“I spent quite a few years in the army before we started in the investments game. I guess some old habits die hard.”
He was grateful as a ranch came into view in the distance. There was a long row of stables, a main house and a bright red barn. The place looked like something out of Town & Country magazine. “Is that Dunrovin?”
Sabrina nodded. “You should see this place at Christmas. Gwen showed me some pictures of last year’s Yule Night Festival. There were Christmas lights everywhere, the whole shebang.”
He had no idea what the Yule Night thing was, but he was glad they were no longer talking about their pasts.
As they drove up and parked in the gravel lot of the ranch, a group of mutts ran out to greet them. Well, mostly mutts. Among them was a small Chihuahua barking maniacally at their approach. In fact, the little dog seemed to be the leader of the pack, egging on the rest of them in their cacophony.
“Looks like we got the royal greeting,” he said with a chuckle.
An older woman walked out from the ranch’s office, waving at them as they approached. Behind her was a woman with long, wild blond hair whom he recognized as his cousin Gwen. He hadn’t seen her since they were children, but even the way she moved, with an air of confidence and grace, hadn’t really changed.
The older woman called the dogs off and herded them into the office, closing the door behind the pack and then turning back to Trevor and Sabrina. “Welcome to Dunrovin. It’s a pleasure to finally get the chance to meet you, Trevor. I’ve heard so much about you from Gwen,” she said, extending her hand as he made his way up the steps.
“The pleasure is all mine...” He shook her hand as he waited for her to supply him with her name. Hopefully all she had heard about him had been positive.
When he and Gwen had last met, when they were both about eight years old. He had pulled her pigtails, which had quickly devolved into a wrestling match that ended with them both muddy messes. He could still distinctly remember the hay sticking out of Gwen’s French braids and the stupid, victorious smile on her face.
“Eloise. Eloise Fitzgerald,” the silver-haired woman said, giving his hand a strong shake.
“Hey guys,” Gwen said with a nod. “I already have the horses waiting for you in the trailer. Are you sure you don’t want me to go along with you on your ride? I know some great Forest Service trails. There’s one up Elk Meadows you would love.”
Eloise jabbed a sharp-looking elbow into Gwen’s ribs and looked back and forth between him and Sabrina, like she was seeing something between them that wasn’t there.
“Oh,” he said with a chuckle. “We...no...”
“It’s not that kind of ride,” Sabrina said, finishing his sentence for him. “We are just going to go out and check some fences, then maybe head up the mountain for a couple of hours.”
Gwen frowned. “The fences were in good order when I left.”
Eloise looked over at her like she was clearly not getting the hint. “Don’t worry about it, Gwen. You and I have plenty of things to do in the office today. In fact, I was hoping you could call next week’s guests and confirm their reservations. Then we need to finalize the menus and talk to the kitchen staff.”
Thank goodness for busy work.
“I’ll be waiting for you in the office,” Eloise said, motioning inside. “Shortly.”
Gwen nodded as Eloise gave them a quick, knowing wave and made her way into the office. She was met with a barrage of barking.
“I hope you don’t mind taking the old ranch pickup,” Gwen said, walking them out toward the barn where a white pickup and horse trailer were waiting. As they grew nearer, there was the thump of hooves coming from the trailer. “I already put their saddles on, but you’re going to need to cinch them tighter when you get there.” She looked him up and down as though she doubted his abilities. “Are you sure you can handle this? If you need, you can give me a call and I can help you out.”
He waved her off. He hadn’t been riding in a long time, but he was sure that after a couple of minutes he’d be more than comfortable back in the saddle. “Nah, but thanks. If I need something, I’ll just give you a ring.”
“Just so you know, about half the back side of the Widow Maker is without cell reception—or it’s sporadic at best. Make sure you’re careful out there,” Gwen said, giving Sabrina a look of concern. “If Trevor is anything like he was when we were kids, he’s going to go all out and get himself into trouble. He tends to act first and ask questions later.”
He laughed, the sound coming from deep in his core. “I’m not a kid anymore. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I’m not worried about you,” Gwen said, stepping closer to Sabrina. “I have this girl’s life and the welfare of our horses to be concerned about.”
Though she was just teasing, he couldn’t help being rankled by her ribbing. “Look, if you don’t want us to take the horses, it’s okay. We can find some other way to do the work. Chad and I have been talking about getting four-wheelers. I was just putting it off until we knew exactly what—”
“Stop. It’s okay,” Gwen said, interrupting him. “I just want you to remember that we are in Montana, not New York. Everything isn’t just a phone call away. I don’t want you to go messing around up there and find yourselves in trouble. Believe it or not I love you, cousin.”
“I love you, too, even if you are still a pain in my ass.” He laughed as he wrapped his arm around her and gave her a quick side hug. “Hey, about the Cusslers... Sabrina said you knew a bit about them.”
Gwen nodded, smoothing her shirt where it had wrinkled under his touch. As she moved, he spotted the band on her finger. “They would come to mind with the mention of a pain in the ass, wouldn’t they?” Gwen sighed. “What did they do now? I want you to know, I tried to talk to them when I found out you were going to take over the ranch. They were less than welcoming.”
