B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection

by B. J Daniels

  Just then the rod jerked. Brick set the hook and hauled a large rainbow trout out of the slushy water and up onto the ice. He picked up the flopping trout, unhooked it and dropped it back into the water.

  Hud stood, trying to put into words everything he wanted—needed—to say to his father. Hud had been so sure that his father had set him up so he could kill Judge Raymond Randolph and frame the Kirk brothers. “Dad, I—”

  “There’s an extra rod,” Brick said, cutting him off. He motioned to the rod resting against an adjacent stump.

  “You knew I’d be showing up?” Hud asked in surprise.

  His dad smiled. “I’d hoped you would.”

  “There’s some things I need to say to you.”

  Brick shook his head. “Your coming here today says everything I need to hear.” He reached over and picked up the short rod and handed it to his son. “If you want, we could keep a few fish and cook them up for lunch. Or if you’re in a hurry—”

  “No hurry. I haven’t had trout in a long time,” Hud said, taking a seat across from his father. “I could stay to eat trout for lunch.”

  His dad nodded and Hud thought he glimpsed something he’d never seen, tears in his father’s eyes. Brick dropped his head to bait his hook and when he looked up again, the tears were gone. If they were ever there.

  He watched his father, thinking he might call Dana after lunch to see if she’d like trout for dinner tonight. “I’ve been offered the marshal job,” he said as he baited his line and dropped it into the hole.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “I heard you put in a good word for me,” Hud said, feeling his throat tighten.

  “Rupert’s got a big mouth,” Brick said but smiled. “The canyon’s lucky to get you. Dana pleased about it?”

  He nodded and hooked into a fish. “You know about Rupert and Kitty Randolph?”

  “I knew he liked her. He’s taking it all pretty hard. He likes to think he’s smarter than most people when it comes to figuring out criminals,” Brick said.

  “Kitty fooled a lot of people.”

  “Yes, she did,” Brick said.

  They spent the rest of the morning fishing, talking little. Later while Brick was frying up the trout for lunch, Hud called Dana and told her he was bringing trout for dinner.

  “You ask her to marry you yet?” Brick asked after he hung up and they were sitting down to eat lunch.

  “I’m going to tonight,” Hud said.

  Without a word, his dad got up from the table and returned a few minutes later with a small velvet box. He set it beside Hud’s plate and sat. “I know you bought her an engagement ring before. I couldn’t afford an engagement ring for your mother so she never had one. But I was wondering if you’d like to have your grandmother’s?”

  Hud frowned. He’d never known either of his grandparents. His father’s parents were dead before he was born and from what he’d heard, his mother’s family had disowned his mother when she’d married Brick. “My grandmother…?”

  “Christensen. Your grandmother on your mother’s side,” he said, and handed the small velvet box to Hud. “She left it to me in her will. I guess it was her way of saying she was sorry for making it so hard on your mother for marrying me.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I know your mother would want you to have it.”

  Hud opened the small velvet box and pulled back in surprise. “It’s beautiful.”

  Brick helped himself to the trout. “Just like Dana.”

  Hud studied his father. “Thank you.”

  “There’s some money, too,” Brick said. “Probably not near enough to pay off Dana’s brothers and sister and keep the ranch though.”

  “I doubt there is enough money in the world for that,” Hud said. “Jordan won’t be happy until the ranch is sold, but I’m sure he’ll be disappointed when he realizes how small his share is. He would have been much better off if his mother’s new will had been found. He would have gotten money for years from the ranch instead of a lump sum, and in the end come out way ahead.”

  “But he wants it all now,” Brick said. “You think he found the new will and destroyed it?”

  “Probably.”

  Brick handed him the plate of trout.

  “I got a call from Stacy Cardwell this morning. She’s in Las Vegas. She said Kitty threatened to kill her when she stopped by the woman’s place the night before she left. I guess Stacy thought she could get some traveling money out of Kitty as if blackmail went both ways,” Hud said, shaking his head.

  “It’s a wonder Kitty didn’t shoot her on the spot.”

  Hud remembered Dana’s story about finding Kitty on her hands and knees digging in the closet. “Probably would have but she’d forgotten she still had the .38. There was a struggle though. Dana said Kitty had a bruise on her cheek.”

  Brick nodded. “You could bring Stacy back to face charges.”

  Hud shook his head. Both Lanny and Kitty were dead. It was over.

  He and Brick ate in silence for a while, then Hud said, “I saw you with Ginger that night.”

  His father paused, then took a bite of fish. “I remembered after you were gone. I pulled her over that night. She’d been drinking. I thought about taking her in, made her get out of the car and go through the sobriety tests.”

  Hud recalled the sound of Ginger’s laughter. As Hud had driven past, she’d been flirting with Brick, spinning around in that red dress and those bright red high-heeled shoes.

