Under Montana’s big sky, two lovers will find their way back to one another…if an unsolved murder doesn’t pull them apart forever….

In Big Timber, Montana, land and family is everything. So when Destry Grant’s brother is accused of killing Rylan West’s sister, high school sweethearts Destry and Ryan leave their relationship behind in order to help their families recover from tragedy.

Years later, Destry is dedicated to her ranch and making plans for the future. Plans that just might include reuniting with the love of her life…until her brother returns to clear his name and the secrets of the past threaten her one chance at happiness.

Rylan is done denying his feelings for Destry. But when clues begin to link her brush with death to his sister’s murder, will discovering the truth finally grant them their chance at love or turn them against one another for good?

“I’m still the same man you fell in love with.”

She looked into his eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“Like hell.” He dragged her to him with one arm around her waist. His mouth dropped to hers in a demanding kiss that stole her breath. She could feel the thunder of his heart against hers. Wrapped in his strong arms, she lost herself in the kiss. She felt the passion, the chemistry that had always made her pulse pound. The kiss fired that old aching need for this man she couldn’t have.

It swept her up, made her forget for a moment the gulf that lay between them. He drew her closer, pressing his body to hers, deepening the kiss. With desire burning through her, all she wanted was for him to sweep her up in his arms and carry her upstairs to her bed.

Unforgiven

B.J. Daniels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

I had only sold four books when my former newspaper managing editor convinced me to quit a job I loved to follow my dream. That day, I promised to dedicate my first single-title book to him. So this book is for you, Bill Wilke. Neither of us could know back then what a huge favor you did for me.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

CHAPTER ONE

THE WIND HOWLED DOWN the Crazy Mountains, rocking the pickup as Sheriff Frank Curry pulled to the side of the narrow dirt road. He hadn’t been to this desolate spot in years. Like a lot of other residents of Beartooth, he avoided coming this way.

The afternoon sun slanted down through the dense pines, casting a long shadow over the barrow pit and the small cross nearly hidden among the weeds. The cross, though weathered from eleven years of harsh Montana weather, stood unyielding against the merciless wind that whipped the summer-dried weeds around it.

After a moment, Frank climbed out of the truck, fighting the gusts as he waded into the ditch. Someone had erected the wooden cross, though no one knew who. Back then the cross had been white. Years of blistering hot summers and fierce, long snow-laden winters had peeled away the paint, leaving the wood withered and gray.

The brisk fall wind kicked up a dust devil in the road. Frank shut his eyes as it whirled past him, pelting him with dirt. The image he’d spent years trying to banish flashed before him. He saw it again, the young woman’s broken body lying in the barrow pit where it had been discarded like so much garbage.

The lonesome moan of the wind in the tops of the thick wall of pines was the only sound on this remote rural road. That night, standing here as the coroner loaded the body, he’d sworn he would find Ginny West’s killer if it was the last thing he ever did.

Now, he looked again at the cross that marked this lonely place where Ginny had died. The wind had plastered a dirty plastic grocery bag against its base.

Feeling the crippling weight of that vow and his failure, Frank crouched down and jerked the bag free. As he rose to leave, he heard the sound of a motor and looked up to see a small plane fly over.

* * *

RYLAN WEST LAY DAZED in the dirt. He’d lost his hat, gotten the air knocked clean out of him and was about to be trampled by a horse if he didn’t move—and quickly.

To add insult to injury, as he lay on the ground staring up at all that blue sky, he saw Destry Grant’s red-and-white Cessna 182 fly over. He didn’t have to see the woman behind the controls to know it was her plane. Hell, he could call up Destry Grant’s face from memory with no trouble at all and did so with frustrating regularity even though he hadn’t laid eyes on her in more than ten years.

In the past few weeks that he’d been home, he’d made a point of staying out of Destry’s way. He told himself he wasn’t ready to see her. But a part of him knew that was pure bull. He felt guilty and he should have. The last time they’d seen each other, he’d made her a promise he hadn’t kept.

Not that anyone could blame him under the circumstances. Eleven years ago he’d left Beartooth, Montana, joined the rodeo and hadn’t looked back. That is, until a few weeks ago when he’d grown tired of being on the road, riding one rodeo after another until they’d become a blur of all-night drives across country.

He had awakened one morning and realized there was only one place he wanted to be. Home. He’d loaded up his horse and saddle, hooked on to his horse trailer and headed for Montana. He’d yearned for familiar country, for the scent of pine coming off the fresh snow on top of the Crazy Mountains, for his family. And maybe for Destry, as foolish as that was.

He swore now as he listened to the plane circle the W Bar G, hating that Destry was so close and yet as beyond his reach as if she were on the moon. That hadn’t been the case when they were kids, he thought with a groan. Back then he couldn’t have been happier about the two of them growing up on neighboring ranches. They’d been best friends until they were seventeen and then they’d been a whole lot more.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Rylan blinked as he looked over on the corral fence to see his younger brother Jarrett glaring down at him. To his relief, he noticed that Jarrett had hold of the unbroken stallion’s halter rope. The horse was snorting and stomping, kicking up dust, angry as an old wet hen. His brother looked just as mad.

“Nothin’s wrong with me,” Rylan said with a groan as he got to his feet. At least physically, that was.

“If Dad finds out that you tried to ride that horse...” Jarrett shook his head and glanced toward the sky and Destry’s plane. His brother let out a curse as if everything was now suddenly crystal clear.

Rylan grabbed the reins from his brother, hoping Jarrett had the good sense not to say anything about him trying to ride one of the wild horses their father had brought home from the Wyoming auction—or about Destry. If he and Jarrett had that particular discussion, more than likely one or both of them would end up with a black eye.

He knew how his family felt about the Grants. Hell, he felt the same way. Even after all these years, just thinking about what had happened still hurt too badly. Just as thinking about Destry did. But as hard as he tried to put her out of his mind, he couldn’t do it.

“I just heard the news. It’s all over town,” his brother said as her plane disappeared from view.

* * *

DESTRY GRANT BANKED the small plane along the east edge of the towering snow-capped Crazy Mountains and then leveled it out to fly low over the ranch.

It never failed to amaze her that everything from the mountains to the Yellowstone River was W Bar G Ranch. Say what you want about Waylon “WT” Grant—and God knew people did, she thought—but her father had built this ranch from nothing into what it was today.

She’d spent the past few days in Denver at a cattleman’s association conference and was now anxious to get home. She was never truly comfortable until she felt Montana soil beneath her boots.

The ranch spread below her, a quilt of fall colors. Thousands of Black Angus cattle dotted the pastures now dried to the color of buckskin. Hay fields lay strewn with large golden bales stretching as far as the eye could see. At the edge of it all, the emerald green of the Yellowstone River wound its way through cottonwoods with leaves burnished copper in the late October air.

Destry took in the country as if breathing in pure oxygen—until she spotted the barns and corrals of the West Ranch in the distance. But not even the thought of Rylan West could spoil this beautiful day.

The big sky was wind-scoured pale blue with wisps of clouds coming off the jagged peaks of the Crazies, as the locals called the mountain range. Behind the rugged peaks, a dark bank of clouds boiled up with the promise of a storm before the day was over.

Just past a creek tangled with dogwood, chokecherry and willows, the huge, rambling Grant ranch house came into view. Her father had built it on the top of a hill so he’d have a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of his land. Like the ranch, the house was large, sprawling and had cost a small fortune. WT scoffed at the ridicule the place had generated among the locals.

“What did WT think was going to happen?” one rancher had joked before he’d noticed Destry coming into the Branding Iron Café for a cup of coffee last spring. “You build on top of a knob without a windbreak, and every storm that comes in is going to nail you good.”

She hadn’t been surprised that word had spread about what happened up at WT’s big house in January. During one of the worst storms last winter, several of the doors in the new house had blown open, piling snowdrifts in the house.

Even early settlers had known better than to build on a hilltop. They always set their houses down in a hollow and planted trees to form a windbreak to protect the house from Montana’s unforgiving weather.

That was another reason she’d opted to stay in the hundred-year-old homestead house down the road from WT’s “folly,” as it’d become known.

She was about to buzz the house to let her father know she was back, when she spotted something odd. An open gate wouldn’t have normally caught her attention. But this one wasn’t used anymore. Which made it strange that the barbed-wire-and-post gate lay on the ground, and there were fresh tire tracks that led to the grove of dense trees directly behind the homestead house where she lived alone.

She frowned as she headed for the ranch airstrip, wondering why anyone would have reason to drive back there. As she prepared to land, she spotted a bright red sports car heading toward the ranch in the direction of WT’s folly. In this part of the state, most everyone drove a truck. Or at least a four-wheel-drive SUV. The person driving the sports car had to be lost.

* * *

AFTER LEAVING THE PLANE at the hangar, Destry drove straight up to the main house in the ranch pickup. She pulled in as the dust was settling around the red sports car she’d seen from the air. As the driver shut off his engine, she saw her father roll his wheelchair down the ramp toward them.

WT had been a handsome, physically imposing man before his accident. Not even the wheelchair could diminish his formidable strength of will, even though he was now grayer and thinner. The accident hadn’t improved his disposition, either, not that it had been all that great before the plane crash.

WT was a complicated man. That was the nice way people in the county explained her father. The rest didn’t mince words. Nettie Benton at the Beartooth General Store called him the meanest man in Sweetgrass County.

Right now, though, WT looked more anxious than Destry had ever seen him. As he wheeled toward the car, Destry shifted her gaze to the man who had climbed out. For a moment she didn’t recognize her own brother.

“Carson?” For eleven years, she’d wondered if she would ever see her big brother again. She ran to him, throwing herself into his arms. He chuckled as he hugged her tightly, then held her at arm’s length to look at her.

“Wow, little sis, have you grown up,” he said, making her laugh. She’d been seventeen when he’d left, newly graduated from high school and on her way to college that coming fall. She hated to think how young she’d been in so many ways. Or how much that tragic year was to change their lives. Seeing Carson on the ranch again brought it all back with sharp, breath-stealing pain for everything they’d lost.

Carson had filled out from the twenty-year-old college boy he’d been. His hair was still a lighter chestnut from her own. They both had gotten their hair color from their mother, she’d heard, although she’d never seen as much as a snapshot of Lila Gray Grant. Unable to bear looking at photographs of Lila, her father had destroyed them all after his wife’s death.

Her brother’s eyes were their father’s clear blue, while her own were more faded like worn denim. It had always annoyed her that her brother had been spared the sprinkling of freckles that were scattered across her cheeks and nose. He used to tease her about them. She wondered if he remembered.

Around his blue eyes was a network of small wrinkles that hadn’t been there eleven years ago and a sadness in his gaze she didn’t recall. Like their father, he was strikingly handsome and always had been. But now he was tanned, muscled and looked like a man who’d been on a long vacation.

“What are you doing here? I mean—” She heard the crunch of her father’s wheelchair tires on the concrete beside her and saw Carson brace himself to face their father. Some things hadn’t changed.

“Carson,” WT said and extended his hand.

Her brother gave a slight nod, his face expressionless as he reached down to shake his father’s hand. WT pulled him closer and awkwardly put an arm around the son he hadn’t seen in years.

For the first time in her life, Destry saw tears in their father’s eyes. He hadn’t cried at her mother’s funeral, at least that’s what she’d heard through the county grapevine.

“It’s good to have you home, Carson,” their father said, his voice hoarse with emotion.

Carson said nothing as his gaze shifted to Destry. In that instant, she saw that his coming back to Montana hadn’t been voluntary.

Her heart dropped at what she saw in her brother’s face. Fear.

