Cowboy's Legacy (The Montana Cahills)

by B. J Daniels

  It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only one they had, as Jenna had pointed out. “You love this man, don’t you?”

  Maggie had nodded, her throat too tight to speak as tears had burned her eyes.

  “Then we have to try to save him.”

  Maggie had stared at the woman, telling herself, This is your mother. Your birth mother. The woman who tried to protect you for years and still is. She is willing to lose her own life to save yours—and Flint’s.

  Now she shivered as she heard the van engine rev and watched as Jenna roared down the road. Snow flew up over the windshield as she busted through one snowdrift after another. She was going too fast, Maggie thought as her heart lodged in her throat. She realized with a cry of anguish that she might have found her mother only to lose her.

  The van hit the snowdrift in front of the large old loading-dock garage door and seemed to disappear into a huge cloud of snow crystals before the sound of screaming metal filled the air. The initial impact was like a cannon going off.

  Maggie rushed around the edge of the building to find the van halfway into the basement, the engine still running. Steadying the gun in both hands, she stepped over the debris and worked her way along the side of the van and into the basement. She couldn’t see Jenna behind the wheel. She couldn’t see anyone.

  * * *

  FLINT REALIZED WHAT was happening just moments before the van crashed through the old loading-dock garage door. The bumper that had torn through the thin metal crashed into the first pile of junk. He heard what was coming and tried to move as quickly as possible.

  Like a line of dominoes, the rows of junk began to topple. In the light from the van’s headlights, he could see years of dust rising like smoke into the air. Over the clamor, he couldn’t hear Terwilliger, but he had a pretty good idea where he was headed. Either out the stairs or the open doorway before he was crushed under the weight of the debris now coming down.

  Flint shuffled toward the stairs, his leg causing him so much pain that he had to fight passing out. But he was almost to the end of one of the rows. Once he could see the stairs...

  The sound of the gunshot made him flinch. He looked over, half expecting to see Terwilliger through a space between a stack of furniture. But with a jolt, he realized that the shot hadn’t been fired at him. Another gunshot filled the air, this one ending in an explosion of glass.

  Terwilliger was firing at whoever had crashed the van through the door.

  * * *

  MAGGIE FLINCHED AT the sharp gunfire. She’d moved only a few yards inside the basement, when the stacks of secondhand goods had begun to fall. In the dust that rose, she didn’t see anything for a few moments.

  Her gaze had shifted to the van, hoping to see Jenna. But there appeared to be no one behind the wheel. Had she climbed out? Or was she lying in there injured?

  She realized there was nothing she could do for her mother right now. Clark had fired at the van and shattered the windshield. She thought she heard a groan come from inside the cab. But it was another sound that made her quickly step behind a large armoire that was still standing against the wall.

  For a moment, she couldn’t tell where the approaching footfalls had come from. Then she saw him. Clark was heading toward her, his gun dangling from his right hand. She saw his bloodstained shirt and the odd way he was moving. For a moment, she forgot about the gun in her own hand.

  But seeing the way he moved toward her, she knew there would be only one way to stop him. Hurriedly, she raised the gun and fired. The shot went wild. She tried to steady the weapon in her hands, her heart a thunder in her chest, her breath coming out in rasps.

  “Don’t,” she called to him. “Don’t. I’ll shoot you.”

  He raised his gun. An instant later a bullet whizzed past her head, making her jerk back as it lodged itself in the wall behind her. “You fire again and next time—”

  His words were lost as out of the corner of her eye Maggie saw Jenna sit up behind the wheel of the van again. She didn’t look good. There appeared to be blood running down the side of her face. The engine was still running although the van had rolled back a little, leaving just enough space between its destroyed front end and the fallen junk that Terwilliger was making his way toward Maggie through that open pathway.

  Clark didn’t seem to notice Jenna. He was too intent on closing the distance between himself and Maggie. It wasn’t until Jenna ground the gears that he stopped directly in front of the van to turn his head in her direction.

  The van engine roared as Jenna tromped on the gas. The heavy vehicle lurched forward. Maggie screamed as Clark raised his gun and fired. The bullet shattered the rest of the windshield. But the van didn’t stop until the wall of junk brought it to a jarring halt. The motor died.

  Maggie looked toward the now-missing windshield. There was no sign of Jenna. Nor a sign of Clark. All she could assume was that he was crushed under the van and the debris. She looked into the huge basement now in a jumble of fallen treasures.

  “Flint!” she called. “Flint?”

  There was no answer, but in the distance she could hear the sound of sirens headed their way.

  * * *

  FLINT WAS EDGING along the wall near the stairs when he heard Maggie call his name. Before that he’d heard more gunfire followed by the roar of the van engine before it crashed again into the piles of junk. More had tumbled, some of it hitting the walls of the apartment and breaking through the Sheetrock.

  “Maggie?” he called back. “Where is Terwilliger?”

  “I think he’s under the van.”

  “And Jenna?”

  He heard a sob in her voice when she answered. “I can’t see her.”

  “But you can see Terwilliger?”

