The house was small, so it didn’t take long to check out everything, including the bathroom, before he returned to the kitchen. In her medicine cabinet, he found no prescription drugs. Not much of anything. It gave him the feeling she wasn’t planning to stay here long.

  At dinner, she quizzed him about his work, knowing full well that he couldn’t talk about any ongoing cases. “I would think murder is rare here,” she said between bites. “Can’t you at least tell me about one of your closed cases?”

  He chuckled and said, “I’d rather hear more about you.”

  “Nothing really to tell. What you see is what you get.” She let that hang in the air as she met his gaze with what again appeared to be a promise of something to come.

  They had more wine after dinner and a chocolate mousse that left an aftertaste before they moved into the living room to the couch. She spent time looking for a movie on the television that she thought he might like before cuddling up next to him.

  He felt the weight of the long day settle over him. Charlotte Stafford had been seen driving through town in a van with her son CJ in the front. Another rumor had been circulating that an out-of-town carpenter had been out at the Stafford Ranch doing some work. Everyone was curious about CJ and whether or not he would ever serve a day in jail for shooting his sister—even accidentally—and if he was walking or not.

  Stu realized he was having trouble following the movie Abigail had found. The smell of her perfume was making him a little nauseated. He told himself he should go home and get some rest. It was his last thought before he fell into a bottomless sleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  DUFFY WASN’T ONE to read a room well, but he thought he’d picked up a strange vibe when he’d found Pickett and Oakley in the hallway after the meeting. They’d seemed to be in deep conversation, standing so close that for a moment...

  He shook his head as they walked out to her pickup. Pickett often joked around with Oakley—just like Duffy did—but the ranch hand had never made a move on her—at least not one that Duffy knew of. Pickett liked her. What wasn’t to like about Oakley? Pickett, like Duffy, might even wish there could be something between them.

  He glanced at the two of them. They were awfully quiet, neither looking at the other. Duffy couldn’t see the two of them being anything more than friends, could he? Was there reason to be concerned?

  “So what’s the big news?” Oakley asked once they were in her pickup and on the road.

  He’d been surprised minutes before when Pickett had stopped to kick snow off his boots and let him sit in the middle next to her without even pretending to wrestle him for the spot. He told himself he was only imaging the tension in the pickup. Sexual tension?

  “Douglas Burton, the head of CH4, is coming to Powder Crossing to demand that something is done to stop the vandalisms,” he said, getting down to business. It was what had bonded the three of them together as adults. “There is a good chance he’ll be bringing security, according to the speaker at the meeting. A pair of hired thugs named Frankie and Norman Lees, brothers, got into trouble down in Wyoming because of their propensity for violence. They stake out drilling equipment at sites and put vandals in the hospital or worse.”

  “That sounds like a scare tactic,” Oakley said, shaking her head. “If they were actually killing people, we’d know about it.”

  “Would we?” Duffy asked. “Apparently, down in Wyoming some of the agitators were bought off. Others just disappeared and were never heard from again.”

  “I don’t think we should underestimate the danger,” Pickett said, quickly agreeing with him.

  “So what are you saying? That we let my mother put in another well without a fight?” she demanded.

  “Maybe we should lay low, at least until the head of CH4 is gone,” Pickett suggested.

  “And if there isn’t time to lay low?” she asked, leaning around Duffy to look at the ranch hand. She sounded disappointed that he would even suggest such a thing.

  “Sounds like we need to do what we have to do, but maybe you stay out of it, Oakley,” Duffy said.

  “I hope at least one of you knows that isn’t going to happen.” Oakley shot a look past him again at the ranch hand as she drove. Pickett was shaking his head as if afraid that whatever he said right now would get him into hot water.

  Definitely a strange vibe, Duffy told himself. “Then we make sure nothing happens to you,” he said, studying Oakley. Her long blond hair hung in a single braid, her green eyes were narrowed and her face was flushed. From anger or something else? She gripped the wheel, her fingers tight around it as if she was strangling someone. Or was there something else she was fighting? He leaned forward a little to look at her face in the faint light from the dashboard. There were tears in her green eyes.

  What the hell? he thought and glanced at Pickett, who had leaned back, drawing his Stetson down over his eyes as if planning to sleep the whole way back to Powder Crossing.

  Duffy wasn’t sure what had happened out in that hallway between Oakley and Pickett, but it had him worried—and not just about their friendship.

  * * *

  PICKETT HANSON MENTALLY kicked himself. Standing out in the hallway earlier, he’d had his chance. He’d looked into those amazing green eyes of Oakley’s, convinced that she was feeling something, too. They’d been friends for so long, he never wanted to lose that, and yet he wanted so much more.

  It had been hell making small talk when all he could think about was taking her in his arms and kissing her. Just the thought was terrifying. He had no idea how she would react, let alone if she would respond in kind.

  For a few minutes, before the meeting broke up, he’d felt as if there was a connection. He’d started to... What had he started to say, to do? Wouldn’t the place to start have been to ask her out?

  He prided himself for not being afraid of most anything. He loved trick riding and had been thrown into the dirt many times, but he’d always gotten back up. Asking a girl out had never been one of his problems.

