Unforgiven

The secret with wild meat was not to overcook it. He’d learned that at hunting camp when he was a boy. At least today he wasn’t cooking over an open campfire. The wonderful scent of the steaks filled the cabin, and for the first time in weeks, he felt as if he was finally home.

The knock at the door made him curse under his breath. He really wasn’t in the mood for company.

When he went to the door, he was shocked to find Destry standing outside on the wooden step. He tried to hide his surprise as well as his pleasure in seeing her again. Leaning his hip against the door frame, he studied her for a moment as he waited for her to speak—that was until he remembered his steaks and swore as he hurried back to the stove.

When he looked up from flipping the beautifully browned steaks, she had come in and closed the door behind her. The cabin immediately felt smaller. Too small and too warm.

“I assume you’re not here for supper,” he said, wondering what she was here for. Being this close to her jolted his heart, reminding him of things he’d spent years trying to forget. “I’m a pretty good cook if you’re interested.”

“No, thanks.” She appeared as uncomfortable as he felt in the tight quarters, which surprised him. He’d only seen her lose control of her emotions once. The reminder of their night together did nothing to ease his tension. He pulled the steaks off the stove, his mouth no longer watering for them, though, and gave her all his attention.

Destry was the only woman he knew who could make a pair of jeans and a flannel work shirt sexy. Her chestnut plaited hair hung over one shoulder, the end falling over her breast. He remembered the weight of her breasts in his hands, the feel of her nipple in his mouth. His fingers itched to unbraid her hair and let it float around her bare shoulders.

“I’ll make this quick since I don’t want your steaks to get cold,” she said. “Thank you for changing your mind about going to the W Bar G earlier.”

He shook his head. “Don’t. You don’t know how close I came.”

“You stopped before it was too late,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, but that was today. I can’t make any promises about tomorrow.”

Her blue eyes shone like banked flames. Even in the dull light of the cabin, he could see the sprinkling of freckles that arced across her cheeks and nose. She looked as young as she had in high school. The girl next door, he used to joke. And that was still what she was.

Only now she was all woman, a strong, independent, resilient woman who made his pulse quicken and heart ache at the sight of her. Pain and pleasure, both killers when your heart was as invested as much as his was.

He wanted to reach for her, to pull her into his arms, to kiss that full mouth....

“Enjoy your steaks,” she said, turning toward the door.

He couldn’t think of anything to say, certainly not something that would make her stay. He listened to her get into her pickup, the engine cranking over, the tires crunching on the gravel as she drove away.

He dumped his steaks onto a plate, but he’d lost his appetite. Destry was determined to make him a saint when he was far from it. Now he wished he’d kicked Carson’s butt.

But he figured Destry would have still ended up on his doorstep tonight—only she wouldn’t have been thanking him. She would probably have come with a loaded shotgun and blood in her eye.

* * *

THE STORM BLEW IN WITH a vengeance just after midnight. Destry woke to rain and the banging of one of the shutters downstairs. She rose and padded down the steps wearing nothing but the long worn T-shirt she’d gone to bed in.

As she stepped off the bottom stair, she slowed, surprised to feel the chilled wind on her face. Had she left one of the windows open?

The air had a bite to it, another indication that winter wasn’t far off. This time of year the days could be hot as summer, but by night the temperature would drop like a stone. Soon the water in the shallow eddies of the creek would have a skim of ice on them in the morning and the peaks in the Crazies would gleam with fresh snow.

She thought about her brother’s earlier visit. What had he walked all the way down here for? She’d been too worked up over seeing Rylan at the time to question him. Later she’d had the feeling he wanted to tell her something. Whatever it was, he’d apparently changed his mind.

After they’d finished stacking the wood, she’d invited him in, but he’d declined. Just as he had when she’d offered to give him a ride back up to their father’s house.

“I need the exercise,” he’d said and had taken off before it became completely dark.

Her thoughts turned to her visit with Rylan earlier that night. Just the memory of him cooking steaks in that small cabin, warmed her still. It had seemed so normal, so welcoming, like the Rylan she once knew. He might come after Carson again when she wouldn’t be there to talk him out of it. But at least it wouldn’t be tonight.

