by B. J Daniels
“You met Billie Dee,” Darby said, his affection for the woman obvious. “Isn’t she something? And, boy, can she cook. Wait until you taste her shrimp gumbo.”
Tucker sat down at the bar. “You working all by yourself?”
“Mariah helped earlier, but she and Lillie are both about to go into labor any minute so we’ve picked up more help before the summer season. Ashley Jo Somerfield is one of our new ones. You’ll meet her. I sent her home once it slowed down.” A bell dinged down the hall in the kitchen. “I’ll be right back.”
Darby took off, returning with plates of burgers for the table of six.
Tucker took the time to look around the place, his heart swelling with pride in how well Lillie and Darby had done. That they were both married, expecting and obviously happy made him more glad than he could say. They’d done better than he had.
Darby stepped behind the bar again. “I just want to give you a heads-up. Lillie is planning a welcome-home party for you.”
Tucker groaned.
“I know. But maybe you don’t remember how she was at nine.”
“Bossy, mouthy, stubborn to a fault?” he asked and laughed.
“Well, she is much worse now.”
“When is this party?”
“Next Saturday, here. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but I thought you’d appreciate knowing.”
“Thanks.” He studied his little brother for a long moment. “I remember you as a kid. You were always thoughtful and never caused any trouble.”
“I left that to the rest of you.”
“Flint told me about what happened—you and Mariah almost getting killed.” Tucker shook his head. “Sounds like it was a close call.”
Darby nodded. “But it’s over and look how it’s turned out. I’m about to be a father and Mariah...” His smile broadened.
“Sounds like you hit the jackpot in all kinds of ways.” He turned on his bar stool. “This place is great.”
“Lillie fell in love with this old stagecoach stop and was determined to save it. The saloon and café seemed like the perfect way to protect the building and make a living.”
“You didn’t want to ranch the family place?”
“Naw, I leave that to Cyrus and Hawk and maybe you?”
Tucker shrugged. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“You know there is a place for you here, whatever you decide.”
“Thanks, Darby.”
Billie Dee brought out his burger. “I put a little something special on yours,” she whispered with a wink and then was gone.
“Do I dare ask?” Tucker said to his brother, who quickly poured him a cola. He took a bite and laughed. “Unless I’m mistaken, that’s a green chili and Mexican cheese in there.” It was delicious.
After he finished his burger, Tucker went back to the kitchen while Darby closed up the saloon. “That was the best hamburger I’ve ever had in my life,” he told Billie Dee, who was busy singing and cleaning up the kitchen. “I don’t know what all you put on it, but it was amazing.”
The heavyset Texan woman laughed heartily. “I thought you might like it. You’ve made your sister so happy to have you back. You know, she’s so excited to have this baby. She wanted you here when that happened.”
“I’m pretty excited about being an uncle myself.”
“You have a good night, then,” Billie Dee said. “Welcome home.”
It wasn’t until he went outside that he found the note tucked under the windshield wiper on his pickup. He looked around but saw no one.
The earlier group who’d had burgers had left a long time ago. He doubted any of them had left him a note.
Kate? He hoped it would be from her, but she wouldn’t do anything so covert as leave a note under his wiper blade. She was more of an in-your-face kind of gal.
He knew he was just kidding himself. It was from the same person who’d left the first one. He hesitated, then lifted the wiper blade and pulled out the note. He opened it in the glowing neon of the Stagecoach Saloon sign behind him and read. Leave while you still have the chance.
The handwriting was the same. Girlie. Did the writer want him to believe it was from Madeline? He shook his head. Maybe her ghost? Well, too bad. He didn’t believe in ghosts and he was back, like it or not, and he wasn’t leaving. As he slid behind the wheel, he crumpled the note and tossed it away. Only then did he catch the sweet once too familiar scent.
His heart began to pound. It had been nineteen years since he’d smelled that scent and the memory of it struck at gut level. The note had been scented with Madeline’s perfume.
* * *
“THOUGHT YOU’D LEAVE me behind?” Tucker asked when Kate found him waiting outside her hotel the next morning earlier than their agreed-on time.
“I said I’d pick you up.”
He grinned. “So you did. But I just had a feeling I should meet you here.”
She’d been caught. Still, she lifted her chin in the air. “I got an earlier start than I thought.”
“Uh-huh.”
He had suspected exactly what she’d had planned. That he knew her that well gave her a strange feeling. It felt both intimate and dangerous. She gave up trying to convince him of her motives as she unlocked the SUV.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, amusement in his tone.
“I slept like a baby, I’ll have you know.” Another lie.
He merely grinned as she climbed behind the wheel and tossed her purse on the space between them. “I was hoping you’d changed your mind,” he said as he pulled his door shut.
“I thought you knew me better than that.”
“Oh, I know you,” he said softly. Their gazes met and held.
She felt that stirring in her belly like something was waking up inside her again. She thought of last night, his mouth on her bare flesh... After a sleepless night she didn’t want to go down that road.
