It had been her best birthday.
Reese’s birthday party—his fortieth—was at the Jack, and they hadn’t even closed the bar for the event. He’d just put Linda on the bar and gone to sit over by the pool tables with an armload of bottles of Jack Daniels.
Though it was Reese’s birthday, a lot of the attention was on Heath and Gabe. Their friends had formed a protective barrier around them, obstructing curious eyes and any assholes bold enough to seek a confrontation.
Gabe wasn’t familiar enough yet with Jasper Ridge’s personality and history to have a strong sense of her own about what was going on in town now, but the Cahills talked often about it. The schism caused by the Moondancer feud—which is what everybody called it—had shifted shape with Heath’s arrest. Some people believed that Brandon Black deserved his death and that Heath was in his rights to kill him. Some people—even some who had shunned Black all these years—believed that Heath had already made him pay over and over again, that maybe he’d deserved a few beatings but not death, and that the violence of the killing proved that Heath was dangerous to everybody.
Very few people believed that Heath was innocent. In the story told in Jasper Ridge, he was either a hero or a madman, but he was always a killer.
Their opinions about Heath’s guilt had changed some alliances in the Moondancer feud. Some people who had stood with the Cahills at first now saw Heath as a crazy man who’d run roughshod over Catherine Spelling’s business. Others who had supported Catherine now saw him as a protector and were more inclined to believe that Gabe had been attacked and that Catherine had put profit ahead of safety.
Honestly, hardly anybody cared anymore about what had happened up at the Moondancer. The ranch was still running, held aloft by a loan from another rich man in town, one the Cahills hated. Catherine was rebuilding her reservation book. Heath’s business was closed, and he was facing trial for murder. The focus of the town was entirely on that, and people talked like the two things were related, like Catherine had won because Heath was going to prison. Gabe didn’t understand, but that was how gossip worked, she supposed—everything had to fit into one story.
The result for Heath was that, except for his family and closest friends, even people who supported him stayed clear. Nobody wanted to get pulled unwillingly into the story that might take the Cahill family down.
But at the Jack, while they stayed in their protective circle and let the rumors churn around them, every now and then, somebody would come over to shake Heath’s hand, give Gabe a courtly nod, and offer their support. Heath always stood and thanked them.
Jerk Harris, who’d saved her on the road her first day in Jasper Ridge, and his sister Mary, proprietor of the town motel, were two who’d come in to wish Reese a happy day and pay their respects to Heath and Gabe. Jerk had even given Gabe an awkward, bony hug.
Heath drank beer, alternating with water, and stayed sober. Gabe had a couple of sodas. She wasn’t really in the mood for the party, but she enjoyed seeing Heath enjoy his friends. Yet even as he laughed and talked, seeming at ease, Gabe noted the watchfulness in his eyes. He was on alert for trouble. Logan was, too, and they both seemed to have decided that she needed their protection. She hadn’t even been able to go to the toilet on her own—and these days, she needed the toilet a lot. The baby was the size of a pinto bean, so it couldn’t have been pressing on anything, but she needed to pee all the time.
It was her only symptom so far. That and the taste thing, which had extended beyond lemons to a variety of things. She had a much sweeter tooth than usual. Usually she hated things like cake frosting, but she’d eaten three pieces of her birthday cake, roses and all. She was going to be big as a house when the baby came.
Well into the evening, when Gabe had begun to hope they’d be leaving soon, because everybody was drunk as hell but them, Logan came back from the bathroom and slapped Heath on the arm. “Far corner, by the juke.”
Heath leaned his chair way back, grabbing a post for stability, and looked. He didn’t even try to be subtle.
“That’s the guy?”
“Reese—the big guy at the juke—that’s who you were talking about?”
Reese looked over. He blinked blearily and shut one eye in a parody of focus. “Yeah. Name’s…uh…” He belched.
Heath chuckled. “We’ll talk tomorrow, birthday boy. But that’s the guy?”
