by Unknown
Lacey held his hand. “I know. Rafe told me. We’ll fix it back up. It was time for a remodel anyway.”
“Please, nothing in Pepto Bismol pink.”
She laughed. “I promise nothing but soothing wood tones and gold’s.”
He took the brush from her and ran it through her hair. He’d always loved her hair, the length, the variegated gold. Hell, he’d loved everything about her, still did. He couldn’t imagine his life without her in it.
Danger rubbed his forehead, scowling. How had he managed to lose her, to make their lives so miserable?
“Headache?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. I still get them.”
“They got the entire tumor? Right?” She sounded panicked.
“Yeah, it’s just shadow pain, like losing a limb. The doctor said it’d eventually fade.” He plaited her hair into a single braid and wrapped a soft band around the end. Danger sighed. Damn it! She should be his number one priority, but he still had a job to do, and he heard it calling his name.
He hated to ask her now what he was going to ask her, but he had no choice. “Blake hasn’t checked in for several hours. I’m worried about him.”
“Go,” she said softly, understanding on her sweet face. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
He leaned down and brushed her lips with his. “You’re an angel. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll call if there’s a problem.”
She nodded. “Be careful.”
“I love you, baby. I hate to leave you here alone.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m going to ask the nurse for something for pain and nap while you’re away.”
“You want me to stop by the nurse’s desk and ask for something for you?”
“No. I’ll buzz her. You go on.”
Danger grabbed his thick denim coat and slid his arms inside the sleeves. “Don’t get out of bed without calling a nurse.”
“I won’t. Go!” She shooed him from the room. “Give Blake my love.”
* * * *
Two hours later, Danger pulled up in front of the only motel Rimrock could boast having. After checking for messages, he greeted his twin, Coe.
“How’s Lacey?” Coe asked.
“She’s coming along.”
“You two going to work things out?”
Danger laid down the stack of messages he was sorting through. “We’re working on it. I don’t deserve her, but she’s willing to give me a second chance. I don’t intend to blow it this time round.”
Coe grinned. “I’m glad you’re back together.”
Danger looked up, grinned. “Yeah. Me too. I missed that woman. I don’t plan to ever do anything again that’ll risk me losing her.”
“Good.”
“You have any idea where Blake is?” Danger asked.
His brother frowned. “No. Is he missing?”
“I don’t know. He’s not answering his cell phone.”
“Today’s his day off, so I didn’t think anything about not hearing from him.” Coe rose from behind the desk. “You have an idea where he might be?”
“Not really. Let’s start at the motel though. He was going to check out a couple of men there. I don’t like it, him not calling in.”
Coe grabbed his hat and came around the desk. “Let’s go. When will Lacey get to come home?”
Danger hesitated before opening the door. “I might as well tell you, she’s pregnant.”
“No kidding? That’s great. Fast, but great.”
“It’s Rafe’s baby.”
“Oh. Not so great then?”
Danger shook his head. “I love her. I don’t care that it’s Rafe’s child. I just want us to make our marriage work.”
Coe nodded and followed his brother out the door. “Then you will.”
They drove the few blocks to the motel. Parking under the canopy, they hopped out and went inside the office.
“Afternoon, Sheriff,” the clerk said. “What can I do for you?”
“Bill.” Danger nodded. “You have a couple of men staying here. I need in their room.”
Bill Thompson, short, rotund, and sporting a baldhead, sweated even in winter. His left eye had a perpetual twitch. Danger had always wondered if the man had a run-in with the law in his younger days. He’d settled here from New Jersey years ago and had that thick Yankee accent that drove a Westerner crazy, or at least drove him nuts. The man always seemed nervous to him, but the clerk had never done anything to warrant an investigation, unless one included operating a rundown motel a crime.
“They aren’t here, Sheriff,” he said nervously. He cleared his throat. “I saw them skip out of here late yesterday evening.”
“They leave owing you money?” Coe asked.
