Montana Rogue

by Jessica Douglass

  Montana Rogue

  Jessica Douglass

  To Barbara Schenck and Paula Jolley,

  two friends to ride the river with.

  (That’s “cowboy” for pretty darned terrific.)

  Thanks for being there. Thanks for staying.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 1

  Darkness swirled all around her. Deadly. Dangerous. Courtney Hamilton struggled against the black void, knowing even in her befuddled state that her life depended on her becoming awake, aware. Alert.

  But her confusion persisted. Where was she? What was happening? Why couldn’t she wake up? Think clearly?

  In the midst of the darkness was a cacophony of sound. An engine—thunderous, deafening. Voices—muffled, indistinct. And something else. Static. Short, staccato bursts of radio static.

  What kind of hallucinatory nightmare was this?

  Courtney shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it. She tried to open her eyes and failed.

  Enough of this nonsense, she reasoned groggily. She was in her bed in her father’s ultramodern log house retreat in Elk Park just outside of Butte, Montana, and she was having a bad dream. That was all. Heaven knew, considering her life of late, she was more than entitled to one.

  She could put an end to this madness in an instant. All she had to do was toss back her blankets and pad over to her bedroom window. From there she could look out onto the stunning beauty of the pine-bristled ridge that formed the backdrop of the secluded twenty-acre property. Her father had had the house built ten years ago, when Courtney was only nineteen. She’d loved it instantly, and still considered it home, though she’d spent precious little time there over the years. In fact, this was her first trip back to Butte in four years. And that only with great reluctance, because of her father’s heart attack three weeks ago.

  So do it, her mind thrummed. Get out of bed and walk to the window.

  I will, she vowed muzzily. Just as soon as my head stops spinning. But first she would find out what was making that racket.

  Again she tried to open her eyes. Again she failed. Her heart fluttered nervously. This was certainly the oddest dream....

  Courtney raised a hand toward her face. And froze. Her hands were bound together at the wrists! Merciful God. What?—

  In a single blinding instant it all came roaring back to her. The phone call. The urgent voice. The terrible words: Your father’s had a relapse. Hurry! The dash to her car. The mad fumble with her keys, the lock.

  And then...

  And then...

  Hands. Hands grabbing at her from behind. Hands slamming her against her car. Hands forcing a sickly, sweet-smelling cloth against her nose, her mouth.

  She remembered voices—harsh, threatening—remembered her knees buckling...

  Then she remembered nothing else.

  Until now.

  Courtney sat very still, forcing her throbbing head to clear. She couldn’t see, but she could hear, she could feel. The noise, the sensation of flight. She was in a helicopter.

  Bound. Blindfolded.

  Kidnapped!

  The realization sent a jolt of pure terror ripping through her. She started to struggle, her fingers tearing frantically, futilely, at the ropes that manacled her wrists.

  “Hold still!” a hard voice snarled against her right ear.

  Instinctively she tried to shrink away from the voice, but pressure at her shoulders and hips held her fast. A safety harness? Courtney settled for huddling lower in her seat.

  Ahead of her she sensed yet another presence. The pilot?

  “Who are you?” she demanded shakily. “What do you want?”

  Something cold and hard pressed against her neck. “I want you to shut up,” the voice beside her demanded.

  Courtney shuddered.

  A gun.

  She fought back tears of panic. Get hold of yourself, she ordered. Panic was an option she couldn’t afford. Four years of working in a Philadelphia battered women’s shelter had taught her that much. Panic got people killed.

  But her thoughts were still so muddled. She felt weak, exhausted. Whatever drug they’d used on her seemed to have sapped her strength, as well. She needed time to regain her senses. “Please,” she began. “Don’t do this. My father is ill. He—”

  “Your father’s holding his own,” the pilot’s voice cut in from the seat ahead of her.

  “You don’t understand,” she insisted. “He’s had a heart attack. And now a relapse.”

  “The relapse is a lie,” the man said. “My friend in the back seat made the call to your father’s office.”

  Courtney stilled, absorbing this new bit of information. “Thank you,” she heard herself say. The pilot hadn’t had to tell her about their ruse.

  “You’re a real piece of work, fly-boy,” the man with the gun snarled. “Pretty little blondes get to you, do they?” The gunman chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound. “She is pretty, ain’t she? Big green eyes, if I remember what’s under that blindfold. And long legs....”

  Courtney trembled, envisioning him licking his lips. She couldn’t make out the pilot’s terse reply, but it was obvious he said something the other one didn’t like, because the gunman’s response was both agitated and defensive. “What the boss don’t know, won’t hurt us,” he snapped, running his hand suggestively along Courtney’s arm. The bulky-knit sweater she wore did little to prevent her flesh from crawling.

  Calm, she ordered herself. Whatever happens, stay calm.

  “Besides, fly-boy,” the gunman went on, “this ain’t your call. You wasn’t supposed to pilot this bird. If Al hadn’t gotten sick...”

  “Shut up!” the pilot snapped. “She’s blindfolded, not deaf!”

