Married In Montana

They’d reached the church door, where a couple of deacons shook hands in welcome and passed out bulletins. The first, a short, spare man, reached up for his usual kiss. “Howdy, Miss Thea. You’re looking pretty this morning.”

“Thanks, Uncle G.” He wasn’t really her uncle, but she’d practically grown up with him, since he supplied Walking Stones with feed of every kind. “Have you met the new deputy? Deputy Rafferty, George Dillon, of Dillon’s Feed and Tack.”

The deputy held out his hand. “Good to meet you, Mr. Dillon.”

Uncle G. took it with the enthusiasm of a man reaching under a rock and expecting a snakebite. “Deputy.”

Rafe saw Thea Maxwell’s straight black eyebrows draw together as she noticed George Dillon’s cool welcome. But after three weeks, Rafe was used to the town’s cold shoulder.

The next greeter Thea introduced him to was a woman. “Miss Barbara, this is the new deputy, Rafe Rafferty. Rafe, Miss Sentry owns the beauty salon.”

Distracted by hearing his first name in Thea’s husky, musical voice, Rafe almost missed the salon owner’s lifted eyebrow.

“Deputy.” Her tone could have shriveled lemons. She did not extend her hand.

He bowed slightly. “It’s a pleasure, Miss Sentry.”

At the door to the sanctuary, Thea glanced back toward the gauntlet they’d just run, her honest eyes troubled.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rafe advised, setting a palm to her waist to draw her inside. “Can you sit with me?”

But that was a mistake. She stiffened under his hand and stepped away. “I…thanks, but no. I’m sitting with my dad and…and Bobby.” With a nod, she left him standing in the middle of the aisle and wove her way through the crowd until she reached the safety of the front pew, where she planted herself between Robert and Bobby Maxwell.

Good thinking, Rafe told her silently. If you weren’t protected, I might attack you right here, right now.

He recognized his own bitterness. And he recognized that meeting Thea Maxwell had done a number on his equanimity. He coped with the distrust, the dislike, of people like George and Barbara, understood that he would have to earn their acceptance. That was okay—he would rather prove himself than simply weasel his way into the job and then not be able to handle it.

But Thea appealed to him, and his pride demanded that she reciprocate the feeling. Every time he tried to approach her on a man-to-woman basis she spooked. Rafe had broken his share of horses, and he’d had more luck with kindness and patience than with force. This time, he couldn’t seem to make the right move. He only wanted to be friends, for God’s sake.

He thought about the inviting curve of her mouth, and amended his intention. Friends to begin with. What could be so threatening about that?

At the end of a service he didn’t pay much attention to, he shook the preacher’s hand at the front door, then stepped a few yards off the walk to examine the small, walled cemetery beside the church. Maxwell headstones stood and leaned everywhere he looked—most members of the family for the last hundred years must have been buried in this spot.

A glance back at the doorway showed him Robert Maxwell greeting the minister, with Bobby and Thea in her bright red jacket just behind. Rafe approved of the straight black skirt she wore, the strong but slender legs her blue flannel pj’s had hidden. Each glimpse he got of her added something positive to the overall picture. The smile she sent him now was downright friendly. Even encouraging, he decided, and went back to try again.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Maxwell, Bobby.”

The rancher turned a rock-hard stare on him. For a second, Rafe wondered if Robert would shoot first and ask questions later. That kind of threat hung in the air.

But the older man settled for a solemn nod. “Deputy.” Then he turned his back on Rafe and strode toward the parking lot, obviously expecting Thea and Bobby to follow.

The boy stared after his father, shaking his head. “You’d think an hour in church would have reminded him that he’s not God.”

“Bobby!” Thea’s cheeks flushed as bright as her jacket, but she laughed. “Maybe we just don’t realize that the Almighty delegated Montana to him.” She glanced at Rafe. “Sorry.”

“No problem. Do you have plans for lunch?”

“Lunch?”

“Both of you, I mean.” The wariness in her eyes had him backing up, slowing down. Make it a family affair first. “Grizzly’s serves pretty decent roast beef on Sunday. I can’t offer home cooking—I’ve only got one plate and one mug.”

Thea looked at Bobby, hoping for some help, but he was surveying the crowd, searching for Megan, no doubt. That left her to deal with the deputy on her own. “Um…why only one plate?”

