B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection

by B. J Daniels

  A light burned inside, but the drapes were closed. Still, she waited to make sure she couldn’t hear anyone on the other side of the glass before she moved.

  Ducking, she slipped quickly through a shaft of illumination from a streetlamp and stopped at the second bedroom window.

  There, she waited for a few moments. No light burned inside the room. Still she listened before she pulled the screwdriver from her jacket pocket and began to pry up the window.

  At first the old casement window didn’t move and she feared she’d been right about someone discovering what she’d done and locking the window again.

  When it finally gave, it did so with a pop that sounded like an explosion to her ears. She froze. No sound came from within the room. Her hands shook as she pried the window up enough that she could get her fingers under it.

  Feeling as if there was no turning back now, she lifted the window enough to climb in. Heart in her throat, she drew back the curtain. She’d half expected to find someone standing on the other side lying in wait for her.

  The room, painted pink, was empty except for a few pieces of mismatched furniture: a dresser, a rocking chair, a changing table and a crib.

  She looked to the crib, fearing that she’d come this far only to fail. But from the faint light coming from the streetlamp, she could see the small lump beneath the tiny quilt.

  Her heart beat faster at the thought that in a few minutes she would have the baby in her arms.

  She heard the car coming down the street just seconds before the headlights washed over her. Halfway in the window, there was nothing she could do but hurry. She wasn’t leaving here without the baby.

  Chapter One

  The breeze rustled through the aspens, sending golden leaves whirling around him as Jordan Cardwell walked up the hill to the cemetery. He wore a straw Western hat he’d found on a peg by the back door of the ranch house.

  He hadn’t worn a cowboy hat since he’d left Montana twenty years ago, but this one kept his face from burning. It was so much easier to get sunburned at this high altitude than it was in New York City.

  It was hot out and yet he could feel the promise of winter hiding at the edge of the fall day. Only the memory of summer remained in the Gallatin River Canyon. Cold nightly temperatures had turned the aspens to glittering shades of gold and orange against the dark green of the pines.

  Below him he could hear the rushing water of the Gallatin as the river cut a deep winding course through the canyon. Across the river, sheer granite cliffs rose up to where the sun hung in a faded blue big Montana sky.

  As he walked, the scent of crushed dry leaves beneath his soles sent up the remembered smell of other autumns. He knew this land. As hard as he’d tried to escape it, this place was branded on him, this life as familiar as his own heartbeat—even after all these years.

  He thought of all the winters he’d spent in this canyon listening to the ice crack on the river, feeling the bite of snow as it blew off a pine bough to sting his face, breathing in a bone-deep cold that made his head ache.

  He’d done his time here, he thought as he turned his face up to the last of the day’s warmth before the sun disappeared behind the cliffs. Soon the aspens would be bare, the limbs dark against a winter-washed pale frosty sky. The water in the horse troughs would begin to freeze and so would the pooling eddies along the edge of the river. The cold air in the shade of the pines was a warning of what was to come, he thought as he reached the wrought-iron cemetery gate.

  The gate groaned as he shoved it open. He hesitated. What was he doing here? Nearby the breeze sighed in the tops of the towering pines, drawing his attention to the dense stand. He didn’t remember them being so tall. Or so dark and thick. As he watched the boughs sway, he told himself to make this quick. He didn’t want to get caught here.

  Even though it was a family cemetery, he didn’t feel welcome here anymore. His own fault, but still, it could get messy if anyone from his family caught him on the ranch. He didn’t plan to stick around long enough to see any of them. It was best that way, he told himself as he stepped through the gate into the small cemetery.

  He’d never liked graveyards. Nor did it give him any comfort to know that more than a dozen remains of their relatives were interred here. He took no satisfaction in the long lineage of the Justice family, let alone the Cardwell one, in this canyon—unlike his sister.

  Dana found strength in knowing that their ancestors had been mule-headed ranchers who’d weathered everything Montana had thrown at them to stay on this ranch. They’d settled this land along a stretch of the Gallatin, a crystal clear trout stream that ran over a hundred miles from Yellowstone Park to the Missouri River.

  The narrow canyon got little sunlight each day. In the winter it was an icebox of frost and snow. Getting up to feed the animals had been pure hell. He’d never understood why any of them had stayed.

  But they had, he thought as he surveyed the tombstones. They’d fought this land to remain here and now they would spend eternity in soil that had given them little in return for their labors.

  A gust of wind rattled through the colorful aspen leaves and moaned in the high branches of the pines. Dead foliage floated like gold coins around him, showering the weather-bleached gravestones. He was reminded why he’d never liked coming up to this windblown hill. He found no peace among the dead. Nor had he come here today looking for it.

