Wildfire

by Roxanne Rustand

  “For that single, wild party?”

  “He was over twenty-one, he was charged, and he pleaded guilty, Tess. It’s now on his record.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “He just got probation for two years, though. With good behavior his record would have been expunged. But he also tried to avoid arrest on these current charges, so the judge deemed him a flight risk. Until the trial, Danny will be staying behind bars.”

  “What about a lawyer? Does he even have one?”

  “A public defender. The arraignment was done by video conference this morning, but she’ll be here this afternoon to meet with him.”

  Tessa sank into her chair, suddenly feeling faint. “And the charges?”

  “Not good. Evidence found at the scene clearly placed Danny in that cabin, and his prints were on the murder weapon. Some stolen items were found in Danny’s car.”

  “No.” She closed her eyes tight for a moment, already knowing what this would mean.

  Michael nodded. “Wyoming law. Murder in the first degree includes premeditated and felony murder, and the D.A. is going for the latter. Which means—”

  “Don’t say it. Danny would never have done this, Michael. I know him too well.”

  But Michael’s unspoken words still hung in the air between them, powerful and frightening and final. For a conviction could mean the end of a young man’s dreams…and his life.

  Watching Tessa deal with one blow after another filled Josh with frustration and sadness. Gone was the fun-loving girl he’d dated in college—the one who had been up for every adventure, and who had marked his heart forever with her beautiful smile and absolute determination to achieve every goal she set.

  Now, she looked exhausted. Frazzled. And deeply heartbroken by the turn of events with Danny, who had been in jail for almost a week now. It was as if someone had decided to take away every avenue of help for her, leaving her with overwhelming responsibilities that no single person could handle.

  When she wasn’t doing chores or the endless tasks involved in running a large ranch, she was dealing with the customers for her outfitting business, and without Danny to help out, she’d had to take a number of trips with clients during the last week.

  All told, it was the reason he sat on an exam table at the doctor’s office in Wolf Creek, and was staring down an equally determined, silver-haired physician’s assistant.

  “This would be against sound medical practice,” she said, her arms folded across her chest. “It’s only been four weeks.”

  “I’ll be careful. I’m not planning on any marathons, and I’ll keep my leg wrapped. How about that?”

  “With someone your age, and with that kind of fracture, we’d maybe consider a walking cast about now. We certainly wouldn’t just take your cast off and set you free.”

  “I’ll sign a waiver. A release form. Anything you say, just take this thing off.”

  “I know it isn’t pleasant,” she said with a patient smile. “Everyone gets just a little stir crazy after a while.”

  “I’m not stir crazy. I’m incapacitated.”

  “Exactly! That’s what happens when you break something,” she enunciated her words a little too carefully, as if trying to get through to someone with an IQ of fifty. “And if you don’t let it heal properly, you could be incapacitated for a whole lot longer. In fact, you could fracture it all over again, and then where would you be?”

  He drew in a slow, steady breath, trying to hang on to his fading patience. “I need to be able to get on a horse and stay there. My cast makes that impossible. If you won’t take it off, I’ll need to go back to the ranch and try get it off myself…with tin snips, or a saw, or a mallet. Either way, I’ll risk needing sutures, but I don’t have time for that, either. I’m guessing that your refusal of care could be considered problematic if I end up with permanent injuries while trying to do your job.”

  She drew herself up and glared at him. “I’ll have to call the doctor.”

  “Please do. I’d be glad to talk to him myself.”

  “You’ll have to sign a release form.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Her shoulders sagged in defeat. “Can I at least give you a removable walking brace? It would have a rocker bottom to help you walk, so you’d be safer and more comfortable.”

  He suppressed the impulse to give her a hug. “Perfect!”

  “We don’t often do this, though. We found that people quit using the brace way too early.” She regarded him with doubt in her eyes. “Can I just ask why this is so important to you right now?”

  “I have a friend who needs help, badly.”

  The physician’s assistant lifted Josh’s slender file folder and turned to the face sheet. Her eyes widened as she scanned down the page. “This says you’re staying at Snow Canyon Ranch.”

  “Just until my Harley and I are ready for the open road.”

  The woman’s frosty demeanor melted. “Tessa needs a good friend now, though I don’t suppose she’d ever admit it. With Danny in jail and Gus in rehab, I can’t imagine how she’s holding things together.”

  “That’s why I’m here, ma’am,” he said with a smile. He tapped the hard surface of his cast. “And the sooner you get this thing off me, the easier her life will be.”

  When he got back to the ranch at ten, Tessa was busy saddling a horse. She barely acknowledged his approach.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “I’m way late on moving one of the herd up to summer pasture, and I can’t wait any longer. Once I get that done, I need to start rounding up stock for the auction at the sale barn on Wednesday night.”

  “Because of the loan coming due?”

  She bit her lower lip as she tightened the girth. “I hope so. I also need to ship my saddle.”

  “The one you listed on eBay?”

  She nodded. “It went for $3,600, and I need every penny of that. I’m…grateful for all the bidders.”

  She sounded a lot more sad than happy, though.

