B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection

by B. J Daniels

  He flipped on the flashlight and shone the beam down into the hole. The well wasn’t deep, about fifteen feet, like looking off the roof of a two-story house. Had it been deeper, Warren would never have seen what lay in the bottom.

  Hud leaned over the opening, the wind whistling in his ears, the flashlight beam a pale gold as it skimmed the dirt bottom—and the bones.

  Hunting with his father as a boy, Hud had seen his share of remains over the years. The sun-bleached skeletons of deer, elk, moose, cattle and coyotes were strewn all over rural Montana.

  But just as Warren had feared, the bones lying at the bottom of the Cardwell Ranch dry well weren’t from any wild animal.

  DANA STOOD BACK, her hands in the pockets of her coat, as she stared at Hud’s broad back.

  She wished she didn’t know him so well. The moment he’d turned on the flashlight and looked down, she’d read the answer in his shoulders. Her already upset stomach did a slow roll and she thought for a moment she might be sick.

  Dear God, what was in the well? Who was in the well?

  Hud glanced back at her, his blue eyes drilling her to the spot where she stood, all the past burning there like a hot blue flame.

  But instead of heat, she shivered as if a cold wind blew up from the bottom of the well. A cold that could chill in ways they hadn’t yet imagined as Hud straightened and walked back to her.

  “Looks like remains of something, all right,” Hud said, giving her that same noncommittal look he had when he’d driven up.

  The wind whipped her long dark hair around her face. She took a painful breath and let it go, fighting the wind, fighting a weakness in herself that made her angry and scared. “They’re human bones, aren’t they?”

  Hud dragged his hat off and raked a hand through his hair, making her fingers tingle remembering the feel of that thick sun-streaked mop of his. “Won’t be certain until we get the bones to the lab.”

  She looked away, angry at him on so many levels that it made it hard to be civil. “I know there are human remains down there. Warren said he saw a human skull. So stop lying to me.”

  Hud’s eyes locked with hers and she saw anger spark in all that blue. He didn’t like being called a liar. But then, she could call him much worse if she got started.

  “From what I can see, the skull appears to be human. Satisfied?” he said.

  She turned away from the only man who had ever satisfied her. She tried not to panic. If having Hud back—let alone the interim marshal—wasn’t bad enough, there was a body in the well on her family ranch. She tried to assure herself that the bones could have been in the well for years. The well had been dug more than a hundred years ago. Who knew how long the bones had been there?

  But the big question, the same one she knew Hud had to be asking, was why the bones were there.

  “I’m going to need to cordon this area off,” he said. “I would imagine with it being calving season, you have some cattle moving through here?”

  “No cattle in here to worry about,” Warren said.

  Hud frowned and glanced out across the ranch. “I didn’t notice any cattle on the way in, either.”

  Dana felt his gaze shift to her. She pulled a hand from her pocket to brush a strand of her hair from her face before looking at him. The words stuck in her throat and she was grateful to Warren when he said, “The cattle were all auctioned this fall to get the ranch ready to sell.”

  Hud looked stunned, his gaze never leaving hers. “You wouldn’t sell the ranch.”

  She turned her face away from him. He was the one person who knew just what this ranch meant to her and yet she didn’t want him to see that selling it was breaking her heart just as he had. She could feel his gaze on her as if waiting for her to explain.

  When she didn’t, he said, “I have to warn you, Dana, this investigation might hold up a sale.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t thought of anything but the bones—and her added bad luck in finding out that Hud was acting marshal.

  “Word is going to get out, if it hasn’t already,” he continued. “Once we get the bones up, we’ll know more, but this investigation could take some time.”

  “You do whatever you have to do, Hud.” She hadn’t said his name out loud in years. It sounded odd and felt even stranger on her tongue. Amazing that such a small word could hurt so much.

  She turned and walked back to Warren’s pickup, surprised her legs held her up. Her mind was reeling. There was a body in a well on her ranch? And Hud Savage was back after all this time of believing him long gone? She wasn’t sure which shocked or terrified her more.

  She didn’t hear him behind her until he spoke.

  “I was sorry to hear about your mother,” he said so close she felt his warm breath on her neck and caught a whiff of his aftershave. The same kind he’d used when he was hers.

  Without turning, she gave a nod of her head, the wind burning her eyes, and jerked open the pickup door, sending a glance to Warren across the hood that she was more than ready to leave.

  As she climbed into the truck and started to pull the door shut behind her, Hud dropped one large palm over the top of the door to keep it from closing. “Dana…”

  She shot him a look she thought he might still remember, the same one a rattler gives right before it strikes.

  “I just wanted to say…happy birthday.”

  She tried not to show her surprise—or her pleasure—that he’d remembered. That he had, though, made it all the worse. She swallowed and looked up at him, knifed with that old familiar pain, the kind that just never went away no matter how hard you fought it.

  “Dana, listen—”

  “I’m engaged.” The lie was out before she could call it back.

  Hud’s eyebrows up. “To anyone I know?”

  She took guilty pleasure from the pain she heard in his voice, saw in his face. “Lanny Rankin.”

