Gun-Shy Bride

B. J. Daniels

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

Epilogue

Copyright

About The Author

BJ DANIELS wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. Since then she has won numerous awards including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and numerous nominations and awards for best book.

Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. Daniels is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.

TO contact her, write to: BJ Daniels, PO Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538, USA, or e-mail her at bjdaniels@mtintouch. net. Check out her webpage at www.bjdaniels.com

From the beginning my husband Parker has been there for me. He was the one who encouraged me to quit my paying job even though he knew how hard it would be for us financially. He’s always believed in me and takes up the slack so I can just write. He’s my hero. This book, which may be my all-time favorite, is for him.

Chapter One

The wind howled down the ravine as Deputy Sheriff McCall Winchester poked what appeared to be a mud clod with the toe of her cowboy boot.

The thunderstorm last night had been a gully-washer. As her boot toe dislodged some of the mud, she saw that the pile of objects in the bottom of the gully was neither mud nor rock.

“Didn’t I tell you?”

McCall looked up at the man standing a few feet away. Rocky Harrison was a local who collected, what else? Rocks.

“It’s always better after a rainstorm,” he’d told her when he’d called the sheriff’s department and caught her just about to go off duty after working the night shift.

“Washes away the dirt, leaves the larger stones on top,” Rocky had said. “I’ve found arrowheads sitting on little columns of dirt, just as pretty as you please and agates large as your fist where they’ve been unearthed by a good rainstorm.”

Only on this bright, clear, cold spring morning, Rocky had found more than he’d bargained for.

“Human, ain’t they,” Rocky said, nodding to what he’d dug out of the mud and left lying on a flat rock.

“You’ve got a good eye,” McCall said as she pulled out her camera, took a couple of shots of the bones he’d found. They lay in the mud at the bottom of the ravine where the downpour had left them.

With her camera, McCall shot the path the mud slide had taken down from the top of the high ridge. Then she started making the steep muddy climb up the ravine.

As she topped the ridge, she stopped to catch her breath. The wind was stronger up here. She pushed her cowboy hat down hard, but the wind still whipped her long dark hair as she stared at the spot where the rain had dislodged the earth at the edge. In this shallow grave was where the bones had once been buried.

Squinting at the sun, she looked to the east. A deep, rugged ravine separated this high ridge from the next. Across that ravine, she could make out a cluster of log buildings that almost resembled an old fort. The Winchester Ranch. The sprawling place sat nestled against the foothills, flanked by tall cottonwood trees and appearing like an oasis in the middle of the desert. She’d only seen the place from a distance from the time she was a child. She’d never seen it from this angle before.

“You thinking what I am?” Rocky asked, joining her on the ridge.

She doubted that.

“Somebody was buried up here,” Rocky said. “Probably a homesteader. They buried their dead in the backyard, and since there is little wood around these parts, they didn’t even mark the graves with crosses, usually just a few rocks laid on top.”

McCall had heard stories of grave sites being disturbed all over the county when a road was cut through or even a basement was dug. The land they now stood on was owned by the Bureau of Land Management, but it could have been private years ago.

Just like the Winchester land beyond the ravine which was heavily posted with orange paint and signs warning that trespassers would be prosecuted.

“There’s a bunch of outlaws that got themselves buried in these parts. Could be one of them,” Rocky said, his imagination working overtime.

This less-civilized part of Montana had been a hideout for outlaws back in the late 1890s or even early 1900s. But these remains hadn’t been in the ground that long.

She took a photograph of where the body had been buried, then found herself looking again toward the Winchester Ranch. The sun caught on one of the large windows on the second floor of the massive lodge-style structure.

“The old gal?” Rocky said, following her gaze. “She’s your grandmother, right?”

McCall thought about denying it. After all, Pepper Winchester denied her very existence. McCall had never even laid eyes on her grandmother. But then few people had in the past twenty-seven years.

“I reckon we’re related,” McCall said. “According to my mother, Trace Winchester was my father.” He’d run off before McCall was born.

Rocky had the good sense to look embarrassed. “Didn’t mean to bring up nothin’ about your father.”

Speaking of outlaws, McCall thought. She’d spent her life living down her family history. She was used to it.

“Interesting view of the ranch,” Rocky said, and reached into his pack to offer a pair of small binoculars.

Reluctantly, she took them and focused on the main house. It was much larger than she’d thought, three stories with at least two wings. The logs had darkened from the years, most of the windows on at least one of the wings boarded up.

The place looked abandoned. Or worse, deteriorating from the inside out. It gave her the creeps just thinking about her grandmother shutting herself up in there.

McCall started as she saw a dark figure appear at one of the second floor windows that hadn’t been boarded over. Her grandmother?

The image was gone in a blink.

McCall felt the chill of the April wind that swept across the rolling prairie as she quickly lowered the binoculars and handed them back to Rocky.

The day was clear, the sky blue and cloudless, but the air had a bite to it. April in this part of Montana was unpredictable. One day it could be in the seventies, the next in the thirties and snowing.

“I best get busy and box up these bones,” she said, suddenly anxious to get moving. She’d been about to go off shift when she’d gotten Rocky’s call. Unable to locate the sheriff and the deputy who worked the shift after hers, she’d had little choice but to take the call.

“If you don’t need my help …” Rocky shifted his backpack, the small shovel strapped to it clinking on the canteen he carried at his hip as he headed toward his pickup.

Overhead a hawk circled on a column of air and for moment, McCall stopped to watch it. Turning her back to the ranch in the distance, she looked south. Just the hint of spring could be seen in the open land stretching to the rugged horizon broken only by the outline of the Little Rockies.

Piles of snow still melted in the shade of the deep ravines gouged out as the land dropped to the river in what was known as the Missouri River Breaks. This part of Montana was wild, remote country that a person either loved or left.

McCall had lived her whole life here in the shadow of the Little Rockies and the darker shadow of the Winchester family.

As she started to step around the grave washed out by last night’s rainstorm, the sun caught on something stuck in the mud.