CHAPTER TWO

CARSON COULDN’T TAKE his eyes off his sister. When he’d left she’d been a tomboy, wild as the country WT couldn’t keep her out of. Eleven years later, she’d turned into a beautiful woman. Her long hair, plaited to hang over one shoulder, was now the color of rust-red fall leaves, her eyes a paler blue than his own. A sprinkling of freckles graced her cheeks and nose. Even after all these years she never tried to conceal them with makeup.

He smiled. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” Or how badly he felt about the pain he’d caused her. “Little sis,” he said, pulling her into his arms again.

She hugged him tightly, making him wonder what their father had told her about his return. Given her surprised reaction, he’d guess the old man hadn’t told her anything.

“Why are we standing out here? Let’s go inside,” WT demanded impatiently. “Don’t worry about your luggage. I’ll have one of the ranch hands unload it for you. You haven’t even seen the house yet.”

Carson released Destry and glanced behind him at the looming structure. How could he miss it? He’d seen the massive house perched like a huge boulder on the hill from way down the road. He didn’t need to ask why his father had built such a house. Apparently WT still hadn’t shed that chip on his shoulder after growing up poor in the old homestead house down the mountain. Back then, the house and a few acres of chicken-scratch earth were all he’d had.

But WT had changed that after inheriting the place when he was only a teen. He’d worked hard and had done well by the time he’d married. Carson had never known poverty, nothing even close to it.

But WT couldn’t seem to shake off the dust of his earlier life. He just kept buying, building, yearning for more. The manor on the mountain, planes, a private airstrip, and he’d even mentioned that he’d built a swimming pool behind the house. A swimming pool in this part of Montana so close to the mountains? How impractical was that?

As his son, Carson had certainly benefited from his father’s hard work. But it came at a price, one he’d grown damned tired of paying.

“Wait a minute, WT,” he said as his father began to wheel himself back toward the house. He hadn’t called him Dad since the fourth grade. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

* * *

DESTRY WATCHED THE passenger side of the sports car open and one long slim leg slide out.

She hadn’t noticed anyone else in the car, not with the sun glinting off the windshield, and neither she nor her father had apparently considered that Carson might bring someone home with him. That now seemed shortsighted. Carson was thirty-one. It was conceivable he’d have a girlfriend or possibly even a wife.

Destry glanced at her father and saw his surprised expression. She cringed. WT hated surprises—and Carson had to know that.

“I want you to meet Cherry,” her brother said, going to the car to help the woman out.

Destry felt her mouth drop open. Cherry was tall, almost as tall as Carson who stood six-two. She was a bleached blonde with a dark tan, slim with large breasts.

Cherry gave WT a hundred-watt smile with her perfectly capped ultrawhite teeth, which were almost a distraction from the skimpy dress she wore.

Carson was looking at their father expectantly, as if awaiting his reaction. There was a hard glint in her brother’s eyes. He had to know what WT’s reaction was going to be. It was almost as if he was daring their father to say something about the woman he’d brought home.

Beside her, their father let out an oath under his breath. Destry didn’t need to see WT’s expression to know this wasn’t the way he’d envisioned his son’s homecoming.

Cherry stepped over to WT’s wheelchair and put out her hand.

He gave her a limp handshake and looked to Carson. “I think it would be best if your...friend stayed in a motel in Big Timber.” Big Timber was the closest town of any size and twenty miles away. “Of course I’ll pick up the tab.” Only then did he turn his gaze to Cherry again. “I thought Carson would have told you. We have business to discuss. You’d be bored to tears way out here on the ranch.”

“WT,” Carson said in the awkward silence that followed, “Cherry is my fiancée.”

“Destry, show Cherry the swimming pool,” her father ordered. “Carson and I need to talk. In private.”

* * *

WT ROLLED HIMSELF INTO his den and straight to the bar. His son had brought home a Vegas showgirl and thought he was going to marry her? Over his dead body. As he shakily poured himself a drink, he realized that might be a possibility if he didn’t calm down.

“I’ll take one of those,” Carson said as he came into the room behind him. “I have the feeling I’m going to need it.”

Unable to look at his son right now, he downed his drink, then poured them both one. His hands were shaking, his heart jackhammering in his chest.

“Close the door,” he ordered and listened until he heard the door shut. “You aren’t going to marry that woman,” he stated between gritted teeth as he turned his wheelchair around to face his son.

Carson took the drink WT held out to him and leaned against the long built-in bar. His son had grown into a fine-looking man. WT felt a surge of pride. Until he noticed the way his son was dressed. Loafers, a polo shirt and chinos, for God’s sake. Who the hell did he think he was? He was the son of a rancher.

WT hated to think what that sports car parked out front had cost or about how much money he’d spent keeping Carson away from Beartooth.

“You aren’t going to marry that woman,” he repeated.

Carson met his gaze and held it with a challenge that surprised WT. With an inward shudder, he realized this wasn’t the son he’d sent away more than a decade ago. That scared twenty-year-old boy had just been grateful to get out of town alive.

“I’m in love with Cherry,” Carson said, as if daring him to argue the point.

WT shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not happening. And I don’t want to talk about that right now,” he said with a wave of his hand. “We need to talk about the W Bar G. You’re my son. This is where you belong. When I’m gone, I want to know you’re here, keeping the ranch and the Grant name alive.”

“I think I have more pressing matters to concern myself with right now, don’t you?”

WT fought to control his temper. “You let me worry about the sheriff and that other matter.”

“That other matter?” Carson demanded. “Is that what you call Ginny West’s murder?”

WT refused to get into the past with his son. He’d looked forward to this day from the moment Carson was born. No one was going to take that away from him.

“As I was saying,” WT continued, “I’m not going to turn the W Bar G over to you until I know you can handle running it. You’re going to have to learn the ranching business.”

Carson took a long gulp of his drink and pushed himself off the edge of the bar to walk around the room. WT tried to still the anger roiling inside him. He knew Carson was upset about being summoned home. Just as he’d been upset about being sent away eleven years ago.

He watched his son take in the den he’d had built so it looked out over the ranch with a view that ran from the mountains to the river. WT joined him at the bank of windows.

The valley was aglow with golden afternoon light. WT loved the way his land swept down from the base of the mountains in a pale swatch of rich pasture, hay and alfalfa fields to the river. Much of the land had dried to the color of corn silk. It was broken only by rocky outcroppings, hilly slopes of pine and the rust hues of the foliage along the creeks that snaked through the property.

It was an awe-inspiring sight that he feared was wasted on his son.

Carson finally spoke. “Even if everything turns out the way you think it will, I don’t understand why I have to learn the business. Destry’s doing a great job running the ranch, isn’t she?”

“She has only been filling in until you returned.”

“Does she know that?” his son asked, his tone rimmed with sarcasm.

WT took a swallow of his drink, giving himself time to rope in his anger. “I want you to run the ranch.”

“What about my sister? She isn’t some horse you can put out to pasture.”

WT let out a curse. “She needs to find a man and get married before it’s too late for her.”

He thought of the times she’d come home from a branding or calving filthy dirty as if she thought she was one of the ranch hands.

“It’s unseemly for a woman to be working with ranch hands,” he said, repeating what he’d told Destry more times than he cared to recall. Like her mother had been, she wasn’t one to take advice. Especially from him. “She needs to start acting respectable.”

“Maybe you haven’t heard, but women can vote now.”

“Biggest mistake this country ever made,” he said, only half joking. He thought of Lila and the trouble he’d had with her. Women were too headstrong and independent. He still believed a woman’s place was in the home and said as much to his son.

Carson didn’t seem to be listening. He stood staring down into his drink. WT wondered what he hoped to find there. Carson had always been moody as a boy. His mother’s doing when he was young, WT thought with a curse. Why couldn’t Carson have been more like Destry?

That thought made his stomach churn. People said Destry was too much like him. They had no idea.

When Carson looked up at him again, his expression was both angry and guilty. “You take this ranch away from my sister and you’ll kill her. Hasn’t she lost enough because of me?”

“You talking about that no-count rodeo cowboy Rylan West?”

“She loved him and would have married him if—”

“She’s not marrying him any more than you’re marrying that whor—”

“Careful, that’s my fiancée.”

WT looked at him hard, then laughed. “You’re not fooling me with this halfhearted protest about not wanting to take the ranch away from your sister any more than you are with this ridiculous engagement. You have no intention of marrying that woman.”

“Don’t I?”

“Well, let me put it to you this way. You marry that woman and I’ll leave this whole place and every dime I have to some goddamned charity.”

Carson cocked his head at him and smiled. “Now who’s bluffing?”

WT smiled back. “The difference is I can afford to call your bluff. I suspect you don’t have that luxury.” He narrowed his gaze, feeling his ire rise even higher. “You have no choice if you want my help with the sheriff. You’ll stay here and take over the ranch. Or you can go it alone without another dime from me. There is no third option and, from what I’ve heard, you might be in need of a damned good lawyer soon. I hope I’ve made myself clear,” he said as his cook and housekeeper, Margaret, rang the dinner bell.

“Perfectly,” Carson said and drained his glass.

* * *

NETTIE BENTON AT THE Beartooth General Store was the first person to see Carson Grant driving by in that fancy red sports car.

It wasn’t blind luck that she’d been standing at the front window of the store when Carson drove past. The once natural redhead, now dyed Sunset Sienna to cover the gray, spent most of her days watching the world pass by her window at a snail’s pace. It was why, as the storeowner, she often knew more of what was going on than anyone else in these parts.

“Bob,” she called to her husband. No answer. “Must have already gone home,” she muttered to herself. The two of them lived behind the store on the side of the mountain. Bob didn’t spend much time in the store his parents had turned over to them when they’d gotten married thirty years ago. He didn’t have to.

“Nettie loves minding the store—and everyone’s business,” he was fond of saying.

Nettie hurriedly grabbed the phone and began calling everyone she knew to tell them about Carson Grant.

“Nettie?” Bob called from the office in the back. “What’s all the commotion out there?”

Not only was Bob getting hard of hearing—at least hard of hearing her—he wouldn’t appreciate her news. Though he might have enjoyed seeing the bleached blonde with Carson.

“It’s Carson Grant,” she said as she stepped to the office doorway.

Bob didn’t look up from the bills he’d been sorting through. “What about him?” he asked distractedly.

“He’s back in Beartooth.”

Her husband’s head jerked up in surprise. “What?”

“I saw him drive past not thirty minutes ago.” She’d recognized Carson right off, even though it had been years since she’d laid eyes on him.

“Why would he come back now?” Bob asked, clearly upset. But then most of the county would be upset, as well.

“I would imagine it has something to do with the rumor circulating about new evidence in Ginny West’s murder.”

“What new evidence?”

“I heard it was some kind of fancy hair clip one of the kids found over at the old theater. Now they’re speculating that she might have actually been killed there and not out on the road.” She frowned. “Are you all right?”

Bob was holding his stomach as if something he ate hadn’t agreed with him. “You give me indigestion,” he said angrily as he shoved the bills away and pushed himself to his feet. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t making all of this up.”

“It was Carson Grant, sure as I’m standing here.”

“What I want to know is why he wasn’t arrested years ago?” Bob demanded. “Everyone knows he killed that poor girl. If your sheriff can’t figure that out, then there’s something wrong with him.”

Her sheriff? “Well, I, for one, am not convinced Carson did it,” she said as he pushed past her and headed for the back door and home.

“The fact that you’re the only one who believes that should tell you something, Nettie.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond as he slammed out the back door.

Surprised, since that was the most passion she’d seen in her husband in years, maybe ever, she wandered back to the front store window to entertain herself until she was forced to wait on a customer, should one come by.