  “I saw all her stuff in the back of her car,” Brick said.

  Hud wondered if the judge or Kitty had gotten rid of Ginger’s belongings and her car. No one would have ever known about her death, if Warren hadn’t seen her skull at the bottom of the Cardwell Ranch well.

  “She told me she was leaving town,” Brick was saying. “I told her to be careful. If I’d locked her up that night, she might still be alive.”

  DANA STOOD in the kitchen after Hud’s call, looking up the hillside. There was no old chimney or foundation anymore. It was as if there’d never been an old homestead up there. Or an old well. A backhoe operator had filled in the well. Soon after the land was cleared, it had begun to snow again, covering up the scarred earth.

  Dana thought she could get used to the new view, but it would take time. She frowned at the thought, realizing she didn’t have time. After everything that had happened, she had given up her fight to save the ranch. Jordan was right. All she was doing was costing them all attorney’s fees and eventually, she would lose and have to sell anyway. She’d told Jordan he could list the property with a Realtor.

  She turned away from the window, turning her thoughts, as well, to more pleasant things. Hud. She smiled, just thinking about him. They’d been inseparable, making love, talking about the future. Even now she missed him and couldn’t wait for him to get back.

  He was bringing trout for dinner. She was glad he’d gone up to see his father. Her mother had been right about one thing. Family. It did matter. Her own father was out of the hospital and planning to be back playing with Uncle Harlan in the band. They’d both offered to play at the wedding. Her father had promised to cut back on his drinking but Dana wasn’t holding her breath. She was just glad to still have him.

  She smiled, thinking of the wedding she and Hud would have. That is, if he asked her to marry him again.

  Since Kitty Randolph’s death, a lot of things had come out about the judge. Some of the things Hud had blamed on his father had been the judge’s doing.

  Hud had even realized that his mother’s bitterness toward Brick was fueled by her family and that it had made Brick into the hard man he was when Hud was growing up.

  The last few days had changed them all. At least Dana had decided she was ready to let go of all the old hurts and move on, whatever the future held.

  She stopped in the middle of the kitchen as if she’d just felt a warm hand on her shoulder and it was as if she could feel her mother’s presence. Wasn’t this what her mother had wan
ted? For her to forgive and forget?

  Dana smiled, the feeling warming her as she moved to the cupboard that held all her mother’s cookbooks. Like her mother, she loved cookbooks, especially the old ones.

  She pulled out her mother’s favorite and ran her fingers over the worn cover. Maybe she would make Hud’s favorite double-chocolate brownies from her mother’s old recipe. She hadn’t made them since Hud had left five years before.

  As she opened the book, several sheets of lined paper fluttered to the floor. Stooping to pick them up, she caught sight of her mother’s handwriting. Her heart leaped to her throat. Hurriedly, she unfolded the pages.

  Her heart began to pound harder as she stared down at her mother’s missing will.

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-1487-6

  CRIME SCENE AT CARDWELL RANCH

  Copyright © 2006 by Barbara Heinlein

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  www.eHarlequin.com

  * Cascades Concealed

  † McCalls’ Montana

  ‡ Montana Mystique

  CARDWELL CHARM WAS ALL HE’D EVER NEEDED…UNTIL NOW

  Six years ago, Dana Cardwell found her mother’s will in a cookbook and became sole owner of the Cardwell Ranch in Big Sky, Montana. Now happily married, Dana is surprised when her siblings, Stacy and Jordan, show up on the ranch…and trouble isn’t too far behind.

  As danger draws closer to the ranch, deputy marshal Liza Turner quickly realizes that Jordan Cardwell isn’t the man the town made him out to be.

  Jordan moved quickly through the gravestones until he found the one stone that was newer than the others, only six years in the ground.

  The name on the tombstone read Mary Justice Cardwell.

  “Hello, Mother,” he said, removing his hat as he felt all the conflicting emotions he’d had when she was alive. All the arguments came rushing back, making him sick at the memory. He hadn’t been able to change her mind, and now she was gone, leaving them all behind to struggle as a family without her.

  He could almost hear their last argument whispered on the wind. “There is nothing keeping you here, let alone me,” he’d argued. “Why are you fighting so hard to keep this place going? Can’t you see that ranching is going to kill you?”

  He recalled her smile, that gentle gleam in her eyes that infuriated him. “This land is what makes me happy, son. Someday you will realize that ranching is in our blood. You can fight it, but this isn’t just your home, a part of your heart is here as well.”

  “Like hell,” he’d said. “Sell the ranch, Mother, before it’s too late. If not for yourself and the rest of us, then for Dana. She’s too much like you. She will spend her life fighting to keep this place. Don’t do that to her.”

  “She’ll keep this ranch for the day when you come back to help her run it.”

