B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection

by B. J Daniels

  “Everyone knows you never lock your doors,” Hilde said.

  “I do now. I just can’t understand why I’m being threatened. It has to have something to do with the woman whose remains were found in the well.”

  There was a soft knock on the door and both women turned to see their first customer—Kitty Randolph—looking at her watch.

  “She’s early but we’re going to have to let her in, huh,” Hilde said with a laugh. “You sure you’re up to this today?”

  “I would go crazy if I stayed home, believe me,” Dana said as she started toward the door to unlock it and put up the Open sign. “Good morning, Mrs. Randolph.”

  “Dana,” the older woman said, then added, “Hilde,” by way of greeting. Kitty Randolph was a petite gray-haired woman with a round cheery face and bright blue eyes.

  “I was going to get back to you about the fund-raiser,” Dana said, instantly feeling guilty for not doing so.

  Kitty patted her hand with a cool wrinkled one of her own. “Now, dear, don’t you worry about that. I know something dreadful happened out at the ranch. You must tell me all about it while you match this color thread.” She pulled the leg of a pair of blue slacks from a bag hooked on her arm. “I need to raise the hem. I hate it, but I’m shrinking and getting shorter every day.” She chuckled. “Now what’s this about a body being in the well?” she asked conspiratorially as she took Dana’s arm and steered her toward the thread rack.

  Dana picked up several spools of thread and held them to the pants in Kitty Randolph’s bag.

  She gave the elderly woman a short version of the discovery in the well.

  “Any idea who she was?” Kitty asked.

  Dana shook her head. “We might never know.”

  Kitty purchased her thread and left, promising to bring some of her wonderful chocolate chip cookies the next time she stopped by.

  ARMED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS and information about the emerald ring found in the well, Hud drove to Bozeman first thing.

  The jewelry store was one of those small, exclusive shops on Main Street. Hud tapped at the door just over the Closed sign and a fit-looking, gray-haired man unlocked the door.

  “Marshal Savage,” the jeweler said, extending his hand. “You made good time.”

  Hud handed him the photographs and information taken from the ring.

  “Oh yes,” Brad Andrews said as he examined the photos. “I remember this ring very well. A one-carat emerald set in a pear-shape with two half-carat diamonds on each side. A beautiful ring. Something you would notice a woman wearing.” He looked up, still nodding.

  “You can tell me who purchased the ring?” Hud asked.

  “Of course. I remember this ring well. It was a twenty-fifth anniversary present. Judge Randolph purchased it for his wife, Kitty.”

  AS KITTY RANDOLPH LEFT Needles and Pins, several other ladies from the canyon entered the shop, also using the excuse of needing fabric or patterns or thread when they were really just interested in the latest goings on at the Cardwell Ranch.

  Dana could see how her day was going to go, but better here than being at the ranch. Especially alone.

  At least that’s what she thought until the bell over the door at Needles and Pins jangled and the last person she wanted to see came through the door.

  Dana looked up from the fabric she was pricing and swore under her breath. Hilde had gone to the post office to mail a special fabric order so Dana was alone with no place to run as her sister Stacy stepped into the shop.

  Stacy glanced around, looking almost afraid as she moved slowly to the counter and Dana.

  Dana waited, wondering what her sister was doing here. Stacy didn’t sew and, as far as Dana knew, had never been in the store before.

  Stacy was two years her senior, with the same dark hair, the same dark eyes, and that was where the similarities ended. Stacy was willowy-thin, a true beauty and all girl. She’d never been a tomboy like Dana, just the opposite. Stacy had hated growing up on the ranch, wanting even from a very young age to live on a street in town that had sidewalks. “I never want to smell cow manure again,” she’d said when she’d left home at eighteen. “And I will never marry a cowboy.”

  Dana always thought Stacy should have been more specific about the type of man she would marry. She’d married at nineteen, divorced at twenty-two, married again at twenty-four, divorced at twenty-nine, married again at thirty-two and divorced. None of them were cowboys.

