B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection (13 page)

As Dana slumped into her chair, Stacy carefully cut the cake. Dana noticed that her sister’s hands were trembling. She served everyone a piece, then started to ask, “Should we sing—”

“No,” Dana interrupted. “The cake is more than enough.”

Stacy looked disheartened but sat and picked up her fork. “I hope it tastes all right. I don’t do much baking.”

Jordan snorted at the understatement.

Dana studied her older brother as she took a bite of the cake. What would Jordan have done if Stacy hadn’t arrived when she had?

“It’s good,” Dana said, touched by her sister’s kind gesture even though she didn’t want to be.

Jordan downed his and shoved his plate and fork aside. “Could we please get this settled now?”

Stacy looked angrily at their brother. “You are such a jerk,” she snapped, and got
up to take everyone’s dishes to the sink.

“Leave the dishes. I’ll do them,” Dana said, getting up from the table. The kitchen felt too small for this discussion, the smell of chocolate cake too strong. “Let’s go in the living room.”

They all filed into the adjacent room. Clay sat in the corner, Stacy teetered on the edge of the fireplace hearth, Jordan went straight to the bar and poured himself a drink.

“Dana, you’re killing us,” Jordan said after gulping down half a glass of her bourbon. “All these attorney fees to fight you. You know we’re going to win eventually. So why put us through this?”

Dana looked around the room at each of her siblings. “I can’t believe any of you are related to me or Mother. If she knew what you were doing—”

“Don’t bring her into this,” Jordan snapped. “If she wanted you alone to have the ranch then she should have made the proper arrangements.”

“She tried to and you know it,” Dana said, fighting not to lose her temper. “I know Mother talked to each of you before she drafted her new will and explained how you would be paid over the long term.”

“Produce the document,” Jordan demanded.

“You know I can’t.”

He made an angry swipe through the air. “Then stop fighting us. You can’t win and you know it. Dragging your feet has only made things worse. Now we have a dead body on the ranch.”

“The body’s been there for
seventeen years,” Dana said. “It would have turned up sooner or later.”

“Not if Warren had filled in the well like he was supposed to,” Jordan snapped.

Dana narrowed her gaze at him. “You told him to fill in the well?”

Jordan glared at her. “I told him to get the ranch ready to sell. Filling in the well was his idea. How did I know he was going to find human bones in it?”

How indeed?

“We just need to stop fighting among ourselves,” Clay said from the corner.

Jordan rolled his eyes. “No, what we need is to get this ranch on the market and hope to hell this investigation is over as quickly as possible. In the meantime, Dana, you could stop being so antagonistic toward the marshal.”

Dana felt all the air rush from her lungs as if he’d hit her. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that I—”

“Your attitude is making us all look guilty,” Jordan said.

“And you think if I’m nice to Hud, it will make you look any less guilty?” she snapped.

“Please, can’t we all just quit arguing?” Stacy said, sounding close to tears.

“After the ranch sells, I’m leaving,” Clay said out of the blue, making everyone turn to look at him. He seemed embarrassed by the attention. “I have a chance to buy a small theater in Los Angeles.”

“You’d leave Montana?” Dana asked, and realized she didn’t know her younger brother at all.

Clay gave her a
lopsided smile. “You’re the one who loves Montana, Dana. I would have left years ago if I could have. And now, with everyone in town talking about our family as if we’re murderers…Did you know that a deputy made me stop on the way here to have my fingerprints taken?”

“Stop whining, Clay, I got a call from the deputy too,” Jordan said, and looked at Stacy. She nodded that she had, too.

“What do you expect?” Dana said, tired of her siblings acting so put-upon. “A woman’s body was found in our well. We all knew her. She broke up Mom and Dad’s marriage. And, Jordan—”

“Maybe Mom killed her and threw her down the well,” Jordan interrupted.

The room went deathly quiet.

“Don’t give me that look, Dana,” he said. “You know Mom was capable of about anything she set her mind to.”

“I’ve heard enough of this,” Dana said, and headed for the kitchen.

