Forsaken

Four strides. That was all it would take to reach her and take that baseball bat away from her and—

“What’s the matter, Frank? Can’t pull the trigger?”

He’d forgotten he was holding his gun. It hung at his side, his hand having dropped with his shock at seeing his ex-wife vandalizing his house.

Still smiling, Pam took a step toward him. She clutched the baseball bat in her hands, evil intent glowing in those blue eyes as hot as the hell she brought with her. Her smile dared him to lift the gun and shoot her.

In his fantasy of murder, Pam was always afraid. Maybe even a little sorry. Not like the woman now moving toward him.

Frank felt his hand slowly rise until the barrel of his weapon was pointed at her heart. She kept coming, the baseball bat cocked back, ready to swing.

He saw himself emptying the gun into her. But even as he envisioned it, he wondered if it wouldn’t take a wooden stake to put this woman down.

“Well, Frank?”

He realized he was shaking his head. “Don’t,” he heard himself say as she kept moving toward him. He felt his finger on the trigger. Another step and—

The blow caught him in the back of the head. Until that moment, he’d been too surprised to think clearly. But in that instant, he realized his mistake. If he’d been acting like a sheriff, he would have figured out that Pam wouldn’t have come here alone. Pam was too calculating—and knew him too well.

He felt his body go slack from the brain-numbing blow. His legs buckled, his thoughts scattering like dried fall leaves blown across his yard.

As he dropped to his knees, his gaze met hers. He’d never seen so much hatred, so much anger, so much evil—and absolutely no fear.

“You really didn’t think I was done with you, did you?” she said and swung the baseball bat.

CHAPTER SIX

MADDIE WOKE TO the sound of fire crackling in the pit next to her, the smell of bacon and daylight. She rolled over quickly, shoving the bag down as she attempted to climb out. She was surprised she’d slept so soundly. It had taken her a long time to fall asleep last night, her thoughts and the deputy keeping her up. She’d finally drifted off long after the campfire had burned out.

She blinked at the day’s brightness, momentarily confused as to where she was. But the moment she spotted Jamison, it all came back to her.

Deputy Jamison stood next to the creek, his broad naked back to her. He’d stripped down to nothing but his jeans and boots and now washed himself in the icy cold stream. The sun shone on the water on his back, making it glisten.

A ripple of need shot through her so sharp and shocking that it hurt. She hadn’t felt anything close to it in years. Maybe never. Its fierce intensity made her weak with a wanting she’d thought she’d put behind her. Until that moment, she realized, she hadn’t thought of herself as a woman for a very long time.

She quickly turned away, shaken and upset by the alien feelings. She told herself that her reaction was normal given that all she’d seen in Deputy Jamison before that moment was a lawman butting into her life and her livelihood. It didn’t matter that he had a badge.

Now she saw the man and had to grudgingly admit he was nice looking if you liked that type. Still, he was nothing like the men she’d known all her life, although he was smart, that went without saying, and not as much of a greenhorn as she’d feared.

When she turned back around, she found herself staring at his bare chest as he walked back toward the fire. It was broad and muscled like his back. Light brown hair formed a V that continued past the top button of his jeans.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully and pulled on his shirt. “I didn’t realize you were up.”

She nodded and turned to roll up her sleeping bag. A groan rose in her throat. She’d seen half-naked men before. So why was she acting like a schoolgirl? It was enough to make her furious with herself.

“I thought we should have breakfast before we head out,” he said behind her. “I hope you don’t mind. I took the food down from the tree. It will only take me a moment to finish cooking it.”

The last thing she wanted was breakfast—let alone for the deputy to cook it for her.

“I don’t really want—”

“I’m not all that hungry, either, but I figured we might need it before the day is over,” he said, cutting off her protest.

She hated what she’d heard in those words. It bespoke his fear of what they were going to find up ahead of them. With a start, though, she realized that wasn’t why he’d cooked.

He’d made breakfast for her because he suspected she was the one who would need all the strength she could muster today. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had done something so thoughtful just for her. She didn’t want to be touched by his kindness. But she was.

He also expected the worst and, with a sinking heart, she feared he might be right. To think yesterday she’d been ready to face whatever had happened on this mountain by herself. Right now, she was actually glad he’d come with her.

He looked up from his cooking. “Your hair is beautiful.”

His compliment knocked her off balance—and just when she was starting to accept his being here with her.

