Montana Mavericks, Books 1-4

by Diana Palmer

  Tracy stirred up too much…tension in him. Yeah, his libido was real tense when she was around. He smiled grimly at the joke, but didn’t find it all that funny.

  Tracy saw Winona standing by an arrangement of gourds and pumpkins on a tray. The fall decorative display had a red ribbon for second place on it.

  “Is this yours?” she asked. “It’s lovely. Congratulations on the ribbon.”

  “It’s only second place,” Winona said grumpily. “I’m glad to see you. I’m hungry enough to eat a bear, hide and all.” She smiled and reached over to straighten an ear of Indian corn.

  Her hand brushed against Tracy’s.

  Tracy heard the gasp, then felt Winona sway. She put an arm around her. “Winona? What is it? Are you ill?” She wasn’t sure if the psychic was having a vision or a heart attack.

  “Rocks,” Winona whispered, leaning heavily against Tracy, nearly making her stagger. “No, one rock…coming down hard…falling…falling…anger…furious anger…”

  Tracy felt a strong arm slip under hers. Judd took Winona’s weight easily and held the rotund body close until the spell was done. Their eyes met over the shorter woman’s head.

  “I have her,” Judd said in a soft rumble.

  Tracy caught Winona’s hand in hers and rubbed gently.

  Winona pulled away as if hurt. Her eyes snapped open. “Who have you touched?” she asked in a weak tone.

  Tracy shook her head. “It must have been the bones. I found more of them this afternoon.”

  Winona nodded. She seemed to be okay.

  “What did you see?” Judd asked.

  “It was strange,” Winona told him, her expression once more serene. “There was a rock, hitting something…or someone…I couldn’t tell about that. Just this rock, flying through the air and hitting, then hitting again, only downward this time.”

  “Hmm.”

  The two women waited while Judd thought about it.

  “The bones,” he said to Tracy. “Maybe it was murder, after all.” He turned back to Winona. “If you get any more visions, I want to know about them, no matter how remotely connected you think they are or how odd.”

  “All right. Now, about some supper.”

  Tracy noticed Winona didn’t point out her second-place win to Judd. It came to her that the woman had a small streak of vanity of her own. She smiled and walked with the two back to the hot-dog stand.

  The incident was forgotten as the three of them got their meal and found a table. The detective, Sterling McCallum, and his wife were in the food line behind them. Tracy knew Jessica Larson McCallum from before. Her father had tried to help Thadd when he was found. The couple was pushing a lovely, happy baby in a stroller. She looked eager to explore the world. Tracy smiled though she couldn’t help remember another child so eager for adventure. Judd invited them to join him, Winona and Tracy at their table.

  “Two women,” McCallum mused after he and his wife sat down and introductions were made. “How do you rate that, Boss?”

  “Just lucky,” Judd said with that lazy grin that caused a shaft of longing to go through Tracy. When he shifted his chair to make room for the couple, his arm brushed hers.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Jessica McCallum told her husband. “You have enough going with the two women you’ve already got!” She took Jennifer out of the stroller and handed the toddler to her husband.

  He cradled his daughter in one arm. She looked up at him and nestled sleepily. He smiled and tweaked a lock of her hair, but Tracy saw the tenderness in his eyes as he glanced from his daughter to his wife. She recognized the look of a man who was well satisfied with his lot in life. The tough detective had two soft spots, it seemed.

  Tracy was touched by their happiness. Her gaze met Judd’s. He looked at her so intently that she became flustered. She squeezed her hot dog. Mustard flew out the end and landed on her silk top.

  “Here,” Judd said. He picked up a napkin and dipped it in a cup of water. He slipped his fingers under the edge of the silk shell and rubbed the spot. His efforts only made it worse.

  “Try spit. It might take most of it out,” Winona advised.

  Judd moistened the napkin with his tongue and went back to work.

