Going downstairs, she unlocked the back entry door from the alley and hurriedly returned to her apartment. Right now she just wanted a few moments to herself before he arrived. That’s about all she got because she’d barely taken a breath before she heard his boot soles as he mounted the back steps. He sounded in a hurry.

  She reminded herself that, despite her feelings for him, she could be opening her door to a killer. Taking a deep breath, she threw the apartment door open before he could knock.

  CHAPTER TEN

  JAXSON’S APPEARANCE SHOCKED HER. He looked as if he’d had a worse day than hers. His face was pale and drawn, his eyes bloodshot and filled with something she’d never seen there before. Fear.

  Had he somehow found out that she’d gone to Blackfoot? Was he that afraid of being busted? No, she thought, it was something even worse.

  She felt a pull toward him stronger than gravity. Her heart ached to see him like this, even as she reminded herself that he was a liar—and maybe far worse.

  “Luna.” There was so much pain and emotion in that one word that she thought he might try to take her in his arms. She stepped back and watched him swallow before he entered the small apartment. She shut the door and locked it, before turning to him.

  He’d stopped in the middle of the floor, his back to her. He appeared to be looking at her overnight case where she’d dropped it. She hadn’t been sure how long she’d be gone. As it was, she’d been so anxious to get back to Buckhorn, that she’d driven straight through. She hadn’t taken the time to unpack it and put everything away.

  “Have you heard?” he asked, his voice rough.

  “About Vi? She really was murdered?”

  When he turned to face her, his expression was so grim there was no doubt. Yet she couldn’t believe he was taking Vi’s murder this hard. He was a lawman. Nothing had rattled him with his job in the past. So it had to be more than Vi’s murder.

  A lump rose in her throat as she asked, “I heard there might have been a second...body?”

  His expression darkened, growing even more grim. He swallowed and asked, “Can we sit down? There’s something I have to tell you.”

  She nodded, the gravity of his words forming knots in her chest. All her instincts told her that she didn’t want to hear this. “Do you want...coffee?” She suspected they both were going to need something stronger, but it was way too early in the morning for alcohol. Not to mention the fact that she had clients coming soon.

  He declined the coffee as he dropped onto her couch and bent over to bury his face in his hands.

  She felt her heart break at the sight of his anguish and was suddenly terrified of what he was going to tell her. Making a pot of coffee had its appeal just to postpone the inevitable. Whatever it was, it had to be far worse than what she’d already found out about him.

  Heart pounding, she realized there was no putting this off. Clearly there was something he was ready to tell her. She had to know what was wrong, maybe what had been wrong between them all along.

  Taking a seat on the other end of the couch, she turned to face him. “What is it you have to tell me?”

  He lifted his head, his gaze falling again on her suitcase. “Your trip. It wasn’t bad news about your father, was it?”

  “No.” Luna couldn’t help being touched that even as upset as he obviously was, he’d been worried about her. He knew how close she was with her father. “What’s going on, Jaxson?”

  “I’ve wanted to tell you the truth for a while now,” he mumbled before turning to look at her. “I was afraid of losing you.”

  Losing her? Was this about Tucker Price? She wanted to tell him that her upcoming so-called date was only a horseback ride on his ranch. There was only one man she was interested in. Jaxson Gray. Or at least the Jaxson Gray she’d thought she’d been falling in love with.

  She watched him swallow again, her own throat suddenly dry. No, this was something much worse than her “date” with the local rancher’s son.

  “That story I told you about my perfect family? It wasn’t true.”

  There’s more, she thought bracing herself. But why was he telling her this now? Something more must have happened.

  His gaze returned to her overnight bag. She saw him frown. “So your trip...” he said. “You didn’t say where you went.”

  He was clearly stalling. She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself against what she feared was coming. “Blackfoot, Idaho.” She saw his startled expression. “Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

  Jaxson looked as if she’d punched him in the stomach. “Why would you—”

  “I wanted to find out why you lied to me.”

  He looked down at his boots and then back up at her. She felt the tension thick as Montana mud between them. He must have felt it too because he didn’t seem to know what to say or do next. “If you’ll let me explain...”

  She couldn’t have denied him, not given the way he was looking at her. She had to hear him out, to give him a chance because she couldn’t keep pretending what she felt for him wasn’t serious. “Why pretend you had the perfect family?” she asked, even as she worried he might still lie to her.

  He sighed. “After you told me about your mom and dad, I couldn’t bear to tell you the truth about my family. I’m sorry I lied to you.”

  “Being raised by a single mother isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”

  “If only it were that simple.” He looked away for a moment. “My mother had problems. Back then, no one talked about bipolar disorder, at least not in the town where we lived. I never knew who I was coming home to after school. She could be in the kitchen, making ten different things, not finishing any of them, the radio blasting, her dancing around, flour everywhere.” He closed his eyes for a moment as if he could see what had become a familiar scene in his youth.

