Sadie didn’t say anything.

  The only sound was the swish of the windshield wipers as he drove through the falling snow. He saw that he was headed for Helena. He knew he was waiting to hear from Crawford and simply driving to stay one step ahead of the men after them.

  It didn’t matter what town they reached as long as it had an airport, where he planned to put Sadie on a plane home. It had been a mistake calling her and getting her up here. He’d selfishly wanted her with him, he could admit now. He hadn’t really needed her. He’d been right about one thing, though...it had been their last game. He’d almost gotten her killed for nothing.

  “You know that I have to finish this.”

  Sadie said nothing for a few moments. “What exactly is this?”

  “I thought I was just coming back here to pay off Grandville and free Keira from the debt and her no-account husband. Now I’m not sure what this is. All I know is I never should have gotten you involved.”

  DEAD MAN’S HAND

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  B.J. Daniels

  B.J. Daniels is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. She wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. She lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and three springer spaniels. When not writing, she quilts, boats and plays tennis. Contact her at bjdaniels.com, on Facebook or on Twitter @bjdanielsauthor.

  Books by B.J. Daniels

  Harlequin Intrigue

  A Colt Brothers Investigation

  Murder Gone Cold

  Sticking to Her Guns

  Set Up in the City

  Her Brand of Justice

  Dead Man’s Hand

  Cardwell Ranch: Montana Legacy

  Steel Resolve

  Iron Will

  Ambush before Sunrise

  Double Action Deputy

  Trouble in Big Timber

  Cold Case at Cardwell Ranch

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  DJ Diamond—Raised by a con man, he grew up expecting the worst—until he met Sadie and discovered he had a twin sister he knew nothing about.

  Sadie Montclair—Raised by her godfather, the head of a criminal organization, all she wanted was a life like the wives’ of the Colt brothers.

  Buck Crawford—The PI must find his fiancée’s missing twin brother before the wedding.

  Ansley Brookshire—Her greatest desire is to have her twin brother walk her down the aisle.

  Keira Diamond—Family meant something different to her than it did DJ.

  Titus Grandville—The crooked banker who wants to destroy DJ Diamond.

  Marcus Grandville—His son was about to destroy everything he’d built.

  This book is dedicated to my father, Harry Burton Johnson, who fed me lobster at fancy restaurants when things were going well—and free peanuts at a bar when they weren’t. He taught me many of life’s lessons and I’m sure that’s why I’m a writer today. I had so much fun writing these characters because they were all close to my heart.

  DEAD MAN’S HAND: A slang term used in poker for a two pair of black aces and black eights. The story goes that lawman and gambler “Wild Bill” Hickok was shot while holding the dead man’s hand, which is why it’s considered an unlucky two pair in poker today.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Trouble in Texas by Barb Han

  Chapter One

  DJ Diamond shoved back his Stetson before glancing from the cards in his hand to the three men and one woman sitting around the table. After hours of poker, he felt as if he knew all of them better than their mothers did.

  Except for the woman. She had a better poker face than any of the men. Also, she played her cards close to the vest—or in her case, the red halter top she wore. The top had the initials AL monogramed on it. Not her initials. He’d bet she picked up the garment at a garage sale. Her blond hair was long, pulled back into a ponytail that made her look like jailbait. All of it was at odds with her sharp honey-brown eyes and her skill at the game. All part of her act to throw grown men off their game.

  It was working. The men had trouble keeping their eyes off her as she leaned forward to ante up—forcing their gazes away from the huge pot of money in the center of the table.

  DJ could feel the tension in the room around him, but he was as cool as a cucumber—as his uncle Charley used to say. He was aware of everything, though—including the exact amount of money in the pot as one of the men folded, but the other two stayed in, matching his bet, confident he was bluffing.

  With luck, he’d be walking out with all the money—and the sexy young woman—before the night was over. And the night was almost over.

  But right now, everyone was waiting on him.

  He glanced down at his last five hundred dollars in chips for a moment, then picked them up and tossed them into the pile of money. “I’m going to have to sweeten the pot.” Across the table, he saw the woman who called herself Tina shoot him a disbelieving look. He grinned and shrugged. “You want to see what I’ve got. It will cost you.”

  * * *

  SADIE MONTCLAIR MUMBLED, “Arrogant fool,” under her breath. She knew the Montana cowboy was planning on taking this pot and when he did all hell was going to break loose. She’d been reading the table since she sat down. The big doughy former football star next to her had a possible three queens. The guy in the expensive suit on the other side of her had to have had two pair, maybe even ace high. Luckily, the appliance salesman with the bad rug had folded. She’d marked him as the wild card of the group even before he’d started sweating profusely after losing so much money tonight.

