Dust Storm

Chapter 1

Christian

Come on, squirrels-get a move on!" I hollered up the stairs.

"Dad!" one squirrel said with a giggle. "We're girls, not squirrels!"

The handheld radio sitting by the coffee pot crackled as my youngest brother, CJ, gave a report on the herd movement.

The nine thousand head of cattle that sprawled across the Griffith Brothers Ranch kept us on our toes, but what kept me busiest were the two tornadoes who were supposed to be getting ready for school.

When I didn't hear them moving upstairs, I set the spatula down and craned around the corner. "Bree! Gracie! Finish getting dressed, brush your hair, and brush your teeth!"

"I want braids!" Bree called as she thundered down the stairs with the stomp force of a linebacker.

"Me too!" Gracie echoed from their bathroom.

"No! I called braids. Do something else," Bree snapped.

"Hey! No fighting this early in the morning," I bellowed loud enough for them to hear me around the corner.

"But I called braids first!" Bree huffed as she stormed into the kitchen and grabbed a pancake off the fresh pile I had made.

I rinsed my hands off and did a quick towel dry. "You can both have braids."

"But she's copying me."

At thirteen, all Bree wanted was for eleven-year-old Gracie to stop following her around like a wide-eyed puppy.

It made me chuckle at the years Gretchen and I thought having two toddlers was bad. Now, I had two middle schoolers all on my own.

"Then I'll give you different braids," I said as I turned back to the stove and finished cooking the batch of pancakes. "Get the box."

Bree heaved the giant tackle box I used to organize all their hair accessories on top of the kitchen table and plopped down in a chair. I slid a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her to go with the pilfered pancake she'd stolen from the counter. She chowed down while I pawed through the little compartments full of elastics, hair clips, combs, brushes, and a million other things the girls insisted on.

"What kind of braids today?" I asked in a yawn as I ran a brush through her dirty-blonde hair, catching the few tangles she had missed.

"Fishtails," she said around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

"Tight or loose?"

"Loose. The puffy kind. With clips."

Life wasn't easy. There was running the ranch. There was fatherhood. There was finding time for myself, which usually fell by the wayside.

Doing it on my own sucked, but I never wanted my girls to feel like they were a burden. I wasn't great at everything. The way I'd stammered through the period talk with Bree a few months ago was proof of that.

But I tried.

Dammit, I tried hard.

Bree sat stock-still as I sectioned her hair and started weaving flat strands, one on top of the other.

Braids were easy. It was that fucking curling iron that was the death of me.

The burns on my fingers were proof of that.

By the time she finished her plate, I was tugging the neat fishtail braids so they were loose and puffy.

Apparently, tight braids weren't cool anymore.

"My turn!" Gracie said as she elbowed her way to the tackle box. "I want-"

"Not fishtail braids," Bree clipped.

I stifled an eye roll.

All I wanted was one morning where they weren't at each other's throats about who got what. Was that too much to ask?

I should have already been at work.

"I want a halo braid."

That seemed to appease Bree.

Gracie made a taco out of her pancake, filling it with eggs and a crumble of bacon before meeting me on the couch. She lay on her side and rested her head on my leg while I braided her hair into a crown.

As I was pinning the tail under the braid with a bobby pin, Bree called out, "Grandma's here!"

Gracie shot off the couch like a rocket.

"Lunches are in the fridge," I said as I cleared the couch of hair paraphernalia.

They shouldered their backpacks and stomped their shoes on. The fridge door slammed as they grabbed their respective lunchboxes.

No matter how much they begged to buy lunch at school, a homemade lunch meant I cared. It meant I put in the time and effort. Right?

Maybe I should just let them get lunch at school.

I ran a hand down the side of my beard as I watched them load up like pack mules.

My mom sat in her idling minivan as the girls bolted into the back and buckled up.

"Thanks," I said to Mom as I craned my head through the passenger window.

I tried to be all things for all people. Especially my people. And my daughters were my people.

