Cardwell Ranch Trespasser (13 page)

“So why did the Montana Justice family disinherit his son for marrying wealth?” Stacy asked. “That makes no sense.”

No, it didn’t. As Stacy said, there had to be more to the story. Dee could only guess. “It’s a mystery, isn’t it?”

* * *

C
OLT COULDN’T WAIT
to get back to Big Sky. He’d been anxious all day and having trouble concentrating on his investigation. It wasn’t like him. He took his job seriously. Just like Hilde.

When he’d finally gotten a chance, he’d called Needles and Pins. The phone rang four times and went to voice mail. He doubted she was so busy waiting on a customer that she couldn’t answer the phone.

So he waited ten minutes and tried again. Still no answer. He’d never known Hilde not to open the shop. His concern grew even more when he tried later in the afternoon.

He’d finally called Dana and asked for Hilde’s cell phone number. “I tried the shop and couldn’t reach her.”

“That
is
odd,” Dana agreed after she’d given him the number. “She stopped out earlier and brought the kids ice cream sandwiches.”

Colt swore silently. “How did that go?”

“Okay. But she was acting...strange. Is she all right?”

“She’s been through a lot the past few days,” he said. “So she didn’t stay long?”

“No.”

“I’ll give her a call and make sure she’s all right,” he said.

“You’ll let me know if...if there is anything I can do?”

“Sure.” He quickly dialed Hilde’s cell and felt a wave of relief when she answered on the third ring. “You went out to the ranch.” He hadn’t meant for those to be the first words out of his mouth.

“Don’t be mad. I got her fingerprints.”

He bit back a curse. “Hilde.”

“I know. But she stopped by the shop right after I opened this morning.”

If he’d been scared before, he was petrified now. “What did she want?”

“To threaten me. Again. She made it clear that if I didn’t back off—”

“So you went out to the ranch and got her fingerprints. I hate to even ask.”

“I feel like we are racing against the clock,” she said. “I had to do something. She’s more dangerous than even I thought.”

He agreed. “Okay, just do me a favor. Where are you now?”

“I’m at home. I was too antsy to work today.”

“You have the items with her fingerprints on them at the house, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, just stay there, lock the doors, don’t open them for anyone but me. I’m on my way from West. I should be there in an hour. You don’t happen to own a gun, do you? Sorry, of course you don’t.”

“You think you know me that well?” she demanded.

“Yep. Are you going to tell me you do own a gun and know how to shoot it?”

“No.”

He laughed. “Go lock your doors. I’m on my way.”

* * *

D
EE WAS DISAPPOINTED
when she reached the ranch and found out that Hud was working late at the office. He was the only bright spot in a dreary day.

“I see your ankle is better. That’s good,” Dana said when Dee came in with the small presents she’d brought the kids. She hadn’t wanted to spend much, so she’d found some cheap toys. Mary and Hank thanked her, but she could tell she’d bought the wrong things.

Dinner was just the four of them. Dana had fed the twins and put them to bed. The house was deathly quiet since Mary and Hank were practically falling asleep in their dinner plates.

Dee walked around the ranch while Dana bathed the kids and got them to bed. The night was cool and dark. As she walked, something kept nagging at her about earlier at the sewing shop.

She hadn’t been surprised when Hilde had picked up the scissors and lunged at her. Just as she wasn’t surprised the woman was slow and uncoordinated, so much so that it had been child’s play to take the scissors away from her. Often anger made a person less precise, even clumsy, right?

Coming at her with scissors had seemed a fool thing to do, but Dee hadn’t questioned it. Until now.

She recalled how easily it had been to get Hilde to drop the scissors and how surprised she’d been when Hilde had stood there rubbing her wrist as if Dee had broken it.

Hilde hadn’t been trying to stab her.
Far from it. Then why—

The truth hit her like a ton of bricks.

The scissors.

She swore, stopping in her tracks, to let out her anger in a roar aimed at the night sky. All the pieces fell into place in an instant. The triumphant look in Hilde’s eyes.

