by Cindy Kirk
The sound of a truck pulling up in the drive had Viper forgetting all about him to focus her attention on a new target. She gave three short high-pitched barks but quieted instantly at Margot’s command.
“I’ll get—” he began, shoving back his chair.
“I’ll get it.” She was already on her feet and moving toward the foyer. “This is my house.”
Brad moved to the counter, pulled out another mug and filled it with coffee, then topped off his and Margot’s cups.
He’d barely finished dumping the breakfast dishes in the sink when Margot and Viper returned with Russ Campbell.
Brad had met Russ when he returned to Montana after three years in Colorado. A police detective from Kalispell, Russ had recently been doing some consulting detective work for Gage Christensen in Rust Creek Falls.
“Mornin’, Russ.” Brad handed the guy a cup and then quickly performed introductions. “What made you stop by?”
“Margot, here.” Russ took the cup gratefully then glanced at the woman. “Called the station and asked Gage when we started allowing squatters.”
“I called because I need to know what’s been done and what you’re doing now to find my father.” Margot spoke slowly and distinctly, her eyes flashing. “That’s my first priority. Getting rid of him—” she pointed to Brad “—is secondary.”
Brad found it interesting she seemed so concerned about locating her dad now. According to what she’d said last night, they hadn’t spoken in months.
Once the deputy asked his questions, Brad had a few of his own.
Chapter Three
“Let’s sit.” Russ gestured to the table and took a gulp of coffee.
Brad topped off his mug. Instead of sitting, he leaned back against the counter.
His actions didn’t surprise Margot. Cowboys were an independent breed who didn’t like to be told what to do.
Russ took a seat at the table. He was a good-looking guy: around six foot two with broad shoulders, wavy brown hair and hazel eyes.
Margot wondered if the detective had grown up in the area but couldn’t place him. Russ was older enough that if he had, she wouldn’t have known him.
She remembered Brad because everyone knew the Crawfords. When Brad went off to college, she was still playing with dolls. By the time he was back, he was running with an older crowd and then he was married.
She forced her thoughts from Brad and back to the question that Russ had just asked him.
“Is it that you like hearing me repeat myself?” Brad frowned into his coffee before lifting his gaze. “We went through all of this right after Boyd left.”
“Miss Sullivan wasn’t here then.” The detective slanted a smile in her direction. “I’d like to catch her up to speed. Perhaps she can shed some light on the situation.”
“Please call me Margot,” she told Russ with a smile.
“Margot, then. You can call me Russ.”
Brad gave a snort of disgust. “Now that we’ve got that settled,” he said with a sarcastic drawl, “can we move this along? I have fences to mend.”
Russ merely smiled and inclined his head, obviously an indication that the ball was still in Brad’s court.
Margot watched him square his shoulders.
“It was the Fourth of July. I went to the wedding—of Braden Traub and Jennifer MacCallum,” he clarified for Margot. “They had a reception in Rust Creek Falls Park. The usual barbecue and this wedding punch that lots of people couldn’t get enough of...including your father.”
“Go on,” Russ prompted.
“Several of us guys, including Boyd, ended up at the Ace in the Hole saloon. We played a little poker. Had some drinks.” Brad looked as Margot. “The bets were getting a little out of hand. Your father was really betting like crazy. For a while he was winning. Then his luck changed. He lost everything he’d won...and then all the money he had on him.”
“My father was,” Margot paused and took a deep breath, “is an alcoholic. He quit drinking around the time he met my mother and had been sober ever since. After she died, he went to the bottle for comfort. It was as if he had nothing more to live for since she was gone.”
“He had you,” Brad said quietly.
“I guess he didn’t see it that way.” Margot tried to force a smile to her lips but it wouldn’t slip into place.
“On that particular day, most of the town was drunk.” Russ jotted down some notes, glanced back up at Margot. “What about gambling? Was that an issue for him, too?”
She thought for a moment. “I can’t say for certain. During my childhood, he never gambled. I remember my parents had friends who were always asking them to go to the casinos in Kalispell with them, but they’d never go.”
Russ asked for their names and added their contact information to his growing notes. “I’ll check with them to see if a gambling addiction was ever mentioned.”
Margot shifted her gaze to Brad. “You said he ran out of money. What happened then?”
“The pot was large. Everyone seemed to think they held the winning hand, so it kept growing.” Brad shifted from one foot to the other. “Then it was just me and Boyd. He grew frantic when it was time for him to ante up. He had no more money and he didn’t want to drop out. He put up the deed to the ranch so he could stay in. Insisted upon it.”
Margot raised a skeptical brow. “Insisted?”
“Yes,” Brad said flatly. “You know how bullheaded your dad can be. I tried to talk him out of it, but let’s just say his, ah, response made it clear I was to mind my own.”
It rang true. Margot had been on the receiving end of her father’s sharp tongue. When he was in one of his black moods, you couldn’t tell him a darn thing.
