Читать книгу Deliverance at Cardwell Ranch - B.J. Daniels, B.J. Daniels - Страница 10
ОглавлениеAustin turned to see a large stocky man come into the room, followed by the doctor.
“Mrs. Stewart,” the doctor said as he approached her bed. “Your husband is here.”
The stocky man stopped a few feet into the room and stood frowning. For a moment, Austin thought there had been a mistake and that the man didn’t recognize the woman.
But the man wasn’t looking at his wife. He was frowning at Austin. As if the doctor’s words finally jarred him into motion, the man strode to the other side of the bed and quickly took his wife’s hand as he bent to kiss her forehead. “I was so worried about you.”
Austin watched the woman’s expression. She looked terrified, her gaze locking with his in a plea for help.
“Excuse me,” Austin said as he stepped forward. He had no idea what he planned to say, let alone do. But something was wrong here.
“I beg your pardon?” said the alleged husband, turning to look at Austin before swinging his gaze to the doctor with a who the hell is this? expression.
“This is the man who saved your wife’s life,” the doctor said and introduced Austin before getting a page that he was needed elsewhere. He excused himself and hurried out, leaving the three of them alone.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Austin said.
“Marc. Marc Stewart.”
Stewart, Austin thought, remembering the name on the driver’s license in the purse he’d found in the car. “And this woman’s name is Rebecca Stewart?” he asked the husband.
“That’s right,” Marc Stewart answered in a way that dared Austin to challenge him.
As he looked to the woman in the bed, Austin noticed that she gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. “I’m sorry, but how do we know you’re her husband?”
“Are you serious?” the man demanded, glaring across the bed at him.
“She doesn’t seem to recognize you,” he said, even though what he’d noticed was that the woman seemed terrified of the man.
Marc Stewart gave him the once-over, clearly upset. “She’s had a concussion.”
“Old habits are hard to break,” Austin said as he displayed his badge and ID to the alleged Marc Stewart. “You wouldn’t mind me asking for some identification from you, would you?”
The man looked as if he might have a coronary. At least he’d come to the right place, Austin thought, as the alleged Marc Stewart angrily pulled out his wallet and showed Austin his license.
Marc Andrew Stewart, Austin read. “There was a car seat in the back of the vehicle she was driving. Where is the baby?”
“With my mother.” A blood vessel in the man’s cheek began to throb. “Look Deputy...Cardwell, is it? I appreciate that you supposedly saved my wife’s life, but it’s time for you to butt out.”
Austin told himself he should back off, but the fear in the woman’s eyes wouldn’t let him. “She doesn’t seem to know you and she isn’t wearing a wedding ring.” He didn’t add that the woman seemed terrified and had bruises on her upper arms where someone had gotten rough with her. Not to mention the fact that when he’d told her that her husband was on his way, she’d panicked and tried to leave. Concussion or not, something was wrong with all this.
“I think you should leave,” the man said.
“If you really are her husband, it shouldn’t be hard for you to prove it,” Austin said, holding his ground—well, at least until Marc Stewart had hospital security throw him out, which wouldn’t be long, from the look on the man’s face. The woman in the bed still hadn’t uttered a word.
For a moment, Marc Stewart looked as if he was about to tell him to go to hell. But instead, he dug into his pocket angrily and produced a plain gold band that caught the light as he reached for the woman’s left hand.
“My wife left it by the sink yesterday,” Marc Stewart said by way of explanation. “She always takes it off when she does the dishes. Sometimes she forgets to put it back on.”
Austin thought, given the bruises on the woman’s upper arms, that she had probably thrown the ring at him as she took off yesterday.
When she still didn’t move to take the ring, the man snatched up her hand lying beside her on the bed and slipped the ring on her finger.
Austin watched her look down at the ring. He saw recognition fill her expression just before she began to cry.
Even from where he stood, he could see that the ring, while a little loose, fit close enough. Just as the photo ID in Rebecca Stewart’s purse looked enough like the woman on the bed. He told himself there was nothing more he could do. Clearly she was afraid of this man. But unless she spoke up...
“I guess I’ll leave you with your husband, unless there is something I should know?” Austin asked her.
