Worse, she was the type of woman who liked to believe that she had the power to fix anything. While she might be able to get CJ out of legal jeopardy, only God could get him out of that wheelchair if his injuries were as bad as Holden had heard. That alone had to be tearing her apart.

  He cleared his voice. She turned her head slowly, not seeming at all surprised to see him.

  “What took you so long?” She sounded tired and defeated, as if she didn’t have the energy to rise from the rock where she sat, let alone fight with him.

  Holden wasn’t fooled as he walked slowly toward her. Her own horse was a good distance away in the trees, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t armed. He stopped a few yards away.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “About anything in particular or just generally?” she asked in that same almost bored tone.

  “About CJ. I know how hard that must be for you.”

  Her lips bowed a little as if amused. “It would be for any parent.”

  “You’re not just any parent.” He met her gaze and, for a moment, thought he saw the shine of tears before she blinked and turned her head away.

  “What do you want, Holden?”

  He sighed as he sat down on an adjacent rock the sun had dried. These warm days teased Montanans, giving them hope and quickly taking it away. He’d lived here long enough to know better and yet he wanted to believe winter was waning. He missed the color green, the smell of new grass, the hot sun lolling in all that blue above him as the cottonwoods leafed out and the air took on that feel that reminded him of days spent with Lottie in this very spot. But for now he relished in what little warmth the sun provided.

  “I have a proposition for you.”

  She laughed, turning back to him, her smile fragile and not in the least convincing. “I can’t wait to hear.”

  “I want this war between us to end.”

  Lottie huffed at that. “Doesn’t sound like much of a proposition.”

  “We need to join forces.”

  Her eyebrow rose. “What exactly do you have in mind, Mr. McKenna?” There was a teasing in her almost seductive tone now and a light in those green eyes that had been missing only moments ago.

  “I think we should pool our money and buy the Turner Ranch together.”

  She registered shock, followed quickly by anger as she rose to her feet. “I should have known.” Her lips formed a straight line, her green eyes glittering now with malice.

  He hurried on even though he doubted she would hear a word of reason. “It makes sense, Lottie. You take the portion next to your ranch, I take the land along my ranch border. We both get water. We both get what we want.”

  She cocked her head and frowned as if confused. Or was it amused? “We both get what we want?” She laughed. “You think I want the Turner Ranch for the land, for the water?” Her laugh echoed through the bare-limbed cottonwoods. When she sobered, she glared at him, no humor left. “I want that land and that water because you want it.”

  Holden shook his head. “How long do you want to do this? Hate me. I can see that you do. But please let’s stop dragging our kids into it. No good has come from it. Can’t you see that? We are the only ones who can stop this. We can rise above it.”

  Charlotte shook her head slowly. “Such big talk. Such gallant talk. Where was that man all those years ago?”

  “He was young and foolish. Now he’s just old and often foolish still. But the last thing he has ever wanted is for the two of us to be at such odds because he still loves you, will always love you.”

  She brushed angrily at the tears that fell with that admission. He saw her swallow and take a ragged breath. “You need to get off my property,” she said quietly. “I’ve warned you about coming here.” Her gaze locked with his. “Next time, I will shoot for trespassing.”

  “If the Turner property means this much to you, then you can have it. I won’t stand in your way.” He turned to walk away, not all that sure she wouldn’t make good on her threat this time.

  “You know you’ve lost. That’s why you came here with your proposition,” she called after him. “I’ve already won.”

  He could hear the emotion in her voice as if it would take so little to break the restraint she was fighting to keep. He stopped to turn back to her. “Oh, Lottie, we have both lost and it breaks my heart.”

  He reached his horse and turned to look back at her. She was hugging herself as if trying to hold her anger and hate in. He felt so bad for her, so guilty. He’d created this woman, this woman he would love until the day he died.

  His biggest regret was that he had no idea how to reach her, how to ease her pain, how to erase the past so they didn’t have to feel the way they did until their dying days.

  After mounting his horse, he tipped his hat and reined around to head home, his own eyes filling with tears of pain.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PICKETT HANSON STARED at his phone as another text came in much like the others he’d been getting recently. He’d ignored them and did the same with this one. He’d put his past behind him when he’d come to Powder Crossing. It had been so many years that he’d almost forgotten about that part of his life and who he’d been.

  He was a ranch hand on the McKenna spread. The thought made him smile because he was happy being that man. He’d learned to be good at the job even though when he’d started he didn’t know the front of a horse from the back. He laughed to himself as he stood in the barn doorway and looked out toward the river and the thick cottonwoods, limbs dark and tangled-looking like his thoughts of the man he used to be.

  The day felt almost spring like. Was that why he was in this mood? He stared at the phone, wanting more than anything to hear from Oakley. He thought about calling her. Another text came in, this one more urgent. He killed it, telling himself if he kept ignoring them, the woman sending them would get the hint. He had nothing to say.

  “Pickett, please can you teach me that one trick where you hang upside down from the horse?” said a young female voice behind him.