  “Or I could come home to find the house dark, and her bedroom door closed. I was always afraid to open it for fear of what...” He rubbed a hand over his face. “When she was in one of her down episodes, she would stay in bed for days. She refused to see a doctor, saying she was just tired. Maybe if I had convinced her to see a professional who could have helped her...”

  Luna reached over to touch his shoulder. He placed his hand over hers for a moment. It was warm, strong, his touch tender. “I’m so sorry.” She could understand why he’d made up the stable, loving, overachiever family. “But that’s not all, is it?” She took a wild guess. “This is about Amy, isn’t it?”

  “Amy.” He said her name like a curse. “It’s always been about Amy.”

  She decided to give him a minute and maybe herself as well. “I saw an old friend of yours when I was in Blackfoot,” she said as she got up, went into the kitchen and began to make a pot of coffee. She couldn’t imagine his childhood. It broke her heart. Nor could she imagine what more there could be unless he had killed Amy. Her hands trembled as she grabbed the can of coffee from the shelf.

  Startled, she realized that Jaxson had come into the kitchen and now stood directly behind her. He took the can from her, easing it out of her trembling hands.

  “Katie seemed nice,” she said, stepping away to let him make the coffee. His back was to her. She saw him tense at the name.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, head down. “Did you tell Katie—”

  “About you? No. She’s now a librarian. She’s engaged.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “I never wanted to hurt her.”

  Hurt her? Hurt her like he had Amy? She watched his hands. They were large strong hands, the fingers long. She looked away, hating that her thoughts had veered off to regret. She’d often wondered what those hands would feel like exploring her body. Now she feared those hands could have done serious harm. Yet, even as she thought it, her heart argued that this man couldn’t seriously hurt anyone.

  Her pulse hammered in her ears as she asked the one question that had haunted her since learning the the truth. “Why, in the lie you told me, did you say Amy was dead?”

  He reached to turn the coffeepot on. “I don’t know. I guess because I knew she was dead,” he said, his back still to her, his voice rough with emotion. He turned slowly to look at her.

  She felt her heart bump in her chest, her breath catching even as she told herself she knew this man, knew what he was capable of.

  “I didn’t kill her, and I didn’t lie to you about everything. That kiss the other night after our dance—”

  “Yes, what was that kiss about? For months you’ve kept me at arm’s length until that kiss.”

  “I’m sorry. I should never have gotten involved with you.”

  “Why did you?” she demanded, his words hurting more than she’d thought they would. “Why were you so interested in Buckhorn and the people who live here?” She saw that she’d hit a nerve. Heart racing, she said, “You used me, pumping me about Buckhorn and the people who live here. Why?”

  “I was trying to find out what happened to Amy,” he said and turned to take down two mugs from the cupboard.

  “It was always about Amy,” she said, the words tasting bitter in her mouth.

  “No, it wasn’t like that. When I met you...” He shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you.” He turned to fill the mugs then motioned to the living room. Like a sleepwalker, she followed him back to the couch, cupping the mug in her hands to soak up the warmth since her body had gone ice-cold. At least she’d been right about one thing. This had been about Amy.

  * * *

  SOMEHOW, JAXSON HAD to get the whole story out. He stared down at the mug in his hands and began at the beginning, his voice breaking as he recounted the story. “After Katie and I broke up... We were both going away to separate colleges and I didn’t know what my future held. With my mom sick...”

  “You met Amy,” Luna said, sounding resigned to hear this.

  He looked miserable. “Old story. A party. Too much to drink. Looking up to find a girl standing in front of me with a gap between her teeth wearing a pair of red high heels.” He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the one red high heel he’d seen under the store floorboards.

  “I asked about her shoes since she was so small and the heels so red, she looked like she was playing dress-up. She said they were her lucky shoes. Later she said because she met me that night, it proved just how lucky they were.” He shook his head. “I was drunk and angry and upset that night. My mother had been having an episode, Katie and I had argued in English class earlier that day, my coach was on my ass, warning me not to screw up and lose a college scholarship and my bright future.” He groaned at the memory, and he looked over at Luna. She appeared to be holding her breath.

  “I’ve replayed that night so many times, wishing I’d never gone to that party.” Amy Franklin had been there, appearing in front of him, need and want in her brown eyes, and he’d been young and foolish and in just the kind of mood to do something stupid. In an instant he had ruined his life.

  “My coach used to say that it was all about the split-second decisions I made on the field. Turns out, it’s true of life as well.” Amy Franklin had landed in his world like a live bomb he couldn’t defuse. All he’d been able to do was wait for it to go off. And then it had. Now it was too late to change any of that, he reminded himself.

  “A one-night stand turned into my coming home to find Amy sitting in our living room, visiting with my mother. My mother liked her, probably because she saw herself in Amy, in her neediness. When Amy got into a fight with her parents, my mom insisted she move in with us.” He shook his head again. “Things got complicated quickly. Amy knew that there was no her and I. It had been just that one time, a mistake.