Rafe Rafferty’s grin should have been a controlled substance. “The moving company has ‘temporarily misplaced my shipment.’ Meaning that they lost my boxes and furniture and haven’t figured out where they are yet.” He shrugged. “I’m trying not to replace any more than I have to.”

“Makes sense.” Which was more than she could say for the butterflies in her stomach. He was going to repeat his invitation. And she would have to turn him down. He would take it wrong, which was a good thing, because she really didn’t want him to think she was interested….

“So, are you free for lunch?”

Bobby had disappeared. Thea gathered her wits. “I—I’m afraid not.” As expected, his eyes cooled. He took a physical step back. “M-my sister Cassie and her little boy are coming over this afternoon. They’ll be there by the time we get home.” And in any normal world, she’d invite him to join them. As a neighbor. As a possible…friend.

But this was Robert Maxwell’s world, and she knew what kind of reaction such an invitation would receive. The situation with Cassie and Zak was strained enough. They didn’t need an outsider looking on. No matter how nice, no matter how gorgeous he might be. “But thanks for the offer.”

She tried a smile, and got a slight one back. “Sure.” Then the deputy took off, leaving her with the agonizing pleasure of watching him walk away, his shoulders straight, his head high.

You’re out! she thought. He’d given her three chances and she’d blown him off each time. There wasn’t much hope that he’d try again.

Swallowing down regret and disappointment, Thea joined her dad in the Cadillac.

His impatient stare informed her he’d been waiting. “Where’s your brother?”

“I saw him with Dan Aiken and Racey Taylor.” And Megan. But if she told him that, there would be hell to pay. Bobby wasn’t here, so that would leave the accounting to her. And she was in no mood for the hassle. “I didn’t catch him before he drove off with them.”

“He’s supposed to come home for lunch with your sister, dammit.” Despite the anger in his voice, he drove as calmly, as efficiently, as he did everything. As if his emotions didn’t affect his actions at all.

“We’ll ask them to stay for dinner. I bet Bobby will be home by then.”

Her dad cracked a laugh. “That’s a bet you’re likely to lose.”

Thea put her head back and closed her eyes. “I know.”

Boy, do I know.

CASSIE MAXWELL WARREN’S five-year-old Toyota was parked in the front driveway when they arrived home. Pulling around to the garage behind the house, they could see Cassie standing by a corral near the horse barn across the ranch road, her arm around little Zak as he balanced on a fence rail, staring at the horses.

“The boy likes it here,” Robert Maxwell commented.

Thea unhooked her seat belt. “I was looking at that yearling foal of Misty’s the other day, thinking he could make a good ride for Zak in a couple of years. He might even be able to help with the training, when the colt’s ready.”

Her dad nodded, his eyes still on his grandson. “Cassie would need to bring him over more than once a month.”

He never came much closer to admitting that he missed his middle daughter, or wanted to see more of her and her son. Thea smiled. “Maybe you could mention the colt while they’re here today. We can ride out after lunch and show him to Zak.”

“Maybe.” And that was as much enthusiasm as he’d ever given one of her suggestions. “Guess I’ll go over and say hello.”

“I’ll check in with Beth to see if she needs help.” The chances of their housekeeper needing help with Sunday dinner were about the same as getting a “Great job!” out of Robert Maxwell.

But Zak was still getting used to the family he hadn’t known he had. Cassie had crowned her adolescent rebellion with marriage to a man their dad had refused to allow on the property. And while he’d been proven right—Cassie’s ex-husband hadn’t had the strength or commitment to support a wife and baby—the rift between father and daughter had taken several years to bridge, years in which Zak didn’t meet his grandfather, or his aunts and uncle. The little boy tended to shy away from contact if too many of them approached him at the same time. Thea figured she could wait until they all sat down at the table for her own greeting.

But even then, Zak flinched away from her smile, hiding his face against his mother’s arm. Cassie laughed, but her cheeks reddened. “Thea won’t bite, silly,” she told him, ruffling his bright red hair. “Can’t you say hello?” Zak shook his head without looking up.

“Don’t worry about it,” Thea said, taking the bowl of mashed potatoes from her dad. “Zak and I can take a walk after lunch, see if we can spot some deer prints down on the creek bank. We had a doe and two half-grown fawns down there several mornings this week. The mountain snows are starting to push the wildlife to lower ground.”

