Читать книгу Unforgiven - B.J. Daniels, B.J. Daniels - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

CARSON COULDN’T TAKE his eyes off his sister. When he’d left she’d been a tomboy, wild as the country WT couldn’t keep her out of. Eleven years later, she’d turned into a beautiful woman. Her long hair, plaited to hang over one shoulder, was now the color of rust-red fall leaves, her eyes a paler blue than his own. A sprinkling of freckles graced her cheeks and nose. Even after all these years she never tried to conceal them with makeup.

He smiled. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” Or how badly he felt about the pain he’d caused her. “Little sis,” he said, pulling her into his arms again.

She hugged him tightly, making him wonder what their father had told her about his return. Given her surprised reaction, he’d guess the old man hadn’t told her anything.

“Why are we standing out here? Let’s go inside,” WT demanded impatiently. “Don’t worry about your luggage. I’ll have one of the ranch hands unload it for you. You haven’t even seen the house yet.”

Carson released Destry and glanced behind him at the looming structure. How could he miss it? He’d seen the massive house perched like a huge boulder on the hill from way down the road. He didn’t need to ask why his father had built such a house. Apparently WT still hadn’t shed that chip on his shoulder after growing up poor in the old homestead house down the mountain. Back then, the house and a few acres of chicken-scratch earth were all he’d had.

But WT had changed that after inheriting the place when he was only a teen. He’d worked hard and had done well by the time he’d married. Carson had never known poverty, nothing even close to it.

But WT couldn’t seem to shake off the dust of his earlier life. He just kept buying, building, yearning for more. The manor on the mountain, planes, a private airstrip, and he’d even mentioned that he’d built a swimming pool behind the house. A swimming pool in this part of Montana so close to the mountains? How impractical was that?

As his son, Carson had certainly benefited from his father’s hard work. But it came at a price, one he’d grown damned tired of paying.

“Wait a minute, WT,” he said as his father began to wheel himself back toward the house. He hadn’t called him Dad since the fourth grade. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

* * *

DESTRY WATCHED THE passenger side of the sports car open and one long slim leg slide out.

She hadn’t noticed anyone else in the car, not with the sun glinting off the windshield, and neither she nor her father had apparently considered that Carson might bring someone home with him. That now seemed shortsighted. Carson was thirty-one. It was conceivable he’d have a girlfriend or possibly even a wife.

Destry glanced at her father and saw his surprised expression. She cringed. WT hated surprises—and Carson had to know that.

“I want you to meet Cherry,” her brother said, going to the car to help the woman out.

Destry felt her mouth drop open. Cherry was tall, almost as tall as Carson who stood six-two. She was a bleached blonde with a dark tan, slim with large breasts.

Cherry gave WT a hundred-watt smile with her perfectly capped ultrawhite teeth, which were almost a distraction from the skimpy dress she wore.

Carson was looking at their father expectantly, as if awaiting his reaction. There was a hard glint in her brother’s eyes. He had to know what WT’s reaction was going to be. It was almost as if he was daring their father to say something about the woman he’d brought home.

Beside her, their father let out an oath under his breath. Destry didn’t need to see WT’s expression to know this wasn’t the way he’d envisioned his son’s homecoming.

Cherry stepped over to WT’s wheelchair and put out her hand.

He gave her a limp handshake and looked to Carson. “I think it would be best if your...friend stayed in a motel in Big Timber.” Big Timber was the closest town of any size and twenty miles away. “Of course I’ll pick up the tab.” Only then did he turn his gaze to Cherry again. “I thought Carson would have told you. We have business to discuss. You’d be bored to tears way out here on the ranch.”

“WT,” Carson said in the awkward silence that followed, “Cherry is my fiancée.”

“Destry, show Cherry the swimming pool,” her father ordered. “Carson and I need to talk. In private.”

* * *

WT ROLLED HIMSELF INTO his den and straight to the bar. His son had brought home a Vegas showgirl and thought he was going to marry her? Over his dead body. As he shakily poured himself a drink, he realized that might be a possibility if he didn’t calm down.

“I’ll take one of those,” Carson said as he came into the room behind him. “I have the feeling I’m going to need it.”

Unable to look at his son right now, he downed his drink, then poured them both one. His hands were shaking, his heart jackhammering in his chest.

“Close the door,” he ordered and listened until he heard the door shut. “You aren’t going to marry that woman,” he stated between gritted teeth as he turned his wheelchair around to face his son.

Carson took the drink WT held out to him and leaned against the long built-in bar. His son had grown into a fine-looking man. WT felt a surge of pride. Until he noticed the way his son was dressed. Loafers, a polo shirt and chinos, for God’s sake. Who the hell did he think he was? He was the son of a rancher.

