“Don’t you touch her!”
Another crunching blow.
Her breaths sawed in her chest. But as her vision cleared, she wondered for a second if perhaps she had died.
Her brother, Jimmy, sprawled over Saul Lovell, both hands wrapped around his neck. Jimmy, filled out and strong, his dark hair scruffy, wearing cowboy boots and a canvas jacket.
Jimmy, coming to her rescue . . . again.
“Jimmy?” she said, her voice unrecognizable.
He looked at her, and suddenly she was back in that ramshackle trailer, watching as their father dragged Jimmy away to give him the beating he was about to hand out to her.
Jimmy had always been there for her. He had always thrown himself between her and her father, an answer to her prayers.
An answer to her prayers.
As if God might have heard her all along. As if He had been there, even in her darkest moments.
She gulped in that thought as she gripped the bed and stumbled to her feet.
Nick lay fighting the press of sleep, his hand tugging at the morphine drip coursing into his arm.
Piper launched herself onto the bed and in one swift move ripped the IV from his arm, causing Nick to cry out. She pressed her hand over the wound and yelled, “Help! Help!” She looked at her brother, at the hot twist of fury on his face. “Jimmy, let him go.”
He didn’t move, and in his angry, hurting expression, Piper saw herself. Wanting revenge. Wanting to hurt others because she’d been hurt. “Jimmy, let him go.”
Jimmy shook his head—fast, hard. “He tried to kill you.”
Piper leaned over and pushed the Call button. Please, God, send someone! But she couldn’t leave, not with Jimmy squeezing the life out of Saul. “You’ll end up back in jail.”
“Maybe I deserve jail.”
His words felt like a slap, but behind them she heard the guilt, even his worst nightmares—that he’d turn out just like their father. “You’re not Russell, Jimmy. You’re not that kind of man.”
Jimmy flinched. Saul had given up trying to pry him off, his hands flopping at his sides.
“Jimmy, let him go! I know you aren’t a killer. I’m sorry—I know I should have believed in you. But I believe in you now. Don’t do this.”
For the first time, he looked up at her. He looked gaunt and tired, but at her words his anger crumbled.
The door banged open. Dutch and Stefanie barreled in, followed by a nurse. “What happened here?” the nurse demanded.
Jimmy rolled off Saul, breathing hard.
Dutch took one look at Jimmy and hauled him up by the shirt, fury in his eyes.
“No—he’s my brother!” Piper screamed. “Saul tried to kill me. And he hurt Nick!”
“What’s wrong with Nick?” Stefanie said, grabbing Nick’s hand.
Piper climbed off the bed, still keeping pressure on Nick’s wound, blood all over her hands. “I think Saul tried to overdose him on morphine.”
The nurse leaned over Nick. “Stay with me, Nick.”
Stay with me, Nick. Piper pressed her lips together, fighting tears.
Nick regained consciousness. He looked at Piper with a question in his eyes. And in them she saw the words he couldn’t say, cutting through her heart like a sharp-edged knife: who are you?
Piper felt everything inside her begin to shatter. “I’m sorry, Nick. I’m so sorry.”
Nick closed his eyes.
The door opened again, and two more nurses entered. “Everyone out. Now!”
Piper backed away, right behind Jimmy and Dutch, who muscled Saul from the floor and dragged him out into the hall.
Dutch cornered all three of them, zeroing in on Piper. “Start explaining.”
Piper wrapped her hands around her neck, felt the abrasions from Saul’s grip, not sure where to begin. Footsteps echoed down the hall, and all the air went out of her at Maggy’s white face and CJ’s frightened expression.
“Is Nick okay? What’s going on?” She skidded to a stop, seeing Jimmy.
But CJ ran right up to him with a high five. “What are you doing here?”
Confusion rendered Piper nearly speechless. “You know this man?”
CJ looked from Piper to Jimmy and back. “Sure I do. This is Jay. Our hired man.”
“Nick, wake up! Nick, can you hear me?”
Nick felt buried in the darkness, thick and heavy upon him, suffocating him.
“Nick, squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
He strained to channel his strength to his hand. Was he squeezing? Or was he dreaming that he was squeezing?
