* * *

  CJ CHECKED TO make sure there was no one outside the guest room before he made the call. “Tell me that we’re all set,” he said the moment his party answered.

  “I did my part if that’s what you’re asking. You have the money?”

  He could hear the recrimination in Treyton McKenna’s voice. He tried to tamp down his anger. “I have it covered. After all, I saved you from a Lees brothers visit. You should be thanking me. Not giving me—”

  “Thanking you? This is your mess, not mine. Just like another time as I recall.”

  “Old history. This is now. You’re the one who came to me wanting to be cut in,” CJ snapped back. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

  Treyton swore. “Think much of yourself? Let’s not forget what I brought to the table or what I know about you.”

  “Okay, we’re business partners. I have enough problems without fighting about this with you,” CJ said. When Treyton said nothing, he asked, “You want out? I’ll have the Lees brothers stop over and give you what you have coming.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Stafford. None of this would have been a problem if you had been more careful.”

  “You know my sister, but I’m having it taken care of.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t want to know,” CJ said. “I’ve talked to our suppliers. They’re ready to get back into business. Isn’t that what we both want?” Silence, only this time he took it for agreement. “Get ready. You’ll have company soon.”

  As he disconnected, he thought about the circumstances that made strange bed partners. Now he and Treyton McKenna were in bed together again, so to speak. He could hear his grandmother say, “You’ve made your bed, now lie in it.”

  CJ had never really understood the expression, until now. It basically meant he was screwed if things went south. His bond with Treyton had always been risky. But McKenna or not, Treyton was as hungry as he was for power and money. CJ would just have to never turn his back on the man. But if this paid off the way he planned, he would run this river basin.

  He rose, walked over to the small refrigerator his mother had put in the guest room for him. After opening the door, he pulled out a can of cold beer. “Thanks, Mom,” he said sarcastically and then heard someone coming down the hall. He realized that he hadn’t locked the bedroom door. At least this time he had remembered to close the curtains.

  He’d barely gotten into his wheelchair when the door opened.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE SHERIFF HAD planned to stop by Abigail’s small house she rented behind the hospital, but to his surprise she was waiting for him on the front steps of the sheriff’s department building when he returned. “You really are excited about going to get a burger,” he said.

  She smiled her come-hither smile. “Maybe I’m excited about seeing you.”

  Maybe, but he doubted it.

  “My car,” she said, pointing to her SUV parked on the street. “My treat today.”

  He felt something cold creep up his spine, but nodded, even more curious. What was she up to? This wasn’t about a burger. He was an officer of the law. He was armed. And he wasn’t going to eat or drink anything she’d had a chance to doctor.

  Stuart told himself that he should be fine. They would be eating in a café. He would watch her like a hawk. But as he thought it, he was reminded of the empty miles to Baker with few ranches, even fewer other vehicles on the road this time of year.

  It struck him that today he might actually find out just how dangerous this woman was. He knew she was looking into Leann Hayes’s death. She’d drugged an officer of the law to go through Leann’s files and search his house. She’d taken one hell of a chance so whatever she was looking for, she was fairly desperate to find it.

  But what was it she suspected and, more important, how far would she go to get it?

  He slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Abigail take the wheel. Was it just his imagination that she was nervous, as if readying herself for what she was about to do?

  What the hell was she about to do?

  * * *

  “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” CJ snapped as his mother stuck her head in the guest room door. He’d thought she was going for a horseback ride. He’d heard her leave. But for some reason she’d come back. To spy on him?

  She seemed surprised at his sudden rage. “I realized that you hadn’t had lunch.” Her gaze went to the can of beer in his hand. He fought the urge to hide it even though he was a grown man and she’d had the small refrigerator put in his room. What did she think he was going to stock in there, fruit juice?

  “How about a little privacy?” he demanded.

  For a moment she looked as if she was going to lecture him on his rudeness, but good sense must have prevailed. “Sorry to bother you. I’ll have the cook put your lunch in the refrigerator until you’re ready for it.” She closed the door.

  He sat, heart thundering in his chest. She’d gotten so much worse since his accident. There was one way to get her to quit babying him. Tell her the truth. But he couldn’t. Not yet. He had to use this to his advantage. Even she would agree.

  But he hated it. He hated the van. He hated the wheelchair. He hated that he was trapped here in this room even temporarily. Worse, he felt like everyone was watching him; not just Oakley and his mother but the entire staff. Not to mention his...associates. He had no choice. He had to keep pretending he couldn’t walk. But this couldn’t be over soon enough.

  First, though, he had to set things up for Oakley. Once she heard about the new well being drilled on the ranch, she would walk right into the trap. Maybe she’d even bring a couple of her cohorts. Did she think he didn’t know how close she’d gotten to Duffy McKenna? He wasn’t worried about Pickett Hanson, who was just a ranch hand over on the McKenna place. But wouldn’t it be great if Duffy and Oakley could be lured out to the site where the Lees brothers would be waiting? Accidents happened around drilling rigs all the time.

