieved the pressure, although the next twenty-four hours would determine how much function Otis recovered. I waited through most of the night, but he remained unconscious, and the intensive-care staff wouldn’t allow anyone beyond immediate family into the room.
His daughter and son-in-law arrived from San Jose before dawn with fear stretched tightly across both their faces. His daughter looked exhausted and pale, her hands trembling as she clasped mine between hers and thanked me for checking on him, while her husband gripped my shoulder hard enough to show how close he was to losing control. Their gratitude was genuine, and neither of them pretended they would have found Otis in time if I hadn’t gone looking for him.
“You saved my father’s life,” his daughter had sniffled, tears gathering along her lower lashes before she blinked them back. “I don’t know how we can ever thank you.”
“Reaper and the surgeons saved him. I only found him.”
“Because you cared enough to notice he was missing.” Her mouth quivered before she pressed her lips together, and the effort she made to remain composed told me exactly where Otis’s stubbornness had gone. “That matters more than you know.”
They decided that once Otis was stable enough to travel, they would move him to a rehabilitation facility in San Jose, where hecould be close to them and the rest of his family. I understood the decision even though every instinct in me insisted he belonged in Sable Canyon. But he was their father, and they wanted him somewhere they could take care of him without driving hundreds of miles every week. So I gave his daughter my number, told her Otis had asked me to contact Jack about the ranch, and made her promise to call if either of them needed anything.
I never got to speak to Otis again. He remained heavily sedated through the first days of recovery, then his family transferred him north as soon as the doctors believed he could survive the move. His daughter sent me brief updates for the first few weeks, telling me he was awake for short periods and beginning therapy, but the messages eventually stopped, and I assumed caring for him had consumed whatever time and energy she possessed.
Five weeks after the stroke, a certified packet arrived at the Rook Holdings office addressed to me from an estate attorney in San Jose. Judge intercepted it as he did every legal document that came through the company, then walked into my office with his jaw set and the envelope held flat against his palm.
Otis had died three days earlier. According to Judge, the packet contained formal notification, a copy of the will, and paperwork regarding a specific bequest Otis had left to me, but I never unfolded a single page. I handed the entire thing back and told him to deal with whatever needed handling because seeing Otis’s intentions reduced to numbered clauses and notarized signatures wouldn’t change the fact that the man himself was gone.
The only property Otis left me outright was Blue, an aging blue roan gelding we had gentled together when I was sixteen, along with the battered stock saddle I had used during every summer I worked at the ranch. Blue was twenty-two now, but hestill recognized my whistle when Hawkeye and I went to collect him. The old horse shoved his muzzle against my chest and released a low breath that warmed the front of my shirt, and I had stood in Otis’s barn with one hand buried in Blue’s mane while grief tried to close around my throat hard enough to choke me.
Judge handled the transfer, estate correspondence, and every document that required a response. He told me the ranch passed to Jack exactly as Otis had intended, and that probate would need to clear before any sale could occur. I didn’t ask for more details because the arrangement itself had never been complicated. Jack inherited the ranch, and if he didn’t want the work, expense, and isolation that came with it, I would receive the first opportunity to purchase it at a fair price.
Buying the land made practical sense even without my history with Otis. The Rutledge acreage bordered the compound along our southern edge, and an old service road climbed through the property toward a ridge that overlooked part of Black Castle’s training grounds. Owning it would close a vulnerability in our security perimeter, prevent developers from filling the neighboring hills with houses, and give us room to expand the equestrian side of the veterans’ rehabilitation program we had been discussing for nearly a year.
The practical reasons weren’t the ones that kept drawing my attention toward the south window, however. I wanted to protect the ranch because Otis had protected me when I was too young and angry to understand I needed it. I wanted to keep the fences standing, the barn repaired, and the pastures open beneath the valley oaks instead of watching some developer scrape the land bare and divide it into expensive lots for people who liked the idea of country living more than the reality of it.
The need sat beneath my usual control, quiet but immovable. I wouldn’t pressure Jack into accepting less than the ranchwas worth, and I wouldn’t use the club’s influence to steal an inheritance from Otis’s family. I would make a clean offer, pay fair market value, cover the closing expenses, and preserve the land exactly as Otis would have wanted if his grandson decided he had no use for it.
A knock landed against the open office door, pulling me from my thoughts before Judge entered carrying a tablet beneath one arm. Hawkeye followed him with the deceptively casual stride he had possessed even when he carried a sniper rifle and moved through hostile territory several hundred yards ahead of the rest of my team. He had been my operator before he became my best friend and the Black Crowns VP, which meant he could read my silences better than most men read spoken warnings.
Neither of them asked how I was holding up when the answer was written plainly enough in the untouched reports on my desk. Judge crossed to the chair opposite me and sat, placing the tablet across one thigh, while Hawkeye walked to the bar built into the far wall. He poured three glasses of bourbon and handed two over to us before he toasted, “To Otis. The only civilian who ever told our president his work looked like shit and made him do it again.”
“Repeatedly,” Judge added.
I grunted. “He was usually right.”
Hawkeye’s eyebrow rose as I lifted the glass, and a faint line appeared beside his mouth. “That admission should probably be entered into the club minutes.”
“I’m already recording,” Judge joked, tapping the edge of his tablet.