“Oh, no. They’re paid up until the end of the week.” He frowned. “I suppose they might return, but I had a feeling they weren’t coming back. You know?”
“Have you or a maid been in their room since they left?” Danger inquired.
“Oh, no, Sheriff, they left a note on the door requesting the room be left undisturbed. We try to honor our guest’s wishes.”
“But you think they aren’t coming back? What makes you believe that?”
“They were carrying their luggage. But you know, people do strange things and with the room paid up and them asking for it to be left alone, I figured I’d give them a few days to return…just in case.”
“I want in their room.”
“Do–don’t you need a warrant?”
“You want me to obtain one, Bill?”
“No. No. I’ll let you in, but if they complain, I’m telling them to take it up with you and the sheriff’s department.”
“You do that, Bill.”
Danger knew the minute he unlocked the door and stepped inside the room, something was wrong. Bad wrong. He smelled it in the air, the cloying odor of old blood and stale sex. What the hell? Were the two men gay lovers and just wanted some uninterrupted time together? For some reason, he found that hard to believe. They simply hadn’t looked the part.
Coe followed him inside, wrinkling his nose as he stepped deeper inside the room. “Man, what a stench. Sex, booze, and what?”
“Blood,” Danger replied moving over to the first bed. He flipped back the pile of covers and felt his heart jitter. “Aww, shit, Blake. Damn it, man.” His heart jerked. Tears pooled in his eyes. He stepped back and turned to Coe. His brother looked as stricken as he felt.
“Gidget,” Coe muttered on a strangled note, his voice breaking. “Poor little thing. Oh, God. This can’t be happening.”
“Back out,” Danger said. “Don’t touch anything. We’ve got to get a crime scene unit here. Fuck!”
Danger locked the door behind them. “Get someone posted here. No one goes in or out until the CSI team has a chance to go over everything. And call the medical examiner.”
Coe nodded. “What about Blake’s parents? You wanna tell them or should I?”
Danger shook his head. “I can’t tell them. I can’t drop this on top of Anna’s death and…you know. Damn. Will you do it? I have some calls I need to make.”
“Sure. You know I will. But Gidget? You know Blake’s parents are in no shape to keep her full time. This will just about finish them off, bless their hearts.”
He rubbed a hand down his face suddenly feeling very old and worn out. “Bring her here to me when you return if they don’t feel like keeping her.”
“Then, what?”
“She’ll have a home, Coe, with me and Lacey. Assure them I’ll make sure Gidget has a loving home. We’ll adopt her. She’s family. She’ll always have us and her Uncle Coe.”
“That’s what I was waiting to hear.”
“What?” Danger frowned.
“That you and Lacey will adopt her. She’ll need stability and Blake’s parents aren’t going to be around much longer. Their health is too frail. But you said Lacey’s pregnant. Is she gonna want to take on the added burden of an extra child? You
can’t make this decision without talking to her first.”
“I’ll talk to her, of course I’ll discuss it with her, but I know what her answer will be. She loves Gidget. And maybe in some way, it’ll help with our losing Joseph.” Danger turned in time to see one of the old timers who hung around the grocery store shuffling toward him.
Rumor had it that ol’ Pete didn’t really have a limp, but as far back as Danger could remember, the man had always had a gimpy walk. He kind of reminded him of Walter Brennan, a Hollywood legend that seemed to hobble in every western he acted in.
Pete Morrow stopped in front of him, his usual toothless grin replaced with a troubled brow. He spit a stream of tobacco juice and wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand. He was ninety if he was day, long white beard, overhauls, and watery blue eyes. “Sheriff, you better get over to Waters’ Grocery. Someone has done whittled old Bill down to a nub.”
“What?”
“Yep. They cut his throat bigger ‘n Dallas. Looks like they took the cash from the register and a coin collection from Bill’s apartment that was worth a fortune. I didn’t touch anything, but Bill gave me a key a long time ago so I could check on him if he ever failed to open the store. Well I checked on him just now ‘cause he didn’t open the store today. He’s deader ‘n a mackerel lying up there in his apartment in a pool of blood. I think whoever did it took Darlene.”
