Read Online Homecoming Ranch by Julia London - Free Book Online

but I came back with a surprise assault and pulled it out. I like it when Luke is home. Dad tries, but sometimes, a guy just needs his brother home so he can
totally
annihilate him on “Hounds of Hell.”
    I know Luke and Dad argue a lot. Dad says things aren’t like they were before and we have to face that they aren’t. Luke says there’s no reason they can’t be like they were, except without Mom, and without me on a horse driving cattle down the mountain, but I’m pretty good at directing traffic from the back of the pickup. Luke rigged up a deal where I can ride back there. It’s cool. I don’t tell him that it hurts like hell because I like getting up on the mountain. I miss it.
    But last night, Dad and Luke had this big argument about Homecoming Ranch, and this morning, Luke was in a mood. He put on a good shirt, a go-to-Sunday-meeting shirt, and went down to Poplar Street to have a “word” with Jackson. I told him that Jackson’s an okay guy, but Luke wasn’t buying it. He said anyone who worked for Grant Tyler was suspect. I had to remind Luke that my muscles may not work, but my brain is still a functioning miracle of exceptional genius, and I’m serious, Jackson’s okay. He had an asshole for a boss. Luke’s had a couple of bosses like that, so he ought to be a little nicer about it, right?
    He came back from the meeting all pissed off because Jackson told him what I
knew
Jackson would tell him—it’s up to the heirs. It’s not as if Jackson can rewrite all the Colorado state laws to make Luke happy. Still, that made Luke
super
annoyed because apparently he met one of the heirs. He said she was coming out as he was going in, and he was pretty sure she had to be one of the heirs, because why else would she be on Poplar Street? He’s got a point there. Dani said Jackson took up space in an old gray building that looks like a morgue, only it isn’t, but the story would be a whole lot more interesting if it was a morgue, wouldn’t it? Dig it—Jackson Crane holding meetings in the middle of a bunch of dead bodies covered by sheets. What if they started rising up, one by one, and it turned into Zombieland?
    Okay, so anyway, Luke sees this woman coming out of the incredibly ugly building and he didn’t really know her, but he’d changed her flat yesterday on Sometimes Pass. I was like, “What the hell was she doing up there?” And he said he thought she was lost, and then today, she’s coming out of Jackson Crane’s office and that she was a highlighter. And I was like,
highlighter,
what’s that? I mean, I know my way around the ladies, and I have
never
heard one called a highlighter.
    “She highlights things. Maps. Car manuals.” Luke said the first thing that popped out of his mouth when he saw her again today was
Highlighter,
and she was all
Whaaat
?
    If it were me, I’d have been a little smoother, but Luke, he’s got those gray eyes and dark hair, and he’s really tall and built like an NFL quarterback, so he can say pretty much whatever he wants to a woman and she melts all over the floor. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen a thousand times. But this one didn’t melt, and I bet that ticked Luke off. He’s not used to having to work for it. Neither am I. I used to be like him, had women falling at my feet. Now I’ve got a disease that I can milk for attention. What, you think I’m above using it? No way. Women are very sympathetic about debilitating conditions, and if you look at them with cow eyes and a smile, it works like a charm.
    So then the Highlighter smiled, and Luke said she had a really nice smile. And I said, “Maybe you should tap that,” and Luke gave me one of those looks and said, “What is the
matter
with you?”
    I just wish Luke would get over Julie Daugherty, that’s all. He says he has, but she calls once in a while with her “problems” and there he is, ready to talk her through it. Anyway, back to the Highlighter. Luke said she announced she was only here