Читать книгу Lassoing the Deputy - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 9

Prologue

He almost hadn’t seen it.

The letter had arrived in his mailbox early this afternoon, tucked in between meaningless advertisements, flyers and catalogs offering him everything from overpriced steaks, uniquely packed and shipped overnight to his Beverly Hills apartment, to useless toys and gadgets only “the discerning professional could appreciate”—or hope to pay for, for that matter.

He’d tossed the lot of them into the garbage, but his aim was off and several pieces of mail fell to the kitchen floor instead of into the silver garbage pail.

He stooped to pick up the fallen pieces in order to throw them away, and that was when he found his grandfather’s letter stuck in between the catalogs.

Even so, he almost hadn’t opened the envelope.

He loved the man dearly. Harry Taylor was his only living relative and the best person—man or woman—that he knew, but the ever-widening dark vortex where he had resided these past four months was growing too large for him to crawl out of anymore.

He wanted his pain, his guilt to finally be over.

Others might have forgiven him for what had happened, but he couldn’t forgive himself, and lately, the burden had gotten to be too much for him to handle.

But the letter continued to call to him.

His grandfather, who staunchly refused to have anything to do with “modern nonsense” like computers or the internet, preferred to communicate the old-fashioned way and had written the letter using pen and paper.

Holding the envelope in his hand, Cash Taylor smiled for the first time in weeks, thinking fondly of the man who had written this.

His grandfather had always been there for him, taking him and his mother in when his father was killed in a freak accident on an offshore oil rig. And the man became his sole guardian when his mother died less than a year later, losing her battle with cancer.

A simple, hardworking, decent man, his grandfather knew nothing about what had happened, what was going on presently in his life.

His days on the ranch and living in Forever represented the best years of his life, Cash recalled, not for the first time.

Very slowly, he opened the letter. It wasn’t a long missive, as his grandfather had never been enamored with his own words. Consequently, the letter was incredibly short.

I’m getting hitched again, boy. To Miss Joan! Can you believe it? I finally wore her down. Wedding’s on a Saturday in three weeks. I know you’re real busy, but it would really make me proud to have you there, standing up for me. I miss you, boy.

Grandpa

That was all.

Folding the letter again, Cash tucked it back into the envelope. There was an ache in his soul, a yearning for what had once been.

“I miss you, too, Grandpa,” he whispered. “More than you could possibly know.”

In all the years that he had lived with the man, his grandfather had never come right out and asked him for a favor. But this invitation was clearly a request for a favor—his presence at the ceremony.

Cash looked at the gun he’d purchased just this week. The gun he’d bought to put him out of his misery.

The same gun, it now occurred to him, that would put his grandfather into misery.

He couldn’t pay the old man back for everything he’d done, for all his kindness, love and patience by killing himself. It wouldn’t be right or fair.

Cash picked up the weapon and crossed to his lavish bedroom with its vaulted ceiling and marble-tiled fireplace. He slipped the gun into the back of the bottom drawer of his bureau.

Disappointing his grandfather was not an option.

He was going to the wedding. There was time enough when he got back to do what he felt he had to do.

It wasn’t until later that he realized the invitation was a lifeline he’d grabbed on to and held with both hands.

His grandfather had saved him for a second time.