Destry hugged herself from the chill as she started across the open living room. The worn wood floor beneath her bare feet felt freezing cold. The shutter banged a monotonous beat against the side of the house. The wind curled the edge of the living room rug and flapped the pages of a livestock grower’s magazine left on an end table.

It wasn’t until she reached the back of the house that she realized it wasn’t a window that had been left open—it was the back door.

A chill rattled through her that had nothing to do with the wind or the cold. Through the open doorway, the pines appeared black against the dark night. They whipped in the wind and rain below a cloud-shrouded sky.

Destry reached to close the door but stopped as she caught movement out beyond the creek. Something at the edge of the trees. Without taking her eyes off the spot, she reached for the shotgun she kept by the back door to chase away bears. She didn’t have to break it down to know it was loaded. There were two shells, one in each barrel.

She stared through the darkness at the spot in the pines and cottonwoods where she would have sworn she saw something move just moments before.

As she stood in the doorway, large droplets of rain pinged off the overhang, splattering her with cool mist. The wind blew her hair back from her face and molded the worn T-shirt to her body.

What had she seen? Or had she just imagined the movement?

Another chill raced across her bare flesh. She hated the way her heart pounded. Worse, that whatever had been out there had the ability to spook her.

The door must not have been latched and had blown open. But as she started to close the door, she recalled the downed fence and the tracks leading into the trees behind her house that she’d seen from the air. With everything that had happened, she’d forgotten about them.

Few people who lived out in the country locked their doors, especially around Beartooth. Destry never had. But tonight she closed the door, locked it and, leaving the shotgun by the back door, took her pistol up to her bedroom.

CHAPTER SIX

NETTIE BENTON DIDN’T notice the broken window when she opened the Beartooth General Store early the next morning. She hadn’t gotten much sleep, thanks to Bob and the bad dreams he’d had during the night. She’d awakened to find him screaming in terror—as if his snoring wasn’t bad enough.

He’d finally moved in to the guest room, or she wouldn’t have slept a wink. When she’d gone to open the store’s front door, she’d looked across the street and seen the new owner of the café chatting with a handful of customers. Just the sight of Kate LaFond threatened to ruin an already bad day.

The woman had purchased the Branding Iron after the former owner had dropped dead this spring. Just days after the funeral, Kate LaFond had appeared out of nowhere. No one knew anything about her or why she’d decided to buy a café in Beartooth.

The community had been so grateful that she had kept the café open, they hadn’t cared who she was or where she’d come from. Or what the devil she was doing here.

Everyone but Nettie. “I still say it’s odd,” she said to herself now as she stood at the window watching Kate smiling and laughing with a bunch of ranchers as she refilled their coffee cups.

An attractive thirtysomething brunette, Kate had apparently taken to the town like a duck to water. It annoyed Nettie that, after only a few months, most people seemed fine with her. They didn’t care, they said, that they didn’t know a single relative fact about the woman’s past.

“It’s just nice to have the café open,” local contractor Grayson Brooks had told her. Nettie had noticed how often Grayson stopped by the café mornings now. Grayson owned Brooks Construction and was semiretired at forty-five because of his invalid wife, Anna. He had a crew that did most of the physical work, allowing him, apparently, to spend long hours at the Branding Iron every morning.

“Kate’s nice and friendly and she makes a pretty good cup of coffee,” Grayson had said when Nettie had asked him what he thought of the woman. “I think she makes a fine addition to the town.”

“Doesn’t hurt that she’s young and pretty, I suppose,” Nettie had said.

Grayson had merely smiled as if she wasn’t going to get an argument out of him on that subject, although everyone knew, as good-looking as he was, he was devoted to his wife.

“Did you ever consider it’s none of our business?” her husband, Bob, had asked when Nettie had complained about Kate LaFond to him. He’d been sitting in his office adding up the day’s receipts.