The narrow two-lane paved road was empty—just as it was most days. The town of Beartooth was like a lot of small Montana towns. It had died down to a smattering of families and businesses. Not that it hadn’t been something in its heyday. With the discovery of gold in the Crazy Mountains back in the late 1800s, Beartooth had been a boomtown. Early residents had built substantial stone and log buildings in the shadow of the mountains where Big Timber Creek wound through the pines.

By the early 1900s, though, the gold was playing out and a drought had people leaving in droves. They left behind a dozen empty boarded-up buildings that still stood today. There was an old gas station with two pumps under a leaning tin roof at one end of town and a classic auto garage from a time when it didn’t take a computer to work on a car engine at the other.

In between stood the Range Rider bar, the post office, hotel and theater. There’d been talk of tearing down the old buildings to keep kids out of them. Nettie was glad they hadn’t. She thought fondly of the hidden room under the stage at the Royale theater where she’d lost her virginity. Unfortunately, that made her think of the sheriff, something she did her best not to do. Her sheriff, indeed.

Directly across the street from Nettie’s store was the Branding Iron Café where ranchers gathered each morning. Right now a handful of pickups were parked out front—and another half dozen down the street in front of the bar.

Nettie knew the topic of conversation among the ranchers must have Carson Grant’s ears burning. She wondered if the West family had heard yet and how long it would be before one of them either ran Carson out of town again—or strung him up for Ginny West’s murder.

But it was her husband’s reaction that had her scratching her head.

* * *

“WHERE’S YOUR SISTER?” WT asked Carson as he looked up from his meal and apparently realized for the first time that Destry wasn’t at the table.

“She got a call that some cattle had gotten out and were on the road,” Carson said.

His father grunted in answer, the sound echoing in the huge dining hall. Carson idly wondered how often this dining room was ever used. Not much, he’d bet, since everything looked brand-new, and it wasn’t as if WT had friends or family over. He’d never been good at making or keeping friends.

“Why didn’t she call one of the ranch hands to take care of it? Or our ranch foreman? This is what I pay Russell to do,” WT said irritably after a few bites.

Carson tamped down his own irritation. “I would imagine she didn’t want to bother them in the middle of their dinners, especially when she’s probably more than capable of taking care of it herself.” Knowing his sister, that would be exactly her reasoning.

“You see what I mean about your sister?” WT asked with a curse. “She doesn’t know her place.”

“This is her place,” Carson said defiantly in the hopes that an argument would end this meal faster. It couldn’t end soon enough for him.

WT continued to eat, refusing to rise to the bait. He hadn’t even acknowledged Cherry’s presence since she’d sat down. Did he really think that by ignoring her she would leave? Under other circumstances, Carson might have found all of this amusing.

He’d done his best to convince his father to give him enough money so he could leave the country. Coming back here only reminded him of everything he’d spent eleven years trying to forget.

But WT had been adamant. There would be no money, not even any inheritance, if he didn’t return.

“What about the sheriff?” he’d asked.

“He has a few questions, that’s all.”

A few questions about Ginny’s murder after all these years?

Clearly WT didn’t realize how dangerous it was for him being back here, he thought, recalling the look on Nettie Benton’s face when he’d driven by her store earlier today. There had been no reason to try to sneak back here. In a community this small, there were few secrets.

This was Montana where there was still a large portion of the rural population that believed in taking the law into their own hands—just as they had in the old days. That could mean a rope and a stout tree.

He mentioned that now to his father.

“I told you not to worry about any of that,” WT said without looking up.

“Don’t worry about it? Do I have to remind you that the last time I saw Rylan West he swore he’d kill me if he ever saw me again?”

His father finally looked up from his plate, his expression one of mild amusement. “I guess you’d better not let him see you then.”

* * *

DESTRY FOUND THREE W Bar G cows standing in the middle of the county road, just as a neighboring rancher had described over the phone. She slowed the truck, all three cows glancing at her but not moving. They mooed loudly, though, associating the sound of a truck with the delivery of hay.

“You girls are out of luck,” Destry said as she began to herd them with the pickup back up the road toward W Bar G property. She regretted missing her brother’s first dinner at home, but hoped he would understand. He and his fiancée needed time alone with WT so they could work out whatever was going on. Her being there would have only made things more strained, she told herself.

As it was, her conversation with Cherry by the pool earlier had left her even more concerned about her brother. Apparently the two had met at the Las Vegas casino where they both worked, Cherry as a dancer and Carson in the office.

Destry couldn’t imagine her brother living in Vegas, let alone working in a casino; neither could she see him settling down on the ranch. But then again, she didn’t know him anymore.

She wondered how much Carson had told his fiancée about what had happened eleven years ago. Did Cherry know about Ginny’s murder? Or that Carson was still the number one suspect?

She lowered her pickup window to feel the air, driving slowly as she moved the cattle at a lazy pace down the road. They were in no hurry, and neither was she.

This far north, it wouldn’t get dark for hours yet. Even with the possibility of an approaching storm, it was one of those rare warm fall afternoons in Montana. The rolling hills had faded to mustard in contrast to the deep green of the pines climbing the mountains. As always, the Crazy Mountains loomed over the scene, a bank of dark clouds shrouding the peaks.

She loved living out here away from everything. In this part of Montana, you could leave the keys in your pickup overnight, and your truck would still be there in the morning. The rural area’s low crime rate was one reason Ginny West’s murder had come as such a shock. It rattled everyone’s belief that Beartooth was safe because you knew your neighbors. Now, like a rock thrown into Saddlestring Lake, Carson’s return would create wide ripples.

Ginny West’s murder—and her breakup with Carson right before it—would be rehashed in booths and at tables in the Branding Iron Café and on the bar stools at the Range Rider bar.

There were still plenty of people around who believed Carson had killed her. Rylan West among them, she reminded herself with a sinking heart.

What would he do when he heard that Carson was back?

The cows mooed loudly as she brought the pickup to a stop and got out to open the barbed-wire gate. She’d seen a broken fence post where she figured the cows had gotten out. She’d let Russell know. Overhead, a hawk soared on an updraft.

As she waded through the tall golden grass, grasshoppers buzzed and bobbed around her. She lifted the metal handle to loosen the loop attached to the gate and, slipping the post out, walked the gate back to allow the cows into their pasture.

At the sound of a vehicle on the wind, she looked up the road. Dust churned up in the distance.

“Come on girls,” she said to the cows, swatting one on the backside with her hat to finally get them moving. She could hear the growing sound of the vehicle’s engine and was thankful she’d managed to get the cows off the road in time. Once she had them inside the fence, she dragged the barbed-wire gate back over to the post.

Destry had just cranked down the lever that kept the gate taut and closed when she heard the truck slow. She turned, squinting in the cloud of dust, as the pickup stopped only feet from her.

When she saw who was behind the wheel, her heart took off at a gallop.

CHAPTER THREE

RYLAN SWORE AS HE SAW Destry standing at the edge of the road. Had he really thought he could come storming out to the ranch and not run into her? One look at her and he’d known he wasn’t ready for this.

Destry looked the same and yet completely grown up. Her hair was longer, that same rich russet color that reminded him of fall in Montana. It was plaited down her slim back except for a few strands that the wind lifted around her face under the shade of her straw hat. She wore a yellow-checked Western shirt and jeans, both accenting her more mature, rounded figure.

Her eyes were still that faded blue that often matched Montana’s big sky. As he looked into them, he felt that old spark. It burned into him, hotter than a Montana summer day.

One look at her and he realized all the running he’d done the past eleven years had been for nothing. He couldn’t escape the way he felt about this woman any more than he could forgive her brother for what he knew he’d done.

His sister’s murder was like a line drawn in the dirt. Neither of them could step over it. Destry was convinced her brother was innocent of Ginny’s murder. Rylan would never believe that. Nothing had changed.

“Destry,” he said through his open window. The word felt alien on his lips, and he realized how long it had been since he’d uttered it aloud. It brought with it an ache that made him grit his teeth.

* * *

DESTRY HAD WATCHED FROZEN to the spot as the pickup came to a dust-boiling stop next to her. The early evening light ricocheted off the windshield, blinding her for a moment before the driver’s side window came down.

The shock of coming face-to-face with Rylan after all these years sent a tremor through her. She stared into those familiar brown eyes, seeing the Rylan West she’d fallen in love with as a girl. For a moment, lost in his gaze, she had the overpowering feeling that if he would just get out of that pickup and take her in his arms they could find their way back to each other.

“Destry?” The sound of her name on his lips made her heart pound with the familiarity of it.

She found her voice. “I wondered when I’d see you. I should have known what it would take. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

He shoved back his Stetson. “I reckon not. I need to see your brother.”

She shook her head. Before he’d left town, she’d tried to convince Rylan that her brother couldn’t have killed Ginny. “If you just knew him the way I do...”

But his mind had been made up. Just as it was today. She could see it in the clenched muscles of his strong jaw, in the set of his broad shoulders. He’d looked the same way the day of his sister’s funeral when he’d gone after Carson, the two of them getting into a fistfight at the cemetery until Rylan’s father had broken it up.

“I was hoping...” She couldn’t even bear to say the words, her hopes like daggers through her heart. She’d dreamed about the day she would see Rylan again. Her dream crumbled like the dried leaves on the cottonwoods nearby, turning to dust in the wind.

The man she’d known was gone. It was high time she let go of the past. Let go of Rylan West.

* * *

RYLAN NEARLY BUCKLED under the pain he saw in her eyes. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

She sighed, cloaking the hurt with a smile, a smile with an edge to it. Anger fired her blue eyes. It burned hot as a flame. She knew what he planned to do.

For weeks after Ginny’s murder, he’d tried to find proof that would put Carson Grant behind bars. What he kept running into was the same thing that had kept Carson free all these years—a lack of evidence.

“I have to get my sister justice since the law isn’t going to. As Ginny’s oldest brother, I owe her that.”

“And you think this is the way?” she said, sounding sad and disappointed in him.

“Stay out of this, please.”

“Carson’s my brother.”

“And Ginny was my sister. At least you still have your brother.”

“Not if you have your way.”

He had no intention of killing Carson—just getting the truth out of him, one way or the other. He snatched off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. Now that he and Carson were both back, Rylan intended to see his sister’s murderer behind bars. He said as much to Destry.

“He didn’t do it, Rylan,” she said. “He never left the ranch that night.”

“According to his alibi. You. But we both know that was a lie.” He fought back the image of her naked in his arms the night they’d made love for the first time at the old abandoned ski lodge high on the mountain. Little did they know what was happening in the valley below them.

Her hands went to her hips, her gaze blazing. “Carson didn’t know I’d left the ranch to meet you. It was an honest mistake since you and I were both sneaking around back then.”

“I notice that even you didn’t bring up Carson’s other alibi.”

“What would be the point? My brother could have a half dozen alibis and you still wouldn’t believe him.”

Rylan swore because she was right. “You have to admit his best friend isn’t the most reliable alibi, not to mention that Jack French would say the moon was made of cheese if your brother asked him to. Destry, when are you going to stop covering for your brother and see him for what he really is?”

She took a step toward the pickup, her fists balled at her sides. “When are you going to realize that you might be wrong?”

Rylan looked away, his jaw tensing in frustration. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.” He’d never believe Carson wasn’t Ginny’s killer, and Destry would defend her brother until hell froze over. “We both know why your brother is back in town. The county attorney threatened to bring Carson back in handcuffs if he didn’t return for questioning about the new evidence.”

“New evidence? Is that true?”

He saw her surprise. “Your father didn’t tell you? I thought you would have heard.” But then again, Destry hardly ever left the ranch, from what he’d heard.

“I just assumed WT forced Carson to come back,” she said.

