Defining their destiny, p.1
Defining their Destiny, page 1
DEFINING THEIR DESTINY
MASTERSON COUNTY
CALLE J. BROOKES
DEFINING THEIR DESTINY
Copyright © 2023 by Calle J. Brookes
EV 978-1-948328-37-1
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact:
www.callejbrookes.com
Book and Cover design by C.J. BROOKES
First Edition: 11272023
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Epilogue
1
Someone was watching her again. Dusty Talley hated it when that happened. It seemed like she had been watched by people from the time she had been just a kid. It had just gotten worse since one of the biggest Hollywood actors in this century had moved to Masterson, Wyoming, and married Dusty’s closest friend within the last eight months.
People wanted to know what that actor was up to at all times. At all times.
Nikki was threatening to do something about it sometime real soon.
Dusty lived in fear of what her bestie would come up with.
Dusty crossed the street from the side parking lot and headed up the half block to the diner she and her family owned and worked six days a week.
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Masterson County had been incredibly tense in the last month or so. A rich rancher named Morris Preston had nearly killed multiple people—people Dusty cared about a great deal. Including Nikki’s older brother Gil. It had unsettled everyone.
Everything was sideways. Unsafe.
Masterson used to be safe.
She hadn’t felt that way in a long time now. It just…something didn’t feel right. The watching felt different. Really different tonight.
Not that Dusty was the type who believed in feelings, premonitions, or fate. But tonight…
Maybe just a little.
Or maybe it was the snow. The first significant snow of the year was supposedly coming in by the weekend. Mother Nature was already getting started. They’d had an unseasonably dry and warm October. That was over now.
Dusty would probably always hate the snow now.
After what had happened to her before.
Dusty pushed open the glass door into the diner that had almost always represented safety, and finally took a breath. Her family, her friends, were inside.
Marin, her cousin, looked up when she entered. “You’re safe, Destiny Marie, you know. Here. But I really wish you wouldn’t walk here alone any longer.”
Marin had been cautioning her about doing that since a Hollywood executive had hurt Dusty once before. Dusty had just been in the way—he’d wanted Nikki.
Nothing ever felt right anymore. It just didn’t.
It had only been eight months. Healing just didn’t happen overnight, right?
“I have to be alone sometimes, Marin. We all do.” She’d lost her faith that Masterson was a safe place that day. She was determined to get it back. Marin’s scary doom predictions didn’t help.
“I know. I just…the idea of you being alone right now scares me a little.” Marin glanced toward the dining room. They had a few tables full at the moment, but not much. It was a Tuesday at four, one of their slowest times of the week. “I’m not sure why. Just a feeling I have been having lately. Just promise you’ll be careful. What has you spooked? You’re as jumpy as the Lowells’ cat tonight.”
Dusty shook her head. She hadn’t realized it showed. “Nothing. Just…being paranoid.”
“Well, call me if you want me to come over and get you tonight after closing. Don’t walk home alone tonight, okay?”
Marin was missing the point. If she drove over to get Dusty, Marin would be the one out there alone then. The older woman had a habit of hovering. Especially since what had happened to Junie in the back alley behind the diner just a month ago. “I drove.”
“I can call Zach. Have him swing by here at closing to walk you and whoever else is on the schedule out to your cars. It’s what hot cop ex-boyfriends are for, you know.”
“It’s Junie on at close tonight. You might cause a massive explosion.” Their waitress, Junie, and Marin’s ex-boyfriend, one of the local deputies, despised each other. Sparks flew whenever they got too close to one another.
“They are so entertaining.” Marin shot her a wicked smile. “They’ll end up married with six kids of their own someday. Bet you a hundred.”
On that, Dusty wasn’t about to take that chance. Marin was right more than she was wrong when it came to people pairing off. Besides, everyone could see that there was some serious fire between Junie and Zach.
Except for, well, Junie and Zach. Those two seemed to have completely missed the memo.
But the conversation had done exactly what she suspected Marin had intended.
Dusty didn’t feel so afraid any longer. For now.
2
Secrets. They had a way of finding life.
Wayne Pryor was a man on a mission now.
There were those out there who knew what he had been apart of. People who knew enough that they could destroy him now, even decades after what had happened. Maybe he had disassociated himself from Morris Preston and that dumbass Bruce Tyler a good ten years back—but the memories, they remained.
People knew what he had done. The good. And far too much of the bad.
He’d done far too much bad. But he’d replaced it with good. He had. His girls—they were everything that was good about the world. He’d built himself a real life. He had a wife and four beautiful daughters, young women now, dependent on him to be there when they needed it.
Morris Preston getting arrested now threatened to upend all of that. To destroy all Wayne had worked toward. To destroy what was good in his world now.
Wayne just couldn’t let that happen. He just couldn’t.
If he lost Linda and the girls—her girls, he’d adopted them when they’d been young girls, after he’d married their mother—he would be nothing. They were his everything.
Wayne wasn’t going to lose them. No matter what he had to do to protect what he’d built now.
Wayne had packed up his family and moved them to damned Idaho, to get himself out of range of Preston ten years ago. It had pissed Preston off, but Wayne had told him a wallop. That Linda’s father had threatened to disown her if they didn’t. Said the man was getting on in years, and he wanted to know his granddaughters better—before he considered leaving them all that money of his. Preston had believed it—understood.
He’d lived under his own father-in-law’s thumb, once. For about a year.
Then the old man had up and died like he had.
Wayne wasn’t stupid. Preston had had something to do with it. Anytime anyone got in Morris Preston’s way, well, they were eventually gotten out of the way.
Sometimes, Wayne had been the one to do that “getting.”
Not exactly something he was proud of. That was for sure.
Moving his family away had been the best decision he had
He’d bought in to everything Preston had promised.