  “Hi, Dana,” Stacy said quietly.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” Dana asked in her storeowner tone.

  Stacy flushed. “I…no…that is I don’t want to buy anything.” She clutched her purse, her fingers working the expensive leather. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

  Dana hadn’t seen Stacy since their mother’s funeral and they hadn’t spoken then. Nor did she want to speak to her now. “I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”

  “Jordan asked me to stop by,” Stacy said, looking very uncomfortable.

  Jordan. Perfect. “He didn’t have the guts to do it himself?”

  Stacy sighed. “Dana.”

  “What is it Jordan couldn’t ask me?” She hated to think what it would be since her brother hadn’t seemed to have any trouble making demands of her yesterday on the phone.

  “He would like us all to get together and talk at the ranch this evening,” Stacy said.

  “About what?” As if she didn’t know, but she wanted to hear Stacy say it. So far Jordan had been the one who’d spoken for both Clay and Stacy. Not that Dana doubted the three were in agreement. Especially when it came to money.

  But Stacy ignored the question. “We’re all going to be there at seven, even Clay,” Stacy continued as if she’d memorized her spiel and just had to get the words out.

  That was so like Jordan to not ask if it was convenient for Dana. She wanted to tell her sister that she was busy and that Jordan would have to have his family meeting somewhere else—and without her.

  Stacy looked down at her purse. Her fingers were still working the leather nervously. As she slowly lifted her gaze, she said, “I was hoping you and I could talk sometime. I know now isn’t good.” Her eyes filled with tears and for a moment Dana thought her sister might cry.

  The tears would have been wasted on Dana. “Now definitely isn’t good.” She’d gotten by for five years without talking to Stacy. Recently, she’d added her brothers to that list. Most of the time, she felt she could go the rest of her life without even seeing or hearing from them.

  Stacy seemed to be searching her face. Of course, her sister would have heard Hud was back in town. For all Dana knew, Hud might even have tried to see Stacy. The thought curdled her stomach. She felt her skin heat.

  “Mother came by to see me before she died,” Stacy said abruptly.

  It was the last thing Dana expected her sister to say. A lump instantly formed in her throat. “I don’t want to hear this.” But she didn’t move.

  “I promised her I would try to make things right between us,” Stacy said, her voice breaking.

  “And how would you do that?”

  The bell over the door of the shop jangled. Kitty Randolph again. “This blue still isn’t quite right,” the older woman said, eyeing Stacy, then Dana, her nose for news practically twitching.

  “Let me see what else we have,” Dana said, coming out from behind the counter.

  “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” Mrs. Randolph said, stealing a look at Stacy who was still standing at the counter.

  “No, Mrs. Randolph, your timing was perfect,” Dana said, turning her back on her sister as she went to the thread display and began to look through the blues. She’d already picked the perfect shade for the slacks, but pretended to look again.

  She suspected that Kitty had seen Stacy come into the shop and was only using the thread color as an excuse to see what was going on.

  “How about this one, Mrs. Randolph?” Dana asked, holding
up the thread the woman had already purchased.

  “That looks more like it. But please, call me Kitty. You remind me so much of your mother, dear.”

  Dana caught a glimpse of Stacy. Her face seemed even paler than before. She stumbled to the door and practically ran to her car. Unfortunately, Mrs. Randolph witnessed Stacy’s hasty exit.

  “Is your sister all right? She seems upset,” Kitty said.

  “Who wouldn’t be upset after a body’s been found in the family well,” Dana said.

  “Yes, who isn’t upset about that,” Kitty Randolph said, watching Stacy drive away.

  Dana sighed, feeling guilty and then angry with herself for only upsetting her sister worse. But dammit, she had every reason to hate her sister.

  She could practically hear her mother’s voice filled with disapproval. “Families stick together. It isn’t always easy. Everyone makes mistakes. Dana, you have to find forgiveness in your heart. If not for them, for yourself.”

  Well, Mom, now all three of them have banned together against me. So much for family.