  “Lanny? The lawyer?” Hud didn’t sound surprised, just contemptuous. He must have heard that she’d been dating Lanny. “He still saving up for the ring?”

  “What?”

  “An engagement ring. You’re not wearing one.” He motioned to her ring finger.

  Silently she swore at her own stupidity. She’d wanted to hurt him and at the same time keep him at a safe distance. Unfortunately she hadn’t given a thought to the consequences.

  “I just forgot to put it on this morning,” she said.

  “Oh, you take it off at night?”

  Another mistake. When Hud had put the engagement ring on her finger so many years ago now, she’d sworn she’d never take it off.

  “If you must know,” she said, “the diamond got caught in my glove, so I took it off to free it and must have laid it down.”

  His brows shot up again.

  Why didn’t she just shut up? “I was in a hurry this morning. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “Must be a big diamond to get stuck in a glove.” Not like the small chip he’d been able to afford for her, his tone said.

  “Look, as far as I’m concerned, you and I have nothing to say to each other.”

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to pry into your personal life.” A muscle bunched in his jaw and he took on that all-business marshal look again. “I’d appreciate it if you and Warren wouldn’t mention what you found in the well to anyone. I know it’s going to get out, but I’d like to try to keep a lid on it as long as we can.”

  He had to be joking. The marshal’s office dispatcher was the worst gossip in the canyon.

  “Anything else?” she asked pointedly as his hand remained on the door.

  His gaze softened again and she felt her heart do that pitter-patter thing it hadn’t done since Hud.

  “It’s good seeing you again, Dana,” he said.

  “I wish I could say the same, Hud.”

  His lips turned up in a rueful smile as she jerked hard on the door, forcing him to relinquish his hold. If only
she could free herself as easily.

  The pickup door slammed hard. Warren got in and started the engine without a word. She knew he’d heard her lie about being engaged, but Warren was too smart to call her on it.

  As sun streamed into the cab, Warren swung the pickup around. Dana rolled down her window, flushed with a heat that had nothing to do with the warmth of the sun or the January Thaw. She could see the ranch house down the hillside. Feel the rattle of the tires over the rough road, hear the wind in the pines.

  She promised herself she wouldn’t do it even as she reached out, her fingers trembling, and adjusted the side mirror to look back.

  Hud was still standing where she’d left him, looking after them.

  Happy birthday.

  Chapter Two

  Well, that had gone better than he’d expected, Hud thought with his usual self-deprecating sarcasm.

  She was engaged to Lanny Rankin?

  What did you expect? It’s been years. I’m surprised she isn’t married by now. But Lanny Rankin?

  He watched the pickup disappear over the hill, listening until the sound of the engine died away and all he could hear was the wind again.

  Yeah, why isn’t she married?

  Lanny Rankin had gone after Dana before Hud had even driven out past the city limit sign. He’d had five years. So why weren’t the two of them married?

  He felt a glimmer of hope.

  Was it possible Dana was dragging her feet because she was still in love with him—not Lanny Rankin?

  And why wasn’t she wearing her ring? Maybe she didn’t even have one. Maybe she wasn’t engaged—at least not officially.

  Maybe you’re clutching at straws.

  Maybe, but his instincts told him that if she was going to marry Lanny, she would have by now.

  A half mile down the hillside, he could see Warren’s pickup stop in a cloud of dust. Hud watched Dana get out. She was still beautiful. Still prickly as a porcupine. Still strong and determined. Still wishing him dead.

  He couldn’t blame her for that, though.

  He had a terrible thought. What if she married Lanny now just out of spite?

  And what was this about selling the ranch? The old Dana Cardwell he knew would never put the ranch up for sale. Was she thinking about leaving after it sold? Worse, after she married Lanny?

  She disappeared into the ranch house. This place was her heart. She’d always said she would die here and be buried up on the hill with the rest of her mother’s family, the Justices.

  He’d loved that about her, her pride in her family’s past, her determination to give that lifestyle to her children—to their children.

  Hud felt that gut-deep ache of regret. God, how he hated what he’d done to her. What he’d done to himself. It didn’t help that he’d spent the past five years trying to make sense of it.

  Water under the bridge, his old man would have said. But then his old man didn’t have a conscience. Made life easier that way, Hud thought, cursing at even the thought of Brick Savage. He thought of all the wasted years he’d spent trying to please his father—and the equally wasted years he’d spent hating him.

  Hud turned, disgusted with himself, and tried to lose himself in the one thing that gave him any peace, his work.

  He put in a call to Coroner Rupert Milligan. While he waited for Rupert, he shot both digital photographs and video of the site, trying not to speculate on the bones in the well or how they had gotten there.

  Rupert drove up not thirty minutes later. He was dressed in a suit and tie, which in Montana meant either a funeral or a wedding. “Toastmasters, if you have to know,” he said as he walked past Hud to the well, grabbing the flashlight from Hud’s hand on his way.

  Rupert Milligan was older than God and more powerful in this county. Tall, white-haired, with a head like a buffalo, he had a gruff voice and little patience for stupidity. He’d retired as a country doctor but still worked as coroner. He’d gotten hooked on murder mysteries—and forensics. Rupert loved nothing better than a good case and while Hud was still hoping the bones weren’t human, he knew that Rupert was pitching for the other team.