“What if she has some dark past? A woman like that, she could have been married, killed several husbands by the age of thirty-five, even drowned a few of her children.”

Bob had looked up at her, squinting. After forty years of marriage, he no longer seemed shocked by anything she said.

“Why on earth would you even think such a thing?” he’d asked wearily.

“There’s something about her. Why won’t she tell anyone about her past if she has nothing to hide? I’m warning you, Bob Benton, there is something off about that woman. Why else would she buy a café in a near ghost town, far away from everything? She’s running from something. Mark my words.”

“Sometimes, Nettie” was all Bob had said with one of his big sighs, before leaving to walk up the steep path to their house.

Now, Kate LaFond looked up. Their gazes met across the narrow stretch of blacktop that made up the main drag of Beartooth. The look Kate gave her made a shudder run the length of Nettie’s spine.

“That woman’s dangerous,” she said to herself. It didn’t matter that there was no one around to hear. No one listened to her anyway.

Nettie moved from the window and went about opening the store as she did every morning. Lost in thought, she barely heard something crunch under her boots. She blinked, stumbling to a stop to look down. That’s when she saw the glass from the broken window.

* * *

DESTRY DROVE UP TO THE big house, anxious to spend some time with her brother. She hadn’t slept well last night after discovering the open door, so she’d had a lot of time to think.

She was worried about her brother. Even more worried about what he might have come down to the house to tell her last night.

This afternoon she would be rounding up the last of the cattle from the mountains. After a season on the summer range, they would be bringing down the last of the fattened-up calves, and all but the breeding stock would be loaded into semis and taken to market.

Destry always went on the last roundup in the high country before winter set in. The air earlier this morning had been crisp and cold, the ground frosty after last night’s rain. But while clouds still shrouded the peaks of the Crazies, the sun was out down here in the valley, the day warming fast.

As she pulled up to the house and honked, she was surprised when her brother came right out. He’d never been an early riser even as a boy. He must really be desperate to get away from their father. Or was it his fiancée?

“Okay, where are we going?” Carson asked as he climbed into the pickup.

Destry nodded her head toward the bed of the truck and the fishing tackle she’d loaded this morning.

“Fishing?” He shook his head as she threw the pickup into gear. “Did you forget I don’t have a fishing license?”

“With all your problems, you’re worried about getting caught without a fishing license?”

He laughed. “Good point.” He leaned back in the seat as she tore down the road, and for a moment, she could pretend they were kids again heading for the reservoir to go fishing after doing their chores.

Destry barreled forward, having driven more dirt roads in her life than paved ones. The pickup rumbled across one cattle guard after another, then across the pasture, dropping down to the creek.

Because it was late in the year, the creek was low. She slowed as the pickup forded the stream, tires plunged over the rocks and through a half foot of crystal clear water before roaring up the other side.

Tall weeds between the two-track road brushed the bottom of the pickup, and rocks kicked up, pinging off the undercarriage. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carson grab the handle over the door as she took the first turn.

“Sorry to see your driving hasn’t improved,” he said.

She laughed. “You’ve been gone too long.”

“Not long enough.”

“Come on, haven’t you missed this?” She found that hard to believe. Didn’t he notice how beautiful it was here? The air was so clear and clean. The land so pleasing to the eye. And there was plenty of elbow room for when you just wanted to stretch out some.

The road cut through the fertile valley, stubble fields a pale yellow, the freshly plowed acres in fallow dark with the turned soil.

“Apparently you haven’t been listening to me any more than WT has,” her brother said. “This is just land to me. I feel no need to take root in it.”

They fell silent, the only sound the roar of the engine and the spray of dirt clods and rocks kicked up by the tires. The land dropped toward the river, falling away in rolling hills that had turned golden under the bright sun of autumn.

Ahead she saw the brilliant blue of pooled water and smiled, feeling like a kid again. Over the next rise, she swung the pickup onto a rutted track that ended at the water’s edge. Summer had burned all the color out of the grass around the small lake. Only a few trees stood on the other side, their leaves rust red, many of the branches already bared off.

