High-Caliber Cowboy

by B. J Daniels

  But now he knew differently. She had been the one who’d hired the private investigator. And now this. The vandalized wells, the break-in at the house, the fire she’d set. All planned with one thing in mind. To get her father. She’d come after him as if—

  He sloshed the coffee in his cup onto the counter as it hit him. She’d come after him as if she already knew the truth. As if someone had told her.

  He put down the cup and dropped his head. Suddenly, he felt very old and tired. And afraid.

  She had no idea how dangerous this was. She would have to be stopped. As powerful as he was, he couldn’t protect her. Not if she continued to dig into the past.

  * * *

  AS THE SOUND of the truck grew closer, Brandon moved quickly. He saddled his horse and slipped to the edge of the ridge, staying in the trees to hide his movements. A stock truck with the VanHorn Ranch logo on the side and two horses in the back. They had tracked him this far already.

  Brandon swore and turned to find Anna right beside him. They had only one choice. They’d have to run, and that meant deeper into the Bighorn Mountains, though. Two men could move faster on two horses than he and Anna could riding double on one.

  He glanced toward the snowcapped mountains as he heard a horse whinny on the mountain below them, followed by the sound of the horses being unloaded. They had to move, and fast.

  Anna shook her head as if seeing what he had in mind. “We need to double back,” she said quietly. “The boat is hidden in the trees and I have a rented cabin on the other side of the lake.”

  “There’s no way we can get past them, especially riding double, and they may have already found the boat.”

  “Trust me, they won’t expect us to come back through the ranch. Why else would they have sent men up here? But you’re right. I do need a horse. Fortunately, I know where I can find one.” She cocked her head toward the horses now being unloaded from the truck below them on the mountain.

  “What?”

  “You distract them.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “They’ll never expect you to ride right at them. Give me a few minutes. When you hear this—” she sounded a bird call “—then come a-ridin’.”

  She didn’t give him a chance to argue. She took off running through the trees. He swore as he hurriedly tied his pack onto his horse and swung up into the saddle.

  The woman was going to get them both killed.

  Brandon heard the clear call of the bird below him on the mountainside and the sound of the men unloading their saddles and gear. He just hoped they would be busy enough that they couldn’t get to their sidearms.

  He spurred the horse, riding over the lip of the ridge and dropping straight down toward the truck.

  The men looked up at the sound. Anna was right about that much. They were surprised. And distracted. Brandon recognized one of them, a tall, skinny guy called Stick. Stick dove for the cab of the pickup, either ducking for cover or going for a weapon.

  The larger of the two seemed nailed to the ground as Brandon barreled down on him.

  The two had the horses tied at the back of the stock truck. One horse had a saddle on but not cinched down yet.

  Both horses shied. The big man dove out of the way as Brandon shot past. Riding hard and fast, Brandon kept low in the saddle, fearing he’d wouldn’t hear the report of the rifle until he’d already felt the bullet.

  The road curved not a hundred yards past the truck. He rounded the corner and dropped off into the creek bed, reining in behind a stand of pines so he had a partial view of the road above him.

  He hadn’t been there a minute when he heard the sound of horses’ hooves headed his way. He stayed where he was until he saw a flash of long dark hair blowing back from the small rider curved into the horse’s body as if the two were one.

  He couldn’t help but smile as he spurred his horse and rode off after her. Behind them, he could hear the truck engine crank over. Anna must have heard it, too.

  She dropped down into the creek, then up the other side, riding toward the lake in the distance, leaving the road behind as she took to the lightly forested hillside along the creek bottom. Over a few hills they lost sight of the road—and VanHorn’s men.

  When he caught up to her, she was grinning, her face flushed with excitement, eyes bright.

  “That was one fool thing to do back there,” he said.

  “You could have been killed.”

  “I could say the same of you,” she said, still grinning.

  He’d just bought himself more trouble and all for a woman he’d never understand. He was either crazy or…He shook off even the thought as he looked over at her.

  Whatever this chemistry was between them, they had a snowball’s chance in hell of taking it any further, even if she didn’t live in Virginia and him in Montana.

  “You’re wrong,” she said.

  He looked over at her. “About what?”

  “Us.” She smiled. “There’s something there, even you can’t deny it.”

  “I’m not denying it. I’m just telling you it would never work,” he said as he rode along beside her. “Hell, I don’t even know why our families hate each other, do you?” He glanced in her direction when she didn’t answer. “You know?”

  “My father and yours fell in love with the same woman.” She rode ahead of him and he had to spur his horse to catch up.

  “What woman?” he asked, hearing the fear in his voice.

  She didn’t answer. He reached over and reined in her horse along with his. “What woman?” he demanded, wishing to hell he’d never brought this up.

  Anna sighed, no doubt wishing she hadn’t said anything. “Your mother.”

  He felt as if she’d hit him again, only this time with a baseball bat. “Shelby?” Oh, hell.

  “Shelby Ward, now McCall.”

  All he could do was shake his head. “How do you know this?”

  “Before I left for boarding school I found some letters your mother had written my father.”

  His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. “When were they…involved?” His mother had supposedly died when he was about three.