  “If someone was going to need an experienced horse to work cattle, which one would he pick?”

  “Probably Jasper, the big buckskin in the corral next to the barn.” She unhooked the stirrup from the saddle horn and let it drop it into place, then unsnapped the cross-tie ropes from her gelding’s halter, slipped it off, and bridled him. “Jasper’s a real good cow horse, and he’s dependable. Why?”

  She looked over at Josh, and her gaze traveled down to his injured leg—which was now encased only in denim jeans. “What on earth did you do? It’s been only what—four weeks or so?”

  “I’ve got a removable brace in the truck, but figured it wouldn’t work for riding. You need some extra help, and I’m coming along.”

  She shook her head firmly. “Bad idea. This’ll be a long, hard day, even for me. That leg of yours has to be tender, and I can’t slow down or quit to bring you back here when it starts to hurt.”

  He grinned. “The horse will be doing the moving, not me.”

  “So you think. Do you have any idea how exhausting this can be? It’s not like sitting on a couch. We’ll be riding on rough ground. Moving fast. The cattle don’t exactly fall into a nice, easy line, so your horse might suddenly slam on the brakes, pivot, and want to chase after a straggler. You think you’re ready for that?”

  “Absolutely,” he lied. Just walking from the truck to the barn had made his tender leg ache and had shown him just how weak those muscles were.

  But he had a roll of Ace bandaging in his pocket, courtesy of the medical clinic in town, and that ought to offer plenty of support. If it didn’t work well enough, so be it.

  Tessa did need help whether she wanted to admit it or not. And even if it killed him, he wasn’t going to let her down.

  “They’re gone now. Let’s go.”

  The smaller man sank back into the shadows. “You don’t hear that dog? It’s barking its fool head off!”

  “And who’s gonna hear it? The kid
’s in jail. The old guy is laid up in town, and that’s where his wife goes everyday. There ain’t anyone here.”

  Still, they waited. Five minutes. Ten. From this vantage point above the house and barns, one could see a cloud of dust boiling up behind any vehicle traveling the mile-long ranch road leading out to the highway, and the air was crystal clear. Off to the right, Josh and Tessa had become small specks on the landscape and had long disappeared into the foothills.

  “You got the list? I don’t want to mess this up.”

  “Got it. Now, let’s go.”

  The dogs had made it too risky last night. With all that barking, it had been better to retreat than to risk the business end of Tessa McAllister’s rifle.

  But daylight had its own risks, even with everyone at the ranch gone. They’d had to come across country on foot to avoid being seen. It would be a long hike back with what they took.

  But it was worth it…every last step. Debts needed to be paid, after all.

  And this would be the perfect repayment of one that was long overdue.

  FOURTEEN

  Riding Jasper out to the pasture with Tessa and her horse Dusty was an easy trip. They crossed gently rolling land, passing through a series of gates between the various pastures, with the warm June sun high overhead and a growing, easy camaraderie that had them laughing most of the way.

  The tricky part was when they actually reached the cattle in question. Tessa promptly disappeared over the next hill, heading toward the western reaches of the pasture at a lope.

  She’d shouted directions as she rode off—nothing that Josh had heard clearly over the thunder of Dusty’s hooves and the bawling cattle, but the goal seemed clear enough: gather all of the cows and drive them north.

  Only it wasn’t obvious to the cows.

  They were scattered over hundreds of acres, standing in shady draws to escape the flies, spread out on the hillsides, or having little one-on-one chats deep within nearly impenetrable thickets.

  As soon as he had a few of them heading in the right direction, a couple of them would veer away. If he got a few dozen cornered and went off to gather some more, the original group declared recess and trotted off.

  It had to approximate trying to herd cats or goldfish, and both the tenderness in his leg and his impatience were growing. Where were the obedient, well-trained herds of the old John Wayne movies, that moved en masse like dark, thick molasses?

  Even Jasper seemed irritated by the whole process.

  He tossed his head and danced sideways, obviously disagreeing with Josh’s supervision. He could only imagine that Tessa, alone with her horse, was facing the same problem.

  That misconception was promptly dispelled when he heard the rumble of hooves approaching, and looked up to see a solid flood of beef pouring over the hill with Tessa and her horse neatly maneuvering the herd from behind.

  “Open the gate!” she shouted, cupping one hand at her mouth.

  The gate? He pivoted Jasper toward the north and, following the direction she pointed out, kicked him into fourth gear, and reached it with seconds to spare. As soon as the cattle went through, he pushed the heavy pipe gate shut.

  Tessa pulled to halt next to him. “There’s fifty,” she said, pushing up the brim of her hat and wiping away the sweat on her brow. “How about you?”

  “Mine are…taking a break.”

  “You’ve got none?”

  “I had quite a few, now and then, but I didn’t know you wanted me to drive them into that other pasture, and the cows lost interest in standing around. They can’t be too far, though.”

  “That other ‘pasture’ is a two-acre holding pen. Since they’ve had a little practice heading this way, we shouldn’t have any trouble if you’ll just watch the gate. Shall we?”

