by Christa Wick
“I don’t think you need to check the bears. You still only have a skinned fox at the end of the day. You want to keep a good relationship with the rangers. That’s not going to happen if you start out asking for their resources.”
“I see your point,” Ashley answered. That didn’t mean she agreed with it, but she’d see where the day’s evidence led her before ignoring her supervisor’s advice. For the moment, that’s all it was—advice.
“You find anything concrete, I want to hear about it right away, not in your end of day report, got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” he grumbled. “I’ve got a conference call in ten minutes and I need to hit the head. Anything else?”
“No, thank you for the time.”
“Welcome, bye.”
Pulling the phone from her ear, Ashley stared at it. She’d only known Phil Moske for a few months and still didn’t have a good read on the man. Most of their conversations were by text or email, the rest usually by phone. She’d only met him in person three times. He had years of experience in the field, but had clearly learned to love riding a desk as he neared retirement.
Realizing she’d forgotten to mention there would be an FBI agent looking into the damaged trees, she growled and tossed the phone onto the mattress.
She’d send him a message later or put it in her end of day report. For now, she was going to steal a few precious minutes of doing absolutely nothing while the ice pack worked its magic.
Chapter Five
His nose buried in his phone, Walker felt a hesitant tug on his sleeve. His head swiveled and made a slight downward turn to look at his two-year-old niece, Leah. Dressed in a nightgown with embroidered bumblebees, she had half of a honey-coated biscuit shoved in her mouth. The green eyes were pulled as wide as they would go. Lifting a sticky finger, she pointed at the doorway.
“Is this okay?” Ashley asked with a discreet gesture at the gun on her hip.
“Yes, but we keep them holstered when they are out of the safe.”
“Absolutely.” Her gaze returned to the little girl with amber colored hair. Approaching Leah, she got down on one knee a few feet away.
“Hello. What’s your name?”
The biscuit didn’t move from the child’s mouth.
“Leah,” Walker chuckled. “She’s usually still asleep at this time but a certain deputy trainee had to sneak a peek before heading out to work and decided to wake her up for cuddles.”
Ashley smiled. “Can’t say I blame her.”
Taking the biscuit from her mouth, Leah pointed at Ashley’s sidearm.
“Loud.”
“Yes,” Ashley agreed. “And dangerous.”
“Leah no like guns.”
“I don’t like them much either.” Getting to her feet, Ashley nodded at the door. “I’ll be leaving in just a minute, so the gun will be gone, too.”
“This little one,” Lindy said, returning to the kitchen and scooping the toddler up, “will be gone even sooner. Who said you could have a biscuit?”
Leah pointed at Walker. An unrepentant smile papered his face.
“She’s so cute when she wants something.”
“I’ll remember that excuse when you have your own,” she scolded, holding the little girl so that her face was close to Walker’s. “Your uncle deserves a sticky kiss goodbye.”
Leah put the biscuit down on the table. Using both hands, she took hold of his face and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Wait,” Leah protested as Lindy headed for the double doors leading out of the kitchen. “Her name?”
“Ashley,” Walker answered.
The little girl wiggled her fingers.
“Bye, Ashley.”
Ashley waved back. “Bye, Leah.”
Turning to Walker, she grinned. “She really is adorable. I could almost feel myself choking on all that cuteness.”
Putting her bag down, she pulled out the ice pack and handed it to him.
“This was very helpful. Thank you for thinking of it.”
He carried the bag to the second of two refrigerators in the room, opened the freezer section and nodded at another half dozen or so ice packs.
“Not a problem. Raising six kids on a ranch, Mama always kept some cold.”
Passing by the sink, he wet a cloth, took it to the table and picked up the biscuit’s remains and wiped down the spot.
“You got a few minutes before you go?” he asked. “You could grab a final cup of coffee before you head back to Billings.”
“Another cup would be great, but I’m not heading straight back.”
Finding a clean mug, he poured coffee and handed it to her. “Right, Emerson. I forgot about that. He expects to be at the Sheriff’s about ten.”
“Depending on what information today yields, I’ll be in and out of the area this week. I already cleared it with my supervisor.”
Not looking at the woman as he refilled his cup, Walker smiled. He had hoped she wouldn’t disappear quickly. As fiercely independent as she seemed, he needed a bit more time to determine the best way to ask her out. He also wanted to be less of a stranger when he did the asking.
“Let me pull a map from the library.” Putting his cup on the table, he gestured for Ashley to take a seat. “It’ll only take a second to fetch. I wanted to show you where the other two locations were.”
Settling into a chair, she nodded. He hurried out of the room, thundered up the stairs then back down, his body warm from the slight exertion and the fact he was stretching his time with Ashley.
Unrolling the map, he put a salt mill on one end and a pepper mill on the other as weights. Digging into his pockets, he came up with some loose change. He put a quarter along the edge of the location where the equipment had been damaged and the six trees axed in such a way that they were set to fall across the road as soon as gravity finished the job the vandals had started.
“Yesterday,” he said, then placed a nickel seven-point-three miles to the southwest of the quarter. “Last Wednesday. They stole the cattle guards on a dirt road, making it impassable for most vehicles.”
