Outlawed!

by BJ Daniels

  He was enjoying himself. That only added to her anger with Cooper. Didn’t Cooper realize he’d played right into Jared’s hand?

  “We’ve got a little wager on it, isn’t that right, McLeod?”

  Delaney gave them both glares, then stomped over to the jukebox. When the waitress brought their lunch, Delaney motioned for her to leave it at a nearby table. She couldn’t bear sitting at the bar with Jared. Actually, the very thought of food sickened her. What was Cooper thinking? Didn’t it matter that he was taking his life in his hands riding Hell’s Fire?

  She punched in four songs, sat down at the table and picked up her burger. No woman can take the rodeo out of a man, she told herself as she took a bite. Look how her mother had tried for all those years. It eventually killed her. She took another bite. Delaney cussed herself for ever lowering her defenses around Cooper. When was she going to learn? She looked down and saw her empty plate, surprised she’d eaten all her lunch.

  Cooper sat down across from her and picked up his burger. He seemed about to say something, but probably knew she wasn’t going to buy his excuses anyway. He ate in silence. Jared stood with his back to the bar, watching them, a smile on his face. Delaney glared at Cooper over her beer.

  “See you Saturday, McLeod,” Jared said as they were leaving the bar. “I’m sure you’ll want to see him ride, Del. I’ll save you a seat.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that, Jared,” she said, and slammed out to the pickup.

  “Would you like to know why I accepted Jared’s bet to ride Saturday?” Cooper asked as he climbed in beside her.

  He sounded so rational it made her all the more angry with him. “It’s your neck, McLeod.” She started the pickup and backed out, sending more gravel flying than she’d meant to. “Why should I care what happens to you? But you did say you’d help me find out who’s trying to take my ranch from me. You can’t do that if you’re dead.”

  He grinned at her. “It’s nice to think you’re worried about me.” She rolled her eyes. “I agreed to ride because I wanted to get a look at Jared’s stock and it seemed like a way to do it without attracting attention,” he said calmly. “As one of the participants, I’ll have free run of the place.”

  She glared at him. “You agreed to ride a wild, unridden bronc on the off chance that Jared might have a horse with a barred shoe?”

  “I’d bet this month’s wages that horse is Jared’s.”

  “You’d better hang on to your money, McLeod. You’ve already bet Jared you can ride Hell’s Fire.” She loosened her grip on the steering wheel when she noticed her knuckles had turned white. “You couldn’t have come up with a better way to look for the horse than riding in Jared Kincaid’s rodeo?” she asked, incredulous.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Cooper said sheepishly.

  Men! “Jared wouldn’t have bet you unless he thought you’d get yourself killed!” She slammed her fist against the steering wheel. “And from what I’ve heard about Hell’s Fire, you probably will.”

  “You don’t have much faith in me, do you?” Cooper asked.

  She glanced over at him to see if he was serious. She hit the brakes and skidded to a stop in the middle of the dirt road. “This isn’t about barred shoes or finding attempted murderers. This is about the thrill of rodeoing—admit it.”

  “I quit rodeoing.” He met her gaze and held it. “And if I need a thrill…well, I’ve heard you can find that kind of stimulation in a woman.” His eyes darkened. “With the right woman, of course.”

  An oath came to her lips, but she stifled it and got the pickup going again. He’d quit rodeoing? Then how did he explain that injury to his thigh, the one he said he’d gotten from some bronc just recently? Men. When was she going to learn not to believe anything they told her? Especially one like McLeod.

  Not far down the road, Buck passed them in his truck. Angel was cuddled up next to him. Delaney wondered if Buck had popped the question yet. She groaned, thinking about what Cooper had said about stimulation and the right woman. She noticed Cooper had turned to look back at them. “Let’s have it,” she said. She swore sometimes she could hear the wheels turning in his head.

  “What would you say to taking a look around Angel’s cabin?”

  She stared at him. “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Not very,” he lied with a grin. “I want to see if she has any reason to want to shoot at me or drop rocks on me.”

  “Why would a writer want to hurt you?”

