by B. J Daniels
“I feel the same way. There are things I know I don’t want to do, like take over my father’s business—even before this. But I’m like you. I feel there is something I need to do.” He shrugged.
“I know I want to live here in Montana. My sister Olivia owns a boutique in town, but now that she’s married she spends very little time there. Maybe some of us just aren’t cut out for the usual careers.”
Jack laughed. “Mine as well. I keep thinking that something will happen and I’ll know and when I do...” He shrugged. “I don’t think we’re alone. A lot of people our ages don’t have clear career goals.”
“I have a confession.” She picked a piece of grass and played with it for a moment. “I’ve never had a job. I’ve never had to have a job.”
He laughed. “The only job I’ve had—other than in the military—was either on the ranch or at my father’s business.”
She pushed up on one elbow. “We sound spoiled.”
He turned toward her, picking a four-leaf clover and handing it to her. He’d grown somber. “We’ve been sheltered and maybe a little spoiled. Until now.”
They grew quiet for a long time. Cassidy finally said, “It’s crazy, but it’s as if we were meant to meet.” She glanced over at him, trying to gauge how he took her comment.
He laughed. “I was just thinking the same thing. That even if things hadn’t happened the way they did, we would have met somehow.” His gaze shifted to hers and held it. “I keep thinking about our parents. Maybe they just wanted to change the world they lived in and went about it all wrong.”
They both lay back, their faces turned up to the deep blue of the sky and the clouds drifting past.
“What if we are the generation that will make things better in the world?” he said quietly without looking at her. “Maybe we’re supposed to make up for what our parents did.”
“I love you, Jack.” The words were out before she could call them back.
He rolled over again on his side and drew her close as he kissed her and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Beany. No matter what happens, more has brought us together than our parents and their pasts. There is a reason I was at the cemetery that day, that I followed Ed, that...that I’m here with you.”
She felt her heart soar at his words because that, too, was what she believed. They were in this together. Nothing could tear them apart.
* * *
SHERIFF CURRY GOT the call in the wee hours of the morning that a badly beaten man had been found beside the river road.
“I thought you’d want to know. It’s Russell Murdock,” his deputy said.
“Russell?” he said, sitting up in bed.
“We found his pickup parked at the fishing access.”
Frank rubbed a hand over his face. “What does he say happened?”
“He’s in a coma. The EMT said he is in critical condition.”
“I’ll be right there.” Swearing under his breath, he got out of bed, not bothering to turn on a light.
“What is it?” Lynette asked drowsily.
“It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.” He pulled on his jeans and boots, then searched around in the dark for his uniform shirt. Finding it, he moved out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
All he could think about was his “meeting” with Russell and Buck. This had something to do with Dr. Ralph Venable, sure as hell. After his discussion with the two, Frank had found out that the doctor was staying at a local motel.
He’d talked to the motel owner, a woman by the name of Iris. Apparently, the doctor had been pleasant, paid in cash and had told them he was on vacation. Iris had said, though, that she found it strange how little time he spent away from the motel.
“He stays in his room most of the time except to get something to eat, which he usually brings back to the motel,” she said. “He goes out, but isn’t gone all that long. I feel sorry for him. He seems so...lonely. I was thinking of maybe trying to fix him up with Ethel Anderson.”
She hadn’t asked Frank why he was interested in the man’s comings and goings. Apparently, it had never crossed her mind that Dr. Venable was anything but a nice lonely old man.
Frank had wanted to speak with the doctor, but it had been one of those rare occasions when he was gone.
When he reached the hospital, he found Russell was still in a coma and doctors weren’t giving him much chance to recover. He hesitated for only a moment before he called Sarah Hamilton.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” he said when she answered. “I thought you would want to know. Russell Murdock is in the hospital.”
He heard her come fully awake. “What happened?”
“Someone apparently assaulted him. He’s in a coma and critical.”
She let out a painful cry. “Do you know who did it?”
“Don’t you?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I SPOKE WITH Sarah earlier.”
Dr. Venable tried to wake up. What was worse than being awakened in the middle of the night? Hearing Joe Landon’s voice on the other end of the line, he thought.
“She called me. I was curious how she got my private number,” Joe was saying.
Doc froze, his mind racing. He hadn’t given it to her. The only way she could have gotten it was from Martin or— He bit back a silent curse. Somehow she’d gotten it from him. But how?
“She says she remembers everything and she is the old Sarah,” Joe was saying.
He was hardly listening. How had she gotten Joe’s number? He racked his brain. Was there any chance she had gotten it from him without his knowing it?
The memory came in a hot flash. The only time he’d left his phone to go into the other room was when she’d been upset and asked for a glass of water... The bitch. He’d been buying into her helpless, confused, desolate act. Maybe the old Sarah really was back.
Joe hadn’t waited for an explanation of how she’d gotten his number. Doc decided confession might be good for the soul, but it would play hell with Joe Landon.