“Well, that’s a surprise,” Jordan said to her retreating back. “We knew we couldn’t count on you to be reasonable.”

Seething with anger, she turned to face him. “I have another month here before the court rules on whether the ranch has to be sold to humor the three of you and I’m taking it. If you don’t like it, too bad. I’m fighting to save the ranch my mother loved. All the three of you want is money—any way you can get it. Even by destroying something
that has been in our family for generations.”

Jordan started to argue but she cut him off. “And as for the murder investigation, you’re all on your own. Frankly, I think you’re all capable of murder.”

Clay and Stacy both denied that they had anything to hide. Jordan just glared at her and said, “You’re making a very big mistake, Dana. I hope you don’t live to regret it.”

She turned and stalked off into the kitchen. Going to the sink, she grabbed the cool porcelain edge and gripped it, Jordan’s threat ringing in her ears.

H
UD GOT THE CALL
from the crime lab just as he was starting to leave his office.

“We’ve found some latent prints on both the box of chocolates and the doll,” Dr. Cross said. “I decided to do the tests myself since it tied in with your ongoing case. Interesting case.”

“Did you come up with a match?” Hud asked.

“No prints on file that matched any of the prints on the doll or the package. We found multiple prints on the doll, all different. As for the gift, only one set.”

Hud felt his heart rate quicken. “My deputy is bringing you up some fingerprints to compare those to. What about the chocolates themselves?”

“No prints on them. Also no sign of a drug or poison. As far as I can tell, they were nothing but chocolate.”

Relieved, Hud sighed. “Thanks for doing this so quickly.” He hung up. There was
one set of prints he hadn’t asked Liza to get for him. Lanny Rankin’s.

Hud planned to get those himself tonight.

He picked up the phone and started calling the local bars on a hunch. The bartender at the second one Hud called said that Lanny was there.

“Try to keep him there. I’m buying,” Hud said. “I’ll be right down.”

D
ANA WASN’T SURPRISED
to hear tentative footfalls behind her and smell her sister’s expensive perfume. Standing at the sink with her back to her sister, she closed her eyes, waiting for the next onslaught. Obviously, Jordan and Clay had sent Stacy in to convince her to change her mind.

“Dana,” her sister said quietly. “I have to tell you something.”

Dana kept her back turned to her sister. She’d planned on asking her sister point-blank what had happened that night five years ago with Hud. But quite frankly, she just wasn’t up to the answer tonight.

“You can’t just keep ignoring me. I’m your sister.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dana said, finally giving up and turning to look at her.

Tears welled in Stacy’s eyes, but she bit her lip to stem them, no doubt realizing that tears would only anger Dana more. Likewise another apology.

“I have to tell you the truth,” Stacy said.

“Don’t,” Dana said. “I told you, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. I know they sent you in here to try to get me to change my mind.”

“I didn’t come in here to
talk about the ranch,” she said, and sounded surprised that Dana would think that. “I need to tell you about Hud.”

Dana felt her face flush. “I’d rather talk about selling the ranch.” She started to step past Stacy, but her sister touched her arm and whispered, “I lied.”

Dana froze, her gaze leaping to Stacy’s face.

Her sister nodded slowly, the tears in her eyes spilling over. “I didn’t sleep with him,” she whispered, and looked behind her as if afraid their brothers might be listening.

“What is this? Some ploy to get me to sell the ranch?” Dana couldn’t believe how low her sister would stoop.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the ranch.” Stacy shook her head, tears now spilling down her cheeks. “I have to tell you the truth, no matter what happens to me. I didn’t want to do it.”

Dana felt her pulse jump. “What are you talking about?” she asked, remembering what Hud had said about Stacy not acting alone that night.

Stacy gripped her arm. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” Dana said, keeping her voice down. “What happened that night?”

Stacy looked scared as she let go of Dana and glanced over her shoulder again.

“Don’t move,” Dana ordered, and walked to the doorway to the living room. “Leave,” she said to Jordan and Clay. Clay got up at once but Jordan didn’t move.