Gabe peered across the saloon to the corner they were talking about. It was dim back there, but she could see what appeared to be a mountain in a t-shirt, sitting with some people she recognized as locals but didn’t know to name. She didn’t recognize the huge man at all. Turning to scan the expressions of her friends, she didn’t think anybody knew him.
A wide, drunken smile spread over Reese’s face. “That’s him. I cracked the case, right?”
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Heath repeated.
Gabe leaned in close. “What are you talking about?”
“C’mere.” Heath took her hand and tugged; he wanted her on his lap.
She obliged him and then repeated her question.
“I don’t want to talk about it here.”
“Is it about the case?”
“Maybe.”
“Is it good or bad?” They couldn’t take more bad.
“It’s—”
Heath kicked out his leg as Logan began to speak, connecting with his brother’s knee and shutting him up.
“Let’s go home. We’ll talk there.”
*****
Honor picked up her coffee cup and slumped back in her seat. She had become comfortable in the big house over these weeks. “I don’t know.”
Gabe huffed in frustration. “What don’t you know? You said there wasn’t anybody strong enough in town to do all that to Black in cold blood, and there wasn’t anybody but Heath with enough anger at him to do it hot. Well, this guy is huge.”
Heath’s defense had been badly hamstrung by one fact: no weapon had been used on Black. Someone had killed him with their bare hands, with enough strength to tear his jaw nearly clean off his head and open his belly to disembowel him. It was a killing of passion and nearly superhuman strength. The obvious conclusion was that a big, strong man with a fierce hatred for Black had killed him.
One man, and only one, fit that description in Jasper Ridge, and he hadn’t committed the murder, so they needed to find someone so strong that hatred needn’t fuel his power to do the same damage.
The man in the corner the other night at the Jack was the first, best, and last hope.
“But he has no ties to the victim. He’s new in town. It’s a place to start, the first place we’ve found, and that’s good, but we can’t hang this around his neck simply because he’s strong. We need to find the story, and there’s no obvious place to go next.”
“Why don’t you ever say his name?! You keep calling him ‘the victim’!” She was shouting. They had only weeks left, and nothing was happening to give them any hope. It was hard to stay calm.
Heath rubbed a hand up and down her arm. “Easy, little one. Don’t get worked up.”
Honor sat her mug down and rested her elbows on her knees. She was dressed casually again; it was Saturday afternoon. She stared hard at Gabe, her expression serious and earnest. “Using his name gives him a face. A history. A mother who named him. His name makes him a person. A victim is just a lump in a body bag. We are the defense. We don’t want to help the prosecution build sympathy for the man Heath is accused of killing.”
“But he didn’t do it.” Her voice cracked. God, she cried all the time now.
“It’s okay, Gabe. It’s okay.” Heath put his arm around her and said to Honor, “There’s one thing: He works at the Moondancer. He’s new, since the Fourth, but maybe it’s something.”
“I thought you were sure it was Whitt behind the frame job. We’re still trying to find a motive for that.”
“Whitt gave Catherine Spelling a loan to keep going. Catherine and I—I told you we�
��re not on good terms. She blames me for needing that loan. I wouldn’t say she’s the kind to do something like this, but she owes Whitt. Maybe there’s something there.” He sighed. “Somebody killed him bloody, and it wasn’t me. There’s got to be something somewhere.”
Honor nodded. “Okay. It’s another step—farther than we’ve gotten in any other direction. Like I’ve said, we don’t need to solve the murder. We just need reasonable doubt. We need a story. If we can show that the evidence fits another theory as well as it fits the state’s, I can close the shit out of that. I’ll put Melina on it. In the meantime, I need to talk to your father.”
That meant she needed more money. Gabe didn’t know the details, but she did know that with the gigantic cash bond and Honor’s huge and growing bill—she and a whole team were working full-time on the case, at hundreds and hundreds of dollars an hour—money was pouring out the door. Before the trial had even started, the case had depleted the family reserves and was beginning to drain the ranch reserves. They’d get his bond back eventually, but in the meantime, it seemed like finances were getting worrisome.
