by B. J Daniels
She breathed in the woman’s expensive perfume and felt the brush of the cashmere sweater as well as Juliette’s strong grip. As she stumbled back a little from the unexpected embrace, she felt more than off balance. Was she really believing this? As she stared into Juliette’s perfect face, she couldn’t help but think of that determined strong grip, and how those hands might have been the last thing Cyrus felt before he went overboard.
* * *
FLINT SUGGESTED THEY all sit down at one of the tables. Darby offered Juliette a drink. She asked for water and as he poured her a glass, Flint led her over to a table. He was as shocked by the woman as the rest of them seemed to be. There was no doubt that she was a beauty, but she also seemed gracious and real. He hadn’t expected that.
He’d thought Cyrus must have been tricked into marriage. Swept off his feet by a woman with a whole hell of a lot more experience than him. A gold digger who’d trapped him somehow.
Juliette came off as cultured and sophisticated, nothing like he’d expected. Also she didn’t appear to need Cyrus’s money.
Before she’d arrived, he’d warned everyone, “Let’s not all mob her with questions right off the bat.” He was hoping to get answers. While he might see what his brother had seen in this woman, it still didn’t make any sense to him.
Cyrus was a cowboy. Even if it had been love at first sight. Even if he had agreed to a Caribbean cruise without telling his family he wasn’t coming back for a while. But a quickie marriage on the ship? Flint wouldn’t have expected that in a million years. Not even to this woman.
“Cyrus spoke of you all so often, I’m sorry, but I feel as if you’re already family,” Juliette was saying after everyone sat down. “The way he talked about Montana and the ranch...”
“We had no idea you were coming here,” Lillie said. “I thought you’d want to be in the islands for when...if...” Her voice broke.
Juliette reached out and took Lillie’s hand. “I couldn’t bear to stay down there. It was bad enough being on the ship, looking out at the ocean, praying I would see him.” She let go of Lillie’s hand to wipe her eyes. “I realized I needed to be with his family to wait for news.”
“What about your family?” Hawk asked.
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t have any. That’s why when Cyrus talked so lovingly about all of you...” She sniffled into her tissue.
“You should have told us you were coming,” Flint said. “We could have picked you up at the airport.”
“I didn’t want to be a bother. I rented a car since I have no idea how long I will be staying.”
“Can you tell us how you and Cyrus met?” AJ asked.
Juliette nodded. Flint listened, her story almost verbatim from the report he’d received from the ship’s captain of the initial missing persons report. She cried through some of the story but ended with, “Cyrus and I had never had anything like this happen to us before. It was so magical. We couldn’t believe we’d found each other. We had such plans for the future.” She cried into her tissue, the room falling silent.
“Had you been married before?” AJ asked.
Juliette looked up, a flash of annoyance in her gaze before she squelched it. “Yes. I lost my husband and now... Please let me help with the funeral.”
“Funeral?” Lillie echoed.
“Like I told you on the phone, arranging a funeral seems a little premature,” Flint said. “Cyrus might still be found.”
“We can only hope,” Juliette said. “It’s just that...” She looked around the table as if unsure how to proceed. “The captain of the ship told me that Cyrus’s death certificate will be faxed to me in the next few days. Apparently after this much time at sea...”
Flint saw the grief in AJ’s eyes. It broke his already shattered heart. “Like I said, we haven’t even thought about funeral services. We’re still hoping there will be good news.”
A phone buzzed. Juliette dug hers out of her bag, looked at the screen, and then up at Flint. Tears flooded her blue eyes. “That was the coast guard. The search has been called off.”
Flint couldn’t look at AJ, couldn’t look at anyone. He stared at Juliette, a lump in this throat the size of Montana. He couldn’t keep lying to himself. Cyrus was gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
JULIETTE DROVE THROUGH the blizzard, just wanting to be anywhere but here. Everything about this place brought back too many memories. She hadn’t seen snow in years. That was because she’d purposely not lived in places where it got cold—let alone snowed. She needed sunshine and heat. She felt the cold as she had as a child, that deep ache that never went away, coupled with a hunger that she’d never been able to quench.
Back at her hotel, she turned up the heat and replayed the scene from the saloon. She thought it had gone well. Cyrus’s sister despised her. She could live with that. The sheriff had been cordial enough. Same with the brothers and their wives.
The one who interested her—and worried her—was AJ, who had looked as if she’d been hit by a train. They’d all taken Cyrus’s death hard, but nothing like AJ. It confirmed what Juliette had feared. AJ had been in love with the cowboy. She suspected Cyrus had felt the same way or damned close to it.
Her stomach roiled at the thought of the attorney-turned-barmaid. Maybe the best thing she could do was ignore the woman. After all, Juliette didn’t plan on being in town that long. Once her business here was over, she would be off to some tropical island for the rest of the winter.
But she couldn’t get AJ off her mind. After she’d hugged her, she’d looked into those wide blue eyes. The woman was cute. She could see how Cyrus could have been attracted to her. But AJ was also smart. Too smart for her own good.
