The New Cowboy

“Zen,” he mispronounced his name, causing everyone to laugh.

The family took turns hugging him before Connor and Jarod brought in his bags from the truck. Because he’d lived in a furnished rental unit in Glasgow, he didn’t have much else to bring home besides clothes and a laptop. It reminded him of being in the SEALs when he could be transferred in the twinkling of an eye and had no baggage but his gear.

He kissed Liz before turning to Sadie with a grin. “Judging from the look of you, it won’t be long before Little Sits in the Center makes his entrance.” Everyone laughed and went in the house.

Ralph was already drinking punch in the easy chair and lifted his cup to him. “It’s wonderful to know you’re home for good, Zane.”

They shook hands. “It feels good. You look well and younger.”

Ralph beamed while Zane surveyed the room, inhaling the warmth and love. Only one person was missing to make his homecoming complete.

Millie had laid out a spread fit for a king. Still carrying his nephew, he snagged her around the waist and gave her a special hug. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed your cooking and our card games.”

She chuckled. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Zane.”

Matt called everyone together. “This is a time of real celebration. We couldn’t be happier with your news. While we eat, we want to hear details about your latest capture. It was all over the media and the newspapers. Talk about proud.”

Zane hadn’t experienced this sense of family for years. He’d lost his parents ages ago. After that his marriage had fallen apart and he’d lost Tim, then Eileen. If he hadn’t had Sadie and Ryan, he didn’t know where he’d be today. If it hadn’t been for Sadie, he would never have met Avery Bannock.

The little guy hugged his shoulder for the next hour while they all talked and ate. But when he finally fell asleep, Jarod walked over and reached for him. “We’d better get him home to bed while he’s crashed. Come on over in the morning and have breakfast with us.”

Seeing Jarod with Ryan, you’d never know he wasn’t the boy’s father from birth. Naturally Ryan had Sadie’s looks. Tim’s son was in loving hands. “Sounds good.”

The party broke up. Zane followed Jarod out to his truck and helped Sadie inside. Jarod put Ryan in the car seat. Once they were settled, Zane approached Jarod’s side of the truck. In a quiet voice he said, “I saw a BIA agent in front of your house with Avery while I was driving in. I didn’t realize she was seeing someone. They should have come over to the party.” Might as well find out the strength of Zane’s competition.

Jarod’s inscrutable expression made it impossible to read him at times. All he said was, “Avery’s so private she’d never do that, especially not with someone she barely knows.”

That was the one piece of good news Zane needed to hear. Now he could breathe more easily again.

Jarod stared at him with his piercing black eyes. “For all the obvious reasons, everyone’s thankful you’re back for good. Sadie and Ryan have missed you more than you know. And between you and me, we need more law enforcement around here considering all the artifact thefts.

“As Sadie said, there’s nothing like knowing a special agent is going to be on the premises from now on. I agree. Welcome home. You make a great addition to the family.” He clapped Zane on the shoulder before climbing in behind the wheel.

Zane watched them drive off before he said good-night to Connor and Liz. They were taking Ralph home. “You can count on me helping you guys with the big move into your new house on Saturday.” With all the family pitching in, Avery would have to be there. “I don’t have to be on official duty until Monday. That’ll give me time to do the things I want and settle in.”

Connor’s brown eyes lit up. “You’re on. You have no idea how good it is to see you and know you’re not leaving again.”

With everyone gone he walked back into the house. Millie was cleaning up the kitchen while Matt straightened the living room.

“You two go on home. I’ll finish up. I can’t thank you enough for throwing this party together. It meant the world to me.”

Matt was all smiles. “We wanted to do this for you.”

“Tell you what. In the morning I’m having breakfast with Jarod and his family. Afterward I’ll saddle up Striker and join you at the pasture so you can give me my next ranching lesson.”

“It’ll be a pleasure.”

He walked them out, then locked up and headed for the shower. It had been a red-letter day for him and a long drive. He was tired, but when he got in bed, his mind wouldn’t shut off. The vision of Avery coming out of the ranch house with the other man holding on to her arm refused to leave him alone.