  He turned, already smiling before he saw Holly Jo standing there all duded out in her Western attire. Like him, she’d come a long way since being dropped off here on this ranch. He was happy for her, knowing what a place like this could do for a person. Fresh air, horses, wild open land, a reason for existing.

  “Shouldn’t you check with Holden first?” he asked.

  “I did and he said, ‘You just be careful.’”

  “He say this before he rode off?” Pickett quizzed, grinning. “Girl, you have a tendency to stretch the truth more than I do.”

  She laughed. “I know if he was here, he’d be fine with it as long as we were careful.” Just then they both heard a rider approaching and turned to see the man in question.

  “Looks like we’re about to find out,” he said, his grin widening as Holly Jo sighed in disappointment. They both knew what Holden was going to say.

  “You could tell him it’s not that dangerous,” she suggested before his boss reached them.

  “I could, but then I’d be a bigger liar than you, squirt.”

  * * *

  STILL UPSET AFTER her run-in with her brother, Oakley drove back into Powder Crossing. She felt at loose ends. She hadn’t been able to get Pickett off her mind. Had she just imagined that he’d been feeling what she had? She feared that might be the case.

  When she saw Duffy’s ranch pickup parked in front of the café, her heart leaped at the thought that Pickett might be with him. It was almost noon and she hadn’t even had breakfast. Her stomach growled as she swung in and parked.

  As she pushed open the café door and spotted Duffy, she saw at the same time that he wasn’t alone. Disappointed, she realized that his companion wasn’t Pickett. With a jolt she recognized the man as the one who’d passed her on the road to the ranch—the PI Tilly had told her about. She started to head for the counter when Duffy called her over to his table.

  She approached saying, “If you’re busy—”

  “No, Mr. Murdoch was just leaving,” Duffy said pointedly.

  The man nodded with obvious reluctance and rose. “You must be Oakley Stafford.” His gaze bored into her for a moment before he glanced at Duffy, then back to her. “I didn’t realize you two...” He let that hang.

  “We’re friends,” Oakley said. “You have a problem with that, Mr. Murdoch?”

  He smiled. “You remind me of your mother.”

  “Those are fighting words,” she said in warning. “I’d be careful throwing them around.”

  He laughed. “Yes, Powder Crossing is a dangerous place. At least it was for your mother’s second husband.” He tipped his hat to her as he headed out the door.

  She looked to Duffy questioningly as she sat down. “A friend of yours?”

  “Hardly,” Duffy said, watching him leave. “He’s been in town for a while asking questions.”

  She felt a chill. “Tilly saw him earlier out at the ranch. He’s asking about Dixon Malone, the man my mother was married to.”

  “Is apparently still married to,” Duffy said. “He also seems to be interested in a man named Rory Eastwood.” When he saw that she’d never heard of him, he asked, “Hungry?”

  She eyed what little was left of his pancakes. “Late breakfast?”

  “Something like that,” he said with a grin. She could feel his gaze on her as if he could read her moods.

  “Penny,” she said to the waitress when she passed by, “I’ll have—”

  “The usual?”

  She smiled and nodded. “Thanks.”

  “We are such creatures of habit, it seems,” Duffy said as Penny took away his dishes and refilled his coffee cup. “Rough day already?”

  * * *

  DUFFY WATCHED OAKLEY fiddle with her napkin. He often felt blindsided by how pretty she was. Her ash-blond hair was long, often corralled into a single plait that fell to the middle of her back or tucked up under her hat. Her eyes, mostly green like her mother’s, changed with the light. At five-five she was slim and athletic-looking as if ready to take on anything. But her real beauty seemed to come from within. This morning her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright and her lips... He almost missed what she said.

  “I got into it with CJ earlier.” He pushed away thoughts about how much he liked her and listened. A run-in with CJ was enough to upset anyone, but Duffy could tell it was something more and waited.

  Avoiding his eyes she said, “When I drove up to the ranch house earlier this morning...” She shook her head. “It was probably just the sunlight on the guest room window, but...” Her gaze rose to lock with his. “I thought I saw him standing at the window. He disappeared at once as if he saw me. Or maybe he wasn’t there at all. I just don’t know.”

  “You think he’s faking his injury?” It would be just like the cowboy.

  “How could he, though? The doctors would know, wouldn’t they?”

  “Depends on his prognosis,” Duffy said.

  “According to my mother, he will walk again. But you know how she is. If it took only her iron will he’d be up running around. If he’s lying... I can’t believe even CJ would stoop so low as to pretend he had to stay in the wheelchair.”

  “Then again, he probably has a better chance of dodging jail as long as he’s in that chair, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, unfortunately. I even had the thought that maybe Mother’s in on it and once he gets away with shooting me, he’ll miraculously rise and walk.” She sighed. “I don’t want him to go to jail let alone prison. But I also don’t want him to think he can get away with what he did.”

  “The PI was just saying that people in town think our families can get away with murder—or shooting each other,” Duffy said. “I hate to think it might be true.”

  “I haven’t mentioned this to anyone else—” Just then her cheeseburger and fries arrived. She took her time putting ketchup on the burger and cutting it in half.