  He 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?”

  Jordan turned the hat brim nervously in his fingers as he looked down at his mother’s grave and searched for the words to tell her how much he hated what she’d done to him. To all of them. But to his surprise he felt tears well in his eyes, his throat constricting on a gulf of emotion he hadn’t anticipated.

  A gust of wind bent the pine boughs and blew down to scatter dried leaves across the landscape. His skin rippled with goosebumps as he suddenly sensed someone watching him. His head came up, his gaze going to the darkness of the pines.

  She was only a few yards away. He hadn’t heard the woman on horseback approach and realized she must have been there the whole time, watching him.

  She sat astride a large buckskin horse. Shadows played across her face from the swaying pine boughs. The breeze lifted the long dark hair that flowed like molten obsidian over her shoulders and halfway down her back.

  There was something vaguely familiar about her. But if he’d known her years before when this was home, he coul
dn’t place her now. He’d been gone too long from Montana.

  And yet a memory tugged at him. His gaze settled on her face again, the wide-set green eyes, that piercing look that seemed to cut right to his soul.

  With a curse, he knew where he’d seen her before—and why she was looking at him the way she was. A shudder moved through him as if someone had just walked over his grave.

  * * *

  LIZA TURNER HAD WATCHED the man slog up the hill, his footsteps slow, his head down, as if he were going to a funeral. So she hadn’t been surprised when he’d pushed open the gate to the cemetery and stepped in.

  At first, after reining her horse in under the pines, she’d been mildly curious. She loved this spot, loved looking across the canyon as she rode through the groves of aspens and pines. It was always cool in the trees. She liked listening to the river flowing emerald-green below her on the hillside and taking a moment to search the granite cliffs on the other side for mountain sheep.

  She hadn’t expected to see anyone on her ride this morning. When she’d driven into the ranch for her usual trek, she’d seen the Cardwell Ranch pickup leaving and remembered that Hud was taking Dana into Bozeman today for her doctor’s appointment. They were leaving the kids with Dana’s best friend and former business partner, Hilde at Needles and Pins, the local fabric store.

  The only other person on the ranch was the aging ranch manager, Warren Fitzpatrick. Warren would be watching Let’s Make a Deal at his cabin this time of the morning.

  So Liza had been curious and a bit leery when she’d first laid eyes on the stranger in the Western straw hat. As far as she knew, no one else should have been on the ranch today. So who was this tall, broad-shouldered cowboy?

  Dana had often talked about hiring some help since Warren was getting up in years and she had her hands full with a four- and five-year-old, not to mention now being pregnant with twins.

  But if this man was the new hired hand, why would he be interested in the Justice-Cardwell family cemetery? She felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle. There was something about this cowboy… His face had been in shadow from the brim of his hat. When he’d stopped at one of the graves and had taken his hat off, head bowed, she still hadn’t been able to see more than his profile from where she sat astride her horse.

  Shifting in the saddle, she’d tried to get a better look. He must have heard the creak of leather or sensed her presence. His head came up, his gaze darting right to the spot where she sat. He looked startled at first, then confused as if he was trying to place her.

  She blinked, not sure she could trust her eyes. Jordan Cardwell?

  He looked completely different from the arrogant man in the expensive three-piece suit she’d crossed paths with six years ago. He wore jeans, a button-up shirt and work boots. He looked tanned and stronger as if he’d been doing manual labor. There was only a hint of the earlier arrogance in his expression, making him more handsome than she remembered.

  She saw the exact moment when he recognized her. Bitterness burned in his dark gaze as a small resentful smile tugged at his lips.

  Oh, yes, it was Jordan Cardwell all right, she thought, wondering what had made her think he was handsome just moments before or—even harder to believe, that he might have changed.

  Six years ago he’d been the number one suspect in a murder as well as a suspect in an attempted murder. Liza had been the deputy who’d taken his fingerprints.

  She wondered now what he was doing not only back in the canyon, but also on the ranch he and his siblings had fought so hard to take from their sister Dana.

  * * *

  DANA SAVAGE LAY BACK ON THE examining table, nervously picking at a fingernail. “I can’t remember the last time I saw my feet,” she said with a groan.

  Dr. Pamela Burr laughed. “This might feel a little cold.”

  Dana tried not to flinch as the doctor applied clear jelly to her huge stomach. She closed her eyes and waited until she heard the heartbeats before she opened them again. “So everything is okay?”

  “Your babies appear to be doing fine. Don’t you want to look?”

  Dana didn’t look at the monitor. “You know Hud. He’s determined to be surprised. Just like the last two. So I don’t dare look.” She shot a glance at her husband. He stood next to her, his gaze on her, not the screen. He smiled, but she could see he was worried.