She knelt down to get a better look and saw the corner of a piece of orange plastic sticking out of the earth where the bones had been buried.

McCall started to reach for it, but stopped herself long enough to swing up the camera and take two photographs, one a close-up, one of the grave with the corner of the plastic visible.

Using a small stick, she dug the plastic packet from the mud and, with a start, saw that it was a cover given out by stores to protect hunting and fishing licenses.

McCall glanced at Rocky’s retreating back, then carefully worked the hunting license out enough to see a name.

Trace Winchester.

Her breath caught in her throat but still she must have made a sound.

“You say somethin'?” Rocky called back. McCall shook her head, pocketing the license with her father’s name on it. “No, just finishing up here.”

Chapter Two

Inside her patrol pickup, McCall radioed the sheriff’s department. “Looks like Rocky was right about the bones being human,” she told the sheriff when he came on the line.

“Bring them in and we’ll send them over to Missoula to the crime lab. Since you’re supposed to be off shift, it can wait till tomorrow if you want. Don’t worry about it.”

Sheriff Grant Sheridan sounded distracted, but then he had been that way for some time now.

McCall wondered idly what was going on with him. Grant, who was a contemporary of her mother’s, had taken over the job as sheriff in Whitehorse County after the former sheriff, Carter Jackson, resigned to ranch with his wife Eve Bailey Jackson.

McCall felt the muddy plastic in her jacket pocket. “Sheriff, I—” But she realized he’d already disconnected. She cursed herself for not just telling him up front about the hunting license.

What was she doing?

Withholding evidence.

She waited until Rocky left before she got the small and her other supplies from behind her seat and walked back over to the grave. The wind howled around her like a live animal as she dug in the mud that had once been what she now believed was her father’s grave, taking photographs of each discovery and bagging the evidence.

She found a scrap of denim fabric attached to metal buttons, a few snaps like those from a Western shirt and a piece of leather that had once been a belt.

Her heart leaped as she overturned something in the mud that caught in the sunlight. Reaching down, she picked it up and cleaned off the mud. A belt buckle.

Not just any belt buckle she saw as she rubbed her fingers over the cold surface to expose the letters. WIN CHESTER.

The commemorative belt buckle was like a million others. It proved nothing.

Except that when McCall closed her eyes, she saw her father in the only photograph she had of him. He stood next to his 1983 brand-new black Chevy pickup, his Stetson shoved back to expose his handsome face, one thumb hooked in a pocket of his jeans, the other holding his rifle, the one her mother said had belonged to his grandfather. In the photo, the sun glinted off his commemorative Winchester rifle belt buckle.

She opened her eyes and, picking up the shovel, began to dig again, but found nothing more. No wallet. No keys. No boots.

The larger missing item was his pickup, the one in the photograph. The one he allegedly left town in. Had he been up here hunting? She could only assume so, since according to her mother, the last time she saw was the morning of opening day of antelope season—and his twentieth birthday.

Along with the hunting license, she’d found an unused antelope tag.

But if he’d been hunting, then where was his rifle, the one her mother said he had taken the last time she saw him?

McCall knew none of this proved absolutely that the bones were her father’s. No, that would require DNA results from the state crime lab, which would take weeks if not months.

She stared at the grave. If she was right, her father hadn’t left town. He’d been buried on the edge of this ridge for the past twenty-seven years.

The question was who had buried him here?

Someone who’d covered up Trace Winchester’s death and let them all believe he’d left town.

Her hands were shaking as she boxed up the bones and other evidence—all except the license still in her coat pocket—and hiked back to her rig. Once behind the wheel, she pulled out the plastic case and eased out the license and antelope tag.

The words were surprisingly clear after almost thirty years of being buried in the mud since the plastic had protected the practically indestructible paper.

Name: Trace Winchester. Age: 19. Eyes: dark brown. Hair: Black. Height: 6 ft 3 inches. Weight: 185.

He’d listed his address as the Winchester Ranch, which meant when he’d bought this license he hadn’t eloped with her mother yet or moved into the trailer on the edge of Whitehorse.

There was little information on the license, but McCall had even less. Not surprising, her mother, Ruby Bates Winchester, never liked talking about the husband who’d deserted her.

Most of what McCall had learned about her father had come from the rumors that circulated around the small Western town of Whitehorse. Those had portrayed Trace Winchester as handsome, arrogant and spoiled rotten. A man who’d abandoned his young wife, leaving her broke and pregnant, never to be seen again.

According to rumors, there were two possible reasons for his desertion. Trace had been caught poaching—not his first time—and was facing jail. The second was that he’d wanted to escape marriage and fatherhood since McCall was born just weeks later.

A coward and a criminal. Trace solidified his legacy when he had left behind a young, pregnant, heartbroken wife and a daughter who’d never been accepted as a Winchester.

As McCall stood on that lonely windblown ridge, for the first time she realized it was possible that everyone had been wrong about her father.

If she was right, Trace Winchester hadn’t run off and left them. He’d been buried under a pile of dirt at the top of this ridge for the past twenty-seven years—and would have still been there if it hadn’t been for a wild spring storm.

NORTH OF WHITEHORSE, Luke Crawford pulled down a narrow, muddy road through the tall, leafless cottonwoods along the Milk River. The only other tracks were from another pickup that had come down this road right after last night’s rainstorm.

The road ended at the edge of a rancher’s wheat field, the same rancher who’d called saying he’d heard gunshots just before daylight.

Luke parked next to the fresh truck tracks. Past the tall old cottonwoods, down the slow-moving river, he could make out a small cabin tucked in the trees.

Just the sight of McCall Winchester’s home stirred up all the old feelings. Luke cursed himself that he couldn’t let go, never had been able to. Now that he was back in town as the new game warden, there was no way they weren’t going to cross paths.

He could just imagine how that would sit with McCall.

Over the years, he’d followed her career with the sheriff’s department and had heard she’d bought a place on the river. He’d also heard that she seldom dated and as far as anyone knew there was no man in her life.

That shouldn’t have made him as relieved as it did.