  And there was no getting out of the family meeting—or probably having to listen to her sister say she was sorry again. She just hoped Stacy didn’t think that saying she was sorry over and over was going to fix things between them. Not even when hell froze over.

  Sorry, Mom.

  WHEN HUD RETURNED to his office, he had a message to call Coroner Rupert Milligan.

  “Got an ID on your woman from the well,” Rupert said, then cleared his throat. “It’s Ginger Adams.”

  Hud had to sit down. He moved the files stacked on his chair and dropped into it.

  “The doctor and dental records the crime lab sent down came back with a match on both dental and emergency room records,” Rupert said.

  Good God. Ginger Adams. In a flash, Hud saw her. A pretty redhead with a stunning body and the morals of an alley cat.

  Hud closed his eyes as he kneaded his forehead. “You’re sure it’s Ginger?”

  “It’s a ringer,” Rupert said, not sounding any happier about it than Hud. “I told you your suspect list could be as long as your arm, didn’t I?”

  “You were right about her being a waitress, too,” Hud noted. Was that why Rupert had been acting strangely after coming out of the well yesterday? Because he’d suspected it was Ginger?

  Ginger had waited tables at the Roadside Café, the place where locals hung out every morning, gossiping over coffee. Both of his deputies had been there just this morning. It was an old hangout for sheriff’s department deputies, the local coroner—and the marshal.

  Hud swore softly under his breath. “I thought she left town with some guy.”

  “Guess that’s what we were supposed to think,” Rupert said. “I gotta go. Calving season.”

  “I didn’t realize you were still running cattle on your place.”

  “Helping a friend.”

  Hud had that feeling again that Rupert knew more about this case than he was saying. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Good luck with your investigation.”

  “Yeah.” Hud didn’t mention that he’d found the owner of the ring. He was still trying to figure out how it ended up in the same well as Ginger Adams—years later.

  Holy hell. The woman had been rumored to have broken up more marriages in the canyon than Hud could shake a stick at. But there was at least one marriage that had definitely bit the dust because of Ginger—the marriage of Mary and Angus Cardwell.

  Damn. As he hung up, he wondered how Dana was going to take the news. He started to dial her number. But he realized he couldn’t tell her this over the phone.

  Everyone knew the Cardwell marriage had been on the rocks, but Ginger, it seemed, had been the last straw. And now her body had turned up on the ranch. Add to that, someone was targeting Dana.

  He picked up his hat, grabbing his new marshal jacket on the way out the door. His left arm still ached, the skin around the cut bruised, but Dana had done a good job of patching him up.

  It was only a few blocks to Needles and Pins. He knew he had more than one reason for wanting to tell Dana the news in person. He wanted to see how she was doing. She’d left the ranch house so quickly this morning he hadn’t even had a chance to talk to her.

  Clearly she’d been avoiding him. Last night after he’d announced he wasn’t leaving her alone, she’d started to argue, but then got him some bedding from the closet and pointed at the couch.

  She’d gone to bed and he hadn’t seen her again until this morning—and only for the length of time it had taken her to grab her coat and leave.

  He was her least favorite person in the world, true enough. Except maybe for whoever had put that doll in the well—and called and threatened her afterward.

  But he also wanted to see her reaction to the news that the body had been Ginger’s. He was the marshal and he needed to find Ginger’s killer as fast as possible so he could put a stop to whoever was threatening her. He couldn’t help but believe the two incidents were connected somehow.

  As he started to cross the street to Needles and Pins, Lanny Rankin stepped into his path.

  Hud hadn’t seen Lanny since he’d returned, but he’d known eventually he’d run into him. The canyon wasn’t wide or long enough for their paths not to cross.

  “Lanny,” he said, seeing the set of the man’s broad shoulders, the fire in his eyes. There’d been bad blood between the two of them as far back as Hud could remember. Lanny seemed to have a chip on his shoulder and it didn’t help when Hud had started dating Dana.