The woman had gotten her fingerprints!

All the implications of that also fell into place. Once she had her boyfriend Colt run the prints...

Dee slapped herself hard. The force of it stung her cheek. She slapped herself again and again until both cheeks burned as she chanted, “You fool. You fool. You fool.” Just as her mother had done.

By the time she stopped, her face was on fire, but she knew what she had to do.

* * *

H
ILDE COULDN’T REMEMBER
the last time she was this excited about a date. Well, not exactly a date, she supposed. Dinner. Still she wore an emerald-green dress she’d bought and saved for a special occasion.

Colt’s eyes lit when he saw her. “You look beautiful.”

She
felt
beautiful.

“I don’t think you have any idea what you do to me,” he said, his voice sounding rough with emotion. “You make me tongue-tied.”

“I really doubt that,” she said with a small nervous laugh. The desire in his gaze set her blood aflame.

He took a step to her, ran his fingers along one bare arm. She felt her heart jump. Goose bumps skittered across her skin. His gaze moved over her face like a caress before it settled on her mouth. If he kissed her now—

“We had better go to dinner,” he said, letting out a breath as he stepped back from her. “Otherwise...” He met her gaze. “I want to do this right, you know.”

She smiled. “I do, too.”

“Then we’d better go. I made reservations up on the mountain. It’s such a nice night....”

She grabbed her wrap. Montana in the mountains was often cold, even in the summer after the sun went down. She doubted she would need it, though. Being this close to Colt had her blood simmering quite nicely.

They didn’t talk about Dee Anna Justice or the scissors and other evidence locked up back at the house. Colt asked her about growing up in Chicago. She told him about her idyllic childhood and her loving parents.

“I had a very normal childhood,” she concluded. “Most people would say it was boring. How about you?”

“Mine was much the same. It sounds like we were both lucky.”

“So your parents are professors at the University of Montana.”

“My mother teaches business,” he said. “My father teaches math. They’d hoped I would follow in their footsteps, but as much as I enjoyed college, I had no interest in teaching at it. I always wanted to go into law enforcement, especially in a small town. I couldn’t have been happier when I got the job here at Big Sky.”

He had driven up the winding road that climbed to the Mountain Village. There weren’t a lot of businesses open this time of year, but more stayed open all year than in the old days, when there really were only two seasons at Big Sky.

The air was cold up here but crystal clear. Colt was the perfect gentleman, opening her door after he parked. Hilde stood for a moment and admired the stars. With so few other lights, the sky was a dark canopy glittering with white stars. A sliver of moon hung just over the mountains.

“Could this night be more perfect?” she whispered.

When she looked at Colt, he grinned and said, “Let’s see.” His kiss was soft and gentle, a brush across the lips as light as the breeze that stirred the loose tendrils of her hair. And then he drew her to him and deepened the kiss, breaking it off as the door of the restaurant opened and a group of four came out laughing and talking.

“We just keep getting interrupted,” Colt said with a laugh. He put his arm around her waist and they entered the restaurant.

Hilde had never felt so alive. The night seemed to hold its breath in expectation. She could smell adventure on the air, feel it in her every nerve ending. She had a feeling that tonight would be one she would never forget.

* * *

O
VER DINNER,
they talked about movies and books, laughed about the crazy things they did when they were kids, and Colt found himself completely enthralled by his date.

Hilde was, as his grandfather used to say, the whole ball of wax. She was smart and ambitious, a hard worker, and yet she volunteered for several organizations in her spare time. She loved nature, cared about the environment and made him laugh.

On top of that, she was beautiful, sexy and a good dancer. After dinner, they’d danced out in the starlight until he thought he would go crazy if he didn’t get her alone and naked.

“Is it just me, or do you want to get out of here?” Colt said after they took a break from the dance floor.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

He laughed and they left. It was all he could do not to race down the mountain, but the switchback curves kept him in check.

Once out of the vehicle, though, all bets were off. They were in each other’s arms, kissing as they stumbled toward her front door. Once inside, they practically tore each other’s clothes off, dropping articles of clothing in a crooked path before making it only to the rug in front of the fireplace.