WT hated to think what that sports car parked out front had cost or about how much money he’d spent keeping Carson away from Beartooth.

“You aren’t going to marry that woman,” he repeated.

Carson met his gaze and held it with a challenge that surprised WT. With an inward shudder, he realized this wasn’t the son he’d sent away more than a decade ago. That scared twenty-year-old boy had just been grateful to get out of town alive.

“I’m in love with Cherry,” Carson said, as if daring him to argue the point.

WT shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not happening. And I don’t want to talk about that right now,” he said with a wave of his hand. “We need to talk about the W Bar G. You’re my son. This is where you belong. When I’m gone, I want to know you’re here, keeping the ranch and the Grant name alive.”

“I think I have more pressing matters to concern myself with right now, don’t you?”

WT fought to control his temper. “You let me worry about the sheriff and that other matter.”

“That other matter?” Carson demanded. “Is that what you call Ginny West’s murder?”

WT refused to get into the past with his son. He’d looked forward to this day from the moment Carson was born. No one was going to take that away from him.

“As I was saying,” WT continued, “I’m not going to turn the W Bar G over to you until I know you can handle running it. You’re going to have to learn the ranching business.”

Carson took a long gulp of his drink and pushed himself off the edge of the bar to walk around the room. WT tried to still the anger roiling inside him. He knew Carson was upset about being summoned home. Just as he’d been upset about being sent away eleven years ago.

He watched his son take in the den he’d had built so it looked out over the ranch with a view that ran from the mountains to the river. WT joined him at the bank of windows.

The valley was aglow with golden afternoon light. WT loved the way his land swept down from the base of the mountains in a pale swatch of rich pasture, hay and alfalfa fields to the river. Much of the land had dried to the color of corn silk. It was broken only by rocky outcroppings, hilly slopes of pine and the rust hues of the foliage along the creeks that snaked through the property.

It was an awe-inspiring sight that he feared was wasted on his son.

Carson finally spoke. “Even if everything turns out the way you think it will, I don’t understand why I have to learn the business. Destry’s doing a great job running the ranch, isn’t she?”

“She has only been filling in until you returned.”

“Does she know that?” his son asked, his tone rimmed with sarcasm.

WT took a swallow of his drink, giving himself time to rope in his anger. “I want you to run the ranch.”

“What about my sister? She isn’t some horse you can put out to pasture.”

WT let out a curse. “She needs to find a man and get married before it’s too late for her.”

He thought of the times she’d come home from a branding or calving filthy dirty as if she thought she was one of the ranch hands.

“It’s unseemly for a woman to be working with ranch hands,” he said, repeating what he’d told Destry more times than he cared to recall. Like her mother had been, she wasn’t one to take advice. Especially from him. “She needs to start acting respectable.”

“Maybe you haven’t heard, but women can vote now.”

“Biggest mistake this country ever made,” he said, only half joking. He thought of Lila and the trouble he’d had with her. Women were too headstrong and independent. He still believed a woman’s place was in the home and said as much to his son.

Carson didn’t seem to be listening. He stood staring down into his drink. WT wondered what he hoped to find there. Carson had always been moody as a boy. His mother’s doing when he was young, WT thought with a curse. Why couldn’t Carson have been more like Destry?

That thought made his stomach churn. People said Destry was too much like him. They had no idea.

When Carson looked up at him again, his expression was both angry and guilty. “You take this ranch away from my sister and you’ll kill her. Hasn’t she lost enough because of me?”

“You talking about that no-count rodeo cowboy Rylan West?”

“She loved him and would have married him if—”

“She’s not marrying him any more than you’re marrying that whor—”

“Careful, that’s my fiancée.”

WT looked at him hard, then laughed. “You’re not fooling me with this halfhearted protest about not wanting to take the ranch away from your sister any more than you are with this ridiculous engagement. You have no intention of marrying that woman.”

“Don’t I?”

“Well, let me put it to you this way. You marry that woman and I’ll leave this whole place and every dime I have to some goddamned charity.”

Carson cocked his head at him and smiled. “Now who’s bluffing?”

WT smiled back. “The difference is I can afford to call your bluff. I suspect you don’t have that luxury.” He narrowed his gaze, feeling his ire rise even higher. “You have no choice if you want my help with the sheriff. You’ll stay here and take over the ranch. Or you can go it alone without another dime from me. There is no third option and, from what I’ve heard, you might be in need of a damned good lawyer soon. I hope I’ve made myself clear,” he said as his cook and housekeeper, Margaret, rang the dinner bell.

“Perfectly,” Carson said and drained his glass.

* * *

NETTIE BENTON AT THE Beartooth General Store was the first person to see Carson Grant driving by in that fancy red sports car.

