Dark Horse & the Mystery Man of Whitehorse

by B. J Daniels

  “Visiting the old folks, huh?” Spencer asked, sounding amused. “You really are something,” he said with a shake of his head.

  Whatever Bridger was, it didn’t sound like a compliment, and he realized that Spencer had been drinking. Great. As if things couldn’t get any worse.

  But at least Spencer hadn’t followed Laci to Roundup.

  “I just wanted to let you know I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  Spencer wagged his head, looking close to tears. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. No idea.”

  Bridger couldn’t argue that and didn’t try. He could see that Spencer was even drunker than he’d originally thought.

  “I just had to tell you that I’m sorry before I left. I won’t be back.”

  Bridger tried not to let his relief show. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you here.”

  “Sure you are,” Spencer said sarcastically. “But they’re working out for you. Things always work out for you, don’t they, Bridger?”

  He was surprised by the animosity he heard in Spencer’s voice. “You aren’t leaving tonight, I hope.”

  “Why, you worried I might kill myself on the highway?” Spencer’s laugh was bitter. “That might be the best thing that could happen to me.”

  This kind of self-pity always put Bridger off. “Well, I wish you the best of luck.”

  “I’ll need more than luck,” Spencer said, sounding as despondent as he looked.

  “You take care,” he said as Spencer turned and disappeared into the shadows. A moment later the engine on his pickup engine fired up and Spencer left the lot in a hail of gravel.

  “He’s going to kill someone.” Bridger reached for his cell, hating what he was about to do. But it was the best thing for Spencer—and whoever else was on the road tonight, including Laci. Maybe a night in jail would be the best thing for Spencer.

  Or maybe it would turn out to be the worst thing Bridger had ever done to the man who’d saved his life. But he had a feeling he’d already done the worst thing he could do. He hadn’t helped Spencer. Instead he’d fallen for a woman who was bound and determined to see Spencer behind bars for more than a night.

  * * *

  “SO YOU WANT the goods on Spencer Donovan?” The woman’s eyes shone with malicious humor. And alcohol.

  Patty Waring had dark, straight hair cut chin-length, almond-shaped brown eyes and two empty shot glasses in front of her when Laci arrived at the bar.

  “I was afraid you were going to miss happy hour,” Patty said as she motioned to the cocktail waitress. “What are you having?”

  “A diet cola,” Laci told the waitress, who slid another shot in front of Patty.

  “Killjoy,” Patty said with good humor and patted the circular booth seat next to her. “So what is it you’re looking for? And why?”

  Laci liked the woman’s straightforward attitude and decided her best approach was some of the same. “Spencer Donovan married my best friend—and she died on their honeymoon.”

  Patty leaned back, eyes widening, and let out a “Well, hell.” She picked up the shot glass and drained it without blinking an eye.

  “It seems he’s had bad luck in his relationships with women.”

  Patty laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. I assume Tom told you about Emma.”

  Laci nodded. “Everyone thinks he’s innocent, including the police. The same with this girl Emma. Spencer had an alibi. But I can’t help but believe there’s more, something in his past, some indication of the kind of man he really is.”

  “Anyone mention what happened at college?” Patty asked.

  Laci shook her head, knowing what was coming. Her heart began to pound in her ears, all her old fears rising like the tide. “What happened?”

  “More bad luck. One girl he was dating fell down the stairs in her dorm. She swore she was pushed. Another got trapped in the laundry room with a spilled bottle of ammonia.”

  “Spencer’s doing?”

  “Apparently the girls thought so. But Spencer had an alibi each time. There was a rumor that the girls had broken it off with him and he’d been furious.” Patty shrugged. “You’ve got to understand, I never liked Spencer. He was stuck-up in high school—you know, the real jock type. He acted like he didn’t know me at college. So I only heard stories about him. Who can say if they were true or not?”

  “Like about the girls at the dorm?”

  She nodded. “The fiancée was a whole different thing, though. It was in the newspapers.”

  “Fiancée?” Laci couldn’t hide her surprise.

  “You didn’t know he was engaged to be married?” She let out a little laugh and motioned for another shot. “Tiffany Palmer. Pretty, rich, naïve. Spencer only dated girls with money.”

  “What happened to her?” Laci asked, her heart pounding.

  “In a nutshell? Hit-and-run driver. Killed on impact. Never caught the guy.” She smiled. “The kicker? The description of the car matched Spencer’s. However,” she added quickly, “Spencer had reported it stolen two days before the hit-and-run. Rumor—that sweet little Tiff had been having second thoughts about marrying him. Seems she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring when she was killed.” Patty sat back and shrugged.

  “But Spencer was cleared again?”

  Patty nodded. “Airtight alibi for the time of the hit-and-run.”

  The waitress set another shot in front of Patty, but she didn’t reach for it.

  Laci let out the breath she’d been holding. “He could have hidden his car for those two days before the hit-and-run,” she said, thinking out loud. “He could have set up the whole thing. Got someone to lie for him.” She saw Patty’s expression. “You don’t think he killed her. Why?”

