B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection

by B. J Daniels

  “Stop. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?” She’d turned to look at him again. “I repeat, what are you saying?”

  Hud clamped his mouth shut for a moment, his eyes dark. “Okay, I’ll just say it. I don’t think that baby is hers. In fact, I don’t even think the baby’s name is Ella. That baby quilt has the name Katie stitched on it.”

  “Okay, you are crazy,” Dana said. “The quilt is probably one she picked up at a secondhand store or a friend lent it to her.”

  “A friend? Has she received even one phone call since she’s been here?” He shook his head. “No, that’s because your sister doesn’t have friends. She never has.”

  “You don’t know that she hasn’t made friends the past six years.”

  “How could she? She moves around all the time. At least that’s her story. And what does she do for money, huh?”

  “She didn’t go to college or learn a trade so of course she has a hard time supporting herself.” Dana knew she was grasping at any explanation, but she couldn’t stop herself. “One look at Stacy and you can see she doesn’t have much. It’s probably the best she can do right now. And you know babies can change their food likes and dislikes in an afternoon. As for diapering…”

  Hud shook his head stubbornly.

  “Is she helping with the kids?”

  “Sure, she seems right at home with a four- and five-year-old.” He sighed. “I still have a hard time trusting Stacy.”

  “I know. She stole five years from us, breaking us up with one of her lies so I understand why you would question everything about her now.” Dana didn’t want to admit that she had felt the same way around her sister. But when she saw her sister with Ella—

  “Okay,” Hud said. “After dinner I might check in with Liza and see how the investigation is going.” He placed a large hand on her belly and waited for their twins to move as if needing reassurance.

  She could see that it was hell for him having a murder investigation going on while he was home playing Candy Land and Old Maid. But she saw something else in his expression, as well. “You’re going to your office to do more than check in, aren’t you? You’re going to investigate my sister.”

  “I just want to do some checking on her. Just to relieve my mind.”

  She knew there would be no stopping him no matter what she said. “I want to get to know my niece. After everything that has happened between us and Stacy, it wouldn’t take much for us to never see her or Ella again.”

  “If Ella isn’t her baby—”

  “You’re wrong. So go ahead and see what you can find out.”

  He bent down to kiss her before getting to his feet. “You’re probably right about everything.”

  Dana nodded as he left the room. But she hated that she didn’t feel sure about anything right now. To make matters worse she was trapped in bed, her children were out making clay with a woman who her husband thought might be a kidnapper and meanwhile, her brother Jordan was involved in a murder case.

  All she needed right now was for her younger brother, Clay, to show up.

  Her babies moved. She splayed her fingers over them, whispered that she loved them and did her best not to cry.

  Chapter Seven

  Jordan hadn’t been back to the cabin long when he heard a knock at his door. He put his unfinished sandwich in the small kitchenette refrigerator, then peeked out the window. He was in no mood for company.

  “You’ve been holding out on me,” Liza said when he finally opened the door.

  He’d let her knock for a while, then had given up that she wasn’t going to take the hint and leave him alone. He was in no mood after his run-in with Tessa and no longer sure about Tanner’s death any more than he was Alex’s.

  “I beg your pardon?” he said.

  “Tessa Ryerson Spring. You dated her at the same time Tanner was dating Brittany.”

  He sighed and stepped back to let Liza in, not wanting to discuss this on the cabin stoop. “I’d forgotten I dated her.”

  “Uh-huh.” The deputy marshal came into the small cabin and looked around. “Why did you and Alex fight over her?”

  Jordan shook his head and laughed. “I don’t recall.”

  She smiled. “Try again. It sounds as if it was quite the fight. Didn’t speak to each other for years. Does that refresh your memory?” She sat down on the end of his bed and crossed her legs, leaning back on her hands, her gaze on him.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” he said sarcastically.

  “I thought this might take a while.”

  He sighed and pulled out a chair from the small table that constituted the dining room. He straddled it and leaned his arms on the back as he looked at her. The woman was like a badger burrowing into a hole.

  “Fine. It isn’t something I like to talk about but since you’re determined… Shelby talked Tessa into breaking up with Alex and going out with me so we could double date with Tanner and Brittany.”

  “Tessa was a spy?”

  He nodded.

  “But it doesn’t explain why you dated Tessa. Or does it?” She grinned. “Brittany. You wanted to be close to her. Wow, what a tangled web we weave.”

  “Happy? When I found out what Shelby had done, I told Tessa off.” He shrugged.

  “Which explains why you and Alex got into a fight over her how exactly?”

  “I might have called her some names. Alex took offense. When I told him how far Tessa would go to do Shelby’s dirty work, he took a swing at me. I swung back. We were in high school. Stuff like that happened.”

  “Alex had forgotten all about it when he called to talk to you about Tanner?”

  Jordan shrugged. “I assume so.”

  Liza got to her feet and walked around the cabin for a moment. “You all talk about high school as if it was kid stuff.” She let out a chuckle. “You forget. I went to high school.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Jordan quipped.

  “Then this probably won’t, either. I let mean things happen to other students. No, worse than that, sometimes I was part of those things. I ran into one of the girls who was terrorized recently. She told me that she still has scars from the way she was treated.”

