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“Lynette—”
“Frank, she tried to kill you!”
He’d just shaken his head and given her one of his patient smiles. “I have to try to help her. Please try to understand.”
She understood that he’d been scarce as hen’s teeth since the girl showed up in town and worse now that Tiffany was locked up miles away at the state mental hospital.
Nettie missed him stopping into the store for his usual: an orange soda and a candy bar. She’d always thought he dropped by as an excuse to see her. She’d even thought they might have a second chance together—after her husband, Bob, had left for good, after deciding he wanted to live in Arizona, and before Frank’s daughter had come into his life. If she even was his daughter.
Nettie shoved away the heartbreaking thought that maybe she and Frank had missed their chance for happiness a second time as she listened to the men in the café speculate on what could have happened to Maddie’s young sheep tender.
Sensing there was nothing more to be gained this morning at the café, Nettie made her way back across the street to the two-story Beartooth General Store. She’d married the store, choosing Bob instead of Frank at her mother’s encouragement. She regretted the Bob part, but the store was her life. Especially now that her husband—soon to be ex—had deserted her for a trailer in an Arizona desert. Running the store had kept her mind off her unfulfilled marriage and the regret that had eaten away at her for almost thirty years.
The only bright spot in her day had been Sheriff Frank Curry’s occasional visits. With those few and far between lately, Nettie felt at loose ends. Even the latest gossip about Maddie Conner’s tender couldn’t lift her mood.
As she neared the store, she saw a customer waiting for her in the shade of the wide store porch that ran the width of the building.
“If you’d read the sign on the door, it would have told you to come over to the café to get me.” She squinted against the bright spring day and did a double take as she recognized the man waiting for her. “J.D.?”
* * *
J. D. WEST STEPPED out of the shadow of the Beartooth General Store porch, a grin on his handsome face. In his mid-fifties, J.D. was one of those men who only got better looking with age—much like Sheriff Frank Curry, Nettie thought.
“How ya doin’, sweetheart?” He had dark hair and eyes and a grin that had made many a young woman drop her panties before he’d left town.
She couldn’t have been more surprised to see him. It had been years since he’d left on the run after a row with his older brother, Taylor, and the law hot on his trail.
Nettie had heard J.D. had gotten caught and done some jail time over in Miles City, Montana. Rumors had circulated about him over the years, and alleged sightings all over the West had been reported. Most everyone either thought J. D. West was in prison somewhere or dead.
“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he said with a laugh.
His laugh took Nettie back, and for a moment they were both teenagers again. She’d always liked J.D. even though she’d never succumbed to his charm.
You like men who live on the edge. It was Bob’s voice in her head. That’s why you’ve been carrying a torch for Frank Curry all these years. She would be so glad when she could shut Bob up for good.
“What are you doing here?” she blurted out.
He laughed again. “Here as in Beartooth? Or here as in standing on your porch waiting for you?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “I decided to pay a visit to my old stompin’ grounds. When I saw your sign in the window...” He grinned.
For a moment, she didn’t know which sign in the window he was referring to. But glancing past him, she saw her apartment-for-rent sign. The apartment over the store had been empty since Tiffany Chandler had been arrested and taken away.
“You want to rent my apartment?”
“I sure do. That is, if you’ll rent it to me for a week to start. Then we’ll see after that.”
She wasn’t surprised he had no plans to stay with his brother, Taylor, out at the West Ranch. As far as she knew, the trouble between the two had never been reconciled. The two brothers couldn’t have been more different. Taylor was a family man who’d never been in trouble in his life. J.D. had been in trouble almost since the day he was born.
“I’ll pay in cash,” he said, seeing her hesitation.
She couldn’t say no. Not to J.D. Also, she hadn’t had any other takers for the apartment. She had hesitated more out of surprise than anything else.
“Of course I’ll rent it to you,” she said as she climbed the steps to the porch. “Come inside and I’ll show it to you. It’s nothing fancy, mind you.”
