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Tall weeds between the two-track road brushed the bottom of the pickup, and rocks kicked up, pinging off the undercarriage. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carson grab the handle over the door as she took the first turn.
“Sorry to see your driving hasn’t improved,” he said.
She laughed. “You’ve been gone too long.”
“Not long enough.”
“Come on, haven’t you missed this?” She found that hard to believe. Didn’t he notice how beautiful it was here? The air was so clear and clean. The land so pleasing to the eye. And there was plenty of elbow room for when you just wanted to stretch out some.
The road cut through the fertile valley, stubble fields a pale yellow, the freshly plowed acres in fallow dark with the turned soil.
“Apparently you haven’t been listening to me any more than WT has,” her brother said. “This is just land to me. I feel no need to take root in it.”
They fell silent, the only sound the roar of the engine and the spray of dirt clods and rocks kicked up by the tires. The land dropped toward the river, falling away in rolling hills that had turned golden under the bright sun of autumn.
Ahead she saw the brilliant blue of pooled water and smiled, feeling like a kid again. Over the next rise, she swung the pickup onto a rutted track that ended at the water’s edge. Summer had burned all the color out of the grass around the small lake. Only a few trees stood on the other side, their leaves rust red, many of the branches already bared off.
Destry parked the truck next to an old rowboat that lay upside down beside the water like a turtle in the sun. Getting out, together they flipped the boat over and carried it to the water before going back for the poles, tackle box and the cooler she’d packed.
“When was the last time you went fishing?” she asked as they loaded everything into the boat.
“Probably with you. As I recall I caught more fish than you, bigger ones, too.”
She laughed. “Apparently your memory hasn’t improved any more than my driving.”
Their gazes held for a long moment. Carson was the first to look away. “Hop in. If you’re determined to do this...” He pushed the rowboat off the shore and climbed in.
Destry breathed in the day, relaxing for the first time since her brother’s return. She dipped her fingers into the deep green water. It felt cold even with the October sun beating down on its surface.
“I assume you brought worms,” Carson said, reaching into the cooler. He opened the Styrofoam container and tossed her a wriggling night crawler, chuckling when she caught it without even making a face.
“You never were like other girls,” he said.
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.” The water rippled in the slight breeze as the boat drifted for a few moments before Carson took the oars. He rowed the boat out to the center of the reservoir, then let the tips of the oars skim the glistening surface as they drifted again.
Destry watched her red-and-white bobber float along on top of the water in the breeze. From the horizon came the loud honking of a large flock of geese. The eerie sound seemed to echo across the lake as the geese carved a dark V through the clear, cloudless blue.
Nothing signaled the change of season like the migration of the ducks and geese. She thought of all the seasons she’d seen come and go, so many of them without her brother, the lonesome call of the geese making her sad.
“I don’t want you to leave again,” she said without looking at him.
Water lapped softly at the side of the boat. The breeze lifted the loose tendrils of hair around her face. A half dozen ducks splashed in the shallows near the shore, taking flight suddenly in a spasm of wings. Beads of water hung in the air for an instant as iridescent as gleaming pearls.
“I’ll bet there aren’t any fish in this reservoir anymore,” Carson said. He was lying back on the seat, eyes closed, his pole tucked under one arm, the other arm over his face. He wore a T-shirt and an old pair of worn jeans, the legs rolled up, and a pair of equally old sneakers. The Western straw hat he’d been wearing rested on the floor of the boat.
“Doesn’t really matter if there are fish, does it?”
Carson moved the arm from his face enough to open one eye and look at her. “Only if you hope to catch something.”
“I’m happy just being here,” she said.
“You would be. Some people actually like to catch fish when they go fishing.” He went back to half dozing on the seat.
“Are you really going to marry Cherry?” Destry asked after a few minutes had passed.
“Why else would I have asked her?”
“Because at the time it seemed like a good idea?”
Her brother snickered. “It did seem like a better idea in Vegas than in Beartooth, Montana. She doesn’t exactly fit in here, does she?”
“Is she bored to tears?”
“Yep, and worried about grizzly bears coming down and eating her in the middle of the night. She can’t believe the closest big-box store is over an hour away.” Carson laughed. “I hate to think what will happen if she breaks a nail.”