“Yeah, okay. He’s up at the barn, but I’ll call him down.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know how long I can let my family take these hits for me.”
Gabe took one of his hands and set it on her belly. “Until there aren’t any more hits to take. Cahills don’t give up.”
His eyebrows lifted in pleased surprise, and the weariness smoothed away with his smile. He caressed her belly. “You’re right.”
Chapter Nineteen
“They’re gorgeous, but no.”
“Why not? They’re perfect!”
“They’re four hundred dollars.”
“So? It’s your wedding—and look, they’re the something blue, too.”
“I’m not buying cowboy boots I’m only going to wear once.”
“Why are you only gonna wear ‘em once?”
“Look at them! They’re too fancy!”
“They’re boots! Who the fuck cares? Wear ‘em every day if you want!”
“They’re four hundred dollars!”
“So what?! Do you think we’re poor now? We’re not poor! And you’re the one who said you wanted to wear boots with your fucking wedding dress!” Near tears, Emma snatched the boot from Gabe’s hands and shoved it back on the shelf with such force that the shelf shook, and the other displayed boots wobbled and fell to the floor. “Fuck!”
When she bent to pick them up and Gabe bent to help her, they both, at the same time, realized that they had the full, rapt attention of Randall and the other customers in Idahoan Outfitters that afternoon. Several of those customers were local residents.
One of them was Ellen Emerson, an employee at the Moondancer, and someone who might have become Gabe’s friend if things hadn’t gone the way they had. While everyone else simply watched the show, Ellen came over and helped them pick up boots and return them to their display shelf.
“Thanks, Ellen,” Gabe said.
“Sure. Don’t mind all the bug-eyes behind us.” She smiled and raised her voice so everyone in the shop could hear. “People need to tend their own gardens. They act like they don’t have weeds in their petunias, just like everybody else.”
The gossip-greedy audience lost its focus as Emma picked up the boot that had started the whole thing and set it, gently this time, on the shelf. Her cheeks were wet, and Gabe felt bad. She felt like crying, too.
“Thanks again, Ellen. You probably should go, though, before Catherine hears you were nice to us.”
“You know what? I don’t care. I mean, I’m gonna go, because I don’t want to horn in here, but give me a call. What’s goin’ on is…it’s tearin’ up the town, and Catherine’s actin’ like…I don’t even know. Like the Wicked Queen from Snow White. I’m so sorry about Heath. He’s a good man. I don’t believe he could do what they say he did.”
With that, she smiled at Emma and was gone. Gabe watched her leave the shop and then turned back to her soon-to-be sister-in-law. “I’m sorry.”
Emma wiped her cheeks and squared her shoulders. “Me too. You should wear whatever you want to your own wedding. I don’t know why I got so upset.”
She really had, too. Gabe couldn’t think of a time she’d ever heard Emma say ‘fuck.’ “I do. Everything’s just at maximum stress. It was dumb to try to have a wedding. We should’ve just gotten married.”
“What, at the courthouse? You think Heath would want that—to get married in a courtroom?”
Gabe shuddered at the thought. “No. I wouldn’t, either.”
“He wants you to have a beautiful wedding.”
“Everything’s so expensive.” She pouted at the boots that had started the scene. They were gorgeous, dark brown with turquoise-blue leather stitched over them in an elaborate pattern. It had been she who’d picked one up and oohed over it in the first place. Before she’d seen their price.
Emma sucked in a sharp breath, then closed her eyes and let it slowly out. The impression was strong that she was marshaling all of her patience. “Gabe. You have to stop worrying about money. We’re gonna be okay.”
Gabe chuckled at the Cahill incantation. But she didn’t stop worrying.