  “In high school.”

  He couldn’t hide his relief as he let go of her reins and they started through a stand of tall pines, the air cool and moist, sunlight sifting down through the dark green boughs.

  “You thought it was more recent?” she asked.

  He hated to admit it.

  “I heard that your mother…died for a while.”

  He’d never heard anyone put it quite like that. For some reason it struck him as funny. Or maybe he was just so relieved. “Sorry,” he said laughing, “It’s just…So we’re talking fifteen, sixteen?” His relief made him feel buoyant. “Then it wasn’t serious. Asa and Mason were both kids.”

  “You don’t think you can fall in love when you’re young?” she asked, an edge to her voice.

  “Puppy love, maybe, but not real get-married-have-kids love. Not at that age.” He caught her expression.

  “What?”

  She took off on the horse and he had to gallop to catch her. He turned her horse, slowing them both.

  “What did I say?” Had he hurt her feelings? “I’m sorry. Did you fall in love when you were a kid or something?”

  “Or something,” she said, shooting him a look that said he’d put his boot in it.

  “I’m sorry.” He reached out to touch her face. She was all soft and vulnerable again and all he wanted to do was kiss her. “Asa might have won Shelby, but he couldn’t live with her. That’s why they’ve been apart for thirty years. Except for that one moment of weakness when they conceived my sister Dusty,” he said, trying to correct whatever he’d said that had caused the change in her.

  “It’s a stupid feud,” she said after a moment. “If Shelby hadn’t married Asa, then you wouldn’t be here. The same for me if my parents hadn’t gotten together.”

  He heard something in her tone, something he d
idn’t think had anything to do with him or the feud. “I guess it was destined that we be born, huh?”

  But it still didn’t change anything between them. He tried to imagine what his family would say if he brought home Christianna VanHorn—and quickly pushed the thought away.

  Anna grew quiet as they followed a gully down to the lake and followed it as far as the edge of forest-service property. Brandon figured it was best not to say anything. He left his horse where his brother Rourke could pick it up when he called him. Rourke would do it without asking as many questions as either J.T. or Cash.

  The boat was right where she said it would be. She slid off the horse she’d just stolen, letting it go on VanHorn property.

  Brandon added horse theft to her other crimes as he followed her through the thick cottonwoods toward the water and the boat she’d left tied up there.

  He’d half expected VanHorn and his men to be waiting by the boat—if they hadn’t sunk it or set it adrift.

  But the boat was where she’d left it. It seemed she’d been right about that, too.

  She untied the boat and waited for him to get in. He could see other boats out on the water, fishing boats, bobbing along in the light breeze.

  He climbed in and she pushed them out. At the back of the boat, he got the twenty-five-horsepower motor going. It putted softly as he backed out. He nosed the boat through the shallow water and trees toward open water.

  “Where to?” he asked when they were out in the middle of the lake, out of sight of the VanHorn Ranch. Water lapped at the metal sides of the boat, the sun beat down, the air was cool and scented with pine and water.

  * * *

  ANNA LOOKED INTO his face and couldn’t help but smile as she pointed the way. There was something so genuine about his expression, his blond hair slightly curled beneath his Stetson, his blue eyes as intense as the sky overhead.

  He’d been adorable at eleven. At thirty-three, he was ruggedly handsome. All cowboy. All man. Her body’s reaction attested to that.

  But their connection was more than physical. She’d felt it that day on the curb. She could still taste the sticky cold imitation-cherry flavoring and remember that strange feeling as if she could see into the future.

  “At the cabin I’ll tell you everything,” she said impulsively.

  He met her gaze. She could see the doubt, but he nodded.

  She leaned back, closed her eyes and let the breeze blow her hair. The sun felt wonderful on her face. She didn’t think about anything but this moment, here with Brandon McCall. After all these years of wondering what had happened to him, here she was—risking his life.

  She opened her eyes as the boat slowed and looked at him, praying she was doing the right thing. Once she told him everything, there would be no turning back. He would know too much.

  But Brandon was right. He was already involved. She’d thought she could protect him by keeping what she knew from him. She saw now that it was impossible. If she hoped to protect him, he had to know everything she did. Her father had seen them both last night. Seen them together. What would he do now? She hated to think.

  Brandon glided the boat into the dock. He watched Anna jump out to tie it up, then joined her for the climb up to the cabin.

  The sun burned down on them, the lake aglitter with the bright light. Behind them, boats roared past making large cresting waves, dogs barked in the distance and children splashed at the edge of the water in front of the rows of cabins.

  Anna led the way up the stairs from the beach to the cabin perched on the side of the mountain. It was the farthest from the water, tucked back in the pines, but the view was spectacular.

  Inside, there were two bedrooms with a stack of bunks in one, a double bed in the other. The kitchen was tiny, but the living room was large with wide windows, much like his family cabin across the bay.

  Anna went straight for the table in the kitchen. As she turned, he saw that she held a worn manila envelope in one hand.

  He saw indecision in her expression and held his breath, sensing that this moment was crucial for more reasons than he could yet understand.

  “Maybe you’d better sit down,” she said quietly.

