by B. J Daniels
“Dana wouldn’t let Nat do it if she thought it wasn’t all right,” Allie added.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Drew said, but she could tell that he already knew what her mother-in-law was going to have to say about it. “Cardwell Ranch is where the wedding is going to be, I take it?”
“The wedding will be in a meadow on the ranch with the reception and a lot of other events in the large, old barn.”
“You know that we’ve been invited,” Drew said almost in warning.
The canyon was its own little community, with many of the older families—like Dana’s—that dated back to the eighteen hundreds before there was even a paved road through it. Mildred Taylor must be delighted to be invited to a wedding of a family that was like old canyon royalty. Mother Taylor might resent the Cardwell clan, say things behind their back, but she would never outright defy them since everyone loved Dana Cardwell Savage and had held great respect for her mother, Mary Justice.
“How are things with you?” Allie asked.
“Everything’s fine.” He smiled but she’d seen the lines around his eyes and had heard that his construction company was struggling without Nick.
He’d been so generous with her and Natalie that she feared he was giving away money he didn’t have.
She was just thankful when the meal was over and Drew dropped her and Nat off at the small cabin in the Gallatin Canyon where she’d lived with Nick until his disappearance. The canyon as it was known, ran from the mouth just south of Gallatin Gateway almost to West Yellowstone, fifty miles of winding road that trailed the river in a deep cut through the mountains.
The drive along the Gallatin River was breathtaking, a winding strip of highway that followed the blue-ribbon trout stream up over the Continental Divide. In the summer as it was now, the Gallatin ran crystal clear over tinted green boulders. Pine trees grew dark and thick along its edge and against the steep mountains. Aspens, their leaves bright green, grew among the pines.
Sheer rock cliffs overlooked the highway and river, with small areas of open land. The canyon had been mostly cattle and dude ranches, a few summer cabins and homes—that was until Big Sky resort and the small town that followed developed at the foot of Lone Mountain.
Luxury houses had sprouted up all around the resort, with Mother Taylor’s being one of them. Fortunately, some of the original cabins still remained and the majority of the canyon was National Forest so it would always remain undeveloped.
Allie’s was one of the older cabins. Because it was small and not in great shape, Nick had gotten a good deal on it. Being in construction, he’d promised to enlarge it and fix all the things wrong with it. That hadn’t happened.
After Drew left, Allie didn’t hurry inside the cabin. It was a nice summer night, the stars overhead glittering brightly and a cool breeze coming up from the river.
She had begun to hate the cabin—and her fear of what might be waiting for her inside it. Nick had been such a force of nature to deal with that his presence seemed to have soaked into the walls. Sometimes she swore she could hear his voice. Often she found items of his clothing lying around the house as if he was still there—even though she’d boxed up his things and taken them to the local charity shop months ago.
Just the thought of what might be waiting for her inside the cabin this time made her shudder as she opened the door and stepped in, Nat at her side.
She hadn’t heard Nick’s voice since she’d quit taking the drugs. Until last night. When she’d come into the living room, half-asleep, she’d found his favorite shirt lying on the floor by the couch. She’d actually thought she smelled his aftershave even though she’d thrown the bottle away.
The cabin looked just as she’d left it. Letting out a sigh of relief, she put Nat to bed and tried to convince herself she hadn’t heard Nick’s voice last night. Even the shirt that she’d remembered picking up and thinking it felt warm and smelled of Nick before she’d dropped it over the back of the couch was gone this morning, proving the whole incident had been nothing but a bad dream.
“Good night, sweetheart,” she said and kissed her daughter’s forehead.
“Night,” Nat said sleepily and closed her eyes.
Allie felt as if her heart was going to burst when she looked at her precious daughter. She couldn’t let Mildred get her hands on Nat. But if the woman thought for a moment that Allie was incapable of raising her daughter...
She quickly turned out the light and tiptoed out of the room. For a moment, she stood in the small living area. Nick’s shirt wasn’t over the back of the couch so that was a relief.
So many times she had stood here and wished her life could be different. Nick had been so sweet while they were dating. She’d really thought she’d met her Prince Charming—until after the wedding and she met the real Nick Taylor.
She sighed, remembering her decision soon after the wedding to leave him and have the marriage annulled, but then she’d realized she was pregnant. Had she really been so naive as to think a baby would change Nick into the man she’d thought she’d married?
Shaking her head now, she looked around the cabin, remembering all the ideas she had to fix the place up and make it a home. Nick had hated them all and they had ended up doing nothing to the cabin.
Well, she could do what she wanted now, couldn’t she? But she knew, even if she had the money, she didn’t have the heart for it. She would never be able to exorcize Nick’s ghost from this house. What she really wanted was to sell the cabin and move. She promised herself she would—once everything with Nick’s death was settled.
Stepping into her bedroom, she was startled to see a pile of her clothes on her bed. Had she taken them out of the closet earlier when she’d changed to go to dinner? Her heart began to pound. She’d been upset earlier but she wouldn’t have just thrown her clothes on the bed like that.
Then how had they gotten there? She’d locked the cabin when she’d left.
