Page 1 of Cade’s Quest (The McIntyres #1)

Chapter One

A fly buzzed around a powerful roan’s face, finally alighting on his eye.

The gelding shook his head to shoo it off, the muscles on one flank twitching.

The worn saddle leather creaked as Cade McIntyre adjusted his weight in the saddle, his gaze riveted on a dilapidated farmhouse that he’d once called home no more than three hundred yards away.

Nothing moved except the pesky fly and a lonesome windmill’s blades turning lazily in the breeze provided the only sound.

The fly continued to buzz around, turning attention to Cade. When it finally settled on his arm, he swatted it good, then flicked the dead pest off.

Memories swirled around Cade and deep sadness took root.

He pined for the happy, carefree life he’d known as a boy and for the parents who’d brought him and his five siblings into the world.

He closed his eyes for a moment and he could almost hear them running and playing in front of the home they’d had.

Another memory surfaced. The door squeaked and their mother called them to supper as their father hurried from the barn to wash up.

It all seemed so real and with a jolt, he had to remember everyone was gone.

Cade cleared his throat of the lump blocking it and touched a heel to the roan’s side to nudge him forward.

They rode up to the house that looked as broken as Cade felt inside.

He dismounted, wondering why he’d bothered to come back.

It had been four years since the raiders had swooped in, murdering his parents on a blustery fall day.

They stole everything they could find, took the herds and rode on, unconcerned about what their actions could do to six children and how their lives would never be the same.

Maybe the longing inside for family drove him back. Everyone yearned for a place to belong and people who loved them, but Cade felt it all the way down to the soles of his feet. He’d been named Cadence McIntyre after a great grandfather who’d come over from Ireland and he wore the name proudly.

The morning of the raid, the oldest of them, Jess, had ridden over to Tascosa to buy some more horses to increase the size of their herd and to pick up some things for their mother.

Sixteen-year-old Summer had taught at the Donley one-room schoolhouse, filling in until they could hire a new teacher.

Cade, twins Logan and Lucas, and Ashland, the youngest of their brood, had been at school only to come home to the sickening horror.

The twins wailed, clinging to each other and Ashland sat down next to their mother in the gore and sobbed.

The smell of blood still seemed to linger in the air as it had that day.

Four years hadn’t been long enough to forget staring into their mother’s face frozen in death and seeing a fly on her cheek.

Stunned and in shock, Cade rode for help, fear and hopelessness in his throat so thick and black he couldn’t swallow.

He’d had to stop and empty his belly more than once and when he reached some men, he could barely get the words out.

Glass crunched under his boots and mice scurried to hide as he stepped inside, his throat still blocked by that blackness.

Destruction lay in every direction. Broken dishes scattered about amid the few toys.

Tears bubbled in his eyes, and he swallowed hard.

His beautiful mother would be equally horrified to see her dishes covered with silt and a layer of dust littering the floor.

Their lives had been torn asunder in the senseless killing.

However, theirs wasn’t the only place the raiders stopped.

He’d heard the men talking about a string of them, one after another, on the marauders’ bloody rampage.

In fact, five of the neighboring spreads had also caught the brunt of the savagery.

They’d even burned one house to the ground in the senseless violence.

Then, if that wasn’t enough, a tornado had apparently finished with what was left. The plow had gone through the roof and a large section of the shingles had been ripped away.

Wiping his eyes on a sleeve, Cade scanned the room, spying a piece of red fabric sticking from the mess of broken dishes.

He bent to pick it up and pulled out his little sister’s doll.

The sudden recollection of Ashland wagging the doll everywhere she went was too much.

The deluge broke as he clung to the doll, sobbing.

Everything they’d known and loved had been stripped from them in the blink of an eye.

Gone.

Cade hurried out the door and collapsed on the porch. “Why? Why?”

Where were his brothers and sisters now? What had happened to them?

Well-meaning do-gooders had immediately split them all up, even the twins, saying it was best. Cade vaguely remembered a couple on a wagon train taking one of the twins—Lucas, he thought. But where?

They’d told him nothing. By the time Jess had returned home, he must’ve been greeted by this same emptiness where once a close-knit family had lived. What had his older brother thought? Had he even tried to find them?

Except for Jess, the siblings had stood in a line in front of the church pulpit and folks claimed them one by one like they were cattle to be sold. No one offered to take all or even two. The twins had clung to each other, crying, yet it had done no good.

Nor had anyone listened to Summer saying she and Jess were old enough to raise their siblings.

A man, stinking to high heaven, had latched on to Cade’s arm and took him down on the Red River to his camp where they built a home out of cedar.

Tom Abernathy treated him kindly for the most part.

But the times when liquor had stolen the man’s senses were terrifying, precipitating the need to hide until he’d sobered. The man had passed on a month back.

Now Cade was older and wiser. The dangerous country made it necessary to wear a gun, which he’d become expert at using. For all his flaws, Tom had taught him how to stay alive and to trust no one.

Cade sat on the broken steps and looked out over the wide expanse that used to be home to a good-sized herd of cattle. But the mustangs had been their father’s real pride. All stolen.

Buck, his gelding, lifted his head curiously for a moment then returned to nibbling on some sprigs of buffalo grass. The roan probably wondered if he’d lost his mind.

Other than the plaguing memories, Cade was fine.

The past was a strange thing. It could make you happy or sad or both at the same time. Of late, the immense loss had occupied most of his heart. He didn’t know how long he sat there, but the sunset was one he was glad he hadn’t missed.

Wide bands of deep pumpkin and plum colored the sky with the fading sun blending it all in a dizzying kaleidoscope of color. He’d never seen anything so beautiful.

It had to be a sign of something.

A slamming door behind brought him to his feet with a spurt of hope. “Jess, is that you? Are you back? Jess?”

But only the creak of the windmill answered. Dejected, he sat back down.

A sudden decisive thought filled him. He had to find his siblings and bring them all back together as a family. They were still the McIntyres.

Though the murdering raiders had slaughtered their parents and stolen everything they could carry, they couldn’t take the name that meant so much.

McIntyres stood for determination and strength of Irish blood running in their veins, and pride burst inside him.

He’d find a way to restore most of what was stolen. Somehow.

“Wherever you are, I’ll find you if I have to go to the ends of the earth,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “I ’spect it won’t be easy, but I’ll do it.”

He’d once heard a man say that the past was in his head and the future in his hands. There was something about having a future to hold onto that made living worthwhile and maybe when the McIntyres were back together again, Cade would know certain satisfaction.

But four years was a long time. Jess and Summer might’ve found a mate and settled down.

They’d both be somewhere around early twenties.

Maybe they even had some children. Likely, they wouldn’t be interested in getting back together.

If so, he’d gather the three little ones.

They needed to know they were loved and wanted by their own kin.

For years when he lived on the Red River, he’d dreamed of Jess coming for him. Only he hadn’t.

Plans circled in his head as he climbed into Buck’s saddle and pointed the horse toward town. At least it was a place to start.