  But Courtney was already filing away the gunman’s slip. A name. Al. It wasn’t much. But it was something. If they could make one mistake, they could make others.

  “Ol’ fly-boy thinks he’s pretty smart, don’t he?” the gunman gritted against her ear. “But it’s me who’s going to be doing the talking once we get to the cabin. Fly-boy came in late on this one. He don’t know the half of what the boss has in mind for you.”

  Courtney’s heart thudded in her breast. Cabin? The very word conjured images of remoteness and isolation. Montana had more than its share of both.

  If they were even still in Montana.

  Fly-boy...don’t know the half of what the boss has in mind for you. God above, what did that mean? Were they planning to kill her? Or worse?

  Enough! The last thing she needed to do was to start imagining scenarios of what these bastards might do to her. She needed to concentrate, think. The police would want details.

  She trembled. If she lived to see the police. “Whatever you’re being paid,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice, “my father will double it. Triple it. If you just take me home.”

  Neither man said a word. Courtney took it to mean they were at least listening. “Call my father’s office,” she urged. “Talk to his partner, Fletcher Winthrop. He’ll get you any amount of money you want. No questions asked.”

  “Maybe we should think about it, fly-boy,” the gunman said. “We’re the ones takin’ all the chances.”

  Instead of answering him, the pilot addressed her. “You’re in enough trouble, princess,” he said. “I’d think twice about putting ideas into my partner’s head. You want my advice? Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  Courtney dug her fingernails into her palms. What arrogance! She’d li
ke to tell him what he could do with his advice. But she forced herself to be silent.

  “How much farther?” the gunman asked. “Them rocks and trees down there all look alike to me.”

  “Maybe half an hour,” the pilot replied.

  “Hear that, sweet thing?” the gunman said, sidling close again, so close that Courtney guessed he couldn’t possibly be wearing his seat belt. “Half an hour, and you and me can get real cozy. Real cozy.”

  Courtney swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. Calm, she repeated inwardly. Calm. They were just trying to scare her. Her father’s partner would pay whatever ransom these men eventually demanded. Then they would let her go. They had to let her go. Coming back to Butte had taken every ounce of courage she possessed. Surely the Fates couldn’t be so cruel as to have brought her home to die. Especially when her sole purpose for returning had been to dare make one final effort to make peace with her father.

  Oh, God, Daddy, she thought miserably, it can’t end like this. It can’t.

  Four years ago Quentin Hamilton had all but crushed the life out of what spirit she’d had left, when her marriage to Roger Winthrop, Fletcher’s son, had ended in divorce. Even knowing how much her father had doted on Roger, she never would have believed Quentin would take Roger’s side over his own daughter’s. But he had. The cold, judgmental words he’d used against her that last, ugly day still had the power to cut deep. Courtney had fled Butte, fled her father and Roger, not knowing if she could ever pull together the shattered pieces of her life.

  But somehow with the help of some of the loyal, supportive friends she’d made back East during her college days, she’d done just that. At least she’d thought so, until Fletcher Winthrop’s call had come through to her office at Angels’ Wings, the battered women’s shelter for which she served as assistant director.

  “You’d best hurry, Courtney,” Fletcher had told her. “The doctors aren’t sure he’s going to make it.”

  Courtney had gripped the phone so hard, her knuckles went chalk white. Part of her was terrified for her father, but there was another terror, as well. Four years she had stayed away from Butte, stayed away from a mountain of brutal memories.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Fletcher said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “But you don’t have to worry about Roger. I’ve got him running our corporate offices in Rio.”

  “I’m sorry, Fletch. This must be difficult for you, too.” This was her first conversation in four years with a man she’d once considered closer to her than her own father.

  “Your marriage to Roger didn’t work out, Courtney,” he said matter-of-factly, and she could almost picture him shrugging his bear-size shoulders. To her, Fletcher had always looked more like a defensive lineman than the cofounder of a multinational conglomerate. “My son was a jerk. You were right to divorce him. You know I don’t harbor any ill will toward you.”

  “I appreciate that.” Her voice cracked as she thought of her father’s very different verdict on the collapse of her marriage. “More than you know.”

  “Quentin’s been my partner for forty years. Please, Courtney, he needs you. You can make things right. I know it.”

  Courtney had known all along what her decision would be. “I’ll take the next flight out.”

  And so she had come home. Come home despite the feeling of dread that had all but overwhelmed her as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Come home despite memories she still feared had the power to destroy her.

  Her father needed her. That was the reality she focused on. Not on memories of her brief, but ill-fated marriage to Roger Winthrop.

  The moment her plane had touched down in Butte, she’d rushed to the hospital, only to find that her father had lapsed into a deep coma. In the three weeks since, he had not regained consciousness.

  The peace she had hoped for between them had had to wait.

  And now...now...

  Beneath her blindfold, tears threatened, spilled over.

  “Awww,” the voice mocked beside her, “the little lady is crying. She’s scared.”

  “Leave her be,” the pilot growled.

  “You know,” the gunman muttered in Courtney’s ear, “I’m gettin’ pretty damned tired of him tellin’ me what to do. He ain’t the boss of this here gig.” As if to prove his point, he eased Courtney’s skirt up her leg.