  But this was Oakley and he wanted this more than he’d ever wanted anything. There was so much he needed to tell her and that was the problem. He feared that once she knew the truth... He could lose everything.

  He rode the rest of the way to Powder Crossing worrying about her. He hadn’t gotten her involved with Dirty Business. But he also hadn’t stopped her once she had. If anything, she’d been surprised he was one of the early members.

  “I never expected to see you here,” Oakley had said that first meeting. “You’re so easygoing, so fun and funny. I didn’t think you took anything seriously.”

  “It’s my cover,” he’d joked. “You know mild-mannered ranch hand by day, crime fighter at night.” But he’d seen the way she’d looked at him differently after that. He’d laughed to himself since he’d had a crush on her since he’d come to work at the McKenna Ranch. Back then, the three years’ difference in their ages had seemed like a lot. It no longer did.

  Oakley had been just as surprised that Duffy McKenna had joined the subversive group. The three of them had been inseparable from the time Pickett had come to the ranch. But they’d grown apart until Dirty Business had thrown them together again. Before that they hadn’t even shared how they’d felt about the drilling. Neither man wanted to put Oakley into danger.

  Since joining Dirty Business, the three had spent more time together, going for beers after the secret meetings, talking about what they could do to change the world and sharing stories and laughs. They’d played off each other’s senses of humor and become even closer friends. The old trio back together.

  Pickett wasn’t fool enough not to see that aside from joking around, his good friend Duffy was interested in Oakley as well. If push came to shove, of course she would choose Duffy over a McKenna ranch hand, Pickett told himself. Also, he hated the thought that if he even asked Oakley out, it could cause a rift between him and his best friend.

  He didn’t want that, but the more time he spent with Oakley, the more he found himself wanting something way beyond just friendship. But that would mean being forced to tell her things he’d kept secret for years—all the years he’d been at the McKenna Ranch. So much time had gone by with him hiding the truth, he feared how she would take it.

  When she’d been shot, he’d been terrified that he would lose her without ever telling her how he felt, let alone the truth about himself. Still, he’d held his tongue, praying she would pull through and blaming himself, fearing her shooting had something to do with Dirty Business. He’d had to go to the small local hospital at night when her mother wasn’t there. He would sit by her bedside. The town and the hospital were small enough that visiting hours were never observed in Powder Crossing anyway. But he also knew whoever was working and they would let him in. All he could do was hold her hand and pray that she would survive, and she had.

  That her own brother had shot her had come as a shock. He was still confused as to why CJ had taken the shot at her in the first place. CJ, his mother’s favorite, had always been a cocky hothead who got the run of the ranch. But this time, he’d gone too far. Some were saying that he got what he had coming to him. Pickett wasn’t that charitable. He had little regard for the cowboy. CJ could have killed Oakley.

  Pickett had run across him a few times over the years and found him to be a bully and blowhard. After CJ had shot Oakley, Pickett hoped they didn’t cross paths. He would be tempted to take things into his own hands, even if CJ was her brother. While he had no desire to go to prison, he and Duffy had kicked around ideas about what to do with CJ’s body.

  He smiled at the memory and thoughts of his good friend. Because of that, Duffy was another problem. How serious he was about Oakley was anyone’s guess. Duffy was a McKenna, not that Oakley would let that stop her if she fell for the rancher, while Pickett was a ranch hand, a ranch hand with a secret.

  All total, he knew he should rein in his heart. He chuckled at the thought. His foolish heart had gone rogue and was now running free having taken off with abandon. No amount of reason was going to change that. He couldn’t stay away from Oakley. Just as he couldn’t let anything happen to her.

  The problem was how to save her from herself—let alone keep her safe from what he knew was coming. Not only was she determined to stop her mother and CJ from drilling another coalbed methane well on the Stafford Ranch, but she was just as determined to find out why CJ had shot her and see that he paid for it.

  Either way, Pickett feared it could get her killed, since like her, he also thought CJ was lying about why he’d shot her. CJ and his mother would have had to have been living under a rock not to know about Oakley’s friendship with both him and Duffy as kids.

  What had made CJ take that shot? Maybe it was the fact that the three of them had resumed that friendship more often lately, but Pickett doubted that. It seemed more reasonable that what Oakley had seen that day was the meth lab running at the old homestead over the mountain where she’d ridden her horse.

  But had she also seen CJ and known he was involved? Was that what had him worried she would remember?

  Unfortunately, the lab had been destroyed by whoever had been running it before the sheriff could get any evidence out, and Oakley hadn’t remembered so she couldn’t put CJ at the lab. Which meant that CJ was going to get away with whatever he’d been up to—along with the shooting.

  Unless Oakley remembered.

  CJ must be worried about that, which worried Pickett even more.

  * * *

  THE DRIVE HOME seemed longer tonight, Oakley thought. Or maybe it just felt that way because she was so unsettled.

  “I hate to ask,” Pickett said as they neared Powder Crossing where they’d left their rigs. “You have a plan, Oakley? One that you haven’t shared with us?”

  After what had almost happened in the hallway, she was more aware of him than ever. She still hated that the meeting had let out before she’d gotten to find out what he was going to say, let alone do. She couldn’t help feeling disappointed.