He noticed now that her sheriff’s department pickup wasn’t parked next to the cabin. Had she worked the night shift last night or the early-morning one?

With a curse, he realized she might have heard the shots the rancher had reported or seen someone coming up the river road. He had no choice but to stop by and ask her, he told himself.

He sure as hell wasn’t going to avoid her when it appeared there was a poaching ring operating in the river bottom. This was the second call he’d gotten in two weeks.

The thought of seeing her again came with a rush of mixed emotions and did nothing to improve his morning. He could just imagine the kind of reception he’d get, given their past. But now that he was back, there would be no avoiding each other—not in a town the size of Whitehorse.

Luke swore and got out, telling himself he had more to worry about than McCall Winchester as he saw the bloody drag trail in the mud. Taking his gear, he followed it.

RUBY WINCHESTER HAD JUST finished with the lunch crowd when McCall came into the Whitehorse Diner.

McCall felt light-headed after the morning she’d had. She’d come back into town, boxed up the bones and the other evidence, along with a request to compare the DNA of the bones with that of the DNA sample she’d taken from swabbing the inside of her mouth.

Even though the sheriff had told her to wait until her shift tomorrow, she’d mailed off the package to the crime lab without telling anyone. She was now shaking inside, shocked by what she’d done. Withholding evidence was one thing. Requesting the DNA test without proper clearance was another. She was more than jeopardizing her job.

But she couldn’t wait months to know the truth. She’d bought herself some time before the report came back, and she knew exactly how she was going to use it.

“You want somethin’ to eat?” her mother asked as McCall took one of the stools at the counter. “I could get you the special. It’s tuna casserole. I’m sure there’s some left.”

McCall shook her head. “I’m good.”

Ruby leaned her hip against the counter, eyeing her daughter. “Somethin’ wrong?”

McCall glanced around the small empty café. Ruby hadn’t cleaned off all of the tables yet. The café smelled like a school cafeteria.

“I’ve been thinking about my father. You’ve never really told me much about him.”

Ruby let out a snort. “You already know about him.”

“All you’ve ever told me is that he left. What was he like?” And the real question, who would want to kill him?

“What’s brought this on?” Ruby asked irritably.

“I’m curious about him. What’s wrong with that? He was my father, right?”

Ruby narrowed her gaze. “Trace Winchester was your father, no matter what anyone says, okay? But do we have to do this now? I’m dead on my feet.”

“Mom, you’re always dead on your feet, and you’re the only one I can ask.”

Ruby sighed, then checked to make sure Leo, the cook, wasn’t watching before reaching under the counter to drag out an ashtray. She furtively lit a cigarette from the pack hidden in her pocket.

McCall watched her take a long drag, blow out smoke, then wave a hand to dissipate the smoke as she glanced back toward the kitchen again.

According to Montana law, Ruby wasn’t supposed to be smoking in the café, but then laws and rules had never been something Ruby gave a damn about.

She picked nervously at the cigarette, still stalling.

“It’s a simple enough question, Mom.”

“Don’t get on your high horse with me,” Ruby snapped.

“I want to know about my father. Why is that so tough?”

Ruby met her gaze, her eyes shiny. “Because the bastard ran out on us and because I—” Her voice broke. “I never loved anyone the way I loved Trace.”

That surprised her, since there’d been a string of woven through their lives as far back as McCall could remember.

Ruby bit her lip and looked away. “Trace broke my heart, all right? And you know damned well that his mother knows where he is. She’s been giving him money all these years, keeping him away from here, away from me and you.”

“You don’t know that,” McCall said.

“I know,” Ruby said, getting worked up as she always did when she talked about Pepper Winchester. “That old witch had a coronary when she found out Trace and I had eloped.”

More than likely Pepper Winchester had been upset when she’d heard that her nineteen-year-old son had gotten Ruby pregnant. McCall said as much.

“You’re her own flesh and blood. What kind of grandmother rejects her own granddaughter? You tell me that,” Ruby demanded.

“Was my father in any trouble other than for poaching? I’ve always heard that Game Warden Buzz Crawford was after him for something he did the day before he disappeared,” McCall said, hoping to get her mother off the subject of Pepper Winchester.

Ruby finished her cigarette, stubbing it out angrily and then cleaning the ashtray before hiding it again under the counter. “Your father didn’t leave because of that stupid poaching charge.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Trace had gotten off on all the other tickets Buzz had written him. He wasn’t afraid of Buzz Crawford. In fact …”

“In fact?”

Ruby looked away.“Everyone in town knew that Buzz was gunning for your father. But Trace said he wasn’t worried. He said he knew something about Buzz….”

“Blackmail?” McCall uttered. Something like that could get a man killed.

LUKE CRAWFORD FOLLOWED the drag trail through the thick cottonwoods. Back in here, the soft earth hadn’t dried yet. The wind groaned in the branches and weak rays of sunlight sliced down through them.

The air smelled damp from last night’s storm, the muddy ground making tracking easier, even without the bloody trail to follow.

It was chilly and dark deep in the trees and underbrush, the dampness making the April day seem colder. Patches of snow had turned to ice crystals on the shady side of fallen trees and along the north side of the riverbank.

Luke hadn’t gone far when he found the kill site. He stopped and squatted down, the familiar smell of death filling his nostrils. The gut pile was still fresh, not even glazed over yet. A fine layer of hair from the hide carpeted the ground.

Using science to help him if he found the poachers, he took a DNA sample. Poachers had been relatively safe in the past if they could get the meat wrapped and in the freezer and the carcass dumped in the woods somewhere.

Now though, if Luke found the alleged poacher, he could compare any meat found in a freezer and tell through DNA if it was the same illegally killed animal.

In the meantime, he’d be looking for a pickup with mud on it and trying to match the tire tracks to the vehicle the poachers had been driving.

Pushing himself to his feet, Luke considered who might be behind the poaching. It generally wasn’t a hungry Whitehorse family desperate enough to kill a doe out of season. In this part of Montana, ranchers donated beef to needy families, and most families preferred beef over venison.