  He shook his head. “Why would anyone want to?” He grinned. “You seem to be the only person around here who isn’t trying to kill me.”

  “Give me a little time,” she said, and headed down the road toward the Meadows Lodge.

  A young woman with frizzy brown hair, thick glasses and a mouthful of gum came out of a back room at the Meadows Lodge. She eyed the two of them and smiled knowingly. “Cabin for two? One night? One bed?”

  “We’re not…together,” Delaney snapped, and took a step away from Cooper. She didn’t even have to face him to know he was grinning.

  “Actually,” she heard him say, amusement in his voice, “we’re looking for Angel Danvers, the writer.”

  The woman chewed her gum for a moment. “Cabin twelve.” She pointed down the line of cabins to one with a dark-colored van parked outside. “Except she just left with some old cowboy dude.”

  Delaney bristled at her description of Buck, then realized it was fairly accurate.

  “Sor-ree,” the woman said, and headed back no doubt to the soap opera on the television in the adjoining room.

  “Angel is going to be furious that we missed her,” Cooper said to Delaney. “Especially now that she’s got a shot at Fabio on the cover.”

  Delaney blinked at him. Fabio? On the cover of what?

  The woman stopped and turned at the mention of Fabio. “Fabio? I thought Angel Danvers wrote dry old history stuff?”

  Cooper gave the woman a grin that Delaney recognized only too well. “That’s just what she tells people. What she really writes is steamy historical romances.”

  “Steamy” seemed to do it. “No kidding,” the woman said.

  “But Angel won’t be writing anything without her computer,” Cooper continued. He looked up at the woman as if a light had suddenly gone off in his head. “Could we leave Ms. Danvers’s computer with you?”

  The woman shrugged. “Just put it over there.” She pointed to a dusty corner.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Delaney said. “It’s an expensive laptop. Angel would have a fit.”

  Cooper nodded his approval. “You’re so right.”

  “I guess you could leave it in her cabin,” the young woman said. She reached up and took down the second key for cabin twelve. “You don’t suppose she’d sign a book for me, do you?”

  “Absolutely,” Cooper said, taking the key from her. “Who knows what she’ll do when I tell her how helpful you were?”

  “FABIO?” Delaney asked as they left. “And what happens when that woman talks to Angel, and Angel then asks us what we were doing searching her cabin?”

  “By then we’ll have found out what we need and have time to come up with a good cover story.”

  She shot him a look. “Such as what?”

  “Oh, I’ll think of something,” he said.

  She studied his handsome face, remembering the way he’d turned on the charm—and the lies. “Why do I feel you’ve done this type of thing before, McLeod?”

  His grin faltered as he inserted the key and they stepped into the cool, darkness of cabin twelve.

  ANGEL WASN’T what anyone would call neat. It looked as if for the past week she’d simply walked into the cabin and stepped out of whatever she’d been wearing. The floor was cluttered with discarded outfits. The bed was unmade and strewn with books and papers. So was the desk in the corner.

  “The sign of a creative mind?” Delaney joked.

  Cooper went to the desk and t
humbed through the piles of papers. Notes. Historical data on gold mines and the York area. He noticed across the creek from the original townsite of New York was a smaller one that had been Brooklyn, Montana. Both had been small, but the town of Trout Creek just down the road, which no longer existed, had a population of several thousand between 1866-1869. He glanced through the rest, surprised. It was all the same. Maybe Angel was who she really said she was.

  He left Delaney digging around in the pile on the bed and went to check the bathroom. Makeup everywhere. Stockings hanging in the shower. Wet towels on the floor where she’d dropped them.

  Her cosmetic case stood open on the toilet tank. He carefully sifted through the case and found nothing of interest. The medicine cabinet was empty.

  As he stepped back into the main part of the cabin, he noticed the empty clothes rod in the closet. Instead an open suitcase lay on the closet floor. It looked as if a bomb had exploded inside it. Angel didn’t plan to stay long, it appeared.

  Cooper glanced up to find Delaney flipping through a book. “What did you find?” he asked.

