Cardwell Ranch: The Next Generation ; Justice at Cardwell Ranch

by B. J Daniels

  He shook his head as all the ramifications began to pile up. “I knew she’d been murdered. I damn well knew it. But I would never have guessed...” He sighed. “When I saw my father at Tamara’s cabin, I told him that you’d talked to Tamara about Naomi. I’m sorry. I slipped up.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time we tell your parents the truth? It’s pretty obvious that we’re investigating Naomi’s death.”

  “Come on. Let’s go.” He headed for the door.

  “Just like that?”

  He shook his head. “My father could be here any moment. Let’s go get some lunch. I don’t want to be interrogated on an empty stomach.”

  They left the ranch with him driving the ranch pickup he’d borrowed that morning. “I know this out-of-the-way place.” He turned onto the highway and headed south toward Yellowstone Park.

  Lost in thought, he said little on the drive. He could see that Frankie was battling her own ghosts. He wondered again about the man in her life who kept calling. All his instincts told him that the man was dangerous.

  As he neared the spot they would have lunch, he dragged himself out of his negative thoughts, determined to enjoy lunch with Frankie and put everything behind them for a while.

  “My father and grandfather used to tell stories about driving down here in the dead of winter to get a piece of banana cream pie,” he said as they turned into a place called the Cinnamon Lodge. “It used to be called Almart. Alma and Art owned it and she would save pieces of banana cream pie for them.”

  “That’s a wonderful story,” Frankie said, as if seeing that he wanted to talk about anything but Naomi. “Something smells good,” she said as they got out and approached the log structure.

  Hank figured she wasn’t any more hungry than he was. But he’d needed to get out of the cabin, away from all of it, just for a little while. It wasn’t until after they’d had lunch and were in the pickup again that he told her what he’d been thinking from the moment he saw the crime scene tape around Tamara’s cabin.

  “It’s time for you to go back to Idaho. You can take one of the pickups and—”

  “I’m not leaving,” she said as he started the pickup’s engine, backed out and pulled onto the highway.

  “You don’t understand. You’re fired. I have no more use for your services.”

  * * *

  FRANKIE LAUGHED AND dug her heels in. “You think you can get rid of me that easily?”

  “I’ll pay you the bonus I promised you as well as your per diem and—”

  “Stop! You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

  He glanced over at her, worry knitting his brows. “It’s too dangerous. I should have realized that after what happened yesterday with that truck. But now that we know what we’re dealing with—”

  “Exactly. What we’re dealing with. I want to see this through. With you.” Her last words broke with emotion.

  Hank sighed and reached for her, pulling her over against him on the bench seat of the older-model pickup. She cuddled against him, finding herself close to tears. She couldn’t quit this now. She couldn’t quit Hank. “Frankie—”

  She touched a finger to his lip. “I’m not leaving.”

  “Yesterday was a warning,” he said. “I see that now. If we don’t quit looking into Naomi’s death—”

  “Her murder,” she said, drawing back enough to look at him. “Are you telling me that you can walk away now that you know the truth?” She could see that he hadn’t thought about what he would do.

  “We have no idea who they are. Unless my father can track down that truck and find the driver...”

  “So you think that makes us safe? You think they won’t be worried about what we know, what we found out?”

  “I don’t want to think about it right now.” He pulled her close again, resting his head against the top of hers for a moment as he drove.

  She could hear the steady, strong thump of his heart as she rested her head against his chest. This man made her feel things she’d never felt before. Together there was a strength to them that made her feel safe and strong...and brazen.

  “Then let’s go back to the cabin and not think at all,” she said, taking that unabashed step into the unknown as if she was invincible in his arms.

  * * *

  HANK MEET HER gaze and grinned as he slowed for the turnoff to the ranch. “Are you making a move on me, Miss Brewster?”

  She sat up and started to answer when she looked out the windshield at the road ahead and suddenly froze. Following her gaze, he could see a large dark sedan parked on the edge of the road into the ranch. He looked over at Frankie as she moved out from under his arm to her side of the pickup. All the color had drained from her face.

  “Frankie?” he asked as he made the turn into the ranch and drove slowly by the car. He could see a man sitting behind the wheel. Frankie, he noticed, hadn’t looked. Because, he realized, she knew who it was.

  “Frankie?” Her gaze was still locked straight ahead, her body coiled like a rattler about to strike.

  “Stop,” she said and reached for her door handle.

  He kept going. “No way am I letting you face whatever that is back there alone.”

  She shot him a desperate look that scared him. “Damn it, Hank, this has nothing to do with you. Stop the pickup and let me out. Now!”

  Frankie was right. He’d opened up his life to her, but hers had been off-limits to him from the get-go. Nothing had changed.

  He gritted his teeth as he brought the pickup to a stop. Her door opened at once and she jumped out, slamming the door behind her as she started to walk back to where the car and driver waited.

  Watching in the side mirror, he cursed under his breath as he remembered her frightened expression every time her cell phone had rung with a call from whoever the man had been. Hank would put his money on that same man now sitting in that car, waiting for her.