  “Don’t touch me, you pig!”

  “Now, is that friendly?” Without warning he slid his hand beneath her sweater. When it closed around her breast, reason vanished.

  Courtney screamed. Wild, unthinking, she fought against her bonds, striking out blindly with her manacled wrists. A lucky blow connected solidly with the side of her attacker’s head. He cursed and fell forward, one of his flailing feet catching her in the side. In the next instant the helicopter lurched violently. A tearing, grinding noise sounded above the roar of the chopper’s engine.

  The pilot swore viciously. “The rudder control’s gone! I have to try to set it down.”

  “Here?” the other man shrieked. “There’s no clearing. Where the hell?—”

  “Brace yourselves!”

  The chopper whipped about like some maniacal, out-of-control amusement-park ride. Courtney’s mind reeled, even as time itself seemed to slow down, compress. Beside her she could hear the gunman sobbing, grappling frantically with his seat belt. Ahead of her the pilot continued to swear softly.

  She was going to die, she thought with a curious mix of wonder and detachment. The reconciliation with her father would never take place. Would he ever know that she had at least tried? Would he care?

  Images of her life began to flood through her—a kaleidoscopic display that was somehow both instantaneous and meticulously detailed. Wistful scenes of a mother who died much too young, of a workaholic father who never made time for his lonely little girl. Interposed throughout came flashes of Roger, his benevolent features contorting into a monstrous caricature.

  Courtney fumed, furious. She was not about to die thinking of Roger Winthrop!

  And just that quickly Roger was gone, vanished, though in the next heartbeat she could almost have wished him back. A single memory rose up to haunt her then, sear her to her very soul. For the first time in years she allowed herself to think of another man—to see his face, hear his voice.

  Dark, tousled hair, to-die-for blue eyes and a smile to melt a Montana glacier. A man who’d been a part of her life for scarcely a week ten years ago. But, oh, what a part he had played.

  Jack Sullivan.

  The single biggest mistake of her life.

  Not because she’d spent one night with him. But because of all the nights since that she’d spent without him.

  If only she hadn’t been such a coward that day.... If only she’d had the courage to tell him the truth....

  If only...

  The impact with the ground drove the air from her lungs. She felt an instant of excruciating pain, then nothing, nothing at all.

  * * *

  Courtney was dimly aware of the bonds at her wrists being cut away, aware of the blindfold being removed, but she couldn’t summon the strength to open her eyes. She wasn’t even sure she could, if she wanted to. Her head throbbed; her whole body was one big ache.

  And she was cold, mind-numbingly cold and soaking wet. Her fingers shifted and she felt a layering of icy wetness beneath her. She shivered convulsively. She was lying in a snowbank.

  Her head still spinning, she raised a hand to her face and winced. Blood. No wonder she couldn’t open her eyes. Her whole face seemed caked with dried blood. Heart thudding, Courtney tried feebly to push herself into a sitting position. A pair of strong hands prevented her.

  “Don’t move,” came a deep, masculine voice.

  Courtney shrank back, stifling a scream. “Don’t touch me. Don’t—”

  “It’s all right,” came the voice, gentle now, reassuring. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

 
“Liar! You’ve already—”

  “It’s all right,” he repeated firmly. “It’s not what you think. Those men who did this to you—they’re dead. Both of them. I heard the crash, found you here.”

  Her outburst had drained what strength she had left. Courtney sagged back, struggling even to comprehend what the voice was saying. Her thoughts were so jumbled. Her head throbbed, and she was still so afraid. Dead? Is that what he’d said? Her kidnappers were both dead? She tried to center on her benefactor’s voice, but found she could key in on nothing familiar. But then the helicopter engine had been so very loud....

  If her rescuer was not one of her kidnappers, then— “Who are you?” she managed. “Where—?”

  “Easy now. You need to save your strength. I need to get you someplace warm and safe. You’re already borderline hypothermic, and it’s going to be dark soon.”

  “My eyes...”

  “Don’t try to open them. You’ve got a bad cut on your forehead. I’ll get it cleaned up as soon as I get you to my place.”

  My place? Courtney recalled the gunman mentioning trees, rocks and wilderness. My place? “Please...take me home.”

  “Can’t risk it in the dark.”

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  “I guess for now you can consider me your guardian angel.”

  Courtney was not reassured. This is crazy, she thought. He’s one of the kidnappers. He has to be. She should fight, run. But she found she hadn’t the strength or the will to do either. Unconsciousness hovered close, threatened to envelop her yet again.

  Those same strong hands now trailed over her arms, her legs, her middle. Knowing hands, gentle hands. Matter-of-fact, efficient, there was nothing at all improper in their exploration, and yet there was a tenderness about them that made her almost want to weep.

  Then his voice came again. Different somehow, more strained. A memory stirred, and she did weep.

  Jack. Ten years fell away as nothing. He was here and he was holding her, whispering sweet, sweet words to her of longing and regret. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might have said his name. And just that quickly the comforting presence beside her was gone.