by B. J Daniels
* * *
“YOU TOLD YOUR dad about the man I saw at the bar?” Frankie asked as they left the ranch house.
“Darrel Sanders.” He nodded as they walked up to the cabin to get their things.
She could tell that leaving here was hard on Hank. Probably because it was so hard on his mother. “Your mom is so sweet.”
“Yeah, she is. Frankie, I know all this is new between us, but I have to be honest with you. Being here, it makes me wish I’d never left. I miss it.”
She nodded. “I can see that.”
“Not because of Naomi. Maybe in spite of her. I miss my family. I miss ranch work.”
“There’s no reason you shouldn’t come back. This is your family legacy.” Frankie could feel his gaze on her.
“You have to know that if, down the road, once you’ve had enough time to accept that we belong together...”
“What are you saying?” she asked, stopping on the trail to face him.
“That if my coming back here was a deal breaker with us, I would stay in Idaho and I would be fine at my job.”
She shook her head. “I would never keep you from what you love or your family. But we still need to slow down. This is way too fast.”
“Not for me, but I can see it is for you. Plus we still have to deal with your ex-fiancé. I get it. Like I told you, I’ll wait.” He leaned toward her, took her face in his big hands and kissed her. “Umm, you taste like huckleberries.”
She saw the look in his eye and laughed. Why not? It wasn’t as if they were in a hurry to get back to Idaho.
* * *
AS HANK DROVE out of the ranch, he couldn’t help looking back. Frankie noticed and reached over to put her hand on his thigh.
“You’ll be back.”
He nodded. “We’ll be back.”
She smiled and looked out her window. He realized she was looking in her side mirror.
His gaze went quickly to his rearview mirror. No sign of J.J. “Let’s hope he gave up and went back to Idaho.”
“I doubt it. But since that’s where we’re headed...”
“What are we going to do about him when we get back?”
“I’ve hesitated to get a restraining order because, one, I know it won’t do any good, and, two, it will only infuriate him and make things worse.”
He stole a look at her as he drove. He still couldn’t believe this. He was crazy about her. She was all he’d thought about. But the J.J. situation scared him. They weren’t out of the woods yet. Until J.J. was no longer a problem, he and Frankie couldn’t move forward. “What other option is there?”
“Short of shooting him?” She brushed her hair back. This morning she’d tied back her long mane. Tendrils had escaped and hung in a frame around her face. She couldn’t have looked more beautiful.
“I understand why he doesn’t want to lose you. I feel the same way. But his methods are so desperate, so...”
“Insane?” She nodded. “Also his reasons. He wants me back to save face. If he loved me he wouldn’t—” Her voice broke.
“I’m guessing he’s been violent with you,” he said as he drove away from Big Sky headed north.
She nodded without looking at him. “Please, I don’t want to talk about him. It’s a beautiful day and I don’t want to spoil it.”
It was. A crisp blue cloudless sky hung over the tall pines and rocky cliffs of the canyon. Beside them, the river flowed, a sun-kissed clear green. He felt her gaze on him.
“Are you all right with leaving? I mean, we came here to—”
“Because I was convinced Naomi was murdered. We have good reason now to believe it’s true. It’s up to my father now to find out the truth.”
She nodded. “It feels unfinished.”
He glanced over at her. “Once we knew what Naomi had gotten involved with, it was too dangerous to stay because I know you. You wouldn’t stop looking. I couldn’t let you do that. It was getting too dangerous. Not to mention my father would have locked us up if we continued to investigate it.”
* * *
FRANKIE STARED AT him in surprise. “But you wouldn’t have stayed and kept looking if I wasn’t with you.”
“I just told you. My father would have probably thrown me in jail is what would have happened.”
“Hank—”
“There is no way I’m putting you in that kind of danger.”
“That isn’t your choice. This is what I do for a living.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you how you came to be a private eye.”
She could see that he was changing the subject, but she answered anyway. “I had an uncle who was a private investigator. I started out working for him in his office. He took me on a few cases. I was pretty good at it. When he moved to Arizona and closed his office, I opened mine.” She shrugged. “I kind of fell into it. Would I do it over? I don’t know.” She looked at him. “That day we went on the horseback ride up into the mountains?” He nodded. “I felt the kind of freedom I’ve always felt with my job. It was...exhilarating. If I could find a job that let me ride a horse every day...”
“As a rancher’s wife, you could ride every day.”
She’d been joking, wanting to change the subject. But now she stared at him and saw that he was completely serious. They hadn’t even said that they loved each other and he was suggesting she become his wife.
But as she looked at him, she knew it in her heart. She did love him. She’d fallen for him, for his lifestyle, for his family. She’d fallen for the whole ball of wax and now he was offering it to her?
Frankie looked away. As she did, she saw the man stagger out into the highway. “Hank, look out!”
* * *
HANK HIT THE BRAKES. The pickup fishtailed wildly, but he got it stopped before he hit the man who’d dropped to his hands and knees in the middle of the highway.