  Silence. Then the words he feared most. “He’s not—” Maggie let out a cry, and even before Flint cleared the first downed pile of junk, he knew. All his fears came in a rush. Standing next to the van with a headlock on Maggie and a gun to her temple was Terwilliger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  FLINT COULD SEE that Terwilliger was bleeding from a head wound near his temple. The man had to have lost a lot of blood from his earlier wound and now this one. But he appeared to be strong enough to either choke the life out of Maggie or pull the trigger and shoot her in the head.

  Flint worked his way closer, trying hard not to show how difficult it was to walk on his injured leg. The last thing he wanted was to look vulnerable in any way. A man like Terwilliger would feed on that.

  “You’re a monster, Terwilliger, but not even you would kill your own daughter,” Flint said.

  “You sure about that, Sheriff? She tried to shoot me.”

  “Because you’re scaring her—just like you are now. Let her go. This is between you and me.”

  The man shook his head. “Not until you drop your gun.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair unless you drop yours, as well.”

  Terwilliger laughed. “Looks to me like you aren’t getting around all that well, Sheriff. Did you hurt yourself?”

  “I’m okay. How about you?”

  “I’m fine,” the man lied. Flint could see that he was in pain and bleeding badly. He figured only meanness was keeping the man on his feet. Backed into a corner, though, Terwilliger could kill Maggie just out of spite, Flint knew. It didn’t matter that she was his blood. Finding her and abducting her hadn’t been about love. It had been about control, and right now he had all the control.

  “I said put down your gun,” Terwilliger repeated and tightened his grip on Maggie.

  Flint looked into her eyes. He saw her pleading look. Like him, she knew that the moment he put down his weapon, Terwilliger would kill him.

  The law was on its way. He could hear sirens growing closer and could see how this was goin
g to end. Terwilliger had probably told himself, like a lot of ex-cons, that he’d rather die than go back to prison.

  Most of them changed their minds when the time came, but he didn’t think this man was one of them. Terwilliger would never see daylight outside of prison again and he had to know that.

  “Now!” the man barked. The hold he had on Maggie was cutting off her air. Flint saw her struggling. Even if Terwilliger didn’t shoot her, he would strangle her to death if Flint didn’t do something.

  “I’m putting down my weapon.” He kept it pointed in the man’s direction as he slowly began to lower it to the floor. Flint told himself it was too dangerous to take a shot. Terwilliger was using Maggie as a shield. Flint’s only chance at a shot was at the man’s head. And if Flint actually managed to hit him, Terwilliger might pull the trigger before he hit the floor and kill Maggie.

  But if Flint didn’t take the shot...

  “If you don’t drop your gun...” Terwilliger had lifted Maggie off the floor in the headlock. Flint could see her clutching at his arm with her fingers, fighting for breath. The gun was still at her temple.

  “Drop the gun!” the man yelled.

  It was now or never. The sirens were close now. Terwilliger was shifting on his feet nervously and glancing toward the open doorway next to the van. If he made a run for it, he might be able to get away. If he didn’t... In a few minutes this place would be crawling with cops.

  His hand was only inches from the floor and yet the thought of chancing such a shot... He suddenly looked past Terwilliger. Jenna. She was barely able to stand but she’d picked up the gun that Maggie had dropped.

  Flint saw Terwilliger’s eyes widen in alarm because none of them had seen Jenna since he’d fired into the van. The man hadn’t turned to see who was behind him, but Flint could see him filling in the blanks. If Jenna was alive and had picked up the gun that Maggie had dropped...

  Terwilliger started to turn. Flint had no choice; he had to take the shot. He could see that Jenna was having trouble lifting the gun in her hand. He raised his weapon and fired.

  The bullet caught the man in the side of the head. Blood and gore filled the air for a moment. It seemed to all happen in slow motion. Flint saw Maggie go limp in the man’s arms. Then both of them dropped to the floor. Past them, Jenna dropped the gun and slumped to the floor as well as the sirens grew louder and louder.

  Flint tried to run to Maggie, but his bad leg gave out. He fell and had to crawl the last few yards as the winter night filled with flashing red and blue lights. Pulling himself to her, he touched her face, terrified that Terwilliger had managed to get off a shot. If they’d both fired at the same time...

  Her face was splattered with blood, so he couldn’t tell if it was hers or Terwilliger’s. Her eyes were closed, but they fluttered open at his touch. He’d never seen such beautiful brown eyes. She began to cough as she gasped for air, and he realized that it hadn’t been a gunshot that had dropped her. It had been a lack of oxygen.

  “Maggie?”

  Tears filled her eyes as he took her in his arms. She cried against his shoulder as armed men began to spill in through the open doorway.

  “Jenna?” she asked as one of the officers knelt down to check Jenna for a pulse.

  “This one’s still alive,” the officer said and checked Terwilliger. He got on his radio, calling for an ambulance—and, looking at Terwilliger, a coroner.

  “Maggie,” Flint said, reaching into his pocket. “I can’t wait any longer. Marry me?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  EARLIER MARK HAD gotten a call from the Sheridan, Wyoming, sheriff’s department. He’d been waiting to hear from Flint, waiting and worrying. There was no doubt in his mind that Flint had gone off to look for Maggie, so the call hadn’t come as a complete surprise.

