Hunting Down the Horseman

by B. J Daniels

  Before Faith could react, Brooke ran around to the passenger side of the pickup. The door swung open and Brooke slid in, shaking off raindrops as she closed the door behind her.

  Faith tried to hide how anxious it made her having Brooke Keith in the cab of her pickup.

  What did she want? Clearly, the woman had something on her mind, and given what Brooke might have just overheard, that in itself was cause for concern.

  Her instincts told her Brooke didn’t like her as it was.

  She tried not to think about what the sheriff had discovered. What did it mean, if anything? Hollywood was a small world, kind of like Montana in that everyone seemed related, even though in Montana’s case, it was a big state.

  Maybe it was no secret that Brooke was this dead woman’s daughter. Maybe even Erik Zander was aware of it. Or maybe not.

  Either way, could this explain the “accidents” that had been happening on the set?

  “AM I MAKING YOU NERVOUS?” Brooke asked, amused. “You should have seen your face when I tapped on your window. You looked as if you’d seen a ghost.”

  “You just startled me, that’s all,” Faith said.

  That wasn’t all. Faith hadn’t wanted her to get into the pickup. Just like back at the trailer when she’d turned down tea. Faith had been almost rude to her. And now she seemed more than nervous. She almost seemed scared.

  Brooke remembered Faith’s expression when she’d turned from the phone to the window to find her standing just outside. If only she’d been able to hear the phone conversation, but the rain on the pickup had been too noisy. She wondered who Faith had been talking to. Jud?

  “You still seem nervous. Is it because I wanted to talk to you?” Brooke asked.

  “I guess that depends on what you want to talk to me about,” Faith said, her gaze wary.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Jud.”

  “Jud?” Faith looked relieved.

  What had Faith thought she wanted to talk to her about? The woman was smiling now, apparently relaxed.

  “Look, if this is about last night…”

  Brooke waved that off. “Jud gets romantically involved on every movie set.”

  Faith’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”

  “He’s a good-looking guy. Even intelligent women fall for him. You’re new to movie sets so I thought I should warn you. The affair always ends at the end of the movie.” She shrugged. “It’s just the way Jud is.”

  “Is that how it was with the two of you?”

  Brooke was taken aback. “Jud and I never—” She caught herself. She’d let everyone think she and Jud had been lovers after a big spread in one of the stuntmen magazines. Jud hadn’t cared, since it was a normal occurrence for him to be linked with one woman after another, true or not.

  “Jud and I are friends. Good friends. It’s a kind of bond no other woman has ever been able to break.”

  Faith nodded. She was too calm, taking this better than Brooke had expected. Probably because she thought she was different from all Jud’s other lovers. She thought she would be the one who lasted. Maybe she was a bigger fool than Brooke thought.

  The woman was headed for heartbreak and refused to believe it. Well, she’d been warned. Faith seemed like a nice enough person. Too bad she’d gotten caught up in something she could neither understand nor get out of at this point.

  “It’s good that Jud has a friend like you,” Faith said, fidgeting with her keys.

  Brooke couldn’t tell if she was being sincere or facetious. “I’m glad you see it that way.”

  “What other way is there to see it?”

  Brooke didn’t know what else to say. “I just want you to know, that no matter what happens, it’s nothing personal.”

  “I never thought it was.” Faith smiled. “I’m glad you suggested this talk, because there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

  Brooke braced herself, not sure why she needed to, just something in Faith’s moment of hesitation before she leaned forward conspiratorially and asked, “Is there any chance that the accidents on the film set aren’t accidents at all?”

  MARY ELLEN PACKED UP her things at the motel. It shouldn’t have taken much time, since she’d brought so little. But she was so exhausted and completely drained that doing anything took all her effort.

  Had she done the wrong thing by telling Eve the truth? Eve’s husband was the sheriff. Maybe she’d gone to him and any moment Mary Ellen would hear a knock at the door and she would be arrested.

  But no knock came. Just another thunderstorm with lightning that flashed behind the curtains and thunder that rattled the windowpanes.

  Eve had said she hoped this would bring Mary Ellen some peace, as if that were a possibility. She’d known telling the story to her sister’s child would only bring it all back, every horrible, deplorable moment of it. And it had.

  There could be no forgiveness. Not from her sister. Not from herself. What she’d done was monstrous. Her repentance had been a life cut off from the world, living simply, suffering alone.

  She hadn’t told Eve in the hope that she might be forgiven. She’d told the truth because she’d had to. She couldn’t let Eve and her brother keep searching for their mother the way her parents had waited for years for Constance to come home.

  No matter what Eve and her brother decided to do, Mary Ellen couldn’t let her mother spend another day believing that Constance might come home again.

  She hadn’t told her parents because she’d believed that the truth would kill them. She’d been their perfect daughter, the one they’d always depended on.

  After Constance left, her parents had leaned on her even more. “I don’t know what we would do without you,” they used to say. “We’ve lost Constance, but if we lost you, Mary Ellen…”

  So she hadn’t told them the truth, sparing them she told herself while saving herself from their reaction to what she’d done.