  “That’s never going to happen, Mother.”

  Mary Justice Cardwell had smiled that knowing smile of hers. “Only time will tell, won’t it?”

  Dear Reader,

  It was so much fun for me to return to Cardwell Ranch. Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch has been read by more than two million readers, so it was a treat to go back and find out what happened to the Justice and Cardwell families in the sequel. Justice at Cardwell Ranch is a story I’ve wanted to write for a long time.

  When I was a girl, we had a cabin just down the road from where these books take place. I have such wonderful memories of the Gallatin Canyon. My brother and I had a fort out in the woods and spent hours exploring in what is now a wilderness area. I skied at Big Sky many times, and have hiked with a friend to Ousel Waterfalls, where part of this story takes place.

  I hope you enjoy this return trip to the “canyon.”

  B.J. Daniels

  www.bjdaniels.com

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  B.J. Daniels

  Justice at

  Cardwell Ranch

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  USA TODAY bestselling author B.J. Daniels wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. That first book, Odd Man Out, received a four-and-a-half-star review from RT Book Reviews and went on to be nominated for Best Intrigue that year. Since then, she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and many nominations and awards for best book.

  Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. Daniels is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.

  To contact her, write to B.J. Daniels, P.O. Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538, or email her at bjdaniels@mtintouch.net. Check out her website, www.bjdaniels.com.

  Books by B.J. Daniels

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  897—CRIME SCENE AT CARDWELL RANCH

  996—SECRET OF DEADMAN’S COULEE*

  1002—THE NEW DEPUTY IN TOWN*

  1024—THE MYSTERY MAN OF WHITEHORSE*

  1030—CLASSIFIED CHRISTMAS*

  1053—MATCHMAKING WITH A MISSION*

  1059—SECOND CHANCE COWBOY*

  1083—MONTANA ROYALTY*

  1125—SHOTGUN BRIDE‡

  1131—HUNTING DOWN THE HORSEMAN‡

  1137—BIG SKY DYNASTY‡

  1155—SMOKIN’ SIX-SHOOTER‡

  1161—ONE HOT FORTY-FIVE‡

  1198—GUN-SHY BRIDE**

  1204—HITCHED!**

  1210—TWELVE-GAUGE GUARDIAN**

  1234—BOOTS AND BULLETS‡‡

  1240—HIGH-CALIBER CHRISTMAS‡‡

  1246—WINCHESTER CHRISTMAS WEDDING‡‡

  1276—BRANDED†

  1282—LASSOED†

  1288—RUSTLED†

  1294—STAMPEDED†

  1335—CORRALLED†

  1353—WRANGLED†

  1377—JUSTICE AT CARDWELL RANCH

  *Whitehorse, Montana

  ‡Whitehorse, Montana: The Corbetts

  **Whitehorse, Montana: Winchester Ranch

  ‡‡Whitehorse, Montana: Winchester Ranch Reloaded

  †Whitehorse, Montana: Chisholm Cattle Company

  Other titles by this author available in ebook format.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Jordan Cardwell—The former cowboy bad boy is back in the canyon chasing a secret that would shock the Big Sky community.

  Liza Turner—The deputy marshal knows Jordan is dangerous. But she’s hoping he isn’t a murderer.

  Dana Cardwell Savage—Pregnant with twins and on doctor prescribed bed rest, all she needs is trouble from her estranged siblings.

  Hud Savage—The marshal has his hands full with a pregnant wife and two young children. He doesn’t need a murder or two—and a possible kidnapping.

  Stacy Cardwell—She left the canyon six years
ago, but now she is back with a surprise package and trouble at her heels.

  Clay Cardwell—He has his reasons for disappearing six months ago.

  Tanner Cole—He learned the hard way about a woman scorned.

  Shelby Durran-Iverson—She has a way of getting what she wants. But if her secret comes out, no one will be able to help her, not even her closest friends.

  Alex Winslow—He thinks he’s found a way to even a few scores and make his bad life better.

  Tessa Ryerson Spring—She has a lot of reasons to be resentful of her best friend.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  Prologue

  Nothing moved in the darkness. At the corner of the house she stopped to catch her breath. She could hear music playing somewhere down the street. Closer, a dog barked.

  As she waited in the deep shadow at the edge of the house, she measured the distance and the light she would have to pass through to reach the second window.

  When she’d sneaked into the house earlier, she’d left the window unlocked. But she had no way of knowing if someone had discovered it. If so, they might not have merely relocked it—they could be waiting for her.

  Fear had her heart pounding and her breath coming out in painful bursts. If she got caught— She couldn’t let herself think about that.

  The dog stopped barking for a moment. All she could hear was the faint music drifting on the night breeze. She fought to keep her breathing in check as she inched along the side of the house to the first window.