“We’re not finished here,” Jordan said angrily. “And I’m not leaving until this is settled. One way or the other.”

“Stacy and I need
to talk,” Dana said, letting him believe she had to iron things out with her sister before she would give in on selling the ranch.

Clay was already heading for the door as Jordan reluctantly rose. Clay opened the front door then stopped. Dana saw why. Their father’s pickup had just pulled into the yard.

“I’ll be outside talking to Dad,” Jordan said, and practically shoved Clay out the door.

What was their father doing here? Dana wondered as she hurried back to the kitchen. No doubt her siblings had commandeered his help to convince her to sell the ranch. Bastards.

Stacy had sat at the table, her head in her hands. Dana closed the kitchen door as she heard her brothers and their father talking out on the porch. It almost sounded as if Jordan and Angus were arguing.

What was that about? she wondered. She’d find out soon enough, she feared. But right now she wanted some answers out of her sister.

Stacy looked up when Dana closed the kitchen door. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t start that again. Just tell me.” Dana didn’t sit. She stood, her arms folded across her chest to keep her hands from shaking, to keep from strangling Stacy. “Tell me
everything
and whatever you do, don’t lie to me.”

Stacy started to cry. “I’m telling you I didn’t sleep with Hud, isn’t that enough?”

“No. I need to know how he got there. Did he pick you up at the bar? Or did you pick him up?”

Stacy was crying
harder. “I picked him up.”

“How?” Hud swore he’d had only one drink. But she recalled hearing from people at the bar that night that he’d been falling-down drunk when he’d left with Stacy.

“I drugged him.”

Dana stared at her sister in disbelief. “You drugged him!”

“I had to do it!” she cried. “Then before the drug could completely knock him out, I got him outside and into my car.”

Dana could hear raised voices now coming from the living room. The three had brought their argument in out of the cold. But the fact barely registered. Stacy had admitted that she’d drugged Hud and taken him out to her car.

“I was to take him to my place,” Stacy said, the words tumbling out with the tears. “I thought that was all I had to do. I didn’t want to do it. I swear. But if I didn’t…” She began to sob. Angus and Jordan were yelling at each other in the living room, the words incomprehensible.

“What did you do?” Dana demanded, moving to stand over her.

“I didn’t know part of the plan was to make it look like we’d slept together until when you got there the next morning,” Stacy cried. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Dana remembered the look of shock on Hud’s and Stacy’s faces when they’d seen her that morning. She’d thought it was from being caught. But now she recalled it was bewilderment, as well.

“Why tell me now?” Dana demanded. “Why not tell me five years ago
before you ruined everything?”

“I couldn’t. I was scared. I’m still scared, but I can’t live like this anymore.” Stacy looked up, her gaze meeting her sister’s. The fear was as real as the anguish, Dana thought. “I’ve hated myself for what I did. No matter what happens to me now, I had to tell you. I couldn’t live with what I did.”

“What do you mean, no matter what happens to you now?”

Stacy shook her head. “I used to be afraid of going to jail, but even that is better than the hell I’ve been in these past years. I’m not strong like you. I couldn’t stand up to them.”

Them? “Jail?” Dana repeated. For just an instant she flashed again on the memory of Stacy’s face that morning five years ago. Stacy had looked scared. Or was it trapped? “Are you telling me someone was threatening jail if you didn’t go along with setting Hud up?”

The kitchen door banged open and Clay appeared, panicked and breathless. “It’s Dad. I think he’s having a heart attack!”

Lanny Rankin was anything but
happy to see Hud take the stool next to him at the bar.

The lawyer had two drinks in front of him and was clearly on his way to getting drunk.

“What do you want?” Lanny slurred.

“Just thought I’d have a drink.” Hud signaled the bartender who brought him a draft beer from the tap. He took a drink and watched Lanny pick up his glass and down half of what appeared to be a vodka tonic.

“Bring Lanny another drink,” Hud told the bartender.