  She drove for a few moments without answering since she knew neither Pickett nor Duffy was going to approve, maybe especially Pickett. He’d been opposed to doing anything that could get them thrown in jail.

  “I’ll do whatever I have to to keep them from drilling on Stafford Ranch,” she said.

  “That does not sound like a plan,” Pickett pointed out.

  “I’m with Oakley,” Duffy said. “We have to draw a line in the sand. Seems like the place to start would be to stop this new well.” Duffy was always up for disabling the equipment as a way to protest the drilling. He’d become quite good at it.

  She could feel Pickett’s gaze on her as she drove. Just as she could almost hear his disapproval without him saying a word. He didn’t understand that there was no getting through to CJ and her mother. She knew it was a desperate move, what she was planning to do. So desperate that she had no intention of telling either of them.

  Maybe it wouldn’t stop the drilling, but it would certainly make her intensions clear to her mother. It might also make the gas company realize that it was too costly for them to do business in this river basin before they destroyed it.

  Not that she was taking this lightly. She could get arrested. Or worse, killed, she thought with a shudder.

  “Can we talk about it at least?” Pickett asked. “Whatever you have planned, I want to know about it. Promise you won’t go rogue on me and not let me know.”

  She smiled over at him and felt warmth rush through her. Oh, Pickett, she thought and then looked at Duffy, shaken by how much she loved both of these cowboys. She quickly turned back to her driving.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE NEXT MORNING Oakley drove toward the Stafford Ranch through shafts of sunlight, her mind pinballing from her mother and CJ to Pickett last night in the hallway.

  After returning from Miles City, Duffy had suggested that they pick up some beer and do what they usually did after a Dirty Business meeting. They would go out to the old water tower to talk and drink. Like it had been when they were younger, it was their favorite spot to kick back, dangle their legs over the walkway ledge and enjoy the privacy as well as the view.

  They’d been doing this for years, but last night Pickett had begged off and so had Oakley. Usually, their bravery and determination would be buoyed by the alcohol, making it easy to agree that they had to keep fighting the gas company even though they all knew it could get them thrown in jail—if not killed—but that they weren’t going to let that stop them.

  Last night it appeared that none of them was feeling it, except for Duffy. It was late enough that Oakley didn’t feel like driving back to the ranch, so she’d crashed at a friend’s house in town. She needed sleep in order to be ready to face her mother and CJ, but she couldn’t help replaying those moments in the hallway with Pickett. She hadn’t imagined that look in his eyes right before the meeting had broken up, had she? Would he have kissed her?

  Those thoughts were enough to steal her sleep. She’d awakened this morning frustrated, aching to know what might have happened if the meeting had run just a little longer and she’d found out whatever it was Pickett had been about to do or say.

  That was the worst part. Not knowing. Maybe it had been nothing. A spur of the moment mistake. Whatever it was, would it happen again? Only if she and Pickett were alone.

  As she drove to the ranch, she tried to prepare herself. She knew that she couldn’t put off the family reunion any longer. Tilly was in Oregon with Cooper. That left her brothers Brand and Ryder, who, if she knew them, which of course she did, would have gotten up early and headed out to mend fence or move cattle to avoid both their mother and CJ.

  She didn’t blame them. She had often done that growing up as well, but after her mother’s message, she knew postponing this would be futile. Anyway, she was anxious to know what was going on with her mother. This morning she would test the waters, all the while trying to keep from alienating either her mother or CJ. She needed to bide her time before she confronted her brother—without her mother around.

  After parking, she headed for the house, a little concerned. If her worst fears were correct, then CJ had tried to kill her once. What would stop him from trying again to make sure she never remembered what had happened before he shot her?

  There were new wooden ramps going into the house and a van parked out front. It appeared CJ wasn’t walking yet—if ever again. Not that her brother wouldn’t be dangerous—even in a wheelchair.

  “Where have you been?” her mother demanded the moment Oakley walked into the house. She had started for the stairs, hoping to at least get a shower and change of clothes before what she knew would be a confrontation with her mother—if not her brother. “I thought after I left you a message, you would be here when we got home.”

  She stopped on the lower stairs and turned back. “I spent the night at Amy’s. I wasn’t sure you’d be home yet. You didn’t mention what time you would be arriving.” She could feel her mother’s gaze on her.

  Charlotte was still a beautiful woman with her long blond hair that looked grayer than Oakley remembered. Her mother wore it in a no-nonsense plait that was most often wound at the nape of her neck. Her eyes, like her daughter’s, were a deep emerald green, darker in anger, like right now.

  “Welcome home,” Oakley said as cheerfully as she could manage. In truth, it had been nice having both her mother and CJ gone from the ranch. Things had run smoothly thanks to Tilly and their brothers. It had been almost peaceful except that they’d all known it was temporary.

  She waited a few moments for her mother to ask how she was doing, if she’d healed from the gunshot that had almost killed her. But even as she waited, she knew all her mother’s concerns were elsewhere. “Nice new ramps out front.” If she’d had any questions about her brother’s health, she no longer did. “Where’s CJ?”