Panicked, she raced through the house to see if anything was missing or if any of the doors or windows had been broken into. Everything was just as she’d left it—except for the clothes on her bed.
Reluctantly, she walked back into her bedroom half-afraid the clothes wouldn’t still be on the bed. Another hallucination?
The clothes were there. Unfortunately, that didn’t come as a complete relief. Tonight at dinner, she’d worn capris, a blouse and sandals since it was June in Montana. Why would she have pulled out what appeared to be almost everything she owned from the closet? No, she realized, not everything. These were only the clothes that Nick had bought her.
Tears blurred her eyes as she started to pick up one of the dresses. Like the others, she hated this dress because it reminded her of the times he’d made her wear it and how the night had ended. It was very low cut in the front. She’d felt cheap in it and told him so but he’d only laughed.
“When you’ve got it, flaunt it,” he’d said. “That’s what I say.”
Why hadn’t she gotten rid of these clothes? For the same reason she hadn’t thrown out the chili pot after the squirrel incident. She hadn’t wanted to upset her mother-in-law. Placating Mother Taylor had begun right after Allie had married her son. It was just so much easier than arguing with the woman.
“Nick said you don’t like the dresses he buys you,” Mildred had said disapprovingly one day when she’d stopped by the cabin and asked Allie why she wasn’t wearing the new dress. “There is nothing wrong with looking nice for your husband.”
“The dresses he buys me are just more revealing than I feel comfortable with.”
Her mother-in-law had mugged a face. “You’d better loosen up and give my son what he wants or he’ll find someone who will.”
Now as she reached for the dress on the top of the pile, she told herself she would throw them out, Mother Taylor be damne
d.
But the moment she touched the dress, she let out a cry of surprise and panic. The fabric had jagged cuts down the front. She stared in horror as she saw other deep, angry-looking slices in the fabric. Who had done this?
Her heart in her throat, she picked up another of the dresses Nick had made her wear. Her sewing scissors clattered to the bedroom floor. She stared down at the scissors in horror, then at the pile of destroyed clothing. All of the dresses Nick had bought her had been ruined.
Allie shook her head as she dropped the dress in her hand and took a step back from the bed. Banging into the closed closet doors, she fought to breathe, her heart hammering in her chest. Who did this? Who would do this? She remembered her brother-in-law calling from out in the hall earlier, asking what was taking her so long before they’d gone to dinner. But that was because she’d taken a shower to get the smell of her own fear off her. It wasn’t because she was in here cutting up the clothes her dead husband had made her wear.
Tears welled in her eyes, making the room blur. She shoved that bitter thought away and wiped at her tears. She wouldn’t have done this. She couldn’t have.
Suddenly, she turned and stared at the closed closet door with mounting fear. Slowly, she reached for the knob, her hand trembling. As the closet door came open, she froze. Her eyes widened in new alarm.
A half dozen new outfits hung in the otherwise nearly empty closet, the price tags still on them. As if sleepwalking, Allie reached for one of the tags and stared in shock at the price. Hurriedly, she checked the others. She couldn’t afford any of them. So where had they come from?
Not only that, the clothes were what she would call “classic,” the type of clothes she’d worn when she’d met Nick. The kind of clothes she’d pleaded with him to let her wear.
“I want other men to look at you and wish they were me,” Nick had said, getting angry.
But when she and Nick went out and she wore the clothes and other men did look, Nick had blamed her.
“You must have given him the eye,” Nick would say as they argued on the way home. “Probably flipped your hair like an invitation. Who knows what you do while I’m at work all day.”
“I take care of your daughter and your house.”
Nick hadn’t let her work after they’d gotten married, even though he knew how much she loved her wedding planning business. “Women who work get too uppity. They think they don’t need a man. No wife of mine is going to work.”
Allie had only the clothes he bought her. She’d purchased little since his death because the money had been so tight. Nick had wanted to know about every cent she’d spent, so she hadn’t been able to save any money, either. Nick paid the bills and gave her a grocery allowance. He said he’d buy her whatever she needed.
Now she stared at the beautiful clothes hanging in her closet. Beautiful blouses and tops. Amazing skirts and pants and dresses. Clothes Nick would have taken out in the yard and burned. But Nick was gone.
Or was he? He still hadn’t been declared legally dead. That thought scared her more than she wanted to admit. What if he suddenly turned up at her door one night?
Was that what was making her crazy? Maybe she had done this. She had yearned for clothing like this and hated the clothes Nick had bought her, so had she subconsciously...
Allie stumbled away from the closet, bumped into the corner of the bed and sat down hard on the floor next to it. Her hand shook as she covered her mouth to keep from screaming. Had she shoplifted these clothes? She couldn’t have purchased them. Just as she couldn’t have cut up the dresses and not remembered. There had to be another explanation. Someone was playing a horrible trick on her.
But even as she pondered it, more rational thoughts came on its heels. Did she really believe that someone had come into the cabin and done this? Who in their right mind would believe that?