“Deer season starts next weekend,” Herman commented. “Bobby and me were talking about heading out Saturday morning. You coming, Boss?”

“Too much work left to take off hunting.” Across the table, Zak sat up wide-eyed, staring at his granddad. He was young, but not too young to understand the conversation.

“The work’ll be here when we get back. The season only lasts a few weeks.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“How’s work, Cassie?” The two men raised their eyebrows at Thea’s abrupt diversion. She shook her head at them, with a pointed glance at Zak. They wouldn’t be the ones who had to explain deer hunting to a little boy who still liked to watch Bambi.

Her sister gave Thea a grateful smile. “I saw one of my cases settled just this week—the court gave full custody of three little girls to their mother, after the dad had refused, several times, to return them once his visitation period had ended.”

“Father ought to have some rights to be with his children,” their own commented.

“Then he shouldn’t have walked out in the first place and taken up with a girl nearly young enough to be his daughter!” Cassie’s sharp reply earned her a stern stare. But even as a teenager, she’d never backed down from a confrontation. “The fact that he shares genes with those little girls doesn’t make him their father. Time and attention and affection are the contributions of a real parent.”

Robert Maxwell’s fierce hazel gaze clashed with Cassie’s equally furious one across the table. The tense silence might have lasted all afternoon, but Beth cleared her throat, got to her feet and picked up the empty chicken platter. “I’ve got blackberry cobbler and ice cream for dessert. You girls help me clear the table and we’ll bring in coffee.”

In the kitchen, Cassie set the plates she carried by the sink, then went to stand at the window of the back door. Thea could read a desperate battle for control in the ramrod straightness of her sister’s spine.

“I don’t think he meant to argue with you,” she ventured after bringing in a second armload of dishes. “That’s just his way of asking a question. Like…‘Couldn’t they work out some compromise?”’

Cassie’s shoulders shook on a little laugh. “Thanks for the interpretation. Maybe what we all need is a dictionary of Maxwell-speak. ‘Drive safe’ means ‘It was good to see you, come back real soon.”’ She rubbed the back of her neck. “Where’s Bobby this afternoon?”

“That’s a very good question.” Beth placed saucers and coffee cups on a tray. “I make that boy his favorite lunch and he doesn’t show up to eat it. He’ll be hearing about that this week, especially when he comes around trying to sweet-talk me into fried chicken again.” She pushed the door into the dining room with an ample hip and carried the dessert tray through.

Thea opened the freezer and pulled out the ice cream. “Bobby went off with Jerry and Dan after church. And Megan Wheeler.”

“Is he crazy?” Cassie turned sharply to face her. “Dad hates Mr. Wheeler almost as much as Mr. Wheeler hates him back for buying that farm out from under him. Bobby doesn’t really think he’ll get away with dating Megan, does he?”

“I don’t know what he thinks. I haven’t talked to him about it. Maybe you can.” Cassie and Bobby were alike in temperament, if not in looks. Both of them possessed a streak of stubborn wildness that drove their dad crazy. Not to mention making life eventful for everybody else living in the house. Thea had moderated a thousand arguments over the years…mollified a thousand hurt feelings and short tempers. No wonder she’d grown into a prickly, suspicious woman. She’d taken on everybody else’s thorns.

“We’ve got a new deputy in town these days.” She bit her tongue. What had possessed her to share that information, from out of thin air, no less?

“Beth said he brought Bobby home the other night because our dear brother was too drunk to drive. Is he drinking a lot?”

“Yeah, he is.” Dread welled up in her chest. Putting the thought into words made it so much more real. “Two or three nights a week, he’s in town at one of the bars. He says it’s no big deal.”

“Denial.” Cassie took the ice-cream scoop out of the drawer. “You’d better talk some sense into him before it’s too late.”

The command didn’t sit well with Thea. “I talk to him all the time. I’m the only one who does. Why don’t you shoulder some of the responsibility for what’s going on? He’s your brother, too.”

Just like that, they launched into yet another echo of fights from days gone by. Cassie crossed her arms over her chest. “I have just about as much as I can handle these days, working full time at Child Protective Services and taking care of Zak. It seems to me that you have more opportunity—”

Thea chopped at the air with the side of her hand. “Only because nobody else will take the time or make the effort—”

“Excuse me.” Beth’s sharp voice jerked them out of their squabble. “If you ladies don’t mind, the rest of us would like ice cream with our cobbler. Not to mention a little peace and quiet.”