“Tell the man, Rebecca,” Marc Stewart snapped. “Am I your husband?” He bent down to kiss her cheek. Austin saw him whisper something in her ear.
She closed her eyes, tears leaking from beneath dark lashes.
“We had a little argument and she took off and apparently almost got herself killed,” Marc said. “We both said and did things we regret, isn’t that right, Rebecca? Tell the man, sweetheart.”
Her eyes opened slowly. She took a ragged breath and wiped away the tears with the backs of her hands, the way a little kid would.
“Is that all there is to this?” Austin asked, watching her face. Across from him, he could see Marc gritting his teeth in fury at this interference in his life.
She nodded her head slowly, her gaze going from her husband to Austin. “Thank you, but he’s right. It was just a foolish disagreement. I will be fine now.”
* * *
FEELING LIKE A fool for getting involved in a domestic dispute, Austin headed for Cardwell Ranch. Last night, a wrecker company had pulled his rental SUV out of the ditch and brought it to the motel where he was staying. Fortunately, his skid into the ditch hadn’t done any damage.
Highway 191 was now open, the road sanded. As he drove, Austin got his first real look at the Gallatin Canyon or “the canyon” as his cousin Dana called it. From the mouth just south of Gallatin Gateway, fifty miles of winding road trailed the river in a deep cut through the mountains, almost all the way to West Yellowstone.
The drive along the Gallatin River was indeed breathtaking—a snaking strip of highway followed the Blue Ribbon trout stream up over the Continental Divide. This time of year, the Gallatin ran crystal clear under a thick cover of aquamarine ice. Dark, thick snowcapped pines grew at its edge, against a backdrop of the granite cliffs and towering pine-clad mountains.
Austin concentrated on his driving so he didn’t end up in a snowbank again. Piles of deep snow had been plowed up on each side of the road, making the highway seem even narrower, but at least traffic was light. He had to admit, it was beautiful. The sun glistening off the new snow was almost blinding in its brilliance. Overhead, a cloudless robin’s-egg-blue sky seemed vast and clearer than any air he’d ever breathed. The canyon looked like something out of a winter fairy tale.
Just before Big Sky, the canyon widened a little. He spotted a few older cabins, nothing like all the new construction he’d seen down by the mouth of the canyon. Tag had told him that the canyon had been mostly cattle and dude ranches, a few summer cabins and homes—that was, until Big Sky resort and the small town that followed at the foot of Lone Mountain.
Luxury houses had sprouted up all around the resort. Fortunately, some of the original cabins still remained and the majority of the canyon was national forest so it would always remain undeveloped. The “canyon” had remained its own little community, according to Tag.
Austin figured Tag had gotten most of his information from their cousin Dana. This was the only home she’d known and, like her stubborn relations, she apparently had no intention of ever leaving it.
While admiring the scenery on the drive, he did his best not to think about Rebecca Stewart and her husband. When he’d left her hospital room, he’d felt her gaze on him and turned at the door to look back. He’d seen her take off the ring her husband had put on her finger and grip it in her fist so tightly that her knuckles were white.
Trouble in paradise, he thought as he reached Big Sky, and none of my business. As a deputy sheriff, he’d dealt with his share of domestic disputes. Every law enforcement officer knew how dangerous they were. The best thing was to stay out of the middle of them since he’d seen both husbands and wives turn on the outsider stepping in to try to keep the peace.
Cardwell Ranch was only a few miles farther up the highway from Big Sky. But on impulse, he swung onto the road to Big Sky’s Meadow Village, where he suspected he would find the marshal’s department.
His cousin Dana’s husband, Marshal Hud Savage, waved him into his office and shook his hand. “We missed you at the wedding.” The wedding, of course, had been his brother Tag’s, to Lily McCabe, on July 4. He knew he would never live it down.
“I was hoping to get up for it, but I was on a case...” He hated that he’d missed his own brother’s wedding, but hoped at least Hud, being a lawman, would understand.
“That’s right. Deputy sheriff, is it?”
“Part-time, yes. I take on special cases.”
“As I recall, there were extenuating circumstances. You were wounded. You’re fine now?”
He nodded. He didn’t want to talk about the case that had almost gotten him killed. Nor did he want to admit that he might not still be physically a hundred percent.
