Page 13 of Caleb’s Cause (Broken Wheel Ranch #12)

Everyone looked at Katherine and she only shrugged and held her hands away from her body.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.

I’m putting my life in your hands, so I’ll have to trust you to keep me safe.

Mom told me that when I reach Emily Riceman and tell her my story, then she will help me. ”

“Well,” Erin said on a heavy sigh as she opened the box she’d gone to the attic to get.

She took out several items and laid them on the table.

“I’m not Emily, and I don’t know who this is, but this is Clark’s and my mother from when she was younger.

” As she talked, Clark had come to stand beside her and looked at the photos before she passed them across the table to Katherine.

Kathrine frowned as she leaned in to look at them.

She didn’t want to touch in case she ruined them, but the second she saw the top one, she reached in and grabbed it.

“Oh my gosh, this is Mom.” She looked at Erin and Clark.

“She has this exact same photo on our wall at home. Every time I ask her about it, she said that the other girl is her best friend.” She quickly looked at the others, and by the time she was done, she and Erin both had tears running down their faces.

No one said a word when Clark grabbed a napkin and wiped the corner of his eyes, then blew his nose hard.

It took several attempts to clear his throat before he could talk.

“Well, I think that established that you knew Mom, or at least your mother did Do you know if any of your mother’s family is still in this area?”

“No,” Virgil answered before Katherine had a chance to answer.

He looked at Katherine with a raised brow.

“You said your mother’s last name was Smith?

” He pointed to the photos still in the middle of the table.

He looked at the two older men that had been on Erin’s Way for decades, and while looking at them, to see if they could gauge where he was going with his questioning, he talked to Katherine.

“Do you have any grandparents on your mother’s side. ”

“No.”

“Oh, shit,” Wendell said in shock, and whipped around to see if Floyd caught on. He looked directly at Katherine. “Does your mother talk about her parents?”

“No, whenever I asked, she’d get all quiet and say they were no longer alive. What’s going on?”

“Damn,” Floyd finally understood and the three older men exchanged looks. Wendell went to refill their coffee cups, and when Katherine started to say something, Erin gently laid her hand on her forearm and shook her head at her. She mouthed, “Wait.”

It took a few minutes, but after the men had settled at the table, across from Katherine, the women had moved down to give them room, Virgil began, but first, he reached out and took a photo.

“As Erin said, us guys have been on Erin’s Way for a long time.

I think when this photo was taken, was around the time we started here.

Give or take a few years. Since these two look to be between ten and twelve, we didn’t know either of them at this time.

” He looked at her and shook his head sadly.

“However, there had been a rumor going on around the time we arrived here.”

“Yeah,” Floyd said in disgust. “We got caught up in it. I can’t tell you how many times the police came here to question us.”

“Why?” Every person in the room asked. This was the first time these three men talked about their pasts to anyone.

“I can’t speak for Virgil or Wendell, but I was what the police called a drifter. Maybe I was, but I didn’t think so.”

“What’s that mean?” Caleb asked.

“It means that I was kicked out of my home at the age of sixteen. But not before getting in a gigantic fight with my step-father. I only had the clothes on my back, and I went to a friend’s house.

See, he and his family knew about the abuse I received at that man’s hand.

When I arrived, I had a black eye, and it was partially swollen shut.

Anyway, my friend let me keep some things there, clothes and such, and whenever I came into any money, I kept it there.

” He shook his head as he sipped his coffee and stared off into space, but he kept talking,

“I know this has nothing to do with the original subject, but I think it might be important in the future. Anyway, I went to my friend’s house, and his parents were appalled by my appearance.

See, my friend always told his parents what I was going through.

I don’t think they really believed us until they saw the damage.

Anyway, I told my friend I had been kicked out, and I was there to collect my clothes and money.

The clothes I was wearing at the time were ripped and bloody.

After I changed, my friend’s mother made me sit down and eat with them.

Then her husband informed me that I would be spending the night. I was too tired to argue.”

“What happened next?” Someone asked.