The sound of her brother’s laughter filled Destry with such love for him. She leaned back, letting the warm morning and the gentle slap of the water on the side of the boat lull her. Overhead, a red hawk circled on a warm thermal.
“You haven’t asked me if I killed Ginny,” Carson said, and she felt the boat rock as he leaned up on one elbow to look at her.
She thought she could see the hawk circling overhead reflected in his gaze. “You didn’t. You couldn’t.”
He scoffed and lay back again, the arm back over his face. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we’re all capable of despicable acts when we’re backed into a corner. But thanks for believing in me, sis. It means a lot.”
* * *
NETTIE FELT SICK TO HER stomach as she stared at the shattered window, the shards of glass glittering on the floor. Who had done such a thing?
She took a step back, her heart pounding as she realized whoever had broken the window could still be somewhere in the store.
Rushing to the phone, she dialed the sheriff with trembling fingers. “I’ve been burglarized!” she screamed into the phone the moment the dispatcher put her through.
“Who is this?” Sheriff Frank Curry asked in a voice so calm it set Nettie’s already frayed nerves on edge.
She’d known Frank Curry since she was a girl. “Who the devil do you think it is?” she snapped. “My store was burglarized.” She dropped her voice. “He might still be here.”
“Lynette,” the sheriff said. He was the only person who called her by her given name. The way he said it spoke volumes about their past. In just one word, he could make her feel like that lovestruck, teenage girl again. “Perhaps you should wait for me at your house. Where’s your husband?”
She knew only too well what Frank thought of her husband. “Just get up here and don’t you dare send that worthless Deputy Billy Westfall instead.” She slammed down the phone, shaking even harder than she’d been before. She was fairly certain whoever had broken in wasn’t still here. At least not on the lower floor.
The upper level was used for storage. Moving to the second-floor door, she eased it open and peered up the dark steps. She listened, didn’t hear a sound and closed the door and bolted it.
If the burglar was up there, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. She checked her watch and, leaving the closed sign on the front door, settled in to wait. As she glanced across the street to the café again, she realized she’d never had a break-in before Kate LaFond came to town.
* * *
“WHERE’S CARSON?”
Margaret turned from the stove, eyes narrowed. “Good morning to you, too, Waylon.”
WT cursed under his breath. He hated it when she called him Waylon. She only did it because she knew it annoyed him. Or to remind him where he’d come from. As if he needed reminding.
“Don’t act as if you didn’t hear me,” he snapped.
“Why? You do.”
He didn’t know how many times he’d come close to firing her. But they both knew he’d pay hell getting anyone else to cook and clean for him—let alone put up with him.
The real reason he hadn’t sent her packing was that she knew him in a way that no one else did, not that he would ever admit it to her. Like him, she also knew the pain of poverty. Of wearing the same boots until even the cardboard you’d pasted inside couldn’t keep the rocks from making your feet bleed. She knew about hand-me-down clothes and eating wild meat because there wasn’t anything else.
Christmases had been the worst. That empty feeling that settled in the pit of the stomach as the day approached and you knew there would be no presents under the tree. It was hell when even Santa Claus didn’t think you deserved better.
A couple of do-gooders in the area had left presents for him one year. WT had been too young to know what it had cost his parents to accept them. He’d greedily opened each one. A football. A pair of skates. A BB gun.
He remembered the feeling of having something that no one had ever worn or used before him. He’d run his fingers along the shiny BB gun, seeing his reflection in the blade of the skates and holding the warm leather of the football thinking it the happiest day of his life.
The next Christmas, though, he’d seen the look on his father’s face and realized his mother’s tears weren’t those of joy. There was no Santa Claus, only people who felt sorry for him and his family. He’d made sure the do-gooders skipped his house from then on and swore he’d never need or take charity again.
No one knew about any of that—except for Margaret. Yes, that shared past was one reason he didn’t fire Margaret—and that she put up with him. Also, they knew each other’s secrets. That alone was a bond that neither of them seemed able to break. Margaret knew him right down to his black, unforgiving soul.
“I was looking for Carson,” WT said, tempering his words now as he wheeled deeper into the kitchen. “Have you seen him?”
“He left with his sister. I believe they’ve gone fishing.”
“Fishing?”