  As she moved to the door with her suitcase, her cell phone rang. “Hello?” She expected it to be her mother. No matter what she planned to tell her, Mary Ellen wasn’t going to tell her over the phone.

  “Mary Ellen?” It was Eve.

  She had to sit down on the motel bed. Her legs just didn’t want to hold her. “Yes?”

  “I’ve spoken to my brother. We want to meet our grandmother.”

  Mary Ellen began to cry, not softly, quietly, but big gulping sobs. When she could finally get herself under control, she said, “My mother will be so happy. I had already decided to tell her the truth when I got home.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Eve said. “Maybe you should tell her what I told my brother. How Constance died giving birth, how the babies were adopted, believing Constance was a runaway, and how our father, finding his wife dead and babies gone, couldn’t go on living.”

  Mary Ellen was silent for a long time. “What about the truth?”

  “That is the truth,” Eve said. “I hope your mother is well enough that the two of you can come to Montana so we can all get to know each other.”

  Again Mary Ellen couldn’t speak for a long moment. “Thank you.” Overwhelmed with emotion, she was unable to say more.

  When she finally had control again, she loaded her suitcase in the rental car and headed south down the long two-lane highway. Pulling out her cell phone she keyed in her mother’s number.

  “Mary Ellen?” her mother said anxiously. “Is there something wrong, dear?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when I get home from Montana, but I have good news, Mom.” She could hear her mother sobbing softly on the other end of the line.

  “Constance?”

  Mary Ellen felt that pang she always felt. “I didn’t want to tell you on the phone, but Constance died giving birth to twins. A son and a daughter. The daughter, Eve Bailey Jackson, looks just like Constance. I haven’t seen the son yet. They’re thirty-four years old. The son’s wife recently gave birth to a baby boy. You’re a great-grandmother.” />
  FAITH SAW Brooke’s reaction. Surprise, then something more wary.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I think someone is purposely trying to sabotage the film,” Faith said.

  Brooke let out a short, rude laugh. “Why? This film is going to fail all by itself. Sorry to tell you this, but this flick will be lucky if it doesn’t go straight to DVD. It’s a dog. Bow wow.”

  “Then why would the director agree to make it? I heard around the set that Erik Zander sunk everything he owned into it.”

  The stuntwoman shrugged. “Directors and producers make bad movies all the time. What else is he going to do?”

  “Still, these so-called accidents—”

  “You really are naive about the film industry, aren’t you?” Brooke said, her smile laden with sarcasm. “It’s a cheap film. We have a fourth of the crew we should have and our props look like they were built by third-graders. Of course there are going to be accidents.”

  “Like a rattlesnake crawling into your trailer?”

  That stopped Brooke for a long moment. “That was more than likely personal. If you stay around this industry long enough, you make enemies. These people play rough.”

  “It almost killed you.”

  “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?” Brooke chuckled and started to open the pickup door. “Remember what I said about Jud. In fact, I believe you have only one more stunt. I’d suggest you get off the set as quickly as possible when you’re done with it tomorrow. You’ll save yourself a lot of pain if you sever ties with Jud Corbett as fast as possible and don’t look back.”

  Faith didn’t get a chance to reply before Brooke opened the door and was gone. Which was probably just as well, considering what Faith might have said.

  She watched Brooke head for one of the film’s rented trucks parked across the street and thought about the truck she saw last night in the dry creek bed. It could have been the same pickup.

  Faith had wanted to ask Brooke about her mother. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to tip her hand if it was a well-kept secret. Or maybe common sense had overruled.

  Even if Brooke had admitted to being the daughter of Angie Keifer, that didn’t mean she was behind the accidents on the set. Especially when she’d been the victim of the first accident and had almost died. Even though Brooke had tried to shrug it off, Faith suspected there was more to the story.

  She started the engine to let the defroster clear the fogged windshield. She knew she should take both Nancy’s and Brooke’s advice and leave well enough alone.

  If only that were in her nature.

  As the windshield started to clear, Faith looked up and saw the dark shape of a person standing in front of the truck. For one heart-stopping moment, she thought it was Brooke again.

  “Jud?” Faith asked, rolling down her window partway as he came around to her door.

  “We need to talk,” he said, and she motioned him around to the passenger side of the car and out of the rain.

  Jud slid in, closing the door to the rain and cold, bringing with him his scent of leather and the outdoors. Suddenly the pickup cab felt too confined, too intimate. Her heart kicked up a beat and she was reminded of being in his arms earlier and that blamed kiss.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  She stared at him in confusion. “What?”

  “I just ran into Brooke. She said you talked to her about the accidents on the set. Now she’s worried you won’t be able to do your job, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she goes to the director with this.”

  “So you’re worried that I might lose my job?” He seemed awfully upset about it. Because he’d gotten her the job to start with? “Look, if you’re worried that it might reflect on you since you’re the one who suggested me—”

  “Hell, no. I’m not thinking about my damned job. I’m worried about you. If we’re right about someone purposely causing these incidents, then you’ve just made yourself a target. And after what happened to you last night, getting fired might be the best thing that could happen to you.”

  All she heard was the “we’re” part. “So you agree with me?”