Nor did Luke believe the shooters were teenagers out killing game for fun. They usually took potshots from across the hood of their pickups at something with antlers after a night of boozing—and left the meat to rot.

As he followed the drag trail to where the poacher had loaded the doe into the back of his truck, he studied the tire tracks, then set about making a plaster cast.

While it dried he considered the footprints in the soft mud where the poachers’ truck had been parked. Two men.

After taking photos and updating his log book, he packed up, and glancing once more toward McCall’s cabin, went to give the rancher his assessment of the situation before filing his report.

Luke knew his chances of catching the poachers were slim. Not that his Uncle Buzz would have seen it that way. Buzz Crawford had built a reputation on being the toughest game warden Montana had ever seen.

But Luke tended to write more warnings than tickets and knew he couldn’t solve every crime in the huge area he covered. He didn’t have the “kill gene,” as his uncle often told him, and that explained the problem between him and Buzz.

The problem between him and McCall Winchester, his first love—hell, the only woman he’d ever truly loved—was a whole lot more complicated.

MCCALL WAS STILL CONSIDERING the ramifications of her father possibly blackmailing the former game warden. “If Trace had something on Buzz—”

“I don’t know that for sure,” Ruby hedged. “Your father really didn’t need to blackmail anyone. His mother and the Winchester money would have gotten him out of any trouble he got into.”

Not this kind of trouble, McCall thought.

But she knew what her mother was getting at. Whitehorse was a small town and deals were made between local judges and some families. McCall also knew the legendary Buzz Crawford. He wouldn’t have taken well to blackmail.

“So if my father wasn’t worried about this poaching charge …” And apparently he hadn’t been, if he’d gone hunting the next morning on that ridge. “Then why did you think he ran off?”

Ruby waved a hand through the air. “I was pregnant and crazy with hormones, out of my mind half the time, and Trace …”

“You fought a lot,” McCall guessed after having seen how her mother’s other relationships had gone over the years. “Did you have a fight the morning before he … disappeared?”

Ruby looked away. “Why do you we have to talk about this? Trace and I were both young and hotheaded. We fought, we made up.” She shrugged. “There was no one like Trace.” She smiled as if lost for a moment in the past.

And for that moment, Ruby looked like the pregnant young woman in love that she’d been in the few photographs McCall had of her—usually in uniform, alone, at the café.

The moment passed. Ruby frowned. “No matter what you’ve heard, Trace didn’t leave because of you.”

“So did he take anything when he left—clothes, belongings?”

“Just his pickup and his rifle. He would have made a good father and husband if his mother had stayed out of it. Pepper Winchester has a fortune, but she wouldn’t give him a dime unless he got out of the marriage to me and made me say my baby was someone else’s. What kind of mother puts that kind of pressure on her son?”

McCall didn’t want her mother to take off on Pepper Winchester again. Nor was she ready to tell her mother what she’d found up on the ravine south of town without conclusive evidence.

She got to her feet. “I need to get going.”

“You sure you don’t want some tuna casserole? I could get Leo to dish you up some for later. You have to eat and it’s just going to get thrown out.”

“Naw, thanks anyway.” She hugged her mother, surprised how frail Ruby was and feeling guilty for upsetting her. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“All that was a long time ago. I survived it.”

“Still, I know it wasn’t easy.” McCall could imagine how hurt her mother must have been, how humiliated in front of the whole town, that her husband had left her pregnant, broke and alone. McCall knew how it was to have the whole town talking about you.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Ruby said with a smile. “Within a couple of weeks, I had you.”

McCall smiled, feeling tears burn her eyes as she left, her hand in her pocket holding tight to the hunting license—the only definite thing she had of her father’s—unless she counted his bad genes.

WORD ABOUT THE BONES FOUND south of town had traveled the speed of a wildfire through Whitehorse. McCall heard several versions of the story when she stopped for gas.

Apparently most everyone thought the bones were a good hundred years old and belonged to some outlaw or ancestor.

By the time McCall left Whitehorse, the sun and wind had dried the muddy unpaved roads to the southeast. The gumbo, as the locals called the mud, made the roads often impassible.

McCall headed south into no-man’s-land on one of the few roads into the Missouri Breaks. Yesterday she’d driven down Highway 191 south to meet Rocky. But there were no roads from the ridge where she’d stood looking across the deep gorge to the Winchester Ranch.

Getting to the isolated ranch meant taking back roads that seldom saw traffic and driving through miles and miles of empty rolling wild prairie.

Over the years McCall had thought about just showing up at her grandmother’s door. But she’d heard enough horror stories from her mother—and others in town—that she’d never gotten up the courage.

The truth was, she didn’t have the heart to drive all the way out there and have her grandmother slam the door in her face.

Today though, she told herself she was on official . Of course one call to the sheriff would blow that story and leave her in even more hot water with her boss.

But already in over her head, McCall felt she’d been left little choice. Once the report came back from the crime lab—and she gave up the hunting license—it would become a murder investigation and she would be not only pulled off the case, but also locked out of any information the department gathered because of her personal connection to the deceased.

Before that happened, she hoped to get the answers she so desperately needed about her father—and who had killed him.

She knew it would be no easy task, finding out the truth after all these years. Her mother was little help. As for the Winchesters, well, she’d never met any of them. Trace had been the youngest child of Call and Pepper Winchester.

His siblings and their children had all left the ranch after Trace disappeared and had never returned as far as McCall knew. Her grandmother had gone into seclusion.

The Winchester Ranch had always been off-limits for McCall—a place she wasn’t welcome and had no real connection with other than sharing the same last name.

The fact that her father had been buried within sight of the ranch gave her pause, though, as McCall slowed to turn under the carved wooden Winchester Ranch arch.

In the distance she could see where the land broke and began to fall as the Missouri River carved its way through the south end of the county. Nothing was more isolated or wild than the Breaks and the Winchester Ranch sat on the edge of this untamed country.