He threw open his door, jumped out and rushed to the man gasping for breath, whose face was smeared with blood.
“Help me,” the man said. “My car went off the road back in the mountains.”
Hank reached down to help him up. Traffic had been light. What few drivers passed slowed down to look, but didn’t stop.
“Here, let me help you to my pickup,” he said as he half lifted the man to his feet. As they approached the passenger side, Frankie moved over to give him room to climb in with Hank’s help.
After closing the door, Hank hurried around to slide behind the wheel. “I can take you to the hospital in Bozeman.”
“That won’t be necessary,” the man said, no longer wheezing.
Hank shot a look at the man and felt his eyes widen as he saw the gun now pressed to Frankie’s temple.
“Drive up the road,” the man ordered. “I don’t want to kill her, but I will.”
Chapter Eighteen
J.J. had parked down the road from the ranch turnoff. He’d been able to see anyone coming or going. Stakeouts were something he was good at because he required so little sleep. He was usually wired. Catching bad guys was his drug of choice.
Catching Frankie and straightening her up was enough motivation to keep him awake for days. His dedication paid off in spades this morning when he saw the pickup coming out of the ranch with both the cowboy and Frankie.
The pickup turned north and J.J. followed in the SUV he’d rented. It cost him a pretty penny to rent, but he would spare no expense to get Frankie back. As he drove, he admitted to himself that he’d made mistakes when it came to her. He’d put off the actual wedding, stringing her along for a while because while he liked the idea of having her all to himself, he wasn’t ready to tie himself down.
He’d been happy knowing that no other man could have her as long as she was wearing his ring. So when she’d wanted to break up, he’d been caught flat-footed. He’d thought it was because he hadn�
�t mentioned setting a date for the wedding. But in that case, he would have expected her to start talking about making wedding plans or leaving bride magazines around or dropping hints and crying and giving him ultimatums.
Instead, she’d said she didn’t want to marry him, that the engagement had been a mistake and that she wanted out. She’d handed him his ring. Hadn’t even flung it at him in anger.
That was when he’d gotten scared that she was serious. No recriminations, no tears, just a simple “I don’t want to marry you. I’m sorry.”
It had hit him harder than he’d expected. He’d been relieved, and yet the thought of her just tossing him back like a fish that didn’t quite meet her standards really pissed him off. He’d thought, Like hell you’re going to walk away from me.
He’d gotten physical. But what guy wouldn’t have under those conditions? That was when she stopped answering his calls, refused to see him, basically cut him off entirely. At first, he thought it was just a ploy to get him to the altar. Of course she wanted to marry him. He was a good-looking guy with a cool job. Didn’t all women go for a man in uniform?
Since then he’d been trying to get her back every way he could think of. But it became clear quickly that she was serious. She wanted nothing more to do with him. That was when he got mad.
Now, as he followed the pickup north out of town, he considered what to do next. He had no idea where they were headed. But wherever they were going, they didn’t seem to be in a hurry.
It was early enough that traffic was light, so he stayed back, figuring he couldn’t miss them if they stopped anywhere in the canyon. Once out of it, he’d have to stay closer. After his all-night stakeout, he wasn’t about to lose them now.
They were almost out of the canyon when he saw the pickup’s brake lights come on. He quickly pulled over to see what was going on. There was no place for them to turn off, so what the—
That was when he saw the cowboy jump out and rush up the road. A few moments later, the cowboy returned and helped a man into the passenger side of the truck. The man appeared to be injured.
As the pickup pulled back onto the highway, so did J.J. This put a new wrinkle in things, he thought. When not far out of the canyon, the cowboy turned off before the town of Gallatin Gateway. Maybe they were taking the man to his house on what appeared to be the old road along the river. Still, it seemed strange.
J.J. followed at a distance, telling himself this might work out perfectly for him. When they dropped the man off, maybe that was when he’d make his move.
* * *
“WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?” Hank asked, afraid he knew only too well.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” the man said. “Right up here around the next corner, take the road to the left toward the mountains.”
Hank couldn’t believe he’d fallen for this. But in Montana, you stopped to help people on the road. He hadn’t given it a second thought, though he regretted that kindness now.
He shot a look at Frankie. She appeared calm, not in the least bit worried, while his heart was racing. The man had a gun to her head! He couldn’t imagine anything worse, and then realized he could. At least Frankie wasn’t standing on a ledge over the river, looking down at the rocks, knowing she was about to die.
He saw the turn ahead and slowed to take it, glancing into his rearview mirror. There was a vehicle way back on the road. No way to signal that they needed help.
They were on their own. He knew they would have to play it by ear. He would do whatever it took to keep Frankie safe—even if it meant taking a bullet himself.
He turned onto the road. As it wound back into the mountains, he told himself that it made no sense for the drug dealers to kidnap them, let alone kill them. They’d gotten away with murder for three years. If he and Frankie had uncovered evidence against them, they would have been behind bars by now.
