Snippet Saturday – an early look at Undeniable

For today's Snippet Saturday I thought I'd share an early scene from what I'm working on now – UNDENIABLE (working title), the first book in my Dalton Gang series to be published in November 2012 by Berkley Heat. (That means there will be some HEAT!) And, yes, I know it's a LONG time away, but I think it'll be worth the wait.

(Also, isn't Dax worth waiting for???)

*****

Whatever else might've changed in Crow Hill during his absence, Dax Campbell knew he could count on Lasko Ranch Supply for more than his need for feed. Land owners, ranch hands, old-timers, and those aiming to fuel the gossip mill gathered in the parking lot before breakfast to shoot the shit of the day, or at lunch to share the food that flowed as freely as the news.

Like all communities of folks making their living off the land, Crow Hill knew about getting the word out. Trucks passed on a country road and occupants traded the latest. A driver dropping hay bales at one ranch carried stories from the last. Drifters looking for work brought with them the grim truth of what they'd learned at the place they'd tried before.

Dax wasn't after the grim truth or stories or the latest. His reason for hanging out at the feed store was all about getting laid. It had been way too long since he'd taken the time, even had the time for that particular pleasure. And being out of touch all these years meant scoping out the lay of the land.

Word of the inheritance he'd be sharing with Boone Mitchell and Casper Jayne had reached him in a bar outside of Bozeman. He'd been drunk, he'd been cold, and for the first time in years, he'd been homesick. Not for the place he hadn't seen since the summer after high school, but for his boys.

Learning of the passing of Tess and Dave Dalton on top of that ache had almost done him in. He'd loved the Daltons, considered them family. They'd been there when his mother had taken up the causes of less privileged children instead of seeing to her own. They'd encouraged him to live his life his way when his father insisted he follow the path of all Campbell men.

Dax had wanted to cowboy—not go to college, and definitely not to law school to add Esquire to the end of his name. Tess got that. Dave got that. Casper and Boone got it, too. They'd sent him packing with promises to keep in touch. He hadn't, and had nothing but his vagabond life to blame.

But that night in Montana, finding out he'd lost the Daltons had him missing his boys with an unimaginable hurt. Every good memory of his teenage years was connected to Boone and Casper. The summers they'd spent working the Dalton Ranch were the best times of his life.

In fact, outside of honoring the Daltons' wish that he help keep the place they'd poured their hearts and souls into from being sucked up by Crow Hill's First National Bank, the only thing that would've brought him back to Texas was raising some Dalton Gang hell. But he needed a woman—or two, or three—to do it up right.

"Campbell! Was wondering if you were planning on showing your beat up old face around here. Not that I couldn't have gone the rest of my life without seeing it."

Dax let the screen door slam behind him before he turned toward Bubba Taylor who was just as gap-toothed and curly headed as he'd been in high school, though now carrying a gut that appeared over the years to have never met a beer it didn't like. "Now, Bubs. I don't think my face is any more beat up than your wife's."

A chorus of sharp snickers and a couple of guffaws punctuated Dax's words. Bubba, proud of getting in the first shot, seemed at a loss for another, which pretty much reflected the IQ Dax remembered him displaying most of the time.

Josh Lasko, another classmate who, word had it, had taken over running the store from his dad, made his way out from the register, his boots clomping on the worn plank floor. He offered Dax his hand for a hearty shake. "It's good to see you, Dax. Damn good, but c'mon now. Cut Bubba some slack. It's a wonder he's got a wife at all when you look at the face God gave him."

Dax pretended to consider the ugly mug of the man in question, asking of Josh, "You sure it was God?"

That loosened Bubba's tongue. "Hey now. What's with all the ganging up on Bubba here?" Hands out, he looked to his posse for help. Getting nothing but murmurs and shrugs, he dug for a comeback, snickering. "I ain't the one who screwed myself out of a hilltop mansion and into a ranch so rundown it ain't worth a salt lick."

Dax had done plenty of screwing, true, and the fallout hadn't done a damn thing to help his situation at home. But neither his history with women or that with his folks had squat to do with his partnership in the Dalton place. "That's the difference between you and me, Bubs. I know the value of a salt lick. You want to insult my property, you'll have to do better than that."

"It wasn't your property I was aiming for," Bubba tossed back, turning to his cronies with a smirk at having gotten in the last laugh.

Dax let him have it. The hours he was working these days, catching up with friends he might want to see already took time he didn't have. Wasting it on the likes of Bubba Taylor wasn't a luxury he cared to indulge in.

"Gentlemen." He nudged his hat brim up a notch, gave Bubba his back and walked to the register with Josh. "Wondered how long the woodwork could hold them back."

Josh gave a single shake of his head. "Might've been a bit longer if you'd picked up any manners out wherever the hell you've been."