“Heath wants this, Gabe. He wants to give you a beautiful wedding. He wants to have that memory for himself. And a pair of boots isn’t going to be the difference in his case.”
“They’re not going to be the difference in the wedding, either. Can I just wear my own boots?”
Emma looked down at Gabe’s feet, which were covered with the boots in question. They were Frye boots, a wild extravagance of her mother’s on the last Christmas they’d had together. Sturdy as hell, they’d worn well over the years, but these months of life as a ranch girl had definitely put them to the test.
“Honestly? Gabriela Kincaid, don’t you want to be a fairy princess on your wedding? You only get one day like that. You have that beautiful dress. Buy the boots. Let Heath give you a perfect day.” Emma’s words shook and then broke, and she was crying again.
They were getting married just more than a week before his trial started. It might be their last perfect day forever. Gabe started to cry, too, and the women held each other for a few minutes and made a different kind of scene, standing in the middle of Idahoan Outfitters while everybody watched.
*****
They held the wedding on the ranch, and they’d all done most of the work themselves. It had been a happy distraction from their frightening future.
Logan and Heath had built an arch and installed it on the grounds, just off the patio, so that they would take their vows with the late-afternoon mountains as their backdrop. Emma and Anya had wrapped the rough-hewn wood of the arch with wildflowers. Their guests would stand during the ceremony, and then there would be dinner and dancing on the patio.
Gabe had been worried that they wouldn’t have any guests, but as the time of the ceremony neared and she stood upstairs in a guest room of the big house, looking out the window as Emma fussed at her already-done hair, she saw that the ranch road was full of cars. They’d invited almost a hundred people, true friends of the family only, and it seemed that they’d all come.
“Hey!” Ellen said behind her. She’d reached out again after the day in town, and she seemed to really want to be friends again. Maybe she would be—though Gabe held a corner of reserve for the possibility that she was spying for Catherine. “One more picture. Hike up that dress and show off the boots.”
Laughing, she turned from the window and lifted the tiered lace of her wedding dress to show off the fancy boots with the turquoise trim.
“Oh, come on!” Emma laughed. “Higher than that! Show off those gorgeous legs!”
She pulled the skirt almost to her hips and kicked a leg out. “Like this?”
“Perfect!” Ellen took the photo with her phone. “Oh, perfect!”
Emma fussed again with a tendril of hair curling along Gabe’s neck. “It’s a
bout time. If you’re ready, I’ll go get Dad.”
Morgan was going to walk her to Heath. There wasn’t really an aisle, or an altar, but he was the closest thing she had to a father, so he was going to give her his arm and lead her to her husband.
Blinking tears back, she smiled down at Anya. “What do you think? Am I ready?”
The little girl nodded seriously. “You’re like a princess.”
*****
Morgan came up and shooed Emma, Anya, and Ellen out of the room. “Need a minute with the bride. Go on.”
When they were alone, Heath’s father smiled and picked up her hands. He led her to sit at the end of the bed, pushing aside the strewn garment bags and random mess as he sat next to her. “I don’t want to muss your pretty dress…”
“It’s okay.” He still had hold of both her hands, so she shifted to face him and make the position less awkward. “Thank you for giving me away today.”
“I’m not giving you away, sweetheart. I’m bringing you in. We all are. You are one of us, and you’ll never be alone again.”
The day was an emotional one anyway—life in general was just emotional right now—and Gabe’s emotions had been on a tilt-a-whirl since she’d been pregnant, so she really wanted Morgan to shut up before she ruined the makeup Emma had done so artfully. The mascara was waterproof, but the rest of it wasn’t.
“Morgan…”
“I’d like it if you called me Dad from now on. You think you can do that?”
Yeah, she was totally going to ruin her makeup. Unable to speak, she nodded.
As if he hadn’t noticed how close she was to blubbering, he lifted her left hand and brushed his thumb over the ring on her finger. “Three women have worn this ring before you. You know that?”
Somewhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories Book 1) Page 25