  He said nothing, afraid she’d been that girl. Liza would have been just different enough that he suspected she hadn’t been in a group like Shelby’s. He’d sensed a rebellious spirit just under her surface, a fire that the girls who followed Shelby didn’t have.

  She suddenly turned to face him, her expression angry and defiant. “Don’t tell me that what happened in high school didn’t matter. It mattered to Tanner and now I believe it has something to do with Alex Winslow’s death, as well. What I’m trying to understand is what happened.”

  “You and me both,” he said, feeling guilty because he’d been one of the popular kids. In his teens he hadn’t given much thought to those who weren’t. “If it helps, I saw Tessa today.” He held up a hand before she could berate him for getting involved in her investigation. “She sought me out. I went to get a sandwich and she came in. She either followed me or had been looking for me.”

  “What did she want?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe just information about Alex’s death. I thought at first Shelby had sent her. But then Shelby drove past and Tessa got all scared and left.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “She asked why anyone would want Alex dead. I said it could have something to do with him asking around about Tanner’s death.”

  The deputy sheriff let out an unladylike curse.

  “I wanted to see her reaction.”

  “And?”

  “It spooked the hell out of her. She knows something. When I was talking to her I had a thought. If Tanner did kill himself, it would have had to be over s
omething big. What if Shelby didn’t have a miscarriage? What if she lied about that, maybe as a test to see if Tanner loved her, who knows?”

  “What are you suggesting, that she was never pregnant?”

  “No, that she aborted the baby,” he said. “That she did it out of meanness to get back at him. To hurt him in a way that would haunt him to his grave.”

  Liza said nothing for a few moments. “You think that little of Shelby?”

  He met her gaze and held it. “Tessa is her best friend. She knows the truth. I also think she’s scared of that truth coming out.”

  “Wait, even if you’re right and Shelby did do something to get back at Tanner, that wouldn’t be something that she’d kill Alex to keep secret.”

  “Couldn’t it? Shelby is all about getting what she wants, whatever it takes, and Tessa and her other minions have always followed her blindly.”

  “You don’t think they’d draw the line when it came to out-and-out murder?” Liza demanded.

  “Not if they had something to do with Tanner’s death. What’s another body if Alex was getting too close to the truth?”

  Liza nodded. “So your graduating class from Big Sky was small, right?”

  Jordan reached behind him to pick up the crumpled piece of paper he’d left on the table. “This is the list of people who RSVP’d that they would be attending the reunion this weekend,” he said, handing it to her. “I marked the other two girls who ran with Shelby in high school. Ashley and Whitney.”

  Liza considered the wrinkled-up paper in her hand, then looked at him quizzically.

  “I had to dig it out of the trash before I flew out here. I wasn’t planning to attend—until Alex called. Then I was curious about who was coming.”

  “Let me guess,” Liza said. “You’re planning on going to the reunion now?”

  He smiled. “Not without a date. What do you say? Come on, this way you can get to see all the players in their natural habitat.”

  Liza actually seemed at a loss for words for a moment. “I feel like you’re asking me to the prom.”

  “If you’re expecting a corsage, a rented limo, champagne and a fancy hotel room afterwards…” He saw her expression and stopped. “You didn’t go to prom?”

  “I’m not wearing a prom dress,” she said, ignoring his question.

  “Just don’t wear your silver star or your gun,” he joked, hating that he’d been right. She was one of the girls who’d been tormented by girls like Shelby and Tessa.

  * * *

  LIZA STOOD IN FRONT OF HER closet. She hated to admit how few dresses she owned—and what she did have were old and out of style, though hardly worn. Worse, she hated that she cared what she wore to the reunion.

  She’d been a tomboy, so dresses had never really appealed to her. Add to that her profession, she’d had little need of anything besides jeans and boots.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to wear,” she said when Dana answered the phone. “I know it doesn’t matter. It’s not like it’s a date.”

  “No, going out with a suspect probably couldn’t be called a date,” her boss’s wife agreed with a chuckle. “Come over. You’re welcome to dig through my closet. I’ll call Hilde. She’s more girlie than either of us. She’ll help.”

  “Thanks,” Liza said, relieved. She definitely needed help.

  “How is the investigation going?” Dana asked.

  Liza knew Dana must be bored to tears now that she was being forced to stay in bed. “Slowly.” She didn’t want to admit that it brought up a lot of high school memories, ones she thought she’d left behind when she’d graduated.

  “And Jordan?” Dana asked.

  She didn’t know how to answer that. “He’s fine. Actually, I get the feeling he’s changed. Don’t worry,” she said quickly. “If he hasn’t, I’ll be the first to know. He’s still a suspect.”

  “But you don’t think he killed Alex Winslow.”

  “No. I think he really did come back to find out what happened to his friend Tanner. It’s looking like he had reason to be concerned.”

  Dana was silent for a moment. “Tell him to stop by, if he wants to.”

  “I will. I’ll drop by later this afternoon for the clothing search.” In the meantime, she thought, closing her closet door, she wanted to pay Tessa Ryerson Spring a visit.