“Yes, fishing. They haven’t seen each other in more than a decade. I would imagine they want to spend some time together.” She didn’t add, “Away from you,” but he heard it in her tone.
He grunted and spun his wheelchair around to leave.
“Even if you can get him cleared of a murder charge, you can’t keep him here against his will,” she said to his retreating back.
“We’ll see,” he said, gritting his teeth.
* * *
CARSON SURREPTITIOUSLY studied his sister as he pretended to sleep in the gently rocking boat. Everything about this grown-up Destry impressed him. There didn’t seem to be anything she couldn’t handle on the ranch. This afternoon he’d heard that she was planning to ride up into the high country to finish rounding up the cattle. He’d never been able to ride as well as her. Nor did he have her knack for dealing with the day-to-day running of a ranch. The ranch hands had always respected her because she’d never been afraid to get her hands dirty, working right alongside them if needed.
He felt a wave of envy, wishing he were more like her. There was a rare beauty about her, a tranquility and contentment that he’d have given anything for. Was she really that at peace with her life? Or was she just better at hiding her feelings than he was?
Stirring from his dark thoughts, he sat up. “So who are you dating?”
“Dating?” She let out a laugh. “I don’t have time to date. Oh, don’t give me that look. I’ve dated. Don’t you be like Dad and try to marry me off to someone with good pasture or grazing land.”
Carson remembered how WT had been about him and Ginny West.
“Why can’t you be interested in one of the Hamilton girls? Now that’s some nice ranch land those girls are going to inherit, a whole section of irrigated pasture along Little Timber Creek.”
Carson laughed now at the memory and shared it with Destry.
She chuckled. “He’s been pushing me to go out with Hitch McCray in hopes of someday getting that strip of land between ours and the forest service land to the north.”
“He’d even marry you off to Hitch?” Carson let out a curse. “I wouldn’t let Hitch have a mean stray dog. Anyway, he’s too old for you.”
She smiled at that. “He’s only forty.”
“Seriously, you’ve put in your time taking care of WT. Isn’t it time for you to have some fun?”
Destry shook her head, smiling. “I haven’t been holed up here. There’s just nowhere I want to be but here or nothing else I want to do with my life. I could never leave Montana, no matter what.” She studied him. “What about you? What do you want to do with your life?”
He shrugged. He truly didn’t know. He’d thought he was happy in Las Vegas working at the casino, had seen himself married to Cherry and living the rest of his life in the desert.
But some bad luck, WT and this new evidence had changed that.
Destry was studying him openly. “Isn’t there someone you’d like to spend your life with?”
“How can you ask that?” Carson said with a laugh. “I’m engaged to be married.”
“Do you love her?”
He sobered. “Not like I loved Ginny.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m like you. I’m fine.” He almost told her everything then, but he couldn’t bring himself to spoil this beautiful morning with her. Soon enough he would be responsible for breaking her heart. Again.
“What if you could clear your name?” Destry asked.
“After all these years?” he asked with a shake of his head. But her words conjured a future he’d thought lost to him. As he looked out across the land, he told himself not to, but for the first time in years, he felt a sense of hope he hadn’t since Ginny was killed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BETHANY REYNOLDS FINGERED the locket at her neck and tried not to think about her husband as she reached for her hastily discarded clothing.
Her husband, Clete, would have never thought to give her a silver heart-shaped locket. Clete didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. What had the man gotten her for their first Valentine’s Day together? A set of snow tires.
The only reason he’d married her was to get her elk hunting tag. Only a few tags were given out each year in the area he loved to hunt. She’d lucked out and gotten one.
It had taken a moose even to get Clete to notice her. She’d been mooning over him for years. But it wasn’t until she’d come into the Range Rider where he’d worked as a bartender and started showing her moose photos that he finally came around.
She’d drawn a moose tag—and bagged one. That was big news since moose tags were more rare than elk. Of course Clete had been jealous as all get out.
“You got a tag?” Clete had said.
She’d grinned, enjoying his jealousy—until he’d asked, “Who shot it for you?”
Bethany hadn’t even bothered to answer him as she’d turned to show off her moose. It was three times bigger than she was and would feed herself and her family all year.
“What’s moose meat taste like?” one of her “city” friends had asked.