Lanny shoved his glass away and picked up the second drink and downed it, as well, before stumbling to his feet. “Save your money, Marshal. I’m not drinking with you.”

“I hope you’re not driving,” Hud said.

Lanny narrowed his gaze. “You’d love to arrest me, wouldn’t you? She tell you about us? Is that what you’re doing here? Tell you we’re engaged? Well, it’s all a lie. All a lie.” His face turned mean. “She’s all yours. But then again, she always has been, hasn’t she?”

He turned and stumbled
out the back door.

Hud quickly pulled an evidence bag from his jacket pocket and slipped both of the glasses with Lanny’s prints on them inside. He paid his bill and went outside to make sure Lanny wasn’t driving anywhere.

Lanny was walking down the street toward his condo.

Hud watched him for a moment, then headed for his office. If he hurried, he could get both glasses ready for Liza to take to the crime lab in the morning.

He wondered if Liza had any trouble getting the Cardwell clan’s fingerprints.

Just the thought of the family meeting going on at the ranch made him uneasy. Maybe he would swing by there after he’d sent the glasses to the lab.

Back at his office, Hud got the drink glasses with Lanny’s prints ready and locked the box in the evidence room with the .38 Liza had taken from Angus’s pickup.

As he started to leave, he remembered the list of registered owners of .38 pistols in the county Liza had left on his desk. The list was long. He thumbed through it, his mind more on the family meeting going on at the Cardwell Ranch than the blur of names.

This list had probably been a waste of time. There was a very good chance that Liza had already found the murder weapon and it was now locked in the evidence room. By tomorrow, Hud worried that he would be arresting Angus Cardwell. He didn’t even want to think what that would do to Dana.

He folded the list and stuck it in his pocket. As he started leave, planning to go out and
check on Dana, no matter how angry it made her, he heard the call come in on the scanner. An ambulance was needed at the Cardwell Ranch.

“H
OW’S
D
AD
?” Dana asked when she found Jordan and Clay in the waiting room at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital. She hadn’t been able to get any information at the desk on her way in and the roads down the canyon had been icy, traffic slow.

Clay shrugged, looking miserable and nervous in a corner chair.

“The doctor’s in with him,” Jordan said, pacing the small room, clearly agitated.

“Where’s Stacy?” she asked. Earlier Dana had glanced through the open living room doorway and seen her father on the floor, Jordan leaning over him. She’d let out a cry and run into the living room. Behind her she’d heard Clay on the phone calling for an ambulance on the kitchen phone.

It wasn’t until later, after the ambulance had rushed Angus to the hospital and Dana began looking for her keys to follow in her pickup, that she’d realized Stacy was gone.

“When did Stacy leave?” Dana asked, glancing around.

Both brothers shrugged. “After I called 9-1-1 I turned around and I noticed your back door was open and when I went out to follow the ambulance, I saw that her car was already gone.”

“Stacy just left?” Dana asked in
disbelief. Why would her sister do that without a word? Especially with their father in the next room on the floor unconscious?

Stacy’s words echoed in Dana’s ears. “No matter what happens to me now.” Was it possible her sister was in danger because she’d told Dana the truth?

Dana couldn’t worry about that now. “What were you and Dad fighting about?” she asked Jordan.

“This is not my fault,” Jordan snapped.

“I’ll get us some coffee,” Clay said, and practically bolted from the room.

Jordan and Angus couldn’t have been arguing about the sale of the ranch. Her father had said he wasn’t going to take sides, but he did add that he felt the ranch was too much for Dana to handle on her own.

“Sell it, baby girl,” he’d said to Dana. “It’s an albatross around your neck. Your mother would understand.”

“That’s how you felt about the ranch, Dad, not me,” she’d told him, but he’d only shook his head and said, “Sell it. Some day you’ll be glad you did. And it will keep peace in the family.” He’d always been big on keeping peace in the family. Except when it came to his wandering ways.

“I heard the two of you yelling at each other in the other room,” Dana said. “What was going on?”