Pushing herself up, she crawled over to where she’d dropped her purse as she tried to remember even the last time she’d written a check. Her checkbook wasn’t in her purse. She frowned and realized she must have left it in the desk when she’d paid bills.
Getting up she walked on wobbly legs to the desk in the corner, opened the drawer and took out her checkbook. Her fingers shook with such a tremor that she could barely read what was written in it.
But there it was. A check for more than eight hundred dollars! The handwriting was scrawled, but she knew it had to be hers. She saw the date of the check. Yesterday?
She had dropped Nat off for a playdate and then gone into Bozeman... Could she account for the entire afternoon? Her heart pounded as she tried to remember everything she’d done and when she might have bought these clothes. She’d been wandering around in a daze since Nick’s death. She couldn’t account for every minute of yesterday, but what did that matter? The proof was staring her in the face.
Allie shoved the checkbook into the drawer and tried to pull herself together. She had to think about her daughter.
“You’re fine,” she whispered to herself. “Once you get back to work...” She couldn’t have been more thankful that she had the Cardwell Ranch wedding. More than the money, she needed to do what she loved—planning weddings—and get her mind off everything else.
Once she was out of this house she’d shared with Nick... Yes, then she would be fine. She wouldn’t be so...forgetful. What woman wouldn’t feel she was losing her mind, considering what she’d been going through?
Chapter Two
“Who’s that singing?” five-year-old Ford Cardwell asked as he and his father followed the sound.
Jackson Cardwell had parked the rental SUV down by his cousin Dana’s ranch house when they’d arrived, but finding no one at home, they’d headed up the hill toward the barn and the van parked in front of it.
“I have no idea, son,” Jackson said, but couldn’t help smiling. The voice was young and sweet, the song beautiful. “It sounds like an angel.”
“It is an angel,” Ford cried and pointed past the barn to the corrals.
The girl was about his son’s age, but while Ford had taken after the Cardwell side of the family with his dark hair and eyes, this child had pale blond hair and huge green eyes.
When she saw them, she smiled, exposing two deep dimples. Both children were adorable, but this little girl was hands down more angelic-looking and—Jackson would bet—acting than Ford.
She wore cowboy boots with a pale green-and-white-polka-dotted, one-piece, short jumpsuit that brought out the emerald-green of her eyes. Jackson saw that the girl was singing to several horses that had come up to the edge of the corral fence.
The girl finished the last of the lyrics before she seemed to notice them and came running over. “If you’re looking for my mother, she’s in the barn working.”
Next to him, Jackson saw that his son had apparently been struck dumb.
“I’m Nat,” the girl announced. “My name is really Natalie, though.” She shifted her gaze to the mute Ford. “Everyone calls me Nat, so you can if you want to.”
“This is my son, Ford.”
Nat eyed Ford for a moment before she stepped forward and took his hand. “Come on, Ford. You’ll probably want to see the rest of the animals. There are chickens and rabbits and several mules along with all the horses. Don’t worry,” she added before Jackson could voice his concern. “We won’t get too close. We’ll just pet them through the corral fence and feed the horses apples. It’s okay. Mrs. Savage showed me how.”
“Don’t go far,” Jackson said as the precocious Nat led his son toward several low-slung buildings. The girl was busy talking as they left. Ford, as far as Jackson could tell, hadn’t uttered a word yet.
As he turned back toward the barn, he saw the logo on the side of the van: Weddings by Allie Knight. The logo looked old as did the van.
The girl had sa
id her mother was working in the barn. That must be where the wedding was going to be held. His brother Tag had mentioned something about his wedding to Lily McCabe being very Western.
“You mean like Texas meets Montana?” Jackson had joked.
“Something like that. Don’t worry. You’ll feel right at home.”
His brother’s wedding wasn’t what had him worried. After talking to Tag for a few moments on the phone, he’d known his brother had fallen head over heels for Lily. He was happy for him.
No, what worried Jackson was nailing down the last of the plans before the wedding for the opening of a Texas Boys Barbecue joint in Big Sky, Montana. He had hoped that all of the brothers would be here by now. Laramie and Austin hadn’t even flown up to see the space Tag had found, let alone signed off on the deal.
From the time the five brothers had opened their first restaurant in an old house in Houston, they’d sworn they would never venture outside of Texas with their barbecue. Even as their business had grown and they’d opened more restaurants and finally started their own franchise, they had stayed in the state where they’d been raised.
Jackson understood why Tag wanted to open one here. But he feared it had nothing to do with business and everything to do with love and not wanting to leave Montana, where they had all been born.
Before the wedding had seemed the perfect time for all of them to get together and finalize the deal. Hayes had come here last month to see if the restaurant was even feasible. Unfortunately, Hayes had gotten sidetracked, so now it was up to the rest of them to make sure Tag was doing the best thing for the business—and before the wedding, which was only four days away.
He hoped all his brothers arrived soon so they could get this over with. They led such busy lives in Texas that they hardly ever saw each other. Tag had said on the phone he was anxious to show him the building he’d found for the new restaurant. Tag and Hayes had already made arrangements to buy the building without the final okay from the other brothers, something else that made Jackson nervous.