It wasn’t blind luck that she’d been standing at the front window of the store when Carson drove past. The once natural redhead, now dyed Sunset Sienna to cover the gray, spent most of her days watching the world pass by her window at a snail’s pace. It was why, as the storeowner, she often knew more of what was going on than anyone else in these parts.

“Bob,” she called to her husband. No answer. “Must have already gone home,” she muttered to herself. The two of them lived behind the store on the side of the mountain. Bob didn’t spend much time in the store his parents had turned over to them when they’d gotten married thirty years ago. He didn’t have to.

“Nettie loves minding the store—and everyone’s business,” he was fond of saying.

Nettie hurriedly grabbed the phone and began calling everyone she knew to tell them about Carson Grant.

“Nettie?” Bob called from the office in the back. “What’s all the commotion out there?”

Not only was Bob getting hard of hearing—at least hard of hearing her—he wouldn’t appreciate her news. Though he might have enjoyed seeing the bleached blonde with Carson.

“It’s Carson Grant,” she said as she stepped to the office doorway.

Bob didn’t look up from the bills he’d been sorting through. “What about him?” he asked distractedly.

“He’s back in Beartooth.”

Her husband’s head jerked up in surprise. “What?”

“I saw him drive past not thirty minutes ago.” She’d recognized Carson right off, even though it had been years since she’d laid eyes on him.

“Why would he come back now?” Bob asked, clearly upset. But then most of the county would be upset, as well.

“I would imagine it has something to do with the rumor circulating about new evidence in Ginny West’s murder.”

“What new evidence?”

“I heard it was some kind of fancy hair clip one of the kids found over at the old theater. Now they’re speculating that she might have actually been killed there and not out on the road.” She frowned. “Are you all right?”

Bob was holding his stomach as if something he ate hadn’t agreed with him. “You give me indigestion,” he said angrily as he shoved the bills away and pushed himself to his feet. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t making all of this up.”

“It was Carson Grant, sure as I’m standing here.”

“What I want to know is why he wasn’t arrested years ago?” Bob demanded. “Everyone knows he killed that poor girl. If your sheriff can’t figure that out, then there’s something wrong with him.”

Her sheriff? “Well, I, for one, am not convinced Carson did it,” she said as he pushed past her and headed for the back door and home.

“The fact that you’re the only one who believes that should tell you something, Nettie.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond as he slammed out the back door.

Surprised, since that was the most passion she’d seen in her husband in years, maybe ever, she wandered back to the front store window to entertain herself until she was forced to wait on a customer, should one come by.

The narrow two-lane paved road was empty—just as it was most days. The town of Beartooth was like a lot of small Montana towns. It had died down to a smattering of families and businesses. Not that it hadn’t been something in its heyday. With the discovery of gold in the Crazy Mountains back in the late 1800s, Beartooth had been a boomtown. Early residents had built substantial stone and log buildings in the shadow of the mountains where Big Timber Creek wound through the pines.

By the early 1900s, though, the gold was playing out and a drought had people leaving in droves. They left behind a dozen empty boarded-up buildings that still stood today. There was an old gas station with two pumps under a leaning tin roof at one end of town and a classic auto garage from a time when it didn’t take a computer to work on a car engine at the other.

In between stood the Range Rider bar, the post office, hotel and theater. There’d been talk of tearing down the old buildings to keep kids out of them. Nettie was glad they hadn’t. She thought fondly of the hidden room under the stage at the Royale theater where she’d lost her virginity. Unfortunately, that made her think of the sheriff, something she did her best not to do. Her sheriff, indeed.

Directly across the street from Nettie’s store was the Branding Iron Café where ranchers gathered each morning. Right now a handful of pickups were parked out front—and another half dozen down the street in front of the bar.

Nettie knew the topic of conversation among the ranchers must have Carson Grant’s ears burning. She wondered if the West family had heard yet and how long it would be before one of them either ran Carson out of town again—or strung him up for Ginny West’s murder.

But it was her husband’s reaction that had her scratching her head.

* * *

“WHERE’S YOUR SISTER?” WT asked Carson as he looked up from his meal and apparently realized for the first time that Destry wasn’t at the table.

“She got a call that some cattle had gotten out and were on the road,” Carson said.

His father grunted in answer, the sound echoing in the huge dining hall. Carson idly wondered how often this dining room was ever used. Not much, he’d bet, since everything looked brand-new, and it wasn’t as if WT had friends or family over. He’d never been good at making or keeping friends.

“Why didn’t she call one of the ranch hands to take care of it? Or our ranch foreman? This is what I pay Russell to do,” WT said irritably after a few bites.

Carson tamped down his own irritation. “I would imagine she didn’t want to bother them in the middle of their dinners, especially when she’s probably more than capable of taking care of it herself.” Knowing his sister, that would be exactly her reasoning.

