At twenty-eight, Cole was pro rodeo’s reigning saddle-bronc star with a record-setting five championships under his belt. He was also the favorite to take home a sixth in just a few short weeks in Vegas.
If he could finish up with this mess and get back to his normal practice schedule. As it was, he’d been spending every free moment in his hometown of Lost Gun, Texas, helping his two brothers dig up an entire fifty-acre pasture to find the money that their criminal father had stolen from a local bank over fifteen years ago. Before the old man had set himself on fire and gone up in a blaze of glory.
They’d hit the mother lode approximately three months ago when Billy had unearthed a small metal box. They’d all been convinced they’d found the missing one hundred thousand dollars, until they’d counted the contents to find only a measly one thousand. Since then, they’d unearthed ninety-eight more containers—everything from a metal lock box, to rusted-out coffee cans, to a dozen shoe boxes—each containing exactly one grand.
“This is the hundredth container,” Cole said, taking a swig from a water bottle. “This has to be it.”
“Most likely,” Jesse agreed, but he wasn’t placing any bets, not until he went through the contents.
“Just count it so we can get out of here.” Cole took another swig before chucking the bottle to a nearby trash pile. “I’d like to get out of here sometime before my next rodeo.”
“Tired, big brother?” Billy, Cole’s youngest brother, gave him a knowing glance. “Or are you just anxious to get back home so you can lick your wounds since Jake and Jimmy beat you to the punch and took the Barbie sisters off the market?”
“There’s still one left.” Not that Cole had his sights set on sister number three. Nicole Barbie had been just a kid when they were growing up, a good six years younger than Cole, and so he’d never paid her no nevermind. Rather, he’d been fixated on her two older sisters. He’d dated them both off and on over the years. Nothing serious, but then the Barbie sisters didn’t do serious. They were the baddest bad girls in town.
Once upon a time, that is.
Until last month when his best buds Jimmy and Jake Barber had popped the question and the girls had actually said yes.
Cole still couldn’t believe it. Out of all the women he knew, Crystal and April didn’t seem like the marrying type.
And Cole Chisholm knew the marrying kind. Since both of his brothers had recently settled down, Cole was now the only single Chisholm left. He’d had a slew of women after him over the past few months, particularly since he’d been spending so much time hanging around Lost Gun, helping Billy and Jesse dig up the money.
Susie Carlisle had baked him three dozen brownies and Jenny Farmer had brought him fresh canned preserves. Delilah Martin had even made her prize-winning meatloaf. And while Cole had nothing against a good hunk of meat, he was smart enough to know that enjoying even one bite would send the wrong message—namely that he was ready to slow down and settle down.
Like hell.
“Well? How much is there?” he asked Jesse.
“Yeah,” Billy chimed in. He was the youngest Chisholm, and just as anxious to be done with the digging as Cole. Albeit for different reasons. Like Jesse who’d found the love of his life, Billy had recently traded in his bachelor status to play house with his one and only. Both men were set to tie the knot after the finals in Vegas. “What’s the verdict?”
“Hold your horses.” Jesse peeled off bills one after the other. “I’m counting.”
Cole leaned on the edge of the shovel and stared over the top of the hole at the pastureland surrounding them. It was just a few minutes shy of sunrise and a faint orange glow lit the horizon. They usually started digging late at night, under the cover of darkness, but it was Saturday. The Saturday, and so Jesse had said to hell with caution.
Cole eyed the rutted ground. They’d tried to fill in the holes so as not to raise any red flags. The people of Lost Gun, along with a mess of fortune hunters, had been looking for Silas Chisholm’s missing fortune for years now. If word got out that his three sons had actually found the money, the place would be crawling with people.
But Cole, Jesse and Billy intended to be the only ones to dig up their father’s past. Once they had every penny present and accounted for, they intended to give it back to the town and kill the rumors that had been circulating about them once and for all.
That they’d been in on it. That they’d secretly been spending the cash over the years. That they were every bit as worthless as their father.
They hadn’t even known about the money until a few months ago when Jesse had uncovered a connection between Silas and the town’s most notorious moonshiner. Unfortunately, Big Earl Jessup wasn’t the man he used to be. In his nineties now, his old-timer’s had set in. He could no longer whip up his infamous White Lightning moonshine any more than he could remember where he’d buried the money from the bank heist committed by his good friend and partner in crime, Silas Chisholm.
The plan had been for Silas to hand off the money to Big Earl, who would then bury it until the fuss died down. Then they would both dig it back up at a later time and enjoy the spoils. But then Silas had set himself on fire and drawn a wave of media attention to their small Texas town. The story had attracted tons of reporters and earned a spot on a Discovery Channel documentary called Famous Texas Outlaws. Most recently, a “Where Are They Now?” episode had aired on the documentary’s tenth anniversary.
Bottom line, Big Earl had sat on the money for so long that he’d eventually forgotten where he’d buried it all. And so Cole and his brothers, along with Big Earl’s great granddaughter, Casey, had been digging up the old man’s pasture for the past three months.
“This is it,” Jesse announced, stashing the rolls of cash back inside the coffee can. “One hundred thousand dollars.”
“Finally,” Cole muttered.
While he was glad they’d recovered the money and he wanted to see the Chisholm name cleared, he wasn’t as haunted by it as his oldest brother. No, he’d killed himself shoveling dirt for Jesse. So that his oldest brother could make peace with the past.
Cole wasn’t half as anxious to make peace as he was just to forget. To leave the memories where they belonged—way, way behind him—and focus on the future. His RV was packed and waiting back at the prime stretch of land he’d purchased on the outskirts of town. The perfect spot to breed some prime, Grade A horseflesh if he ever got the notion.
A slim possibility because Cole liked moving around, traveling, living.
He’d spent his entire childhood barely existing. Food had been in short supply. Money had been practically nonexistent. And love? He’d had his brothers, but Silas had been a piss-poor excuse for a father. There’d been too much misery, too many days spent feeling like he was being suffocated by his situation, snuffed out, beaten down. He’d been so close to giving up.
But then legendary bull rider Pete Gunner had taken him and his brothers in and helped them become rodeo’s best and most notorious. Cole was now one of the infamous Lost Boys—the hottest group of riders on the circuit, so named because they all hailed from the same small town.
For him, it was all about living life now rather than merely enduring it. About feeling the rush of adrenaline when he climbed onto the back of a bronc, smelling the fresh dirt that kicked up around him, hearing the thunder of his own heart, seeing the whites of his knuckles as he held tight to the reins and gave the ride everything he had.
He felt alive then. Free.
All the more reason to get back out on the road.
“Move your ass.” Billy reached out a hand to Cole and helped him out of the hole.