B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection

by B. J Daniels

  He scoffed at that. “Malcolm didn’t know anything about running a business. He spent too much time in the bar. But I had nothing to do with vandalizing his equipment. He was just looking for someone to blame. Anyway, I heard the vandalism was kid stuff. You know, sugar in the gas tanks, broken and missing motor parts. Pure mischief. That’s what happens when you get a bunch of drunk kids together.”

  “Or it was made to look like kids did it,” she noted, but Harris Lancaster didn’t seem to be listening.

  “I do remember something about that Tanner boy now that you mention it. Ashley was real upset. We all were,” he added. “Tanner’s family has a ranch on the way to West Yellowstone. Too bad, but I don’t see what any of that has to do with me.”

  “You benefited by Malcolm going broke.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe, at the time. But there was plenty of work to go around. His son and I are competitors, but we aren’t shooting each other and we’re both doing quite well.”

  He had a point. Maybe his problems with Malcolm and vice versa had nothing to do with Tanner’s death. Maybe it had been guilt. Or maybe there were some photographs somewhere that told a different story.

  * * *

  JORDAN PULLED UP OUT IN FRONT of the house where he’d been raised. He sat for a moment just looking at the large two-story house. The other day when he’d come into town, he’d driven in from the other side of the ranch to make sure no one was at home before he’d come down to borrow a hat.

  At least that had been his excuse. He’d wanted to wander around the house without anyone watching him. He knew his sister would think he was casing the joint, looking for valuables he could pawn or sell on eBay.

  He and Dana had always butted heads, although he wished that wasn’t the case. He’d always respected her. She worked harder than anyone he knew and made the rest of them feel like slackers.

  Even after the good luck he’d had after Jill had left, he still felt like he could never measure up to Dana. Now as he opened his car door and climbed out, he half expected Dana to meet him on the porch. Possibly with a shotgun in her hands. Then he remembered that Hud had said she was pregnant with twins and having a hard time.

  At the door, he knocked. It felt strange to knock at a door he’d run in and out of for years.

  To his surprise, Stacy opened the door. He’d thought she was just passing through. But then again that would explain the beater car with the California plates he now saw parked off to the side. He hadn’t even noticed it he’d been so busy looking at the house.

  “Stacy,” he said, unable to hide his surprise.

  “Jordan?” She put a lot into that one word.

  “It’s all right. I didn’t come by to cause trouble. I just wanted to see my sister. Sisters,” he corrected. “And my niece and nephew.”

  “Nieces,” she said and stepped back to let him come in.

  “That’s right. Hud said you have a baby?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.” Stacy studied him for a moment. “I’ll see if Dana is up to having company.”

  “I’m not company. I’m family.”

  She lifted an eyebrow as if to say, “Since when?”

  As if she should talk, he thought as she headed for the downstairs sunroom that had been their parent’s bedroom, then their mother’s and now apparently Dana’s.

  “Where are the kids?” he called after Stacy.

  She shot him a warning look. “Down for their naps.”

  “Sorry,” he whispered. He stood in the doorway, afraid to step in and feeling badly that it had come to this.

  Stacy returned a moment later. She didn’t look happy. “Dana isn’t supposed to be upset.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” he said and stepped across the living room to the doorway Stacy had just come from.

  He stopped the moment he saw Dana. She looked beautiful, propped up against an array of pillows. Their gazes locked and he stepped the rest of the way into the room, closing the door behind him.

  “Hey, sis,” he said.

  “Jordan.” She began to cry.

  With a lump in his throat at her reaction, he closed the distance and bent down to hug her awkwardly. “Are you all right?” he asked pulling back to look at her. “You look…beautiful.”

  “I thought you were going to say…big,” she said laughing and crying as she wiped at her eyes. “It’s the hormones,” she said pointing at her tears. “I cry over everything.”

  “That explains it. For a minute there I thought you might have missed me,” he said as he pulled up the chair next to the bed.

  She stopped drying her tears to meet his gaze. “You seem…different.”

  He smiled. “Oh, I’m still that stubborn, temperamental brother you remember. But maybe some of the hard edges have gotten knocked off.”

  Dana nodded. “Maybe that’s it. Hud told me why you were in town.”

  “I didn’t think you wanted to see me or I would have come by sooner.”

  “You’re my older brother.”

  “Exactly,” he only half joked.

  The bedroom door opened. Stacy stuck her head in. “I think I’ll run that errand I told you about yesterday. The kids are still down. Should I move Ella?”

  “No, I’ll have Jordan bring her in before he leaves.”

  Stacy looked to her brother as if she wasn’t sure that was a good idea.

  “I haven’t dropped a baby all day,” he said.

  “And Hud should be back any minute,” Dana said to reassure her sister.

  Stacy mugged a face at him and closed the door. He listened to her leave. But it wasn’t until they both couldn’t hear her old beater car engine any longer before they spoke.

  “I did a lot of soul searching after everything that happened,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  “I went up to the cemetery and saw Mom the first day I got here. I borrowed a hat. Nothing else,” he added quickly.