“You’re just now checking on him?”
“Yep. I kind of had a date with Nellie Lancaster and we been a little too busy to notice the store was closed. I just brought her home and stopped by to tell Bill how our date went.”
“What makes you think whoever did it has Darlene?”
“Cause her purse was laying on the floor open, contents spilled all over the place. It must have been horrible for her seeing her granddad like that.” He paused to spit, then continued. “Her clothes, the ones I saw her wearing yesterday were torn and tossed aside in Bill’s bedroom. Whoever axed Bill, took a piece of Darlene right there in the old man’s bed. Poor girl. There are bloodstains on the sheets like maybe she was…well…you know.”
“Yeah. I know. Jesus Christ.” What the hell was happening in Rimrock? His peaceful little town had turned into a friggin’ war zone.
“I think maybe you should know that convict might be involved in Darlene’s kidnapping.”
Danger winced. Shit. That’s all he needed, the people up in arms against Wild, all that old history coming to life. “What makes you think Wild’s involved? Hell, he never sets foot out those mountains.”
“‘Cause those two gents who were staying here looked like the devil’s sons, cold and ruthless. They asked a mighty lot of questions about him, where he’s staying, how to get to his cabin, was he apt to be alone, have a gun…never did think that boy was guilty of any crimes, and I don’t think they’s friends of his neither. They said they were, but they looked like they were on a hunt, dead-eyed mean, like maybe they had a grudge agin him.”
“You didn’t tell them where they could find Wild, did you?”
“No sir, but there’s those folks who were blabbin’ their guts tellin’ them strangers everything they knowed about the boy, that’s why I say Wild might be involved. If they be his friends, then maybe they think he needs a woman and they’re takin’ Darlene to him. Maybe they believe those charges of him raping that girl that time.”
“He was cleared of the crime,” Danger quickly inserted between the old man drawing a breath to take off again.
“Humph. If that little gal what testified lied the first time, what makes you think she told the truth later? Maybe she liked what that cowboy gave her more ‘n she let on.”
“He didn’t rape Jayla Ross.”
“Don’t mean he didn’t ride her or won’t ride Darlene if ‘n he gets a chance. Bound to get awful lonely hibernatin’ up there in them mountains without female company. He’s bound to hanker after some pussy. Tain’t normal for a young man to go without and that Darlene’s a fine figure of a woman. The boy needs a little meat with his gravy.” He spat another long stream of tobacco juice across the snow leaving a brown streak behind.
“Oh, for God’s sake, give me Bill’s key,” Danger snapped. He was not getting into a discussion whether Wild was getting any or not. “You sure you didn’t touch anything?”
“As sure as I can be, ‘course, I looked for that coin collection, knowing the value of it and all, but it’s gone from its hidey-hole. Darlene sure could have used the money from it, that is, if ‘n she’s still breathin’.”
Danger needed time to piece everything together. He had two dead men in his town and a missing woman. Somehow it was all connected to Wild, and he really hated that. Since getting out of prison Wild had pretty much remained a loner, not bothering anyone or even venturing into town very often.
Maybe he should call Jace, see if he was up to a flight to Wild’s cabin just to check up on him.
First, he had to call Lacey.
There was no way in hell he was making it back to Havre tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Winter is nature’s way of saying, “Up yours.”
~Robert Byrne
Montana Wilderness
February 22, Sunday
5:00 p.m.
At last, they were stopping for the day. Jayla groaned when Wild lifted her off the mare and steadied her on her feet.
“Okay?” he asked, concern lining his weary face. He looked exhausted and she imagined he was every bit as tired as he looked. Not only did he have the responsibility of keeping her safe, but he’d also spent most the time looking over his shoulder for both Kane and the wolf.