  “Personally? I don’t think Spencer has it in him. Plus, he had an alibi.”

  “He always has an alibi,” Laci said. Still no proof. But another woman dead. How many bodies would it take before someone realized that this man was either walking bad luck or a killer?

  “That wasn’t the end of it, though,” Patty said as she picked up the shot glass and turned it slowly in her fingers. Her nails were long and painted bright red with tiny little martini glasses on each tip.

  “The fiancée’s cousin also attended MSU. Christy wasn’t like her cuz. She lived on my floor, and we became friends when she heard I was also from Roundup. Christy was convinced that Spencer had been after her cousin’s money and had killed Tiff. Christy was determined to prove it. She started asking a lot of questions on her own.”

  Laci realized she hadn’t touched her diet cola and took a sip.

  “Spencer got wind of it.”

  “He threatened her?”

  Patty laughed. “He was too smart for that. One night Christy came back to the dorm and she was freaking. Seemed every time she turned around, Spencer was there.”

  Laci felt a jolt. Just as Spencer had been turning up a lot around her.

  “Then he started leaving her little souvenirs, and she just couldn’t take it anymore. She went to the cops, afraid for her life, but of course she couldn’t prove that Spencer had done anything, including stalking her. She quit school and that was the last I heard of her.”

  Laci’s heart hammered. “Souvenirs?”

  “Get this—a single yellow rose.”

  Chapter Ten

  NOT FOR THE first time, Sheriff Carter Jackson got a call from the owner of the Milk River Examiner reporting that Glen Whitaker was missing.

  It came on the heels of a call from Bridger Duvall about his friend Spencer Donovan. Carter had one of his deputies pick up Donovan. He’d just hung up when Mark Sanders called.

  The problem with being a sheriff in a small town was that more people knew his home number
than his office number.

  “I hate to bother you at home,” Sanders said in an excited, worried voice. “But Glen went out to Old Town to do a story on Alice Miller’s ninetieth birthday party and hasn’t been seen since. He knew I needed those photographs for tomorrow’s paper. This isn’t like him.”

  The sheriff remembered another time Glen had gone missing. That time he’d turned up beside a county road, beaten, his vehicle crashed in a ditch and with no memory of what had happened.

  “You’re sure he doesn’t hit the bottle on occasion and this isn’t like last time?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Sanders said. “Glen doesn’t touch the stuff. Something has to have happened to him.”

  The sheriff groaned to himself. “I’ll send a deputy out to look for him. Was he planning to do anything else besides cover Alice’s birthday party?”

  “Not that I know of,” Sanders said. “He’s been trying to get an interview with Spencer Donovan...”

  Great. “Okay, I’ll do some checking and get back to you. You’ll call if you hear from him?”

  “I really need the photographs in his camera,” Sanders said.

  “I’ll tell the deputy to be on the lookout for his camera,” Carter said and hung up. He got on the radio and asked one of the deputies to drive down to Old Town Whitehorse and see what he could find out. He hoped Charlotte Evans wasn’t up to her old tricks of taking out her frustrations on unsuspecting men.

  Glen, he figured, would turn up. He did last time. Eventually.

  * * *

  IN A FOG of anger and grief, Laci got into her car to drive home. Grief for the senseless death of her friend. Anger not only that Spencer was a killer, just as she’d suspected, but that she might never be able to prove it.

  Even if she could prove he’d left her the roses, it didn’t make him a killer. And proving stalking in Whitehorse would be impossible. The town was too small—of course they would run across each other.

  She was so upset that at first she didn’t notice. But as she started her car, she sensed she was being watched.

  There were a half dozen cars parked on the street. She didn’t see anyone. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t alone. Spencer? Was it possible he’d followed her to Roundup? Or was it merely her overactive imagination in full swing?

  As she pulled out, she glanced in her rearview mirror but didn’t see anyone following her.

  Unnerved and anxious to get back to Whitehorse—and Bridger—she drove faster than she probably should have. She knew her fears were justified. Was it just a matter of time before Spencer stopping threatening her with roses and set her up for an “accident”?

  She was in such a state that she didn’t even remember driving the hours to Whitehorse.

  As she pulled up in front of the restaurant, she saw that there was a light on inside. She could see a shadow moving around in the back. Bridger. He was waiting for her with a nice dinner. He’d probably been cooking ever since they’d talked.

  Her first impulse was to rush in there and tell him how wrong he was about Spencer Donovan. But in her heart she knew this wasn’t Bridger’s fault. Bridger hadn’t known Spencer since they were kids. It wasn’t fair to blame him. She could understand how he felt indebted to Spencer. After all, the boy next door had saved his life.

  But she knew that wasn’t why she couldn’t spoil this evening. She needed Bridger to hold her, to make her feel safe, if even for a little while.

  She couldn’t go in there and tell him about Spencer. Not at first, anyway. What did she really have on Spencer? Nothing. Just like the cousin—Christy. The police in Roundup hadn’t taken a single yellow rose as a threat any more than Sheriff Jackson would here in Whitehorse.