  Tracy felt the heat radiating from his hand into her flesh. Although he hardly touched her and his hand was a respectable distance from her breast, she kept getting hard, stabbing jolts of electricity all the way down her torso.

  Her breath became jerky. In fact, her lungs were hardly working at all. She could feel sweat popping out on her forehead. “Don’t.”

  Her protest apparently didn’t register with him. He wore a frown of intense concentration as he worked on the stubborn spot.

  When the tip of her breast clenched into a tight bead, perfectly visible under her bra and top, she grew desperate.

  “Stop!” she said, the word coming out as a shrill cry.

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her and Judd. His long fingers were still inserted under the edge of her blouse as he, too, went still. For a long second, they sat frozen into place.

  She wished she could sink out of sight right into the ground.

  A brick red flush swept up Judd’s face. He released her blouse as if it were a hot coal.

  “I think that’s as good as you’re going to get it,” Jessica announced. She deftly changed the subject. “Sterling said you found some more bones today. Did they go with the others?”

  Tracy was grateful for the new topic. “Uh, yes. I feel sure we’ll find more. It looks very promising.”

  The conversation became general after that. Later, she and Judd went with the McCallums to the rides while Winona spotted Lily Mae Wheeler and went to talk to her. They all tried the Ferris wheel, then paused by the carousel.

  Tracy was totally surprised by Jessica McCallum. She teased her husband unmercifully. “I’d like to ride the merry-go-round, but the horses will probably run off when they see you coming.”

  “I promise not to sit on one,” he shot right back. “Although I might sit on you before the evening is over if you keep up the wise remarks.” He gave her a menacing scowl that didn’t frighten her in the least.

  He bought five tickets and handed two to Judd. Judd looked at Tracy with a question in his eyes. She drew a deep breath and got in line behind the other couple. Judd stood behind her.

  It was with trepidation that Tracy stepped up on the carousel platform. Jennifer chose a blue horse with a silver mane. Sterling lifted Jessica up on it so that she and their daughter sat sidesaddle. He stood beside them, his arms placed protectively on either side of his women. Jennifer laughed but waved at everyone.

  “Let’s take a swan boat,” Tracy suggested.

  Judd nodded.

  They climbed in and sat on the wooden bench. In front of them, two girls, about nine, squealed with delight as they leapt upon two unicorns, which were white, with golden horns projecting from their foreheads.

  “Beautiful mythical creatures,” Judd remarked as the music speeded up and they started turning.

  “Yes.”

  He had taken her to a carnival in July, nearly seventeen years ago to the day, a few weeks after they’d met. They had been on the merry-go-round when she’d suddenly become nauseated. He’d swept her off the unicorn she’d been riding and signaled the man to stop. In the privacy of his car, when she felt better, he’d questioned her gently. They had realized she was most likely pregnant.

  “I should have taken better care of you,” he’d blamed himself.

  He’d gone with her to face her parents and tell them they wanted to be married right away. Six weeks after they’d met, they were married. Their son had been born in March.

  For nine years, the marriage had been good.

  Then one autumn a freak accident had destroyed their happiness. They had lived in the same house another year, but it wasn’t the same. Unable to bear the mockery their lives had become, she’d asked for a divorce. Judd had moved
out of the house while the legal arrangements were made. When the divorce was final, she’d left town, never intending to return.

  The merry-go-round completed one full turn and started another. She thought of life, going around and around. Going nowhere, it sometimes seemed. That was her life.

  Ahead of them, Tracy saw Sterling lean over and listen to something his daughter babbled. He laughed. Jessica kissed him on the cheek. He turned her face with a finger under her chin and claimed a quick kiss on the lips before tousling Jennifer’s curls.

  The tenderness between the other couple caused an ache to start deep inside Tracy. Once, she’d had that.

  When she looked at Judd, he was staring off into the darkening sky, his jaw set in a hard line. Anger, raw and hurting, roiled in her. She wanted life to be different. She wanted all it had promised those many years ago. She wanted to start over….