  “An old journal,” she said, smiling at him as she closed it. “Sorry, I guess I’m not much help. It was interesting. Written by a prospector in the late 1930s about the hardships of mining for gold.” The swamp cooler behind her let out a loud bang and she jumped. She gave him a chagrined smile. “All right, so I’m not cut out for this cloak and dagger stuff.”

  Cooper smiled back at her. “Actually, I was thinking that we made quite the team back there in the office.” He glanced at his watch. “We’d better get out of here before that daytime drama ends.”

  As he bent to look through the contents of the suitcase, something caught his eye. With two fingers, he picked up a little navy blue dress with a white collar from a hanger at the back of the closet. Memory threw him like a mean bronc. He knew now where he’d seen Angel. She’d been wearing this dress, her hair had been pulled up into a no-nonsense style and it had been a different color, a dark auburn. Even her voice had been different. No dumb-blonde routine. No flirting. Strictly business.

  “Something wrong?” Delaney asked.

  He looked up. The dress slipped from his fingers. He shook his head, too stunned to speak. Angel Danvers had been a different woman the day Cooper had seen her at Rattlesnake Range.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cooper had been acting strangely ever since they’d left Angel’s cabin. He seemed preoccupied and anxious to get back to the ranch.

  “I have a couple of things I need to do in town,” he told her vaguely.

  “Do they have anything to do with that dress you found in Angel’s closet?” Delaney asked.

  He laughed and grinned at her. “It just reminded me of someone, that’s all.”

  Her heart tightened. “A woman from your past?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light, hoping the sudden pang of jealousy wasn’t audible.

  Cooper shook his head. “An old friend I recently lost.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She felt awful for being so nosy and suspicious, let alone jealous. Why did she always jump to the wrong conclusions with him? Because he’s a rodeo cowboy. Because he reminds you of your father. Both lethal reasons not to get too close to Cooper McLeod.

  She stopped the pickup at Cooper’s camp. The sun rimmed the mountains to the west. Delaney felt time slipping away. “I’ve got to get to the bottom of this soon, McLeod. I can’t keep playing detective. I have a horse ranch to run.”

  He nodded. “Maybe I’ll find the barred-shoe horse tomorrow at Kincaid’s.”

  She made a face. Momentarily, she’d forgotten about that stupid rodeo.

  “Will you be all right here for a while by yourself?” he asked, still awfully anxious to get into town.

  “I’ll be fine,” she answered, trying not to let her suspicious mind run loose.

  Cooper nodded as if there were something else he wanted to say but changed his mind. “I won’t be gone long.”

  COOPER STILL couldn’t believe it. Angel Danvers at Rattlesnake Range. There was no doubt in his mind; he remembered her now, remembered that walk of hers—something she couldn’t disguise even in a business dress.

  But why was she in disguise that day? He laughed at his stupidity. She wasn’t in disguise at Rattlesnake Range. That was the real Angel Danvers. The woman on the Rockin’ L was the impostor.

  Who was she and what had she been doing at Rattlesnake Range? His mind raced with theories. All of them bad. Maybe she was the person the agency had hired to acquire Delaney’s ranch. He rejected that theory almost immediately. Delaney didn’t like Angel. And Angel wasn’t doing anything to get her to. Nor was Angel even pretending interest in buying the ranch. From what he’d seen in cabin twelve, Angel really was researching a book.

  So what was she doing at the agency? he asked himself as he drove into York. Rattlesnake Range kept a very low profile. Few people even knew about it. But if you were interested in acquiring a special property on any terms, at any price, and you had enough money, you’d eventually end up at Rattlesnake Range. Angel didn’t appear to have that kind of money. But he’d learned a long time ago not to judge a woman by the color of her lipstick.

  He parked beside the phone booth, anxious to talk to Thorn Jamison. Cooper was desperate to find some answers before Angel remembered where she’d seen him and blew his cover.

  As DELANEY PARKED in front of the house, she noticed her front door. It stood open. Her heart quickened. Maybe the wind had blown it open. Maybe—She pulled the rifle down from the rack behind her and opened the pickup door. Hesitantly she started for the house.