  Laci sat for a moment, trying to pull herself together. Don’t spoil tonight. She couldn’t bear the thought Spencer would always be between them.

  She saw Bridger come toward the front of the building. He must have heard her drive up, seen her headlights.

  Just the sight of him warmed her to her toes. She thought of being inside his restaurant, thrilled to be with him. She cut the car’s engine and climbed out.

  He opened the front door of the restaurant, his smile so broad there was no doubt that he’d missed her. Maybe even as much as she had him. He looked so handsome standing there. She felt a wave of desire as she stepped into his arms.

  He held her close. “I’ve missed you,” he breathed against her hair.

  “Me, too.” They stood like that for a long moment, holding each other, then moved apart, both seeming a little awkward, a little shy.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” he said.

  “Starved.” For food, for him.

  He ushered her inside. She took a deep breath, taking in the wonderful scents of the food, of the man next to her, and thought she could die at that moment and regret nothing.

  “I made something special,” Bridger was saying as he smiled and took her hand.

  She let him lead her into the kitchen. He’d set a table at the back, complete with candles. She felt a wave of sentiment for this man. Not love. It couldn’t be love, not this quickly, could it?

  She felt a little guilty as she sat down, saw all the work he’d gone to, but mostly she realized that he believed she hadn’t found out anything in Roundup, that she was through trying to prove Spencer Donovan was a killer.

  She could see his relief and couldn’t bear telling him differently. At least not yet.

  * * *

  LACI HADN’T SAID anything about her trip. That worried Bridger. But he wasn’t about to ask. He didn’t tell her that he’d called the sheriff about Spencer or that he was half-ashamed for doing it.

  The last person he wanted to talk about was Spencer.

  But he did need to talk to her. He studied her face in the flickering candlelight, feeling a pull stronger than gravity. There would be nothing standing in their way soon. Spencer would leave town and no longer be between them. He felt a twinge of guilt—not for having Spencer picked up and thrown in jail for the night but for wanting him out of their lives.

  “You’re amazing,” Bridger said to Laci.

  She smiled at him as she pushed back her plate. “Amazing?” She shook her head. “I’m stuffed, though. It was wonderful.”

  He grinned, pleased. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  “I loved it. I’ve never met anyone who understood the importance of cooking.”

  He held his breath as his eyes locked with hers. He’d promised himself they wouldn’t fall right back into bed.

  “Come on,” he said. “I don’t believe you’ve ever seen my rooftop.”

  “Rooftop?”

  He took her hand and led her out back and up a flight of stairs to the roof.

  “What do you think?” he asked as he walked her to the front edge. “From here you can see the northern lights on a clear night.”

  “It’s breathtaking.” She hugged herself against the cold night air, wondering why he’d brought her up here. “It scares me a little,” she said, not realizing she’d spoken her fear out loud.

  “Are you afraid of heights?” he asked, sounding alarmed.

  “No, this thing between us. It’s happened so fast...”

  “You’re afraid it isn’t real.”

  She nodded.

  “There is one way to tell.”

  She looked over at him, eager to hear it.

  “One foolproof test that’s infallible.” He leaned toward her. “This.”

  His kiss was sweeter than the richest confection. She tasted him, reveling in the feel of his lips, the teasing of his tongue, the warmth of being wrapped in his arms.

  His mouth sparked a desire in her that curled her toes. She felt fifteen again and knew just how dangerous th
at could be. Her lips parted and she drank him in. A sweet, deadly elixir. She felt intoxicated, drunk on this feeling and this man.

  That alone should have warned her.

  “Are we clear now?” he asked, drawing back to hold her gaze hostage.

  “Perfectly clear,” she said as he pulled her down for another kiss. She really had to get the recipe for this.

  Bridger slipped his arm around her and pulled her closer. She raised her face to his kiss, her arms coming around his neck as her body pressed into his.

  He held her, his mouth taking hers. She tasted faintly of vanilla.

  For the last year since his mother had died he’d been searching for who he was. But holding Laci, he knew what he’d needed and wanted. He felt as if he’d found it. Nothing mattered but getting to know this woman. They’d skipped some of the steps. Like her, he felt they were moving too fast. It scared him, as well, because they didn’t know each other.

  At least Laci didn’t know him.

  He drew back to look at her. “Laci, there’s something I need to tell you. Why I came to Whitehorse. Why I’ve stayed.”

  He told her everything, from what his mother had confessed on her deathbed to his visits to the nursing home to why he’d originally decided to open the restaurant.

  Laci frowned. “You planned our meeting the first time.”

  He nodded but quickly added, “I never even got around to asking you what you knew about the Whitehorse Sewing Circle. Once I met you...”

  “No one else knows about this?” she asked.

  “I asked your grandfather Titus about it but he swears he knows nothing about it. I believe him. I had to tell you.”

  “So Eve is your twin sister?”

  He nodded. “Some files were found, but unfortunately they’re coded. Until we have the code...”

  “And you’re sure my grandmother is behind these adoptions?” she asked.

  “I can’t prove it until your grandmother regains her ability to speak.”

  She stepped away from him, hugging herself against the cold.