Her mop of hair had come loose in the night. She hadn’t realized she’d been working her fingers through the thick strands to get the tangles out until he spoke. Now she felt self-conscious.

She glanced at the reddish locks that tumbled over her shoulder. Lately she’d noticed the spun silver intertwined with the red. It had startled her since she hadn’t been aware of the passing of time or how she’d aged with it.

He looked away to tend to breakfast as if sensing her discomfort. She’d never much cared about the way she looked in the mornings—at least not since losing Hank. Nor did she want to start again.

It was another reason she dressed the way she did. There were a couple of old widower ranchers who had been giving her the eye. Dollars to doughnuts they just wanted her land. It didn’t matter even if they really were attracted to her. She wasn’t interested.

Jamison looked up again, and she quickly pulled her hair up, turning her back to finish the job. She thought she could feel the deputy’s gaze warming her back as she worked her fingers through it.

She cursed herself for letting him make her feel self-conscious. Worse, unnerve her. Her heart pounded with a long-forgotten pleasure from the compliment and a flicker of her earlier desire. Both burned through her body, igniting emotions she’d buried with her husband and son four years ago.

For so long she hadn’t let herself feel. Every day, she rose with only work in mind. Running the ranch and trying to keep her head above water had taken all her energy. She’d had little time to think of anything else.

Each night she’d fallen into bed, so exhausted that the only thing she had wanted or needed was sleep.

The last thing she needed was for a man to make her feel, let alone want again, especially when it was this greenhorn.

* * *

JAMISON REALIZED HE’D upset Maddie and regretted saying anything. He noticed the way her fingers trembled as she fought her beautiful long mane into an obedient plait that trailed down her strong back.

She seemed to take a steadying breath before she slapped on her hat and turned back to him and the fire. Her cheeks were heightened in color, her blue eyes bright as diamonds. She ducked her head as if afraid of what he might see in those eyes.

He suspected it had been some time since anyone had complimented her on her appearance. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her. The words had just come out without thinking.

“I didn’t know what you liked to eat,” he said as he offered her a plate of thick bread slices he’d toasted over the fire with strips of bacon, scrambled eggs and cheese tucked between them.

She took it without much enthusiasm as if no hungrier than he was. Sitting, she balanced on one of the log stumps as if she’d done it hundreds of times. She probably had. This was her country. She knew it no doubt better than anything else in her life. It sustained her sheep and a part of her as well, he thought. She was at home here, more content than his wife had ever been in their expensive high-rise apartment in New York City.

Taking a small polite bite, she chewed for a moment. Her gaze sprang up to his as she swallowed. “It’s...good.”

She sounded so surprised it made him laugh. “Thank you for that grudging compliment,” he said with a grin.

“I didn’t realize you could cook.”

“I’m glad I can surprise you.”

“Summer camp?”

“Actually Boy Scouts.”

“I’d have to see the badge to believe that.”

He couldn’t help being pleased. He’d teased a smile out of her.

“Thanks for...cooking.”

He gave her a nod.

She ate quickly after that, no doubt as anxious as he was to get moving. Since he’d awakened, he’d been unnerved by the sudden quiet that had settled around them. The wind had stopped sometime during the night, and now a hush had settled over the mountainside.

“I’ll get us saddled up,” she said when she’d finished the breakfast sandwich. He noticed that she’d eaten it all, just as he had. Like him, she must fear she was going to need the strength later today.

As she readied the horses, he broke camp, packing up the rest of the food and putting out the fire.

“How much farther?” he asked as they swung up into their saddles.

“We should find their camp by afternoon.” He could see how hard her next words were for her. She hadn’t wanted him along, didn’t want him interfering. Maybe more to the point, she didn’t want to have to worry about him along with her other concerns. “Are you doing all right?”

He smiled. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

She snorted at that as she spurred her horse out of the pines and into the clear blue Montana morning.

* * *

WHEN SHERIFF FRANK CURRY opened his eyes, he was on his bedroom floor. He hurt all over, so at first it was impossible to know how badly he’d been injured. He couldn’t even tell where all the pain was coming from.

As he tried to sit up, his head swam. His vision blurred to pinpoints, forcing him to lie down again. He lay on his back with his eyes closed and tried to make sense of what he was doing on his bedroom floor with the room in shambles around him.

What had happened? The last thing he could recall was seeing Lynette at the store, wasn’t it?

