Soldier's Duty

by Elle James

  He keyed the mike on his radio. “I’m taking the canyon floor out to Iron Horse Ranch.”

  “Be careful,” Molly replied. “If you see anything, let us know.”

  She didn’t have to remind him. If he found any clue his father had passed that way, he wouldn’t hesitate to notify the others.

  Chapter 4

  Bree arrived at the ranch house with plenty of daylight left to take care of the animals and start her own investigation into the source of the poison.

  She entered the house, using the key she’d kept on her key chain for thirteen years, a sad smile curling her lips. Some things never changed.

  After dropping her suitcase in her old bedroom, she traded her trench coat and fleece-lined leggings for thermal underwear and jeans. She found a pair of her old cowboy boots in the closet and slipped them on her feet. They fit like well-worn gloves. Her throat tightened.

  Her mother had never given up hope that her daughter would one day return home.

  She should have come back years ago. If the authorities had suspected her of killing her stepfather, they would have come after her long ago. It wasn’t as if she’d disappeared or changed her name. For years, Bree had found herself wishing they would come after her, rather than living in fear they would one day show up at her door.

  Not knowing what she would have to deal with, she grabbed a thick jacket, wool cap, gloves and a neck scarf, then hurried out of the house and down to the barn. It was smaller than the original but appeared to be sturdy. Someone had painted the exterior a ruddy red with white trim. It could have been a on a postcard, it was so perfect.

  Bree smiled. The barn that had been there when she was a child had been worn and weathered with a few of the boards rotting out and needing to be replaced. Her stepfather never seemed to get around to repairing things. And paint? He considered it a waste of time and money, not a way to protect and preserve the wood.

  Bree liked the new barn and the red paint, glad her mother had one built the way she liked it.

  As she approached the paddock closest to the barn, she noticed a bay mare standing with her head down.

  Bree clucked her tongue. “Hey, sweet girl.”

  The horse only half-lifted her head, before letting it droop again. She moved toward a water trough near the fence, her hooves dragging across the ground.

  Bree hurried over, arriving before the horse. On the ground beside the trough lay a dead red-breasted robin.

  The mare lifted her head high enough to drink from the tainted pool.

  “No!” Bree yelled and waved her hand, scaring the horse away from the trough. With her feet, she pushed the heavy galvanized container hard, bracing her back against the fence post. She had to rock the huge bucket several times before it finally tipped over, spilling the contents out onto the ground.

  Bree hurried to the barn where she found a yellow tabby lying near the door, unmoving.

  The bird, cat and the horse in the paddock were painting a picture of what was happening. The bird and horse could have eaten the same feed, but the cat wouldn’t necessarily eat the same things. The common, ingestible denominator had to be water.

  Hurrying into the barn, Bree counted six horses stabled in stalls on either side of the structure. One by one, she checked the horses. They didn’t appear as affected by the poisoned water as the horse in the paddock, but then they hadn’t had access to as much of the contaminated water with only a small bucket to drink from. Still, their eyes were glassy, and they appeared lethargic when she entered each stall to remove the water buckets, setting them outside the stall until she had collected all of them. One by one she carried the buckets outside and poured all but one out on the ground. The last one she set aside and covered to keep any other animal from drinking from its contents.

  Once she’d cleared the barn, she checked the chicken coop. Inside, it looked like a chicken apocalypse. Every one of the chickens lay still on the ground.

  Anger surged in Bree. What had happened to poison the ranch water?

  Until she discovered the source of the poison, all the animals remaining alive on the ranch were at risk. She’d have to find a safe haven for them until they resolved the problem.

  With the horses all exhibiting signs of poisoning, Bree couldn’t take one of them and ride out to check on the other horses and cattle out in the fields farther away from the house.

  She found a four-wheeler in a shed located at the back of the barn. Thankfully, it started up with no problem and had enough gas in the tank to get her around the ranch and back to the house.

  Pulling her collar up around her neck and her wool hat over her ears, she revved the engine and took off out of the barnyard to follow the creek that fed the well servicing the house and barn.

  When she found the source, she’d head to the south valley at the base of the Crazy Mountains to check on the herd. She prayed the cattle hadn’t been affected by the poisoned water. Hopefully, they were far enough away from the source of the toxin. She’d have her hands full getting the other animals away from the house and barn. She’d need to get the local vet in to find out what, if anything, they could do to treat those creatures affected that weren’t already dead.

  Her heart hurt for the animals who hadn’t survived the lethal poison.

  A thin layer of snow blanketed the ground. It wasn’t enough to warrant the use of a snowmobile, but it hid a lot of bumps and holes. Bree gripped the handlebars, struggling to keep hold and stay her course. The cold wind seemed to blow straight through her heavy jacket and gloves. Already, her fingers and toes felt the bite of the frigid air. Thankfully, the cold snap wasn’t supposed to last much longer, and spring would soon resume its tenuous hold on the Crazy Mountains.

  The volatility of the weather was the only constant in that area of the country. Bree had known it to snow in the mountains as late as July.