After Gretchen passed, I grieved. I took a minimal amount of time to be selfish. And then I picked myself up and had to be dad and mom for my girls.

Unfortunately, there weren't enough hours in the day. So, I finally broke down and accepted help for things like school drop-off and pickup.

"Any time," she said over a sip of coffee from her thermos. "Don't forget about that consultant coming in today."

I scoffed over the symphony of buckling seatbelts. "Pretty sure I said that was a you problem. I'm not the one who hired her."

Mom snickered. "I'm not either. Becks is the one who recommended her, and you know better than to act ugly to your sister-in-law."

I chuckled, thinking about the sharp-tongued war correspondent my older brother fell in love with while he was deployed.

Yeah, I knew better than to mess with Becks.

"Your dad thinks it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. Be on your best behavior and I'll leave you be until dinner."

I shuffled down to the open side door, leaning in to drop kisses on Bree and Gracie's foreheads. "Have a good day. Love you."

"Love you, Daddy," they said in chorus.

I rolled the door closed and watched as the van lumbered down the dirt path toward the service road that would take them into town.

I glanced at my watch. Not even seven fifteen yet.

I jogged back up the porch steps and headed inside, snagging a pancake for myself on the way. I trapped it between my teeth as I stole Gracie's purple hairbrush and used it to untangle my hair. I worked the knots out of the ends that hung past my shoulders before tying it into a bun.

"Boss, you there?"

I picked up the radio. "Go ahead."

CJ's voice crackled on the line. "Fence is down on the west border."

"You need me out there?"

"Nah," he said. "Just letting you know."

"I'll be in the office most of the day taking care of vax records. Holler if you need something."

"10-4."

Sadie came wandering in, her brindle tail thumping with excitement as she looked up at me.

"Sorry, girl. No cows for you today. Gotta do paperwork."

She huffed, loping to the door as I slid on my boots and clipped the radio to my belt.

I emptied the coffee pot into a travel mug and jogged down the steps, not bothering to lock up.

There was a benefit to living on the ranch that had been in my family for generations. I could leave the door unlocked for the girls when they got home from school. I could leave my keys in my truck. And, while there was a limit to how far I'd let them go on their own, Bree and Gracie had plenty of space to run free.

My brother, Nate, had found peace in a war zone. But me?

I stepped out and surveyed the land as the February sun peeked over the horizon.

This was my kingdom.


My kingdom could go to hell.

I pinched the bridge of my nose to ward off a migraine and wondered which Griffith was to blame for saddling me with a legacy of cattle ranching.

Fuckin' animals trying to kill themselves.

The AC window unit sputtered as a steady drip thwopped into the bucket beneath it. At least it kept the condensation from pooling on the floor.

I'd gone through the vaccine records with a fine-tooth comb to make sure nothing was out of place. Bills had been paid. A sticky note with a hydraulic oil pressure switch I needed to get was in the trash after the order had been placed. I was waiting on a call from the livestock vet we kept on retainer, but waiting for that call was like watching paint dry. She was a busy woman.

Honestly, I missed doing what CJ did every day. I missed the camaraderie of working the land with the rest of the crew. I missed saddling up before daybreak and not returning to the stables until after sunset.

From the looks of things, Sadie, the ranch's retired cattle dog, missed it too.

But taking over for my dad on the management side gave him a chance to retire and gave me a more stable schedule so I could prioritize the girls. CJ had stepped up to fill my old role and thrived in it.

It was great for everyone else.

I glanced at the clock. The girls were at dance class, and if the vet hadn't called by now . . .

I pushed out of the rolling desk chair that was decades past its prime and whistled for Sadie as I grabbed my hat and dropped it on my head.

"C'mon, girl."

She trotted along obediently toward the barn.

Libby, the thoroughbred American quarter horse I had been riding since I was in my twenties, let out a blustering huff as I tacked her up.

Sadie looked antsy, prancing around the barn as I mounted Libby and gripped the reins, guiding her out of the barn.