“I slept hard for the first time in weeks. I didn’t have to sleep with one eye open fearing the asshole would come in and beat me.

His reason for that was, and I quote, ‘because I can’.

Anyway, the next morning was a Saturday.

I had packed my clothes, got my money and when I went to thank my friend’s parents, they handed me an envelope.

I refused to take it, and my friend’s father said if I didn’t take it, he would take me back to my house.

I took it.” He looked at them with a small smile.

“Then he drove me to the bus station, bought me a ticket, and I left. When the bus reached its destination, I walked to town, it was only a few miles.” He looked directly at Katherine then.

“I understand you wanting to walk. There was a rodeo in town, and though I didn’t ride the animals, I found a rancher where I could get hired on as the help.

Around the time I was twenty-one, that rancher passed, the family sold the farm, and I was out of a job.

I was bumming around from ranch to ranch until I found Erin’s Way.

I’ve been here ever since.” He looked at Clark and Erin directly.

“Your granddaddy operated the farm then. Your daddy was this age.” He pointed to the pictures of the girls.

“Oh, wow, thank you for your story, but what does this have to do with you being questioned by the police?”

“We all were,” Wendell said. “I had a similar situation, except for the step-father, mine was my mother’s boyfriends, yes, that was plural. Erin’s Way was the first ranch I came to, and your Grandfather took me under his wing. I was twenty.”

“My story is similar, except it was my mother that kicked me out. I refused to hand over my paycheck to her. I lied and said I was sixteen when I got my first job, but I was fourteen. I got here a couple of weeks after Wendell, and a couple before Floyd.” He looked at the other two men with a confused look.

“We all arrived within a six-week period, right?”

“Right.”

“At this time of our arrival, there was this big police case going on. It wasn’t until it was all over, and maybe a couple years after that, that everything was finally sorted out.”

“What was it?” Katherine asked in shock.

“Murder/suicide. At first, they thought it was a drifter, but after really looking at all the evidence, and finally listening to the people they interviewed, it turned out that the husband had been drunk, he had taken some drugs that made him paranoid, and he accused his wife of cheating on him because their daughter was at her friend’s house.

In his drug-induced mind, that was her way of getting with the guy.

She denied it all, but in a rampage, he killed her, then killed himself.

” He looked around the table, shook his head sadly, and looked directly at Katherine.

“I’m sorry, but all I knew about this at the time was that the family name was Smith.

The little girl had been with her friend until they cleaned up the mess, then an aunt and uncle came and whisked her away. ”

“Shit,” Katherine said as she looked around wildly. She reached out to grip Caleb’s hand and the contact made her feel grounded and safe.

“What?” Caleb asked as he wrapped an arm around her in an effort to add more comfort.

“Once, back when I asked about my grandparents, Mom mentioned that she had been raised by her Aunt and Uncle, but that’s all she said. I knew they were gone by the time she met my Dad. My real Dad. I think she was in college and in her early twenties when that happened.”

“Wow, so this murder/suicide might be her parents?”

“It might, I only told you this because at the time of our arrival, this shit was happening, and I remember Mr. Riceman, their Granddaddy consoling his son, because the girl he liked was distraught that her best friend was taken away in the middle of the night. It all fits with the police case being your grandparents.”

“Damn,” almost everyone at the table said, and no one said a word for what felt like hours but was only for a few minutes.

Katherine, with her hand still holding Caleb’s, reached up and wiped the corner of her eye and looked at the Riceman siblings. “Would it be okay if I stay here?”

“Yes,” both Erin and Clark said at the same time.

“Duane is checking out the case file you had with you, he’s going to make a few phone calls, and I think if the women and Caleb can keep an eye on you between Broken and Broken Two, then the men and I can strengthen the outside perimeter. You will be safe here with us.”

Katherine nodded, then to ease the tension and sadness, she looked at Reid with a grin. “So, can I meet your girlfriend?” That caused everyone to laugh, and they soon broke up to go back to work. Katherine was told to wait until Caleb could take her over to the ranch.