  “But my mom had filled her head with a story about the only man she said she’d ever loved—my father, Owen Henry, the man who ran out on us. Amy became obsessed with finding him.” He raked a hand through his hair. “She thought it would save my mother if she found him and brought him back to Blackfoot.”

  * * *

  LUNA HAD EXPECTED to hear him tell her a love story. Instead he’d told her a sad tale of a disillusioned, needy young girl who’d fallen for a fantasy. “Surely you tried to stop her.”

  “Of course I did. It was a ridiculous idea. My father had been gone for years. I barely remembered him. For all I knew, he was dead. I tried to reason with her.” He cleared his throat. “When I couldn’t, I’d had enough and told her she had to go home. It was late. My mother was upset and so was Amy, but I couldn’t take any more. I told her she could stay the night but that was it. She had to leave in the morning.”

  He took a breath and continued, “Amy had been staying on the floor in my mother’s room. I feared my mother was encouraging her, making her believe that if she could bring my father back, she would get well and we’d all be a family. That night I heard Amy promise my mother she was going to find him. The next morning Amy was gone. A few days later, cops showed up at our door. According to her parents, Amy hadn’t gone home. She’d disappeared. Everyone thought I’d done something to her. I lost any chance for a scholarship. My mother died not that long after her disappearance. It was a nightmare.”

  “You told the police all of this?”

  He nodded. “They didn’t believe me. It did sound ludicrous. Had they known what Amy was like... Anyway, if they looked into the information I gave them, they never said. Nor did they find her. My mother had told her that my father was a cowboy who’d been born and raised in Montana on a ranch. According to my mother, he’d promised to take the two of us there one day. But first he had to straighten out some things with his family.” He scoffed and took a gulp of his coffee. Like hers, it was probably now lukewarm, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Luna considered what she’d learned about Jaxson. Jaxson had worked on several different ranches in Wyoming before attending MSU in Bozeman and the law enforcement academy and then getting hired on at the marshal’s department as a deputy in this county. Had all of that just been about finding Amy by tracking his father? “A ranch, huh,” she said, finally finding her voice. “That’s not much help given the size of Montana and the number of ranches.”

  “I had a pretty good idea of where to start,” he said. “My mother had this ceramic bird figurine that apparently my father had given her when they’d first met. She’d broken the stupid bird a few times in one of her manic states and glued it back together, always adhering the sticker on the bottom that said it was purchased at the Buckhorn General Store, Buckhorn, Montana.”

  Luna felt a start. She saw it all now. The job as a cowboy, then a deputy. All the questions he’d asked about Buckhorn and the people who lived here. “Amy knew about the ceramic bird and where it had been purchased,” she said. “You think she came to Buckhorn?”

  His eyes shone. “I know she did.”

  Luna felt her pulse jump. “Did she find your father?”

  “I have no idea. I never heard from her after she left Idaho.”

  She frowned. “Then how can you be sure she came to Buckhorn?”

  His gaze locked with hers again and she saw the pain and fear she’d seen earlier. Looking into his eyes, seeing the darkness there, her words came out a whisper. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I found her. After having this hanging over my head all these years, I found her.” His voice broke. “She was buried under the floorboards at the Buckhorn General Store where I suspect she’s been all this time.”

  Luna felt goose bumps race across her flesh. She was too shocked to speak. She listened as he explained how Dave from the bar had sawed around Vi’s body to remove both it and the flooring. “It took Vi Mullen’s murder for Amy’s remains to turn up,” he said.

  Still in shock, she asked, “How can you be sure it’s Amy? I mean after all these years...”

  “The body had mummified, but I recognized her suitcase and one of her...red high heel shoes. It has to be her.”

  “How did she—”

  “Die?” He shook his head. “Maybe the coroner will be able to tell.”

  She finished what she had been trying to ask. “How did she end up under the floorboards of the old store?”

  “Apparently the flooring in the storage area was replaced about the time when she came here looking for my father seventeen years ago.”

  Luna’s mind whirled. She felt sick to her stomach as she fought to make sense of this.

  “Why she thought my father might still be here...” He rubbed his neck.

  “You’ve never found him?” she asked.

  “I never looked. I had no interest in finding him. I never bought into his cockamamie story about making things right with his family. My mother was the only one who believed that. Except for Amy and look where it got her.” He shook his head. He looked exhausted but not as scared as he had when she’d opened the door. “I was just looking for Amy and some indication of what had happened to her. I followed her to Buckhorn seventeen years ago, but couldn’t find anyone who’d seen her. But I just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that Buckhorn held the answer.”

  “That’s why you took the deputy job here,” she said. “Maybe there’s something in her belongings that will provide a clue as to what happened to her and whether or not she found your father.”

  He shrugged. “You see now why I lied to you, why I did my best not to get involved with you? Yes, I did need your help. I needed to know about Buckhorn and the people who live here. I just had this feeling that Amy had made it this far. Now do you see? This has been hanging over me for seventeen years...”