Apparently, they had all been alive, which was more than he was currently working with. Yet he couldn’t let Gwen know anything that would implicate her should something leak to the authorities.
“I believe it,” he said, stabbing the toe of his boot into the gravel of the parking lot. “How many are living out there?”
She shrugged. “All I know for sure is that there were four brothers and a couple of women. But there could be more or less. They were a bit like rats, scurrying around and hiding whenever we went out there to try to talk to them.”
Which meant that they may well have been around when he and Sabrina had gone out to evict them. He could understand exactly why they had been living out there for so long. It was hard to catch their kind.
He glanced over toward Sabrina, who gave him an acknowledging nod. Her face was pinched, like she was working hard to keep a secret, and somehow that simple look made something shift inside him...something like trust clicking into place. No, it was something else, something deeper, a feeling much too close to desire.
Like before, he wanted to tell her to relax and that everything would be all right, but if he’d learned anything in the last few months, it was that no one close to him ever walked away unharmed.
He couldn’t allow himself to fall for her. And if he couldn’t stop himself, he most certainly couldn’t allow her to get any closer to him than she already was. If he could, he would fire her and send her far from this place...but Chad would have his hide.
“Do you know about how old they all were?” Sabrina asked.
Gwen shook her head. “The oldest brother was probably around forty. And the women... I don’t know if they were wives or sisters, but they could have been anywhere between their twenties and forties. From the state of them, it was hard to tell.”
“What do you mean?” Trevor asked.
Gwen twitched. “They hadn’t bathed in a long time. Their hair was in mats. They looked absolutely wild. We wanted to hel
p them, but what could we do? We were barely making it as it was. And like I said, the Cusslers were well beyond wanting or taking help.”
“I get it, Gwen. After seeing their place...” Trevor stopped as he tried to prevent the memory of the dead man’s sallow face from creeping into his mind. “Do you know if they get along?”
Gwen nibbled at her bottom lip. “From what I know and what my husband has said, it seemed as though they do. But there are whispers that there are other groups out there—families like the Cusslers who take to the hills.”
“Do you know where they’re living?”
She shrugged. “Nomads for the most part. The Cusslers just managed to find a spot to squat where they didn’t face too much trouble.”
“So they don’t move around at all?” Sabrina asked.
“I think they may have a hunting cabin farther up the ridge. I assume they went up there whenever they were needing a fresh supply of game.”
Trevor checked his excitement. Just because they found a possible location for the rest of the Cusslers didn’t mean they were any closer to finding out who had killed the man.
“Now, I don’t know if there is any validity to it, but I heard rumblings from Wyatt that the Cusslers were fighting another family out there. From the sounds of it, it was a real Hatfields-and-McCoys kind of thing—doesn’t sound like there were ever any kind of winners.” Gwen glanced toward the mountains that loomed over them. “It was just another reason for us to keep our distance, the last thing we wanted to do was get wrapped up in a never-ending war.”
He held back a chuckle. His entire life was just one unending war. Whether it was here or on the banks of the Yangtze River, he’d always be fighting some kind of battle, but at least these kinds weren’t the ones inside him.
He relaxed slightly.
If Gwen was right, they had nothing to worry about. The man was a victim of nothing more than a hillbilly civil war. But if she was wrong...if the Gray Wolves had planted a false rumor...
No, they wouldn’t. It was too far-fetched. The Gray Wolves were smart, but like him, they wouldn’t just walk into this community and start stirring up trouble. They would want to fly under the radar.
But he couldn’t make another catastrophic mistake when it came to his family’s safety—he couldn’t live with himself if he lost someone else because of his failure to understand his enemy.
Eloise poked her head out of the office door. “Gwen, you coming?”
She tossed him the keys and he scooped them out of the air. “Thanks, Gwen.”
She dipped her head. “Not a problem. Just be careful out there. I don’t have a good feeling about this.” She turned to walk away, but looked back at them. “You aren’t planning to go out there to see the Cusslers today, are you?”
Sabrina slipped her hand into his, their skin brushing as she took the keys from him.
“Nah,” he said, but even to his ears it came out sounding tinny and fake as he looked down to the place where Sabrina had touched him. “Fences today. Just wanted to know what to expect.”
Gwen gave him a wide smile, like she actually believed his lie.
Denial just might have been his most powerful ally—especially when it came to his own feelings.
Chapter Six
Sabrina gripped the steering wheel hard, carefully maneuvering the truck and horse trailer down the bumpy road leading straight to the Cusslers’ shanty. Every time the truck hit a bump and the mud splattered against the windshield, she cursed last night’s rain, and she couldn’t help but to look over at Trevor to see if he was silently judging her.
Truth be told, she hadn’t driven a truck carrying such a heavy load before, but she would never be second to a man. She could do anything he could. She was tough. And what she didn’t know, she would learn.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” Trevor asked, holding on to the dashboard like it was his lifeline.