  He nodded and pulled up a chair. Was it possible she really was going to trust him?

  “I received a letter a little over a week ago,” she began. “It had been mailed nine years ago, but had been lost. It was from my former nanny, Sarah Gilcrest. In the letter, Sarah confessed to what she’d witnessed one night when I was three. My mother had been seven months pregnant. The doctor had insisted she stay in bed throughout most of the pregnancy. Late that night, she gave birth early.”

  Anna stopped, her fingers on the envelope quaking.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said, seeing how hard this was for her.

  “Yes. Yes, I do.” She looked up at him, took a breath, and continued, “I trust you, Brandon. The only reason I’m afraid to tell you is that I’ll be risking your life even more.”

  “We’re in this together, Anna. You have to realize that. Whatever it was your father did, he will assume you’ve already told me.”

  She nodded and swallowed. “Sarah said my father sent her away when she heard my mother in labor. She was to stay upstairs with my brother and me. She heard a car, assumed it was Dr. Ivers coming to deliver the baby since my father hadn’t taken my mother to the clinic in Antelope Flats or the hospital in Sheridan.”

  She fingered the worn edge of the envelope for a moment. “Sarah heard the baby cry and was relieved. She’d been worried about my mother. She hadn’t been well. But that wasn’t the only reason she’d been worried. She’d heard my father and mother arguing, my mother saying that the baby wasn’t his and as soon as it was born, she was going to leave him.”

  Brandon braced himself, afraid of where she was going with this.

  “My brother and I were both asleep, so she sneaked down the stairs, wanting to see my new baby sister or brother. But as she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard my mother crying, pleading with my father ‘not to do it.’ Sarah hid as my father let Dr. Niles French come in. She heard my father tell him that the baby was stillborn and that it was time to take my mother.”

  Anna stopped and took another breath. It came out like a sob. “Sarah knew the baby hadn’t been stillborn. She’d heard it cry. She hurried up the stairs. She didn’t hear all of the conversation, just pieces of it because my mother was hysterical, pleading and begging with my father not to send her to Brookside.”

  “Brookside?” Brandon echoed. “The old mental institution?”

  * * *

  ABE CARMICHAEL had retired a good twenty years ago, but he was easy to track down since he hadn’t gone far from Antelope Flats. Cash found the former sheriff sitting on his porch overlooking the river.

  “Murder at Brookside? Oh, I remember it well,” Abe said. “Hell of a thing.”

  Cash didn’t know why he was bothering asking. What could a twenty-year-old murder have to do with Emma Ingles’s murder?

  Nothing.

  And yet he couldn’t let Emma’s death go. The only connection was Brookside. But he’d learned to follow any lead that presented itself. His gut told him to follow this one.

  “Do you remember much about it?” Cash asked.

  Abe chuckled. He was a big man with a head of snow-white hair and bushy eyebrows. “Son, you never forget the cases you couldn’t solve. They haunt you the rest of your life. This one was especially tragic. Big news at the time. The woman was murdered in her bed late at night. Room 9B. What made it so sensational was the fact that she was in the criminally insane wing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That section was locked up tighter than a drum. Only a few people even had keys to that wing. Plus the patients’ rooms were also locked—and padded. No windows.”

  “So it had to be someone who had a key, someone who worked there,” Cash said, finally understanding.

  “That had to na
rrow down the suspects.”

  “One of the attendants committed suicide not long after that,” Abe said. “He left a note saying he was sorry. Nothing more.”

  Cash heard it in his voice. “But you don’t believe he killed her.”

  “Never bought it. I think the real killer got away with it, but under the circumstances, without a motive, there was nothing I could do. You see, the woman was a Jane Doe. One of the doctors from Brookside found her wandering down the highway, crazier than crazy, and violent, too. The doctor just put her in that wing for the night to protect her from herself and everyone until she could be identified.”

  “You never found out who she was?”

  Abe sighed. “Never did. She was bludgeoned to death that night. No way to make any kind of ID on her face or dental records.”

  Cash winced.

  “It was a horrible thing. Still gives me nightmares. She’s buried at the cemetery as Jane Doe. I go up there every once in a while,” Abe said. “Someone’s been putting flowers on her grave for years.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Anna moved to the window overlooking the lake. Brandon stared at her slim back, too shocked to speak.

  “Sarah says she never saw my mother again,” Anna continued. “She sneaked back upstairs and pretended she knew nothing. The next morning, my father said the baby was stillborn and that my mother had left. No one was to ever mention her name in the house again or speak of the baby.”

  Brandon had heard about Anna’s mother, Helena VanHorn. The woman was said to have been beautiful, with long black hair and a face like an angel. Obviously that’s where Anna had gotten her beauty. But like everyone else, he’d heard that she’d run off. He hadn’t known anything about a baby.

  “Sarah never breathed a word, afraid of what my father would do to her. She left his employ shortly after that. She was dying when she wrote the letter and said she couldn’t go to her grave with the secret. She’d heard I wrote for a newspaper in Maine and sent it there. But the letter got lost and didn’t find me until nine years later.”

  Her story left him horrified. “The nanny’s sure she heard the baby cry?”