As he gingerly touched his aching shoulder, his memory came back in a flash, along with the pain of being hit with a baseball bat. Pam! The pain and anger threatened to blind him. He sat up, gripping the edge of the bed for support. Pam had been in his house. She’d—

He glanced around the room, at the destruction. It made no sense. If it wasn’t for the mess she’d left behind he might have thought he’d fallen, hit his head and dreamed it all.

As he started to get to his feet, he looked around for his gun. It wasn’t in his holster and yet he remembered pulling it. He remembered Pam daring him to use it. He hadn’t, though, had he?

No, if he had, Pam would be lying here in a puddle of blood.

So why hadn’t she taken the gun and used it on him? “Why didn’t you just kill me?” he bellowed even though he knew Pam was long gone, and just as he was well aware of why she hadn’t used his gun on him.

Pam had no intention of going to prison for killing him. Not when she could just torment him and get away with it.

But not this time. She’d been in his house. She’d torn it up. She and whoever she’d brought with her had attacked him. She wasn’t getting away with this.

He got to his feet and took a wobbly step. As he bent over to see if the gun had been kicked under the bed, everything started to go black again. He gave it a minute then looked again. No gun.

Pam must have taken it. Great. He pulled out his cell phone. It dawned on him that the first call he should make was to the hospital. His temples throbbed, and when he touched the back of his head, he could feel the crusted blood in his hair. He was sure he had a concussion. How bad of one, he didn’t know. It would depend on how long he’d been out.

Through the window he could see the sun coming up. It was late when he’d come home from the movie in Bozeman and heard someone in his house. But still he’d been out for hours.

His left thigh ached, and when he touched it, he could feel that it was badly bruised. The memory of Pam swinging the baseball bat came back. He was amazed he didn’t have some broken bones or that she hadn’t beaten him to death once he was down.

He guessed that she’d stopped because she’d made her point. No sense in beating a dead horse, right?

As he dialed 9-1-1 and asked for an ambulance and the undersheriff, he recalled her last words.

You really didn’t think I was done with you, did you?

* * *

RIDING BESIDE MADDIE, Jamison crossed a wide meadow between two mountain peaks before working his way along the bottom of a sheer granite cliff that shot up to dizzying heights over them.

Sunlight traveled down through the pine boughs to bathe them in flickering golden beams. He breathed in the sweet scents of pine and new green grasses, the morning air crisp and cold. He feared the air was so clean it would intoxicate him since he had never breathed anything like it before.

The air, the altitude or Maddie Conner would be his undoing, he thought. He didn’t doubt that if he couldn’t keep up, she would leave him behind. Didn’t they shoot animals that couldn’t keep up with the herd?

Once they left the pines, the sky overhead seemed as endless as the wide-open mountain slopes in front of them. The huge expanse was a startling clear blue, no clouds on the horizon that he could see.

The wind kicked back up the higher they went. Above the tree line, it swept across the grassy slope in a blistering howl of undulating tall grasses that looked like waves rushing to shore. Water gushed from a plethora of small creeks as higher snowfields melted slowly. It was still early in the year up this high. The sun had a lot of climbing to do before summer warmth ever reached these mountains.

Still, the view was breathtaking. The land seemed alive with color from the dark silken emerald of the trees to the vibrant chartreuse of the grass. All this was in contrast to the dark rocky peaks with their cap of blinding white snow and the clear, deep blue sky overhead.

He’d heard Montana called God’s country but until that moment he’d never understood it. The beauty made him ache. Just as the high altitude made him light-headed. Maddie was right about him. He was a fish out of water up here.

“How high are we?” he asked as they crossed a windblown ridge, the horse hooves clattering on the rocks.

“Close to ten thousand feet.”

The last time he was this far above sea level, he’d been in a plane.

He didn’t know how far they’d ridden. He hadn’t felt the hours slip past, lulled by the gentle rocking of his body in the saddle and the mesmerizing beauty juxtaposed against the remoteness and endless isolation. It gave him an odd, alien feeling and added to his apprehension about what they would find over the next mountain.

He didn’t realize anything was wrong until Maddie suddenly pulled her horse up short. “What is it?”

She didn’t answer, but seemed to be listening, though he couldn’t imagine what she could hear over the relentless wind.

Reining in, it took him a moment to hear anything but the deafening gale. When he finally did hear what had caught her attention, he felt the hair on his neck shoot up as goose bumps skittered over his skin.

