by B. J Daniels
It made her more than determined to expose the woman. But in exposing Madeline, she would be exposing the men who’d fallen for her, as well. She hadn’t cared before, but suddenly she didn’t want to hurt this man.
“Madeline,” Tucker repeated, making it clear he wasn’t waiting much longer for an answer.
She could tell he was surprised that she knew about Madeline, knew enough to send the doll. Madeline had always been all about secrecy. It’s how she did business. It’s how she destroyed young men, chewing them up and spitting them out and moving on.
“My brother knew her.” Kate hadn’t planned to tell him that.
Suddenly the waiter appeared to take their orders.
Tucker waved the man away and leaned forward. “Your brother?”
She started to pour herself more wine, but he took the bottle from her, their fingers touching, a brush of warmth against her icy cold hand. He poured her more wine and put down the bottle.
But she didn’t reach for her glass. She could see that he had already put the pieces together. “Clay,” he said. “Clayton Rothschild III.”
She felt her cheeks warm with the anger that was always just below the surface. Her gaze rose to meet Tucker’s. “Madeline killed him just as surely as if she’d been the one to tie the noose around his neck.” Her voice broke and she had to fight tears. No, this was not at all the way she’d planned this so-called date.
“He knew Madeline?” he asked, frowning. “That was about the same time as...” He broke off, shifted his gaze to hers again and held it. “He killed himself because of her?” He was shaking his head. “The package. The only way you could have known...” His gray eyes widened in alarm. “She pulled the same thing on him that she did me with the...baby?”
Kate nodded, unable to speak around the lump in her throat. She looked away. After all the interviews she’d done since she’d begun her career, she’d never let anyone get to her like this. But sitting across from a man who had known her nemesis...intimately, who knew how she operated, who had been hurt by her almost as deeply as her brother...
Staring into his gray eyes, she thought that maybe there was little difference between this man and her brother. That thought made her angry at both of them. How could they have fallen for such a woman? Tucker had left behind everything for nineteen years—his family, his ranch, his life to that point—because of Madeline. Clay had just taken a more drastic route to run away from what that woman had put him through.
“You want to know where I got the doll?” Her voice sounded strange to her own ears as she tried to rein in her fury without much luck. “It’s the one Madeline sent my brother. At the time, I had no idea what it meant when it was found in the room where Clay...” Her voice broke again. “But I was determined to learn the truth about why my brother killed himself. I was thirteen. My brother was a senior in high school.”
Tucker was staring at her with so much sympathy that she had to look away for fear of breaking down again.
“How did you find out about her?” he asked after a moment.
“My brother. I found a letter he had written her. His suicide note. Unfortunately, when I went searching for her, I realized that Madeline Ross never existed. She’d lied about who she was, no big surprise.”
“Still, how could you know that the woman from the creek—”
“Clay said in the letter that he knew there was another man Madeline was seeing. A cowboy who lived in Gilt Edge with the last name Cahill. It didn’t take much to put it together in the years since. At first I thought it might be your brother Flint. But when you took off suddenly, I figured you’d run away with her. That maybe the two of you had been in it together.” She met his gaze. “Until I heard about the skeletal remains found in the creek near your ranch.”
“So you sent the package to me.”
“I’d hoped you were in contact with your family and that the package would get you home. I wasn’t sure the remains were Madeline’s let alone that you would return.”
He looked shocked.
“I figured if you were the other man my brother had written about, then the doll might resonate with you.”
Tucker let out a bark of laugh. “Oh, it resonated, all right. I’ve believed for nineteen years that I was the reason she killed herself and our son.”
She shook her head. “How could you let her fool you like that?”
“I wish I knew. So you’ve known about me and Madeline for—”
“Years. That’s how long I’ve been looking for you. You did a good job of hiding. Does your brother the sheriff know that you haven’t been going by Tucker Cahill all this time?”
Tucker was staring at her again. “I see what you meant about the two of us having a lot in common. And what exactly were you going to do when you found me?”
She shook her head, unable to speak for a moment around the lump in her throat. “It was Madeline I wanted. If you were with her... But when the bones were found, I had a feeling you’d be coming back alone.”
They both fell silent for a few minutes.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” he said. “I had no idea there were...others.”
“Yes, except with my brother Madeline obviously survived her leap into the river to be saved by whoever she was working with and continued to blackmail Clay until he couldn’t take the guilt anymore.”
“It wasn’t just the guilt. I would imagine he thought he loved her.”
Kate ground her teeth. “That makes it even worse.” She’d never understood how her brother could have taken his own life. “She was that good?”
“When you’re seventeen... But yes, she was good at making an inexperienced teenager fall for her.”
She felt all the anger leak from her like a pinprick to a tire. It left her simply tired and, again, close to tears. Not even her parents knew everything about Madeline. It felt good to finally say what had been bottled up inside her to someone who’d known the woman.