Rylan shook his head. “A gold hair clip with my sister’s name on it was found under the stage at the Royale. We’re pretty sure Ginny was wearing it the last time we saw her.”

“So she was at the old theater that night?”

“The sheriff thinks she might have met someone there, probably her killer, then was taken by car to where her body was left.” He looked away, fighting the roiling emotions boiling inside him.

“Maybe now the real killer will be found,” Destry said.

He hated the hopefulness he heard in her voice. She would be devastated when the truth came out.

“Destry,” he said, as kindly as he could, “the county attorney wouldn’t have forced your brother to come back here unless the evidence pointed to him.”

Her blue eyes narrowed to slits. “If you’re so sure this so-called new evidence will prove my brother guilty, then why are you out here ready to take the law into your own hands?”

“Because the law in this county is Sheriff Frank Curry. Everyone knows that he does whatever your father tells him to.”

Destry shook her head angrily. “Or because you know a hair clip isn’t going to prove that my brother had anything to do with her death.”

“Not unless someone can place your brother in the old theater that night.”

“Don’t you think if my brother had been there, someone would have mentioned it by now?” she demanded.

She had always been strong and determined. It was one of the reasons he’d loved her more than life. If his sister hadn’t been murdered that night, he didn’t doubt they’d be married now, probably have a couple of kids.

Did Destry ever think about what might have been? She’d made a life for herself on the W Bar G. He’d heard how she had taken over after her father’s plane crash. She was born to ranch, that’s what people said. They also said how lucky WT was to have such a daughter. Everyone liked Destry and with good reason.

Carson, though, was another story.

“I warned your brother that if I ever saw him again... Destry, I can’t live with myself unless I do something. Can’t you understand that?” He hated the pleading he heard in his voice. It upset him that it mattered what she thought of him, even after all these years.

Her gaze softened. “I can understand. But not this way. Find out who your sister was meeting in town that night.”

He flinched at the mental picture of the coroner and EMTs bringing his sister’s body out of the shallow ditch beside the road a few miles outside of town. The killer had thrown her into the ditch, leaving her for dead, leaving her to die alone beside the road.

“She ran into your brother,” he snapped.

She made an impatient sound. “How can you be so sure that Ginny wasn’t seeing someone else that she kept not only from Carson, but also from your parents and even from you?” she demanded.

He swore under his breath as he slapped his hat back on to his head. “Some mystery man? That’s just some story your brother cooked up to shift suspicion onto someone else. This isn’t getting us anywhere. It’s the same old argument. It’s why I left eleven years ago. Your brother killed her.”

“Are you willing to stake everything on it? If so, then there is nothing more I can say, is there?” She turned toward her truck.

“What if you’re the one who’s wrong, Destry?” he called after her. “Ginny said your brother had been following her. How can you be so sure your brother didn’t leave the ranch that night? It wouldn’t be the first time he lied. Or the first time he hurt Ginny, would it?”

* * *

CARSON KNEW BETTER THAN to try to reason with his father, but he had to give it a shot. As he looked down the table, he wondered if WT believed he’d killed Ginny West. Or if it mattered to him. Apparently being Waylon Thomas Grant’s male heir trumped everything—even murder.

“Tomorrow morning, I’ll show you the new grazing land I’ve picked up since you’ve been gone,” WT was saying.

“Aren’t you worried about this new evidence that’s turned up?”

WT scoffed. “The state attorney general has been putting pressure on local law enforcement to clear up their cold cases. The sheriff is just going through the motions. I doubt there’s any new evidence. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew what it was.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll get you the best lawyer money can buy.” He looked up from his meal. “But it won’t come to that. You never left the ranch that night. Stick to that story. Jack will back you up, right?”

Carson said nothing for a moment, shocked by his father’s cavalier response. “You can’t really think I could get a fair trial in this county.” When WT didn’t respond, he tried again, “With enough money, I could leave the country. There are still foreign countries that the U.S. can’t extradite from.”

WT looked up at him and frowned. “I built this ranch for my son to take over. So I’m certainly not paying to send him out of the country.”

“I can’t very well take over the ranch if I’m on death row,” Carson snapped.

“You’re not going to prison. If the sheriff had anything on you, I’d know.”

Carson shook his head in disbelief. “Frank Curry might owe you his life, but not even his gratitude is going to save me if this new evidence makes me look guilty.”

WT let out an exasperated sigh. “Stop worrying. No one is fool enough to cross me. Not even the damned state’s attorney general.”

“If you’re so powerful, why did you insist on me leaving eleven years ago? Why didn’t you let me stay and fight the allegations? If that’s all you thought they were?”

WT shook his head and angrily shoved away his plate.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the huge dining room was the click of Cherry’s silverware as she kept eating.

Carson wished he could walk away right now and not look back. But that was no longer an option. He would need a lot of money to leave the country. If WT wouldn’t pony it up, then he needed the ranch and the money he could get for it. He thought of his sister. He had to convince WT to give him the money so he could disappear.

“Dad?” The word came at a cost after refusing to call WT that for so many years. “Dad?”

His father turned on the only other person in the room. “Cherry. That your real name? It sounds like a stage name.”

Carson swore under his breath as he watched WT take off the gloves. WT would fight as dirty as he had to get what he wanted.

His father threw him a challenging look. But he was no longer that scared kid who’d been sneaked out of Beartooth in the cover of darkness. Ginny’s murder and a target on his back had changed him. Nor did he need to come to Cherry’s defense. She could take care of herself.

Cherry slowly licked her painted lips and turned her full attention to WT. She’d chosen a hot-pink low-cut top that barely covered her nipples and white capris that cupped her toned bottom. Her dyed blond hair was piled haphazardly on top of her head with stray tendrils curling down around her face. The fake eyelashes gave her a sleepy, half-soused look, but then again, it could have been the wine she’d consumed with abandon since they’d sat down to supper.

“I’m a dancer,” she said proudly, daring him to dispute it.

“A dancer?” WT repeated and added, “And I’m a high flier on the trapeze.”

Cherry smiled. “Carson told me that his great grandfather used to be in the circus but I didn’t know you—”

“He’s making fun, Cherry,” Carson said dryly.

She narrowed her eyes at WT. “Making fun of me?”

“No,” WT said. “My son. And by the way, my grandfather rode in a Wild West Show. Not a circus.”

Carson laughed and shot a wink to his fiancée.

At the head of the table, WT bellowed for Margaret to serve dessert.

CHAPTER FOUR

RYLAN TOOK OFF IN A dust devil of anger as Destry climbed into her pickup, her legs weak, her heart aching. Seeing Rylan again had sent her already spinning-out-of-control world even further into orbit. She couldn’t look as he drove on down the road toward the W Bar G. There was no stopping him, no way to call the ranch to warn her father and brother since she hadn’t grabbed her cell phone—not that she could get service often this close to the mountains. Nor could she beat him to the ranch.

She feared not only for Carson. Her father wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a trespasser. Especially a West toting a gun.

Running into Rylan like that had been a shock, one that still reverberated through her. She couldn’t tell if the trembling in her hands as she started her truck had more to do with anger—or fear. Or those old feelings that still lingered when it came to that tall, lanky cowboy.

There’d been other men in the years since Rylan had left, even one she’d been fairly serious about, but she’d always measured them against her first love and they’d always come up short.

But did she even know this Rylan? This man so full of rage and set on vengeance at any cost?

Unable to resist it any longer, she glanced in her rearview mirror.

To her surprise, she saw Rylan hit his brake lights up the road. She watched him in the mirror, waiting and praying he’d changed his mind about confronting her brother.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t understand what was driving him. But he was wrong about Carson. Her brother had loved Ginny.

For long minutes, they sat like that, both pulled off the road fifty yards apart. Both apparently debating what to do next.

“Please, Rylan,” she said under her breath, half plea, half prayer.

She let out the breath she’d unconsciously been holding as she watched him turn his pickup around and head back in her direction. She thought he might stop again, but he didn’t.

He didn’t even look at her as he roared past in a cloud of dust headed away from the W Bar G. He’d said everything he had to say, she thought as she watched him go, her heart in her throat.

What had changed his mind? Hopefully he’d realized after he’d calmed down that the stupidest thing he could do was go to the ranch gunning for Carson.

Whatever had changed his mind, she was thankful. Not that it took care of the problem. She knew Rylan was right. He wouldn’t be the only one riled up about Carson’s return. If Carson stayed here, he wouldn’t be safe.

She sat for a moment, then leaned over the steering wheel letting all the emotions she’d bottled up the past eleven years spill out. She cried for all that had been lost to her, to both their families. Finally, drained, weak with relief and regret, she sat up and wiped her eyes. She’d been strong for so long.

For years she’d told herself she could live without Rylan. She’d moved on with her life. She was happy. At least content. But seeing him, coming face-to-face with him, hearing his voice, looking into his eyes...

He’d always been handsome, but now his body had filled out. He was broader in the shoulders, his arms sinewy with muscle, his face tanned from working outside. There were tiny lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before, but if anything, they only made him more handsome.

His hair was still thick and the color of sunshine, his eyes that honey-warm brown that she’d gotten lost in from the first time she’d looked in them. Her heart had always swelled at the sight of him. She’d never stopped loving him—just as she’d promised. Today proved what her heart already knew. She never would.

Pulling herself together, she turned the pickup around and headed back toward the ranch. Thoughts of Rylan aside, she just prayed that this new evidence would prove that Carson was innocent.

* * *

AS RYLAN HEADED home, he thought about the first time he’d laid eyes on Destry Grant. She’d come riding up with the W Bar G’s ranch foreman at a neighbor’s branding on a horse way too big for her. She would have been five at the time to his six. He recalled how serious she’d looked.

What stuck in his mind was that she’d stayed at the branding all day, cutting calves into the chute as if she was ten times her age, and later, when one of the cowboys’ hats had blown off and spooked her horse, she’d gotten bucked off and hit the ground hard. Her face had scrunched up, but she hadn’t shed a tear. She’d climbed the fence to get back on her horse and ridden off.

He’d never seen anyone so determined.

What chapped his behind now, though, was that she hadn’t changed one iota when it came to that stubborn determination and pride. He hated that, when it came to her brother, she just refused to see the truth.

He’d left eleven years ago because he couldn’t bear being around her with his sister’s death standing between them. He’d always rodeoed, but after college, he’d joined the pro circuit. It had been exactly what he’d needed—traveling from town to town across the country, never staying in one place too long. If he needed company, there were bronco and bull riders to hang out with, and if he felt in need of female attention, there were always buckle bunnies and rodeo groupies who were up for a good time.

The rodeo had helped him heal. He’d felt badly about bailing on his family, but his mother and father had two sons at home and he’d kept in touch. The only people he hadn’t wanted to hear anything about were the Grants. Especially Destry.

His family had welcomed him back with open arms and the ranch was large enough that there was plenty of room as well as work. Not that he’d have moved back into his childhood room at the ranch, even if his mother hadn’t turned it into her quilting room.

He’d moved into an old cabin on a stretch of land adjacent to the W Bar G until he could decide what he wanted to do next. The cabin had a roof he could see daylight through and that required a bucket or two when it rained, and often at night he heard mice gnawing on something under the floorboards.

Still, it was better than most of the places he’d slept in while on the rodeo circuit, and he was home.

If only he didn’t feel in such limbo. He’d saved nearly every dime he’d made rodeoing so he had options. But he feared moving ahead meant dealing with the past, something he’d put off all these years.

He swore under his breath, as frustrated with the situation between him and Destry as he’d been eleven years ago. He’d known seeing her again would be difficult. Difficult? He laughed to himself at how that word didn’t come close to adequately describing their encounter.