She took a breath and exhaled. “So he lost the hand—” she added, more to neatly tie up the incident with a bow than because she had any doubt of the outcome “—and the ranch.”
“The punch at the wedding was spiked,” Russ interjected.
Clearly annoyed, Brad pinned the detective with his gaze. “I’ve admitted—numerous times—that while I may have had a few glasses, I wasn’t drunk. What I’ve told you is accurate.”
Margot’s gaze turned speculative.
“I had a full house,” Brad explained. “He had three queens. Normally a winning hand. Just not this time.”
“You didn’t have to take it.” Even she could hear the recrimination in her tone. “The ranch, I mean.”
“You think I wanted to take it? You know your dad. He shoved the deed in my face the next day.” Brad lifted his hands, let them drop. “Then he was gone. No one has seen him since.”
“One-way ticket to New York City,” Russ confirmed.
“He was out of money.” Margot’s head swam. None of this made any sense. “Yet he had enough to buy himself a train ticket all the way across the country?”
Brad shrugged. “Apparently.”
“We’re thinking someone bought him that ticket.” Russ cast a pointed glance at Brad.
“I didn’t buy it,” Brad answered with a cold stare of his own. “I made that very clear.”
“Who would do something like that?” Margot’s voice rose then broke. “Who would put a drunken old man on a train to New York City, a place where he doesn’t have any friends or family? Where someone could hurt him or—”
She closed her eyes briefly and fought for control.
“We initially assumed he’d gone to see his sister—”
“Until you found out she lived in New Jersey, not New York, and has been dead almost two years.”
“That’s right.” Russ looked surprised but his tone remained carefully controlled. “How did you know—?”
“I told her,” Brad said. “And I also mentioned how we’ve been trying to track he
r down ever since Boyd disappeared.”
“I’m sorry about that. I should have stayed in closer contact.”
“Why didn’t you?” Russ asked bluntly, his shrewd hazel eyes fixed on her.
Margot resisted the urge to squirm under that penetrating gaze. Instead she squared her shoulders. “We argued the last time I called.”
Russ’s gaze narrowed on her face. He lifted his pencil over his notepad. “What about?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Margot saw Brad pull out the chair and take a seat on her right. He wrapped both hands around his mug and leaned back.
“About everything.” Margot gave a humorless laugh. “I told him I won second place in Cortez. He reminded me that ‘second place is the first loser.’ I could tell by how he was slurring his words he’d been drinking. I confronted him.”
“What happened then?” Russ leaned forward, resting his arms on the table, his intense eyes never leaving her face.
“He told me if I was going to be on his ass every time we spoke, not to bother calling again.” She blinked away the tears that flooded her eyes. “He’d had a hard time of it since my mother died. He told me numerous times how hard it was to be here without her. I thought if I gave him some space...”
“There was no way for you to know he’d take off.” When Brad reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze, Margot didn’t know which of them was more surprised. He quickly pulled back.
“Then I got injured.” Margot relayed the events of that day. “I ended up in the hospital. I called him but he didn’t answer and there was no voice mail. He refused to set it up. I must have tried to reach him at least fifty times. I was angry. I was hurt.”
“Were you worried?” Russ asked.
“I would have been, if we hadn’t had that blowup.” Margot blew out a breath and closed her eyes. Once she had her rioting emotions suppressed, she lifted her chin and fixed her gaze on Russ. “When the doctors told me I was out for the season, I stayed with a friend in Cheyenne for a bit but she had a small apartment and a roommate. I was in the way. I decided to come home. I planned to heal my hard head and hopefully mend fences with my father.”
Vivian nudged her hand with her nose and Margot patted the dog’s head, grateful for the show of support.
“When I got here, my dad was gone.” She gestured with one hand toward Brad. “He was here, acting as if he owned the place.”
“Well, I’m afraid he does own the Leap of Faith.” Russ cast a censuring glance in Brad’s direction.
Emotions rose hot and hard, nearly suffocating Margot with their intensity. “You—you can’t win a ranch in a card game.”
“Boyd signed the deed over to him.” Russ shot her a sympathetic look. “We’ve checked and it was a legitimate business transaction.”
“It was a poker game,” she said so loudly Vivian swiveled her head and growled.
At Russ? At Brad? Did it even matter?
Later, she would deal with the ownership of the ranch. For now, Margot would focus on what was most important...finding her dad.
“Tell me what steps you’ve taken to find him.”
“We’ve notified the New York City Police Department as well as the police departments of every stop between here and there.” Russ spoke in what she thought of as a police voice. “Because of your father’s age and questionable cognitive ability, we were able to put him out there as a ‘Missing Vulnerable Adult.’”
“How is that different than simply being a missing person?” Margot asked.
“More attention,” Russ told her. “More focus.”
“Has anyone spoken with him since he left Rust Creek Falls?” she asked. “Or have there been any sightings in any of the cities on the train route?”
“No.” Russ gentled his tone. “That doesn’t mean we quit looking. I check in weekly with the departments in the towns where the train stopped.”