  All his instincts told him that whoever this man was, he was trouble. Frankie could pretend he wasn’t, but Hank knew better. Except that she’d made it abundantly clear she wanted to handle this herself.

  With a curse, he shifted into gear and headed the pickup down the road toward the ranch. She didn’t need his help. Didn’t want it. The PI thought she could handle this herself. She probably could.

  After only a few yards up the road, he slammed on the brakes. Like hell he was going to let her handle this on her own, whether she liked it or not.

  Throwing the pickup in Reverse, he sped back up the road, coming to a dust-boiling stop in front of the car.

  Frankie had almost reached the vehicle. He saw that the driver had leaned over to throw the passenger-side door open for her to get in. The jackass wasn’t even going to get out.

  He could hear the man yelling at her to get in. Grabbing the tire iron from under the seat, Hank jumped out.

  “She’s not getting into that car with you,” he said as he walked toward the driver’s-side window. He could feel Frankie’s angry gaze on him and heard her yell something at him, but it didn’t stop him. “You have a problem with Frankie? I want to hear about it,” he said, lifting the tire iron.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The man behind the wheel of the car threw open his door and climbed out. He was as tall as Hank and just as broad across the shoulders. The man had bully written all over him from his belligerent attitude to the bulging muscles of his arms from hours spent at the gym. Hank heard Frankie cry, “J.J., don’t!”

  “Who the hell are you and what are you doing with my fiancée?” the man she’d called J.J. demanded.

  Hank shot a look at Frankie across the hood of the man’s car.

  “She didn’t mention that she’s engaged to me?” J.J. said with obvious delight. “I see she’s not wearing her ring either. But you haven’t answered me. Who the hell are—” His words
were drowned out by the sudden whop of a police siren as the marshal pulled in on the other side of Hank’s pickup.

  J.J. swore. “You bitch,” he yelled, turning to glare at her. Frankie had stopped on the other side of his car. She looked small and vulnerable, but even from where he stood, Hank could see that she would still fight like a wild woman if it came to that. “You called the law on me?”

  The man swung his big head in Hank’s direction. “Or did you call the cops, you son of a...” He started to take a step toward Hank, who slapped the iron into his palm, almost daring him to attack.

  J.J.’s gaze swung past him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his father standing in front of his patrol SUV. J.J. saw the marshal uniform as well, swore and hurriedly leaped back into his car. The engine revved and Hank had to step back as J.J. took off, tires throwing gravel before he hit the highway and sped away.

  “What was that about?” Hud asked after he reached in to turn off the siren before walking over to his son.

  Hank looked at Frankie, who was hugging herself and shaking her head. “It was nothing,” he said. “Just some tourist passing through who wanted to give us a hard time.”

  His father grunted, clearly not believing a word of it. “I need to talk to the two of you. Your cabin. Now.”

  Hank nodded, his gaze still on Frankie. “We’ll be right there.”

  * * *

  J.J. DROVE AWAY, fuming. She called the cops on me? Had she lost her mind? And that cowboy... Hank Savage had no idea what he’d stepped into, but he was about to find out.

  “The cowboy’s name is Hank Savage. His father’s the marshal of the resort town of Big Sky, Montana,” his friend at the station told him after he’d managed to get the license plate number off one of the business surveillance cameras near Frankie’s office. The camera had picked up not just the man’s truck but a pretty good image of the cowboy himself going into Frankie’s office and coming out again—with her. She’d gone down the block, gotten into her SUV and then followed the pickup.

  “You recognize the cowboy?” his friend had asked.

  “No. It must be a job.” But she’d left her rig in her garage.

  “Well, if it is a job, she went with him, from what you told me her neighbor said.”

  That was the part that floored him. Why would she take off with a man she didn’t know? Unless she did know him. He thought of how the man had defended her. Hell, had she been seeing this cowboy behind his back?

  He drove down the highway, checking his rearview mirror. The marshal hadn’t come after him. That was something, anyway. But how dare his cowboy son threaten him with a tire iron. That cowboy was lucky his father came along when he did. He swore, wanting a piece of that man—and Frankie. He’d teach them both not to screw around with him.

  He pulled into the movie theater parking lot and called his friend back in Lost Creek. After quickly filling him in, he said, “I’m going to kill her.”

  “Maybe you should come on back and let this cool down until—”

  “No way. I don’t know what’s going on, but she’s my fiancée.”

  Silence. Then, “J.J., she broke off the engagement. You can’t force her to marry you.”

  “The hell I can’t. Look, she’s mad at me. I screwed up, got a little rough with her, but once we sit down and hash this out, she’ll put the ring back on. I just can’t have some cowboy get in the middle of this.”

  “Where’d she meet this guy?”

  “That’s just it. I have no idea. Why would she just leave with him unless she knew him before? The neighbor said she packed a small bag and left. If she’d been seeing this cowboy behind my back, I would have heard, wouldn’t I?”

  “It’s probably just what you originally thought. A job.”