Ashley squinted at the map. He knew what she was thinking.
“It’s private property but the road is commonly used by the public. Not an official easement.”
Taking a penny, he placed it a mile south of the nickel.
“This was spray painting the machines, bunch of foul stuff that we had to take turpentine to. But Kostya also noticed that all the road signs going into the site were down, but not coming out. No telling when that part happened because we might have overlooked it since we don’t need directions.”
Glancing at Ashley, he noticed that her face had lost a little color.
“You okay?”
Nodding, she plucked two dimes from his hand and marked off the closest roads to the quarter and the penny. Both roads were at least half an hour away from his sites.
“If the vandalism has you pulling back your crew and keeps other people away, they’ve isolated well over twenty thousand acres of the park.”
“Like they did in California?”
She nodded. “Exactly like that.”
Pulling out her cell phone, she took pictures of the map, one from far out and one for each of the five roads marked. She typed in a few notes then pocketed the phone.
She pulled it out a second later, clicked to see the time then buried it again.
“What’s the plan before going to the Sheriff’s office at ten?” he asked.
“I’m going to wake up a few rangers and drop off the smaller pieces of evidence from yesterday.”
Walker nodded, his face a mask for the thoughts running through his head. Now that they had a probable reason for the vandalism, he felt confident the criminals would get caught. Before that happened, he wanted to squeeze in as many minutes as he could with Very Special Agent Ashley Callahan.
“You know, we not only have comfy beds, we have comfy offices, too. No need to sit along
the side of the road calling the rangers when you could have your leg up and a fresh ice pack.”
Chewing at her plump bottom lip, she hesitated to accept.
“Office is sitting empty until next Friday,” he coaxed. “My brother is on his honeymoon.”
Releasing her lip, she looked up at him. “You know, there are still so many illegal grow operations in California that I’m accustomed to landowners waving shotguns at me. Hospitality was nonexistent.”
“I can’t promise everyone in Willow Gap will be as welcoming. But, when you’re here, you’re home.”
She shook her head, a soft sigh escaping. “No way am I turning down ice time.”
“Great.” Walker headed toward the freezer with the ice packs, his cheeks hurting from hiding a victory grin. “Freshen up that cup of coffee and then I’ll walk you over to Adler’s office.”
* * *
Returning to the kitchen after getting Ashley settled in, Walker found his mother out on the porch overlooking the lake. Leah sat next to her on a bench, dressed for the day and eating a banana.
“Ashley gone?” Leah asked.
Lifting her onto his lap, he shook his head. “She is using Uncle Addy’s office for a little while to get some work done.”
“Okay,” she answered, her head against his chest and her free hand absently toying with his collar.
“Siobhan is giving even odds that you’ll have a snuggle bug of your own, soon.”
His mother punctuated the remark with a chuckle, but he caught the cut of her gaze and the curiosity lurking in the green eyes that were only a shade lighter than his own.
“That’s putting the cart before the horse,” he joked, taking the empty peel from Leah and folding it neatly.
His mother glanced over her shoulder before leaning close to whisper.
“You mean the baby carriage before the wife.”
Walker kept his mouth flat despite the grin that wanted to break out. He’d never thought about marriage before, only been semi-serious with one woman, moving past a few tumbles in the hay to officially dating for all of three months.
“Sounds like you’re both putting the cart before the horse,” he teased.
Pulling his phone from his back pocket, powered it on, opened the contacts and showed the screen to Leah.
“Call Uncle Sutton.”
She pressed the picture of Walker’s second youngest brother, the photo unchanged from when Sutton had still served in the Army. She tapped the icon for speakerphone next.
Three rings later, there came a cautious answer.
“Walker?”
“It’s me, Sutty!” Leah clapped. “Fishes are jumping!”
“You want me to bring my fishing pole, Honey Bee?”
“More like your drone,” Walker answered before Leah could.
“Does this have anything to do with Siobhan waking me up ridiculously early?”
“Somewhat,” Lindy chimed in. “I think she figured if Emerson is up here, that little redhead you kept staring at all through your brother’s wedding might be with him. Seems she’s in a mood to play matchmaker.”
“I’d rather go fishing with Honey Bee.”
Leah clapped her hands.
“Those trees could have…” Walker trailed off, mindful of the little girl in his arms and how she had lost her mother in a car accident. The family tried to steer clear of certain words while she continued to heal emotionally.
Sutton was quick to figure out what Walker wanted to talk about but couldn’t while Leah was with him.
“Alright, where do I have to be and what time?”
“Meeting Emerson around ten at Gamble’s.”
Huffing, Leah squirmed off of Walker’s lap and onto her grandmother’s.
“Don’t worry, love,” Lindy whispered. “We’ll go out in the boat. I’m the one who taught Sutty how to fish.”
“Wow,” Leah whispered back, her eyebrows climbing high.
Watching the exchange, Walker realized just how much he wanted his own snuggle bug and how another grandchild would double his mother’s joy. He was certain Leah had been the only thing keeping her going in the early days of losing her husband and daughter in the same wreck.
