by B. J Daniels
But ever since last night, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something horrible was going to happen. This morning when she’d found out about the bones in the well and that Hud was back in town, she’d thought that was the something horrible the premonition had tried to warn her about.
But as she picked up the shotgun and stepped out the back door into the darkness and snow, she was still plagued with the feeling that the worst was yet to come. And then there was her stupid birthday wish!
She took the road, feeling fairly safe that she couldn’t be seen since she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face through the snowfall. Sometimes she would catch a glimpse of the mountainside as a gust of wind whirled the snow away. But they were fleeting sightings and she was still too far away to be seen, so she kept moving.
The air was cold. It burned her throat, the snow getting in her eyes. She stared upward, straining to see the chimney, reminded of ranchers’ stories about stringing clotheslines from the house to the barn so they didn’t get lost in a blizzard.
She’d always prided herself on her sense of direction but she didn’t chance it tonight. She could feel the rut of the road on the edge of her boot as she walked, the shotgun heavy in her hands, but at the same time reassuring.
As she neared the homestead, a gust of wind swirled the snow around her and for an instant she saw the chimney dark against the white background. It quickly disappeared but not before she’d seen a figure crouched at the edge of the old homestead foundation.
HUD FOLLOWED THE ROPE to the well, stopping just short of the edge to listen. A gust of wind swirled the snow around him. He edged closer to the hole. The rope dropped over the side into blackness. Still hearing nothing, he pointed the flashlight down into the well, snapped on the light and jerked back, startled.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see dangling from the rope. Possibly a person climbing down. Or trying to climb out.
He holstered his weapon, then kneeling, he shone the flashlight to get a better look. It was a doll, the rope looped like a noose around its neck.
What the hell?
He picked up the rope and pulled it until the doll was within a few feet of the top. Its face caught in the beam of his flashlight and he let out a gasp, all his breath rushing from him.
The doll had Dana’s face.
He lost his grasp on the rope. The doll dropped back into the well. As he reached for the rope to stop its fall, he sensed rather than heard someone behind him.
Half turning, he caught movement as a large dark figure, the face in shadow, lunged at him, swinging one of the boards from the well.
A shotgun discharged close by as he tried to pull his weapon but wasn’t quick enough. The board slammed into his shoulder, pitching him forward toward the gaping hole in the earth.
Hud dropped the flashlight and grabbed for the rope with both hands, hoping to break his fall if not stop it.
His gloved hands wrapped around the rope, but the weight of his falling body propelled him over the side and partway down into the cold darkness of the well. He banged against the well wall with his left shoulder and felt pain shoot up his arm. But he’d managed to catch himself.
He dangled from the rope, the doll hanging below him. He was breathing hard, his mind racing. Where the hell had the shotgun blast come from? He had a bad feeling he knew.
Bracing his feet against the wall, he managed to pull the gun from his holster, telling himself it couldn’t have been Dana. He’d told her to stay in the ranch house.
He looked up, pointing the gun toward the well opening. He could wait for his attacker or climb out. Snowflakes spiraled down from a sky that seemed to shimmer above him iridescent white. He squinted, listening.
Another shotgun blast, this one closer.
Hud climbed as best he could without relinquishing his weapon. Only seconds had passed since the attack. But now time seemed to stand still.
Then in the distance he heard the growl of an engine turning over and, a moment later, another shadow fell over the top of the well above him.
He looked up through the falling snow and saw the most beautiful woman in the world lay down her shotgun and reach for him.
DANA’S HEART was in her throat as she looked down into the well and saw Hud hanging there.
He was alive, not broken at the bottom, but partway down a rope. That’s all that registered at first. Then she saw him wince as he tried to use his left arm to holster his gun and pull himself up.
“You’re hurt,” she said, as if the pain were her own. “Here, let me help you.”
She managed to get him up to the edge and drag him out into the snow. They lay sprawled in the snow for a few moments, both breathing hard from the exertion.
“Thanks,” Hud said, turning his head to look over at her.
She nodded, more shaken now than she’d been when she’d looked over the edge of the well and seen him hanging down there. Aftershock, she supposed. The time when you think about what could have happened. Realized how close it had been. She breathed in the night air as the sound of a vehicle engine died off until there was nothing but the sound of their labored breaths.
They were alone. Entirely alone, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.
Hud sat up and looked at her. He was favoring his left arm and she saw now that his jacket was ripped and dark with blood.
“Your arm…It’s bleeding!”
He shook his head. “I’m fine. What about you?”
“Fine.” She pushed herself up, her arms trembling with the effort.
His gaze met hers and he shook his head. Couldn’t fool him.
She started to get to her feet, but he caught her sleeve, pulling her back to the ground beside him.
“Dana.”
Her face crumpled as he encircled her with his good arm and pulled her tightly against him. His hug was fierce.
She buried her face into his chest, the snow falling around them.
When she pulled back, the kiss was as natural as sunrise. Soft, salty, sweet and tentative. And for a moment nothing mattered. Not the past, the pain, the betrayal. In that moment, she only recalled the love.