It hurt like hell. Like being bucked off a horse and hitting the ground with such force that it stole his breath for what seemed like forever. After that initial impact with the ground came the pain in his chest, an ache that radiated through his entire body, and for long moments, he was unable to move or breathe. A small death. Just like seeing Destry after all this time, a moment he would never forget.

And just like getting bucked off a wild horse and being anxious to ride another time, he couldn’t wait to see her again.

As he pulled up to his cabin, he saw his father’s pickup parked out front. Taylor West climbed out of the truck as Rylan cut his engine. One look at his father’s face and he knew he’d heard that Carson Grant was back.

“Where have you been, son?” he asked as Rylan got out. Taylor West was a large man, his blond hair graying around the temples. Years ago he’d been asked to do some modeling. A cowboy through and through, he’d turned down the offer, married his high school sweetheart, Ellie, and settled down to bring a daughter and three sons into the world. Rylan couldn’t have asked for better parents or a more stable family—until his sister, Ginny, was murdered.

His parents were both strong and, with the help of his brothers, had somehow managed to survive the tragedy. Probably better than Rylan the past eleven years.

“Son?” Taylor asked again.

“Just went for a ride,” Rylan said, a half-truth at best.

His father studied him for a long moment. “I know you heard the news.”

He nodded and shifted on his boots as he felt that old aching anger settle in his belly. “If there’s new evidence, then why isn’t Carson Grant already behind bars?”

His father shook his head. “These things take time. The sheriff—”

“The sheriff? Frank Curry isn’t going to—”

“Frank told me he’s just waiting for the new evidence to be run through the crime lab.”

His father was often too trusting. “And how long is that going to take?” Rylan demanded.

“We have to give Frank a chance. The sheriff mentioned that they have more resources than they did eleven years ago and that a lot of cold cases are being solved now because of it. All the evidence is being reviewed. They need enough to convict.”

Rylan grasped on to hope. “It has to be enough that they can nail the son of a bitch.” He hated to think, though, what Carson’s arrest would do to Destry. Her brother could be facing the death penalty.

“Frank Curry is hoping he can keep a lid on this community until then,” Taylor said. “Son, I need your word that you won’t do anything to make this any worse.”

Rylan thought about earlier, sitting on the narrow track of dirt road, the wind whistling in his side window, his heart pounding after coming face-to-face with Destry again. He didn’t have to tell his father that he’d been running for years from the past. Or that he didn’t think he could live with himself if he let his sister’s murderer remain free.

Taylor West knew his son. He’d been the one to pull Rylan off Carson the day of Ginny’s funeral when the Grants had had the audacity to show up.

“You’ve got to let the law handle this,” his father said now.

“And if the law doesn’t?” Rylan asked.

“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Rylan studied his father for a long moment. “I’ll wait to see what the sheriff comes up with.”

His father laid a big hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, son. I can’t lose another one of you.”

* * *

SHERIFF FRANK CURRY dragged the evidence box marked Ginny Sue West over to his desk and lifted the top. Until recently, it had been years since he’d reviewed the material. He’d had to force himself to put it away. The case had kept him awake at night.

He’d read through the report dozens of times. Everything had been pretty straightforward. Local girl Ginny West had been struck in the head with a blunt object before her body had been dumped beside the road a couple of miles from town.

She’d still been alive at the time. In the shallow ditch where she was found, there was evidence of where she’d tried to crawl out. But her injuries had been significant. She’d died of the blows she’d sustained before her body had been found.

There were no defensive wounds, which led him to believe she’d known her killer, and that’s why she’d gotten into a vehicle with him. That didn’t narrow down the suspects since Ginny West would have felt safe getting into a vehicle with most anyone in the county.

The ranch pickup Ginny had driven into town had been found behind the Range Rider bar. Originally, Frank had thought she might have met with foul play because of something that had happened in the bar earlier that night.

However, no one remembered seeing her. Which had led him to believe she’d never gone inside the bar. Whoever she’d run into in the parking lot behind the bar had made sure of that. Which could explain why her purse was found in the pickup.

The main suspect had been Ginny’s boyfriend who’d she’d broken up with about a week prior to her murder. Several locals had seen Carson Grant arguing with Ginny in public. It hadn’t helped either that Carson was WT Grant’s son or that Carson had been in some minor scrapes growing up. People in this community never forgot.

Carson, who’d sworn he’d been on the ranch all night, also had an alibi. And there was no evidence to prove he’d had a hand in Ginny’s murder. The town was convinced, though, and Frank thought it had been smart of WT to send Carson away.

Now, with the new evidence and Carson back in Beartooth, if there was any chance of closing this cold case, then Frank was taking it. But the last thing he needed was another murder on his hands, though.

He had asked the lab to put a rush on the tests. It was a long shot, but if he could get some DNA evidence, they could all move on with their lives. And if there was nothing on the barrette... At the very least it had gotten Carson back to town. Now he just had to hope talk of new evidence would force the killer to make a mistake and out himself.

His instincts told him that even with his suspicions about Carson Grant, this case wasn’t as cut-and-dried as everyone thought.

CHAPTER FIVE

CARSON LEFT THE HOUSE after dinner on the pretense of going for a walk. Cherry had turned in early. He couldn’t help smiling when he thought about her and WT at dinner. He wished he was more like her. She could handle WT with one hand tied behind her.

Margaret, the housekeeper and cook, had put a box of his old clothes in the bedroom he and Cherry shared. He’d found a pair of his Western boots and put them on, along with some worn jeans and a flannel shirt. When he looked in the mirror, it gave him a shock. He’d expected to see the twenty-year-old he’d been, but his face gave away an unmistakable regret.

He’d left the house, unable to bear another moment with his father. He hadn’t gone far down the road when he saw Destry go roaring past in one of the ranch pickups.

The fact that she was just now coming back didn’t bode well. Something told him the cows she’d gone to rescue from the road weren’t the only problem she’d run into. Did it have something to do with him?

He’d known his being back here would be trouble for her. He loved his sister and hated what he’d put her through already. Now it was about to get worse. Destry would be collateral damage, but he had little choice. All of this had been set in motion long before she was even born.

It wasn’t far to the homestead house as the crow flies, but over a mile by road. After he started down the mountain, he spotted the barn and corrals on the mountain just out of sight from the house. Nearby was the airstrip and hangar where the plane was kept.

Not far into the walk, he regretted not driving. The wind felt cold. Either that or his blood had thinned. It wouldn’t be long before snow would blanket the ground, and stay there through April, even May.

Down the road in the fading light of day, he caught sight of the old house where he and Destry had grown up.

“So you were born...poor?” Cherry had asked.

“My father had been dirt poor, as WT called it. He was doing okay by the time I came along and even better when Destry was born. We weren’t rich, by any means. We lived in the old homestead. He hadn’t built the new place yet or had his plane accident.” Funny, but Carson recalled those years more fondly than he’d expected he would.

“WT made some good investments, bought up any land that came available—and usually cheaply since this was before Montana property went sky high. As they say, the rest is history,” he’d told her.

Cherry had been impressed. “Well, that’s good for you,” she’d said.

Was it? If WT still lived in the old homestead house and the ranch was small as it had been when he started, would he be so dead set on his son taking the place over? Carson doubted it.

And wouldn’t things have been different when Ginny West was murdered? WT couldn’t have afforded to send his son away for eleven years. Carson would have had to stay—no matter the consequences.

Cherry had been surprised that his sister preferred living in the two-story log house instead of the mansion their father had built. Carson understood only too well. But he would have made the old man build him his own house, something new and modern and even farther away. Clearly, he wasn’t his sister.

The twilight cast a soft silver sheen over the land, making the dark pines shimmer as he crossed the cattleguard and approached the house. This far north, the sun didn’t set in the summer months until almost eleven. Now, though, it was getting dark by eight-thirty. Soon it would be dark by five.

The wind had picked up even more, he noticed distractedly. Something was definitely blowing in. The wind was so strong in this part of Montana that it had blown over semis on the interstate and knocked train cars off their tracks.

It was worse in the winter when wind howled across the eaves and whipped snow into huge sculpted drifts. He remembered waking to find he couldn’t get out to help feed the animals because the snow had blown in against the door. Often he’d had to plow the road out so he and Destry could get to the county road to catch the school bus.

It had become a state joke that while other states closed their schools when they got a skiff of snow or the thermometer dropped below zero, Montana schools remained open in blinding blizzards and fifty-below-zero temperatures. Carson remembered too many days when the ice was so thick on the inside of the school bus windows that he couldn’t see outside. He hadn’t missed the cold, especially enjoying winters in Las Vegas.

He reminded himself that, with luck, he and Cherry would be back there before their vacations were up.

Carson found his sister unloading firewood from the back of a flatbed truck and stacking it along the rear of the house. As a kid, she’d always turned to hard work or horseback when she was upset. He watched her for a moment. She was working off something, that was for sure.

“I thought we had hired hands for that?” he asked, only half joking.

She grinned and tossed a sawn chunk of log in his direction. He had to step out of the way to keep it from hitting him.

“Think you got enough wood there?” he asked as he fell in to help stack the truckload of logs along the back of the house. Firewood had been stacked in that spot for as long as he could remember.

“Takes quite a few cords to get through the winter with this latest weather pattern,” Destry said.

“I can’t imagine what it must take up at the Big House.” He’d heard her call it that and thought how appropriate it was to compare WT’s mansion with prison.

“Dad doesn’t heat with wood,” she said. “Went with a gas furnace. The wood fireplaces are just for show.”

He stopped, already winded from the exertion of trying to keep up with his sister. “Why do you stay here?”

“You know I’ve always loved this old house.”

“I’m not talking about this house. I’m talking about this ranch, Montana. I gave you some good advice before I left.” He’d told her to go away to college and not come back. To run as far away from WT as she could get. She should have listened. “You obviously didn’t take it.”

“But I appreciated the advice.” Destry stopped throwing down wood long enough to smile at him. “I was able to get my degree in business and ranch management and still stay around here, so it all worked out for the best.”

“Destry, what’s here for you but work?”

“I love this work.” She looked out at the darkening land beyond the grove of trees for a moment, her expression softening. “I couldn’t breathe without open spaces.”

He wondered what had happened either before she’d left to see about the cows—or while she was gone. Maybe it was just his return that had her upset. “Destry, you know I can’t stay here.”

She jumped down to stack logs, making short order out of the pile she’d thrown from the truck bed. “What does Dad say about that?”

“What do you think he says?” He felt his blood pressure rise. “I don’t know how you can put up with him. I can’t.”

“What will you do?”

He shook his head. He didn’t have a clue. The old man definitely had him between a rock and a hard place. Destry was in an even worse corner, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her.

She stacked more of the wood for a moment. “I’ll pick you up early in the morning,” she said, stopping to study him. “Be ready.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

He smiled at his sister. “I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah, I’ve missed you, too.”

* * *

RYLAN HAD JUST THROWN a couple of elk steaks into a cast-iron skillet sizzling with melted butter. A large baked potato wrapped in foil sat on the counter since the steaks wouldn’t take long.

The secret with wild meat was not to overcook it. He’d learned that at hunting camp when he was a boy. At least today he wasn’t cooking over an open campfire. The wonderful scent of the steaks filled the cabin, and for the first time in weeks, he felt as if he was finally home.

The knock at the door made him curse under his breath. He really wasn’t in the mood for company.

When he went to the door, he was shocked to find Destry standing outside on the wooden step. He tried to hide his surprise as well as his pleasure in seeing her again. Leaning his hip against the door frame, he studied her for a moment as he waited for her to speak—that was until he remembered his steaks and swore as he hurried back to the stove.

When he looked up from flipping the beautifully browned steaks, she had come in and closed the door behind her. The cabin immediately felt smaller. Too small and too warm.