“There’s another reason I wanted to find you,” Kate said. “I need to know everything about Madeline so I can find her accomplice.”
The waiter tentatively came back to the table. “I don’t want to rush you.”
“No, it’s fine. Are you ready to order?” Tucker asked her.
She nodded. For the first time since her brother had died, she didn’t feel that hard knot in her chest. Finally, she would avenge his death. Tucker Cahill didn’t know it yet, but he was going to help her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BILLIE DEE COULDN’T quit thinking about Henry’s proposal. She was deep in thought when Darby came into the kitchen the next morning.
“Can I make you some breakfast?” she asked, happy to see him. She was dreading the day when Mariah gave birth and the two of them moved out of the upstairs apartment. While she knew it was selfish, she liked knowing they were up there when she came in early in the morning to start the day’s cooking.
“Thanks, but no breakfast today. I have some waitstaff interviews this morning. With summer and the busiest time of the year coming up, I need more help. Mariah is going to be busy nesting, same with Lillie. You thought any more about the apartment upstairs? No,” he said with a laugh. “Of course you wouldn’t want to move in up there, not with—”
Just then Mariah came down the stairs, her huge belly leading the way. Billie Dee put a finger to her lips. Mariah and Darby’s twin sister, Lillie, were best friends and told each other everything.
He nodded and went to help his wife down the last few steps before the two went to the front of the saloon to get ready to interview candidates before opening for the day.
Billie Dee turned back to her cooking. She liked to cook what she knew. And what she knew was Tex-Mex with a side of Cajun. Which in this part of the country seemed exotic—and often too spicy. Since she’d gone to work here, she’d introduced
this part of Montana to her brand of cooking and this morning she was making up a batch of her famous chili.
When she heard more voices at the front of the old stage stop, she peered down the hall to see the candidates for the job.
Her breath caught. She had to grab the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table for support. That face. She’d been looking for it in every young woman she passed for the past twenty-six years—terrified she’d see it and terrified she wouldn’t.
The young woman looked up, her eyes a startling blue that rivaled even the Montana sky. And that face... But there was no recognition in the young woman’s gaze.
The woman looked away and Billie Dee felt as if someone had just stomped on her heart.
* * *
TUCKER WAS HAULED out of his dream by his cell phone chime. Without opening his eyes, he reached over to shut off the phone, surprised it was morning. He didn’t want to wake up. He could still feel the night on his bare skin as he clung to the erotic dream he’d been having.
Almost midnight, the Montana sky ablaze with stars. Hot water bubbled up from deep in the earth to pool in the middle of the large boulders as a small waterfall washed over the rocks like a lullaby.
He lay naked in the water waiting for her. He knew she could come to him in this isolated place. The natural hot spring was surrounded by mountain ranges, deep purple against the skyline. It was their special place. He could hear the faint tinkling of her silver anklet as it dangled from her ankle. Other than the anklet, the only other thing she wore was a large straw hat that hid her face. Strange, since there was only moonlight.
Her hair was tucked up under the hat as she padded barefoot toward him and the tantalizing pool. She had just reached the edge, stuck in one perfectly pedicured toe and reached to take off her hat...
His cell phone rang again. Cursing, he opened his eyes and picked up the phone to see who was calling at this hour. When he saw it was Flint, he answered, “What?”
“I guess I don’t have to ask how your date was last night.”
He could feel the dream slipping away. Worse, he’d glimpsed the face under the hat and... It hadn’t been Madeline’s. It was Kate’s. The dream dissolved into a feeling of frustration. Kate?
“There a reason you called?”
“I forgot you’ve never been a morning person,” Flint said. “If you get a chance, stop by my office.”
He sat up a little. “Has something happened?”
“No, I just wanted to ask you more questions about Madeline.”
“Madeline?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed as he tried to clear his head. “I told you everything I know about her.”
“I talked to the sheriff up in Judith Basin County. He says the Dunns cleared out about twenty years ago and, as far as he knows, haven’t been seen since. It was before his time, but he said they were an odd family. Said there were an older brother and some sisters. Stayed to themselves in some big old house outside town. As far as he knew, there wasn’t anyone living there anymore. Could take time to track them down, if any of them are still around.”
A dead end. Clawson Creek? It wasn’t that far from Denton where he’d first met Madeline. He thought about what Kate had said about finding Madeline’s accomplice.
“I don’t mean to bring up bad memories,” Flint said. “I just want to tie up what loose ends I can and put it all to rest. You have to quit blaming yourself for her death, though. It was an accident, one she brought on herself.”
Tucker nodded. So why did he still feel guilty? Nor did it feel as if it was over. “What about the person who hid her body downstream?”
“Because the death was an accident, the person who hid the body would have been facing only misdemeanor charges for the improper disposal of a corpse. Since the statute of limitations has run out...”
“So you aren’t going to pursue this? You aren’t even going to look for whoever was helping Madeline?”
