Page 3 of The Mountain Echoes

Ah fuck!

“He sleeping withher?” I ask Bree.

“Maybe. He’s known to…ah…keep busy with the women.”

See, this is how Miss Perfect works. She sleeps around, strategically, though. She probably managed to get this guy into bed because he buys ranches, and she’s been wanting to get rid of the ranch for as long as she’s been old enough to know that half the ranch would be hers.

Maverick Kincaid clearly has the morals of a pig—carrying on an affair with a married woman like it’s nothing. Honestly, it’s a match made in hell. Two people with no integrity, perfectly suited to tear through other people’s lives without a shred of remorse.

The man ishandsome. I have to give him that.

He paints quite a picture in worn jeans, scuffed cowboy boots, a black button-down, and a cowboy hat in hand.

His face is all hard lines and sun-weathered skin that speaks of long days outdoors.

His jaw looks sharp enough to slice through hay.

His dark hair is just a little too long, probably the kind that curls at the edges of his collar when it gets wet.

Clean-shaven—thank God. If he had a beard, he’d look like he belonged on a 1950s wanted poster.

He stands like a man used to being listened to.

Tall, broad across the chest, shoulders built from real labor, not gym reps.

But it’s his eyes that tell me this man is cold as a Colorado winter. They’re ice blue. And even when hesmiles as he did when he looked at Celine, they’re not soft—they’re like cut glass.

If I had to take a guess, this man doesn’t lose his temper. He doesn’t get angry. He gets even.

He also doesn’t give a shit about anyone but getting what he wants.

How badly does he want Longhorn Ranch? And how will he react when I tell him I’m not interested in selling, regardless of what Celine wants?

I watch as the last shovelful of earth falls over an opulent casket that doesn’t suit Rami Delgado.

Papa didn’t want anything fancy. He told Nadine and Earl Cotter, the ranch foreman and Papa’s long-time friend, that he wanted to be buried on Longhorn, but Celine insisted that he be laid to rest next to Mama.

Frances Ackerman Delgado, may her soul rest in peace if it can, was a Catholic who hated the ranch and was buried in the cemetery where there were plots of land secured for Celine, Celine’s husband, me, my husband if I ever had one, our kids….

Papa hadn’t left any legally binding instructions about where or how he wanted to be buried—not a word through a damn lawyer or notary—so Celine did whatever she wanted. I’d only arrived last night, too late to stop anything. Her decisions were already in motion, and there was nothing I could do.

In any case, Papa was dead, and like he said, “When I’m dead, I won’t give two shits about what y’all do out here in the world of the living. I’ll be in hell. I’ll have other problems.”

I smile as I remember his irreverence.

A sob tears through my sister, and then a howl as she folds herself into Hudson’s arms like she’s on the cover ofGrief Magazine.

Her husband pats her back, keeping a bland face.

He probably knows her by now. I wonder how he feels about her.

I know for sure how she feels about him, though.

Narcissistic, overt sociopaths don’t have emotions like normal humans. Yeah, I was in therapy for a while, so I got a dose of who’s who on the family tree.

Frances Ackerman Delgado. Mother. Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance.

Celine Delgado-Williams. Sister. Narcissistic Personality Disorder with Antisocial Traits, colloquially referred to as high-functioning sociopathy, which she masks with charm. Along with entitlement, manipulativeness, and lack of empathy, she also has a pattern of deceit, disregard for others’ safety, and willingness to harm or endanger others for personal gain.