Destry parked the truck next to an old rowboat that lay upside down beside the water like a turtle in the sun. Getting out, together they flipped the boat over and carried it to the water before going back for the poles, tackle box and the cooler she’d packed.

“When was the last time you went fishing?” she asked as they loaded everything into the boat.

“Probably with you. As I recall I caught more fish than you, bigger ones, too.”

She laughed. “Apparently your memory hasn’t improved any more than my driving.”

Their gazes held for a long moment. Carson was the first to look away. “Hop in. If you’re determined to do this...” He pushed the rowboat off the shore and climbed in.

Destry breathed in the day, relaxing for the first time since her brother’s return. She dipped her fingers into the deep green water. It felt cold even with the October sun beating down on its surface.

“I assume you brought worms,” Carson said, reaching into the cooler. He opened the Styrofoam container and tossed her a wriggling night crawler, chuckling when she caught it without even making a face.

“You never were like other girls,” he said.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.” The water rippled in the slight breeze as the boat drifted for a few moments before Carson took the oars. He rowed the boat out to the center of the reservoir, then let the tips of the oars skim the glistening surface as they drifted again.

Destry watched her red-and-white bobber float along on top of the water in the breeze. From the horizon came the loud honking of a large flock of geese. The eerie sound seemed to echo across the lake as the geese carved a dark V through the clear, cloudless blue.

Nothing signaled the change of season like the migration of the ducks and geese. She thought of all the seasons she’d seen come and go, so many of them without her brother, the lonesome call of the geese making her sad.

“I don’t want you to leave again,” she said without looking at him.

Water lapped softly at the side of the boat. The breeze lifted the loose tendrils of hair around her face. A half dozen ducks splashed in the shallows near the shore, taking flight suddenly in a spasm of wings. Beads of water hung in the air for an instant as iridescent as gleaming pearls.

“I’ll bet there aren’t any fish in this reservoir anymore,” Carson said. He was lying back on the seat, eyes closed, his pole tucked under one arm, the other arm over his face. He wore a T-shirt and an old pair of worn jeans, the legs rolled up, and a pair of equally old sneakers. The Western straw hat he’d been wearing rested on the floor of the boat.

“Doesn’t really matter if there are fish, does it?”

Carson moved the arm from his face enough to open one eye and look at her. “Only if you hope to catch something.”

“I’m happy just being here,” she said.

“You would be. Some people actually like to catch fish when they go fishing.” He went back to half dozing on the seat.

“Are you really going to marry Cherry?” Destry asked after a few minutes had passed.

“Why else would I have asked her?”

“Because at the time it seemed like a good idea?”

Her brother snickered. “It did seem like a better idea in Vegas than in Beartooth, Montana. She doesn’t exactly fit in here, does she?”

“Is she bored to tears?”

“Yep, and worried about grizzly bears coming down and eating her in the middle of the night. She can’t believe the closest big-box store is over an hour away.” Carson laughed. “I hate to think what will happen if she breaks a nail.”

The sound of her brother’s laughter filled Destry with such love for him. She leaned back, letting the warm morning and the gentle slap of the water on the side of the boat lull her. Overhead, a red hawk circled on a warm thermal.

“You haven’t asked me if I killed Ginny,” Carson said, and she felt the boat rock as he leaned up on one elbow to look at her.

She thought she could see the hawk circling overhead reflected in his gaze. “You didn’t. You couldn’t.”

He scoffed and lay back again, the arm back over his face. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we’re all capable of despicable acts when we’re backed into a corner. But thanks for believing in me, sis. It means a lot.”

* * *

NETTIE FELT SICK TO HER stomach as she stared at the shattered window, the shards of glass glittering on the floor. Who had done such a thing?

She took a step back, her heart pounding as she realized whoever had broken the window could still be somewhere in the store.

Rushing to the phone, she dialed the sheriff with trembling fingers. “I’ve been burglarized!” she screamed into the phone the moment the dispatcher put her through.

“Who is this?” Sheriff Frank Curry asked in a voice so calm it set Nettie’s already frayed nerves on edge.