  Clenching her hands together, she forced her thoughts away from those lines. It didn’t matter what she wanted. Life couldn’t be lived over and adjusted to suit one’s idea of happiness.

  She would never hold another child in her arms. After Thadd’s birth, she’d had a severe infection that had left her barren. She and Judd hadn’t been able to conceive another child, although they’d both wanted a brother or sister for their son.

  Judd touched her hands. He gently pulled them apart and held her right hand, rubbing it between both of his. “Don’t think on it,” he murmured soothingly. “Let it go, Trace.”

  Gradually, the feelings subsided, and she felt only the ever-present tinge of sorrow that colored her days. She stared at Judd in wonder. The harshness was gone from his eyes, and he looked at her in…pity?

  She pulled her hand away. She didn’t need pity from anyone. What had happened had happened. A person had to go on. She knew that. She was getting on with her life.

  Was she?

  Yes.

  “I’m all right,” she assured him. She smiled to show him. After the ride, she said good-night to the McCallums, having decided to return to Winona and talk to her for a while before returning to the cottage.

  Lily Mae and several others sat at a large table where they’d left the older woman. The widow, wearing three-inch-long blue-and-purple earrings that matched her colorful knit pants and top, introduced Tracy to everyone and told her something of each person’s life. “Tracy is the FBI expert investigating the murder on the reservation,” she finished.

  “Murder has not been established,” Tracy hastily corrected.

  “Well, everyone knows that’s what happened,” Lily Mae asserted with an authoritative air. “Why else would a skeleton be there?”

  “People die of lots of things,” Judd said, coming to stand beside Tracy. “A woman choked on a hot dog last week down in Big Timber and was nearly asphyxiated before the medics got it out.”

  Lily Mae peered at her hot dog, then shrugged. “There are worse ways to go.” She finished off the last bite while the other women laughed or looked shocked, according to the way they viewed Lily Mae and her outrageous quips.

  Tracy smiled. Maybe she’d have her father down next weekend for a home-cooked meal and invite the widow-divorcée, too. Her eyes went to Judd. No, she wouldn’t invite him.

  “Winona, I think I’ll go home now,” she said. “How would you like to go out to dinner tomorrow night? I thought I’d try the new pizza place I saw near the library.”

  “That sounds fine. I’ll come by your house around six.”

  “Good. Well, good night. It was nice meeting all of you.” She smiled at the group, then headed for her car.

  Judd accompanied her. “It’s dark,” he said when she glanced at him. “A woman shouldn’t be in the parking lot alone.”

  “I’m sure no crook would dare impose on your territory.”

  He lifted one black eyebrow at her mocking tone. “The fair brings in a lot of strangers.”

  They walked past the rows of cars. He was right, she realized. A dark parking lot was a lonely place. “How do people like Lily Mae come up with so much gossip, or in this case, the truth?”

  “You have evidence of murder?”

  “No.” She paused at her car. “But Winona’s vision—that rock hitting someone. I think she’s seeing something connected with the bones. It’s happened twice now, both times after I’ve handled the evidence. I think our mysterious victim was killed by getting bashed with a rock.”

  Judd drummed his fingers on the top of her car. “Well, if a rock did it, there’s no shortage of weapons in the area. Or the county.” He nudged a half-buried rock in the hard ground of the parking lot with the toe of his boot.

  Tracy yawned. She hadn’t been sleeping well that week. Maybe tonight she’d get a proper rest without waking and lying in bed for hours, thinking of the past.

  “Judd, thank you for earlier. When we were on the carousel,” she added when he looked at her questioningly.

  His expression turned grim. He stared out into the night. It came to her that there was a blackness in his soul that matched the one in hers. Once there’d been such joy between them….

  “It’s hard not to remember,” he said in a low tone.

  “I know.”

  Sympathy stirred in her. Life could be unbearably hard for a man of Judd’s temperament. He was a man of action, a person who got things done. But even he hadn’t been able to save their son. Like her, he could only wait, pacing the hospital corridor while the doctor operated.