What she’d seen in all that blue was suspicion. Which wasn’t surprising. But that coupled with smarts and love? That woman wasn’t going to let this go. She was the kind who would dig her heels in. She was going to be a problem.
Sighing, Juliette considered what—if anything—to do about it. She didn’t want any trouble. She already had a dead husband. An accident. She couldn’t risk another death. Anyway, what could AJ really do?
Cyrus was her legal husband, which meant that anything that was his was now hers. Let any of them try to stop her from taking it.
* * *
“WELL, WHAT DO you think?” Flint asked everyone after Juliette left.
They were all silent for a long moment as if they were as shaken and surprised as he was. Juliette was gorgeous, the kind of woman who would stop a man in his tracks. Just not Cyrus. Unless he hadn’t known his brother as well as he’d thought he had.
“She’s too perfect,” Lillie said, shaking her head. “That’s not the kind of woman Cyrus would have been attracted to. He liked women who were more down-to-earth.”
Hawk spoke up to disagree. “Come on, sis, she was a knockout. If she turned that smile and those big blue eyes on Cyrus...”
Lillie made a rude disgusted sound. “Looks aren’t everything.”
“Said by one of the most beautiful women—inside and out—in Gilt Edge,” her brother Darby stated, clearly trying to lighten the moment.
“She certainly played the part well,” AJ said and stepped behind the bar to make herself a drink. “The tears, the sincerity. Just the right touch.” They all looked at her, hearing the bitterness but no one said anything for a few moments.
“Of course she isn’t going to be as inconsolable as all of us,” Maggie said, taking Flint’s hand. “She might have fallen in love with Cyrus at first sight, but she only knew him for a few days.”
Flint had to agree with his wife. While seeming upset, Juliette wasn’t as heartbroken as they were. She would get over this and move on. It wouldn’t be that easy for all of them. His heart especially went out to AJ. She’d fallen for Cyrus. It was no wonder she didn’t want to believe any of this was real.
> “I was surprised that she plans to stay around for a while,” Tucker said.
His wife, Kate, agreed. “I’d like to know more about this woman.”
That had been Flint’s thought.
Tucker pulled Kate to him and kissed her. “It’s that investigative reporter in you coming out again.” He shook his head, smiling at her. “I thought you didn’t miss it?”
“I don’t,” she said. “Except when something like this happens and then I want to dig.”
“Don’t worry,” Flint assured her and the rest. “I’m going to find out everything I can about her.”
“She keeps asking about the funeral,” Darby said. “What are we going—”
“It’s too early for that,” AJ said, stepping from behind the bar. Her eyes were bright with tears. “As soon as the storm lets up, I’m going down there.”
“Down there?” Lillie asked. “To the Caribbean?”
“I know you all think it’s foolish...” AJ’s voice broke. “But I’m going. I have to go. Cyrus could have been picked up by a boat, unconscious. He could be lying in a hospital...”
“AJ—”
Flint cut off Lillie. “Maybe there will be news before the storm lets up.” But he could see that once it did, AJ was going to be on the first plane out. He didn’t blame her. He’d thought about doing the same thing himself. But he had a job, a family and, like the others, he thought it was a wild-goose chase.
AJ just didn’t want to accept that Cyrus was gone. As the person who had always looked after the family, Flint had to help them not only accept it, but also figure out how to live with the loss. Had there been anyway to get word to their father in the mountains, he would have. But why worry Ely yet. He knew he was holding out, hoping that Cyrus wasn’t dead, that there’d been a mistake.
There was also Juliette to deal with. He didn’t want to rush into a funeral at this point, but soon. Once the funeral was over, he got the feeling that Juliette would leave, realizing there was nothing here for her. The truth was, he wanted her gone. She would always be a reminder of their loss.
* * *
JULIETTE FOUND HERSELF pacing as she waited the next afternoon for her lawyer to call. She knew these things took time, but she didn’t have time. The sooner this was over, the sooner she would get to that warm villa waiting for her.
“What have you found out?” she demanded when he finally called. The two of them went way back as if from another life.
“Nice to hear your voice too, Julie.”
“The ranch, what is it worth?” She had no patience with small talk and he knew it. “And it’s Juliette.”
“My mistake,” he said with a sneer. “There could be a problem.” This was not what she wanted to hear. “You’re right about the ranch being signed over to Cyrus and Hawk by one Ely Cahill.”
“So what is the problem?”
“While, they have been working the ranch, the proceeds have been divided between the two of them. The other siblings have been getting dividends. But should the ranch ever be sold, Ely divided it equally between his six children.”
“But Cyrus and Hawk have worked the ranch. The others became bar owners or lawmen or married someone who doesn’t care about the ranch.”
“Doesn’t matter. Cyrus and Hawk profited from running the ranch. After probate, you’ll get what Cyrus had in his accounts, which is sizable and one-sixth of what the ranch sells for. Truthfully, selling it now in the middle of winter isn’t your best option.”
She agreed. Nor did she have time to wait for probate, let alone for the ranch to sell. “I’ll get them to buy me out. How much are we talking?”
“One-sixth of the ranch.”