She’d known Frank Curry since she was a girl. “Who the devil do you think it is?” she snapped. “My store was burglarized.” She dropped her voice. “He might still be here.”

“Lynette,” the sheriff said. He was the only person who called her by her given name. The way he said it spoke volumes about their past. In just one word, he could make her feel like that lovestruck, teenage girl again. “Perhaps you should wait for me at your house. Where’s your husband?”

She knew only too well what Frank thought of her husband. “Just get up here and don’t you dare send that worthless Deputy Billy Westfall instead.” She slammed down the phone, shaking even harder than she’d been before. She was fairly certain whoever had broken in wasn’t still here. At least not on the lower floor.

The upper level was used for storage. Moving to the second-floor door, she eased it open and peered up the dark steps. She listened, didn’t hear a sound and closed the door and bolted it.

If the burglar was up there, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. She checked her watch and, leaving the closed sign on the front door, settled in to wait. As she glanced across the street to the café again, she realized she’d never had a break-in before Kate LaFond came to town.

* * *

“WHERE’S CARSON?”

Margaret turned from the stove, eyes narrowed. “Good morning to you, too, Waylon.”

WT cursed under his breath. He hated it when she called him Waylon. She only did it because she knew it annoyed him. Or to remind him where he’d come from. As if he needed reminding.

“Don’t act as if you didn’t hear me,” he snapped.

“Why? You do.”

He didn’t know how many times he’d come close to firing her. But they both knew he’d pay hell getting anyone else to cook and clean for him—let alone put up with him.

The real reason he hadn’t sent her packing was that she knew him in a way that no one else did, not that he would ever admit it to her. Like him, she also knew the pain of poverty. Of wearing the same boots until even the cardboard you’d pasted inside couldn’t keep the rocks from making your feet bleed. She knew about hand-me-down clothes and eating wild meat because there wasn’t anything else.

Christmases had been the worst. That empty feeling that settled in the pit of the stomach as the day approached and you knew there would be no presents under the tree. It was hell when even Santa Claus didn’t think you deserved better.

A couple of do-gooders in the area had left presents for him one year. WT had been too young to know what it had cost his parents to accept them. He’d greedily opened each one. A football. A pair of skates. A BB gun.

He remembered the feeling of having something that no one had ever worn or used before him. He’d run his fingers along the shiny BB gun, seeing his reflection in the blade of the skates and holding the warm leather of the football thinking it the happiest day of his life.

The next Christmas, though, he’d seen the look on his father’s face and realized his mother’s tears weren’t those of joy. There was no Santa Claus, only people who felt sorry for him and his family. He’d made sure the do-gooders skipped his house from then on and swore he’d never need or take charity again.

No one knew about any of that—except for Margaret. Yes, that shared past was one reason he didn’t fire Margaret—and that she put up with him. Also, they knew each other’s secrets. That alone was a bond that neither of them seemed able to break. Margaret knew him right down to his black, unforgiving soul.

“I was looking for Carson,” WT said, tempering his words now as he wheeled deeper into the kitchen. “Have you seen him?”

“He left with his sister. I believe they’ve gone fishing.”

“Fishing?”

“Yes, fishing. They haven’t seen each other in more than a decade. I would imagine they want to spend some time together.” She didn’t add, “Away from you,” but he heard it in her tone.

He grunted and spun his wheelchair around to leave.

“Even if you can get him cleared of a murder charge, you can’t keep him here against his will,” she said to his retreating back.

“We’ll see,” he said, gritting his teeth.

* * *

CARSON SURREPTITIOUSLY studied his sister as he pretended to sleep in the gently rocking boat. Everything about this grown-up Destry impressed him. There didn’t seem to be anything she couldn’t handle on the ranch. This afternoon he’d heard that she was planning to ride up into the high country to finish rounding up the cattle. He’d never been able to ride as well as her. Nor did he have her knack for dealing with the day-to-day running of a ranch. The ranch hands had always respected her because she’d never been afraid to get her hands dirty, working right alongside them if needed.