Jordan stopped pacing to look at her. “The stupid fool thinks I killed Ginger.”

Ginger Adams, the woman whose wrist he’d broken in an argument. The woman who’d ended up in the Cardwell Ranch well. The floor under
her seemed to give way. “Why would Dad think that?”

“Who the hell knows? He’s always been a crazy old fool.”

Dana bristled. “Dad is a lot of things. Crazy isn’t one of them.”

Jordan’s look was lethal. “Don’t play games with me. Dad told me you knew about me and Ginger. What’s crazy is that he thinks I took his gun.”

She stared at him. “The missing .38?”

“Turns out it wasn’t missing,” Jordan said. “It was under the seat of his pickup and now the cops have it. He thinks I took the gun and then when Ginger’s body was found, I put it under the pickup seat to frame him for her murder.”

Dana felt her heart drop to her feet. Hadn’t Hud told her that the gun was used in both Ginger’s murder and Judge Randolph’s? What motive could Jordan have to kill the judge though? “Jordan, you didn’t—”

Jordan let out a curse. “You think I’m a murderer, too?” His angry gaze bore into her. “Not only a murderer, but I framed my own father, as well?” He let out a scornful laugh and shook his head at her. “I guess I didn’t realize how little you and Dad thought of me until now.” He turned and stormed out of the waiting room, almost colliding with Clay who was carrying a cardboard tray with three cups of coffee on it.

What bothered Dana was the guilty look in Jordan’s eyes before he left.

“Thanks,” she said as she took one of the foam cups of hot coffee Clay offered
her and stepped out in the hallway, fighting the terrible fear that had settled in the pit of her stomach.

At the sound of footfalls, she turned to see her father’s doctor coming toward her. She froze. All she could think about was the day of her mother’s accident and the doctor coming down the hall to give her the news. She couldn’t lose another parent.

H
UD SPOTTED
D
ANA
the moment he walked into the Bozeman hospital emergency room waiting area. Relief washed through him, making his legs feel boneless. She was all right.

She was talking to the doctor and he could see the concern in her face. He waited, studying her body language, fear closing his throat.

Her shoulders seemed to slump and he saw her hand go to her mouth, then brush at her tears. She was smiling and nodding, and Hud knew that whatever had happened, there had been good news.

She saw him then. He tried not to read anything into her expression. For a moment there she’d actually looked glad to see him.

She said something to the doctor then walked toward him. He caught his breath. Sometimes he forgot how beautiful she was. Her eyes were bright, cheeks flushed from crying, her face glowing with the good news the doctor had given her.

“Dana?” he said as she closed the distance. “What’s happened?”

“Dad. He had a
heart attack.” Her voice broke. “But the doctor says he’s stable now.” She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “I have to talk to you.”

“Okay.” He couldn’t help but sound tentative. She hadn’t wanted to lay eyes on him—let alone talk to him. “Did you want to talk at the office or—”

She glanced around, making him wonder where her brothers were. And Stacy. “Could we go back to your place?”

His place? “Sure.” Whatever she wanted to talk to him about was serious. “You want to follow me?”

She shook her head. “I need to stop by Stacy’s. You go on. I’ll meet you there.”

Whatever that was about he didn’t want to know. But at the same time, he didn’t like the idea of her going alone.

“I could go with you,” he said.

She shook her head again. “I’ll meet you at the cabin you’re renting.” She knew where he lived?

“I’ll see you soon,” he said.

She nodded distractedly. “Soon.”

As he got into his patrol car, he tried not to even guess what this was about. But he had a bad feeling it could have something to do with her father’s gun now locked in his evidence cabinet at the office.

The night was clear, stars bright dots in the crystalline cold blue of the sky overhead. Snow covered everything. It sat in puffy white clumps in the branches of the trees and gleamed in the starlight like zillions of diamonds on the open field across the road.

The drive home was
interminable. He kept looking in his rearview mirror, hoping to see the headlights of Dana’s pickup. She’d said she needed to make a stop by Stacy’s. He wished he’d asked how long she might be.