Eleven o’clock wasn’t late. If, as Jarod had inferred, she barely knew the guy, Zane imagined she might not be home for a long time while they took the time to get better acquainted. A man had to be blind not to be attracted to her.

Whatever was going on between them, Zane wanted to block it from his mind. It had been bad enough all these months while he’d wondered about her. But to actually see her with another guy had set his teeth on edge. Sensing that sleep would be a long time in coming, he got up and went into the den.

He hadn’t had a chance to check his email yet. There were four messages. One was sent from Ken, the field manager in Glasgow, who said he was sorry to see him go and wished him the best.

The second one came from Margaret Rogers, a ranger in Glasgow who was great at her job. They’d had dinner half a dozen times over the past year when they’d been out on a case. Wondering what she wanted, he opened her message.

I can’t believe you’ve been transferred! I got in to the office this afternoon and learned you’d been reassigned. Just like that you’re gone!

What a shock. You’re a cool one, Zane Lawson. I was hoping you’d stick around for a long time, but Ken told me you always wanted to transfer to the Billings office. I didn’t know that. What has Billings got that we don’t? Don’t you know it’s a hot spot for criminal activity of the Indian artifacts kind? One of my out-of-state sources says there’s a mole in the BIA linked to problems in the Montana sector. Watch your back.

That news didn’t surprise him. Zane appreciated the information, but he let out a relieved sigh that his transfer had come before he’d been forced to tell Margaret that he wasn’t interested in her. Though, when he’d never asked her out, she had to have known a relationship between them was hopeless, but she was an excellent ranger he trusted.

He replied to her message. In answer to your question, I’ve come home to the people I love and have missed. You’re a fine ranger. Thanks for the heads-up. I wish you the best of luck in the future. Ranger Lawson.

The last two came from Sanders in Billings. He’d enclosed several case files for Zane to study and had marked them top priority. They had to do with vandalism and thefts at several Crow archaeological sites. Margaret had been right on the mark. The information forwarded to the bureau by the local police was fairly detailed. Sanders had charged Zane to find the culprits and arrest them.

He gave the first one a cursory glance. It involved a tepee ring site that had been desecrated. Scanning the second one, the name Absarokee leaped out at him. That was the town where Avery was doing her most recent work. Sadie had kept him up-to-date on everyone in both families. He read the background information with renewed interest.

For nearly a decade between 1875 and 1884, the Crow Indian Reservation was located on East Rosebud Creek south of the present-day town of Absarokee, Montana. Population 1,200. Although the tribe moved farther east in 1884, the nine years of living at Absarokee were times of monumental change for the Crow people.

The launch of a road improvement project for Montana Highway 78, which runs through the Crow Indian Reservation’s historic Absarokee site, was the impetus for a major archaeological data recovery investigation by the Federal Highway Administration and the Montana Department of Transportation in consultation and cooperation with the Crow Nation.

The team used geographical plotting software to translate the results into a map. The findings revealed the likely presence of artifacts. This area was a transitional point in the history and culture of the Apsaalooké people, thus making it a critical site for their people.

A year in advance of MDT’s planned highway reconstruction, a data recovery excavation within the right-of-way limits and on adjacent private land has uncovered significant information, including thousands of artifacts that reveal glimpses into the everyday life of the Crow people more than a century ago.

Avery was intimately associated with this project. She would have invaluable information about the handpicked crew assembled to excavate sacred Crow ground. Things couldn’t be working out better. He was jubilant to be armed with a legitimate plan to get close to her through his first case. Tomorrow couldn’t get here soon enough. He turned off the computer and wandered through the house to the bedroom he’d turned into a nursery for Ryan.

Now that his nephew was growing up, Zane needed to buy him some new toys for when he slept over. He wanted to take him shopping for some outfits. He ached for children of his own. To Zane, the greatest tragedy in his failed marriage was the fact that Nedra lost interest in having children.