Libby let loose when we rounded the corner and headed away from the barn and outbuildings. She grunted, hooves thundering into the dirt.

When the conglomerate of structures turned to a speck in the distance, the stress began to loosen and melt away. Clean air and sunshine surrounded me. Sadie bolted like a bullet from a gun.

Maybe we were all a little stir-crazy.

I used the spur-of-the-moment ride to survey the near side of the property to make sure nothing was out of place.

After a few miles, Sadie looked like she was tuckered out. I tugged on the reins and slowed Libby to a canter as we rounded the corner to Nate's house.

No one was home.

Huh. That was weird. Nate and Becks had a pipe burst yesterday and were in the process of fixing the sopping mess. Becks was on maternity leave from her job as an international news correspondent. She should have been there.

Apart from my momma, I hadn't seen any vehicles leaving the property today through the cameras.

Shit.

Libby must've sensed my urgency as I nudged her into a gallop again. The dog peeled off and trotted down the path to my place, but I headed for the front gate.

Becks sat on the porch of my parents' house, her hands over her baby bump as she watched dust plume from the tires of a sedan as it peeled down the drive.

Her red hair was tied up in a bun on top of her head, and she held a glass of tea. As far as sisters-in-law went, I'd take her. She was a far cry from Nate's first wife, Vanessa.

As much as I hated seeing him torn up about it in the moment, none of us were surprised when they divorced. What surprised the hell out of us was seeing him on TV, rescuing a reporter out of rubble while he was deployed.

But it worked out well for them. Now, Bree and Gracie were over the moon to be getting a cousin.

I slowed Libby a safe distance from the house, giving myself a chance to watch as the sedan stopped. The doors opened, and a man hopped out from the driver's side.

The guy wrinkled his nose, sneering at the scenery.

Great.

Becks had hooked us up with some uptight city slicker. This was gonna go over like a fart in church.

Libby let out a displeased grunt.

Then the other door opened.

Blonde hair danced on the wind like rays of gold. The woman straightened and turned, studying her surroundings through the privacy of an oversized pair of sunglasses.

Libby eased forward, letting me steal a look at her from behind.

She had a pair of fuck-me legs and an ass to match.

Her fingers flexed as she grabbed the door and slammed it shut. The sun caught something shiny on her hand.

A goddamn engagement ring.

Chapter 2

Cassandra

Exiled. A smoke trail lingered in my wake as I fled Manhattan like an outlaw on the run. Seventeen hundred miles sat between me and the life I had worked tirelessly to construct.

We need time for things to cool down.

The situation is too volatile.

We'll bring you back once a new scandal has everyone's attention.

I hated Texas already. The air was so fresh it was nauseating. The breeze was giving me a headache.

Tripp cut his eyes at me as he guided the rental car down the poorly paved service road. "I don't think a media blackout includes checking the headlines."

"I need to see how they're spinning it."

With a snap of his wrist, Tripp confiscated my phone. "Lillian isn't your problem anymore."

"She's still a problem."

"Well, she's my problem now," he stated with an odd mix of dismissiveness and finality.

That was the problem with being engaged to a colleague. Well . . . Technically, Tripp was my boss.

But that was just semantics.

I looked down at the diamond glinting on my finger, willing it to become a shooting star.

I would have wished for a time machine to take me back to the beginning of the week when I had a job. When I was respected in my field. When I wasn't being banished to the Lone Star state by my boss turned fiancé.

I settled back in my seat, closed my eyes, and counted to three. "I'm not sure why you think it's a good idea to hide me away on some ranch. And stop trying to convince me it's a business development project. We both know I'm being put in time-out."

Tripp reached for my hand, but I snatched it away. I wasn't feeling particularly affectionate at the moment.

Swallow a demotion and take the project Rebecca Davis-now Rebecca Griffith-offered, or start looking for other employment.

Tripp called it crisis management. I called it an ultimatum.