  She gave her horse an almost imperceptible signal, and it did a hundred-eighty degree pivot, then took off at a lope, swinging wide around a half-dozen cows and calves.

  She and Dusty made it look effortless as the horse ducked his head low and darted back and forth as gracefully as a ballet dancer, blocking escape attempts and working cows and calves into a tight bunch, then sending them on through the gate.

  In another hour, Tessa had rounded up the rest of the cattle, counted them off, and the herd was on its way down a narrow gravel lane that wound up into the foothills, until it reached the government allotment where they would summer on better grass.

  Once the herd was through that final gate, Tessa padlocked it, then rested an elbow on her saddle horn and propped her chin on her palm. He thought she was just resting, until he realized that she was counting the slowly dispersing herd one last time.

  “They sure are far from home up here. Is theft a big problem?”

  “It happens. My ten head of missing mother cows haven’t turned up yet. Eight were our own breeding stock, which we’ve been carefully developing for decades, but two came from a herd genetically engineered for top production results, and I hate to add up what we lost.”

  “Ballpark?”

  She winced. “I had around $4,000 in each of the two new ones, and the others were easily two grand apiece at auction. If they’re sitting in someone’s freezer, it’s a tremendous waste of breeding potential.”

  He looked out over the cattle they’d just brought up here. “So, what’s to prevent someone from taking these?”

  “The more often I can get up here to count ’em, the better. If anything takes a walk—unplanned—I call the sheriff right away, and then send notices to him and all of the sales barns. The auction houses watch out for them, but sometimes it’s one of the bidders who happens to see a flyer on the wall and calls in a report. Anything that works, right?”

  For so much of the time since he’d come here, Tessa had been busy from dawn to dark, and he’d barely seen her, much less spoken to her for any length of time.

  Now, they slipped into casual conversation about the weather, the auction coming up next week and her plans for expanding her breeding program for high-yield Angus cattle, and it took him back to the days when they’d sat in his old Chevy Malibu, talking for hours.

  He studied her animated gestures and shining eyes as she discussed ranch business, realizing for the first time just how much knowledge and expertise she had to possess to make this place float.

  “So, any news about Gus?”

  “After rehab, he and Sofia can stay as long as they like at the ranch. I think they want to move to Colorado, though, because they have a daughter in Denver.” She smiled sadly. “It just won’t be the same if those two leave. They’re like my family.”

  “What about Danny?”

  “Still in jail, and that’s such a waste. He should be out here, working and doing what he loves best.” Her eyes sparked with anger. “If he wasn’t set up, I’ll eat my boots.”

  “There were fingerprints, though. And there were stolen goods in Danny’s truck,” Josh said gently. “Word has it that the state has a strong case against him.”

  She twisted in her saddle to look over at him. “But think about it. Really. Edward was Danny’s stepfather for a few years, so Danny may well have been in that cabin a number of times as a visitor. So there you go—fingerprints. He probably handled Edward’s gun collection many times. He might’ve even visited Edward that day—and the real killer saw that, and figured out the perfect way to shift the blame.”

  “But the stolen goods?”

  “Were they stolen? Danny says no—that they were a gift. And I believe him.”

  She seemed so absolutely loyal to her young friend, despite the evidence against him, that Josh smiled.

  “Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if we hadn’t had that last fight, back in college?” he said. “How life would have been different if we hadn’t lost touch?”

  “Lost touch?” She shot an unreadable look at him. “Do you mean—if you hadn’t just dropped off the face of the planet and disappeared?” She turned away to stare at the horizon. “Yes—I su
ppose I thought about it a time or two.”

  Her words were light, but even after all these years, her voice vibrated with a depth of emotion that surprised him. “I was devastated when we broke up,” he said quietly.

  She laughed. “Oh, I can imagine how much. I tried to find you, but you were gone…and you sure never came back.” She slid a cold glance at him. “It didn’t take long to realize that I’d just been another foolish little girl with stars in her eyes, and had read way too much into that relationship.”

  “What?” He blinked, trying to sort out a version of the past that was different from everything he remembered.

  “But as one of our presidents said, ‘mistakes were made’ and both of us moved on.”

  “You said you never wanted to see me again, and you made that crystal clear. I did try calling a couple times, but your roommates said you refused to come to the phone. Then my father died and I had to move back East, because my mom just fell apart. I had younger brother and sisters to worry about, so I transferred to a college out there.”

  “And I tried to find you, too. But my letters were returned, and back then we couldn’t search for old friends using the Internet.” The anger in her eyes faded to infinite sadness. “Then I guess that’s just how it was meant to be. Two people at cross purposes…ending up on different paths. Things always end up for the best, right?”

  Maybe she thought so, but he’d had an aching, empty place in his heart for years afterward. He’d relived their last argument a thousand times, trying to figure out how things could have been so perfect between them—yet suddenly crash and burn in a single, devastating evening, over a minor disagreement about the future that had escalated out of control. She’d hinted at wanting commitment. He’d been startled into some sort of off-hand dismissal that had set her off.

  “I barely remember what we argued about, Tessa, but I’m sorry.” He grinned at her. “I’m sure I was totally wrong.”