Big Sky Standoff

by B. J Daniels

  Dillon wondered how long it would be before a band of vigilantes started shooting first and asking questions later, given how upset the ranchers were now over this latest ring of rustlers. Was that why Jack had gotten him out? Was she hoping some ranchers would string him up?

  Staring out at the landscape, he knew that the only reason she’d told him where they were headed was because he wouldn’t be getting an opportunity between here and there to call anyone and reveal their destination.

  “Your lack of trust cuts me to the core,” he said as he ran his finger along the tiny scar behind his left ear, where the chip was embedded under his skin.

  Much like Jacklyn Wilde had gotten under his skin and been grating on him ever since. He told himself he’d be free of both before long. In the meantime, he tried not to think about the fact that Jack as well as her superiors would know where he was at any given moment.

  “You sure that monitoring chip isn’t bothering you?” she asked, frowning at him.

  He hadn’t realized she’d been watching him. Apparently she planned to keep a close eye on him—as well as monitor his every move.

  “Naw,” he said, running his finger over the scar. “I’m good.”

  Her look said he was anything but, and they both knew it.

  SHADE WATERS always made a point of walking up the road to the mailbox after lunch, even in the dead of winter.

  While it was a good half mile to the county road and he liked the exercise, his real motive was to get to the mail before anyone else did.

  The letters had been coming for years now. He just never knew which day of the week, so he always felt a little sick as he made the hike up the road.

  Even after all this time, his fingers shook a little as he pulled down the lid and peered inside. The envelope and single sheet of stationery within were always a paler lavender, as if the paper kept fading with the years.

  Today he was halfway up the ranch lane when he saw Gus come flying down the county road, skidding to a stop and almost taking out the mailbox.

  “What the hell?” Waters said under his breath as he watched the carrier hurriedly sort through the mail, open the box and stuff it inside. He had been running later and later recently.

  Gus saw him, gave a quick wave and sped off almost guiltily.

  Waters shook his head, already irritated knowing that his son and Morgan Landers were back at the house together. He had to put an end to that little romance. Maybe Dillon Savage being out of prison would do the trick.

  At least something good would come of Savage being on the loose again.

  When Shade finally reached the mailbox, he stopped to catch his breath, half dreading what he might find inside. Fingers trembling, he pulled down the lid, his gaze searching for the pale lavender envelope as he reached for the mail.

  Even before he’d gone through the stack, he knew the letter hadn’t come. A mixture of disappointment and worry washed over him as he slammed the box shut. He hadn’t realized how much he anticipated the letters. What if they stopped coming?

  He shook his head at his own foolishness, wondering if he wasn’t losing his mind. What man looked forward to a blackmail letter? he asked himself as he tucked the post under his arm and headed back up the lane.

  JACKLYN HAD JUST LEFT the town of Judith Gap when her cell phone rang and she saw with annoyance that it was her boss. She glanced over at Dillon, wishing she didn’t have to take the call in front of him, because more than likely it would be bad news.

  “Wilde.”

  “So how did it go?” Stratton asked, an edge to his voice. He was just waiting for things to go badly so he could say I told you so.

  “Fine,” she said, and glanced again at Dillon. He was chewing on a toothpick, stretched out in the seat as if he was ready for another nap.

  “I hope you aren’t making the biggest mistake of your career. Not to mention your life,” Stratton said.

  So did Jacklyn. But they’d been over this already. She waited, fearing he was calling to tell her the rustlers had hit again. She knew he hadn’t phoned just to see how she was doing. Stratton, too, had a receiver terminal that told him exactly where Dillon Savage was at all times. Which in turn would tell her boss exactly where she was, as well.

  “Shade Waters wants to see you,” Stratton said finally.

  She should have known. Waters owned the W Bar, the largest ranch in the area, and had a habit of throwing his weight around. “I’ve already told him I’m doing everything possible to—”

  “He’s starting what he calls a neighborhood watch group to catch the rustlers,” Stratton said.