It gave her an eerie feeling just thinking of her grandmother out here on the ranch, alone except for the two elderly caretakers, Enid and Alfred Hoagland. Why had Pepper closed herself off from the rest of her family after Trace disappeared? Wouldn’t a mother be thankful she had other children?

McCall drove slowly down the ranch road, suddenly afraid. She was taking a huge chance coming out here. Even if she wasn’t shot for a trespasser, she knew she would probably be run off without ever seeing her grandmother.

Weeds had grown between the two tracks of the narrow, hardly used road. Enid and Alfred only came into Whitehorse for supplies once a month, but other than that were never seen around. Nor, McCall had heard, did Pepper have visitors.

As she drove toward the massive log structure, she was treated to a different view of the ranch from that on the ridge across the ravine.

The lodge had been built back in the 1940s, designed after the famous Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone Park. According to the stories McCall had heard, her grandfather Call Winchester had amassed a fortune, tripling the size of his parents’ place.

There had always been rumors around Whitehorse about Call Winchester—the man McCall has been named for. Some said he made his fortune in gold mining. Others in crime.

The truth had remained a mystery—just like the man himself. Call had gone out for a horseback ride one day long before McCall was born, and as the story goes, his horse returned without him. His body never to be found. Just like his youngest son, Trace. Until now.

An old gray-muzzled heeler with one brown and one blue eye hobbled out to growl beside McCall’s patrol pickup.

She turned off the engine, waiting as she watched the front door of the lodge. The place looked even larger up close. How many wings were there?

When no one appeared, she eased open her vehicle door, forcing the dog back as she stepped out. The heeler stumbled away from her still growling. She kept an eye on him as she walked to the front door.

She didn’t see any vehicles, but there was an old log building nearby that looked as if it was a garage, large enough to hold at least three rigs.

While she’d never seen her grandmother, McCall had run across Pepper’s housekeeper, Enid—an ancient, broomstick-thin, brittle woman with an unpleasant face and an even worse disposition.

McCall had heard a variety of stories about Enid Hoagland, none of them complimentary. The housekeeper and her husband apparently took care of Pepper. Enid did the cooking and cleaning. Her husband, Alfred, did upkeep on the isolated ranch.

Some said the Hoaglands acted as guards to protect and care for Pepper. Others were of the opinion that the old couple kept Pepper Winchester hostage on the ranch to make sure they got the Winchester fortune when she died instead of her heirs.

McCall knocked at the weathered door, glancing around as she waited. A quiet hung over the wind-scoured place as if everything here had withered up and died.

She knocked harder and thought she heard a sound on the other side of the door. “Sheriff’s Department. Open up.”

After a long moment, the door creaked slowly open. An old woman appeared on the other side, and for a moment McCall thought she was about to come face-to-face with her grandmother.

But as the light flowed into the dark entry, she saw that it was only Enid Hoagland.

Enid scowled at her. “What do you want?” she demanded by way of greeting.

“I need to speak with Pepper Winchester.”

“That isn’t possible. Mrs. Winchester doesn’t see anyone.” She started to close the door, but McCall stuck a booted foot in the doorway.

“I’m sorry, but she’ll have to see me unless you want me to come back with a warrant to search the house,” McCall bluffed. “Tell her it’s Deputy Sheriff McCall Winchester.”

A malicious light flickered on in Enid’s close-set gray eyes. “You’re making a mistake,” she said under her breath.

McCall feared the old woman was right.

A sound like the tinkling of a small bell came from deep in the lodge. Enid seemed to hesitate. “You will regret this.”

McCall didn’t doubt it. The older woman stepped aside and the deputy sheriff entered her father’s family home for the first time in her life.

Chapter Three

Enid led McCall into what could only be called a parlor. The decor was old-time Western, the rustic furnishings dated as if the house had been sealed for more than thirty years.

McCall was too nervous to sit. She’d forced her way in here, and now she wasn’t sure what she would say to her grandmother when she finally saw her for the first time.

At the sound of faint footfalls in the hallway, she turned, bracing herself, and yet she was still shocked. Nothing could have prepared her for the elderly woman who stepped into the room.

Pepper Winchester was surprisingly spry for seventy-two. She stood, her back ramrod straight, her head angled as if she was irritated. Her face was lined but there was something youthful about her. She was tall and slim, elegant in her black silk caftan.

Her hair, which had apparently once been dark like McCall’s, was now peppered with gray. It trailed down her slim back in a single loose braid. Her eyes were ebony, her cheekbones high, just like McCall’s.

The resemblance was both striking and shocking. McCall had had no idea just how much she looked like her grandmother.

If Pepper Winchester noticed the resemblance, her demeanor gave no notice of it. Nor was there any indication that she knew who McCall was.

“Yes?” she demanded.

McCall found her voice. “I’m Deputy Sheriff McCall Winchester.”

Had the dark eyes widened just a little?

“I need to ask you a few questions.”

“I’m sure my housekeeper told you I don’t see visitors.”

But you saw me. Why was that? Not because of the threat of a warrant. “I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t important. It’s about your son Trace’s disappearance.”

“Have you found him?” The hope in her grandmother’s voice and posture was excruciating. So was the fear she heard there. And yet, Pepper Winchester had to know that if there was any news of Trace, the sheriff would have been here—not some lowly deputy.

“I’m investigating his disappearance,” McCall said quickly, taking out her notebook and pen.

“After twenty-seven years?” Pepper asked in disbelief. She seemed to shrink, all the starch coming out of her, all the spirit. “What’s the point?”

“When was the last time you saw your son?”

Pepper shook her head, her dark eyes dimming in the dull light. “I should think you would know that, since I gave that information to the sheriff at the time.”

McCall saw that this had been a mistake. What had she hoped to accomplish? She had wanted to see her grandmother. And now she had. The best thing she could do was to leave before Pepper Winchester got on the phone to the sheriff.

But she’d come too far. She couldn’t leave things like this. Nor had she gotten what she’d come for. “Is there anyone who might have wanted to harm him?”

Pepper raised her head slightly, her dark eyes locking with McCall’s. “Other than your mother?”