It had been five years since he'd last counted the places he'd worked. Before that… He didn't even want to think about the miles he'd driven, the horses he'd rode to ground, the cattle he'd herded. "I've been everywhere, man. I've been everywhere."

The corner of Josh's smile dimpled. "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about."

Dax shrugged. He was who he was. "I left in a hurry. Didn't have time to head back to the hilltop mansion for any etiquette lessons."

The other man leaned forward on both elbows, his head low as he spoke for Dax's ears alone. "Bubba and his bunch? You gotta expect some of that, leaving like you did, then coming back to take over a property a lot of folks could've been putting to good use. Rain's been in short supply. Makes grass hard to come by. Too many animals being sold at a loss because of it."

Nothing Dax didn't know, or hadn't seen employers face over the years. Ranching ran in the blood of a lot of families, but that didn't keep hearts from breaking when troubles bit deep. "I came back for Tess and Dave. And for my boys. Not because I had some grand dream of ranching in Crow Hill."

"And not because of your family?"

He'd been back a week, Boone and Casper a couple weeks longer. He hadn't seen his folks or his sister yet; he hadn't seen much of anything but the back end of cows and the bottom of bank accounts, but the inevitable was on its way. "Found an attorney in Dallas to take care of my third of the partnership papers. His legal advice didn't cost me an arm and a leg and a soul."

"I hear that," Josh said, giving Dax cause to wonder if his old man billed clients a price similar to what he'd demanded from his only son.

But Josh didn't give him time to ask. "So what brings you to town today? That lawyer of yours get you up to speed on your payables? Cuz I was thinking of taking a round the world cruise, and if you pony up, I can do it."

At least Josh's reminder of the state of Tess and Dave's affairs didn't grate in the way of so many others. Josh's grandfather had wrangled cattle on the King Ranch along with Dave Dalton, years before the two would make their way to south central Texas. That had Josh, too, counting the Daltons as family, the Dalton Gang an extension.

But it didn't mean Dax and the boys weren't still on the hook for the debt. They did, however, have a secret weapon in Boone's sister, a loan officer at the First National Bank. "With the budget Faith's got us on, you should be able to afford the drive to the port in Galveston real soon. Maybe even the gas to get back."

Josh straightened, laughing, but the sound was cut off by a loud round of catcalls rising from the corner. Dax looked over his shoulder in time to see Bubba and his bubbas nearly topple the barrel holding their card game as they jockeyed for position at the window.

Elbows gouged and shoved. Boot heels landed on boot toes. Hats were jerked from heads to clear lines of sight. Reminded Dax of a bunch of bawling calves jammed into a chute. "Looks like someone needs to put a lock on the beer cooler."

"Nope," Josh said. "Looks like lunch." He circled the counter and headed for his own window, this one tucked on the far side of an old wardrobe now stocked with square cans of unguent and dark brown bottles of antiseptics and thick leather gloves.

Curious, Dax followed, leaning a raised arm along the window casing and squinting into the glare of the sun.

The view that finally came into focus looked like way more than lunch to Dax. The woman bent across the front seat of the pickup, dragging a big brown, grease-spotted grocery bag into her arms, had the most gorgeous ass Dax had seen in weeks. 'Course, the only asses he'd seen during those weeks belonged to the calves he'd been working, but still.

All he needed now was for the front side to be as outstanding as the back. She straightened, wrapped one arm around the bag, and turned. Her dark jeans rode low on her hips and bunched around her boot vamps. The shoulder-hugging sleeves of her T-shirt showed off some mighty fine guns. But it was the way the same shirt lay flat against her belly and scooped low on her C-cup chest that made his mouth water.

He blew out the breath straining his lungs to bursting, not exactly proud of the groan that came out on its tail.

Hallelujah, and come to Papa.

Josh chuckled. "You know who that is, don't you?"

Dax lifted his gaze to her face. Dark wavy hair, shoulder length, shining like strong coffee in the sun. A wide mouth with sweet peachy lips, and big bright eyes. Green, he'd bet. To go with the freckles on her nose.

And, no. If he'd ever met this woman, he would know things about her no other man did. "Not a freakin' clue."

"Then let me be the one to fill you in on some of the better things that have happened since you've been gone." Josh slapped Dax on the shoulder before walking away. "That, my man, is Arwen Poole."

For more Snippet Saturday excerpts:

Anne Rainey

Jody Wallace

Selena Robins

Eliza Gayle

Mari Carr

McKenna Jeffries

Mandy M Roth

Myla Jackson

Taige Crenshaw

Selena Blake

Vivian Arend

Beth-Ann Mason

HelenKay Dimon

Shelli Stevens

Lauren Dane

Lacey Savage

TJ Michaels

Shiloh Walker