Without looking at her sister, Thea picked up the slightly soggy ice-cream box and the scoop, then stalked through the door the housekeeper held open. Aware of Herman’s amusement and her dad’s frown, she ladled sloppy vanilla cream over each bowl of cobbler and took the box back to the freezer before sitting down to her own portion. No one at the table said a word. They finished their desserts in record time.

But only little Zak, happily smearing himself, his shirt and the tablecloth with purple berries and sticky cream, actually enjoyed the food.

CHAPTER THREE

BOBBY BOUNCED into the back seat of Dan Aiken’s truck, dragged off his jacket and tie and unbuttoned his sleeves. “Man! I thought that sermon would last till sundown. Preachers must get chosen by how long they can talk.”

“You’re telling me.” Dan fired the engine, backed through a mud puddle and left the church parking lot with a squeal of tires. “I was about to stand up on the pew and start crowing like a damn rooster, just to get him to stop.”

In the passenger seat, Racey laughed, coughing out a lungful of cigarette smoke.

“I thought the sermon was really good.” Beside Bobby, Megan had a holier-than-thou look on her face. But her eyes laughed.

“You little liar.” Grinning, Bobby caught her wrist to pull her over for a kiss.

At his touch, she winced and gave a hiss of pain.

“What? What’s wrong?” He opened his fingers and looked at her arm where it lay across his palm. A bracelet of dark red bruises circled her delicate wrist. “Damn. Did he do this to you?”

Megan had turned toward the window.

“Did your dad do this, honey?” Hand on her chin, he made her face him. Tears filled her big brown eyes and dripped onto his thumb as she nodded.

Bobby fell back against the seat, swearing under his breath. “Somebody ought to put that bastard in jail. Or maybe just take him out and shoot him like the rabid dog he is.”

Megan’s soft fingers touched the back of his hand. “It’s okay, Bobby. Really. He woke up when I came in last night, is all. He didn’t like that it was so late, and he…he took me to my room.”

“Dragged, you mean.” She didn’t have to draw him a picture. “Did he know you were with me?”

“He thought I was with Racey.”

“I guess that’s a good thing.” Megan’s dad would’ve killed her if he knew she was seeing a Maxwell. He would’ve killed her if he knew about the little motel in Bozeman where they’d spent the better part of the night. “How’d you get out this morning?”

“Mama told him I had to go to church. Then she said I was going to Aunt Sara’s to baby-sit.”

“Are you really?” What good was a long Sunday afternoon off without Megan?

She smiled when he looked at her. “Sara and Rick are taking the kids to see his mother down in Red Lodge. I don’t have to be home until six.”

“So what are we gonna do?” Dan reached out and pulled Racey closer. “And where are we gonna do it?”

They stopped at the Quik-Save in Mitchell for some sandwiches and chips, colas and beer. The girls stayed in the truck; when Bobby and Dan stepped outside again, they found a cowboy, elbows propped on the driver’s-side window frame, with his head and shoulders inside the cab. The black pickup with a double gun rack across the parking lot identified Hank Reeves—Megan’s ex-boyfriend, sometime wrangler for local spreads and full-time pain in the butt.

Bobby stepped up to the rear door of the truck and opened it into Reeves’s shoulder as if he hadn’t noticed anyone standing there.

“Hey!” Reeves staggered back a stride, called Bobby a foul name.

Putting the bag of food down beside Megan, Bobby turned to face the cowboy. “You talking to me?”

“Not if I can help it.” Reeves tried to lean in the window again, but Dan had him blocked. “You’re in my way, kid. Beat it.”

Dan had a very short fuse. “Get away from my truck before I kick you away.”

Reeves grabbed Dan’s Sunday-shirt collar. Fists tight, Bobby tensed up for some action, and then he heard Megan say his name.

“Don’t fight him, Bobby. Not here, not on Sunday.”

“Was he bothering you?” Megan had dated Reeves until Bobby asked her out last spring. The guy still hadn’t gotten over being replaced by a Maxwell.

She shook her head, and her shiny hair bounced. “No, he was just saying hello. Please…let him leave. Don’t cause any more trouble.”

Dan and Reeves were still scuffling for purchase, trying out holds to test each other’s strength. With a sigh, Bobby circled around and pulled his friend back from Hank Reeves’s grip. “Break it up. Come on, settle down.” His hard shove sent Dan stumbling up against the front fender of the truck. Bobby turned to Reeves. “Just hit the road. It’s Sunday, and the girls don’t want to watch a fight.”