  He thought about Dixon Malone and now Rory Eastwood. People tended to disappear in this part of Montana and not even that PI could find them. If Duffy and Oakley disappeared it would cause much more of a stir, though. Better to have them injured while trying to vandalize the equipment.

  CJ rolled over to the door, opened it and checked to make sure his mother wasn’t standing just outside in the hallway. All was clear. He closed the door, locked it and, moving to the window, placed the call. “Make it look like an accident,” he told Frankie after telling him that their business venture was moving forward. “With Oakley gone, we’ll be home free. She’ll come to the new drilling site at midnight—just like the other times she and her partners in crime vandalized the rigs. She might come alone this close to the house, but do what you have to do if she brings her friends.”

  He disconnected. With luck, Oakley would be history soon, maybe Duffy and Pickett, too, if they got in the way. Their deaths should scare off other vandals.

  It was a win-win situation and CJ would never have to worry about Oakley again. Not to mention that the tragedy would give his mother something else to obsess over other than him. He could see her at the funeral, him next to her in his wheelchair, the perfect son.

  Of course she would blame the McKennas—this time Duffy and his hired man, Pickett. It would keep the feud between the families alive, which was exactly what he and Treyton wanted. Neither of them could bear the thought that Charlotte and Holden might find their way back together. That wasn’t part of the plan.

  * * *

  CHARLOTTE HATED FEELING this anxious as she looked down the hallway toward the guest room before moving out of sight. Sometimes, her oldest son scared her. He had reason to be angry, she tried to tell herself. But in truth, CJ had always had a bad disposition, especially when he didn’t get his way as a child, as a teen and now as an adult. She blamed herself for spoiling him more than the others. He’d been her firstborn. But he’d also always worked at being her favorite.

  Her other children had picked up on her shortage of maternal instincts and her lack of interest in raising them. In those days she’d been happiest on a horse, riding through the vast land that had become her ranch. Marrying her first husband after Holden had broken her heart had also saved her—and made her a wealthy, powerful woman.

  She’d been in her late teens when she’d married Rake Stafford. Rake had been seventeen years older. He’d brought order to her life along with money that he used to build the Stafford Ranch. Before that, it had been the Carson Ranch, small because that was all her parents, John and Ruth Carson, could afford.

  With Rake, the now Stafford Ranch had flourished and grown. Together, they’d had five children in the eight years before Rake died. Oakley was just a baby when he passed and left Charlotte a widow.

  She’d felt safe married to Rake and then he was gone. Holden had lost his wife as well just months before. That she’d even let herself think he might finally come back to her made her despise herself. When she’d heard that he’d remarried so quickly—and who he’d married—she’d been beyond devastated and furious. Lulabelle Braden?

  The only satisfaction she got was that the loud, obnoxious redhead had made Holden’s life miserable the few months they were married. Still, Charlotte blamed him for making her feel she had to rush into a marriage with Dixon Malone, the second biggest mistake of her life. The first had been falling in love with Holden and letting him break her heart.

  Dixon had been a mistake in so many ways. Her children had been so young, and she’d been so miserable. But being married to him had been pure hell. He was lazy, spent too much of her money and thought he would boss her around.

  CJ was twelve when Dixon disappeared. She often wondered how much he remembered of the almost year that she spent with Dixon before one day he was just gone. CJ had never asked what happened to him. Brand and Ryder had been told that their stepfather had left. The girls were so young, she doubted they’d noticed he was gone except for the lack of fighting in the house. None of them was sad to see Dixon go.

  So she thought as she went to the kitchen to tell the cook what to do with CJ’s lunch, she knew she had only herself to blame. She had made CJ the way he was. Was it any wonder that he resented her the way he did?

  She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth as she headed for her office, no longer interested in a horseback ride. She already missed Tilly, who’d been helping her with the paperwork involved in running a ranch. But she couldn’t forgive her daughter. How could she marry a McKenna knowing how her mother felt about it?

  Oakley was another story. She’d made this mess. What had she been doing on the McKenna Ranch to start with? She just needed Oakley to stand by her brother until this all blew over. The problem was that she wasn’t sure she could trust Oakley right now. Her daughter was a hothead, stubborn and determined in what she believed. Charlotte couldn’t remember ever being that headstrong. But she’d certainly raised two daughters who were.

  She thought about Tilly’s upcoming wedding that everyone was talking about in town. That Tilly had sent her an invitation showed how out of touch with reality she was. Charlotte’s heart held no place for forgiveness. Once someone turned on her, she wrote them out of her life. It was the only way she could survive, she told herself.

  Now, as she glanced toward the hallway to the guest room, she tried not to think about CJ. She couldn’t imagine how she would feel if she ever found out that she couldn’t trust him or worse, that he’d already turned on her as well.

  * * *

  THE SHERIFF WATCHED Abigail out of the corner of his eye as she drove. What was he doing with this woman? It felt like a game of Russian roulette. How long was he going to keep playing? It worried him that he was playing at all.