  “Jordan, this ranch is your home too.”

  “I know, sis,” he said putting a hand on her arm. “Mom always thought I’d come back and want to help you ranch.”

  Dana chuckled at that. “She said Stacy and Clay were gone, but you…well, she said there was ranching in your blood.”

  “Yeah. So tell me what’s going on with you.”

  She placed her hands over her huge stomach. “I’m on bed rest with these two for the last weeks. I’m going insane.”

  He laughed. “I can imagine. And Stacy is…?”

  “She’s been great. Mary and Hank adore her.”

  “Mary and Hank. I can’t wait to meet them.”

  “You should come back for dinner tonight,” Dana said.

  He shook his head. “Not sure that’s a good idea given the way your husband feels about me, not to mention everything else going on right now.”

  “I wish you would. At least once before you leave,” Dana said, tearing up again.

  “You and your hormones.” He got up and hugged her again. Straightening to leave, he asked, “So where’s this baby I’m supposed to bring you before I leave?”

  At the sound of the front door opening, Dana said, “Sounds like Hud’s home. You’ll have to come back to meet Ella.”

  “I’ll try. You take care of yourself and your babies.” As he opened the door, he came face to face with his brother-in-law again. “I was just leaving and no, I didn’t upset her.”

  Hud looked past him to Dana. “What is she crying about then?”

  “It’s just the hormones,” Dana said.

  Jordan shrugged. “Just the hormones.”

  As he left, he found himself looking toward the barn, remembering his childhood here. Amazing how the place looked so different from the way he rem
embered it the last time he was here. Had he really tried to force his sister into selling it, lock, stock and barrel?

  He felt a wave of shame as he walked to his rental SUV and climbed inside.

  * * *

  “WHERE’S STACY?” HUD ASKED as he stuck his head in the bedroom door later.

  Dana saw that he had Ella on one shoulder. She realized she’d fallen asleep after Jordan had left and had awakened a few moments ago when she’d heard the baby cry.

  “She said she wanted to go see Angus,” Dana said groggily as she pulled herself up a little in the bed. “She said she wouldn’t be gone long.” Glancing at the clock beside her bed, she was shocked to see what time it was. “She hasn’t come back?”

  Hud shook his head. “I just changed Ella. I was going to heat some formula for her.” He sounded worried.

  Past him, Dana could see that it was dark outside. She felt a flutter of apprehension. “Stacy should have been back by now. Here, I’ll take the baby. Call my father. Maybe they got to visiting and she just lost track of time.”

  “The kids and I are making dinner.” Hud handed her Ella. “They ordered beanie wienies.”

  “Sounds great.” She could smell the bacon and onions sizzling in the skillet. But her gaze was on the baby in her arms. Ella smiled up at her and she felt her heart do a somersault. Stacy was just running late. She probably didn’t remember how quickly it got dark this time of year in the canyon.

  A few minutes later, Hud came into the bedroom. “I called your father. He hasn’t seen Stacy.”

  She felt her heart drop, but hid her fear as the kids came running in excitedly chanting “beanie wienies.”

  Hud set up Mary and Hank’s small table in the bedroom so they could all eat dinner with her. The beanie wienies were wonderful. They finished the meal off with some of the brownies Aunt Stacy had made.

  “Is Auntie Stacy going to live with us?” Mary asked.

  “No, she’s just visiting,” Dana told her daughter. There was still no sign of Stacy. No call. Dana found herself listening, praying for the sound of her old car coming up the road. But there was only silence. “I’m not sure how long your aunt can stay.”

  Hank looked over at Ella who was drooling and laughing as she tried to roll over on the other side of the bed. “She can’t leave without her baby,” he said. “Can she?”

  She shot Hud a look. Could Stacy leave without her baby?

  “I’m going to call Hilde and see if she can come over while I go look for Stacy,” Hud said. “I called Liza but she’s in West Yellowstone. Apparently, she went up there to talk to my father about the case she’s working.”

  Dana nodded, seeing her own worry reflected in his face.

  “I’ll call you if I hear anything.” Big Sky was relatively small. Stacy couldn’t have gone far. Unless she’d changed her mind about seeing their father and gone into Bozeman for some reason. But she’d said she would be back before Ella woke up from her nap. What if something had happened to her sister?

  Trying to rein in her fear, Dana told the kids to get a game for them all to play.

  “Ella can’t play, Mommy,” Mary cried. “She’ll eat the game pieces.”

  “No, Ella will just watch,” she told her daughter as she fought the dread that Stacy hadn’t changed at all.

  In that case Dana hated to think what that might mean. That Stacy wouldn’t be back? Or worse, she’d left her baby. If it was her baby.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jordan felt at loose ends after leaving his sister’s. On impulse he drove as far as he could up the road to the construction site where he’d found Tanner that horrible morning twenty years before.

  The road was now paved and led up to a massive home. He could tell from the looks of it that the owner wasn’t around and probably didn’t come up but for a few weeks in the winter and summer.