“I’m fine, just tired of being on that horse.” She glanced around. “What is this place? Lord, God, what’s a cabin doing way up here?”
“We’re not as high up as you think. The timberline’s still within sight. Tomorrow’s when we’ll start climbing and it’ll disappear as we go around curves.” Wild removed the saddle from Rosie and carried it inside the old hut. “It’s an old logger’s cabin, not in real good shape, but it beats sleeping out in the open or in a tent. The fireplace still works and though there are chinks in the walls, we’ll be much safer and warmer inside.” He dropped the saddle on the floor and blew on his hands to warm them.
She handed him his gloves. Since he wouldn’t let her carry in what supplies they needed for the night, he needed them more than she did at the moment. While he fed and watered the animals and bedded them down for the night, Jayla busied herself starting a fire in the fireplace.
Someone had kindly left a stack of wood and kindling by the fireplace and matches in a baggie. She’d have to remember to do the same for the next visitor. It was hellishly cold, but the fire would soon warm up the place so they could at least tolerate the cold a little better. Giant snowflakes had started to fall about fifteen minutes before Wild decided to call it quits for the day. The utter silence and stillness on the mountain slope reminded her of alien worlds she’d seen in movies.
She rummaged through the saddlebags, found a large can with a whole chicken in it. Dumping the entire contents into a pot, she set it on the fire to heat. She’d spotted a sack of self-rising flour. Greasing the inside of a cast-iron skillet, she shoved it on the fire beside the pot of chicken. She didn’t have the means to roll out dough and make perfect shaped biscuits, but she could pinch off the dough, roll it into balls, and flatten it into pads in the skillet, let it rise and brown. Simple and quick.
She filled the coffee pot and hung it on a hook over the fire. Jayla rummaged around until she found a jar of green olives, a can of French-style green beans and a sack of instant potatoes, that and with a pan of gravy, their meal was ready when Wild walked back in.
He entered the cabin, brushing snow off his jeans with his hat. He shrugged out of the duster, dropped it across the saddle and crossed over to the fireplace. Removing the gloves, he held his hands out to the flames warming them.
He must be chill
ed to the bone.
She was suddenly glad she’d gone to the extra trouble of fixing him something besides just opening a can of beans.
He sniffed the air appreciatively. “Something smells good. I’m starving.” He spotted the biscuits and grinned. “Hot damn, woman. I didn’t know you could cook.”
“That’s not cooking, but yeah, I’m pretty handy in the kitchen and in a pinch, I can usually throw something together.”
Wild tugged her close and locked his arms around the small of her back. He was a real cowboy. Gentle when it pleased him. Tough when he had to be. She imagined him squatted by a campfire, a beaten-up old coffee pot in his hand and pouring a stream of coffee into a tin a cup after a long day herding cattle.
His breath, cool and fresh as the mountain air, whispered across her lips. He brushed his mouth against hers. She hadn’t expected the kiss, but she welcomed it with open arms. He held her flush against him and suddenly, there was more on their minds than enjoying their next meal.
Spreading two sleeping bags on the floor in front of the roaring fire, they undressed each other between heated kisses and exploring touches. His kisses were cool and sweet and God, she wanted him. On their knees, naked, his erection pressed eagerly against her lower stomach. Tenderly, his brushed her hair behind her ears. “Have I told you how beautiful you are?” he asked on a breathless note. “How you fill my heart?”
She shook her head, unable to speak. Her emotions ran too high, too deep. She cupped the soft spongy sac between his thighs, gently squeezing the tight nuggets. “Tell me,” she demanded.
“Let me show you.”
Sometime later, they sat facing each other, legs curled beneath them. They hadn’t bothered with clothes. Wild laughed and fed her strips of white meat. She did the same for him, except she dipped the meat in the gravy and placed it between a biscuit. Jayla stuck with the vegetables and the meat, though she wrinkled her nose every time she took a bite of the fowl. Her baby needed feeding and she required so many calories or her sugar would become a problem. They didn’t need that extra burden.