  As she followed the creek through the pasture, she noted several horses standing in the open, heads drooping, exhibiting little to no movement. She made a mental note to return and move those horses to a safe location…wherever that might be.

  She’d gone at least half a mile without noticing anything out of the ordinary in the water. Several dead birds and one fox lay near the banks, making it apparent the stream feeding the well and barn had been contaminated. Bree had to keep following it until she found the source.

  When she neared the fence separating the south valley from the pasture surrounding the barn and ranch house, she noticed an odd-shaped lump on the bank of the creek.

  She slowed to a stop, climbed off the ATV and went to investigate. It could have been a large boulder buried beneath a layer of snow, but the shape and size were too uniform, almost rectangular, like a fifty-pound sack of feed.

  Bree dusted the snow away and squatted next to a bag of something. As she read the lettering, her heart skipped several beats, and anger bubbled up inside, making her hot all the way out to her fingers and toes.

  Arsenic.

  Someone had dumped a bag of rat poison into the water running through Wolf Creek Ranch.

  She straightened and pulled her cellphone from her back pocket. As she expected, she had no reception, but that’s not why she needed her phone. She quickly snapped photos of the bag and its location, before the cold completely killed her battery. Once she was certain she had the evidence in hand, she tugged the bag out of the water and away from the creek, her anger boiling over.

  What sadistic bastard had poisoned the drinking water for a ranch? Why would someone do that?

  To be certain there weren’t more bags of poison in the stream, she followed the fence line all the way to the cross fence bordering the south valley. She rumbled across the cattle guard and followed the stream as the elevation increased, climbing into the foothills of the Crazy Mountains. Eventually, she spotted the herd of cattle in the distance, near the fence line between the Wolf Creek and Iron Horse ranches.

  As she approached, she realized they weren’t on the Wol
f Creek side of the fence, but on Iron Horse land.

  Her pulse picked up when she found that a barbed wire fence had been cut, the ends curling like so much concertina wire, lying across the ground.

  Skirting the sharp barbs, she hesitated only a moment before she crossed over into the Iron Ranch. If those were Wolf Creek Ranch cattle, they needed to be brought back to the correct side of the fence, and the fence needed to be repaired.

  Not that she could make the repairs at that time, but at least she could determine whether the cattle belonged to Wolf Creek.

  Slowly, so as not to spook the herd, she eased up as close as she could get, killed the engine and dismounted.

  Other than one or two skittish steers, the rest of the herd continued to push aside the snow to find the tender shoots of grass that had started to come up out of the ground before the snow had fallen and stunted their growth.

  Bree walked slowly toward the herd, squinting to see the markings on the cattle. As she had suspected, they belonged on Wolf Creek.

  She circled around the back of the herd, took off her helmet and wool cap and waved them at the steers nearest to her. “Whoop,” she said softly, but firmly, moving closer to the animals, hoping to drive them back through the gap in the fence. She was certain they wouldn’t stay for long, but she had to do something to bring them back in line.

  When a cow broke away from the others and tried to go around her, Bree darted back, placing her body in front of the animal.

  The cow switched directions and almost ran right over Bree.

  Bree threw herself to the side and rolled across the snow, avoiding being trampled by a hair.

  For a moment, she lay staring up at the cloud-covered sky. She couldn’t herd the cattle back through the gap in the fence on foot, and one person on an ATV wouldn’t be enough to get them back through the narrow gap. She’d need help.

  She just hoped she could get someone to help. Someone who wasn’t a member of the McKinnon clan. If possible, she’d like to get Wolf Creek cattle back on their ranch, mend the fence and nobody be the wiser.

  Galloping hooves made Bree bolt upright in time to see a horse charging toward her.

  She threw her arm over her face and braced herself to be trampled.

  * * *

  Angus had followed the canyon floor all the way out of the canyon without finding any sign of his father.

  He was about to turn around and head back into the canyon when he’d spotted the herd of cattle and a lone figure waving at them.

  Altering his course, he headed toward the herd and the person.

  When the person moving toward them took off her helmet and hat, a mass of dark brown hair spilled free, flying in the wind.

  Angus’s heartbeat stuttered, and then raced ahead. The only person he knew with that glorious shade of rich brown hair was the one who’d broken his heart so many years ago.

  Part of him wanted to chase her down and ask her why she hadn’t waited. The other part of him needed to ride away. He didn’t want to resurrect their past. It had hurt too much then. Repeating the pain would be foolish.

  Bree waved her arms at the cattle, moving them toward the fence and what Angus could see was a break in the wire.

  He’d half-turned when a rogue cow refused to be herded and broke free, running straight for the woman trying to get her to go back through the fence.

  Angus froze, held his breath and waited for what would surely be Bree’s death due to being trampled by a cow that weighed ten times what she did.

  Bree dove to the side, narrowly escaping being pounded into the earth by those flying hooves.

  When Bree didn’t immediately get up, Angus reined his horse around and raced toward her.

  He’d almost reached her when she sat up straight and turned her frightened eyes toward him.