  Rupert shone the flashlight down into the well, leaning one way then the other. He froze, holding the flashlight still as he leaned down even farther. Hud figured he’d seen the skull partially exposed at one edge of the well.

  “You got yourself a human body down there, but then I reckon you already knew that,” he said, sounding too cheerful as he straightened.

  Hud nodded.

  “Let’s get it out of there.” Rupert had already started toward his rig.

  Hud would have offered to go down in Rupert’s place but he knew the elderly coroner wouldn’t have stood for it. All he needed Hud for was to document it if the case ever went to trial—and help winch him and the bones out of the well.

  He followed Rupert over to his pickup where the coroner had taken off his suit jacket and was pulling on a pair of overalls.

  “Wanna put some money on what we got down there?” Rupert asked with a grin. Among his other eclectic traits, Rupert was a gambler. To his credit, he seldom lost.

  “Those bones could have been down there for fifty years or more,” Hud said, knowing that if that was the case, there was a really good chance they would never know the identity of the person or how he’d ended up down there.

  Rupert shook his head as he walked around to the back of the truck and dropped the tailgate. “Those aren’t fifty-year-old bones down there. Not even close.”

  The coroner had come prepared. There was a pulley system in the back and a large plastic box with a body bag, latex gloves, a variety of different size containers, a video camera and a small shovel.

  He handed Hud the pulley then stuffed the needed items into a backpack, which he slung over his shoulder before slipping a headlamp over his white hair and snapping it on.

  “True, it’s dry down there, probably been covered most of the time since the bones haven’t been bleached by the sun,” Rupert said as he walked back to the well and Hud followed. “Sides of the well are too steep for most carnivores. Insects would have been working on the bones though. Maggots.” He took another look into the well. “Spot me five years and I’ll bet you fifty bucks that those bones have been down there two decades or less,” he said with his usual confidence, a confidence based on years of experience.

  Twenty years ago Hud would have been sixteen. Rupert would have been maybe forty-five. With a jolt Hud realized that Rupert wasn’t that much older than his father. It felt odd to think of Brick Savage as old. In Hud’s mind’s eye he saw his father at his prime, a large, broad-shouldered man who could have been an actor. Or even a model. He was that good-looking.

  “I got a hundred that says whoever’s down there didn’t fall down there by accident,” Rupert said.

  “Good thing I’m not a betting man,” Hud said, distracted. His mind on the fact that twenty years ago, his father was marshal.

  “TELL ME you didn’t,” Dana said as she walked into Needles and Pins and heard giggling in the back beyond the racks of fabric.

  Her best friend and partner in the small sewing shop gave her a grin and a hug. “It’s your birthday, kiddo,” Hilde whispered. “Gotta celebrate.”

  “Birthdays after thirty should not be celebrated,” Dana whispered back.

  “Are you kidding? And miss seeing what thirty-one candles on a cake looks like?”

  “You didn’t.”

  Hilde had her arm and was tugging her toward the back. “Smile. I promise this won’t kill you, though you do look like you think it will.” She slowed. “You’re shaking. Seriously, are you all right?”

  As much as she hated it, Dana was still a wreck after seeing Hud again. She’d hoped to get to work at the shop and forget about everything that had happened this morning, including not only what might be in the old well—but also who. The last thing she wanted was to even be reminded of her birthday. It only reminded her that Hud had remembe
red.

  “Hud’s back,” she said, the words coming out in a rush.

  Hilde stopped dead so that Dana almost collided with her.

  Her best friend’s surprise made her feel better. Dana had been worried all morning that everyone had known about Hud’s return—and just hadn’t told her to protect her. She hated being protected. Especially from news like that. If she’d known he was back, she could have prepared herself for seeing him—Even as she thought it, she knew nothing could have prepared her for that initial shock of seeing Hud after five long years.

  “Hud’s back in the canyon?” Hilde whispered, sounding shocked. The Gallatin Canyon, a fifty-mile strip of winding highway and blue-ribbon river, had been mostly ranches, the cattle and dude kind, a few summer cabins and homes—that is until Big Sky resort and the small town that followed at the foot of Lone Mountain. But the “canyon” was still its own little community.

  “Hud’s the new temporary marshal,” Dana whispered, her throat suddenly dry.

  “Hello?” came the familiar voice of Margo from the back of the store. “We’ve got candles burning up in here.”

  “Hud? Back here? Oh, man, what a birthday present,” Hilde said, giving her another hug. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I can imagine what seeing him again did to you.”

  “I still want to kill him,” Dana whispered.

  “Not on your birthday.” Hilde frowned. “Does Lanny know yet?” she whispered.

  “Lanny? Lanny and I are just friends.”

  “Does Lanny know that?” her friend asked, giving her a sympathetic smile.

  “He knows.” Dana sighed, remembering the night Lanny had asked her to marry him and she’d had to turn him down. Things hadn’t been the same between them since. “I did something really stupid. I told Hud I was engaged to Lanny.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Dana nodded miserably. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Margo called from the back room. “Major wax guttering back here.”