“I can’t see using manpower when no charges could be filed, anyway.”
He thought of Kate and that darned dream came back with her standing naked in the mist at the edge of the pool. He frowned as he remembered the tinkle of the ankle bracelet in his dream.
“Did your deputies find any jewelry at the scene?”
“No, why?”
“Maybe a little silver ankle bracelet with tiny bells on it. I believe Madeline was wearing it that night.” He sounded lame even to himself. The woman in the dream who’d been Madeline up until that last minute had been wearing a silver ankle bracelet with little bells on it. Until this moment, he’d forgotten about the bracelet he’d bought her.
“I’ll send Harp back out there. Will give him something to do.”
“Who’s Harp?” Tucker asked, still distracted.
“Harper Cole. Mayor’s son and a deputy I inherited. While he’s doing better at the job, he has a pregnant wife he calls every few hours to make sure she’s all right.”
“And that’s a bad thing, him checking on his wife?”
Flint groaned. “You have to know Harp. He tends to overdo everything. So putting him on creek dirt duty will at least give all of us a break,” his brother said with a laugh. “What do you have planned today?”
Tucker glanced at the clock, cringing at how early it was. “Going back to sleep.”
“Sorry for waking you up.”
“You don’t know how sorry I am.” He hung up but knew that the dream was gone. He sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. Flint wasn’t going to look for Madeline Dunn’s accomplice.
But Kate Rothschild most definitely was.
Sleep was out of the question. All he could think about was how excited he’d been in the dream to see Madeline again and instead it had been...Kate?
He shook his head. What a crazy dream.
Kate would be even more disappointed by the news of the Dunn family disappearing, he realized. Let alone if he told her that Flint wasn’t looking for the accomplice who’d no doubt hidden Madeline’s body.
After dinner with her last night, he knew that the woman was out for blood. So maybe it was just as well that it had come to this end.
He picked up his cell phone thinking he should call her. She was probably a morning person. Mostly, he didn’t want her finding out about this from anyone else. And yet, he hesitated as he tried to clear his head. That darned dream was still clinging to him like warm water from the pool he’d been waiting in.
Last night, she’d put her cell number into his phone—and taken his. She was determined that they “work together.” Another reason he had to call her. He felt like Flint. He just wanted this behind him.
He searched for her number. It was going to feel strange talking to her after the dream. Hell, he’d just seen her naked. The thought made him shake his head. It was nothing but a dream. And yet, it had been so real...
Before he could call her, his phone rang. Flint. Again.
He chuckled into the phone. “I remember you never letting me sleep in the mornings when we were kids.”
“It wasn’t my fault that you were a light sleeper or that we had to share a room or that I was a pesky little brother,” Flint said, humor in his voice. “After I hung up, I realized you are probably going to drive to Clawson Creek to see what you can find out about Madeline. I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“Never crossed my mind,” he said but realized it had because that was what Kate would do. “Someone up there knew her, might know where her family went after they left. Interesting they left about the time that she died. It’s almost like they knew she’d died that night, huh.”
Flint groaned. “See why I called you back? Are you looking for closure?”
He chuckled. “Maybe. Maybe I’m just curious.”
“Even if you found some of her family, I’m not sure you can get the c
losure you seem to need. Worse, the person who buried her that night at the creek might not realize I can’t take any legal action against them,” Flint said. “It could be dangerous.”
“Flint, stop worrying about me. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s what bothers me. I don’t want to have to bail you out of jail.”
“Don’t worry, I’m thinking about taking Kate Rothschild with me. Her daddy will pay our bail.” He disconnected.
The idea of taking Kate along had been an impulsive thought that now seemed like a good idea. She wanted answers. And he, he realized, wanted to see her again.
He found her number on his phone. She answered on the first ring. A morning person, he thought with a groan and realized he heard water running in the background. Just like that small waterfall coming into the pool in his dream.
“How do you feel about a road trip?” he asked without preamble as he tried to exorcise the dream once and for all. “Thought you might want to help me track down Madeline’s kin. Dress casual. I’ll pick you up in fifteen.”
* * *
KATE PUT THE phone back on the bathroom counter by the sink. Tucker had pulled her out of the shower where she’d been...daydreaming.
She considered getting back into the still-running warm shower. The water had felt so good, her skin slick with body wash. She’d been lost in the feel of it, lost in thoughts of Tucker Cahill, and hadn’t realized where her hand had moved to until the phone rang. She had quickly opened the shower door and snatched up the phone as if getting caught doing something she shouldn’t.
Now she reached in and turned the water off. That wonderful, sensual, dreamy feeling from earlier disappeared as she grabbed a towel to dry off. Madeline’s kin?
She felt her heart race at the thought of getting this close to finding out who had helped Madeline, who was equally responsible for her brother’s death. Madeline might be dead, but whoever was involved in the con with her wasn’t.
