Granite Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked.
     "Yeah, but I was hoping you'd forget."
     "That'll be the day." Luke pushed back from the table, gathered up his dishes and headed for the kitchen. "Nevada, you might want to stick around for the MacKenzie family show-and-tell. After all, some of them are your ancestors, too."
     Nevada's head turned toward Luke with startling speed. "What?"
     There was a clatter of dishes from the kitchen, then Luke came back to the big "mess hall" that adjoined the kitchen. He poured himself another cup of potent coffee before he looked down at Ten's younger brother with an odd smile.
     "Didn't Ten tell you? The two of us finally figured it out last winter. We share a pair of great-great-grandparents – Case and Mariah MacKenzie."
     "Be damned."
     "No doubt," Cash said slyly, "but no man wants to brag about it, right?"
     Nevada gave him a sideways glance that would have been threatening were it not for the telltale crinkling around Nevada's eyes. Luke just kept on talking, thoroughly accustomed to the masculine chaffing that always accompanied dinners on the Rocking M.
     "Case was the MacKenzie who started the Rocking M," Luke explained as he looked back at Cash. "Actually, Mariah should have been one of your ancestors. Her granddaddy was a gold prospector."
     "He was? Really?" Mariah said eagerly, her voice lilting with excitement. "I never knew that Grandpa Lucas was a prospector."
     Luke blinked. "He wasn't."
     "But you just said he was."
     Simultaneously Nevada spoke. "I don't remember my parents talking about any MacKenzie ancestors."
     "No, I didn't," Luke said to Mariah. Then, to Nevada, "I'm not surprised. It wasn't the kind of relationship that families used to talk about."
     When Nevada and Mariah began speaking at once, Cash stood up with a resigned expression and began carrying dirty dishes into the kitchen. No one noticed his comings and goings or his absence when he stayed in the kitchen. Once he glanced through the doorway, saw Luke drawing family trees on a legal tablet and went back to the dishes. The next time Cash looked out, Mariah was gone. He was irrationally pleased that Nevada had remained behind. The bearded cowhand was too good-looking by half.
     Cash attacked the counters with unusual vigor, but before he had finished, he heard Mariah's voice again. "Here it is, Nevada. Proof positive that we're kissing kin."
     The dishrag hit the sink with a distinct smack. Wiping his hands on his jeans, Cash moved silently across the kitchen until he could see into the dining room. Mariah stood next to Luke. She was holding a frayed cardboard carton as though it contained the crown jewels of England.
     "What's that?" Luke asked, eyeing the disreputable box his sister was carrying so triumphantly to the cleared table.
     "This is the MacKenzie family Bible," she said in a voice rich with satisfaction and subdued excitement.
     There was a time of stretching silence ended by the audible rush of Luke's breath as Mariah removed the age-worn, leather-bound volume from the box. The Bible's intricate gilt lettering rippled and gleamed in the light.
     Nevada whistled softly. He reached for the Bible, then stopped, looking at Mariah.
     "May I?" he asked.
     "Of course," she said, holding the thick, heavy volume out to him with both hands. "It's your family, too."
     While Cash watched silently from the doorway, Nevada shook his head, refusing to take the book. Instead, he moved his fingertips across the fragile leather binding, caressing it as though it were alive. The sensuality and emotion implicit in that gesture made conflicting feelings race through Cash – irritation at the softness in Mariah's eyes as she watched the unsmiling man touch the book, curiosity about the old Bible itself, an aching sense of time and history stretching from past to present to future; but most of all Cash felt a bitter regret that he would never have a child who would share his past, his present or his future.
     "How old is