“Not looking for fancy, but I’ll bet it is real nice.”
She turned to look back at him as she entered the store. “Have you been out to the ranch yet?”
J.D. chuckled. “Not yet. I’m getting up my courage. Not expecting a brass band, but even a lukewarm welcome would be appreciated.”
“I hope it goes well,” she said. She opened the inside door to the apartment and climbed the stairs.
“That is real sweet of you, Nettie.”
It wasn’t every day that a man told her she was sweet.
“Damn you look good,” J.D. said, grinning when they reached the apartment.
She felt herself flush. “You always were the worst liar.” Her hand went to her new hairdo. She patted her out-of-the-bottle red curls, pleased.
He shook his head, his gaze softening as it met hers. “I mean it, Nettie. You’re a sight for sore eyes. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you and Beartooth. So fill me in on everything that’s been going on,” he said as he moved through the apartment.
She loved nothing better than telling him what she knew about Beartooth. He was especially interested in the latest about Maddie Conner and her tender, and Fuzz Carpenter’s speculation that Branch Murdock was dead—murdered—up in the Beartooths.
“I didn’t know anyone was still running sheep up there,” J.D. said distractedly as he moved to the front window and glanced out.
“Maddie’s the last, and if Branch is dead, well, this will probably be her final year. So what do you think of the apartment?”
J.D. turned to smile at her. “I love it.”
As she watched him pull out money for a week’s rent, Nettie couldn’t help but wonder what he was really doing back in town. J. D. West wasn’t the kind of man who got homesick. He was the kind who’d put Beartooth in his rearview mirror years ago—and never looked back.
* * *
TO MADDIE’S SURPRISE, the deputy offered to saddle his own horse. “You ride?”
“Before I moved to the city, my family had horses.”
She raised a brow. “What kind of horses?”
He hesitated just long enough that she knew they’d been fancy, expensive horses. “Thoroughbreds.”
She chuckled. Didn’t he realize how obvious it was that he came from wealth? Apparently not. How interesting that he wanted to play it down.
“Did your family race them?” she asked as she hefted her saddle up onto the horse’s back.
“No. My sister was involved in some jumping competitions. I preferred to just ride the horses.”
As if that made him less of an elitist. She could hear the Ivy League education behind his words. “Harvard? Princeton?”
“Harvard,” he said as he clinched up his saddle. “Law school. I was an attorney at my wife’s father’s firm for ten years before becoming a cop.” He chuckled and looked up at her. “Aren’t you going to ask how I ended up a deputy sheriff in Big Timber, Montana?”
She’d noticed the pale line on his ring finger and the way he nervously touched the spot when he thought she wasn’t looking. The missing wedding band was like a phantom limb, she thought. It was still there in a way he couldn’t seem to get past. She assumed its loss was too fresh. Which she’d bet explained what he was doing in Montana.
“Nope, that’s sufficient information,” she said.
He laughed. “It seems only fair you tell me something about you.”
She shook her head. “I only asked you those things because I just needed to know if you could ride a horse and were smart enough to stay out of my way,” she said as she swung up into the saddle. “Ready?”
“I’m ready if you are,” he said as he mounted the horse.
“I hope so,” she said, glancing over at him. “We have a long ride ahead of us.” She had no idea how far they would have to go. It would depend on where Branch had last made camp with the sheep. She knew where they should be, but she wasn’t betting on anything at this point.
Just as she doubted the deputy was any more ready for what was ahead of them than she was. But it was clear that neither of them was turning back.
* * *
“WHO WAS THAT?”
On the porch of the general store just after lunch, Nettie turned in surprise to see Sheriff Frank Curry standing behind her. She hadn’t heard him drive up. For a moment she was so happy to see him that she didn’t even register the disapproval in his tone.
“Don’t tell me that was who I think it was,” he said, sounding upset.