Margot shoved back her chair with a clatter and began to pace. “He can’t have vanished into thin air. I should go to New York, see—”
“New York City has a population of over eight and a half million.” Russ rose and moved to her, his voice calm. “The best thing you can do is to wait here. Let us know if he contacts you.”
Margot blew out a breath, raked her fingers through her hair. She returned to the table and dropped down in the seat she’d vacated only moments earlier. “You’re right. It’s just that...he’s my dad. He’s old and he’s out there alone.”
And there was a man living in her house who, despite what the detective said, had no right to be here.
This was her home. She was the one who belonged. If Brad Crawford thought she would move out because of a poker hand, he would soon learn differently.
* * *
Brad watched Russ drive off from the front porch and hoped he’d seen the last of the deputy. The man obviously still had it into his head—just like many others in town—that Brad had something to do with Boyd’s mysterious disappearance. That, for an unknown reason, he wanted the old guy out of town so badly he’d purchased a train ticket.
Even though it made no sense, the rumor persisted. Brad had heard the whispers and seen the sidelong glances. He’d paid them no mind, telling himself it really was no different than the gossip that flourished whenever one of his relationships came to an end.
Rust Creek Falls was a nice little town but people clearly had too much time on their hands to speculate and draw erroneous conclusions.
He glanced around, wondering where Margot had gone. She’d said her goodbyes to the deputy but then disappeared when Russ stepped outside.
The sound of a dog barking came from the stables so Brad headed in that direction. The saddle was already on her gray Arabian when he stepped inside. The dog was there too, baring her teeth in welcome.
“Hey, Viper, the mean-dog act is getting old,” Brad told the animal, ignoring the growls.
Margot turned, her brows slamming together. “What did you call her?”
“Viper. That’s her name.”
“That is not her name.” Margot scowled. “Her name is Vivian.”
“Seriously?”
Her chin lifted. “What’s so strange about that?”
Brad paused, considered, grinned. “My mother has a friend named Vivian. That woman has a certain bite to her so perhaps it’s not so strange. Come to think of it, Mom’s friend also has those streaks of gray in her hair.”
“Har, har. You’re hilarious, Crawford.” Margot reached down and gently rubbed the top of the dog’s head. “Sometimes I call her Vivi.”
He made a gagging sound. “That’s even worse.”
“Deal with it. That’s her name.”
“I’m going to call her Viper,” he said, settling the matter.
“You most certainly are not.” Her voice snapped like sheets hung out to dry on a windy day.
“Try and stop me.” He shot her a wicked smile, enjoying the banter.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to stop you. You’re moving out, so you won’t be around to call her anything.”
“Wrong again, Red.”
She leaned forward, giving him a good view of her lace bra. He tried to think of something else that would irritate her but there was only one thought in his head.
If she’d only lean closer...
Not only would he be interested in seeing more, he wanted to immerse himself in her, in her scent. She smelled like wildflowers. Not the sickening over-the-top fragrance his grandma wore, the kind that made his eyes water, but a light, airy scent that enveloped him, made him want to draw closer.
Her boot barely missed his gut as she swung into the saddle. “I’m going to check the property.”
“I haven’t sold any of it off since your dad hightailed it out of to
wn,” he assured her. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”
“How reassuring.” Her eyes were cool. “Actually I plan to check the fence line. It’s October. The weather could change any time. There were some sections that needed—”
“Already done.” Brad smiled when he saw the shock on her face then turned and quickly saddled his own horse, a three-year-old roan called Buck.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He grinned, kicked the horse gently in the sides and headed out of the stable. “Enjoying an autumn day with a beautiful woman.”
Chapter Four
Despite the worry over her father, Margot relaxed in the saddle. She’d grown up riding before she could walk. The fact that she couldn’t compete until next season was a blow, but she was thankful the doctor said she could still ride at a slow walk. Exploring these meadows and valleys on horseback under the big Montana sky had been a huge part of her childhood.
Though she’d never given much thought to the matter, she realized now that the land she assumed would always be there for her was in danger of slipping away.
A poker game.
It was a good thing her mother wasn’t here. Giselle Sullivan would have kicked her husband’s ass nine ways to Sunday if he’d pulled a stunt like this when she was alive. Of course, Boyd would never have gambled or drank or ordered his only daughter to stay away if her mother was still alive.
He adored the pretty city girl he’d married when he was fifty-three. Married once in his early twenties, then quickly divorced because of his drinking, Boyd had long given up hope of finding his own happily-ever-after.
Margot recalled how his face glowed whenever he spoke of the day he’d run into Giselle in New York City. Though her father rarely left the ranch in later years, apparently he’d once loved to travel. Running into the pretty career woman had been a fluke, but for both of them it had been love at first sight. He’d quit drinking right then and there, knowing Giselle deserved better.
Sobriety had stuck. They’d stuck. When Margot made an appearance two years later when Giselle was forty-three, both her parents had shed tears of joy.