She gritted her teeth. “I’ve got this.” As she spoke, the front right tire connected with a giant rock in the road, jarring them so hard it made her jump in the seat.
“Dude,” Trevor said, looking back at the horse trailer they were pulling. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up rolling us.”
Though she was only going ten miles an hour, she slowed the truck down even more. “Look, Trevor, if you think you can drive better than I can on this crap, be my guest. But it’s not as easy as it looks.” She motioned toward the muddy, pitted road in front of them. “Have you ever even driven a truck and trailer before?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but paused for a long moment as he stared at her. “I’ve done more of this kind of driving than I care to admit.”
This was her chance—finally she could learn more about this man in a way that wouldn’t seem suspicious.
“All that driving have anything to do with that gun I found in your bedroom?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
He snickered. “You’re awful curious, aren’t you?”
Or maybe it wasn’t her opening, after all.
“I just like to know who I’m working for...and whether I need to be concerned for my safety or not.”
He slowly blinked, like he was trying his hardest to control every single muscle in his body. “The only people who should be scared of me are my enemies. You’ve already shown me that we are fighting on the same side. In all honesty, it’s been a long time since I’ve been around somebody—other than my family—who hasn’t wanted to use me to achieve their own gains. It’s a bit of a relief.”
A wave of guilt washed over her. Sometimes she hated the duality of her job. Here she was making strides professionally, and yet she found herself personally compromised. It would’ve been so much easier if she didn’t like the man she been sent here to investigate.
Then again, perhaps his little speech was nothing more than a subtle manipulation, a tactic to lull her into becoming complacent. Well, if he thought she would be that easy to manipulate, he was wrong.
Or maybe she was just looking for a reason to stop herself from falling for Trevor. It was unprofessional in every way, to even think about having feelings for the handsome man sitting beside her in the truck. Yet a heart wanted what a heart wanted; if her heart was easily controlled by her mind, she would never have found herself in the backwoods of Montana.
This time had to be different. She couldn’t let herself be sucked in by a man’s charms; she had to remain distant. Untouchable.
“With time, Trevor, you’ll find that I’m a woman who is different from the rest. I’m not the type to pander to a guy.”
Trevor took his hands off the dashboard and leaned back in his seat, like he was trying to avoid the ricochet of her words within the truck’s cabin. “You don’t think I was already aware of that?” Trevor asked.
“Well, I just don’t want you thinking that I was...” She paused as she searched for the right word. “I guess I don’t want you to assume that I’m weak. You know, after what happened the first time we came down here to the Cusslers’ place. I don’t know what came over me. This time when we see this guy, I’ll be ready.”
Trevor looked at her for a long moment, almost as if he was trying to decide how to proceed. “Sabrina, it’s okay to have a weakness.”
There was a softness in his voice that made her wonder if there wasn’t another layer of meaning to his words.
“Weakness is unacceptable. Weakness means we have to depend on those around us. Doing something like that means you open yourself up for disappointment, for hurt. Strength is the only way to survive.”
“Do you mean in dating, or in life?” Trevor asked, as his hand slid slowly to the center of the bench seat.
“Both,” she said, jerking the wheel as she dramatically tried to avoid another pothole, secretly wishing he’d be forced to hold on again so his hand wouldn’t be so
accessible. A girl only had so much restraint.
“Don’t take offense, but...” Trevor sighed. “Well, you sound like a woman who’s been hurt...a lot.”
She answered with a dark chuckle. “If you had grown up in a family like mine, you’d see the world from my perspective, too.”
“You mean because your family was military?” Trevor asked.
She was surprised he remembered anything about her. She’d have to be careful about what exactly she said to him. “The moving around and constant change was fine. Sure, it takes a special breed to be able to live that kind of lifestyle, but that wasn’t what our problems really stemmed from. My dad was the kind who always wanted to be in control, and sometimes that meant acting in a way that is completely unacceptable by today’s standards.”
“Is that why you took the truck keys from me—you wanted to remain in control?”
“I took the truck keys because I saw you driving the other day. I wanted no part of that.” She laughed.
The smile returned to Trevor’s face and his hand moved a bit closer. “One time is not indicative of anything.” He reached over and took her hand, like he finally was giving up on her making the first move.
His hand felt cool against hers, and she wasn’t sure if it was because he was cold or if she was just blazing hot because of her nerves. She thought about disentangling their fingers, but as he started to caress her skin she couldn’t find the willpower.
It felt so good to be touched. It was strange, but besides their hug the other day, it had been a long time since anyone really touched her. More, she was being touched by Trevor...the only man she had ever been instantly attracted to.
With most men, her attraction to them only occurred after months of them being securely planted in the friend zone. She hadn’t really taken Mike’s advances seriously for at least six months; that was until Mike had finally kissed her after a lunch meeting, and something inside her changed.
This thing with Trevor, it was...disconcerting, uncomfortable and strange. And yet so right. When she looked at him, she wanted to move closer. To touch more of him. To feel his arms around her. It was like he was the sun on her face after months of winter gray. As much as she loved the sensation, that spark, she hated it.
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