“C’mon, Nick, come back to us.”
Like a swimmer kicking his way to the surface with his last lungful of air, Nick tunneled through the layers of shadow and confusion and forced his eyes open.
The room swam with colors, vibrant lights that made him blink. He felt sluggish as he turned his head.
“Oh, thank You, Lord.” Stefanie stood beside his bed, holding his hand, worry etched in her dark eyes. “I was really scared. You’ve been out for hours. They flushed your system with IV fluid, but a trace might still remain.”
Nick tried to sort through the pieces of his memory, fragments of images. Saul Lovell. Piper. And, oddly, a face from his past. He frowned at Stefanie, not sure how to word his question.
She must have sensed it because she nodded. “Saul Lovell tried to kill you.”
He couldn’t speak.
“Because of Mom’s will. If you die without an heir, all her property reverts back to the Hatchers.” She smoothed her hand over his, lightly touching the tape that held his IV in place. His skin felt itchy, and he nearly recoiled. But she was holding on pretty tight, and for some reason he needed that right now. “Saul’s been after me for months to sell the Buckle. Piper caught him trying to kill you, and then he tried to kill her too.”
Nick found his voice. “I saw a man—”
“Jay Mullins—Piper’s brother. He’s been working for the St. Johns for the last month. He came in to check on Cole—or rather, Piper—and heard the ruckus.”
Nick said nothing, putting together that information. He shook his head. “I think that was Jimmy McPhee. I sent him away for murder a few years ago.”
Stefanie’s mouth opened a fraction. “Are you sure?”
As the memory crystallized, became sharper, Nick nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure. Believe me when I say I’ll never forget his face.”
Nick replayed the last several weeks: Piper’s abysmal biscuits, her tenacious questions, her quiet posture when he told her about Jenny’s death. He went back further to the day Saul Lovell appeared at the café and again saw the woman who’d ordered the salad. Who’d wiped the table with a wet wipe. Who’d covered her wrist with a Band-Aid from a wound . . . or perhaps a scar?
Piper.
Sickness roiled through him. Had she been stalking him? What about Jimmy? Had they been at the helm of the attacks on the ranch?
“Get her,” Nick growled.
Stefanie looked ashen. “What is it, Nick? You’re scaring me a little.”
“Piper and Jimmy were working in cahoots to destroy us.”
Stefanie blinked at him, then frowned. “I don’t think so. She looked pretty shocked to see him and even more so when CJ called him their hired man. Besides, the cops already have Saul’s confession. He’s been mining for methane gas, but his land is nearly pumped dry. That’s how our cattle died—sulfur poisoned the underground spring that ran into Hatcher’s Table. Saul also started the stampede.”
Stefanie tucked his hand into his sheets. “Piper’s been outside giving a statement for the last couple hours. She’s the one who figured out Saul’s scheme. He wanted you out of the way to get the Hatcher land, and when Cole died, he planned on buying the St. John place too. Eventually, with so much land gone, the Silver Buckle would have gone under. We would have been forced to sell the rest.”
“But what about Pecos? He was at the stampede.”
&
nbsp; Stefanie shook her head. “CJ tried to ride him, and the horse bucked him off. Pecos ran back to the Silver Buckle. CJ was afraid to tell his parents, but it came out when Dutch accused Jay—Jimmy—of starting the stampede.”
“Then why did Piper come to the ranch? It certainly wasn’t to cook.”
“I don’t know. Maybe God brought her here, just like He did you.”
He had no words for that. God had brought him back. Had given him a chance not only to start over but to be a man of honor. Of grace. To be the son he should have been.
Nick closed his eyes, unable to dislodge the gut feeling that there was more to Piper’s story than he could wrap his mind around. He longed to believe the Piper he’d let into his heart, the Piper who had made him laugh, who had shown him his land through new eyes, who had given him the strength to forgive and surrender. But his detective instincts roared to life. “Please go get her, Stef.”
He opened his eyes just as she nodded and left the room.
