Dark Side of the River, page 3
CHAPTER THREE
AFTER PASSING TREYTON MCKENNA on her way in, Tilly Stafford headed for the sheriff’s office, her body trembling with more emotions than she could handle right now. Fortunately, she’d avoided a confrontation with Treyton. He had stormed out so fast it was as if he hadn’t even seen her.
Which was fine with Tilly. Running into Cooper McKenna had been bad enough. She’d thought she’d seen the last of him. Now he was back? He just happened to return today? Just happened to find her sister after she was shot? After all this time, he just happened to pick today to cross paths with her?
She marched toward the sheriff’s open door, ignoring the dispatcher who was asking if she needed help.
Stuart looked up as she stormed in. Without a word, he got up, came around his desk and pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry.” He rubbed her back as she fought the tears that she’d dammed up since hearing the news. She stayed there taking the comfort he offered for a few moments before she pulled back to look into his handsome face. She’d known Stuart all her life. Just as she had Cooper. The three of them had gone to the same rural school, often with the same classes, especially in high school.
“I need to know what happened,” she said, wanting the man she’d recently been dating to be the sheriff now.
He nodded and offered her a chair as he went to close the door before returning to his desk. He cleared his voice. “I can only tell you what I know, which isn’t a lot. I’m sure you heard that Cooper found your sister after she’d been shot and called 911. If he hadn’t found her... He saved her life.”
She felt a stab of guilt as she thought about the way she’d just treated him outside. He was a McKenna; she’d just assumed since Oakley had been found coming out of McKenna property that he’d had something to do with her condition. Or knew who had.
“Why would anyone shoot Oakley?” she demanded.
“I don’t know yet. The investigation has just begun. More than likely it was an accident. Maybe a hunter or—”
“Or one of those ranch hands on the McKenna place,” she snapped. “A hunter? Are you serious? It’s the end of June. There’s no hunting season open.”
He leaned forward. “This is Montana. There is always something to shoot by people who need to kill something.” He sighed. “It would help if we knew what she was doing there in the first place. Do you have any idea?”
She shook her head. “Even if Oakley was trespassing, the McKennas can’t just shoot her and get away with it.”
“Of course they can’t. But we don’t know that they did. We don’t know who shot her, Tilly. But I’m going to find out. Are you sure you don’t know what she might have been doing there?”
She didn’t. Scalding tears suddenly burned her eyes. Her sister was in the hospital fighting for her life, and what hurt was that Tilly had no idea why. She and Oakley hadn’t been close in months. She blamed herself as the older sister, because she should have noticed her sister pulling away from her.
“She’s been secretive lately like she was hiding something,” Tilly said. “I just assumed it was a man she didn’t want me to know about. Probably because I wouldn’t have approved.”
“You don’t know who?”
She shook her head before voicing her greatest fear. “What if she had hooked up with someone from the McKenna Ranch?”
“You mean like Treyton or Duffy?”
Tilly didn’t know which would be worse. The arrogant, angry Treyton, whom she’d passed on the way into the sheriff’s office. Or the youngest male McKenna, Duffy, who at thirty was wilder than Cooper and just as irresponsible. “How long has Cooper been back?”
“He said he just drove in today,” Stu said. “I have no reason to believe otherwise.”
She mugged a face at that. Stuart was Cooper’s friend. He’d always take up for him. Just the thought of Cooper reminded her of his interest in Oakley’s horse. “Was Oakley’s horse returned to the ranch? Cooper said she was worried about it.”
“You saw Cooper?”
Tilly tried not to read anything into the question or what she’d thought she’d heard in it. Was he jealous of her tumultuous history with Cooper? Their wrestling match all those years ago was made famous by that sculptor who’d taken a photo that day. Her mother had threatened to buy the sculpture and destroy it, but the piece had sold before she could get her hands on it.
There was no reason for Stuart to be jealous. The two of them had been dating for only a few weeks. It wasn’t serious. They hadn’t even gotten intimate, although she knew he was hoping that was where they were headed.
“Cooper kept asking about her horse.” She shook her head, wishing she hadn’t brought it up. There was definitely something wrong with that cowboy.
“The horse is fine. I’m sure it’s already been returned, but I’ll double-check.” As if he could see that she was still thinking about Cooper, he said, “He didn’t shoot your sister.”
She knew that on some level. No matter how many times she’d butted heads with Cooper, she knew he wasn’t a killer.
“Tilly, anything you can tell me about your sister’s recent activities would help.”
“I’ll talk to my brothers and my mother. They might know.”
“I’ll be speaking to them and the McKennas. It would really help if we knew what she was doing on the McKenna Ranch.”
Slowly, she got to her feet. “I’ll be at the hospital. If you hear anything...”
“I’ll call you.” He started to rise to see her out, but she waved him back down and left. If he offered her more sympathy, she feared she wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears any longer.
“Just find out who shot my sister,” she said as she closed the door behind her.
* * *
AS HOLDEN MCKENNA saddled his horse, he tried to talk himself out of what he was about to do. The sheriff had said that he hadn’t been able to reach Oakley’s mother because she’d gone for a horseback ride. While he didn’t want to be the person to tell her the news, he felt strongly that it would be better coming from him.