“You see what I mean about your sister?” WT asked with a curse. “She doesn’t know her place.”

“This is her place,” Carson said defiantly in the hopes that an argument would end this meal faster. It couldn’t end soon enough for him.

WT continued to eat, refusing to rise to the bait. He hadn’t even acknowledged Cherry’s presence since she’d sat down. Did he really think that by ignoring her she would leave? Under other circumstances, Carson might have found all of this amusing.

He’d done his best to convince his father to give him enough money so he could leave the country. Coming back here only reminded him of everything he’d spent eleven years trying to forget.

But WT had been adamant. There would be no money, not even any inheritance, if he didn’t return.

“What about the sheriff?” he’d asked.

“He has a few questions, that’s all.”

A few questions about Ginny’s murder after all these years?

Clearly WT didn’t realize how dangerous it was for him being back here, he thought, recalling the look on Nettie Benton’s face when he’d driven by her store earlier today. There had been no reason to try to sneak back here. In a community this small, there were few secrets.

This was Montana where there was still a large portion of the rural population that believed in taking the law into their own hands—just as they had in the old days. That could mean a rope and a stout tree.

He mentioned that now to his father.

“I told you not to worry about any of that,” WT said without looking up.

“Don’t worry about it? Do I have to remind you that the last time I saw Rylan West he swore he’d kill me if he ever saw me again?”

His father finally looked up from his plate, his expression one of mild amusement. “I guess you’d better not let him see you then.”

* * *

DESTRY FOUND THREE W Bar G cows standing in the middle of the county road, just as a neighboring rancher had described over the phone. She slowed the truck, all three cows glancing at her but not moving. They mooed loudly, though, associating the sound of a truck with the delivery of hay.

“You girls are out of luck,” Destry said as she began to herd them with the pickup back up the road toward W Bar G property. She regretted missing her brother’s first dinner at home, but hoped he would understand. He and his fiancée needed time alone with WT so they could work out whatever was going on. Her being there would have only made things more strained, she told herself.

As it was, her conversation with Cherry by the pool earlier had left her even more concerned about her brother. Apparently the two had met at the Las Vegas casino where they both worked, Cherry as a dancer and Carson in the office.

Destry couldn’t imagine her brother living in Vegas, let alone working in a casino; neither could she see him settling down on the ranch. But then again, she didn’t know him anymore.

She wondered how much Carson had told his fiancée about what had happened eleven years ago. Did Cherry know about Ginny’s murder? Or that Carson was still the number one suspect?

She lowered her pickup window to feel the air, driving slowly as she moved the cattle at a lazy pace down the road. They were in no hurry, and neither was she.

This far north, it wouldn’t get dark for hours yet. Even with the possibility of an approaching storm, it was one of those rare warm fall afternoons in Montana. The rolling hills had faded to mustard in contrast to the deep green of the pines climbing the mountains. As always, the Crazy Mountains loomed over the scene, a bank of dark clouds shrouding the peaks.

She loved living out here away from everything. In this part of Montana, you could leave the keys in your pickup overnight, and your truck would still be there in the morning. The rural area’s low crime rate was one reason Ginny West’s murder had come as such a shock. It rattled everyone’s belief that Beartooth was safe because you knew your neighbors. Now, like a rock thrown into Saddlestring Lake, Carson’s return would create wide ripples.

Ginny West’s murder—and her breakup with Carson right before it—would be rehashed in booths and at tables in the Branding Iron Café and on the bar stools at the Range Rider bar.

There were still plenty of people around who believed Carson had killed her. Rylan West among them, she reminded herself with a sinking heart.

What would he do when he heard that Carson was back?

The cows mooed loudly as she brought the pickup to a stop and got out to open the barbed-wire gate. She’d seen a broken fence post where she figured the cows had gotten out. She’d let Russell know. Overhead, a hawk soared on an updraft.

As she waded through the tall golden grass, grasshoppers buzzed and bobbed around her. She lifted the metal handle to loosen the loop attached to the gate and, slipping the post out, walked the gate back to allow the cows into their pasture.

At the sound of a vehicle on the wind, she looked up the road. Dust churned up in the distance.

“Come on girls,” she said to the cows, swatting one on the backside with her hat to finally get them moving. She could hear the growing sound of the vehicle’s engine and was thankful she’d managed to get the cows off the road in time. Once she had them inside the fence, she dragged the barbed-wire gate back over to the post.

Destry had just cranked down the lever that kept the gate taut and closed when she heard the truck slow. She turned, squinting in the cloud of dust, as the pickup stopped only feet from her.

When she saw who was behind the wheel, her heart took off at a gallop.