“Sarah says that she has her daughter Cassidy and Martin’s son, Jack, with her,” Joe was saying. “I’ve spoken with Martin. He’s not happy. Apparently, Jack cleaned out his safe-deposit box at the bank, money earmarked for The Prophecy, and has some incriminating evidence in his possession. We need it back. At any cost.”
Doc shook his head, but held his tongue. Joe’s plan to kidnap the girl had blown up in his face. He was murderous and not thinking clearly. Surely, he realized the blowback should they kill Jack and Cassidy.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
Joe’s hesitation made him even more anxious. “Is it possible Sarah really is her old self? I thought you said you hadn’t returned her memory that far back.”
He hadn’t. “It’s possible. She was bound to start remembering once I began to give her back the puzzle pieces of her life.”
“Find out if it’s true. You can do that, can’t you?”
“No problem,” he lied.
“Also, you got the help I sent you?” Joe had sent two burly thugs with lots of muscle but little brains. He’d questioned them when they’d called. Apparently, they’d nearly killed Russell Murdock. As it was, he still might die. Or if he did wake up, he would probably be nothing more than a vegetable, they said.
If they’d just knocked him out and thrown him in the river like he’d told them... But apparently Russell had put up more of a fight than they’d been expecting of someone in his fifties. The two had then reacted like the savages they were, beaten him to a pulp and dumped him beside the road.
He’d told them to go back and get rid of the body. They said that they’d realized they should have done that. But when they started to go back, they saw flashing lights from across the river. Now the sheriff w
ould be involved.
Joe was still talking. “If you really are as talented as you’ve led us all to believe, then you will get Sarah to tell you where you can find Jack and Cassidy. You’ll have help.”
Doc hesitated, but knew he had to say something. “We can’t have any more bodies, especially two young people. We already have an old rancher in critical condition in the hospital and the sheriff—”
“Did I say kill them? Find them and put them somewhere...safe. Martin is on his way to Montana. He’ll take his son back to Houston and deal with him there. I want to be sure that Sarah is really back with us before I decide what to do with her daughter. I’m not the fool you think I am, you old quack. Remember that.”
The connection was broken. Doc put down his phone and lay back onto the bed, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Sarah had stolen the number off his phone and called Joe. That had taken some balls to do that. But pretending that she remembered everything? Did she not know how dangerous this game was that she was playing?
He sat up thinking about Joe and Sarah. Joe had often been derisive about Sarah and the family she’d made for herself. “Love apparently addled her so much that she became a broodmare,” he would lament. “What happened to that woman we all knew and trusted? Now she says she loves Buckmaster Hamilton?” He had scoffed. “I think perhaps she wasn’t the woman we all thought she was after all.”
Every time Joe mentioned Sarah, Doc heard what the man didn’t say. Joe was still in love with her. But it was a mean, resentful kind of love. Doc hated to think what her life would be like if the two reunited—as they had planned all those years ago. Sarah might be better off dead when this was all over.
From the nightstand, he picked up the velvet bag that held the pendulum and his way into Sarah’s mind. He dropped it into his black doctor bag next to the drugs he also carried.
She would resist even if she was her old self, which he doubted. He would need something stronger than hypnotism to convince her to give up the location of her daughter and Martin’s son.
* * *
CASSIDY WOKE TO an empty bed. She felt for Jack in the dark. The sheets next to her were cold and even colder the farther she reached. She sat up in alarm.
“Jack?” Her voice sounded too high. “Jack?” As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the room was empty.
Getting up, she quickly pulled on his shirt that had been discarded earlier at the foot of the bed. The floor was cold against her bare feet as she padded to the doorway and looked down the stairs. No lights burned below in the darkness.
“Jack?” She started down the stairs, when the front door opened, startling her. She grabbed the stair railing as a hulking dark figure filled the doorway. Her breath caught in her throat.
As the man stepped into a shaft of moonlight, she saw his face and let out a cry of relief. Jack, wearing only jeans and boots, looked up and saw her. His gaze softened. She caught her breath as he closed the door behind him and quickly took the stairs.
“I woke up and you weren’t here,” she said in a rush, releasing the panic she’d felt only moments before.
“I’m sorry. I thought I’d be back before you missed me.” He held her at arm’s length for a moment. “Damn, but you look better in that shirt than I do.” He kissed her neck, working his way from below her ear down toward the open neck of the shirt.
Cassidy felt herself giving in to her desire for this Texas cowboy. But even as she did, she noticed that he had the quilted large bag that had held the contents of his father’s safe-deposit box. The bag was now empty. “Is everything all right?”
“Couldn’t be better,” he said as he picked her up and took her back to the bedroom. He lowered her to the bed and turned to go into the bathroom to wash his hands. “I’m sorry if you woke and were worried.”
She watched, surprised that his hands were covered with dirt. A bad feeling had settled into the pit of her stomach. “You hid the money.”