“Hilde,” Colt said, cupping her face in his hands as he leaned over her. He couldn’t find words to tell her how beautiful she was or how much he wanted her. Or that he had fallen in love with her. He couldn’t even tell her the exact moment. He just knew that he had.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to put any of that into words. Not tonight. He saw that she understood. It was in her amazing brown eyes and in the one word she uttered as he entered her. “Colt.”

* * *

L
ATER,
C
OLT CARRIED
her to her bed and made love to her slowly. The urgency of their first lovemaking had cooled. He took his time letting his gaze and his fingers and his tongue graze her body as he took full possession of her.

Hilde cried out with a passion she’d never known existed as he cupped her breasts and lathed her nipples with his tongue until she felt her whole body quake. She surrendered to him in a way she’d never given herself to another man. His demanding kisses took her to new heights.

And when he finished, his gaze locked with hers, she felt a release that left her sated and happier than she’d ever known.

As he lay curled against her, one arm thrown protectively over her, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep feeling...loved.

Chapter Ten

Dee woke from the nightmare in a cold sweat. For a few moments, she couldn’t catch her breath. She swung her legs out of bed and stumbled to the window, gulping for air. Her heart felt as if it would pound its way out of her chest.

It was the same nightmare she’d had since she was a girl. She was in a coffin. It was pitch-black. There was no air. She was trapped, and even though she’d screamed herself hoarse, no one had come to save her.

She shoved open the screenless window all the way and leaned out to breathe in the night air. A sliver of moon hung over the top of the mountain. A million stars twinkled against the midnight-blue sky. She shivered as the cold mountain air quickly dried her perspiration and sent goose bumps skittering over her skin.

The nightmare was coming more frequently—just as the doctor had told her it would.

“Do night terrors run in your family?” he’d asked, studying her over the top of his glasses.

“I don’t know. I never asked.”

“How old did you say you were?”

She’d been in her early twenties at the time.

He’d frowned. “What about sleepwalking?”

“Sometimes I wake up in a strange place and I don’t know how I’ve gotten there.”

He nodded, his frown deepening as he tossed her file on his desk. “I’m going to give you a referral to a neurologist.”

“You’re saying there’s something wrong with me?”

“Just a precaution. Sleepwalking and night terrors at your age are fairly uncommon and could be the result of a neurological disorder.”

She’d laughed after she left his office. “He thinks I’m crazy.” She’d been amused at the time.

But back then she was sleepwalking and having the nightmare only every so often.

Now...

She looked out at the peaceful night. “This is all I need. This place and Hud and I will be fine,” she whispered. “Once I get rid of the stumbling blocks, I’ll be fine for the first time in my life.”

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? There were more stumbling blocks than she’d ever run into before. More chances to get caught.

“It would be worth it, though,” she said as she heard a horse whinny out in the corrals. All this could be hers.
Would
be hers. She deserved Dana’s happiness. She deserved Dana’s life—minus the kids.

After getting dressed, she sneaked out and made the walk into town. It was only a couple of miles and she’d walked it before and gotten away with it. If anyone discovered her missing, she’d say she’d gone out to the corral to check the horses. She wasn’t worried. So far, they’d believed everything she told them.

* * *

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Colt tried to talk Hilde out of opening the shop. “Can’t you have someone else man Needles and Pins for a few weeks?”

Hilde touched his handsome face, cupping his strong jaw, and smiled into those blue eyes of his. He’d been so gentle, so loving, last night when they’d made love. At least the second time. Before that, he’d let his passion run as wild as horses in a windstorm.

Her skin still tingled from the memory. She’d never known that kind of wild abandon. Just the thought thrilled her. She’d awakened feeling as if she could conquer the world. Hadn’t she always known that she could be anything she wanted with the right man—in or out of bed?

“I am not going to let Dee or whoever she is keep me from doing what I love,” she said, as she felt the rough stubble along his strong jawline. “Especially this morning when I’m feeling so...”