“Alright,” Sutton grumbled. “Meet you at ten.”
“Don’t let him overdo it,” his mother cautioned Walker once the call was finished. “He’s been pushing too hard. He’d still be in a plaster cast if it wasn’t for his foolish pride and Adler’s wedding.”
“I’ll have Royce put the ATVs on a trailer. That will give us some serious range and keep Sutton off his feet.” He leaned over and kissed his mother’s cheek. “That sound good?”
“Sounds good,” she agreed, a knowing glint in her eye. “For your brother…and your new friend.”
Chapter Six
Sitting on the back of an ATV, Ashley gripped the handholds and gritted her teeth. A redheaded FBI agent by the name of Madigan Armstrong drove the vehicle, their roles as passenger versus driver determined by a quick game of Rock, Paper, Scissors conducted out of view from the males in the group.
The four ATVs were at full capacity. Walker’s brother Emerson had paired up with Gamble. Siobhan rode behind Walker. Sutton rode alone with Ashley’s evidence kit, his drone and extra batteries for the device.
Ashley wasn’t sure how the former soldier was driving his vehicle with such ease. A wide padded belt circled his hips and lower back. Running down the right leg, metal braces framed the interior and exterior sides, some kind of spring above the knee assisting every step he took so that a cane wasn’t necessary.
Siobhan had pulled Ashley aside before Sutton’s arrival at the Sheriff’s department, briefly detailing how enemy forces shot him down in a drop zone, the mortar round missing him but shredding his parachute. The impact on landing broke the right leg at several points. In the first week, he’d undergone two surgeries to pin everything back together. Revealing the motive behind the otherwise gossipy revelations, Siobhan emphasized that the doctors at the Veterans Administration had recently voiced their hope that Sutton wouldn’t need any more surgeries—provided he didn’t overdo things at this stage.
Not wanting to be the cause of Sutton overdoing things, Ashley winced every time they reached a particularly rough section of the trip.
Coming to the top of a ridge, Walker signaled a halt. Removing his helmet, he pointed at a sign maybe thirty yards down. Ashley couldn’t see the words, but recognized the colors and shape. It was a park boundary sign. With Ashley and two other federal law enforcement officers in tow, the group could proceed past the signs, but they were at the edge of the private property the vandals were trying to get Walker to abandon. And, under current circumstances, the four-wheelers weren’t authorized past the signs.
“Good spot,” Sutton said and swung his left leg over the ATV’s seat.
Twisting at the waist, he unstrapped his drone and swapped batteries. Walker took the small aircraft from him and placed it on the ground a few feet in front of the vehicle. Siobhan pulled a tablet out of her backpack and stood in front of the ATV with the device’s display facing Sutton.
He tapped a few buttons and the drone’s camera view appeared on the tablet.
“Want me to start south or north?” he asked.
They were at their third location for the day. With the sun starting to dip in the sky, it would be their last.
“South,” Emerson voted.
Maddy nodded agreement with her boss. Gamble and Siobhan shrugged. Sutton looked at Walker.
“North,” he said.
“Two to one,” Sutton noted then looked at Ashley. “You going to tie the score or do I start south.”
As close as it was getting to sunset, they would probably be able to try just one of the directions before heading back.
“Why north?” she asked Walker.
“That’s the direction of where they took the cattle guards out. Maybe they plan on putting them back in or cutting the fence. There�
�s also an unmarked access road to the north that locals would know about.”
“It better not be anyone local,” Gamble grumbled.
“I vote north,” Ashley said, chest constricting when Walker smiled at her for taking his side.
“So my vote breaks the tie,” Sutton said, his fingers caressing the controls.
Up the drone rose—and headed north.
Everyone but Siobhan gathered around Sutton to watch the display.
“Who’s keeping an eye on the battery level for me?” he asked.
Siobhan piped up when no one answered right away.
“Agent Armstrong, you can probably get in closest to see the display.”
Siobhan’s delivery sounded purely professional, but Ashley couldn’t forget all the talk around the table that morning with Siobhan seemingly, and inexplicably, eager to get all of her cousins married off. Suspecting that the nomination of Madigan served Siobhan’s personal goal, Ashley made note of the tactics the young deputy trainee might use against her. Because it didn’t matter how tight or warm Ashley’s chest got when Walker smiled in her direction, she hadn’t moved to Montana to get married.
“Of course,” Siobhan tacked on as Madigan moved into position, “you should probably review the video again since we need all eyes and your attention is split with checking the battery. Sutton will be able to replay the feed for you.”
Ashley glanced at Walker. He pulled a face like he knew what his cousin was doing. A glance at Madigan revealed nothing more than a focused young agent eager to prove her worth.
Leaning in, Gamble squinted at the camera feed. “Still not sure what we’re looking for.”
Emerson chuckled. “It’s kind of like that famous Supreme Court case that set out to define pornography. One of the judges said he would know it when he saw it. Apparently he had to look through a lot of pictures before—”
“Go back,” Walker directed. “Yeah, right around there. Can you get closer, zoom in with the camera?”