  The doctor shut off the machine. “As for the spotting…”

  Dana felt her heart drop as she saw the concern in Dr. Burr’s expression.

  “I’m going to have to insist on bed rest for these last weeks,” she said. “Let’s give these babies the best start we can by leaving them where they are for now.” She looked to Hud.

  “You can count on me,” he said. “It’s Dana you need to convince.”

  Dana sat up and laid her hands over her extended stomach. She felt the twins moving around in the cramped space. Poor babies. “Okay.”

  “You understand what bed rest means?” the doctor asked. “No ranch business, no getting up except to shower and use the bathroom. You’re going to need help with Hank and Mary.”

  That was putting it mildly when you had a four- and five-year-old who were wild as the canyon where they lived.

  “I’m sure Hud—”

  “You’ll need more than his help.” The doctor pressed a piece of paper into her hand. “These are several women you might call that I’ve used before.”

  Dana didn’t like the idea of bringing in a stranger to take care of Hud and the kids, but the babies kicked and she nodded.

  “Doc said I was going to have to watch you like a hawk,” Hud told her on the way home. Apparently while she was getting dressed, Dr. Burr had been bending his ear, down the hall in her office. “You always try to do too much. With the kids, the ranch, me—”

  “I’ll be good.”

  He gave her a disbelieving look.

  “Marshal, would you like a sworn affidavit?”

  He grinned over at her. “Actually, I’m thinking about handcuffing you to the bed. I reckon it will be the only way I can keep you down for a day let alone weeks.”

  Dana groaned as she realized how hard it was going to be to stay in bed. “What about Hank and Mary? They won’t understand why their mommy can’t be up and around, let alone outside with them and their animals.” Both of them had their own horses and loved to ride.

  “I’ve already put in for a leave. Liza can handle things. Anyway, it’s in between resort seasons so it’s quiet.”

  September through the middle of November was slow around Big Sky with the summer tourists gone and ski season still at least a month away.

  Dana knew October was probably a better time than any other for her husband to be off work. That wasn’t the problem. “Hud, I hate to see you have to babysit me and the kids.”

  “It’s not babysitting when it’s your wife and kids, Dana.”

  “You know what I mean. There are the kids and the ranch—”

  “Honey, you’ve been trying to do it all for too long.”

  She had been juggling a lot of balls for some time now, but Hud always helped on the weekends. Their ranch manager, Warren Fitzpatrick, was getting up in years so he had really slowed down. But Warren was a fixture around the ranch, one she couldn’t afford to replace. More than anything, she loved the hands-on part of ranching so she spent as much time as she could working the land.

  When she’d found out she was pregnant this time she’d been delighted, but a little worried how she was going to handle another child right now.

  Then the doctor had told her she was having twins. Twins? Seriously?

  “Are you all right?” Hud asked as he placed his hand over hers and squeezed.

  She smiled and nodded. “I’m always all right when I’m with you.”r />
  He gave her hand another squeeze before he went back to driving. “I’m taking you home. Then I’ll go by the shop and pick up the kids.” Her friend Hilde had the kids in Big Sky. “But I’d better not find out you were up and about while I was gone.”

  Dana shook her head and made a cross with her finger over her heart. She lay back and closed her eyes, praying as she had since the spotting had begun that the babies she was carrying would be all right. Mary and Hank were so excited about the prospect of two little brothers or sisters. She couldn’t disappoint them.

  She couldn’t disappoint anyone, especially her mother, she thought. While Mary Justice Cardwell had been gone six years now, she was as much a part of the ranch as the old, two-story house where Dana lived with Hud and the kids. Her mother had trusted her to keep Cardwell Ranch going. Against all odds she was doing her darnedest to keep that promise.

  So why did she feel so scared, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop?

  Chapter Two

  Jordan watched Deputy Liza Turner ride her horse out of the pines. The past six years had been good to her. She’d been pretty back then. Now there was a confidence as if she’d grown into the woman she was supposed to become. He recalled how self-assured and efficient she’d been at her job. She was also clearly at home on the back of a horse.

  The trees cast long shadows over the stark landscape. Wind whirled the dried leaves that now floated in the air like snowflakes.

  “Jordan Cardwell,” she said as she reined in her horse at the edge of the cemetery.

  He came out through the gate, stopping to look up at her. “Deputy.” She had one of those faces that was almost startling in its uniqueness. The green eyes wide, captivating and always filled with curiosity. He thought she was more interesting than he remembered. That, he realized, was probably because she was out of uniform.

  She wore jeans and a red-checked Western shirt that made her dark hair appear as rich as mahogany. She narrowed those green eyes at him. Curiosity and suspicion, he thought.