  Hud had known that Lanny would move in on Dana as soon as he was out of the picture. He’d seen the way Lanny had looked at Dana back in high school. In fact, Hud had wondered over the past five years if Lanny hadn’t just been waiting for Hud to screw up so he would have his chance with Dana.

  “Stay away from Dana,” Lanny said. “I don’t want her hurt again.”

  “Lanny, I don’t want to get into this with you but my relationship with Dana is none of your business.”

  “Like hell,” Lanny said, advancing on him. “I know you’re the marshal now and you think you can hide behind that badge…”

  “Go ahead. Take your best shot,” Hud said, removing the marshal star from his coat and pocketing it.

  Lanny’s eyes narrowed as if he thought it was a trick. “You think you can get her back after everything you did to her?” He took a wide roundhouse swing.

  The punch caught Hud on the left side of his jaw, a staggering blow that about took his feet out from under him.

  He rubbed his jaw, nodding at Lanny who was breathing hard. “That’s the end of it, Lanny.” He reached into his pocket, took out the silver star and re-attached it to his coat. “Dana’s a grown woman with a mind of her own. She’ll do whatever it is she wants to do no matter what either of us has to say about it.”

  Lanny rubbed his bruised knuckles.

  Hud waited. He wanted this over with right here, right now.

  “What the hell are you doing back here anyway?” Lanny asked, cradling his hand, which looked broken the way it was swelling up. “I would have thought you wouldn’t have the nerve to show your face around here after what you did to her.”

  Hud ignored him. “Might want to have Doc Grady take a look at that hand, Lanny,” he said, gingerly touching his jaw. Fortunately it wasn’t broken but it hurt like hell. Lanny packed quite a wallop for a lawyer.

  “She wasn’t worth it,” Lanny snarled, evening his gaze at him.

  Hud knew Lanny was talking about Stacy now. And he couldn’t have agreed more.

  “She used you. She wanted a divorce in the worst way, but Emery didn’t want to lose her. The old fool loved her for some crazy reason. But then she found a way to force his hand. After what happened between the two of you while he was out of town, he couldn’t wait to get rid of her. Better than being the laughingstock of the canyon.”

  This was news to Hud. For years he’d tried to remember tha
t night. He’d been told he got stinking drunk. He remembered wanting to. But after that, there was nothing in his memory banks until he woke up the next morning—in Dana’s sister’s bed.

  After getting the anonymous note, Hud had come back to Montana convinced Stacy had somehow manipulated the incident just to get back at Dana. It was no secret that Stacy was jealous of her younger sister. He’d just never considered there might be more to it.

  The thought gave him hope that he really had been set up. Maybe nothing had happened that night, just as he’d always wanted to believe. More to the point, maybe there was a way to prove it.

  “You played right into Stacy’s hands,” Lanny said.

  Hud nodded, saying nothing because he had no defense.

  Lanny seemed to consider hitting him again, but must have changed his mind. “You hurt Dana again and that badge isn’t going to stop me.” With that, he turned and stormed off.

  Hud watched Lanny go, hoping this really would be the end of it. But he couldn’t get what Lanny had said about Stacy out of his head.

  He needed to know what had happened that night. Nothing could have gotten him into Stacy’s bed. At least nothing he remembered.

  With a curse, he turned and saw Dana standing in the doorway of the sewing shop. From the expression on her face, she’d not only witnessed the ugly display between him and Lanny, she’d overheard it, as well.

  DANA QUICKLY TURNED and went back inside the shop, not wanting Hud to see her shock.

  It was bad enough that everyone in the canyon knew about Hud and Stacy, but to hear Lanny talking about it…And could it be true that Stacy had done it—not to spite her—but to force Emery to give her a divorce?

  She had to remind herself that whatever her sister’s reasoning, Hud had gone along with it. So why was it getting harder and harder to call on that old anger?

  She heard Hud come into the shop and tried to quit shaking. She’s the one who should have left here and never come back, she thought. Instead it had been Hud who’d taken off, a sure sign of his guilt, everyone had said. While she’d stayed and faced all the wagging tongues.