Reeves started forward, hesitated, and glanced at Megan. Finally, he swore and picked his hat up out of the dirt. “I’ll see you about this later,” he promised Dan. Glancing into the truck, he actually smiled for a second at Megan. “I’ll see you later, too, sweet thing.”

Bobby gritted his teeth and kept his hands at his sides. Barely.

Once Reeves’s truck left the parking lot, Dan gave Bobby a shove as good as the one he’d received. “I shoulda just beat him up once and for all. Why’d you get in the way, man?”

Bobby climbed into the back of the truck cab, set the grocery bag on the floor and pulled Megan into his arms. “Because the lady said so.” He lifted her face to his for a kiss. “And as far as I’m concerned, what Megan says goes!”

RAFE FOUND the first carcass about a mile into the forest.

He’d taken Jed out for a hike Sunday afternoon, hoping to work off the extra helping of roast beef Mona had piled on his plate at lunch, trying to outwalk his irrational disappointment at being blown off—again—by Thea Maxwell. At least this time she’d had a good reason. But that didn’t make him feel any more optimistic about the future.

Walking at a good pace, Rafe left the last isolated houses behind and entered national forest land. Jed wandered ahead, in his usual dopey way, snuffling at the carpet of needles shadowed by tall pines and cedars, the bases of trees, the crevices of rocks. Though he frequently disappeared from sight, the noise he made carried. He sounded like a miniature steam engine chugging up the hill.

Suddenly, the huffing stopped. The forest went still, too quiet. And then it came—the long, baying call of a hound on the scent, and the snap of branches as Jed crashed through the underbrush on the slope high above. Breathing hard, Rafe followed.

He used his hands to climb a couple of the steepest ridges. As he levered his body over the rim of a nearly vertical ledge, he saw his dog about a hundred feet ahead, frozen in place, ears stiff. On his feet again, Rafe approached carefully, soundlessly. If the damn dog had cornered a grizzly, their day was about to turn crazy. The hunting knife Rafe carried wouldn’t be any good against a hungry bear.

But when he reached Jed’s quivering black-and-tan flank, he realized that the whitetail buck lying only six or so yards away wouldn’t be any kind of threat at all. He was already dead.

Not only dead, but decapitated.

Sickened, angry, Rafe crouched a few feet from the carcass, surveying the gory scene. This was a shameful waste, however he looked at it—good venison left to buzzards, wolves and coyotes, or a magnificent animal destroyed. Hunting for sustenance was one thing. Hunting solely to capture a set of antlers to decorate the family-room wall was something else altogether, at least in his book.

But this particular kill was also a crime. Deer season didn’t start for another week, and taking an animal before that date constituted poaching, as did taking an animal without a license and without tagging it to indicate the hunter had stayed within his quota. The Fish and Wildlife guys would want to know what had gone down, so Rafe mentally cataloged the details to include in his report. Whoever made the kill knew what they were doing—one round, straight through the buck’s chest to his heart, had dropped him like a stone.

As Rafe walked a circle around the dead deer, Jed stepped close enough to sniff at the body. If he’d been part of a pack, he might have taken his share of meat.

“But you’ve got good manners, right?” The dog came back to his side and Rafe rubbed his ears. Then he snapped on the leash. “Got any ideas what direction this guy took off in, Jed? We might as well see where he went.”

They circled again, with Jed’s nose close to the ground. At a point almost directly opposite the way they’d come up, the dog veered away, following a scent. Rafe let him lead, hoping this wasn’t a wild-goose chase. Jed didn’t always choose the right trail to follow.

The slope in this direction was easier, the tree cover thinner. Jed followed a trail back down into the foothills, onto the bank of a creek running through an aspen grove. He put one paw in the water then backed up, with a low whine in his throat. Rafe saw the marred ground on the other side of the stream, where the hunter had landed his jump. “Good job, buddy. We’ll get over there, too, see if we can track the bastard down.”

They crossed farther upstream to avoid confusing the hunter’s prints. Not that they’d be any help—the guy had slid backward when he landed, smearing whatever pattern was on the bottom of his shoes. Jed picked up the scent again and bounded forward, leaving Rafe nothing to do but follow.