“Did your son have any enemies?”

“No.” Instantly, she corrected herself. “Buzz Crawford. He hated my family, Trace in particular.” Her voice broke as she said her son’s name.

Again the former game warden’s name had come up in relation to Trace.

“Was your son blackmailing Buzz Crawford?”

“What? Who would even say something like that? Your mother?” She raised her nose into the air. “My son didn’t have to resort to blackmail. He was a Winchester. He wasn’t going to serve any jail time. I would have seen to that.”

Her grandmother’s gaze flicked over her, anger and impatience firing those dark eyes, then she sighed deeply and started to walk away, signaling this conversation was over.

“Then why did you think he left town? Because you cut him off financially?” McCall asked, unable to hold back. “Or because you were demanding he divorce my mother and renounce the child she was carrying?”

Pepper Winchester spun back around, eyes narrowing dangerously. “You know nothing about my relationship with my youngest son. Nothing.” She held up her hand before McCall could say another word. “You should leave. Now.” With that her grandmother turned and disappeared through the door.

McCall closed her notebook and looked up to find Enid Hoagland framed in the doorway, a smug little smile on the horrid woman’s face.

“You are not to ever disturb Mrs. Winchester again,” Enid said as she walked McCall to the door and closed it firmly behind her.

Standing on the front step, McCall took a deep breath of the crisp spring air. Her heart seemed to struggle with each beat. What had she been thinking coming out here to see the grandmother who had denied her all these years? Still denied her.

Letting out the breath, McCall walked to her pickup, her eyes burning. She could feel someone watching her, the gaze boring into her back. Her grandmother? Or that awful Enid?

She slid behind the wheel, anxious to get away before she shed the tears now blurring her eyes. She wouldn’t give either old woman the satisfaction of seeing how much that had hurt.

PEPPER WINCHESTER STOOD at the window trembling with rage as she watched McCall drive away.

“You should have told me how much she resembles me,” she said, knowing Enid was behind her even though she hadn’t heard the woman approach. Trace used to say that Enid moved as silently as a ghost—or a cat burglar.

“What would have been the point?” Enid asked. “You didn’t have to see her. Now you’re upset and—”

Pepper spun around to face her ancient housekeeper the patrol pickup disappeared down the road. “Of course I’m upset. Why would she come here and ask about Trace?”

“Because she believes he was her father.”

Pepper scoffed at that, just as she had when Trace told her that he’d gotten that tramp Ruby Bates pregnant. But the proof had been standing in her house just moments before.

There was no denying that McCall was a Winchester—and her father’s daughter.

“You’re the one who let her in,” Enid complained. “I could have gotten rid of her.”

When Pepper had seen the sheriff’s department vehicle pull in, she’d thought it might be news about Trace and had been unable to smother that tiny ember of hope that caught fire inside her.

“She’ll be back, you know,” Enid warned in obvious disapproval. “She wants more than what she got this time.”

Yes, Pepper suspected McCall would be back. She’d seen herself and Trace in the young brazen woman.

“So,” Enid said with a sigh. “Can I get you anything?”

My son Trace. That was the only thing she wanted.

“I just want to be alone.” Pepper turned back to the window, looking down at the long curve of the road into the ranch.

All this time, she’d expected a call or a visit from the sheriff. Word from someone about her son. And after twenty-seven years to have his daughter show up at her door …

Why would McCall be investigating her father’s disappearance now? Or had that just been an excuse to come out to the ranch?

For weeks after Trace left, Pepper would stare at that road waiting for him to come down it. How many times had she imagined him driving up that road in his new black pickup, getting out, his jacket thrown over one shoulder, cowboy hat cocked back to expose his handsome face, his long jean-clad legs closing the distance as if he couldn’t wait to get home.

She’d been so sure he would contact her. Eventually he would call for money. He’d known she could make his hunting violation charge go away—just as she had the others.

For that reason, she’d never understood why he would run away. She’d blamed that tramp he’d foolishly married. Trace wasn’t ready for marriage, let alone a child. Especially one Pepper had been convinced would turn out to be someone else’s bastard. She’d despised Ruby for trapping her son and giving Trace no way out but to leave town.

But after weeks, then months had gone by with no word, Pepper feared she was the reason her son had left and never came back. The thought had turned her heart to stone.

She’d walled herself up here in the lodge unable to face life outside the ranch. Worse, she’d replayed her last argument with Trace over and over in her head.

McCall was right. She had threatened to cut him off without a cent if he didn’t divorce Ruby and denounce that bastard child she was carrying. Trace had pleaded with her to give Ruby a chance, swearing the baby was his.

Pepper sighed. Apparently, he’d been right about that at least, she thought now. She was still trembling from finally coming face-to-face with Trace’s daughter. McCall.

That bitch Ruby had named the girl after her grandfather, Call Winchester, just to throw it in Pepper’s face.

But there was no doubt. The girl definitely was of Winchester blood.

She frowned as she remembered something McCall had said. “Then why did you think he’d left town?”

McCall hadn’t come to the ranch out of simple curiosity. If that were true, she would have shown up sooner.

Pepper stepped to the phone. For years, she hadn’t spoken to another soul other than Enid and her housekeeper’s husband, Alfred—and fortunately neither of them had much to say.

Then McCall had shown up, she thought with a curse as she dialed the sheriff’s department.

LUKE SPENT A COUPLE OF HOURS looking around Whitehorse for the poachers’ pickup before he headed south. His jurisdiction included everything from the Canadian border to the Missouri River—an area about the size of the state of Massachusetts.

For that reason, he put close to twenty-five thousand miles on his three-quarter-ton pickup every year. His truck was his office as well as his main source of transportation unless he was in one of the two boats he used to patrol the area’s waterways.

This time of year, because of paddlefish season, he spent most of his time on the Missouri River south of Whitehorse. Today he was checking tags and watching for fishing violations. Fishing was picking up all over his area from the Milk River to reservoirs Nelson and Fort Peck.