An eerie keening sound rode the wind.

Last night, he’d heard coyotes calling in the distance. But this was no coyote. If this sound was human, the person was in terrible pain.

“Where is it coming from?” he asked as he eased his horse up next to Maddie’s.

She shook her head, still listening as if trying to pinpoint the sound. But with the wind shifting around them, he couldn’t tell any more than apparently she could.

Maddie cocked her head. Her expression gave little away, but he could tell that, like him, she was shaken by the spine-chilling sound. Unlike him, though, he had a feeling she knew what it was.

“This way,” she said after a moment. He glimpsed her face just before she rode off. There was more than determination etched in her expression. There was pain and regret. She had come to a sad conclusion based on what, he didn’t know.

He followed, riding up along the edge of the wide basin then across another high rocky ridge. The view took his breath away and gave him vertigo. He swore he could see forever and yet he still couldn’t see what was making that heart-wrenching sound.

The keening grew louder just before he and Maddie dropped off the high ridge and over a rocky rise. He could feel the wind in his face, wearing away at his skin the way it had worn away at the land.

They hadn’t gone far when Maddie pulled up again.

He reined in just an instant before he saw the dog. A small Australian shepherd mix of a mutt was sitting on a rocky knob below them. Its head was thrown back, and long, mournful howls were emitting from deep within its throat.

Something was crumpled on the ground below the dog in the rocks. He caught only a glimpse of dark red plaid fabric, and then Maddie was racing down the mountainside toward the dog.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MADDIE’S HEART SANK at the mournful cry of the dog—let alone whatever was lying at the dog’s feet just over the rocky ledge. She braced herself for what she would find and yet she was already fighting tears before she reached the animal.

She’d been so sure she was going to find Branch Murdock’s body just below the dog on the mountainside that she was startled when the familiar red-and-black-plaid fabric just over the edge of the ridge was only that—the red-and-black plaid of the sheepherder’s coat.

Maddie slid off her horse, still stunned and even more confused when she saw that the coat had been spread out like a bed for the dog.

It was what a hunter did when he lost one of his bird dogs and couldn’t find the animal before dark set in. He would leave his coat with his scent on it. The dog would hopefully find it and stay there until he returned. With luck, the hunter would find the dog lying on the coat, waiting for him, the next morning.

How long had Lucy been waiting for Branch? And why would he leave his coat here for the dog? Branch and Lucy were inseparable.

As Maddie approached the dog, Lucy quit howling for a moment, but started up again. It was the most heartbreaking sound Maddie had ever heard on that lonesome mountain ridge so far from everything.

“Where’s Branch?” she whispered as she squatted down next to the dog. She remembered when Branch had adopted the puppy. Just the thought of the two of them crossing the ranch yard, Lucy still a puppy, running hard on her short legs to keep up with Branch’s long stride, broke her heart.

As she put her arm around Lucy, she heard the deputy dismount and come toward them, his boots crunching on the rocky ground. Not his boots, she reminded herself. Her husband’s. That thought shot like an arrow through her heart.

Her husband.

The loss often hit her out of the blue as if until that moment, she hadn’t realized Hank was gone and never coming back.

She blinked back tears as she knelt by the dog. “It’s all right,” she whispered to Lucy, even though she suspected it was far from it.

Picking up Branch’s coat from the ground, she held it close. The coarse wool smelled of a strong mixture of tobacco, campfire smoke, sheep and dog. She breathed in the familiar scents that would always remind her of Branch as she looked out across the mountain—just as Lucy was doing. There was no sign of her sheepherder—or her sheep.

“May I see that?” Jamison asked and held out his hand for the coat.

She hesitated, feeling protective and afraid, but grudgingly she handed it over to him and watched as he went through the pockets then checked the fabric. For bloodstains? Bullet holes?

He didn’t seem to find anything of interest, she saw with relief. She watched him sniff one of the pockets, then the other one.

“He took his tobacco with him and whatever tool he carried in his other pocket,” the deputy said.

“A knife. He always carried a pocketknife.” She watched as he shook out several flakes of loose tobacco from the one pocket. The wind caught the stray tobacco leaves and sent them whirling off over the side of the mountain on a downdraft.

Jamison turned the other pocket inside out to show her where the pocketknife had worn a hole in the fabric. “Why would your sheepherder leave his coat here and take everything else with him?” he asked as he eyed the dog.

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