The snow stopped. Just like that. And the moment passed.
Dana pulled back, drowning in all the reasons she shouldn’t love this man—wouldn’t love this man. Not again.
HUD SAW THE CHANGE in her eyes. A quick cooling, as if her gaze had filmed over with ice. Just as her heart had five years ago.
She pulled away to pick up the shotgun from where she’d dropped it earlier. He watched her rise, keeping her back to him.
He got to his feet, searching the snow for his flashlight. His left arm ached from where he’d smacked it against one of the rocks embedded in the side of the well and split it open. The pain was nothing compared to what he’d seen in Dana’s eyes.
Maybe he couldn’t make up for what he’d done to her five years ago, but he sure as hell would find whoever had put the doll down the well. Whoever had tried to kill him tonight.
He heard a sound from Dana, part cry, part gasp, and realized that she’d found his flashlight and was now shining it down into the well.
Stepping to her side, he took the light from her, seeing the shock on her face as well as the recognition. “It’s your doll?”
She nodded. “My father gave it to me for my sixth birthday. He thought it looked like me. How…” She met his gaze. “It was on a shelf in my old playroom along with the rest of toys Mom saved for her—” Dana’s voice broke “—grandchildren.”
Mary Cardwell hadn’t lived long enough to see any grandchildren be born. He could see what a huge hole losing her mother had left in Dana. Desperately he wanted to take her in his arms again. The need to protect her was so strong he felt sick with it.
He wanted to believe the doll had been put in the well as just a cruel prank meant to frighten her, but he feared it had been a trap. If Dana had come up here alone to investigate after seeing the li
ght on the hillside, she would have been the one knocked into the well and there wouldn’t have been anyone here with a shotgun to scare the would-be killer away. The thought was like a knife to his heart but as he stepped past her, pulled the doll the rest of the way up and removed the noose from its neck, he told himself that Dana needed a marshal now more than she needed a former lover.
“When was the last time you saw the doll?” he asked. The doll’s hair was flattened with snow. Careful not to disturb any fingerprints that might be on it, he brushed the snow away, shocked again how much the face resembled Dana’s.
“I don’t know. The toys have been on the shelves in the playroom for so long I hardly notice. I don’t go into that room much.” Another catch in her voice. The playroom would only remind her of her mother, he thought. “I’d forgotten about the doll.”
Well someone else hadn’t.
She shivered as if she’d had the same thought.
“Let’s get back to the house and out of this weather,” he said.
The sky over their heads was a deep, cold midnight blue as they walked back toward the ranch house. A few stars glittered like ice crystals as a sliver of moon peaked out from behind a cloud.
He made her wait on the porch, leaving her still armed with the reloaded shotgun while he searched the house. There was no sign that anyone had been there—not to drop off a box of chocolates or to steal a doll from a shelf in her old playroom.
“All clear,” he said, opening the front door.
She stepped in, breaking down the shotgun and removing the shells. He watched her put the shotgun by the door, pocket the shells and turn toward him again. “Let me see your arm,” she ordered.
He started to protest, but she was already helping him off with his jacket. His uniform shirt was also torn and bloodied though the cut in his upper arm didn’t look deep from what he could see.
“Come in here,” she said, and he followed her to the kitchen where she motioned to a chair.
He sat, watching her as she brought out a first-aid kit. He rolled his shirt sleeve up as she sat next to him, all her attention on the three-inch gash in his arm.
“You shouldn’t have come up there, but I appreciate what you did,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “You quite possibly saved my life tonight.”
“You should get stitches,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. “Otherwise it will leave a scar.”
“It won’t be my first,” he said.
She mugged a disapproving face and said, “This is going to sting.” Her fingers gripped his upper arm.
He winced, the disinfectant burning into the cut.
“I warned you,” she said, glancing up into his face. “Sure you don’t want a ride to the emergency room?”
“Positive. A few butterfly bandages and I’ll be as good as new.”
She looked doubtful but went to work. He’d seen her doctor horses and cows before. He doubted doctoring him was any different for her. Except she liked the horses and cows better.
He couldn’t help but think about the kiss. Man, how he had missed her.
“There, that should at least keep it from getting infected,” she said, slamming the lid on her first aid kit and rising from the chair.
He touched her wrist and she met his gaze again. “Thanks.”
She nodded and went to put the kit away.
He rose from the chair. “Mind if I take a look where that doll was kept?”
“I don’t see how—” She stopped, then shrugged as if she didn’t have the energy to argue.
He reminded himself that it was her birthday for a few more hours. What a lousy birthday.
He followed her up the stairs to what had once been her playroom. Mary had left it just as it had been when the kids were little.
The room was large with a table at its center surrounded by small chairs. There were books everywhere in the room and several huge toy boxes. The Cardwell kids had been blessed. One wall was filled with shelves and toys. There was a small tea set, stuffed animals, dolls and large trucks.