  She climbed into her car, said good-night to him and drove off. Looking in her rearview mirror, she felt a wrenching pain inside as she observed him watching her drive off. If things had worked out differently, they would have been going home together.

  Five

  Tracy woke to bright sunlight streaming across her pillow. She’d slept fitfully the night before. Long after she’d arrived home and gone to bed, she’d lain there thinking of the past and the future she’d expected with Judd.

  Impatient with this line of thinking, she flung the covers off and prepared to face the day. After dressing and making the bed, she ate a bowl of cereal, then carried her cup of coffee to the front porch to plan her day.

  When the hardware store opened, she’d get a washer for the leaky faucet and fix that, she decided, settling into a wooden rocker with a cane bottom and back. She’d clean house, then go to the grocery store. Perhaps she’d go to the fairgrounds that afternoon and look over the livestock. She’d liked that as a kid. After that, Winona was supposed to come by and have pizza with her.

  Satisfied that this was a workable plan that would keep her moderately busy, she finished the coffee while the sun pushed higher into the clear morning air. It was going to be a hot day.

  She glanced at her shorts and knit top. They were okay for a trip to the hardware store. She took her cup into the house and turned off the coffeemaker. Removing the worn washer from the faucet, she slipped it into her pocket. She clipped her purse around her waist and decided to walk downtown rather than drive.

  At the hardware store, she bought a packet of washers that matched the old one. As she was leaving, a man walked up to her.

  “Hello, Tracy, remember me?”

  She looked into a familiar face. Dark eyes. Dark hair, worn rather long. Jeans. A blue shirt open to the waist. “Wolf Boy,” she said before she thought.

  A wry grimace briefly twisted the mobile lips of the good-looking young man who’d greeted her. “Smile when you say that, partner,” he said with mock menace.

  She grinned. “Rafe, how are you?” Memories leapfrogged over each other into her mind.

  Her father had interviewed the Rawlings clan out on Whispering Pines Road about their early life in Montana, so she was familiar with the family history. Rafe had been adopted.

  Tracy had been around eight years old the summer an abandoned child had been found in the woods north of the Rawlings ranch. That child had been Rafe.

  The newspapers and TV stations had made a field day of his discove
ry, calling him “Wolf Boy,” a nickname that stuck, and writing the most incredible stories about him growing up with the wild animals. What drivel. He’d been a baby at the time. No clues to his real parentage had ever turned up.

  “Long time no see,” he said. “I’d heard you were in town.”

  “Temporarily,” she said. “Are you ranching?”

  “Not entirely. I’m a detective here in Whitehorn.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You and Lily Mae didn’t get to the folks who live on the west side of the county when you had dinner the other night?” His smile was wry. He’d been a topic of speculation all his life and had become a quiet, reserved little boy; he seemed the same as a man.

  “I don’t think we got outside the city limits.”

  “So what’s happening with the bones?”

  “Not much. I’d like to find the rest of the skeleton.”

  “You going to run DNA tests?”

  “I don’t know. The FBI doesn’t like having its resources used without good reason.”

  “Meaning the budget is tight, so watch what you spend?”

  “You got it. The local police department must operate like the federal government.”

  “Yeah. Things are tough all over.” He glanced at the package in her hand. “You going into the repair business?”

  “Just a washer on a leaky faucet.”

  She smiled fondly at him, remembering him as a toddler who’d followed her around when she had visited the ranch with her father. She’d played with him while the grown-ups talked. Twenty-eight years ago. Heavens, how the time did fly.

  They walked outside and said goodbye. She started down the street on foot.

  “Are you walking?” he called to her.

  “Yes.”

  “Hop in. I’ll give you a ride. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, if you have time.”

  She sensed an edginess in his stance. “Okay,” she agreed. She climbed into the pickup. He slammed the door and got in on the driver’s side. He cranked up the engine and drove off.