  “We heard from a woman named Jenna Holloway,” the Wyoming sheriff had told him. “She said she and another woman, Maggie Thompson, had been held captive by a man named Clark Terwilliger at an old roadhouse just across the Montana border. Sheriff Flint Cahill rescued them, but he is still with the abductor in the building. We’re on our way out there now.”

  Mark had quickly filled the sheriff in on what he knew. “You’ll call me as soon as you know something?”

  The sheriff had promised he would.

  Mark now waited, too anxious to do anything but sit and stare at the phone. Flint had found them. He let out a laugh, not surprised given his boss’s determination. Still, it had to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Mark had never believed in psychic connections, but he couldn’t help but wonder if love hadn’t played a part in it.

  He laughed again, telling himself he needed sleep if he was thinking such things. When his phone finally rang, he practically jumped out of his skin.

  Praying that the law had gotten there in time, he picked up the phone. “Ramirez.”

  * * *

  FRANK AND NETTIE were still in North Dakota when they got the call the next day.

  “Flint found Maggie and Jenna,” Frank told his wife. “Jenna was shot and is in the hospital, but she’s stable. Maggie is fine.” He filled her in on everything that Flint had told him happened.

  “Before we leave town, I’d like to stop by Edna Burns’s and let her know the good news,” Nettie said.

  They left the motel and drove the few blocks to Edna’s house. Frank was relieved that the news had been good. He’d heard the happiness in Flint’s voice. This could have gone so badly...

  He parked and they walked up to the door to knock. Opening the door, Edna looked surprised to see them, then worried. “Are Jenna and Margaret—”

  “They were found. They’re both safe.”

  Edna’s eyes filled with tears as she ushered them in. “I was so worried.”

  “We thought you’d want to know,” Nettie said after they were all seated in the living room. “Maybe now you can tell us the rest of the story?”

  Edna nodded slowly.

  “When did Jenna call you and ask about her daughter?”

  “A few years ago,” the woman admitted. “She’d found her. She wanted to know the truth. She knew that I’d lied to her. It broke my heart but I was just doing what her parents had asked me to do.”

  “They put you in an unbearable position,” Nettie said.

  Edna wiped her eyes with a lace-edged hankie from her pocket. “Last March, Jenna called to say that Clark was out again and he’d found her. I was terrified for her and begged her to tell her husband but she refused. She asked me to watch out for Margaret if something should happen to her.”

  “But you’d already watched out for Margaret, I’m guessing,” Nettie said.

  The elderly woman raised her head and locked eyes. “Jenna had called. She’d seen Margaret in Billings, seen a bruise on her wrist and thought she might be in a situation where she needed help.”

  “So you helped her. But it wasn’t the first time, was it.”

  Edna smiled sadly. “My friend who was raising Margaret died when the girl was seventeen. I paid for Margaret to go to beauty school. I didn’t have enough for college, but when my husband died, I was able to help a little more.”

  “I figure you gave the loan to Maggie for the salon she opened in Gilt Edge,” Frank said.

  Edna nodded. “If her parents ever found out what I did...” She shivered. “My sister had warned me not to go against her husband’s wishes. If Les ever found out...”

  “Why does your sister stay with him?” Nettie asked.

  “I wish I knew. I’ve told her she can come live with me. I’ll never understand what she sees in that man. I think there are just some women who can’t live without a man.”

  “Why didn’t Jenna tell Maggie that she was her mother?” Frank asked.

  “She’d been
made to feel shame for the pregnancy. She never wanted Margaret to know how she’d been conceived. She never wanted her to know about Clark.” Edna smiled. “But she had her hair done there when she could afford it, she told me, just so she could see her. She’d married some older farmer who was tight with money.” She tsked. “Just like her mother.”

  “I’m assuming that Jenna married Anvil Holloway to get away from her father,” Frank said.

  “And her mother. I’m not sure my sister was any better with her after...after what happened with Clark. They were so filled with shame and blamed that girl.” Edna shook her head. “It wasn’t her fault any more than this latest mess is her fault. It was that man.”

  “Clark Terwilliger is dead.”

  Edna closed her eyes and crossed herself. “I know it’s wrong to be glad, but I am. He was just plain...evil. I’m not sorry he’s dead. You said Jenna is going to pull through?”

  “She is,” Nettie said.

  “And Margaret?”

  “She’s strong and she has a good man to help her through this,” Nettie said. “A sheriff. They just got engaged.”

  Edna smiled. “I would love a happy ending for that child. She hasn’t had it easy. I’m afraid my friend spent much of Margaret’s life looking for the father in her. Whenever Margaret did something wrong, my friend was convinced it was his bad genes coming out. I have to admit, I worried too. Silly, I’m sure, but still, I think Margaret knew something was wrong and I feel bad about that.”

  “You did your best to save her,” Nettie said and took the woman’s frail hand. “Thank you for telling us the truth.”

  “I should have the first time,” Edna said. “Funny how lying becomes so easy after a while. Maybe if I’d told the truth years ago... How nice it would be not to live a life of regrets.”