So why take them? That was the part that made no sense. Running them off the road had been a warning to back off, but this...this terrified him. Maybe they were cleaning up loose ends, like with Tamara, since she obviously had known more than she’d told Frankie.
* * *
THE FIRST THING the marshal did when he left the ranch after breakfast was drive over to Darrel Sanders’s house. He’d hoped to catch him before he got up. He remembered the boy Darrel had been as a classmate of Hank’s. A nice-looking kid with a definite chip on his shoulder.
Darrel had moved into his mother’s house after she died. It was a small house in a subdivision of other small houses away from Meadow Village.
But when he pulled up, he saw that Darrel’s vehicle, an old panel van, was gone. He tried his number, let it ring until voice mail picked up before hanging up.
It made him nervous that Darrel wasn’t around. The man worked in the winter but, as far as Hud could tell, did nothing in the summer to earn a living. The supposition was that he made so much with his snow removal business that he had summers off.
Hud sat for a moment, letting his patrol SUV idle in front of the house before he shut off the engine, got out and crossed the yard. He’d always gone by the book. But there was no way he could get a warrant based on what he had, which was simply suspicion.
At the house, he knocked and then tried the door. Locked. Going around the small house, he tried to look in the windows, but the curtains were pulled.
At the back, he stepped up onto the small porch. A row of firewood was stacked head high all along the back side of the house and down the fence, cutting off any view of most of the neighbors.
Hud tried the back door and, finding it locked, he put his shoulder into it. He wasn’t as young as when he used to do this. The door held and his shoulder hurt like hell, but he tried again.
The lock gave and he opened the door and quickly stepped in, telling himself that he smelled smoke and thought he’d better check to make sure nothing was on fire inside. A lie, but one he would stand behind. The inside of the house wasn’t as messy as he’d expected it to be. He’d wondered if Darrel had gone on the lam after Tamara’s death, but if he’d packed up and taken off, there was no sign of it.
A pizza box sat in the middle of the table. He opened it and saw that several pieces were still inside. There were dishes in the sink and beer in the refrigerator. He had the feeling that Darrel hadn’t gone far.
He thought about waiting for him, but after looking around and finding nothing of interest, he left by the way he’d come in, feeling guilty and at the same time vindicated.
He’d insisted before Hank left that he get a new cell phone before he left town. He tried his number now.
* * *
FRANKIE STARTED AS Hank’s cell phone rang. She hadn’t replaced her own, saying she’d take care of it once she got home. She wanted a new number, one that J.J. probably wouldn’t have any trouble getting, though. That thought had come out of nowhere. A foolish thought to be worrying about J.J. when a stranger had a gun to her head.
Hank’s cell rang again.
“Don’t touch it,” the man ordered, pressing the barrel of the gun harder against her temple and making her wince.
“It’s probably my father, and if I don’t answer it, he’ll be worried and put a BOLO out on us.”
The man swore. “Give me your phone.” Hank dug it out and handed it over. The man stared down at it for a moment and said, “Answer it. Tell him you’re fine but can’t talk because of the traffic and will call him later. Say anything more and the last thing your father will hear is this woman’s brains being splattered all over you. Got it?”
“Got it.” He took the phone back and did just as the man had told him before being ordered to hand the phone back.
Frankie watched the man pocket the phone. She hadn’t been able to hear the other side of the conversation. But it appeared the marshal had accepted that Hank couldn’t talk right now.
She took eve
n breaths, letting herself be lulled by the rocking of the pickup as Hank drove deeper into the foothills. She knew better than to try to take the gun away from the man in these close quarters. She would wait and bide her time. She hoped Hank was on the same page. He appeared to be since he hadn’t tried to get a message to his father.
They came over a rise and she saw a small cabin set back against rocks and pines. Several rigs were parked in front of it, including a panel van that she’d seen before. It took her a moment to remember where. In front of the Silver Spur Bar in Big Sky. Darrel Sanders’s rig. So this was just as they suspected, about the drug money and Naomi’s death.
“Park over there and then we’re going to get out very carefully,” the man said. “This gun has a hair trigger. If you try anything—”
“I get the picture,” Hank said impatiently. “But now this. If you shoot her, you’d better shoot me as quickly as possible because if you don’t—”
“I get the picture,” the man interrupted, and she saw him smile out of the corner of her eye.
Even knowing what this was about, she couldn’t understand why they were being brought here. She didn’t think it was to kill them, but she knew she could be wrong about that. The thought made her breath catch and her mouth go dry. She and Hank had just found each other. She had hardly let herself believe in this relationship. She didn’t want it to be over so soon—and so tragically.
She’d said she needed time, but even after her bad experience with J.J., she knew in her heart that Hank was nothing like the cop. He was the kind of man who made a woman feel loved and protected. The kind of man who loved horses and wanted to make babies and raise a family.