  She sighed as she looked at her jack-high straight with regret and tossed in her five Cs. Placing her cards facedown on the table, she leaned back, stretching, all eyes on her heaving chest.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got,” the suit said, tossing his five hundred onto the pile of money and drawing the men’s gazes again to the pot.

  Sadie gave the arrogant fool across from her a shrug as she reached for the gun in her shoulder bag hanging off her chair. Her hand closed around the grip. She brought it out fast as the cowboy said, “Read ’em and weep,” and fanned out his cards. An ace-high straight.

  “You cheating bastard!” she yelled, kicking her chair back as she jumped to her feet. “Is it just him or were you all in on it?” she screamed as she waved the gun around.

  The men were on their feet the moment they saw the gun in the hands of an angry woman, their chairs crashing to the floor behind them.

  “You think you can cheat me, cowboy?” she yelled at him, wiping away his grin as she pulled the trigger.

  The first report was deafening in the small dark room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the men scrambling for the door, the appliance salesman the slowest of the group. She fired twice more, putting three slugs into the arrogant fool cowboy’s chest.

  He fell backward, his chair crashing to the floor. She heard the others all rush out, the door slamming behind them before she stuffed the money into her shoulder bag, tossing the weapon in after it, and looked under the table. The Montana cowboy was lying sprawled on the floor, his Stetson beside him. “Arrogant fool.”

  Chapter Two

  “I heard that,” DJ Diamond said from the floor, and groaned. “Damn, Sadie. That hurt.”

  “That was pure arrogance to raise the bet again,” she said. “You were just showing off. You can’t keep pushing your luck—and mine.”

  He rose slowly, grimacing in pain as he tried to catch his breath. “Arrogant is shooting me three times. One wasn’t good enough?”

  “Three just felt right tonight,” she said, cocking her hip as she watched him remove his shirt, then his body armor with the three slugs embedded in it.

  “You must really hate me,” he said, and grinned through his pain.

  With his shirt off, it was hard not to admire the broad shoulders, the tapered waist or the vee of dark hair on the tanned chest that disappeared into his button-up jeans.

  “What do you think?” he asked, raking a hand through his thick dark hair.

  For a moment, she thought he was asking about the way he looked. She blinked, realizing he was asking about their take tonight. “Not bad.”

  He laughed. “Come on, we made a haul. Maybe I pushed it a little, but it worked out. Don’t forget the cards.”

  She had forgotten them, which would have been a mistake. If one of the gamblers realized they’d been had, he might come back her
e and find the marked deck. She scooped up the cards and added them to her shoulder bag. “I’m hungry.”

  * * *

  DJ SHOOK HIS head as the shirt and body armor went into the satchel he’d brought with him. He pulled a fresh shirt out and put it on. “You’re always hungry.”

  “I’m so hungry I could eat steak and lobster.”

  “That might be a problem dressed the way you are,” he said as he settled his Stetson on that head of thick dark hair, then stepped to her and reached for the end of one thin strap that kept her halter top up.

  She caught his hand. “You didn’t get that lucky tonight.” It was an old joke between partners whose relationship was strictly business. But more and more, she felt an undercurrent between them, one she suspected went both ways. Yet she never knew with DJ.

  He chuckled, giving her that Diamond grin that apparently worked on women everywhere. “I do know a good barbecue place and I know how you feel about ribs.” He grimaced as he touched his own ribs.

  “Don’t you think we should get rid of the loot first?”

  “Couldn’t I at least count it before we hand it over?” He flashed his baby blues.

  “You don’t need to count it and neither do I. We both know the take. You’re stalling.”

  “Can you blame me? We should get hazardous pay for this.”

  “We should get into a new line of work,” she said, knowing that he never would. He was a born poker player with larceny in his blood. “One of these days... In the meantime, let’s get out of here. That one player made me nervous.”

  “There’s always one who makes you nervous,” he said as he put an arm around her and steered her toward the alternate exit door.

  “The one that’s going to get us both killed one day,” she said under her breath.

  His cell phone rang. He removed his arm from Sadie’s shoulder to step away and take the call. “What’s wrong, Keira?” She was sobbing, begging him to help her. He stepped farther away, never mixing business with family. “You have to stop crying so I can understand you.”

  She let out a cry and suddenly the voice on the phone was male. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Diamond. Your sister owes me money. A lot of money. Otherwise, we’re going to have to sell her parts to the highest bidder.”

  * * *

  “ONE OF YOUR GIRLFRIENDS?” Sadie asked as he caught up to her at her SUV in a parking garage blocks away from where they’d held the poker game. She’d left him to his phone call. Now, though, she noticed that his face was pinched, blue eyes flinty; his usual charm had vanished. Her first thought was that one of his women had called him to say she was pregnant. Then again it could be some angry husband threatening to kick his adorable ass. “You all right?”