He parked in front of the cabin, the night darker than the inside of a gunny sack. In the cabin, he straightened up, built a fire and put on some coffee.

A wind had come up. It whirled the light fresh snow in a blizzard of white outside the window. He should have insisted she ride with him as upset as she was. But he’d had no desire to go to Stacy’s, and Dana hadn’t wanted him along.

The sky over the tops of the pines darkened as another storm moved in. He’d forgotten how dark it could be in the dead of winter.

He watched the road—what little of it he could see through the swirling snow. Surprisingly he really had missed winters while in Los Angeles. Missed the seasons that were so dramatic in Montana. Especially winter. Two feet of snow could fall overnight. It wasn’t unusual to wake up to the silence and the cold and know that something had changed during the night.

Dana should be here by now
. He began to worry, thinking about what he’d heard in her voice. She’d been upset about her father. But that hadn’t been all of it. Something had happened. Something she needed to talk to him about. But first she had to see Stacy.

Hud was to the point where he was ready to go looking for her when he spotted headlights through the drifting snow.

She pulled in beside his
patrol car and got out, seeming to hesitate. She was wearing a red fleece jacket, her dark hair tucked up under a navy stocking cap. A few strands whipped around her face as she stared at the cabin.

He opened the front door and stood looking at her. A small drift had formed just outside the door and now ran across the porch. The steps down had disappeared, the snow smooth and deep.

He met her gaze through dancing snowflakes, then reached for the shovel. But before he could clean off the steps, she was coming up them, all hesitation gone.

To his utter shock, she rushed to him. He took her in his arms, now truly afraid.

“I’m sorry.” Her words were barely audible over the howl of the wind across the roof. “I’m so sorry.”

He held her, his heart in his throat. He hugged her to him, breathing in the smell of her. God, how he’d missed that scent. But what could she possibly be sorry about?

Holding her felt so good, he hated it when she stepped from his arms and went inside the cabin. He followed, closing the door to the wind and snow.

She had walked to the fireplace. When she turned, he saw the tears. Dana crying. He could count on one hand the times he’d seen that. His fear escalated.

“Whatever it is, I’ll help you,” he said, wanting to hold her again but afraid to step toward her.

She let out a laugh at his words and shook her head. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright. “I haven’t killed anyone. Although it
did cross my mind.” She sobered, her gaze locked on his. “I talked to my sister.”

His heart dislodged from his throat and dropped to his stomach.

She jerked her cap from her head, shaking off the snow as her hair fell around her shoulders. “She told me everything.”

He didn’t move—didn’t breathe. He’d told himself that he’d come back here to learn everything that had happened that night but now he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know.

“You were right. She lied. She was sent to the bar to drug you, get you out of there before the drug completely knocked you out and take you to her place. It was just as you suspected—” her voice broke, eyes shimmering with tears “—nothing happened. You
were
set up.” A tear trailed down her cheek. “
We
were set up.”

It took him a moment. So it had been just as he’d believed in his heart. No matter how drunk he might have been, he wouldn’t have bedded Dana’s sister or any other woman for that matter. He’d known it. And yet he’d feared that for that night, he’d lost his mind and his way.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. That I didn’t even give you a chance to explain.”

He found himself shaking with relief and anger as he stepped to Dana and pulled her into his arms again. “I couldn’t have explained it. That’s why I left. I thought it would be easier on you if you never had to see me again.”

“But you came back.”

“Thanks to your sister.”

Dana raised her head
to look into his face. “Stacy sent you the note?”

He nodded. “I found the birthday card she mailed you, the one you’d thrown away. It was under the box of chocolates. I recognized the handwriting.”

“So she was responsible for you coming back.” She leaned into him again.

He rested his chin on the top of her head. Her hair felt like silk. Her body softened against his. He could feel his heart pounding. Nothing had happened that night. He closed his eyes and pulled Dana even closer, wishing he could turn back the clock. These wasted years apart felt like a chasm between them.