  “Vigilante group, you mean.” She swore under her breath and felt Dillon Savage’s gaze on her.

  “Waters has all the ranchers fired up about Savage being released. He’s got Sheriff McCray heading up a meeting tomorrow night at the community center. I want you there. You need to put a lid on this pronto. We can’t have those ranchers taking things into their own hands. Hell, they’ll end up shooting each other.”

  She groaned inwardly. There would be no stopping Waters. She’d already had several run-ins with him, and now that he knew about her getting Dillon Savage out of prison, he would be out for blood. Hers.

  “I’ll do what I can at the meeting.” What choice did she have? “Will you be there as well?”

  “I’m not sure I can make it.” The chicken. “You do realize by now that you’ve opened up a hornets’ nest with this Savage thing, don’t you?” He hung up, but not before she’d heard the self-satisfied “I told you so” in his voice.

  DILLON WATCHED JACK from under the brim of his Stetson, curious as to what was going on. Unless he missed his guess, she was getting her butt chewed by one of her bosses. He could just imagine the bureaucratic bull she had to put up with from men who sat in their cozy offices while she was out risking her life to protect a bunch of cows.

  And from the sounds of it, the ranchers were doing exactly what he’d expected they would—forming a vigilante group and taking the law into their own hands. This situation was a geyser ready to go off. And Dillon had put himself right in the middle of it.

  He watched her snap shut the phone. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and stared straight ahead, hands gripping the wheel as she drove. He knew she was desperate. Hell, she wouldn’t have gotten him out of prison if she hadn’t been. She’d stuck her neck out and she would have to be a fool not to realize she was going to get it chopped off.

  For a split second, he felt sorry for her. Then he reminded himself that Jacklyn Wilde was the enemy. And no matter how intriguing he found her, he would do well to remember that.

  “Everything all right?” he asked innocently.

  She shot him a look that said if he wanted to keep his head he wouldn’t get smart with her right now.

  Unfortunately, he’d never done the smart thing. “Why do you do it?”

  “What?” she snapped.

  “This job.”

  She seemed surprised by the question. “I like my job.”

  He scoffed at that. “Putting up with rich ranchers, not to mention your arrogant bosses and all that bureaucrat crap?”

  “I’m good at what I do,” she said defensively.

  “You’d be good at anything you set your mind to,” he said, meaning it. She was smart, savvy, dedicated. Plus her looks wouldn’t hurt. “You could have any job you wanted.”

  “I like putting felons behind bars.”

  “You put cattle rustlers behind bars,” he corrected. “Come on, Jack, most people see rustling as an Old West institution, not a felony. Hell, it was how a lot of ranchers in the old days built their huge spreads, with a running branding iron, and a little larceny in their blood. Rustling wasn’t even a crime until those same ranchers started losing cattle themselves.”

  “Apparently that’s an attitude that hasn’t changed for two hundred years,” she snapped. “Rustling, with all its legends and lore.” She shook her head angrily, her face
flushed. “It’s why rustlers are seldom treated as seriously as burglars or car thieves.”

  He shrugged. “It comes down to simple math. If you can make ten grand in a matter of minutes easier and with less risk and more reward than holding up a convenience store, you’re gonna do it.” He could see that he had her dander up, and he smiled to himself, egging her on. “I see it as a form of living off the land.”

  “It’s a crime.”

  He laughed. “Come on, everyone steals.”

  “They most certainly do not.” Her hands gripped the wheel tightly, and she pressed her foot on the gas pedal as her irritation rose. He saw that she was going over the speed limit, and grinned to himself.

  “So you’re telling me that you’ve never listened to bootleg music?” he asked. “Tried a grape at the supermarket before buying the bunch? Taken a marginal deduction on your taxes?”

  “No,” she said emphatically.

