Promise from a Cowboy

“That’s what Hunter said, too.”

He could see the skepticism in her gaze and he glanced away. He was remembering the morning after the fire, when his father had come into the cattle barn to give him the news about the death.

B.J. had been shocked. And afraid. He’d started to tell his dad the truth then, but Bob Lambert had shaken his head. “Don’t talk, son. I’ve been over this with the sheriff and we’ve agreed there was no way you or Hunter could have realized that guy was in the loft. Unfortunately, that poor vagrant was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Later, the medical examiner had confirmed that death had been caused by smoke inhalation. A crazy-high blood alcohol level explained why the unidentified young man hadn’t woken when the fire started.

Despite the “official story” there had been rumors. Most of them centered around Hunter Moody, who everyone agreed had always been a shady sort—just like his father.

B.J. couldn’t do much about the rumors. But he’d kept his promise to his father and remained mum about that night, never telling anyone that Hunter had been up in the loft and must have seen the vagrant.

He could have put all the blame on Hunter, but he hadn’t. He’d protected the other guy out of a sense of responsibility. He should have figured out Hunter was up to something and stopped him.

He’d kept quiet for Savannah’s sake. She had enough problems with her family. He hadn’t wanted to add another.

“You’re still not going to tell me what happened, are you?”

Mind reader. “Better ask your brother.”

She made a sound of frustration, then gave up on him and resumed her inspection of the barn. “I’d like to get a look at that loft,” she said.

He glanced up. Light was coming through gaps in the wood. “It’s probably not safe.”

“Just a quick once-over.”

“I’ll go.” He leaned some of his weight on the ladder, which was on the opposite side of the barn from where the fire had started. It didn’t feel very solid.

“Let me try it,” Savannah said. “I’m lighter.”

He gave her a “get serious” look, then, despite his better judgment, put a foot on the second rung. Half expecting the lumber to crack apart under his boot, he took another step, and another.

Anxiously Savannah gripped the bottom of the ladder. “Be careful, B.J.”

He grinned. “How many times have I heard you say that?” Glancing down, he thought he could see her smile in return. He was just about at the top now. He reached one hand from the ladder to the floor of the loft, and was about to take the final step up when he heard a loud crack and his left foot fell through rotten wood.

“B.J.!”

He grasped desperately with his free hand, managing to secure a two-hand hold on the loft, while the rest of his body swung free as the ladder disintegrated beneath him.

“Hang on, B.J.!”

“Believe me, I am.” He grunted as he worked at shifting his body weight up to the loft. “You okay down there?” He hoped she hadn’t been struck by any of the falling wood.

“I’m fine. Try swinging your legs. If you get some momentum...”

She’d no sooner said the words than he was putting them into action. And the extra momentum did help. He grunted again, pushed hard and finally was able to drag his body up to the second level.

“Look out. I’m tossing you the flashlight,” she called. He heard a thud a few feet to his right.

“Don’t stand, in case the wood is rotten up there,” Savannah added.

“Roger that.” He crawled toward the torch and, once he had it securely in hand, switched on the light and played it against the far wall. Slowly he surveyed the space, but saw nothing except a few bales of moldering hay and a pile of blankets in the far corner.

“Any signs of fire up there?”

He studied the rafters and roof for several minutes before admitting, “No. I can see where the guy died, though. There’s still a pile of blankets in the corner.”

Savannah hesitated. “I don’t imagine there can be any physical evidence worth salvaging at this point. But want to take a closer look?”

He did and was already crawling toward the corner. When he arrived, he carefully set down the torch, then picked up first one blanket, then the other. He saw nothing, but heard the clink of something metal falling to the wooden surface.

Savannah heard it, too. “What was that?”

He flashed light over the area. Something gold sparkled. “It’s some kind of coin. Should I leave it here? Or take it?”

Savannah didn’t answer for a long time. Then in a quiet voice she said, “Take it.”

He slipped the coin in his pocket. Once he’d satisfied himself that there was nothing else he hadn’t noticed, he started crawling toward the bales.

“There are some old hay bales up here. Stand back while I toss them down. They’ll probably break apart when they fall, then after you mound up the hay, I’ll jump.”

“I’ve been wondering how you were going to get down.”

“No problem,” he said, mostly out of bravado. He was looking at a fifteen-foot drop and these bales were the small, square kind.

“Okay. I’m out of the way.”

“Here they come, then.” He heaved one, then the other, over the edge. As he’d predicted, the old twine broke apart on impact and the hay spilled free onto the dirt floor.