He looked away as if he’d felt something, as well. “I guess if you’re determined to throw away your money...”
“If she tells me where I can find Madeline’s siblings, then it’s worth every dime.” When he said nothing, she turned the key and started the engine. “You don’t have to come along.”
“Yes, I do.” That look again, the one that left her unsettled, that left her wanting.
“If it’s to protect me—”
He laughed again. “I suspect if this woman tries to bamboozle you, you won’t be the one who needs protecting.”
She smiled and glanced down at her purse. “I can take care of myself.” When she looked up, she saw her mistake reflected in Tucker’s gray eyes.
Before she could stop him, he picked up her purse. His gaze widened as he felt its heft. She had started to pull out but now hit the brakes. But it was too late. He’d already pulled the pistol out, pointing it at the floorboard as he stared at her.
“What?” she asked as she took her foot off the brake and continued to pull out onto the street. She waited for the lecture she was sure was coming.
“Madeline’s accomplice. You’re planning to kill them.”
“I wouldn’t say planning.”
Tucker shook his head. “Whoever helped Madeline isn’t worth going to prison over for the rest of your life.”
“What makes you think I would go to prison?”
“Even your father’s high-paid lawyer—”
“Do we have to talk about this? Just put the gun back in my purse. Please.”
He hesitated for so long she feared he might do something crazy like throw it out the window. But after a moment, he checked to make sure the safety was on before he placed it carefully back into her purse. He set the purse down behind the seat, out of her reach.
“Did you have that with you yesterday?” he asked after a few miles of rolling foothills and
mountains, dark green with towering pines.
“Yes, but you might have noticed, I didn’t use it.”
He shook his head and turned to look out at the passing landscape.
“Sorry you came along?” she asked after a few more miles.
“I’m sorry about a lot of things. Being with you isn’t one of them.”
That answer warmed her more than it should have.
* * *
“WHERE IS THIS rest area where we’re meeting this woman?” Tucker asked after they’d driven north for twenty minutes.
“It should be coming up soon. She apparently didn’t want anyone in Clawson Creek to know that she was talking to me.”
“Or she chose an isolated rest area in this part of the state because she figured it would be empty this time of year.”
She seemed to ignore his sarcasm. “Her name is Tammy Holden, forty-one. She was born and raised in Clawson Creek, so she should know about the Dunn family. All she told me is that if I wanted to know about Madeline, then I should talk to her. She and Madeline would have been the same age.”
He looked out the window, wondering what Madeline would have looked like now at forty-one if she had lived. That they could have had a son who was almost twenty blew his mind.
But there never had been a son, he reminded himself. No baby. All a lie. He ground his teeth just thinking about it and the perfumed note someone had left for him last night. And now he was on this road north again when he should be putting this whole thing behind him. He no longer needed closure, he told himself. He just needed peace.
He looked over at Kate and realized he’d never get it with her until she found the person who’d helped Madeline with her deception. But then what? Worse, why was he doing this? Did he really want to find Madeline’s accomplice? Didn’t he just want to put it behind him?
Kate reached over and turned on some music as if she could see him agonizingly playing it all over in his head—just as he’d done the past nineteen years. All the what-ifs. What if he’d done this or that? What if he’d done it all differently?
“Stop blaming yourself,” she said as she drove.
He laughed. “How do I do that?”
“My brother loved her, too. Even when he found out that there had been others.” She glanced over at him. “Even when he found out about you.”
Tucker felt himself flinch at her words. This woman had known about him for nineteen years and yet he hadn’t known she or her brother had existed. A part of him wished he’d left it that way.
It was that other part of him he was struggling with. Kate. He’d never met anyone like her.
“You really didn’t know I was the one?”
She seemed startled by the question for a moment.
“Your brother’s journal. He didn’t know my first name?”
“No. All I had was Cahill. Like I said, I figured it had to be either Flint or you.”
“The package was a nice touch, though.” He wasn’t about to admit how he’d reacted at the sight of that doll.
“I’m sorry about that. I had to know if you were the one. I thought you must be since you took off nineteen years ago. Add to that Madeline disappearing, as well. Then I saw you on the bridge at the creek.”
“And made me chase you down.”
She nodded without looking at him. “I wanted more time to think about how to approach you. But you solved that problem quickly enough.”
He stared at her profile. She was a striking woman, strong, determined. Her bow-shaped lips were turned up in a slight smile. He couldn’t help but smile himself. What was he going to do with this woman? The thought stirred all kinds of erotic thoughts.
Tucker banished them as he recalled the gun in her purse. The fact that this could get dangerous hadn’t escaped him—or her—for that matter. “Someone left me a message under my wiper blade on my pickup last night at the Stagecoach Saloon, which my brother and sister own. It wasn’t the first one I’ve gotten. Someone wishes I hadn’t come back. They want me to leave. They also want me to believe that Madeline is still alive.” He didn’t mention that extra touch—Madeline’s favorite perfume.