  He shook his head. “She was sitting all snuggled up next to him in the pickup. It’s not a job. The bitch is—”

  “Come back and let yourself cool down. If you don’t, you might do something you’re going to regret. You already have a couple strikes against you at work. You get in trouble down there—”

  “Not yet. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” He disconnected. Fine once he got his hands on Frankie. He sat for a moment until he came up with a plan. He’d stake out the ranch. The next time she left it, he’d follow her. But first he had to get rid of this car. He needed a nondescript rental, something she or the cowboy wouldn’t suspect.

  * * *

  “I DIDN’T WANT you involved,” Frankie said with rancor the moment they were in his pickup, headed back to the ranch. The marshal had waited and now followed them into the ranch property.

  “You made that clear. None of my business, right?” He looked over at her, his eyes hard as ice chips. “It isn’t like you and I mean anything to each other. Still just employer and employee. Why mention a fiancé?”

  “I told you, I broke it off.”

  He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “It isn’t like we were just heading up to our cabin to... What was it we were going to do, Frankie?”

  She sighed and looked away. “J.J. and I were engaged. I called it off two months ago. He didn’t take it well.”

  “So I gathered. Now he’s still harassing you. Why haven’t you gone to the authorities?”

  “It’s complicated. I don’t have the best relationship with the local cops in Lost Creek.”

  “Because you’re a private investigator?”

  “Because J.J. is one of them. He’s a cop.”

  “A cop?” Hank shook his head. He was driving so slowly, he knew it was probably making his father crazy. It was his own fault for insisting he follow them into the ranch. As if he thought they might make a run for it?

  “How long did you date him?”

  “Six months. He seemed like a nice guy. The engagement was too quick but he asked me at this awards banquet in front of all his friends and fellow officers. I...I foolishly said yes even though I wasn’t ready. Even though I had reservations.”

  “He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who takes no for an answer.” When she said nothing, he added, “So he put a ring on your finger and then he wasn’t a nice guy anymore. Nor does he seem like a guy who gives up easily.” Hank met her gaze.

  She dragged hers away. “It’s his male pride. All his buddies down at the force have been giving him a hard time about the broken engagement. It isn’t as if his being unable to accept it has anything to do with love, trust me. He just refuses to let this go. I gave him back his ring and he broke into my house and left it on my dining room table. But this isn’t your problem, okay? I’ll handle it.”

  He shook his head. “He comes back, I’ll handle it,” he said. “I can see how terrified you are of him and for good reason. I asked you if he was dangerous. I know now that he is. That man’s hurt you and next time he just might kill you. I’m not going to let that happen as long as you’re—” their gazes met “—in my employ,” he finished.

  After parking next to his father’s patrol SUV, he sat for a moment as if trying to calm down. He’d been afraid for her. She understood he’d been worried that she would have stupidly gotten into that car.

  Through the windshield, she could see the marshal was standing next to his patrol SUV, arms crossed, a scowl on his face as he waited.

  Beside her in the pickup cab, she could feel Hank’s anger. “Right now I don’t even know what to say to you. Would you have been foolish enough to climb into that car with that man?” He glanced over at her. “You make me want to shake some sense into you until your teeth rattle. Worse, you stubbornly thought you could handle a man like J.J. and didn’t need or want my help.”

  She wanted to tell him that she’d been on her own for a long time. She wasn’t used to asking for help, but he didn’t give her a chance.

  “I thought you trusted me,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion as he parked
in front of the house and climbed out.

  * * *

  FOR A MOMENT, Frankie leaned back against the seat, fighting tears. Hank had shot her a parting look before getting out and slamming the door behind him. It was filled with disappointment that wrenched at her heart. He’d thought she was smart. Smart wasn’t getting involved with J.J. Whitaker. Worse was thinking she could handle this situation on her own. Hank was right. J.J. was dangerous. If he got her alone again, he would do more than hurt her, as angry as he was.

  Wiping her eyes, she opened her door and followed the two men up the mountain to the cabin. She ached with a need to be in Hank’s arms. J.J. had found her at the worst possible time. Had he been delayed a few hours, she would have been curled up in bed with Hank. Instead, Hank was furious at her, and with good reason.

  She should have told him the truth way before this. J.J. was a loose cannon. What would have happened if the marshal hadn’t come along when he did? She just hadn’t thought the crazed cop would find her. Why hadn’t she realized he would use any and every resource he had at his disposal to get to her? Especially if her nosy neighbor had told him that she’d left with some cowboy.

  J.J. would have been jealous even if her relationship with Hank were strictly business because he thought every man wanted what he had. With Hank acting the way he did...well, J.J. would be convinced she and Hank were lovers. They would have been, she thought as a sob bubbled up in her chest and made her ache.

  Not that it would have solved anything. In fact, it would have complicated an already difficult situation. But now she was drowning in regret.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The marshal and Hank were both waiting for her when she topped the hill at the cabin. Hank held the door open for her and his father. She walked past him, feeling his anger and his fear. She’d told him to let her handle it and yet he’d come back to save her. She loved him and wanted to smack him for it.