  “You’re that squeaky clean?” He shook his head, studying her. “So you’ve never done anything wrong? Nothing you’ve regretted? Nothing you’re ashamed of?” He saw the flicker in her expression. Her eyes darted away as heat rose up the soft flesh of her throat.

  He’d hit a nerve. Jack had something to hide. Dillon itched to know what. What in her past had her racing down the highway, way over the speed limit?

  “You might want to slow down,” he said quietly. “I’d hate to see you get a ticket for breaking the law.”

  Her gaze flew to the speedometer. A curse escaped her lips as she instantly let up on the gas and glared at him. “You did that on purpose.”

  He grinned to himself yet again as he leaned back in the seat and watched her from under the brim of his hat, speculating on what secret she might be hiding. Had to have something to do with a man, he thought. Didn’t it always?

  Everyone at prison swore she was an ice princess, cold-blooded as a snake. A woman above reproach. But what if under that rigid, authoritarian-cop persona was a hot-blooded, passionate woman who was fallible like the rest of them?

  That might explain why she was so driven. Maybe, like him, she was running from something. Just the thought hooked him. Because before he and Jacklyn Wilde parted ways, he was determined to find her weakness.

  And use it to his advantage.

  RANCHER TOM ROBINSON had been riding his fence line, the sun low and hot on the horizon, when he saw the cut barbed wire and the fresh horse tracks in the dirt.

  Tom was in his fifties, tall, slim and weathered. He’d taken over the ranch from his father, who’d worked it with his father.

  A confirmed bachelor not so much by choice as circumstances, Tom liked being alone with his thoughts, liked being able to hear the crickets chirping in the sagebrush, the meadowlarks singing as he passed.

  Not that he hadn’t dated some in his younger days. He liked woman well enough. But he’d quickly found he didn’t like the sound of a woman’s voice, especially when it required him to answer with more than one word.

  He’d been riding since early morning and had seen no sign of trouble. He knew he’d been pushing his luck, since he hadn’t yet lost any stock. A lot of ranchers in this county and the next had already been hit by the band of rustlers. Some of the ranchers, the smaller ones, had been forced to sell out.

  Shade Waters had been buying up ranch land for years now and had the biggest spread in two counties. He had tried to buy Robinson’s ranch, but Tom had held pat. He planned to die on this ranch, even if it meant dying destitute. He was down to one full-time hired man and some seasonal, which meant the place was getting run-down. Too much work. Not enough time.

  On top of that, now he had rustlers to worry about. And as he rode the miles of his fence, through prairie and badlands, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his luck was about to run out. This latest gang of rustlers were a brazen bunch. Why, just last month two cowboys had driven up to the Crowley Ranch to the north and loaded up forty head in broad daylight.

  Margaret Crowley had been in the house cooking lunch at the time. She’d looked out, seen the truck and had just assumed her husband had hired someone to move some cattle for him.

  She hadn’t gotten a good look at the men or the truck. But then, most cowboys looked alike, as did muddy stock trucks.

  Tom could imagine what old man Crowley had said when he found out his wife had just let the rustlers steal their cattle.

  Tom was shaking his head in amusement when he spotted the cut barbed wire. Seeing the set of horseshoe prints in the dirt, he brought his horse up short. He was thinking of the tracks when he heard the whinny of a horse and looked up in time to see a horse and rider disappear into a stand of pines a couple hundred yards to the east.

  Tom was pretty sure the rider had seen him and had headed for the trees just past the creek. From the creek bottom, the land rose abruptly in rocky outcroppings and thick stands of Ponderosa pines, providing cover.

  “What the hell?” Tom said to himself. He looked around for other riders, but saw only the one set of tracks in the soft earth. He felt his pulse begin to pound as he stared at his cut barbed wire fence lying on the ground at his horse’s feet.

  Tom swore, something he seldom did. He squinted toward the spot where he’d last seen the rider. This part of his ranch was the most isolated—and rugged. It bordered the Bureau of Land Management on one corner and Shade Waters’s land on the other.