  Pulling hard on his reins, he brought his gelding to a skidding stop and flew out of the saddle, landing on the ground beside the woman he’d sworn to avoid at all costs. “Bree,” he called out, dropping to his knees beside her. “Are you all right?”

  She looked up at him, her eye wide. “Angus.”

  Her voice was a mere whisper of her usual tone. When she didn’t say anything else, he could only assume she’d been injured in her tumble.

  He touched her legs, running his hands over each, one at a time. “Anything broken? Are you hurt?”

  Neither leg felt as if it had been broken, so he moved his hands to her arms. “Talk to me, Bree,” he said, smoothing his hands over each arm, his heart beating hard against his ribs. “What hurts? Are you dizzy? Did you hit your head?”

  She shook her head and reached out to capture his hands in hers. “I’m not hurt,” she finally said.

  He stopped feeling for breaks and stared into her beautiful brown eyes. All the pain and longing he’d suffered seemed to return in full force. A rush of anger bubbled up and exploded. “Are you crazy? What the hell were you doing?”

  “The fence…” She waved her hand toward the break in the wire. “It’s down. I was trying to get Wolf Creek cattle back in their own pasture.” She gave him a weak smile. “I think it’ll take more than me to convince them. I must have gotten rusty since I’ve been away.”

  “If you needed help getting them back on their side, why didn’t you ask your ranch hands for help?”

  Her lip caught between her teeth, and she shook her head. “My mother and her foreman are in the hospital.” Bree’s forehead wrinkled in a worried frown.

  Angus gripped her arms, his brow furrowing. “In the hospital? What happened?”

  She looked up at him, her lips forming a thin line. “They’ve been poisoned.”

  “What the hell?”

  Bree’s eyes pooled. “It’s awful. Mom and Ray nearly died.” Her voice hitched on a sob. “And the animals…” She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “They’re either really sick or dead. I don’t know if some of the horses will make it.”

  He’d been furiously angry, but more than that, he’d been scared. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly for a moment. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry.”

  Her fingers curled into his shirt, and she leaned her forehead against him. “I have to get the animals away from the ranch. They’ll die if they stay.

  “Then why are you trying to get your cattle back on your place?”

  She leaned back, her brow dipping. “They don’t belong on the Iron Horse Ranch. They aren’t a McKinnon responsibility.” Bree inhaled deeply and leaned away.

  Angus’s arms fell to his sides. “You know neighbors help each other when they need it.”

  Bree looked away. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  She didn’t want to bother him. Bree didn’t have to get specific. Angus knew.

  His jaw tightened. “No matter how you feel about me or any other McKinnon, you can’t let the animals suffer.” He tipped his head toward the cattle. “They can’t go back to Wolf Creek until the problem is resolved.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but then must have thought about it, and closed it again. “I’ll ask the Johnsons if we can move the herd to their property.”

  The return of anger pushed heat up Angus’s neck into his face, but he gritted his teeth and held it in check. “The cattle are already on Iron Horse Ranch,” he said. “Let them stay. And we’ll help you get the other animals to safety as well.”

  Bree’s chin touched her chest. “I can’t impose on you.”

  “You damn sure can,” Angus said, his voice harsh.

  When Bree flinched, Angus’s anger melted. “Look, Bree, whatever happened between us doesn’t matter right now. What matters is making your mother, your foreman and your animals safe and well. Let me help.” He drew in a breath and let it out. God, was he crazy? He could very well be setting himself up for another round heartache.

  Bree chewed on her bottom lip, making Angus want to bend down and kiss it to keep her from worrying. Back when they’d been young and in love, he’d alw
ays kissed away her worried expression. He had never been able to stand seeing her upset. Now was no different. He still felt the same.

  But she didn’t.

  Something had changed after he’d left. Bree obviously had fallen out of love with him. People did. Perhaps she’d outgrown her childhood infatuation.

  He’d told himself he’d gotten over her years ago. The way he wanted to hold her, wipe away her tears and chase away fears told him that was a lie.

  Changing her mind wasn’t an option, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the welfare of the residents of Wolf Creek Ranch.

  With a sigh, he spoke softly, “Let us help. If not for you, then for your mother and the animals.”

  With her shoulders back and her chin tipped up, her gaze turned toward Wolf Creek and the cattle that hadn’t gone anywhere near the hole in the fence and were safely on Iron Horse Ranch. She didn’t answer for a long time, but finally, her shoulders slumped. “Okay. For the animals and Mom.”

  Not her.

  It was a start.

  “And you can’t stay at Wolf Creek, either,” he went on.

  “I’ll find a place in town.”

  “You’d be better off staying close, in case you need to be here for the animals. You can stay at our house.”

  Before he finished speaking, Bree was shaking her head. “No. I’ll find a place in town.”

  “What if a horse or a cow needs to be cared for through the night? Do you trust us to do it?”

  Her lowered brows formed a V over her nose. “I’ll take care of them. It’s enough that you’re letting them stay here.”

  “Then you’ll have to be close enough to care for them. My mother will insist on your staying with us. Unless it bothers you that I’ll be there.” He braced himself for the answer he suspected to be true.