He wasn’t using this tragedy as an excuse to see her, he told himself as he swung into the saddle and rode toward the spot where the two ranches joined. That it was a favorite place that Charlotte Stafford often rode hadn’t been lost on him. He reminded himself that he was probably on a fool’s errand. By now, she could have returned to her ranch, heard about Oakley and was probably on her way to the hospital.
But as he rode through the thick cottonwoods toward the creek that flowed into the Powder River, he spotted her. She’d taken off her boots and socks, rolled up her jeans and was now wading in the warm water. The sight of her made him catch his breath. She was still a willowy beauty even after all these years. Her hair was still long, although there were strands of silver among the gold. She still usually wore it in a braid, one long, thick plait that hung almost to her waist. But today, she had loosened the plait, letting her hair float around her slim shoulders in a golden cascade.
She was a vision, taking his breath away. It made him realize how long it had been since he’d seen her like this, relaxed, in her element, possibly even happy.
Her horse, grazing nearby, lifted his head as Holden dismounted and started toward Charlotte. Transfixed by her, he was flooded by memories of other warm summer Montana days by this creek. He felt a familiar ache, an old longing that had eaten away at him for years.
As if sensing him, she looked up. It had been so long since he’d looked into those emerald eyes. The sun-dappled leaves of the cottonwoods rustled in the slight breeze, throwing shadow and light over her beautiful face. Their gazes met for an instant before she moved, without a word, to her horse.
For a moment, he thought she was going for a gun. He thought it poetic that he might die here at her hand. Instead, she pulled out a bullwhip. As she turned to look at him, she snapped the whip, knocking off his Stetson, the tip of the cattail slashing his cheek.
“Lottie,” he said as she started to snap the whip again. The use of his nickname for her made her green eyes flare in warning. He moved swiftly to her, grabbing the whip before she could snap it again.
Taking it from her, he pushed her back against the trunk of a large cottonwood, aware that they were both breathing hard. Their eyes met in that instant before he kissed her, the passion between them hotter and more dangerous because of all the time they’d been apart and the betrayal between them.
He recoiled as she bit his lip hard, drawing blood yet again. They stared at each other for a long moment before she kissed him with a longing he knew only too well. The sound she made sent a river of desire raging through his veins. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, clinging to him as if, like him, she’d been denying this for far too long. He’d never felt like this with any other woman, including his two wives. It had always been Lottie. Would always be Lottie.
At the sound of a rider approaching, they pushed apart, adjusting their clothing and their expressions as her ranch manager, Boyle Wilson, came riding up. A rugged, surly man in his midfifties, Boyle often had a scowl on his face. Holden had once seen him kick a dog. Boyle went after the animal as if he planned to kill it. Holden had jumped him, throwing the man to the ground as the dog scrambled away. Alfred Wilson, Boyle’s father and then-manager at Stafford Ranch, had pulled Holden off his son. But not before Holden had seen a malevolence close to evil in that young man’s face, the same look he now saw etched deep in the now-older Boyle’s expression.
The ranch manager drew up sharply, reining in his horse in obvious surprise at seeing Holden not just on the Stafford Ranch—but with his boss. The one thing Holden knew about Boyle was that he was very protective of Charlotte, maybe a little too much so.
“I was just leaving,” Holden said, shifting his gaze to Lottie. She had regained her composure more quickly than him. Now she stood looking regal, the queen of the manor, his nemesis and his neighbor, his once-lover, now his enemy.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Boyle said sarcastically, clearly hoping the exact opposite. “There’s been a shooting,” he said, glaring at Holden as if he recognized the kind of tension roiling between them. “It’s Oakley,” he said to his boss. “She was shot on the McKenna Ranch. Cooper was the one who apparently found her.”
Lottie glared at Holden as her fingers worked urgently to pull her long hair back into a tightly contained twist. “Is that what you rode over here to tell me?” she demanded.
“Cooper called 911 and got her to the hospital.” He didn’t mention that his son was taken into custody and transported to the sheriff’s office. She’d hear about that soon enough. “Lottie,” he said. “The sheriff told me that he’d been trying to reach you. I knew where I could find you.”
She shook her head, her eyes warning him not to say his nickname for her again. He could see that she was already regretting that seeing him here had made her weaken, just as it had him. It had been too long since they’d seen each other completely alone in a place they’d once made love in secret. The difference was, he didn’t regret that stolen moment of wild abandon. But he could see that she did. Now she hated him more than ever, her look said.
He nodded, turned and walked toward where he had ground-tied his horse, not sure she wouldn’t put a bullet into his back. Swinging up into the saddle, he turned to look at her, his heart aching. If he hadn’t known her so well, he might have thought that all that anger was for him.
But he could see that she would never forgive herself for kissing him back the way she had, for wanting him as desperately as he wanted her. He had enough self-loathing for both of them. He didn’t want her hating herself for old feelings neither of them had been able to control.
“I’m sorry about Oakley,” he said. He spurred his horse, riding away sick with worry about their families. He felt more regret than he’d ever known. He was responsible for the animosity between the families. Years ago he’d betrayed Lottie and lost her forever, creating this ever-widening chasm between them and their own children.