Juliette groaned. “Money. How much money?”
“About a million and a half.”
She perked right up. It wasn’t as much as she’d hoped, but it would do nicely under the circumstances. “And his personal worth?”
“Another five hundred thousand, but like I said, it will have to go through probate and so would the ranch if you decide to—”
“I’m not waiting for the ranch to be sold,” she snapped. “They’ll buy me out. A cash settlement separate from any probate. I know they won’t want to sell the ranch, so they’ll pony it up.”
“Legally—”
“Tell me about my lawsuit against the cruise line. I sent you the names of the people who saw Cyrus drunk the first night on board. They’ll testify that the barmaid was flirting with him and plying him with free drinks.”
“Your chances of a settlement aren’t that good, but if that’s what you’re determined to do I’ll proceed.”
“Isn’t that what I pay you for? Get what you can out of them.” She disconnected. She thought of Cyrus. He’d been a good man. A fool, but a decent man. She’d met so few of them that she actually felt bad that he was dead. But she quickly got over it as she glanced around the hotel room and wished she could move faster on this.
But if she seemed too anxious the family might put up more of a fight. No, she would have to give this time, time she didn’t have. She had to win over at least some of the family. It wouldn’t be easy though, given what she’d seen earlier. The sister was definitely out. Maybe the sheriff’s wife. She seemed sympathetic.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten though she’d smelled something cooking at the saloon. They hadn’t offered her anything to eat, that should tell her everything she needed to know. She doubted they were suspicious, but then again, she couldn’t count on that. It probably wouldn’t be long before the sheriff tracked down her past.
She could feel the clock ticking. But time wasn’t her only problem, she reminded herself. The more she’d thought about AJ, the more she had to know if Cyrus had talked to the woman in the hours before he’d gone overboard. If Cyrus had told AJ anything about the two of them...
Pulling out her phone, she opened her browser and searched for the number for the Stagecoach Saloon where AJ apparently lived upstairs. The woman she’d met named Billie Dee, apparently the cook, answered.
“I was calling for AJ,” she said and planned to say more when the cook cut her off.
“She’s right here. Can I say who’s calling?”
“A friend.” Just as she’d known would happen, Billie Dee turned over the phone.
“Hello?” AJ sounded as if she’d been crying. Juliette made a face at the phone, hating that AJ existed and worse that the family was all on her side.
“I need to talk to you about Cyrus,” she said without preamble, putting just enough anguish into her voice. “Could we meet for a late lunch somewhere? I really need to talk to someone who knew him.”
It worked like a charm.
When AJ spoke, there were no tears in her voice. She was all business. “You’re staying at the hotel. There’s a café just down the street. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
Juliette smiled. “Thank you so much. I’ll see you then.”
* * *
“YOU’RE GOING TO lunch with her?” Billie Dee demanded as AJ pulled on her coat and boots. “Why would you do that?”
“She was probably the last person to see Cyrus alive.”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
AJ smiled at her. Billie Dee was like a second mother to her. Nothing like her own mother, who was a renowned heart surgeon and cool professional, the cook was the kind of mother AJ wished she had growing up.
A large woman with an open face and a wonderful hug, Billie Dee was warm and loving and always available to talk or just listen. She’d been so happy to bring her best friend together with her birth mother. Gigi didn’t really know yet how lucky she was.
“It isn’t like she can push me off a cruise ship. I’ll be fine,” she said and hugged the older woman. “I want to find out more about what happened in Denver�
�and on the cruise ship.”
Billie Dee looked pained. “Are you sure, honey? I don’t want to see you hurt any more than you have already been.”
“I’m tougher than I look. Anyway, Juliette made the overture. For whatever reason, she said she feels the need to talk to me about Cyrus. But I suspect she wants something from me.”
“Like I said—”
“Don’t worry. I have a pretty good idea what’s going on. Stop looking like that. I’ve said from the beginning that something is wrong about all of this. I’m sure Juliette is going to try to convince me that I’m wrong. We’ll see. But she might give something away, something that can help Cyrus, once I can get out of here and go look for him.”
Billie Dee looked as if she might cry.
“I’m not delusional, okay? I know he could be gone, but this is something I have to do, all right?”
Hesitantly, the older woman nodded. “I just worry about you.”
“I know you do. But it’s just lunch.”
“But if you go down to the Caribbean—”
“I’ll be back for your wedding. Gigi and I both will,” AJ told her. “We wouldn’t miss seeing you marry Henry for anything in the world. Your wedding is three months away. I’m sure I won’t be gone that long.”
Billie Dee had joked that she’d come to Montana from Texas looking for a cowboy. She’d met one in Henry Larson and fallen in love and was now engaged to be married. AJ couldn’t be happier for her.
The only thing that had held up the wedding was that Billie Dee had wanted the daughter she’d given away at birth to be there. That was where AJ had come in, bringing the two women together. They’d thought that nothing could hold up the wedding after that, but then this had happened with Cyrus.
“Wish me luck,” AJ said and headed for the door.
“Luck,” Billie Dee said and crossed herself. “Watch your back.”