“I assume you’re not here for supper,” he said, wondering what she was here for. Being this close to her jolted his heart, reminding him of things he’d spent years trying to forget. “I’m a pretty good cook if you’re interested.”

“No, thanks.” She appeared as uncomfortable as he felt in the tight quarters, which surprised him. He’d only seen her lose control of her emotions once. The reminder of their night together did nothing to ease his tension. He pulled the steaks off the stove, his mouth no longer watering for them, though, and gave her all his attention.

Destry was the only woman he knew who could make a pair of jeans and a flannel work shirt sexy. Her chestnut plaited hair hung over one shoulder, the end falling over her breast. He remembered the weight of her breasts in his hands, the feel of her nipple in his mouth. His fingers itched to unbraid her hair and let it float around her bare shoulders.

“I’ll make this quick since I don’t want your steaks to get cold,” she said. “Thank you for changing your mind about going to the W Bar G earlier.”

He shook his head. “Don’t. You don’t know how close I came.”

“You stopped before it was too late,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, but that was today. I can’t make any promises about tomorrow.”

Her blue eyes shone like banked flames. Even in the dull light of the cabin, he could see the sprinkling of freckles that arced across her cheeks and nose. She looked as young as she had in high school. The girl next door, he used to joke. And that was still what she was.

Only now she was all woman, a strong, independent, resilient woman who made his pulse quicken and heart ache at the sight of her. Pain and pleasure, both killers when your heart was as invested as much as his was.

He wanted to reach for her, to pull her into his arms, to kiss that full mouth....

“Enjoy your steaks,” she said, turning toward the door.

He couldn’t think of anything to say, certainly not something that would make her stay. He listened to her get into her pickup, the engine cranking over, the tires crunching on the gravel as she drove away.

He dumped his steaks onto a plate, but he’d lost his appetite. Destry was determined to make him a saint when he was far from it. Now he wished he’d kicked Carson’s butt.

But he figured Destry would have still ended up on his doorstep tonight—only she wouldn’t have been thanking him. She would probably have come with a loaded shotgun and blood in her eye.

* * *

THE STORM BLEW IN WITH a vengeance just after midnight. Destry woke to rain and the banging of one of the shutters downstairs. She rose and padded down the steps wearing nothing but the long worn T-shirt she’d gone to bed in.

As she stepped off the bottom stair, she slowed, surprised to feel the chilled wind on her face. Had she left one of the windows open?

The air had a bite to it, another indication that winter wasn’t far off. This time of year the days could be hot as summer, but by night the temperature would drop like a stone. Soon the water in the shallow eddies of the creek would have a skim of ice on them in the morning and the peaks in the Crazies would gleam with fresh snow.

She thought about her brother’s earlier visit. What had he walked all the way down here for? She’d been too worked up over seeing Rylan at the time to question him. Later she’d had the feeling he wanted to tell her something. Whatever it was, he’d apparently changed his mind.

After they’d finished stacking the wood, she’d invited him in, but he’d declined. Just as he had when she’d offered to give him a ride back up to their father’s house.

“I need the exercise,” he’d said and had taken off before it became completely dark.

Her thoughts turned to her visit with Rylan earlier that night. Just the memory of him cooking steaks in that small cabin, warmed her still. It had seemed so normal, so welcoming, like the Rylan she once knew. He might come after Carson again when she wouldn’t be there to talk him out of it. But at least it wouldn’t be tonight.

Destry hugged herself from the chill as she started across the open living room. The worn wood floor beneath her bare feet felt freezing cold. The shutter banged a monotonous beat against the side of the house. The wind curled the edge of the living room rug and flapped the pages of a livestock grower’s magazine left on an end table.

It wasn’t until she reached the back of the house that she realized it wasn’t a window that had been left open—it was the back door.

A chill rattled through her that had nothing to do with the wind or the cold. Through the open doorway, the pines appeared black against the dark night. They whipped in the wind and rain below a cloud-shrouded sky.

Destry reached to close the door but stopped as she caught movement out beyond the creek. Something at the edge of the trees. Without taking her eyes off the spot, she reached for the shotgun she kept by the back door to chase away bears. She didn’t have to break it down to know it was loaded. There were two shells, one in each barrel.

She stared through the darkness at the spot in the pines and cottonwoods where she would have sworn she saw something move just moments before.

As she stood in the doorway, large droplets of rain pinged off the overhang, splattering her with cool mist. The wind blew her hair back from her face and molded the worn T-shirt to her body.

What had she seen? Or had she just imagined the movement?

Another chill raced across her bare flesh. She hated the way her heart pounded. Worse, that whatever had been out there had the ability to spook her.

The door must not have been latched and had blown open. But as she started to close the door, she recalled the downed fence and the tracks leading into the trees behind her house that she’d seen from the air. With everything that had happened, she’d forgotten about them.

Few people who lived out in the country locked their doors, especially around Beartooth. Destry never had. But tonight she closed the door, locked it and, leaving the shotgun by the back door, took her pistol up to her bedroom.

CHAPTER SIX

NETTIE BENTON DIDN’T notice the broken window when she opened the Beartooth General Store early the next morning. She hadn’t gotten much sleep, thanks to Bob and the bad dreams he’d had during the night. She’d awakened to find him screaming in terror—as if his snoring wasn’t bad enough.

He’d finally moved in to the guest room, or she wouldn’t have slept a wink. When she’d gone to open the store’s front door, she’d looked across the street and seen the new owner of the café chatting with a handful of customers. Just the sight of Kate LaFond threatened to ruin an already bad day.

The woman had purchased the Branding Iron after the former owner had dropped dead this spring. Just days after the funeral, Kate LaFond had appeared out of nowhere. No one knew anything about her or why she’d decided to buy a café in Beartooth.

The community had been so grateful that she had kept the café open, they hadn’t cared who she was or where she’d come from. Or what the devil she was doing here.

Everyone but Nettie. “I still say it’s odd,” she said to herself now as she stood at the window watching Kate smiling and laughing with a bunch of ranchers as she refilled their coffee cups.

An attractive thirtysomething brunette, Kate had apparently taken to the town like a duck to water. It annoyed Nettie that, after only a few months, most people seemed fine with her. They didn’t care, they said, that they didn’t know a single relative fact about the woman’s past.

“It’s just nice to have the café open,” local contractor Grayson Brooks had told her. Nettie had noticed how often Grayson stopped by the café mornings now. Grayson owned Brooks Construction and was semiretired at forty-five because of his invalid wife, Anna. He had a crew that did most of the physical work, allowing him, apparently, to spend long hours at the Branding Iron every morning.

“Kate’s nice and friendly and she makes a pretty good cup of coffee,” Grayson had said when Nettie had asked him what he thought of the woman. “I think she makes a fine addition to the town.”

“Doesn’t hurt that she’s young and pretty, I suppose,” Nettie had said.

Grayson had merely smiled as if she wasn’t going to get an argument out of him on that subject, although everyone knew, as good-looking as he was, he was devoted to his wife.

“Did you ever consider it’s none of our business?” her husband, Bob, had asked when Nettie had complained about Kate LaFond to him. He’d been sitting in his office adding up the day’s receipts.

“What if she has some dark past? A woman like that, she could have been married, killed several husbands by the age of thirty-five, even drowned a few of her children.”

Bob had looked up at her, squinting. After forty years of marriage, he no longer seemed shocked by anything she said.

“Why on earth would you even think such a thing?” he’d asked wearily.

“There’s something about her. Why won’t she tell anyone about her past if she has nothing to hide? I’m warning you, Bob Benton, there is something off about that woman. Why else would she buy a café in a near ghost town, far away from everything? She’s running from something. Mark my words.”

“Sometimes, Nettie” was all Bob had said with one of his big sighs, before leaving to walk up the steep path to their house.

Now, Kate LaFond looked up. Their gazes met across the narrow stretch of blacktop that made up the main drag of Beartooth. The look Kate gave her made a shudder run the length of Nettie’s spine.

“That woman’s dangerous,” she said to herself. It didn’t matter that there was no one around to hear. No one listened to her anyway.

Nettie moved from the window and went about opening the store as she did every morning. Lost in thought, she barely heard something crunch under her boots. She blinked, stumbling to a stop to look down. That’s when she saw the glass from the broken window.

* * *

DESTRY DROVE UP TO THE big house, anxious to spend some time with her brother. She hadn’t slept well last night after discovering the open door, so she’d had a lot of time to think.

She was worried about her brother. Even more worried about what he might have come down to the house to tell her last night.

This afternoon she would be rounding up the last of the cattle from the mountains. After a season on the summer range, they would be bringing down the last of the fattened-up calves, and all but the breeding stock would be loaded into semis and taken to market.

Destry always went on the last roundup in the high country before winter set in. The air earlier this morning had been crisp and cold, the ground frosty after last night’s rain. But while clouds still shrouded the peaks of the Crazies, the sun was out down here in the valley, the day warming fast.

As she pulled up to the house and honked, she was surprised when her brother came right out. He’d never been an early riser even as a boy. He must really be desperate to get away from their father. Or was it his fiancée?

“Okay, where are we going?” Carson asked as he climbed into the pickup.

Destry nodded her head toward the bed of the truck and the fishing tackle she’d loaded this morning.

“Fishing?” He shook his head as she threw the pickup into gear. “Did you forget I don’t have a fishing license?”

“With all your problems, you’re worried about getting caught without a fishing license?”

He laughed. “Good point.” He leaned back in the seat as she tore down the road, and for a moment, she could pretend they were kids again heading for the reservoir to go fishing after doing their chores.

Destry barreled forward, having driven more dirt roads in her life than paved ones. The pickup rumbled across one cattle guard after another, then across the pasture, dropping down to the creek.

Because it was late in the year, the creek was low. She slowed as the pickup forded the stream, tires plunged over the rocks and through a half foot of crystal clear water before roaring up the other side.

Tall weeds between the two-track road brushed the bottom of the pickup, and rocks kicked up, pinging off the undercarriage. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carson grab the handle over the door as she took the first turn.

“Sorry to see your driving hasn’t improved,” he said.

She laughed. “You’ve been gone too long.”

“Not long enough.”

“Come on, haven’t you missed this?” She found that hard to believe. Didn’t he notice how beautiful it was here? The air was so clear and clean. The land so pleasing to the eye. And there was plenty of elbow room for when you just wanted to stretch out some.

The road cut through the fertile valley, stubble fields a pale yellow, the freshly plowed acres in fallow dark with the turned soil.

“Apparently you haven’t been listening to me any more than WT has,” her brother said. “This is just land to me. I feel no need to take root in it.”

They fell silent, the only sound the roar of the engine and the spray of dirt clods and rocks kicked up by the tires. The land dropped toward the river, falling away in rolling hills that had turned golden under the bright sun of autumn.

Ahead she saw the brilliant blue of pooled water and smiled, feeling like a kid again. Over the next rise, she swung the pickup onto a rutted track that ended at the water’s edge. Summer had burned all the color out of the grass around the small lake. Only a few trees stood on the other side, their leaves rust red, many of the branches already bared off.

Destry parked the truck next to an old rowboat that lay upside down beside the water like a turtle in the sun. Getting out, together they flipped the boat over and carried it to the water before going back for the poles, tackle box and the cooler she’d packed.

“When was the last time you went fishing?” she asked as they loaded everything into the boat.

“Probably with you. As I recall I caught more fish than you, bigger ones, too.”

She laughed. “Apparently your memory hasn’t improved any more than my driving.”

Their gazes held for a long moment. Carson was the first to look away. “Hop in. If you’re determined to do this...” He pushed the rowboat off the shore and climbed in.