He’d married her at twenty-three when he was already a SEAL. Though he’d warned her of the pitfalls, she’d begged for the marriage and promised to remain strong and independent when he had to be deployed in a war zone. She had a great job with a pharmaceutical company and promises of rising higher.

They’d mapped out their future. He’d assumed the stability of marriage and a family had been her driving force. Unfortunately, she’d never conceived. The fertility specialist they’d consulted hadn’t found anything wrong with either of them. Perhaps the stress of Zane’s job had prevented conception. He’d suggested they get therapy to help them, but Nedra wanted none of that.

It wasn’t until the bitter end of their marriage that she admitted she’d been on the pill for two years without telling him. Her sin of omission was the biggest shocker for him to face.

When she’d finally admitted what she’d done, he’d reached the breaking point. With that hope gone, there was nothing more to fight for. Clearly she’d wanted out of the marriage with no pregnancy issues so she could have fun and excitement with the new man in her life who worked nine to five and then came home. She’d met someone at her job who was going places.

But that was old baggage. After turning out the light, Zane went back to his bedroom. At this point he was in a new phase of his life. He’d had a year to think about it and planned to reach out for what he wanted. Zane wasn’t twenty-three anymore, a time when he’d worried that getting married might be a mistake while he was in the SEALs.

This time he knew exactly what he wanted. He knew the woman he wanted. Zane had glimpsed Avery from a distance tonight. He was still sizzling from the bolt of electricity that had traveled through him at the sight of her in that green shirt and jeans.

Tomorrow he planned to seek her out, and would use official business as the reason he wanted to talk to her. It was a springboard to the relationship he intended to have with her. One day soon he would find out why she did her best to avoid being alone with him. He knew in his gut there was chemistry between them that was growing stronger every time they saw each other. You could hide a lot of things, but not the kind of sensual tension that picked up on every breath and heartbeat.

Chapter Three

Friday morning Avery got up early and dressed in jeans and a fresh holster shirt. Over it she wore a short-sleeved blue denim Western shirt. In case of an emergency, the snaps made it easier to access her pistol without tearing her shirt.

She slipped out of the ranch house without eating breakfast. Normally she ate with her grandfather, but this morning she was in a hurry and didn’t want to hear the news about last night’s welcome-home party for Zane. It would hurt too much to know what she’d missed. Pretty soon Ralph would inquire about her date. That was something she would just as soon forget.

She started up her truck and took off for the shooting range outside White Lodge where she put in a half hour’s target practice, but last night’s events still haunted her. Avery hadn’t liked hurting Mike, but she’d had no choice and told him the truth: the man she’d thought she could forget had come back into her life unexpectedly. Though she didn’t know what would come of it—maybe nothing—she knew it wasn’t fair to use Mike. That was a terrible thing to do to anyone.

Naturally she’d mentioned no name, so Mike couldn’t possibly know about her feelings for Zane, who’d been away for close to a year and had only come home periodically. But it was painful how stone-cold quiet Mike had gone on the drive home. Who could blame him? When they reached the ranch house, she’d jumped out of the truck before he could come around. “I’m truly sorry, Mike. Thank you for dinner. Please forgive me.”

By the time she made it to the porch, he’d peeled out of the driveway. She could hear the screech of tires even after she’d let herself in the house. The unpleasant moment, compounded by guilt of another kind she’d been carrying around for eight years, had made her sleep fitful.

After picking up a snack, she headed for Little Big Horn College in the town of Crow Agency, Montana. The two-year community college chartered by the Crow Nation offered eight associate of arts degrees. Though the majority of the students enrolled were members of the Crow Nation, it was a public college and she’d been enrolled in Crow language classes on Fridays for a long time.

The hour and a half drive from the ranch put limits on her time so that she could only attend classes once a week. It would take years to achieve any kind of mastery, but she’d always had extra help from Jarod and his Crow family. While she’d been away at college in Bozeman she’d hired a tutor to keep teaching her the language. Because of that ability, she’d won a fellowship to Berkeley.