  Maybe it was time to make a change in his life. He’d never been cut out to be a sheriff. He’d thought about leaving Powder Crossing, but there was nowhere he wanted to go, nothing he’d always wanted to do. So what did that leave?

  Stuart chuckled to himself. He wanted to be Cooper McKenna. No, he amended that. If he was being truly honest, he only wanted what his best friend had—what came with being Holden McKenna’s son. A ranch, roots, a family and now a bride.

  Had it really not been all that long ago that Stuart had wanted Tilly? Not because he loved her, but because he’d known she’d always been Cooper’s from the time they were kids.

  That he was that small, that damaged, that begrudging, made him feel even worse about himself.

  He looked over at Abigail. What the hell was he doing? She drove as carefully as someone who knew they were drunk. Maybe she was doing her own soul searching. No, he thought, she appeared to be debating something. The bad feeling that filled him earlier confirmed that this trip wasn’t about a burger.

  As if making up her mind, she slowed and pulled off onto a dirt road into a grove of trees next to the river. Without leaves, the stark-limbed cottonwoods looked like fingers clawing at the cloudy Montana sky.

  He noticed for the first time that a storm was coming in from the west. Snow? It wouldn’t be that unusual this time of year. But it always seemed to happen just when the land had been bearing off and the temperatures had been rising, giving everyone a break from winter.

  But he doubted that was why he felt a chill as Abigail pulled over to the side of the road and cut the engine.

  “I thought this was about a burger,” he said, hoping his tone didn’t reveal just how anxious he was. She wasn’t looking at him. Red flag alert! All his instincts were telling him he should never have gotten into this car. His hand was already resting on the gun at his hip, hoping he could pull it quickly enough if he had to in this small SUV.

  “I haven’t been honest with you,” she said, turning a little in her seat to look at him. He was watching her hands that now worked nervously in her lap. “I didn’t come to Powder Crossing because of the job at the hospital or my photography.”

  “I know,” he said.

  Her eyes widened. “You do?”

  “You came to town because of Leann Hayes.”

  All the air seemed to rush from her as she leaned her head back. She looked as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “How long have you known?”

  “I was suspicious from the start, but I didn’t know until you drugged me and searched my office files and my home.”

  She froze for a moment before she licked her lips and sighed. “So you know. You didn’t say anything so I thought...”

  She’d thought that she’d gotten away with it. Maybe he wasn’t as lousy a sheriff as she thought he was. “What is your connection to her?”

  “She was my friend,” Abigail said. “We were like sisters.”

  “Had you been in touch with her since she came to Powder Crossing?”

  “Of course, I just told you. We were like sisters.”

  That bad feeling he’d had earlier now settled in his gut. “Then you knew about her relationship before she came to Powder Crossing, before she met me.” He was watching her closely. “Did she tell you about me? About Cooper?”

  He still had his hand on his gun when she reached with her left hand into the driver’s side door cubby. He’d been ready but all she pulled out was a tissue. She blew her nose, dropping the tissue back into the door’s side pocket.

  “She didn’t love you,” Abigail said. Her gaze when she turned it on him was brittle and bright. Her words came out fast and hard. “She was trying to get away from you. She said you were obsessed with her. That you used to follow her. She was terrified that you would kill her if she didn’t go back to you.”

  “That’s not true,” he said, even as he groaned inwardly, knowing it could have been true. He’d tried to hang on to her. He had been obsessed. He’d followed her a few times, furious when he’d heard that she’d hooked up with his best friend. It had been a bad time in so many ways. He wasn’t that man anymore. He’d promised himself he would never be that man again.

  “She’d broken things off with me. She’d moved on. She was with Cooper McKenna.” Why were they arguing about this? “Abigail, Leann was leaving town with some man she’d fallen in love with. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Cooper.”

  “No,” she cried. “That’s a lie. We’d been saving our money to get a house together in Billings. I was going to work at the hospital there and she was going to open her own photography studio. She was a much better photographer than I am. She was teaching me.”

  He saw it now. The only personal thing in her house, a photograph taken by a friend. “Leann took that photo in your house,” he said.

  But she wasn’t listening; her expression went dark again. “She didn’t want any of you, especially Rory Eastwood. But like most men, he wouldn’t leave her alone.” He felt his pulse jump. “She said she had to leave the state to get away. She was trying to get away from all of you, but especially you.” There was spittle on her lips, her eyes wild and leaking angry tears.

  He felt his chest tighten as he began to make sense of her words. This wasn’t about him, no matter what she said. “You knew about Rory and Leann?” he said, heart in his throat. Clearly, Abigail knew more than he did. “You saw her that night,” he said quietly and saw that it was true. “You were her friend. You were trying to help her.”

  “I loved her. We were like sisters.” Her voice broke. “We had plans. She’d promised.” Her expression hardened. He felt the tension in the car spike. “I came to save her from you, from Rory, from all the men who’d hurt her, deserted her, confused her. She said she was sick of all of you. Sick of the life she’d been living. She’d promised she would change. That it would just be the two of us.”