Wayne had been stupid all those years ago. Dumbest thing he had ever done. He’d practically given Preston all the ammunition he needed to keep Wayne under his thumb for years.
Sweat covered his brow. He wiped it quickly. Linda was looking at him, a curious look on her sweet face. She’d never been a great beauty, but she’d made him feel important. Not that he was that great of a catch either. He loved her, more than words could ever say. And the girls? Being their dad had given him real meaning. Made him feel like he’d belonged right there with them, like he was needed. For the first time in his life, someone had needed him.
Linda and the girls were his world. Everything that mattered. Everything.
Morris Preston’s secrets threatened to destroy everything he’d ever worked for.
And with Preston in jail—those loose ends might just start to unravel.
It was time to go back to Wyoming.
Wayne couldn’t escape it any longer.
3
Her shift started off slow. Tuesday nights usually weren’t too bad. It was mostly regulars. People she had known for years. That made it a bit easier. Dusty didn’t really enjoy waitressing. But the diner was a part of her life. Her responsibility. And she wasn’t quite ready to give it up yet.
It was home. It mattered.
She appreciated the inn and the diner more than words could possibly say. But it was time she admitted it to herself. They weren’t what she wanted forever. She enjoyed working at the vet clinic far more. She spent less than fifteen hours a week at the Masterson Vet Clinic. But she just felt more like her there.
It made her disloyal to even think it. That was probably why she felt so unsettled.
The vet clinic.
Matt had offered her more hours that morning—and had offered to pay for classes if she wanted to take the next step up to be his full-time assistant. All she had to do was take the offer. She wanted to do that. More than anything. She loved, loved, loved working with the animals at the clinic.
How to make it work around her family responsibilities, though—that was something she hadn’t figured out yet. Not without ending up working double the hours she already did now.
She didn’t want to let her family down.
She was still contemplating what to do about Matt’s offer when a pair of men in severe suits came in. They settled in her station. She didn’t like the way they looked at all, but it was either Dusty took them, or Meyra, who was filling in for a few hours after their latest hire had quit.
It was the suits that decided for her.
Meyra had a bit of an unreasonable anxiety where men in those particular kinds of suits were concerned. Leftovers from a nasty incident in Spain when her cousin had been three or so. Right before Meyra and Marin’s mother had died.
No one had ever been able to fix that anxiety for Meyra. They just worked around it.
Dusty grabbed silverware rolls and two mugs. She stuck two menus under her arm, and did what she had to do.
The younger of the two men looked up, right at her. His gaze shifted to her name tag then back to her face. Lingered. Men had looked at her that way before, but tonight? Tonight, it felt wrong. Gave a woman the shivers in all the wrong ways. He was in his late thirties, well-groomed, but cold. Very, very cold. His friend was about fifteen to twenty years older. A little shabbier. He was sweating. And they just looked odd. Especially in Masterson County.
“Hello, I’m Dusty. How can I help you today? Can I get you started with some coffee?” She said the words instinctively. She’d been working this diner since the age of fourteen. This was like breathing to her. She’d deal with them now, and they’d be on their way soon. It was just the coming snowstorm making her feel chilled. She wasn’t like Marin—Dusty believed in what she could see, touch. Not phantom feelings. “You two new in town or just passing through?”
Her first thought was that they were bigwigs for Hunter’s production studio. Hunter was working hard on getting the studio itself built now, instead of traveling back and forth to L.A. like he had been. But the younger guy just shook his head. Watching her.
“Just coffee, to start,” the older one said. He studied her face for a long moment. “Dusty. An unusual name for such a beautiful young woman.”
She’d heard a variant of that since she’d been able to remember. “It’s one of those annoying family nicknames from a younger sister that stuck. The special today is a Reuben on homemade rye, with homestyle french fries. I can guarantee they are unforgettable. There are also Salisbury steak or meat loaf, fried chicken, plus your choice of two sides, and our regular menu items.”
“Just coffee,” the older man reiterated. “We are taking a break from driving now.”
“I’ll take some pie, though. If you bring it to me.” The younger one was more intense, definitely. And his eyes were cold. The words were flirtatious—also something she was used to in the diner—but the man was like ice. Like he was just saying the words. Testing her or something. He didn’t mean it at all. She fought a shiver.
When the doors opened and a familiar figure stepped in, she almost breathed a sigh of relief. Usually, she wanted to roll her eyes in annoyance whenever she saw him lately—he’d been doing things to deliberately push her buttons over the last year or so—but tonight, this was exactly the kind of person she wanted in the diner tonight.
Ben Tyler stood there. Her best friend Nikki’s older brother.
4
His first instinct was to always check a room when he entered. For a threat.
Ben Tyler had lived that way since his army days. He had no intention of stopping. Even at the diner. Especially with recent events that had damned near taken his older brother and the woman his brother loved. And far too many other people Ben loved.
Since everything that had happened to his sister a little over eight months ago, Ben had made a point of keeping an eye on things—especially around the diner. Nikki still hung around the diner almost every day, at some point or another. Sometimes her movie star husband was with her; sometimes Hunter wasn’t.
Hunter was a tough SOB—he could protect Nikki just fine, but old habits were hard for Ben to kill. Looking out for Nikki, and her friends because they were there with his sister, had become almost as natural as breathing.
They made a man feel needed. Ben was the kind of man who needed to feel needed. He was good with that.
His eyes met startling green.
It was Dusty working tonight. That meant it had to be a Tuesday. She worked the inn of the evening on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Sometimes he lost track of the days when in the throes of writing the next book. He studied her for a moment. He’d spent a lot of time over the last year analyzing—and watching—his kid sister’s bestest pal, Dusty.
Ben liked trying to figure her out. She was a puzzling woman, that one.