  The house had been built on a cleared area high on the mountain where the construction equipment had been parked twenty years ago. The small log cabin where Tanner had lived was gone. So was the campfire ring. Nothing looked as it had except for the tree where he’d found Tanner hanging that spring day.

  There was also no sign that this was the spot where his best friend had taken his life. No log stumps. No rope mark on the large old pine limb. Nothing left of the tragedy even on the breeze that moaned in the high boughs. Jordan doubted the place’s owners knew about the death that had occurred within yards of their vacation home.

  He felt a sadness overwhelm him. “Why, Tanner? Why the hell did you do it?” he demanded as he looked up at the large limb where he’d found him. “Or did you?” He feared they would never know as he looked again at the dried-pine-needle-covered ground. Did he really think he was going to find answers up here?

  Too antsy to go back to his cabin, he drove up the canyon. When he saw his father’s truck parked outside The Corral, he swung in. He found his father and uncle sitting on their usual stools at the bar.

  “Son? I thought you would have left by now,” Angus Cardwell said. “Bob, get my son a beer.”

  Jordan noticed there were a few men at the end of the bar and several families at the tables in the dining area eating.

  Angus slapped his son on the back as Jordan slid onto a stool next to him. The bar smelled of burgers and beer. Not a bad combination, he thought, figuring he understood why his old man had such an infatuation with bars.

  “What have you been up to?” Uncle Harlan asked him.

  “My twenty-year class reunion,” he said, figuring that would suffice.

  “You actually went to it?” his father said with a laugh.

  “I went with the deputy marshal.”

  Both older men hooted. “That’s my son,” Angus said proudly.

  Jordan had known that would be his father’s reaction. It was why he’d said it. He was just glad Liza hadn’t been around to hear it.

  The draft beer was cold and went down easy. Heck, he might have a burger while he was at it. He settled in, listening to the watering hole banter, a television over the bar droning in the background.

  “Your deputy figured out who killed that man at the falls?” his uncle asked him.

  “Not yet, but she will,” he said with confidence.

  His father smiled over at him and gave him a wink. “That what’s really keeping you in the canyon, ain’t it?”

  Jordan smiled and ordered burgers for the three of them.

  Later when he drove back to Big Sky and stopped by the Marshal’s Office, he was disappointed to learn that Liza hadn’t returned from West Yellowstone. He thought about what his father had said about his reasons for staying around. If he was being honest with himself, Liza definitely played into it.

  * * *

  LIZA FOUND BRICK Savage sitting on the deck of his Hebgen Lake home. She’d heard stories about him and, after he’d ignored her knocks at his front door, braced herself as she approached his deck.

  “Mr. Savage?”

  He looked up, his gaze like a piercing arrow as he took in her uniform first, then studied her face before saying, “Yes?”

  “I’m Deputy Marshal Liza Turner out of the Big Sky office. I’d like a moment of your time.”

  “You have any identification?” His voice was gravelly but plenty strong.

  She pulled her ID and climbed a couple of steps so he could see it.

  He nodded, amusement in his gaze. “Deputy Marshal. Times really have changed. I heard my son left you in charge of the murder case.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Well, come on up here then,” Brick said and pushed himself up out of his chair. He was a big man, but she could see that he used to be a lot bigger in his younger days. There was a no-nonsense aura about him along with his reputation that made her a little
nervous being in his company.

  He shoved a chair toward her as she reached the deck and waited for her to sit before he pulled up a weather-grayed log stump and settled himself on it.

  “I hate to take your chair,” she said, wondering about a man who had only one chair on his deck. Apparently he didn’t expect or get much company. Did that mean he didn’t see much of Hud and family?

  “So?” Brick said as if his time was valuable and she was wasting it.

  “I want to ask you about Tanner Cole’s death. He was a senior—”

  “I know who he was. Found hanging from a tree up on the side of the mountain overlooking Big Sky twenty-odd years ago,” Brick said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Was it a suicide?”

  He leveled his gaze at her. “Wasn’t it ruled one?”

  “At the time. Is it possible Tanner had help?”

  “It’s always possible. Was there any sign of a struggle like scratches or bruises? Not according to the coroner’s report but if you did your homework, you’d already know that. As for footprints, there were a lot of them. He’d had a beer bash, kegger, whatever your generation calls it. He’d had that within a few days so there were all kinds of tracks at the scene.”

  She knew all this and wondered if she’d wasted her time driving all the way up here. Past him she could see the deep green of the lake, feel a cold breeze coming off the water. Clouds had already gathered over Lion’s Head Mountain, one of the more recognizable ones seen from his deck. Add to that the sun had already gone down. As it was, it would be dark before she got back to Big Sky.

  “I can tell you this, he used his own rope,” Brick said.

  She nodded. “What about Jordan Cardwell?”

  “What about him?”

  “You found him at the scene. Is there any chance—”

  “He didn’t kill his friend, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “You’re that sure?” she said, hearing the relief in her voice and suspecting he did too. She’d started to like Jordan, suspect or not. She knew it was a bad idea on so many levels, but there was something about him…