For the next few months, he’d be spending fourteen-to -hour days watching fishermen, checking licenses and boats for safety equipment.

That wouldn’t leave much time to catch the deer poachers, but he figured they knew that.

Tired from getting up at dawn, Luke headed back toward Whitehorse a little earlier than usual. His place was just to the south, his parents’ old homestead that he’d bought when he’d recently returned to Whitehorse. The homestead had been sold following his parents’ deaths but he’d managed to get it back.

He liked to think it was a sign that he’d made the right decision by coming back here. A sign that there was a chance for him and McCall. He was building a new house on the property and was anxious for a couple of days off to work on it.

As he drove over the rise on the road, the stark skeleton of his new house set against the sunset, he slowed. The truck parked down by his stock pond didn’t look familiar.

He pulled his pickup to a stop and got out, scanning the old windbreak of Russian olive trees as he did. The unfamiliar truck had local plates. As he walked past the pickup, he saw an older outboard lying in the back in a pool of oil and the broken tip of a fishing pole floating next to it.

“Hey!”

The greeting startled him even as he recognized the voice.

His cousin Eugene Crawford stepped from behind one of the outbuildings where he’d obviously gone to take a leak. He had a fishing pole in one hand and a beer in the other.

“Grab your rod,” Eugene said. “Let’s catch a few.”

The last thing Luke wanted to do right now was fish. He needed some shut-eye. Hopefully the poachers would take a night off and let him get some rest.

“Sorry, but I’ve got to hit the hay,” he told his cousin.

“At least come down and watch me catch a couple.”

After Luke’s parents were killed in a small plane crash when he was seven, his Uncle Buzz had taken him in and he and Eugene were raised like brothers.

His cousin, who was two years older, had always looked out for him, fighting his battles, covering his back. In high school, Eugene had been the popular one, a former high school football star and a charmer with the girls.

Now Eugene lived in the past, high school being his glory days after an injury his freshman year in college ruined any chance he had to play pro football.

Since then, Eugene had struggled, going from one job to the next, having his share of run-ins with the law as well as women. Just recently divorced for the third time, Eugene seemed to be down on his luck, if that old beat-to-hell pickup he was driving was any indication.

“All right. But just for a few minutes,” Luke said, giving in the way he always had when it came to Eugene.

“So, catch any poachers lately?” his cousin asked as he cast out into the pond and sat down on the edge of the earthen dam. It was an inside joke, something Buzz had always asked from the time Luke had become a game warden.

“A few,” he answered, just as he always did with Buzz.

Eugene laughed as he watched his red-and-white bobber float on the dark surface of the water. Long shadows lay across the pond, the sky behind him ablaze with the setting sun.

Luke suspected his cousin hadn’t just come out here to fish.

“Sit down,” Eugene said, an edge to his voice. “You look like any minute you’re going to check my fishing license.”

It would be just like his cousin not to have one. Eugene liked to push the limits.

“I told you. I’ve got to get some sleep,” Luke said, realizing he wasn’t up to dealing with Eugene’s problems right now, or his excuses.

“Sure. I know. You have a job,” Eugene said sarcastically.

“Whatever it is, I’m really not up to it tonight.”

“Yeah, you got your own problems, huh. Don’t want to hear about mine.” His cousin swore, reeled his line in, checked the bait and threw it back out. “I need money. I’m not screwing with you. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Luke sighed. “How much are we talking?”

“Fifty grand.”

He let out a low whistle. “How the hell did you—”

“You’re starting to sound like Buzz,” Eugene said in a warning tone.

“Sorry, but that’s a lot of money.”

“You think I don’t know that? I just made a few bad bets down in Billings and now they’re threatening to kill me.”

It was Luke’s turn to swear. “How long are they giving you to come up with the money?”

“Six weeks, but that was two months ago,” Eugene said. “I’ve heard they’re looking for me.”

“I don’t have that kind of money.” Luke had invested most everything he had in the house and land.

“You could put this place up. It’s got to be worth a bunch. How many acres do you have here, anyway?”

Luke felt as if he’d been sucker punched. He waited until his initial anger had passed. “I can’t do that,” he said, turning to leave. He wasn’t stupid enough that he didn’t know what would happen if he put up his place for the money. “There are already two mortgages on it.”

“Even ten thou would help,” Eugene said, pleading. He didn’t seem to notice the tip of his rod bend as a fish took the bait.

The fish was the only one taking the bait today. “Sorry.” This was one mess Eugene would have to get out of on his own.

“Yeah, sure you’re sorry,” Eugene said bitterly.

Luke’s cell phone rang. He checked it and groaned inwardly. “I have to take this.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

Luke hated leaving things this way between them. He wished there was something more he could say. But the only thing Eugene wanted to hear was that Luke was going to bail him out, just as he had done too many times in the past.

Instead, as he left he pointed to his cousin’s pole. “You have a fish.”

McCall was on the outskirts of Whitehorse when she got the call on her cell phone. The moment she heard the sheriff’s voice, she knew.

“Where are you?” Grant asked.

“On the edge of town. Something up?” She hadn’t heard anything on her radio. There was little crime in Whitehorse. The weekly sheriff’s reports consisted of barking dogs, checks on elderly residents, calls about teens making too much noise and a few drunk and disorderlies.

The sheriff seemed to hesitate. “Pepper Winchester phoned me.”

McCall had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Still, it hit with a thud that set off her pulse. Hadn’t she known this would happen? And yet, she’d hoped blood really was thicker than water.

“Pepper seemed to think you were on sheriff’s department business, investigating her son’s disappearance,” Grant said. “I assured her that wasn’t the case. I can understand how you might have wanted to see her.”

McCall said nothing, hating the pity she heard in his voice. He thought the only reason she’d gone out there was to see her grandmother.

He cleared his throat. “She said if you came back she’d have you arrested for trespassing. I’m sorry.”

McCall bit back an unladylike retort. Her grandmother was turning out to be everything she’d heard she was, and the sheriff’s sympathy wasn’t helping.

