Chapter five

YeeHaw!! We are in Texas baby!!

Chapter 5

Meanwhile at the Jamison Ranch, Lakeway Texas

            “One of us should have gone with you.” Aaron told his younger brother David. “You probably scared her off.”

            “I offered you the choice.” David reminded Aaron. “Y’all  had no interest in going up to Boston to meet a stranger, was your exact words.”

            “I voted to not tell her at all. We’ve gone this long without her, makes no difference.” Aaron grumbled.

            “Not going to blame her for our fathers’ mistake. Everyone should have a chance to know their family.” This argument was one they had been having since they found out they had a sister 6 months ago.

            “She has a family.”

            They were a close knit family and it was hard to welcome outsiders. David was of like mind at first but his wife Ashley convinced him that she deserved to know where she came from. Everyone deserved the truth. Could be she did not want anything to do with us, but at least he tried.

            “Do you think she will come?” Eric the youngest brother asked.

            “I don’t know.” David was sitting outside the main house of the ranch drinking a beer with his brothers and his brother in law Brian. Who was also a close family friend.  “I think curiosity will get the best of her.”

            Brian was leaning up against the post of the porch smoking a Marlboro. His long legs crossed at the ankles. He was eyeing the beer everybody was drinking. He did not drink. Too afraid of turning into his father. He had inherited enough of his father, he did not want his affinity for the bottle chasing him the rest of this life either.

            “Bad idea invited her down here.” He scowled at the brothers. “Jonas is sick and easy pickings for someone with the mind to take advantage of him.”

            “She already comes from decent money. No need for ours.” David had told them about his own impression of Cassidy. She came across as scared. Her world had just been tilted. He felt some guilt for that, but it could not be helped. She deserved to know where she came from. By blood she had rights part of the inheritance his father would leave behind. He doubted she wanted any part of it. Too angry at the man who fathered her. She also came across as stubborn. Too independent to take what his father felt as rightfully hers.

            “She is a woman, they always want more.” It was not that Brian had a low opinion of women. He loved women. More in the physical sense then an emotional one. Except his sister; he would do anything for his sister.

            “I take offense to that Brian Montgomery.” Ashley came out the front door carrying two glasses of lemonade that Ms. Bell, the houses’ caretaker, had made. She handed one to Brian. “You can’t judge this poor girl for the circumstances. If she wants to come down here to get to know this family, she has every right. She may not have been raised with the rest of us, but she is still blood.”

            Ashley was more sympathetic. She knew what it was like to feel like she did not belong anywhere. Her mother died when she was a baby and her father a drunk. Brian had raised her and then when they met the Jamison they had taken over that roll. Well they tried. Brian felt that responsibility was on him. He was only a teenager when it fell on his shoulders. Her big brother was an amazing man, but she felt he took too much on.

            They grew up on the ranch, and she fell in love with David on this ranch. She never saw him as a brother like she did Aaron and Eric. She knew at the young age of 10 she would be married to him one day. He was 4 years older than her, but he never treated her as an annoying younger sister.  They were married the day she turned 18. His parents could not have been happier.

            “Ashley is right Brian.” Aaron sent a sympathetic look towards Brian. It was never fun being on the scolding end of Ashley. “We want to know her also. It was not fair of Dad to keep her from us. It was not fair to her either. If…when…she comes down we will welcome her with open arms.”

            It was a decree. Since Jonas was sick, Aaron was the head of the family with him being the oldest. Brian was actually older, but since he was not a Jamison that did not count. Brian respected his brothers, not by blood but by heart, and he tipped his head in agreement. If the long lost sister did make a visit to the ranch, he would be keeping a close eye on her. He would always protect those who took him and his sister in when they no one else to turn to.

            They spent the rest of the evening on the porch drinking and watching the sun go down. A Texas sunset was a powerful thing. The way the different hues of pink, purple and blue blended across the sky could be awe inspiring. Brian could not imagine living anywhere but here. He loved Texas with its miles and miles of farms, industry booming on long highways through the small towns, and when he felt like being more social and sometimes when work called for it, it was only a short 30 minutes to Austin. He did not want have to deal with some urbanite from Boston. The papers Jonas had on her said she was from Tennessee, but after spending the past 4 or 5 years in Boston would change a small town girl. He had seen it happen.

            His high school girlfriend took off to New York for school after graduation. She made the required visits during breaks to visit him and her hometown. He started seeing changed in her after the first year. She started to complain about his hours working on the ranch, and how there was nothing to do, and then she started to complain about him. He was just to country. He needed to citify himself so he could fit in better with her friends. He liked himself just fine. He reminded her that she used to also. She stopped coming down for visits and that was that. It was all too easy for her to forget her roots once she got to New York. Big City life would never be for him. He preferred being able to see the stars at night.

            “Mr. Jamison! Mr. Jamison!” The voice of one of the cowhands interrupted Brian’s thoughts. “The cow barn is on fire! Come quickly!”

            All the men jumped up and took off towards the barn. Ashley ran back inside to call the fire department. This was the 2^nd fire this week. When the brothers arrived at the barn it was already consumed by fire. Nothing they could do but wait for the firemen. There were no cows being stored in it that night. They were the pasture on the other side of the ranch. This barn was used for storing feed and other equipment. Which was most likely all lost.

            “D****t to hell! There was about $10,000 worth of equipment in that barn!” Kicking a piece of debris Brian made his way over to the fire chief as he walked over to where the men were standing.