* * *
“GO BACK TO the house,” Charlotte ordered Boyle without looking at him. But she could feel his disapproving look, sitting up there on his horse, looking down at her, judging her. As if he could judge her more critically than she was doing herself. “Go!”
She crossed to where she’d left her socks and boots earlier, but didn’t lower herself to the boulder to put them on until she’d heard him ride away. Sitting down heavily on the large, smooth stone, she started to lean over to pick up her socks. The pain and anger and fear came hand in hand, hard and fast, doubling her over. She opened her mouth to let out all the anguish inside her, but no scream emerged.
How much longer could she pretend she was all right? The wave of pity she felt for herself was what made her snatch up her socks and angrily pull them on over her sandy feet. Her daughter had been shot. Oakley, her baby. Who would do that?
Someone as angry as she often felt, she thought as she tugged on her boots. Why had she gone for the whip instead of her gun? Because she’d wanted to hurt Holden—not kill him. She promised herself if she ever caught him beside the creek at their old place again, she’d go for the gun—and she’d use it, ending this for both of them.
With a curse, she thought how much he looked the same. Older, just like her, his dark hair salted with gray, making him even more handsome. He still had the broad shoulders and slim hips, and she could attest to how strong he still was. But it was his blue eyes, what she’d seen in them, that had made her weaken.
She pushed the thought away and rose. Mounting her horse, she rode hard back toward the ranch house as if the memories were chasing her. Once there, she left her horse for Boyle to take care of, and she headed for the house and her cell phone.
But as she walked in, she saw Tilly and immediately knew that her daughter had been waiting for her. “Oakley?” Charlotte asked, heart rising to her throat.
“She made it through surgery, but she’s in serious condition,” Tilly said, her voice breaking with emotion. “I came home to get you.”
Charlotte could see how upset her older daughter was. But she knew that if she tried to comfort her, she herself would break down. Neither of them needed that right now, so she didn’t move. They had to get to Oakley. “Just give me a few minutes to change,” she said, feeling the sand between her toes and the taste of Holden McKenna on her lips. She had to get rid of both before she faced what was waiting for her at the hospital as she turned and headed up the stairs.
Now more than ever, she had to be strong. She’d shown enough weakness already today.
* * *
STU CALLED IN the new state medical examiner, Frank Brewer. Powder Crossing was a small town without the kind of resources needed to investigate a shooting involving two families like the McKennas and Staffords. If Oakley died, Stu would be forced to call in the state crime investigators. He’d be glad to hand it over to them. But right now, it was still his investigation.
Brewer had flown to the local airfield, and the sheriff picked him up and brought him to the crime scene out on the county road. On the way, he’d filled Frank in on what Cooper had told him.
“It does appear she was being chased or thought she was, given the prints left in the earth under the trees,” Brewer agreed once he’d seen the crime scene.
Deputy Dodson had been waiting. The three of them moved through the deep shadows of the cottonwood grove to the sound of crickets and grasshoppers. The dark canopy of leaves overhead had a suffocating feel, as if he couldn’t draw enough breath. Stu was glad when they left the trees and entered the open area before the rugged badlands rose toward the sky. A ravine dotted with cedar and rock cliffs had carved a passage back into the mountains.
“She came riding out of there,” Deputy Dodson said. He’d volunteered to protect the crime scene after dropping off Cooper at the sheriff’s department. Clearly, he’d done some investigating on his own. “She wasn’t alone. There was another rider with her—or at least behind her. I think it’s someone she met back in there and things didn’t go quite like either of them expected and he chased after her.”
Stu shot him a warning look to shut up.
“She was already being chased through the ravine, from what I can tell,” Dodson said, ignoring the warning as he turned to the medical examiner as if Stu wasn’t even there. “What’s odd is that when she came out, she headed for the woods. Whoever was chasing her followed for a ways, then went the other way back toward the McKenna Ranch house.” They’d been following the tracks as they walked and now stopped at the edge of the opening that cut back into the mountains.
“Or the rider could have headed for the Stafford Ranch, since it is just beyond those hills over there,” Stu said to Brewer, wanting to clarify that whoever was chasing Oakley didn’t necessarily come from the McKenna Ranch house. As he did, he desperately wanted an excuse to send his deputy back to the road.
“If the other rider shot her, there is no indication here that she was already hit,” Brewer said. “I haven’t seen any blood. For her to make it all the way to the road as your eyewitness said, I’d say she must have made it as far as the trees before she was shot.”
“Eyewitness,” Dodson said, and scoffed. “My instincts are that Cooper McKenna’s the one who shot her. Something about him bothers me.”
His deputy had made his suspicions perfectly clear—no evidence to back it up aside.
Stu stepped away as he got a call from the lab. “Sheriff Layton,” he said into the phone.
“You asked for an update on the bullet taken out of Oakley Stafford as soon as I had it,” the lab tech said. “It’s a 130-grain load from a 270 rifle. I’m checking to see if this particular rifle has been used in an earlier crime. I’ll let you know.”