If she hoped to publish important works in the future, it was vital she be able to communicate with the elderly Crow people on the reservation who could help her with her folklore research. This was her focus, the only thing that was going to help her keep her distance from Zane.

After three hours of classwork, she grabbed a sandwich, left campus and headed for Absarokee. Near the town was an archaeological site that was the former site of Crow Agency along Highway 78. She was part of a crew uncovering part of the foundation of the original agency compound. They’d been compiling a growing collection of artifacts.

She’d found a blue bottle, the ceramic arm of a doll, a pottery shard and the cylinder of a cap-and-ball revolver. The fantastically rich artifact record and archaeologically intact nature of the site made it unique on the high plains of Montana. Actual objects used by the Crow formed a bridge between the past and present. Every piece of evidence excited her because the site was a window into a very transformative time in Crow Nation history.

By midafternoon she pulled up next to some other trucks parked in a field near the ongoing excavation of the foundation of a Crow cabin building that was over a hundred years old. Some kind of meeting was in progress. Paul Osgood, the auburn haired fiftyish professor who headed the dig, waved her over to him and four other archaeologists.

“Hi. What’s going on?”

“We’re glad you’re here. As you can see, vandals were busy again during the night. I called the police yesterday. They’ll do what they can, but it isn’t possible for them to patrol this area all the time. They don’t have the manpower. Last night someone desecrated part of this foundation we’d marked and tagged into units. The loss of animal and fish bone fragments comes as a real blow.”

When Avery looked down, she could see what he meant. The fragments told so much about the changing Crow diet: how they went from living on bison, antelope, deer, elk and cutthroat trout to subsisting on government-provided beef.

“Do you think this is a case of pure and simple looting out of greed? Or malicious vandalism by a bunch of out-of-control teenagers?”

“I have no idea.”

“We need a guard dog,” she muttered.

“I agree. Unfortunately the benefactors who’ve funded this project aren’t about to give us more money for protection like that.”

Ed Meese spoke up. “I could camp out here tonight.”

“Not alone,” Paul exclaimed.

Ray Collins volunteered to keep watch with him.

Paul shook his head. “I can’t allow you to do that. For one thing, it could be dangerous. You don’t know what you could be dealing with. I promised the authorities we’d let them handle this, but I’ve been asked to get some pictures proving the damage. Why don’t we walk around the site and take photos of anything we find disturbed? We’ll send them to the police and call it a night.”

They worked together till six before disbanding. Avery drove back to the ranch totally frustrated by the damage done. For the culprits, it was like taking candy from a baby. Her crew was helpless in the face of the wanton destruction happening after dark.

She pulled in at seven, heartsick over the situation. Avery was just about to pull the key from the ignition when someone walked up to her truck.

Suddenly her heart had another problem. Zane.

Avery had been so upset, she hadn’t noticed his Volvo sitting next to some of the other vehicles. He was dressed in a dark gray pullover and jeans. His hard-muscled physique standing in cowboy boots made him a good six-three. Between dark fringed lashes, his intelligent eyes glowed like twin blue suns.

With shaky fingers she lowered the window. Now if she could just catch her breath. “I understand congratulations are in order for a lot of reasons. Welcome home. You didn’t have to wait until the Fourth of July after all.”

A ghost of a smile hovered around his mouth. “Even better, I’m here to stay. You missed a great party last night.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

He raked a suntanned hand through hair that looked like rich brown loam. “Do you have another date tonight with the same man as last night?”

She blinked. “How did you know about that?”

“I saw the two of you together while I was driving in from Glasgow.”

Avery couldn’t believe it. She’d been so upset with herself for having made a second date with Mike, she hadn’t been aware of anything else. Biting her lip she said, “I have no plans for tonight. It’s been a long day.”

“Too long to go out on a case with me tonight? The police alerted the BLM law enforcement to a new problem in the area.”

Her head flew back, causing the hair to resettle around her shoulders. “What do you mean?”

“Now that I’m permanently stationed here, my first undercover assignment is to catch the vandals desecrating the dig site at Absarokee.”