            “Chief Douglas this is the second fire. No way was it accidental.”

            “We have not had a chance to investigate the cause.” He spit some tobacco on the ground and his gaze looked out over at his men putting what was left of the fire out. “This is an old barn. Could have been somebody left some equipment running and it started the fire.”

            “Now that is just a load of s**t. These boys know better and with the fire last week it was no damn accident.” Brian spat back. Angry at the Chief for putting the blame on them and those who worked for them. He was the ranch manager and he did not hire idiots.

            “Just let me and my boys do our jobs. We will let you know what we find” With that the Chief walked off.

            “I smell gasoline.” David mentioned as he walked up next to Brian. “Somebody used an accelerant. They made sure it was going to burn fast.”

            “Chief is taking his own sweet time coming to that conclusion. Hell he will probably say it was the gasoline in the tractor.” It was more than the fires. Cattle were missing or dead. Somebody was trying their damndest to sabotage the ranch.

            “Maybe.” David lit a cigarette. He normally does not smoke and definitely not in front of Ashley, but he felt the occasion called for it. “Maybe he is smarter than he lets on. I heard from Maggie that he was down at the Thompson ranch after the last fire. Checking into their cattle and financials.”

            “They have never shown any dislike to any of us. We share a pasture for God’s sake.”

            “Just saying he seems to be checking out all of his options. I don’t think it’s them either, but somebody wants us to suffer a loss, and if this keeps up we will. Bad enough we have to rebuild two barns.”

            “Should not listen to Maggie anyways, she is always trying to stir something up.” Maggie worked down at the small grocery store. She just graduated from high school and was another woman who had dreams of the big city. Why can’t a woman be happy with what she has? Brian would drive himself crazy with that question.

            After the fire was put out and the last fireman had left they made their way back up the house. They were dirty with ash and dirt and were tired from the late hour and the search from anything salvageable. Nothing was; not with how hot and fast that fire burned. Aaron decided to head to his little cabin located on the property he shared with Brian and Luke, but Brian decided to crash at the main house in case there was any more problems to be dealt with.

            Brian used the downstairs bathroom to shower. He still had not calmed down from all the adrenaline, so he fixed him some lemonade and sat down at the small breakfast table in the large country kitchen. He noticed some pictures sitting out and picked one up. It was a picture of Cassidy. David had managed to sneak one in when he saw her at the park. Her hair was down brushing her shoulders while she had a nose in a book. A coffee and some trash was sitting next to her on the bench. She was a tiny thing, but a lot of women were compared to his 6’2’’ frame.

            He could see the Jamison features in her nose and cheekbones. He imagined she got those lips from her mother. No Jamison has pouty lips. No Jamison spent their time reading either. Too busy running a ranch. She looked like your average spoiled college co-ed. She was wearing a bright yellow button up sweater that hugged her breast very nicely and from what he could tell she filled her jeans out just as nicely. Her black knee high boots were made more for fashion then living on a ranch. He wondered if she was as prissy as she looked.

            He imagined they would see her soon enough. If not for the temptation to meet her brothers, then for the temptation of the Jamison legacy she had probably researched by now. If she was as smart as David said and as smart as she looked, then she did.

            “Yes Miss Beauchamp, expect me to be stuck to you like glue if you make it down here.” He said to the picture of the pretty brunette. The fact she was pretty would not hurt either. After finishing his glass and putting it in the sink, Ms. Bell would skin his hide if he left his glass on the table, he made his way to one of the spare bedrooms.

            He did not dream, as he rarely did anyways, but as he closed his eyes he envisioned bright blue eyes staring at him and perfect cupid lips whispering his name.

∞

            Cassidy was wide awake in her childhood bedroom; Lying under a comforter that smelled of lilacs. Rain has started to pelt her bedroom window only an hour before and while normally she found that soothing, she found sleep eluding her. Her parents had come clean. Telling her of how her mother met Jonas and when she was rejected she came to Tennessee to stay with family.

            Her father had met her when she was 5 months pregnant with Cassidy and had fallen instantly in love with the small pregnant working as a clerk at a gas station en route to his work. They made small talk and it quickly turned into a romance.  Her father married her mother and claimed her as his own child. She loved her father even more for that.

            She did not mourn the loss of knowing her brothers or her biological father, she had a good childhood. She loved her parents and the chance they have given her to make something of herself. While they did not like all of her choices, they somewhat grudgingly respected her independent nature.

            Her mother claimed Jonas was not a bad man, he made a choice that was best for the family he already had.  She was more forgiving in nature than Cassidy. Cassidy was still angry at a man who could abandon his child so easily. She was however curious of the men who were her brothers. She was an only child and thought it would have been nice to have some siblings. So she would take a chance.

            Cassidy would have to talk to her professors first. All of the classes she was taking could be taken online. She could finish without having to be in Boston. She would have to quit the bookstore, but that was no big deal, her parents would help out while she introduced herself to her other family.

            She knew that this journey would be not be an easy one emotionally, but it was a journey she felt she needed to take. She would spend a week or two here with her parents then make the trip to Texas. She hoped they welcomed her.  She hoped she welcomed them. She wondered what having big brothers would be like. With them being all adults it most likely won’t be what she had always envisioned having siblings was like. Though she imagined they would argue. It was in her nature to argue. She saw that in David as well.

            With those thoughts in her head she drifted off to sleep. David was not chasing her in her dreams now. Instead she was being chased by a large cow. Yup, Texas was going to be fun.