The words fancy and in town weren’t something Duke thought he’d hear in his lifetime about Mesa Point. There wasn’t much that would be considered extravagant about the small town. Not since the oil boom in the ’70s and ’80s when high-end stores brought merchandise to the ladies in town since most wouldn’t set foot in a city.
Mesa Point had a small country club that barely survived the oil crash. Its green decor, complete with flowery wallpaper, was straight out of a different era. If the walls could talk, Duke had no doubt they would whisper scandals from back in the club’s heyday. He’d heard of everything from affairs in the bathrooms to envelopes fat with cash being handed to golf caddies to “help” with a score or stand guard in front of a supply closet to make sure no one entered unless invited. Today, Mesa Point Golf and Social Club barely kept its doors open.
“How’s the marshal business?” Nash asked in his characteristic excitement mixed with a favorite-uncle kind of warmth.
“Keeping me busy,” Duke admitted before adding, “It’s the reason I don’t come home very often.”
Nash shot him a look that meant Duke didn’t have to explain. “You’re here when it counts.”
Duke nodded, trying to shake off the feeling that he’d let his grandparents down when they needed him most. What if they’d done that to him when his mother died after giving birth to Duke’s younger sister and his father ran off?
Duke was the only son in a daughter sandwich, a middle child, except that he’d grown up with cousins Dalton and Camden who were like brothers to him. He and his sisters, Crystal and Abilene, were close as could be. His cousin Jules, or otherwise known professionally as Julie, was the middle child on her side of the family. Although, none of them ever thought of sides when thinking about each other. They were the Remington Six as far as anyone was concerned.
“Any change in their condition?” Nash asked, ushering Duke toward the back door of the farmhouse.
“Not yet,” he responded in a voice that was probably too hopeful.
“They’ll pull through,” Nash said with a conviction that Duke didn’t feel. “In the meantime, you should eat breakfast and get settled in.” He paused, looking like he was trying to choose his next words carefully. “Have you decided how long you’ll be staying on?”
“I took personal leave from work,” Duke said, not loving the fact that he’d handed off several case files he’d been working on for weeks now. “I’m here to assess the situation and report back to the others so we can set up a rotation if needed.”
Nash opened the screen door to the back porch, toed off his boots and then headed for the kitchen. “Scrambled eggs and sausage okay with you?”
“No. I’m fine. Don’t go to any—”
“It’s no trouble,” Nash cut in with a hand wave, like he was batting a fly from a horse’s behind.
Duke knew when he’d lost an argument, so he stopped himself from saying that he should be the one cooking breakfast for Nash.
Being inside his grandparents’ home without them here sucked the air out of the room. Tears welled up. Emotion wasn’t usually in his vocabulary. This seemed like a convenient time to remember he’d left his gym bag behind the driver’s seat of his truck. His damn emotions had him thinking about someone else, too. But he didn’t want to think about her after all these years.
“I’ll eat whatever you put on the table as long as you let me clean up after.” Before Nash could protest, Duke put a hand up and continued, “I need to get something out of my truck, so you’re going to have to hold that thought.”
Jogging out to the truck gave Duke a moment of reprieve from the tsunami of emotions threatening to suck him under and spit him out. Being home always reminded him of Audrey Smith, now Newcastle, and the summer she’d spent here. Then school started. She’d disappeared. But not without shattering his tender sixteen-year-old heart. For reasons he didn’t want to examine, he had yet to forget that summer fourteen years ago.
Sure, Duke could blame his long memory on the fact a guy never forgot his first kiss, especially one that sizzled with the kind of promise that had been unmatched since. He’d chalked his past physical reaction up to teen hormones over finding real love when he was barely old enough to drive, let alone shave.
It had taken most of the summer for Audrey to warm up to him. Even then, she refused to speak about her past or what happened for her to end up needing a place to hide. He’d fallen fast and hard. And then she was gone. His grandparents had kept quiet about her whereabouts, asking him to respect her need for privacy even though he could hear the regret in their tones. They’d told him she left a message for him asking him to leave her alone. She’d said they were over and their relationship had been nothing more than a summer fling. With a nonworking cell number and no social media to follow, Duke had no choice but to try to forget Audrey Smith had ever entered his life.
A couple of years back, he’d heard a rumor she was back in Mesa Point as Audrey Newcastle. Married? Divorced?
He couldn’t say one way or the other. He’d made a vow not to ask questions after her rejection.
Plus, Duke rarely ever visited his hometown except to spend an afternoon here and there with his grandparents, mainly doing work he worried they were getting too old to do despite his grandfather being too stubborn to admit it. True days off were rare because Duke loved his work as a US marshal and dedicated himself to searching for the most hardened criminals to lock them away and keep them from hurting other individuals. He sure wasn’t planning to track down an old flame that sputtered out almost before it was lit.
Besides, during his visits to Remington Paint Ranch over the years, which weren’t as often as they should have been, he never once ran into Audrey. Not at the feed store. Not at the post office. And not at the local diner where it seemed everyone passed through on the weekend to catch up on town happenings.
Audrey didn’t want to have any contact with him after she’d disappeared, or she would have reached out at some point. She’d been clear about breaking up and there wasn’t squat he could do about it then or now.
He’d come to understand she must have needed protection before. But now? She’d been back years and his number never changed.
Duke shook off the reverie. The morning sun beat down on him, indicating it would be another hot one. Texas heat had a bottom-of-his-boot-melting type of intensity. The summer had been brutal. Fall wasn’t turning out to be much better. With sweat already beading on his forehead, he grabbed his gym bag and started toward the back door.
His cell buzzed. He fished it out of his pocket.
“What’s up, Crystal?” he asked his older sister after checking the screen. Duke was the second born. Abilene, aka Abi, was the baby at twenty-eight years old. His sisters and cousins were US marshals. Each had their own reasons, but the seed had been planted long ago by their grandfather who’d been on the job to buy and support the ranch until he could work Remington Paint Ranch full time alongside his wife.
“First of all, how are they?” Crystal asked, referring to their grandparents.
“It’s as bad as we feared,” he admitted, raking his fingers through his hair. “They’re both in comas and the road to recovery might be rocky.”
“How soon do you need us there?” she asked.
“We can stick to the plan for now,” he said. “I just updated the group chat so we’re on the same page. Since we have to plan for the long haul, I think we should stick to the rotation we discussed.”
That rotation would have Crystal taking leave next.
“I’ll stop by as much as I can in the meantime,” she stated, sounding as tired as he felt. Being physically tired was one thing. This was emotional draining, which was worse.
“Sounds good,” he said on a sigh. Since he’d sent an update via the chat, this couldn’t be the main reason for her call. “What else is going on?”
“Heard some chatter coming from the western district that I thought you might want to check out while you’re in town,” Crystal said. Her ominous tone added to the dark cloud overhead.
“What is it?” he asked, figuring he could make time for a pit stop after breakfast if work needed him to go somewhere. If this wasn’t an emergency, he could use a shower and an hour or two of shut-eye.
Crystal hesitated, which caused Duke’s blood pressure to rise. “It might be nothing, however...”
“Go on,” he urged.