Destry breathed in the day, relaxing for the first time since her brother’s return. She dipped her fingers into the deep green water. It felt cold even with the October sun beating down on its surface.

“I assume you brought worms,” Carson said, reaching into the cooler. He opened the Styrofoam container and tossed her a wriggling night crawler, chuckling when she caught it without even making a face.

“You never were like other girls,” he said.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.” The water rippled in the slight breeze as the boat drifted for a few moments before Carson took the oars. He rowed the boat out to the center of the reservoir, then let the tips of the oars skim the glistening surface as they drifted again.

Destry watched her red-and-white bobber float along on top of the water in the breeze. From the horizon came the loud honking of a large flock of geese. The eerie sound seemed to echo across the lake as the geese carved a dark V through the clear, cloudless blue.

Nothing signaled the change of season like the migration of the ducks and geese. She thought of all the seasons she’d seen come and go, so many of them without her brother, the lonesome call of the geese making her sad.

“I don’t want you to leave again,” she said without looking at him.

Water lapped softly at the side of the boat. The breeze lifted the loose tendrils of hair around her face. A half dozen ducks splashed in the shallows near the shore, taking flight suddenly in a spasm of wings. Beads of water hung in the air for an instant as iridescent as gleaming pearls.

“I’ll bet there aren’t any fish in this reservoir anymore,” Carson said. He was lying back on the seat, eyes closed, his pole tucked under one arm, the other arm over his face. He wore a T-shirt and an old pair of worn jeans, the legs rolled up, and a pair of equally old sneakers. The Western straw hat he’d been wearing rested on the floor of the boat.

“Doesn’t really matter if there are fish, does it?”

Carson moved the arm from his face enough to open one eye and look at her. “Only if you hope to catch something.”

“I’m happy just being here,” she said.

“You would be. Some people actually like to catch fish when they go fishing.” He went back to half dozing on the seat.

“Are you really going to marry Cherry?” Destry asked after a few minutes had passed.

“Why else would I have asked her?”

“Because at the time it seemed like a good idea?”

Her brother snickered. “It did seem like a better idea in Vegas than in Beartooth, Montana. She doesn’t exactly fit in here, does she?”

“Is she bored to tears?”

“Yep, and worried about grizzly bears coming down and eating her in the middle of the night. She can’t believe the closest big-box store is over an hour away.” Carson laughed. “I hate to think what will happen if she breaks a nail.”

The sound of her brother’s laughter filled Destry with such love for him. She leaned back, letting the warm morning and the gentle slap of the water on the side of the boat lull her. Overhead, a red hawk circled on a warm thermal.

“You haven’t asked me if I killed Ginny,” Carson said, and she felt the boat rock as he leaned up on one elbow to look at her.

She thought she could see the hawk circling overhead reflected in his gaze. “You didn’t. You couldn’t.”

He scoffed and lay back again, the arm back over his face. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we’re all capable of despicable acts when we’re backed into a corner. But thanks for believing in me, sis. It means a lot.”

* * *

NETTIE FELT SICK TO HER stomach as she stared at the shattered window, the shards of glass glittering on the floor. Who had done such a thing?

She took a step back, her heart pounding as she realized whoever had broken the window could still be somewhere in the store.

Rushing to the phone, she dialed the sheriff with trembling fingers. “I’ve been burglarized!” she screamed into the phone the moment the dispatcher put her through.

“Who is this?” Sheriff Frank Curry asked in a voice so calm it set Nettie’s already frayed nerves on edge.

She’d known Frank Curry since she was a girl. “Who the devil do you think it is?” she snapped. “My store was burglarized.” She dropped her voice. “He might still be here.”

“Lynette,” the sheriff said. He was the only person who called her by her given name. The way he said it spoke volumes about their past. In just one word, he could make her feel like that lovestruck, teenage girl again. “Perhaps you should wait for me at your house. Where’s your husband?”

She knew only too well what Frank thought of her husband. “Just get up here and don’t you dare send that worthless Deputy Billy Westfall instead.” She slammed down the phone, shaking even harder than she’d been before. She was fairly certain whoever had broken in wasn’t still here. At least not on the lower floor.

The upper level was used for storage. Moving to the second-floor door, she eased it open and peered up the dark steps. She listened, didn’t hear a sound and closed the door and bolted it.

If the burglar was up there, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. She checked her watch and, leaving the closed sign on the front door, settled in to wait. As she glanced across the street to the café again, she realized she’d never had a break-in before Kate LaFond came to town.

* * *

“WHERE’S CARSON?”

Margaret turned from the stove, eyes narrowed. “Good morning to you, too, Waylon.”

WT cursed under his breath. He hated it when she called him Waylon. She only did it because she knew it annoyed him. Or to remind him where he’d come from. As if he needed reminding.

“Don’t act as if you didn’t hear me,” he snapped.

“Why? You do.”

He didn’t know how many times he’d come close to firing her. But they both knew he’d pay hell getting anyone else to cook and clean for him—let alone put up with him.

The real reason he hadn’t sent her packing was that she knew him in a way that no one else did, not that he would ever admit it to her. Like him, she also knew the pain of poverty. Of wearing the same boots until even the cardboard you’d pasted inside couldn’t keep the rocks from making your feet bleed. She knew about hand-me-down clothes and eating wild meat because there wasn’t anything else.

Christmases had been the worst. That empty feeling that settled in the pit of the stomach as the day approached and you knew there would be no presents under the tree. It was hell when even Santa Claus didn’t think you deserved better.

A couple of do-gooders in the area had left presents for him one year. WT had been too young to know what it had cost his parents to accept them. He’d greedily opened each one. A football. A pair of skates. A BB gun.

He remembered the feeling of having something that no one had ever worn or used before him. He’d run his fingers along the shiny BB gun, seeing his reflection in the blade of the skates and holding the warm leather of the football thinking it the happiest day of his life.

The next Christmas, though, he’d seen the look on his father’s face and realized his mother’s tears weren’t those of joy. There was no Santa Claus, only people who felt sorry for him and his family. He’d made sure the do-gooders skipped his house from then on and swore he’d never need or take charity again.

No one knew about any of that—except for Margaret. Yes, that shared past was one reason he didn’t fire Margaret—and that she put up with him. Also, they knew each other’s secrets. That alone was a bond that neither of them seemed able to break. Margaret knew him right down to his black, unforgiving soul.

“I was looking for Carson,” WT said, tempering his words now as he wheeled deeper into the kitchen. “Have you seen him?”

“He left with his sister. I believe they’ve gone fishing.”

“Fishing?”

“Yes, fishing. They haven’t seen each other in more than a decade. I would imagine they want to spend some time together.” She didn’t add, “Away from you,” but he heard it in her tone.

He grunted and spun his wheelchair around to leave.

“Even if you can get him cleared of a murder charge, you can’t keep him here against his will,” she said to his retreating back.

“We’ll see,” he said, gritting his teeth.

* * *

CARSON SURREPTITIOUSLY studied his sister as he pretended to sleep in the gently rocking boat. Everything about this grown-up Destry impressed him. There didn’t seem to be anything she couldn’t handle on the ranch. This afternoon he’d heard that she was planning to ride up into the high country to finish rounding up the cattle. He’d never been able to ride as well as her. Nor did he have her knack for dealing with the day-to-day running of a ranch. The ranch hands had always respected her because she’d never been afraid to get her hands dirty, working right alongside them if needed.

He felt a wave of envy, wishing he were more like her. There was a rare beauty about her, a tranquility and contentment that he’d have given anything for. Was she really that at peace with her life? Or was she just better at hiding her feelings than he was?

Stirring from his dark thoughts, he sat up. “So who are you dating?”

“Dating?” She let out a laugh. “I don’t have time to date. Oh, don’t give me that look. I’ve dated. Don’t you be like Dad and try to marry me off to someone with good pasture or grazing land.”

Carson remembered how WT had been about him and Ginny West.

“Why can’t you be interested in one of the Hamilton girls? Now that’s some nice ranch land those girls are going to inherit, a whole section of irrigated pasture along Little Timber Creek.”

Carson laughed now at the memory and shared it with Destry.

She chuckled. “He’s been pushing me to go out with Hitch McCray in hopes of someday getting that strip of land between ours and the forest service land to the north.”

“He’d even marry you off to Hitch?” Carson let out a curse. “I wouldn’t let Hitch have a mean stray dog. Anyway, he’s too old for you.”

She smiled at that. “He’s only forty.”

“Seriously, you’ve put in your time taking care of WT. Isn’t it time for you to have some fun?”

Destry shook her head, smiling. “I haven’t been holed up here. There’s just nowhere I want to be but here or nothing else I want to do with my life. I could never leave Montana, no matter what.” She studied him. “What about you? What do you want to do with your life?”

He shrugged. He truly didn’t know. He’d thought he was happy in Las Vegas working at the casino, had seen himself married to Cherry and living the rest of his life in the desert.

But some bad luck, WT and this new evidence had changed that.

Destry was studying him openly. “Isn’t there someone you’d like to spend your life with?”

“How can you ask that?” Carson said with a laugh. “I’m engaged to be married.”

“Do you love her?”

He sobered. “Not like I loved Ginny.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m like you. I’m fine.” He almost told her everything then, but he couldn’t bring himself to spoil this beautiful morning with her. Soon enough he would be responsible for breaking her heart. Again.

“What if you could clear your name?” Destry asked.

“After all these years?” he asked with a shake of his head. But her words conjured a future he’d thought lost to him. As he looked out across the land, he told himself not to, but for the first time in years, he felt a sense of hope he hadn’t since Ginny was killed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

BETHANY REYNOLDS FINGERED the locket at her neck and tried not to think about her husband as she reached for her hastily discarded clothing.

Her husband, Clete, would have never thought to give her a silver heart-shaped locket. Clete didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. What had the man gotten her for their first Valentine’s Day together? A set of snow tires.

The only reason he’d married her was to get her elk hunting tag. Only a few tags were given out each year in the area he loved to hunt. She’d lucked out and gotten one.

It had taken a moose even to get Clete to notice her. She’d been mooning over him for years. But it wasn’t until she’d come into the Range Rider where he’d worked as a bartender and started showing her moose photos that he finally came around.

She’d drawn a moose tag—and bagged one. That was big news since moose tags were more rare than elk. Of course Clete had been jealous as all get out.

“You got a tag?” Clete had said.

She’d grinned, enjoying his jealousy—until he’d asked, “Who shot it for you?”

Bethany hadn’t even bothered to answer him as she’d turned to show off her moose. It was three times bigger than she was and would feed herself and her family all year.

“What’s moose meat taste like?” one of her “city” friends had asked.

“A little sweet, a darker meat than elk or deer. I’ll get you a package of steaks to try,” Bethany had promised. Behind her, she’d heard Clete banging around behind the bar, louder than usual.

It wasn’t until the bar had cleared out some that he’d called her over. “So you shot it yourself,” he’d said and offered her a drink.

She’d never been one to hold a grudge or turn down a free drink. Not to mention the fact that she’d had a crush on Clete since junior high. He’d been Beartooth’s claim to fame, a football player who’d played for the Grizzlies at the University of Montana. That is until he got hurt.

Bethany had always known she was going to marry him. She even did that silly thing all lovesick girls do, she wrote Mrs. Clete Reynolds and Bethany Reynolds so many times that she believed it.

When he’d gotten injured his sophomore year at U of M, he’d dropped out, come home and gotten a job bartending at the Range Rider.

“Just until the leg heals,” he would say. Everyone knew better. When the bar came up for sale, the owner sold it to Clete and carried the loan.