  Duffy feared she was changing her mind about telling him whatever it was she’d been about to say. He hoped she trusted him, but he was a McKenna and there was nothing he could do about that.

  He reminded himself that she wasn’t the only one hesitant about telling secrets. He was keeping what the PI had suggested about Leann Hayes and his brother Cooper from her. “If something’s bothering you that you don’t want to talk about...”

  She looked up. Her gaze softened. “I keep having these disjointed dreams that I think are memories about the day I was shot. But they don’t make any sense. I just can’t throw off this feeling that there’s more to it. That CJ is lying about why he shot me. Worse, that shooting me wasn’t an accident, that the shot he fired wasn’t a warning shot that went awry. He practically admitted it earlier.” Her gaze locked with his. “I think he was trying to kill me, to stop me permanently from... That’s the part that’s so frustrating. I can’t imagine what I could have seen or done that he was so terrified I would tell someone.”

  For a moment Duffy was speechless. Did she really think CJ had fired that shot to kill her? “Even if he was involved with the meth lab—”

  “It wouldn’t have been enough to kill someone over, right?” she said, nodding. “I know. But CJ is obsessed with Mother thinking the best of him.”

  “Is it possible something else was going on that day at the old Smith Ranch homestead besides the meth lab that you might have seen?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t even know what I was doing there to begin with. Did I even find the meth lab or did something else happen back in that ravine? If I could just remember.” Cooper and Tilly, while trying to find out what she might have seen, had stumbled onto the meth lab. Unfortunately, it had been destroyed before the sheriff could bust it.

  Duffy reached over and placed his hand on hers for a moment. “Don’t try so hard to remember. Just let memories come if that’s possible. In the meantime, be real careful of your brother. As if I have to warn you of that. But it sounds as if you’re baiting him. I wouldn’t do that.” He knew how CJ had tormented her and their siblings growing up because of the stories she’d shared over the years.

  “I don’t want him thinking he’s safe.” She looked miserable. “Even the thought that he might have been trying to kill me...”

  Duffy couldn’t imagine, his hand still on hers. “Are you sure about staying out on the ranch?”

  “Tilly and I rented an apartment here in town, so I won’t be staying there any more than I have to, but I don’t want to burn that bridge yet. I feel like I need to stay close where I can keep an eye on CJ. I suppose you heard. Mother kicked Tilly off the ranch for getting engaged to your brother.”

  “I heard. I’m sorry.” He squeezed her hand before drawing it back.

  “Tilly knew it could happen,” she said with a shrug. “She’s determined to go ahead with the wedding. I hope she isn’t thinking that our mother will come around. I can’t see that ever happening.”

  Duffy couldn’t, either. “Eat your burger before it gets cold,” he said and stole one of her fries, hoping to lighten the conversation. “If you don’t want all that burger...” he joked as he helped himself to another fry. He wasn’t hungry, but he didn’t want to leave. He kept thinking about her and Pickett.

  “Help yourself to my fries. I never eat them all anyway.” She smiled and picked up one half of the burger to take a bite as his cell phone rang.

  “I’m here if you need me,” he said as his phone rang again. He checked to see who was calling. It was Cooper. Worried something was wrong, he said, “I have to take this. I’ll be right back.” He rose and walked out of the café to take the call. He needed to tell his brother what the PI had said.

  * * *

  AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT, Pickett had awakened thinking of Oakley. So he was caught off guard when his cell phone rang, otherwise he would never have taken a call from a number he didn’t recognize. “Hello?”

  “I’m in town at the hotel.”

  Just the sound of her voice made his blood run cold—let alone what she’d said. She was in Powder Crossing?

  “I shouldn’t have to spell out what happens next if you don’t meet with me.”

  He had hit the brakes at the sound of the woman’s voice. He’d been on his way into town to pick up supplies for the ranch, but now pulled over. His mind raced. She was in town? He didn’t trust himself to speak for a few moments.

  While he knew exactly what would happen if he didn’t meet with her, he wanted desperately to do just the opposite. Rebelling came second nature to him. That was how he had ended up working on the McKenna Ranch all the way out in Montana all those years ago.

  “You can no longer run from this,” she said.

  With a sinking heart, he knew it was true. Had he really thought this would never happen? That he’d put the past behind him, but that one day it wouldn’t come looking for him? He pulled back onto the narrow county road. “I’m on my way.”

  “Room 403.”

  He squeezed his phone so hard he feared it would break before pocketing it. Hadn’t he worried that he’d be found one day? He realized he probably should have answered the texts she’d been sending him. Now she was in town at the hotel. How had she found him?

  Silly question. With her resources? The only surprise was that she hadn’t come looking for him sooner.

  Pickett swore as he drove the rest of the way into Powder Crossing, turned the ranch pickup into a parking spot and got out. He’d always felt invisible here. Just another ranch hand. The day he’d hired on at the McKenna Ranch was the best day of the beginning of his new life. He’d actually thought they’d never find him.