He glanced back at her as he began to dry his hands on the towel. “Don’t ask where. This way...”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. This way no one could ever torture the location out of her. Would it come to that?
“Everything is going to be all right,” he said as he took her in his arms again. She didn’t believe that any more than he did. But as he slowly began to unbutton his shirt that she wore, the world seemed to shrink to only the touch of his skin against hers, the whisper of his mouth as it moved over her, the feel of him as he slowly joined their bodies.
* * *
SARAH HAD JUST started out the door to go to the hospital when Dr. Venable stepped from the moonless shadows. She jumped, instantly regretting that she hadn’t thought to grab her gun. But who grabs a gun to go to the hospital to see an injured friend? Any woman involved with The Prophecy, she thought belatedly.
“What do you want?” she demanded. She’d known that Joe would call him, but she hadn’t expected him to show up in the middle of the night.
“Spare me just a few moments of your time.”
“I’m on my way to the hospital. Russell Murdock...” Her voice broke. A well of fury rose in her. “But I suspect you know all about that. It was you...people who did this, wasn’t it?” She sounded close to tears.
“You people?” Venable chuckled. “You are one of us, Sarah.”
She shook her head adamantly and tried to step away from him, but he grabbed her arm. The pinprick of pain surprised her.
“At least now I know that you aren’t the old Sarah as you tried to get Joe to believe,” Doc said. “That was very foolish of you. When he realizes that you lied...” He let go of her arm and she stumbled back.
She stared down at her arm, suddenly aware of what he’d just done. “You didn’t...” But that was all she got out. Her body suddenly felt as if made of water.
He caught her as she staggered. If he hadn’t taken her weight, she would have slumped to the ground. The drug he’d injected into her made the moon swim dangerously in Montana’s big sky. When she tried to talk, her words were slurred. “Why?”
“Did you really think you could fool Joe?” Doc shook his head as if disappointed in her as he helped her back inside the house, and locked the door behind them, before helping her over to the couch.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, her words badly slurred.
He looked almost compassionate. “I’m going to help you, Sarah. That’s all I’ve been trying to do since I came back, but you’ve been fighting me. That has to end or we’re both dead.”
* * *
“WHAT IS IT?” Cassidy asked, startled awake. She’d been sound asleep when Jack had suddenly sat up. Now she touched his back and felt him tense. He seemed to be listening to the night.
“Get dressed,” he whispered.
“Jack, tell me what’s wrong.”
He turned to hold a finger to his lips. “I heard something. Downstairs.” He swung out of bed and grabbed for his clothes, hurriedly pulling on the Montana T-shirt she’d bought him. “Hurry.”
“My mother wouldn’t...” The words seem to freeze in her throat. Quickly, she dressed and began to pack her things. “She promised.” She glanced over as Jack finished dressing and threw everything into his duffel.
He looked at her, his expression sympathetic. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”
She nodded numbly. The wind had come up. She could hear it whistling past the eaves. Pine trees swayed, becoming dark moving shapes beyond the window. Something scraped against the house. A shutter or maybe a limb? Surely, that’s what had wakened Jack and nothing more.
But now every creak and groan of the old house seemed ominous. Jack hadn’t wanted to stay here. He hadn’t trusted her mother. But she’d been so sure...
As they started toward the open
bedroom doorway, Jack pulled the gun and motioned for her to stay behind him. As they reached it, Jack stopped. She could tell he was listening. The wind seemed louder now. She could hear a shutter banging somewhere on the lower floor.
Please let that be all it is.
Faint moonlight knifed through a gap in the drapes. Cassidy fought to get her eyes to adjust to the dim light. Dark shadows seemed to move restlessly as Jack began to descend the stairs, her right at his back. She heard nothing except the wind and the complaints of the old house. A stair creaked under Jack’s weight and he stopped suddenly, on alert again.
She caught an odd smell. Sweet. And for the moment she couldn’t place it. Spearmint. She frowned as she heard what sounded like a floorboard creak.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SARAH WAS TORN between anger and heartbreak as she looked down at Russell’s battered body lying in the hospital bed. His head was bandaged. Both eyes were black with bruises. But that would heal. It was all the tubes and wires hooked up to him that worried her. This was serious.
She would kill whoever did this.
Most people said things like that but didn’t mean them. She’d never meant anything more in her life. She was also more than capable. Stepping to the bed, she leaned down to gently kiss his cheek. “I will get them for this. I promise.”
Russell didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.
She clung to the edge of the bed, still feeling woozy. Earlier she’d awakened on the couch, having no memory of how she’d gotten there. Her last memory had been of getting ready to go to the hospital to see Russell. The memory gaps scared her. Dr. Venable’s doing? Or was it true what he told her that her memory would come back but that there would be side effects like short-term memory loss?
“How did you get in here?” came a strident voice behind her.
She turned to see the ICU nurse’s surprise. Sarah had startled her. “You can’t be in here. Only family members are allowed in and only during visiting hours.” The nurse moved to the side so Sarah could leave.
