Two To Wrangle (Hotel Rodeo #2)(2)

Was it only a month ago that Tom’s first stroke had put her on the plane from New York to Las Vegas? Was it only three days ago that she’d boarded Evan’s private jet, determined to return to New York? It seemed more like a lifetime ago. No, it actually seemed more like someone else’s life.

“Look, I won’t pretend to know what you’re going through,” Evan said, “but he’s gone now. Once this is over, why don’t you come back to New York?”

“It’s too soon, Evan. I’m not ready to discuss it yet.”

“There’s nothing left to keep you here once you sell the hotel,” Evan continued. “Let’s start over again.”

Did he really want her back, or did he only want the real estate she now controlled? Did it matter? Either way, she was selling out . . . severing all ties to Ty. Ty was the real reason she’d boarded the plane with Evan, but Tom’s sudden death had brought her right back again.

It was Ty who’d broken the news to her and Ty’s strong arms that had held her as she wept. It had been too damned easy to fall right back into those arms and just as difficult to pull away again. But she had pulled away—to the safety of Evan, a man who didn’t love her any more than she loved him.





Chapter Two


Walking into the memorial chapel, Monica was struck at once by the overwhelming, almost nausea-inducing perfume of flowers, and an odd sense of foreboding. White wreaths filled the chamber almost to capacity, but the place was deserted.

Where the hell was everyone? She’d sent out notifications to half of Las Vegas.

“Ms. Brandt!” The mortician rushed to greet her with a panic-stricken look. “I swear to you there’s nothing I could have done to prevent this.”

“Prevent what?” Monica asked, her heartbeat accelerating with trepidation.

“Your father’s remains have somehow been . . . er . . . misplaced.”

“Misplaced?” Monica gasped.

Evan stepped forward. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“The urn has gone missing,” the mortician replied. “We can’t find it anywhere. I assure you this situation is unprecedented. I placed the urn in the chapel myself. A few minutes ago, I found this envelope in its place.”

Monica snatched the envelope from his hands, tearing it open with trembling fingers.

“Did you call the police?” Evan demanded.

“Yes,” he answered. “They should be here any minute. Please rest assured that we’re doing everything in our power to recover the remains.”

Evan replied with a cold smile. “And you may rest assured that we’ll sue your ass off if you don’t.”

Monica scanned the terse note. The farewell party has been moved to the Last Chance Saloon. Her next breath had Ty’s name spilling from her lips. “The police won’t be necessary, Evan.” Seething with suppressed rage, she shoved the note into her purse. “I know exactly who did it.”



The Last Chance Saloon was so packed that Monica wondered that the fire marshal hadn’t been summoned. It wasn’t only the number of people who crammed the bar that amazed her, but the mix of mourners—high-profile Vegas hoteliers rubbing elbows with cowboys, showgirls, and even a few Elvis impersonators. She wondered cynically how many of the assemblage had actually known Tom or whether they’d just come for the free drinks.

Scanning the room, it didn’t take her long to spot Ty, standing on the bar, hat askew and shirttail hanging out, holding a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam. He was also hugging a worn pair of cowboy boots that she recognized as belonging to Tom. Ty looked much as he had when she’d first met him, right after Tom had suffered his stroke—expression haggard and eyes red-rimmed and deeply shadowed. She forced her way to the front of the bar as he raised his bottle in salute and began a slurred eulogy.

“I know this is a mighty unconventional way to conduct a memorial, but Tom was an unconventional man. He was an old-school cowboy, the kind whose church was the range and favorite choir was lowing cattle. So we’re gonna say goodbye the way he would have wanted. Like many ol’ timers, Tom was a lover of cowboy poetry. So rather than prosing on about shepherds and valleys, I’m gonna share a few verses from ‘The Lost Range’ by Henry Herbert Knibbs.”

Monica stepped forward to put an end to the performance just as every cowboy in the joint doffed his hat, holding it over his heart in a salute to Tom. Her protest died in her throat.

Ty took a swallow from the bottle and began to recite, “Only a few of us understood his ways and his outfit queer, His saddle horse and his pack-horse, as lean as a winter steer, As he rode alone on the mesa, intent on his endless quest, Old Tom Bright of the Pecos, a ghost of the vanished West.

“He made you think of an eagle caged up for the folks to see, dreaming of crags and sunshine and glories that used to be. Some folks said he was loco—too lazy to work for pay, but we old-timers knew better, for Tom wasn’t built that way. He’d work till he got a grubstake, then drift, and he’d make his fire, And camp on the open mesa, as far as he could from wire. Tarp and sogun and skillet, saddle and rope and gun . . . And that is the way they found him, asleep in the noonday sun.

“They were running a line for fences, surveying to subdivide, and open the land for the homesteads—‘The only place left to ride.’ But Tom he had beat them to it, he had crossed to The Other Side. Tom wasn’t strong for parsons—so we didn’t observe the rules, but four of us sang, ‘Little Dogies,’ all cryin’—we gray-haired fools. Wishing that Tom could hear it and know that we were standing by, wishing him luck on the Lost Range, down yonder, against the sky.”