Outside, the sun left a shimmering rim of light over the Bighorns. He wondered how Cole was doing, and for a moment he lifted his gaze to the heavens beyond. Lord, I don’t know what You’re doing, but thank You for letting me be here. For not giving up on me. Help me to hear Piper out and to listen. Help me see the truth. Help me give to her what she’s given to me.
The door opened, and Stefanie returned, a grim look on her face. “She’s not here, Nick. Piper left.”
“Jimmy, I still can’t believe you’ve been spying on me.” Piper sat in the bench seat of Jimmy’s beat-up Ford truck as he drove north toward the Silver Buckle. Her mind was still reeling. She’d listened to his story as he told to the police—how he’d cajoled Carter into telling him Piper’s location and how he’d secured a job with the St. Johns to give him proximity to the Buckle ranch. How he’d feared for his sister’s safety.
“I wasn’t going to let anyone hurt you. Or you hurt anyone else.” Jimmy looked thinner than the pictures from the trial. Hard work had turned him lean and muscled. As had prison, she supposed.
“What did you think I’d do to Nick?” Piper kept her voice steady, hoping not to betray her true agenda. It felt surreal to sit next to her big brother, who had saved her on so many occasions. She’d ached with missing him when she and her mother left, and even now she wondered at the man he’d become.
“It wasn’t so much what you’d do to Nick as what kind of trouble you’d get into. I read your exposés in the newspaper while I was in prison—Mom sent them to me until she passed—and I saw how you put yourself in dangerous situations. When Carter told me you’d gone to work for the Nobles, I knew you were up to something.” He glanced at her, his face betraying the stress over the past years. “I didn’t want you to get in over your head.”
“Do you think Nick tried to frame you?” Piper weighed Jimmy’s expression for signs of hatred.
His expression turned solemn. “Nick was doing his job. I was rattled, and I’d been drunk the night I went out to help Jenny. To be frank, I wasn’t sure what happened, and I was scared. A part of me was afraid that I had done something to her.”
“You’d never kill someone, Jimmy.”
“I could have killed Saul.” He swallowed. “And I wanted to kill my dad a few times.”
Piper sat with her hands in her lap, her eyes filling. “Jimmy, I never thanked you for what you did . . . today and . . . back then. For all those times you . . . you stood in the way when—”
Jimmy reached across the seat, taking her hand. “I remember the day you were born. I was six, and Dad brought me into the room. I hadn’t ever had a mom, and your mom loved me like I was her own. She read me stories and drove me to school, and I adored her. So, when you were born and she put you in my arms and said, ‘Here’s your baby sister,’ I knew I had a job to do. I had to protect you. And that feeling’s never gone away.”
Piper wiped her cheek, flicking away the tear that slid down her face. “We should have taken you with us when we left. Mom was so scared that Dad would come after her. She thought that you’d be fine with him—that it was us that he hated, not you. But I was afraid for you. I’m so sorry, Jimmy.”
He squeezed her hand. “I missed you too, Sis.”
Piper looked at his fingers, woven through hers, and her throat filled. “I’m sorry that I didn’t come and visit you in prison.”
He shrugged, but his face jerked.
Piper stared out the windshield, replaying her conversation with the police. After her and Jimmy’s statements and a conversation with Carter, the Sheridan police had arrested Saul on charges of attempted murder.
Which left only Nick’s unanswered questions. Piper knew then that she couldn’t face him. Couldn’t watch the disappointment, even hatred appear on his face. Besides, she had a job to get back to. A report to put together.
She let out a sigh.
“Piper, Carter told me you went to the ranch for some article you were writing. Did you get what you were looking for?”
Had she been looking for Nick to shatter all her preconceptions about men? to find emotions she’d thought forever buried? for God to break her heart enough to let Him inside? Nick wasn’t the bully, the abuser she’d pegged him to be, and that had rattled her enough to loosen her grip on everything she had believed—about love, about friendship, about God. But more than that, being with Nick only made her long for something more. A family. A home. She remembered her thoughts the day she’d driven to the Silver Buckle, a prayer that she’d assumed had been merely a thought, an empty wish.