In the center, high on the wall, was a gaping hole where something had been removed. “That’s where she has always been,” Dana said, hugging herself as she stared at the empty spot on the shelf as if the realization that someone had to have come into the house and taken the doll had finally hit home.
“Who knew about the doll?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Only everyone who knew me. Angus probably showed it off at the bar for days before my sixth birthday. You know how he is.”
Hud nodded. Anyone in the canyon could have known about the doll. “But how many people knew where you kept it?”
“Anyone who ever visited when we were kids knew about the playroom,” she said.
“Or anyone in the family,” he said, not liking what he was thinking.
“No one in my family would do this.” Her face fell the instant the denial was out. It was a blood instinct to take up for your brothers and sister. But clearly, Dana wasn’t entirely convinced her siblings were innocent of this.
She reached out for the doll he hadn’t even realized he’d carried up the stairs.
He held it back. “Sorry, it’s evidence. But I’ll make sure you get it back. I want to take the chocolates you received, too.”
She nodded, then turned and headed for the playroom doorway, moving like a sleepwalker. The day had obviously taken its toll on her. He looked around the room, then down at the doll in his gloved hand, thinking about Dana’s siblings before following her to the kitchen.
She opened the cabinet doors under the sink and pulled out the trash can. Their gazes met. She’d thrown the candy away believing it had come from him. He never thought he’d be thankful for that.
“Mind if I take the plastic bag and all?” he asked.
“Be my guest.”
“I could use another bag for the doll.”
She got him one. He lowered the doll inside and tightened the drawstring, then pulled the other trash bag with the present in it from the container.
“I’ll have the gift box dusted for prints and the candy tested,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “You think the chocolates might have been…poisoned?”
He shrugged, the gesture hurting his arm.
The phone rang. She picked it up. He watched her face pale, her gaze darting to him, eyes suddenly huge.
He reached for the phone and she let him take it. But when he put the receiver to his ear, he heard only the dial tone. “Who was it?”
She shook her head. “Just a voice. A hoarse whisper. I didn’t recognize it.” She grabbed the back of the chair, her knuckles white.
“What did the caller say to you?” he asked, his stomach a hard knot.
“‘It should have been you in the bottom of that well.’”
Hud checked Caller ID and jotted down the number. He hit Star 69. The phone rang and rang and finally was answered.
“Yeah?” said a young male voice.
“What number have I reached?” Hud asked.
What sounded like a kid read the number on the phone back to him. Hud could hear traffic on the street and what sounded like skateboarders nearby. A pay phone near the covered skate park in Bozeman?
“Did you see someone just make a call from that phone?” he asked the boy.
“Nope. No one was around when I heard it ringing. Gotta go.” He hung up.
“I’m not leaving you alone in this house tonight,” Hud said to Dana as he replaced the receiver. “Either you’re coming with me or I’m staying here. What’s it going to be?”
Chapter Seven
“You look like you’ve seen better days,” Hilde said the next morning when Dana walked into the shop. “I heard you were at the Corral. So you decided to celebrate your birthday after all.”
“Who told you I was at the Corral?” Dana hadn’t meant her tone to sound so accusing.
Hilde lifted a brow. “Lanny. I ran into him this morning at the
convenience store.” She tilted her head toward the two coffee cups on the counter. “I brought you a latte. I thought you might need it.”
How had Lanny known that she was at the Corral last night? she wondered as she placed her purse behind the counter. “Thanks for the coffee. I really could use it.”
Hilde handed her one of the lattes. She held it in both hands, trying to soak up some of the heat. Lanny had also known that Hud was working late. With a shiver, she realized he’d been checking up on her. And Hud.
“Are you all right?” Hilde asked, looking concerned.
Dana shook her head. “I went by the Corral last night to talk to Dad, then Lanny took me to dinner for my birthday.”
“Oh, you didn’t mention you were going out with Lanny.”
“I’d forgotten we had a date.”
Hilde gave her a look she recognized only too well.
“It was our last date. I’d hoped we could be friends….”
“I hate to say this, but it’s just as well,” Hilde said.
Dana couldn’t believe her ears.
Hilde raised her hands in surrender. “Hey, you were never going to fall in love with Lanny and we both know it.”
Dana started to protest, but saved her breath. It was true.
“Maybe Hud coming back was a good thing.”
Dana eyed her friend. “I beg your pardon?”
“I mean it. You need to resolve your issues with him.”
“Resolve my issues? He slept with my sister when we were engaged!”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? There is no maybe about it. I caught them in bed together.”
“Going at it?”
“No.” Dana stepped back as if afraid she would ring her friend’s neck.
“That’s my point. You caught him in her bed, but you don’t know what happened. If anything. Stacy has always been jealous of you. I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“And what ready excuse do you have for Hud?” She held up her hands. “No, that’s right, he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing.”
“I know it sounds clichéd—”
“It sounds like what it is, a lie. Even if Stacy threw herself at him. Even if he was falling-down drunk—”