A small cry escaped her throat. “That’s where I work!”

“Sadie told me.” He cocked his dark head. “After all these months of working at opposite ends of the state, imagine my surprise. When I saw my orders, it reminded me of a poem that says, ‘God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.’”

The words, and the way he’d said them, sounded like bits of prophecy, making their way to her soul where she’d tried to hide from him. She averted her eyes.

“I need someone to give me inside information. Who better than you? Tonight I want to drive there and get a feel for the place. We won’t stay too long. If you’ll come with me, I’ll feed you. While we drive, I’d like to pick your brain.”

She cleared her throat, trying to keep her wits about her. “You think someone I work with could be responsible?”

His eyes narrowed, sending a shiver down her back. “You never know. Everyone is fair game at a crime scene.”

Zane was on the hunt. She could feel it and shuddered for the people responsible when he caught up with them. “You’re right.”

“If we leave now in my car, we should get there before it’s totally dark.”

Avery couldn’t very well say no to him under the circumstances. Her truck engine was still idling. “I’ll run inside and tell Grandpa where I’m going.”

“Good. I’ll wait for you.”

She raised the window and turned off the ignition. He opened the door so she could climb out. On a burst of adrenaline she hurried into the house only to find out her grandfather had gone over to Jarod’s for dinner. She told the housekeeper where she was going, then made a stop to the bathroom to freshen up. While she ran a brush through her hair and reapplied her lipstick, his words kept going around in her head.

I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.

* * *

ZANE PULLED INTO the drive-through in White Lodge where they ordered hamburgers and fries. During the short drive from the ranch they talked about family and how big Ryan was getting. She asked about some of his cases in Glasgow. They stuck to topics he knew made her feel comfortable.

Once they were headed for the dig site, he listened while she gave him a rundown of the professors and archaeologists involved in the excavation. He learned that two of the men had volunteered to stand guard, but their idea was tabled by the head archaeologist.

After they arrived, he drove to two of the homes of the owners of the land to introduce himself and Avery. He let them know he was conducting an investigation of the vandalism. They received him warmly and promised to keep an eye out that night. If they saw or heard anything out of the ordinary, they’d phone him.

Back in the car he said, “Now show me where you all park when you come to work. Does everyone come by car?”

“Some have trucks.”

Avery gave directions to the part of the field where they’d been excavating the foundation of a hundred-plus-year-old Crow cabin. Careful to park where he wouldn’t drive over tracks already made in the dirt, they got out.

“The worst of the destruction is right over here.” Both of them held flashlights as he followed Avery to the area set off in grids. “See there? They’ve raked through the dirt, destroying the bits of animal bones. And look here—they’ve stolen the wire-wound round glass beads. The beads’ eyes, in particular, make them priceless.”

He grimaced. “Stay right here. I’m going to the car to get some packs of fiber foam.” He’d decided not to cast the tracks. That process was messier. “I want to take impressions of the tire tracks.” One set of them came from an ATV. He pulled on gloves. “With the list of names and addresses you’re going to give me, I’ll have a better idea of who’s driving what. We’ll go from there.”

“What’ll happen when you catch this person?”

“If it’s a first offense, we’ll levy a twenty-thousand-dollar fine and nine months’ jail time. If they’ve been arrested before, they could be charged a hundred-thousand-dollar fine and get a five-year prison sentence.”

“Good! How dare they do this.”

Zane smiled at her vehemence. While he gathered evidence, he noticed some cigarette butts. “Does any of your crew smoke?”

“Maybe, but they don’t do it on the site.”

Interesting.

By ten o’clock he’d gathered the evidence he needed, including the butts and a peppermint pattie candy wrapper he’d found and bagged. Avery helped him carry everything to the car where he discarded the gloves. They started back to the ranch.

He looked over at her. “You’re a great helper. When we crack this case, you’ll be given a commendation from the Crow Nation, probably by Jarod’s uncle Charlo himself. He might as well be your uncle, too, right?”