  As she mounted the porch steps she could see into the house. Everything looked normal enough.

  She stepped in the doorway, rifle ready. And saw them. Boots. Worn, muddy boots. She peeked around the corner of the doorjamb, following the boots up the new denim to find Ty sprawled on her couch. He lay with his head back, his hat partially over his face, appearing to be taking a nap.

  Fury ignited her blood—then her tongue. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, pointing the rifle at him.

  He jumped in surprise, pushing back his hat as he sat up with a start. His gaze focused on the rifle in her hands, and for a moment he looked as if he thought she might shoot him. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

  “I was waiting on you,” he said indignantly.

  “Do you always just walk into a person’s home to wait for her?” He raised an eyebrow and smirked at her. She felt as if she were dealing with a child. “It’s not your home yet, Ty. Until it is-”

  “I had to talk to you,” Ty whined. “There has to be some way we can settle this without dragging it out in court.”

  She quit listening as she noticed the door to her office was also open. It had definitely been closed when she’d left. Something white lay on the floor. She stared, disbelieving. Someone had ransacked her office.

  THOM JAMISON sounded more than a little surprised that Cooper hadn’t started his vacation yet.

  “You’re still at the Rockin’ L?” he asked.

  Cooper thought about lying, but realized it would serve no purpose. Jamison would find out he hadn’t left soon enough from the agent on the job. “Yeah. I was getting ready to leave, when I ran into someone here I had seen at Rattlesnake Range just before I came on this job. Passed her in the lobby. A little too much of a coincidence, you know.”

  Silence.

  “She’s going by Angel Danvers. Ring any bells?”

  “No.”

  Jamison answered too quickly.

  “I thought you’d be sitting in the shade somewhere by now with your feet up,” he continued.

  “She’s a cute little redhead. Big green eyes. Stacked like a brick outhouse. Smart. And all business. The day I saw her at the agency she was wearing a little navy number with a white collar and had her hair up.”

  Silence. “You aren’t going on vacation, are you?”

&nb
sp; Cooper smiled; that Jamison was sharp. “No, I’m seeing this one through.”

  Jamison swore, something Cooper knew was out of character for him. “The board isn’t going to like this.”

  Cooper laughed. “You don’t have to tell them.”

  Silence.

  “Or maybe you do.” Maybe he’d been wrong about Thom; maybe he couldn’t trust him.

  Jamison swore again. “I don’t remember her name, but I remember the woman. You’re right. She could be trouble. She came in asking about the Rockin’ L. It became obvious quickly that she didn’t have the resources to buy the ranch. She asked a lot of questions about its ownership, how a person would go about acquiring it if the owner didn’t want to sell. I smelled newspaper reporter and got rid of her as fast as possible, but she already knew a lot about the ranch and that the agency was trying to get it.”

  “A reporter?” Cooper asked, still wondering if he could trust Jamison, but at the same time knowing he had to. Jamison needed all the information if Cooper hoped for any help from him. “Well, she’s here pretending to be a blond bimbo historical-book writer. She’s hooked up with the ranch manager romantically.”

  “I see.”

  Jamison sounded concerned.

  Cooper shook his head as he considered the latest turn of events. “You’ve got an untrained loose cannon on this job, someone else possibly taking potshots at your target, a half brother who’s desperate for money and the ranch, and now a reporter who’s after Rattlesnake Range.” Cooper laughed. “Things get any better, Thom, and you’ll be doing time at the state prison in Deer Lodge.”

  “You forgot one other problem the agency has,” Jamison said softly. “They’ve got you there.”

  “DID YOU FIND the will?” Delaney demanded as she came out of her ransacked office. Nothing appeared to be missing, but she couldn’t tell for sure.

  She turned to face her brother. Her brother. As she glared at him, she realized she’d actually accepted the fact that he was her brother. For so long she’d resisted any thought that they might be related. But now as she studied him, she admitted there were definitely similarities between Ty and their father. He sounded like Hank. Always making excuses. And he looked a little like Hank. In the eyes. And the cheekbones. And he definitely had that self-serving part down perfectly. “That was what you were looking for, right, the will?”