  * * *

  DANA COULDN’T HELP THINKING of Jordan and half wishing she hadn’t told Liza to have him stop by. Feeling the babies kick, she willed herself not to worry about Stacy or her brother. Instead, she put in a quick call to Hilde, who, of course, was delighted to help with Liza’s clothing dilemma.

  “I’ll gather up some dresses and bring them over later,” her best friend said. “Can I bring you anything?”

  “Maybe some needlepoint from the store?” Dana suggested, cringing since the mere thought had always given her hives.

  “Oh, girl, you really are bored to tears!” She laughed as she hung up.

  After she’d found her mother’s will and got to go back to ranching, Dana had become a silent partner in Needles and Pins, the small sewing shop she and Hilde had started in Meadow Village. She’d never been the one who sewed. That had been Hilde. But Dana had always loved working with her best friend in the shop.

  She missed it sometimes. Not that she and the kids didn’t often stop in to visit. Mary and Hank loved all the colorful bolts of fabric and Hilde always had some fun craft for them to do.

  “Look what we made, Mommy!” Mary and Hank cried in unison now as they came running into the bedroom. They held up the clay figures, and Dana praised them for their imagination and their choice of multiple bright colors.

  Behind them, Stacy stood in the doorway looking on with what appeared to be contentment. Dana had been watching her sister all day. She hated letting Hud’s suspicions cloud her forgiving thoughts about Stacy. She’d missed having a sister all these years. Not that she and Stacy had been close like some sisters. There were no tea parties, doll playing or dressing up for pretend weddings.

  Stacy had done all those things, but Dana had been an outside kid. She loved riding her horse, climbing trees, building forts. Two years older, Stacy had turned up her nose at most things Dana thought were fun and vice versa.

  “Okay, let’s clean up our mess,” her sister told the kids. “I think that’s your daddy who just drove up.”

  As they scampered out of the room, leaving a couple clay figures beside her bed to keep her company, Dana waited expectantly for Hud. She knew where he’d gone and what he’d been up to—running a check on her sister. A part of her feared what he might have discovered.

  She listened. The moment he came in the house, Mary and Hank were all over him. He played with them for a moment, and, like her, praised everything they’d made before coming into the bedroom. When he closed the door, she knew the news wasn’t going to be good.

  * * *

  LIZA COULDN’T SHAKE the feeling that Jordan was right about the two deaths being connected. While anxious to talk to Tessa Ryerson Spring, she went to the office and pulled out the Tanner Cole investigation file. There wasn’t much in it since the coroner had ruled the death a suicide.

  The incident had happened back up the North Fork where the victim had been staying in a cabin. His body had been found hanging from a tree limb in sight of the cabin, a rope noose around the victim’s neck. There was evidence of a log stump having been dragged over under the limb of the tree. When the body was found, the stump was on its side, a good foot from the dead man’s dangling boots. Cause of death was strangulation.

  The victim was found by Jordan Cardwell, who’d gone looking for Tanner when he hadn’t shown up for school.

  Attached were a half dozen black-and-white photographs taken at the scene. She flipped through them, noticing that t
he tree where Tanner was found hanging was next to a fire ring. She could see that there were dozens of footprints around the scene, no doubt because the area had been used for a party. Other stumps had been dragged up around the campfire area. Numerous discarded beer cans could be seen charred black in the firepit.

  As she started to put the file back, something caught her eye. The investigating officer had been Brick Savage—Hud’s father.

  * * *

  HUD SMILED SHEEPISHLY at his wife after closing the door. She was watching him expectantly. He wished she didn’t know him so well sometimes. Walking over to the bed, he bent down and, touching her cheek, kissed her. “You get more beautiful every day.”

  She swatted his hand playfully as he drew back. “If you think you can charm me—”

  He laughed as she moved over to let him sit on the edge of the bed next to her. “Just speaking the truth.” She was beautiful. The pregnancy had put a glow in her cheeks and her eyes. Not that she wasn’t a stunner anytime. Dana had always smelled of summer, an indefinable scent that filled his heart like helium. He counted his blessings every day he woke up next to her.

  “Okay, charmer, let’s hear it,” she said. “With you being so sweet, I’m guessing it’s bad news.”

  He shook his head. “Am I that transparent?”

  “Hud,” she said impatiently.

  “I didn’t find out much. There wasn’t much to find out. Apparently, she doesn’t have credit cards or even a checking account.”

  “She’s in the process of moving and not having credit cards is a good thing.”

  He sighed, seeing that she was determined to think the best. But then, that was Dana. But with her family, their history proved out that he definitely had reason to be suspicious. He knew she wanted to believe that Stacy had changed. He did, too. He was just a whole lot more skeptical than Dana.

  “A tiger doesn’t change its spots,” he said.

  “Isn’t it ‘a zebra doesn’t change its stripes’ and what does that even mean?” she demanded.

  “I had a look in her car last night after everyone went to bed. If she’s moving to Great Falls, she sure didn’t pack much.” He held up his hand. “I know. She apparently doesn’t have any money. But she gets the check from the ranch profits.”