Kate shot him a worried look. “That’s ridiculous. They aren’t trying to blackmail you, are they? Bastards,” she said under her breath. “It wasn’t enough to break men’s hearts, take their money, deceive them. They want to drive you crazy? There is an inherent meanness in these people.”
“We don’t know that the whole family was involved,” he pointed out. “What if Madeline had been forced to do what she had?”
“By whom?”
“Her father or brother.”
Kate made an angry sound under her breath. “You just keep looking for excuses for her, don’t you?”
“I’m trying to understand.” He turned in his seat to look at her. “You loved your brother, respected him at some point, thought he wasn’t stupid, am I right?” She nodded, though grudgingly, and he continued. “So how is it that your brother and I both fell for this woman? Isn’t it possible that we saw some good in her? Yes, we were horny teens but why isn’t it possible that there was something worth redeeming in her and that Clay and I recognized it?”
Kate shook her head. “If Madeline had cared about either of you, she wouldn’t have done what she did. She broke my brother’s heart, then she killed him as if she was the one who helped string him up.”
Turning the radio up louder, she drove with that angry, determined look on her face. When her cell phone rang, she picked it up from where she’d laid it on the SUV’s center console. He saw the name Peter flash as she checked it, then declined to take the call.
Until that moment, he hadn’t realized that she had a man in her life. Of course she did. The thought was like a punch to the face. Who the hell was Peter?
* * *
THE REST AREA was just where Tammy had said it would be. And it was just as deserted and empty as Tucker had said it would be. This one was nothing more than a men’s and women’s outhouse beside a paved parking area off the highway.
It was no surprise to her, since she’d already checked it out on the internet. Tucker seemed to think she was reckless. Not when it came to her job or her well-being or her heart for that matter.
She didn’t leave things to chance. Nor did she take anyone’s word for anything. Becoming an investigative journalist had been a no-brainer. She came by a healthy dose of skepticism naturally as well as a lack of trust in people.
Kate had also been able to confirm what Tammy Holden had told her. The woman’s life was online and easily accessible even if her Facebook account hadn’t been open to everyone—which it had been.
Tammy was an open, though boring, book. From what Kate had gathered online, the woman had married at least once, had given birth to three offspring when she was still quite young given their ages. Divorced at least once, she lived with her mother in Clawson Creek and had at least two grandchildren she was raising. At forty-one, she worked at the café and seemed to be the sole support of her household.
“You’ll be lucky if she shows,” Tucker commented.
“She’ll show. I have five hundred dollars that say she will.”
He chuckled at that. “Good point.”
She pulled into the empty rest area and glanced at the clock on the dash. They were early. Still, she worried that this trip wouldn’t be worth even close to five hundred dollars. Worse, she’d invited Tucker along only to get into an argument with him again.
As she turned the SUV so she could see the highway from Clawson Creek, she glanced over at him, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry.”
“You can quit saying that since there is no reason to be sorry about the way you feel.”
“I’m not sorry about that. I’m sorry I make this harder for you.”
He smiled over at her. “Actually, it is just t
he opposite.”
Parked, she turned the key. The only sound was the tick, tick, tick of the cooling engine.
“Was I the only one your brother knew about?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes, but she told Clay there were others and there would be more. She made it sound like she had no choice. So of course he thought he could save her from this life.” She shook her head, surprised that after all this time she still felt tears burn her eyes.
“How do your mother and father feel about what you’re doing?” he asked, his gaze on the empty highway.
“They disapprove.” That was putting it mildly. “They want to put it behind them. They’re good at that. They seem to be able to pretend that Clay is away at university or off working in Africa. I’m...not so good at pretending. It’s one of my many flaws.”
“I’d love to hear more about your many flaws,” Tucker said.
But from up the road, she saw an older-model large brown car headed their way. Her pulse quickened as she realized she was closer to finding out the truth than she’d ever been in the past nineteen years.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE LARGE CAR seemed to float on the horizon, followed by a dark cloud of smoke. The sound of its engine reaching them before Tucker could see the figure behind the wheel.
As the woman braked and pulled into the rest area, the sun gleamed dully off the weatherworn brown paint of her older-model car.
“Ready?” Kate asked before opening her door.
He grunted in answer, dreading what this woman was going to tell them. Kate was right. He wanted to believe that Madeline had been forced into doing what she had. Being a liar was one thing. Being a coldhearted, conniving bitch was another. But he feared that the only person who knew the truth was dead. Then again, Kate was right. Someone had helped Madeline with her con. That person would be just as guilty as Madeline.
Waves of heat rose from the rest area’s dark pavement. Spring had come to Montana with a vengeance.
Tammy Holden sat behind the wheel of her car as they approached. Was she going to change her mind and take off without a word? Not if she wanted the five hundred dollars Kate had brought her.