  “It’s just something I need to take care of,” he said, his voice tight. “Back in Montana. I’ll be gone for a few days.”

  She went on alert. “You need help?”

  “No, but thanks. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

  “Keep in touch,” she said, and opened her car door. She saw him looking at her shoulder bag and shook her head. “You can’t.”

  Nodding, he gave a shrug. “No, I can’t. We had a deal. Don’t worry, I’m sticking to it.” He glanced around but she’d already made sure that the dark street was empty. As usual she wouldn’t take the same route when she left, she would watch closely for a tail, she would take the usual precautions until tonight’s take was locked up safe and secure.

  Climbing behind the wheel, she closed the car door, but hesitated. She powered down the window. “DJ?” She’d noticed a tell she never saw at the poker table. He wasn’t just nervous, he seemed...scared. “DJ, if—”

  “I’m good. You take care.”

  “You, too,” she said as she watched him walk, head down, toward his pickup parked even farther away. All her instincts told her he was in trouble. She reminded herself that he wasn’t her responsibility. Theirs was a business partnership and nothing more. As long as they both stuck to the deal...

  * * *

  DJ SLID BEHIND the wheel of his pickup and rubbed a hand over his face. He’d tried to protect Keira from this life. He’d watched over her since the first time she’d shown up at the ranch—skinny, scraped up, hungry and scared. He suspected he’d probably arrived at the hardscrabble, rundown ranch in the same shape.

  It wasn’t much of a ranch, small by any standards. The only thing they raised was dust as criminals came and went. The place was straight out of an old Western movie set, a hideout where some came to recover from gunshot wounds. Others to cool their heels from the law. The ranch had been a dumping ground for lost souls. As the way of the ranch, no one asked questions. DJ and Keira had just been taken in like all the others, fed and clothed and conditioned to never know what to expect next.

  Charley Diamond had been a small man with a hearty laugh and kind eyes. He was also a crook but with a code of the West. He helped those needing help—people like him down on their luck who always knew they had a place to recover. But he also took from the richer and pocketed the take.

  When DJ had asked about his parents, Charley would rub the back of his neck and look up as if thinking. “Sorry, kid, I have no idea. You just arrived one day looking hungry and lost. Can’t say who dropped you off. Doesn’t matter. You’re here now and I’m darned glad to have you. I could teach you a few things to help you survive for when you leave here.”

  DJ figured he’d been dropped off at the ranch just as Charley had said. He wondered, though, if his parents had promised to come back for him—and just hadn’t. He also wondered if Charley knew more than he had told him. Not that worse things couldn’t have happened to him—and to Keira. They both helped out around the ranch, earning their keep and becoming the only family either of them knew of—other than the man they called Uncle Charley.

  When his uncle had fallen on hard times and lost the ranch, DJ was sixteen. Lucky for him, Charley had taught him the grift. Keira, who was six years younger, was too young for the road. She’d gone into foster care.

  The next two years DJ spent staying one step ahead of the law and tough guys who wanted to kill him and his uncle. A born poker player, it didn’t take DJ long though before he went out on his own way—eventually going legit since he found that he could make plenty of money without cheating.

  He always kept in touch with Keira, made sure she had what she needed, and once she finished high school, paid for her college education and her wedding. Uncle Charley had given her away, even though like DJ, he didn’t care for her choice of a husband. Luca Cross lacked ambition, while Keira wanted it all.

  DJ suspected that Keira might be the reason her husband had gotten involved with gamblers and loan sharks. Now they were using her to collect what was owed. The same way DJ had ended up where he was now—owing the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.

  He started the truck. Tonight he’d made thousands of dollars. But it was money he couldn’t touch. He tried to look at it as work—the same way Sadie did. Some nights, though, he’d enjoyed it more than he should have. He felt only a little guilty since the men who’d gotten fleeced tonight had all been handpicked by a man they either owed or had crossed. The boss was a man who always collected debts—one way or another. Even though Uncle Charley was dead, DJ, now twenty-nine, was still paying off his uncle’s last debts. It was the way it worked in this world. Some inherited wealth, others inherited debt. A man paid that debt.

  Shifting into gear, DJ headed to his apartment to pack for the first flight he could get to Bozeman, Montana. From there Keira would pick him up. He had no idea what he would find when he got there, but that was nothing new. He’d spent his childhood expecting the worst.

  Chapter Three

  On her fiancé’s ranch outside of Lonesome, Montana, Ansley Brookshire felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Time was running out. Her longed-for Christmas wedding was days away. She was about to marry the man of her dreams. Just the thought stole her breath and made her heart pound with both excitement and anxiety.