  “That’s beside the point,” he snapped, pulling off his Stetson to run his fingers through his hair. He had beautiful hair—and fingers, and Faith found herself momentarily distracted by both.

  “Brooke was the one who insisted she had to talk to me.”

  He frowned. “Not about the accidents?”

  “No. About you.”

  That shut him up. “Me?”

  “She wanted to warn me about you. She said you had affairs on all the sets and broke them off at the end of the movie, leaving a trail of women behind. She swears you will break my heart just as you have all the others. Thanks to you, she thinks we’re lovers.”

  “First off, I don’t date women I work with. It’s the Corbett Code. Dinner with the family the other night was not a date. I didn’t kiss you when I took you back to your trailer, did I?”

  “Nope. But you wanted to.”

  He smiled at that. “Oh, I wanted to do a lot more than that.”

  She felt her face heat up, thinking their minds that night had been on the same fast track. Good thing neither of them had acted on it.

  “Second, I make no promises to the women I date, and believe me, I have left few broken hearts and dated many less women than my reputation would indicate.

  “Third—” his gaze locked with hers across the close expanse of the pickup’s cab “—I should never have gotten you into this.”

  She reached over and pressed a finger to his lips. “You gave me my heart’s desire.”

  At his grin, she quickly removed her finger, realizing too late what she’d said.

  “Is that your only heart’s desire?” he asked softly.

  She felt heat rush up from her toes, toes now curling in her boots. This was why Jud Corbett had such a way with women. She held up her hands as if that act alone could ward him off—let alone save her from the way he made her feel.

  He took both her hands in his large ones and dragged her to him. The kiss on the set had been passionate enough but impulsive.

  But there was nothing impulsive about this kiss. This was one of those I’ve-wanted-to-do-this-since-the-first-time-I-saw-you kisses. A saved-up, thought-out, dreamed-of and passionately yearned-for kiss.

  She felt herself melt into his arms, his mouth warm, his lips strong and sure. It swept her up like an adventure where anything was possible.

  Jud pulled her closer, melding their bodies together, as he explored her mouth, his hands tangled in her hair, his body hard and possessive.

  When he finally let her come up for air, she was breathing hard, heart racing, traitorous body crying out for more. The pickup’s windows were steamed over even though the engine was still running, the heater working as hard as it could to clear the glass.

  The outside world appeared to be lost, which was just fine with her. She never wanted to leave this pickup cab or this man’s arms.

  Rational thought and reality came back slowly. She heard a car drive by, splashing through a puddle. A car door slammed nearby. The blast of the afternoon passenger train whistle as it approached the depot across the tracks from downtown. Brooke’s warning, true or not.

  “No, oh no,” Faith whispered, her voice a croak as she pulled away. What had she been thinking? Even if half the stories about him were lies, there was that other half. She knew all about this man and his women. She wasn’t about to become another notch on his six-shooter.

  Jud looked surprisingly as shaken as she felt. “Wow. That was—”

  “Wrong,” she said, finally finding her voice. “What happened to that Corbett Code of yours?” she demanded, angry with him, even angrier with herself for enjoying every nanosecond locked in his kiss.

  “To hell with the code. This is different. What I feel with you…what I felt from the first time I laid eyes on you. This
is—” He was looking into her eyes, searching for what?

  Her to fall for his line? “You say that to every woman.” Tell me it isn’t true! Deny it, damn you!

  “You don’t believe that. You feel this, too.” He frowned, looking suddenly unsure of himself. “Am I wrong?”

  She wanted to lie. For her own protection. Jud Corbett scared her. These feelings scared her. She’d never felt anything like what she’d experienced with him from the moment she saw him leaning on the jack fence watching her do her stunts.

  “Faith, look at me.” He reached over and lifted her chin with his warm fingers. “Tell me you didn’t feel anything and I will get out of this pickup right now and never touch you again.”

  The lie caught in her throat at the thought of never feeling his touch, his lips, his arms around her again.

  “That’s what I thought.” His relief surprised her. He laughed softly, leaned back, sighing as their gazes met. “This scares me as much as it does you, maybe more, and if I did ‘date’ women I worked with while on a movie, as Brooke said, then I would be making love to you right now, right here, on Whitehorse, Montana’s, main street.”

  “You sure about that?” she teased.

  He grinned. “Yeah, and you’d let me.” His expression sobered. “I was looking for you for another reason, actually. Isn’t your brother-in-law the sheriff?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I think we should go talk to him about what you saw last night.”

  Faith was feeling so many things right at that moment, relief and a whole new wave of tenderness toward this man. “You believe me?” She couldn’t help grinning. “What changed your mind?”

  “Keyes Hasting. Apparently he’d planned to meet Chantal last night but didn’t show.”

  “Hasting? That older man I saw on the set yesterday?”

  Jud nodded. “He invests in films occasionally and apparently has mob connections.”

  “You think he invested in Death at Lost Creek?”

  “Seems likely, since he showed up,” Jud said, frowning. “The word on the street was that Zander tied up every cent he had in the film. But it could be that wasn’t enough and he went to Hasting. Either way, I think we’d better find out if Keyes Hasting is missing.”