She had pleaded that God would help her find justice. Even a measure of peace. Seeing Nick surrender his life for Cole had made her believe that people could change. Be healed from their pasts, their hurts. Made her believe she could be healed. At least it made her realize she wanted to be healed.
Piper continued to stare out at the sagebrush, the rocky hills, the sky that stretched to eternity. Perhaps she had found what she was after at the Silver Buckle without even knowing it. Maybe, in fact, it was a God thing.
“He heals all your diseases . . . and crowns you with love and compassion.” What might it feel like to let go of the anger, the bitterness? to fall at Jesus’ hem and beg for healing? to be shown compassion and granted peace?
Heal me, Lord. Please make me whole. Give me peace.
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Piper looked at Jimmy.
He smirked as he put his hand back on the wheel. “It seemed that the way you were hovering over him the last few days, you’d given out too much of yourself on this assignment. Let him in under your skin.”
Was Nick under her skin? Yes. And in her pores and her mind and her heart. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
She leaned back into the seat, closing her eyes. As the truck droned, eating the miles, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 21
“YOU CLEAN UP WELL, Mr. St. John.” Maggy came up behind Cole, putting her hands on his shoulders, and beamed at him through the mirror.
Cole raised an eyebrow. At best, he looked like he’d spent the winter in Siberia—he was pale and gaunt; his hair was thinning. The suit and coat only gave the illusion of being robust and capable. Inside, he felt as if he might be waking from a long hibernation. And if having a defective liver hadn’t nearly killed him, lying around the house all summer as CJ, Maggy, and their new hired man had worked the ranch nearly had. By next spring he’d be strong and healthy and riding Suds again. Working whatever land they still had after today’s meeting in court.
He could hardly believe the grace the hospital had given them—writing off half their expenses and allowing them to pay the rest over time. However, even if they received Bishop’s land, it would take them two lifetimes to pay it off—his and Maggy’s as they worked together.
Cole touched his hands to hers. “You’re the eye candy here, Mrs. St. John.”
Maggy nearly glowed. The summer sun had touched her skin with a magi
cal kiss and streaked her hair in tones of copper. He’d always loved her green cardigan, black skirt, and boots, but it was the anticipation in her eyes that set Maggy apart today. A new chapter in their lives, starting this afternoon in Sheridan.
“Are you nervous?” He turned, wrapped his arms around her waist.
Maggy cupped his face in her work-worn hands. They smelled faintly of lotion and a fresh coat of nail polish. “A little.” She ducked her head.
He caught her chin, raised it to look in her eyes. “It’ll be okay. I promise. I’ll be there. And Nick . . . well, after all he’s done, he deserves this day.”
“I’m not worried about CJ—well, a little, I guess. But not as much as Bishop’s will. Nick could do it, Cole—he could have it set aside. And then—”
“Shh, Mags. We’ll trust God. He’s taken us this far. I think we can trust Him for the rest.” He leaned his forehead against hers.
Maggy forced a small smile.
Leaning down, Cole kissed her ever so gently. She closed her eyes, and he felt her relax, lean into his embrace.
Maggy. How could he have ever wished for her to return to Nick? He tightened his arms around her, deepening his kiss, feeling something awaken inside him. Something new and alive.
A fresh start.
He leaned back, feeling a curl of warmth that he’d ignored for far too long. “Mags, I’m sorry for ever doubting your love for me.”
He saw in her eyes what his words meant. How they dug deep and found tender soil. “It’s oka—”
“No, hear me out. I’ve always felt like a thief. Like I stole you from Nick. Like I stole CJ from Nick.”
He watched her frown and put his finger over her lips. “I couldn’t help it. You were such a gift to me—I felt shame all the time because I knew Nick wouldn’t ever know that. And those feelings of shame turned into hatred for him. It made me angry at Nick, made me even despise him.”
“But you forgave him. You said you did.”
“I did forgive him. But I never got over the shame, the feeling that I got away with something I didn’t deserve—like the thief hanging on the cross next to Jesus getting heaven. Until the surgery. Nick might have given me a part of himself out of guilt, but I saw it as a gift of grace. I didn’t deserve that gift, but neither did I deserve you or CJ, and God gave me both of you.”
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