“It might be a good idea to stay away from the Winchester Ranch,” Grant said before he hung up.

As she pulled into Whitehorse, McCall’s two-way radio squawked. She listened for a moment as the dispatcher said there’d been a call about a disturbance at the Mint Bar.

She started to let the other deputy on duty pick it up since she was off the clock.

But when she heard who was involved, she said she’d take the call and swung into a parking space outside the Mint.

She heard Rocky’s voice the moment she opened the bar door. A small crowd had gathered around the rock collector. As she walked in, she recognized most of the men. One in particular made her regret she’d taken the call.

Rocky was at the center of the trouble but in the mix was Eugene Crawford. At a glance, she saw that both men were drunk. Eugene as usual looked as if he was itching for a fight.

“Excuse me,” she said, easing her way into the circle of men around Rocky. Closing her hand around Rocky’s upper arm, she said, “It’s time to go home.”

“Well, look who it is,” Eugene said. “It’s the girl deputy.”

Eugene had been the school bully and she’d been his target. It was bad enough in grade school, but in high school it had gotten worse after she turned him down for a date.

“If you gentlemen will excuse us,” McCall said, drawing Rocky away from the fracas.

“What’s this about some grave Rocky found south of town?” Crawford demanded.

“Probably just a fish story like the one you told when you came in,” one of the men ribbed Eugene.

McCall led Rocky toward the door. He was being the perfect docile drunk. A few more feet and they would be out of the bar.

“I asked you a question, Deputy,” Eugene said, coming up behind her and grabbing her arm.

“Let go,” she said as he tightened his grip on her. “Let go now, Eugene.” He smelled of fish and sweat and meanness.

“Or what? You going to arrest me?” His nails bit into her flesh. “Try it,” he said and gave her a shove, slamming her into the jukebox.

She staggered but didn’t fall. “Going to need some backup,” McCall said into her radio as Rocky leaped to her defense.

Before she could stop him, Eugene coldcocked Rocky, who hit the floor hard. Eugene was turning to take on the others who’d jumped in when the bartender came over the bar with his baseball bat.

It took McCall, Deputy Nick Giovanni and the bartender to get Eugene Crawford restrained and into handcuffs. Nick took Eugene to the jail while McCall drove Rocky home. He was quiet most of the ride.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked as she walked him to his front door. “I’d feel better if I took you by the emergency room at the hospital.”

“I’m fine,” Rocky said, looking sheepish. “I guess I have a glass jaw, as they say.”

“Eugene hit you awfully hard.”

Rocky seemed to have sobered up some. “You know that was a grave I found, don’t you?”

McCall said nothing.

“I know I said I thought it was old, but it wasn’t. And it wasn’t no Indian grave like Eugene was saying, and I think you know that, too.”

She patted his shoulder. “Get some rest.” As she turned toward her pickup, all she wanted was to go home and put this day behind her.

But as she drove the few miles out of town and turned down the river road to her small old cabin beside the Milk River, she saw the pickup parked in her yard.

She slowed as she recognized the logo on the side of the truck. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. She felt her heart drop as she pulled alongside and Game Warden Luke Crawford climbed out.

LUKE HATED THE WAY HE FELT as he watched McCall walk toward him. He was again that awkward, tonguetied, infatuated seventeen-year-old—just as he’d been the first time he’d ever kissed McCall Winchester.

A lot of things had changed in the years since, but not that.

“Luke?” She stopped in front of her pickup. One hand rested on her hip just above the grip of her weapon. She was still in uniform except for her hat. Some of her long dark hair had come loose from the clip at the nape of her neck and now fell over one shoulder.

He tipped his hat. “Sorry to bother you.”

She frowned, clearly waiting for him to tell her what the hell he was doing here. She had to have heard he was back in town.

“I got another call tonight about some poaching down in the river bottom,” he said.

“On my property?”

He pointed down into the thicket of tangled willows and cottonwoods. “On the place down the river, but I believe they used the river road to get in and out so they had to have gone right past your place. I was wondering if you heard anything last night? Would have probably been between two and four this morning.”

“I pulled the late shift last night so I wasn’t around. Sorry.”

He nodded and asked who else knew her schedule.

“You saying the poachers knew I would be gone last night?”

“It crossed my mind. Your place is the closest.”

She leaned against the front of her pickup, clearly not intending to ask him inside. The Little Rockies in the distance were etched a deep purple against the twilight. He noticed in the waning light that she looked exhausted.

“Rough day?” he asked, feeling the cool air come up out of the river bottom.

“You could say that.” She was studying him, waiting as if she expected him to tell her the real reason he was here.

But he’d said everything years ago and she hadn’t believed him then. No reason she’d believe him now.

He closed his notebook. “I’d appreciate it if you kept an eye out and gave me a call if you see or hear anything.”

She pushed herself off the front of her pickup. “You bet.”

“The poachers are driving a pickup, probably a half ton or three-quarter-ton four-wheel drive.”

“Like half the residents in this county,” she said.

“Narrows it right down for me.” He smiled, hat in his hand, thinking that even as exhausted as McCall was she’d never looked more beautiful. He told himself to just get in his truck and get out of there before he said something he’d regret.

She smiled, a tired almost sad smile. “Well, I hope you catch ‘em.”

“Me, too.” He put on his hat, tipped it, and turned toward his pickup. As he slid behind the wheel, he saw that she’d gone inside her cabin. The lights glowed golden through the windows. He sat for a moment, wishing—

Mentally he gave himself a swift kick and started the truck, annoyed for going down that old trail of thought. From the beginning he and McCall hadn’t stood a chance, not with the bad blood between their families. He’d been a fool to think that they did.

But for a while, she’d made him believe they were destined to be together, star-crossed lovers who’d found a way. They’d been young and foolish. At least he had, he thought as he left.

He didn’t dare glance back, knowing he was wasting his time if he thought she cared a plugged nickel for him.

If he had looked back, though, he would have seen her standing in the deepening shadows of her deck, hugging herself against the cool of the night, watching him drive away.

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