  The man had to be one of the rustlers. Who else would cut the fence and take to the trees when seen?

  Still keeping an eye on the spot where the horse and rider had disappeared, Tom urged his mount forward, riding slowly, his hand on the butt of his sidearm.

  Chapter Three

  Jacklyn silently cursed Dillon Savage as she drove, glad she hadn’t gotten a speeding ticket. Wouldn’t he have loved that? It was bad enough she’d proved his point that everyone broke the law.

  She couldn’t believe she’d let him get to her. Like right now. She knew damned well he wasn’t really sleeping. She’d bet every penny she had in the bank that he was over there smugly grinning to himself, pleased that he’d stirred her up. The man was impossible.

  She tried to relax, but she couldn’t have been more tense if she’d had a convicted murderer sitting next to her instead of a cattle rustler. But then, she’d always figured Dillon Savage was only a trigger pull away from being a killer, anyway.

  She could hear him breathing softly, and every once in a while caught a whiff of his all-male scent. With his eyes closed, she could almost convince herself this had been a good idea.

  Desperate times required desperate measures. She had her bosses and a whole lot of angry cattlemen demanding that the rustlers be stopped. Because of her high success rate in the past—and the fact that she’d brought in the now legendary Dillon Savage—everyone expected her to catch this latest rustling ring.

  She’d done everything she could think to do, from encouraging local law enforcement to check anyone moving herds late at night, to having workers at feedlots and sale barns watch for anyone suspicious selling cattle.

  Not surprisingly, she’d met resistance when she’d tried to get the ranchers themselves to take measures to ward off the rustlers, such as locking gates, checking the backgrounds of seasonal employees and keeping a better eye on their stock.

  But many of the ranches were huge, the cattle miles from the house. A lot of ranches were now run by absentee owners. Animals often weren’t checked for weeks, even months on end. By the time a rancher realized some of his herd was missing, the rustlers were long gone.

  Everyone was angry and demanding something be done. But at this point, she wasn’t sure anyone could stop this band of rustlers. These guys were too good. Almost as good as Dillon Savage had been in his heyday.

  And that was why she’d gotten him out of prison, she reminded herself as she turned on the radio, keeping the volume down just in case he really was sleeping. She liked him better asleep.

  Lost in her own private thoughts,
she drove toward Lewistown, Montana, to the sounds of country music on the radio and the hum of tires on the pavement. Ahead was nothing but trouble.

  But the real trouble, she knew, was sitting right beside her.

  DILLON STIRRED as she pulled up in front of the Yogo Inn in downtown Lewistown and parked the pickup.

  He blinked at the motel sign, forgetting for a moment where he was. His body ached from the hours in the pickup, but he’d never felt better in his life.

  Opening his door, he breathed in the evening air. A slight breeze rustled the leaves on the trees nearby. He stretched, watching Jack as she reached behind the seat for her small suitcase.

  “I can get that,” he said.

  “Just take care of your own,” she replied, without looking at him.

  Inside the motel, Dillon felt like a kept man. He stood back as Jack registered and paid for their two adjoining reserved rooms, then asked about places in town that delivered food.

  “What sounds good to you?” she asked him after she’d been given the keys, both of which she kept, and was rolling her small suitcase down the hallway.

  She traveled light, too, it appeared. But then, he expected nothing less than efficiency from Jack.

  “What sounds good to me?” He cocked a brow at her, thinking how long it had been.

  “For dinner,” she snapped.

  “Chinese.”

  She seemed surprised. “I thought you’d want steak.”

  “We had steak in prison. What we didn’t have was Chinese food. Unless you’d prefer something else.”

  “No, Chinese will be fine,” she said as she opened the door to his room.

  He looked in and couldn’t help but feel a small thrill. It had been years since he’d slept in a real bed. Past it, the bathroom door was open and he could see a bathtub. Amazing how he used to take something like a bathtub for granted.

  “Is everything all right?” Jack asked.