Page 16 of Rangers Last Promise

“You’re Doc.”

I close the door behind me.

“And you found something your brother died trying to hide.”

3

MARA

“Why didn’t you ever talk to me about him?”

No one answers.

Wolf stands behind the bar with both hands braced against the polished wood. Trigger remains beside the table near the fireplace.

Doc hasn’t moved from the door.

I recognize all three men.

They and the others stood together at Grant’s funeral fifteen years ago, wearing dress uniforms and carrying grief they tried to hide behind rigid expressions. I was sixteen, but I remember every face that entered the church without my brother.

Wolf and Trigger looked younger then.

Doc looks harder now.

His dark hair is touched with gray at the temples, and a pale scar cuts through one eyebrow, but I remember his eyes. I remember the way he stood apart from the other Rangers at the cemetery, staring at Grant’s casket as though he wanted to climb inside it with him.

I also remember him leaving before I could reach him.

Years later, the Rangers came to Eagle River and opened the Last Stand Tavern. I knew who they were, and they knew who I was.

But they never once spoke Grant’s name.

I convinced myself they didn’t want to remember him.

Now I know there was another reason.

“I asked you a question,” I say. “Why have neither of you ever talked to me about my brother?”

Wolf steps around the bar. “Mara⁠—”

“Don’t say my name as though that explains anything.”

He stops.

Rain strikes the tavern windows, driven hard against the glass by the wind. Sheriff Tate stands near the hallway leading to the kitchen, watching me with the careful expression he uses when he thinks I’m about to do something reckless.

He knows me too well.

“I recognized you the first time I walked into this tavern,” I tell Wolf. “I waited for you to say something. Anything. You poured my coffee, asked about my job, and acted as though we’d never seen each other before.”

“I knew you remembered me.”

“Then why didn’t you mention Grant?”

His jaw tightens.

“Because your mother asked me not to.”