Savannah lost no time in piling the hay into the softest landing pad possible. “I wish we had more.”

“And I wish that damn ladder hadn’t broken,” he mumbled. He’d better not break an ankle with this fool maneuver. Hobbling around in a cast wasn’t his idea of how to spend the summer months.

He sat down, letting his legs dangle over the open side of the loft. Savannah was standing back, watching.

“This is crazy,” she said. “Why don’t you wait while I drive to my place? I can be back with a proper steel ladder in under an hour.”

He didn’t fancy hanging around this loft like a damsel in distress for five more minutes, let alone an hour.

“Incoming,” he called out. Then he let the rest of his body follow his feet off the edge of the loft.

* * *

B.J. ROLLED AS HE HIT the hay pile and ended up a few feet from the tips of Savannah’s boots.

Her heart had taken a leap of its own when he’d jumped, but she managed to sound cool. “You look good down there.”

He levered his body up with his strong arms, then hopped to his feet. “Don’t push your luck, woman.”

For a moment he stood his ground, too close for comfort, making her aware of how much stronger and tougher he’d grown in the years since he’d left Coffee Creek.

Of course, she was stronger and tougher, too, but mostly in ways that couldn’t be seen.

“You all right?” she asked, trying to switch her focus from her feelings—which were ridiculously fragile right now—to his well-being.

He took a few tentative steps. “Seem to be.” He handed her the flashlight, which she hadn’t even noticed he was still carrying. Then he dug the coin out of his pocket. “What do you make of this?”

She stepped out of the barn, surprised to see that the sun was almost behind the distant Highwood Mountains to the west. She studied both sides of the coin. It looked brand-new, but was dated more than a century ago. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I wonder if it’s valuable?”

B.J. had followed her outside and now he looked over her shoulder at the coin. “Seems like an odd thing for a young guy to have dropped out of his pocket.”

“Maybe our runaway took more than his father’s watch with him.”

“It does look like something from a collection. Maybe he planned to pawn it for cash.”

“Whoever stole the watch mustn’t have known about the coin.” She put it in her pocket. Strange this wasn’t found during the investigation. After eighteen years exposed to the elements, she was certain no fingerprints could have survived. B.J.’s handling of the coin pretty much guaranteed it. But she’d store the coin in the evidence room at the office, just in case it turned out to be significant.

She glanced back at the barn, then at B.J. She wondered what he was thinking. There had been moments, back there, where it had felt like old times between them.

She’d done a lot of thinking on the long drive home from Oregon. For so many years she’d blamed B.J. for the party, and for Hunter’s subsequent downward spiral.

She realized now that she’d been unfair.

B.J. had been good to her brother. He’d taught him to ride, and to wrestle a steer and rope a calf—all skills that Hunter still put to good use on the rodeo circuit. He’d included Hunter in their group of friends, most of whom were responsible kids who worked hard at school and were involved in sporting events in their spare time.

The wildest thing they ever did was gather at the creek bank behind Main Street to drink a few beers on weekend nights.

“That party was Hunter’s idea, wasn’t it?”

“Kind of late now.” B.J. shrugged. “But yeah.”

“Why did you lie?”

“Why do you think?” he asked quietly.

Her heart sank. There could be only one answer. “You did it for me.”

After she’d picked Hunter up from the sheriff’s office, her brother had really laid it on thick about how B.J. had insisted they all take their ATVs out to that barn. According to Hunter, B.J. was the one who’d sourced the hard liquor, as well.

She’d been so upset, she’d refused to take B.J.’s calls. And she’d avoided him at school, too.

Two months later, they’d graduated from high school—and then B.J. and Hunter were both gone.

She put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“Well. It was probably for the best. We were too young.”

Back then, yes. She nodded. “So how long are you home for? Where’s the next rodeo?”

“Not sure.” B.J. picked up his hat, which he’d left on a rock when he’d gone into the barn earlier. He glanced up at the sky and frowned. “Looks like a storm is blowing in.”

“That happened fast.” She thought of the other night, eighteen years ago. According to her brother, the big thunderstorm had blown in quickly then, too.

B.J. glanced at her motorbike. “You better get moving before those clouds get here.”

“You, too.”

Yet they both stood for a few seconds longer, watchful and tentative as good memories and bad battled it out. She’d come out here hoping to convince herself that the story Hunter and B.J. had told all those years ago had been true.

Instead, she was certain that there was more to the story. A lot more. And Travis McBride’s family deserved to know what it was.

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