“Well, if you think it was J. D. West, then you’re right.” J.D. had professed to love the apartment, paid in cash for a week and told her again how wonderful she looked.
Then he’d bought her lunch, bringing sandwiches over from the café so the two of them could sit on the store porch and eat them. Just moments before the sheriff had appeared, she’d been watching J.D. drive away, warmed by his return to Beartooth.
“What’s he doing in town?” Frank demanded, frowning after J.D.’s pickup.
She definitely didn’t like his tone. “Visiting his family.”
“How long is he staying?”
“As long as he wants to.” Her hands went to her hips. “What’s with all the questions?”
He blinked before turning his frown on her. “He’s trouble.”
“You haven’t seen him in years. Maybe he’s changed.”
Frank scoffed at that.
It had been weeks since she’d seen Frank. This wasn’t how she’d hoped things would go when he stopped by the store again.
“Well, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,” she said, feeling her indignation as well as her temper rise.
“Of course you are.”
He was making her mad now. “What does that mean?”
“It means, Lynette, that you have always had a soft spot for J.D.” Frank was the only one who called her by her given name. Normally just the sound of it on his lips would have made her day.
“Frank Curry, that’s not true! That was more than thirty years ago, but you were always the one who—” She caught herself before she said, “—I was soft on.”
“You can bet he’s here for more than a visit.” Frank’s gaze narrowed at her. “What did he want with you?”
She bristled. “Maybe he just stopped in to say hello or buy something.”
Frank shook his head. “He’s a lot cagier than that. Believe me, he wanted something.” He shoved back his Stetson, his gaze on her face. “What did he want?” Clearly he was determined to wait her out. She realized he must have overheard J.D. saying he would be back.
“You’ll find out soon enough anyway, I guess,” she said with a sigh. “He asked about renting my apartment.”
“I hope to hell you didn’t rent it to him.”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
Frank swore again. “What were you thinking, Lynette?”
“That maybe he deserves a second chance? People change, you know.” She knew this was aimed more at herself and Frank and had little to do with J.D. It was she and Frank who deserved a second chance. Why couldn’t he see that?
He eyed her warily. “What are you getting so mad about?”
“You. I haven’t seen you in weeks, and you suddenly show up and...” She choked on the words, unable to say more for fear she would cry. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been brought to tears, but standing out here on the store porch, the spring air warm and scented with pines, wasn’t going to be one of them.
“I want you to stay clear of him.”
She stared at Frank in disbelief. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were...jealous.”
“Jealous? Isn’t it possible that I worry about you? That I don’t want to see you make an even bigger mistake?”
“I’m sorry, but what was the first big mistake you’re referring to?”
He pulled his Stetson off and slammed it against his leg as if to knock off invisible dust. He had to know he’d stepped in it this time.
“Well, Frank? Surely it wasn’t me not marrying you.”
He stuffed his hat back on his thick, blond-and-only-slightly-graying hair. If only he wasn’t so good-looking.
“Sometimes, Lynette,” he said and, without another word, turned and strode across the street toward the Branding Iron.
Nettie watched him go, wanting to call him back and start over. She realized she should have asked about Tiffany. She also shouldn’t have gotten mad and said what she had. More than anything she wanted him to have been as happy to see her as she’d been to see him.
It wasn’t like him to let someone like J.D. upset him like that. Frank hadn’t been himself for months now. She worried about him—when she wasn’t furious with him. How long was it going to take for him to come to his senses and ask her out? They’d both be ninety with one foot in the grave by the time he finally got around to it. If he ever did.
“Stubborn damned fool,” she said under her breath, all the time hoping he would look back before he disappeared into the café. He didn’t.
* * *
THE FIRST THING Deputy Jamison noticed after they left the truck and horse trailer behind and rode into the mountains was the quiet. It hung in the dark, dense pines. The sound of the horses climbing the mountain seemed small and isolated as if nothing could truly disrupt the mountains’ eerie silence.