“So tell me about this moose,” Clete had said that day at the bar as he’d glanced up from one of the photos to look at her. There’d been only one other time that he’d looked at her like that, years ago at the Fall Harvest Festival when she was sixteen. She’d told him that day she was going to marry him and that he’d better wait for her to grow up.

But it had taken the moose to bring them together years later.

“You gutted it yourself?” he’d said.

It was so big that she’d had to crawl inside it.

The moose had gotten them dating. But it had taken the elk permit to get Clete to pop the question. It was almost an accepted thing, women giving up their tags so their men could hunt more, even though it was illegal. If you got caught.

Most things came down to simply that, she’d learned. Like affairs, she thought as she slipped into her Western shirt.

“That was amazing,” said the man on the bed.

She felt warm fingertips brush along the top of her bare butt and smiled to herself. Some men were breast men, others leg men. This one was all about her large, round butt and she loved it.

Clete had never appreciated her backside. Hell, he wasn’t all that wild about her other parts, either. Lovemaking with Clete had become so mechanical that Bethany could just lie there and think about anything else she wanted until it was over. At just barely thirty-two, she was in her prime and was glad at least there was one man around who appreciated that fact. This man had never thought she was too young for him.

“I’m glad you were able to get away today,” he said.

She finished snapping her Western shirt and stood. This was when she usually told him that she couldn’t do this anymore. If they got caught, they both had too much to lose, not to mention it was wrong.

Bethany always left him, swearing she wouldn’t go back. But after a day or two, she’d weaken. He made her feel as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. He also was smart enough to know a woman didn’t want snow tires on Valentine’s Day, she thought as she again touched the tiny heart-shaped silver locket he’d given her. It felt cold against her bare skin.

“I have to work a double shift at the café tomorrow,” she said and groaned at the thought. She’d worked at the café through high school and thought those days were behind her once she married Clete. She’d been wrong about that, too.

“I’m sorry, Sweetie, but I’m going to be busy for a few days myself.”

She turned to look at him, a little surprised by his words. He always had more free time than she did. Lately, she’d felt as if he was losing interest in her and that scared her.

“Oh, and don’t forget to take that off before you go home, will you,” he told her, motioning to the locket resting against her skin.

The locket, like their affair, was their secret. “I won’t forget.”

* * *

DESTRY COULDN’T WAIT to ride horseback up in the high country above the ranch. She did her best thinking on the back of a horse. Or no thinking at all, which would have been fine with her this afternoon.

When she stopped by the house on her way to the barn, Cherry was lying by the pool.

“Is it always this quiet here?” Cherry asked.

“Always,” Destry said, looking toward the spectacular Crazy Mountains.

“Where do you shop?” Cherry asked.

“Nettie at the Beartooth General Store sells the essentials, food, supplies, even some clothing and muck boots.”

“Muck boots. You have a lot of use for those?” Cherry smiled up at her.

“Actually we do, especially in the spring and during a winter thaw when you’re out feeding the animals.”

“I can’t imagine,” Cherry said with a shake of her head. “Carson said there are grizzlies and they sometimes come down in the yard?”

Destry could tell that the thought had been worrying her. “Occasionally.” She didn’t add that this time of year bears were fattening up for the winter and stuffing themselves before going into hibernation.

Cherry sighed. “I have to tell you, this place gives me the creeps. It’s too...isolated.”

Destry thought about what her brother’s fiancée had said as she prepared for her trip up into the mountains. She’d noticed that Carson had spent little time with Cherry and suspected he was seeing her differently against the Montana backdrop. Cherry was like a fish out of water—and clearly unhappy being here.

Inside the big house, Destry followed a familiar, alluring scent as she walked down to the kitchen to find Margaret making fried pies. A dozen of the small crescent shaped pies were cooling on a rack next to the stove. Against the golden brown of the crusts, the white frosting drizzled over them now dripped onto a sheet of aluminum foil.

“You’re just in time,” Margaret said, smiling, as she lifted two more pies from the hot grease and put them beside the others.

“They smell wonderful.” Destry picked up a still warm pie and took a bite. The crust was flaky and buttery and delicious. She licked her lips, closing her eyes as her taste buds took in the warm cinnamon apple filling and sweet icing.

“Do they meet your satisfaction?” Margaret asked with a smile as Destry groaned in approval.

“I swear they’re the best you’ve ever made,” she said between bites.

Margaret laughed. “You always say that.”

Even with fried pies cooling nearby, Carson sat at the counter in the kitchen with nothing but a cup of coffee in front of him, looking miserable.

“Why aren’t you out by the pool?” she asked.

“I’m showing Carson around the ranch,” their father said as he wheeled into the kitchen. “He’s been gone so long he doesn’t know anything about the operation. I planned to take him out first thing this morning, but apparently he went fishing.”

Carson grunted as he stared down into his cup. “And didn’t catch a darned thing.”

WT ignored him, shifting his gaze to Destry instead. “Where are you going dressed like that?”

“Riding up to collect the rest of the cattle from summer pasture,” Destry said as she poured herself a half cup of coffee.

“I thought we had ranch hands for that,” her father said.

She merely smiled. It was an old battle between them. He made little secret of the fact that he didn’t like her actually working the ranch. But she’d always loved calving on those freezing cold nights in January when she could see her breath inside the barn. There was nothing like witnessing the birth of a new calf, branding to the sound of bawling calves, the feel of baking sun on your back or riding through cool, dark pines gathering cattle in the fall.

He had the idea that marriage would change her. It often amazed her that her own father didn’t know her at all.

“On your way out you might tell your brother’s fiancée that at this altitude she’s going to get burned to a crisp out there,” WT said to her.

“Don’t bother,” Carson said. “Cherry likes to find out things on her own. Anyway, she can take care of herself.”

As her father and brother left, Destry grabbed a couple of Margaret’s famous fried pies, wrapped up a couple for Russell Murdock, their ranch foreman, and finished her coffee. She was on her way out when the phone rang.

She picked it up to save Margaret the effort. “W Bar G, Destry speaking.”

The voice on the other end of the line was low and hoarse. It could have been a man or a woman’s. “You tell that brother of yours we don’t want the likes of him around here.”

“Who is this?” she demanded, but the caller had already hung up. As she returned the receiver, she saw Margaret looking at her and knew it wasn’t the first time someone had called threatening Carson.

“People who call making threats hardly ever do anything more,” Margaret said, turning back to her fried pies. “I’d be more afraid for anyone who tries to come on this ranch. Your father’s been carrying his .357 magnum since your brother came home.”

So he’d been expecting trouble. That made her all the more worried for her brother. She scooped up the pies, said goodbye to Margaret and headed for the barn. Since his accident, her father had put in a paved path down to the barn, even though he no longer rode.

As she saddled up, she promised herself that for a few hours, she was going to put all of her worries aside. She loved the ride up into the high mountain meadows and the feel of the horse beneath her. So many ranches now used everything from four-wheelers to helicopters to round up their cattle, leaving the horses to be nothing more than pasture ornaments.

She much preferred a horse than a noisy four-wheeler. Her horse Hay Burner, a name her father tagged the mare, was one she’d rescued along with another half dozen wild horses from Wyoming.

Destry had fallen helplessly in love with the mare at first sight. She was a deep chocolate color with a wild mane and a gentle manner. She’d taken well to cattle and cutting calves out of the herd.

As Destry rode out to join the ranch foreman and the ranch hands for the ride up into the Crazies, she breathed in the scent of towering pines and the smell of saddle leather.

Meadowlarks sang from the thick groves of aspens as white cumulous clouds bobbed along in a sea of clear blue. The air felt cool and crisp with the sharp scent of the pines and the promise of fall in the changing colors of the leaves. Overhead, a bald eagle circled looking for prey. Nearby a squirrel chattered at them from a pine bough.

“Everything all right at the house?” the ranch foreman asked as Destry rode beside him.

Russell Murdock had let the others ride on ahead of them. He’d been a ranch hand when she was young and had worked his way up to foreman. He’d been with the W Bar G longer than anyone except Margaret. Destry considered them both family.

In his late fifties, Russell was a kind, good-natured man with infinite patience with both the ranch hands and WT. He’d been the one who’d dried her tears when he’d found her crying in the barn when she was a girl. He’d picked her up from the dirt when she’d tried to ride one of the ranch animals she shouldn’t have. He’d also been there for her when Carson had left and Rylan had broken her heart.

“It’s an adjustment for Carson,” she said.

Russell smiled over at her. “He’s staying?”

She met the older man’s gaze. They’d been too close over the years for her to lie to him. “WT thinks he is. I guess it will depend on this new evidence in Ginny West’s murder investigation.”

Russell nodded knowingly. “You know there’s talk around town...”

“I’ve heard. I’m hoping as long as Carson stays on the ranch there won’t be any trouble.”

Russell looked worried but said no more as the trail rose up through a mountain pass and the sound of lowing cattle filled the air. Once they reached the ridge, the foreman rode on ahead to catch up with the others.

Destry lagged behind to stop and look at the view of the ranch. She heard someone ride up beside her.

“Quite the spread, wouldn’t you say?” Lucky leaned over his saddle horn and looked to the valley below. “I heard your brother is back. Does that mean he’s going to be running the place now?”

Pete “Lucky” Larson had been with the W Bar G since he and Carson graduated from high school together.

“You’d have to ask him,” Destry said, hoping that would be the end of it.

“Kind of hard to ask him since I haven’t seen him. Wouldn’t you think he’d at least ask me in for a drink? After all, we go way back.”

She glanced over at the cowboy. Pockmarked with a narrow ferretlike face, Lucky made her a little uneasy lately. It was the way he looked at her, as if he thought she needed being brought down a peg or two.

“I figure if Carson is running the place, he’ll want to give me a nice raise, don’t you think? I know I’ll never get to live like your old man, but I’d like to live better than I do.”

Ranch hands on the W Bar G were well paid. Lucky was probably overpaid, if the truth were known. “Carson’s been pretty busy,” Destry said. “But if you think you’re due for a raise, you should take it up with Russell. He’s the ranch foreman.”

“Is that right?” His gaze brushed over her like a spider web, making her want to brush it off. “Carson’s busy, huh? Not too busy to be asking around about a poker game, though. You should tag along to the next game. Maybe you’ll get lucky,” he said with a wink. “From what I’ve seen, you don’t get out much.”

“But you’re going to have more time to get out,” Russell said, startling them both since they hadn’t heard him approach. “You can collect your pay, Lucky. I’ve put up with your lip as long as I’m going to.”

“I was just visiting with the boss lady,” Lucky said and looked to Destry. “Isn’t that right?”

Destry looked at him and felt a shudder. Was it possible Lucky had been in the woods behind her house watching her? “Like Russell said, collect your pay. I think you’d be happier on some other ranch.”

“You’re making a big mistake, Boss Lady,” Lucky said as he reined his horse around and shot her a furious look.

* * *

NETTIE WATCHED AS Sheriff Frank Curry pushed back his Stetson and kneaded his forehead for a moment before glancing up. Hands on her hips, she scowled down at him from the back doorway of the store. He’d taken his sweet time getting out here, and for a good ten minutes, he’d been stumbling around in the pine trees behind the store. What was the fool doing? Certainly not figuring out who’d broken into her store.

Frank had weathered well for his age, sixty-one, only three years older than herself. He even still had his hair, a thatch of thick blond flecked with gray. He no longer wore it in a long ponytail like he had when he’d roared up to her house on his motorcycle and asked her out all those years ago.

While his hair was shorter, he now wore one of those thick drooping mustaches like in all the old Westerns. His shoulders were still broad, and he looked great in the jeans he wore with his uniform shirt and cowboy boots.

“You’re not going to catch whoever broke into my store by wandering around out there in the woods.”

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