“Well, have a seat,” Hud said as he settled behind his desk. “And tell me what I can do for you. I suspect this isn’t an extended family visit.”
Austin nodded and, removing his hat, sat down, comfortable at once with the marshal. “You might have heard that I got into an accident last night. My rental SUV went into the ditch.”
“I did know about that. I’m glad you weren’t hurt. We couldn’t assist because we had our hands full down here with a semi rollover.”
“I was lucky I only ended up in the ditch. What made me hit my brakes was that I came upon a vehicle upside down in the middle of the highway last night.”
Austin filled him in on the woman and everything that had happened up to leaving her about thirty minutes ago at the hospital in Bozeman.
“Sounds like she and her husband were having some marital issues,” the marshal said.
Austin nodded. “The trouble is I think it’s more than that. She had bruises on her arms.”
“Couldn’t the bruises have been caused by the accident?”
“No, these were definitely finger impressions. More than that, she seemed scared of her husband. Actually, she told me she wasn’t Rebecca Stewart, which would mean this man wasn’t her husband.” He saw skepticism in the marshal’s expression and admitted he would have felt the same way if someone had come to him with this story.
“Look,” Austin said. “It’s probably nothing, but I just have this gut feeling...”
Hud nodded, as if he understood gut feelings. “What would you like me to do?”
“First, could you run the name Marc Stewart. They’re apparently from Helena.”
“If it will relieve your mind, I’d be happy to.” The marshal moved to his computer and began to peck at the keys. A moment later, he said, “No arrests or warrants. None on Rebecca Stewart either. Other than that...”
Austin nodded.
Hud studied him. “There’s obviously something that’s still worrying you.”
He couldn’t narrow it down to just one thing. It was the small things like the older-model car Rebecca had been driving, the baby seat in the back, the woman’s adamant denial that she was Rebecca Stewart, the look of fear on her face when he’d told her that her husband was on his way to the hospital, the way she’d cried when he’d put that ring back on her finger.
Then there was that expensive diamond watch. To Gillian with all my love.
He mentioned all of this to the marshal and added, “I guess what’s really bothering me is the inconsistencies. Also she just doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who would leave her husband—let alone her baby—right before Christmas, no matter what the argument might have been about. This woman is a fighter. She wouldn’t have left her son with a man who had just gotten physical with her.”
Hud raised a brow as he leaned back in his chair. “You sure you didn’t get a little too emotionally involved?”
He laughed. “Not hardly. Haven’t you heard? I’m the Cardwell brother who never gets emotionally involved in anything. Just ask my brothers, or my former girlfriend, for that matter.” He hesitated even though common sense told him to let it go. “There’s no chance you’re going into Bozeman today, is there?”
Hud smiled. “I’ll stop by the hospital and give you a call after I talk to her and her husband.”
“Thanks. It really would relieve my mind.” Glancing at his watch, he saw he was late for a meeting with his brothers.
He swore as he hurried outside, climbed behind the wheel of his rental SUV and drove toward the small strip shopping mall in Meadow Village, all the time worrying about the woman he’d left in the hospital.
* * *
THE BUILDING WAS wood framed with stone across the front. It looked nothing like a Texas barbecue joint. As Austin climbed out of the SUV and walked through the snow toward the end unit with the Texas Boys Barbecue sign out front, he thought of their first barbecue joint.
It had been in an old small house. They’d done the barbecuing out back and packed diners in every afternoon and evening at mismatched tables and chairs to eat on paper plates. Just the smell of the wonderfully smoked meats brought people in. He and his brothers didn’t even have to advertise. Their barbecue had kept people coming back for more.
Austin missed those days, sitting out back having a cold beer after the night was over and counting their money and laughing at what a fluke it had been. They’d grown up barbecuing so it hadn’t felt like work at all.
As he pushed open the door to the building his brothers had bought, he saw by the way it was laid out that the space had started out as another restaurant. Whatever had been here, though, had been replaced with the Texas Boys Barbecue decor, a mix of rustic wood and galvanized aluminum. The fabric of the cushy red booths was the same as that on the chairs, and red-checked tablecloths covered the tables. The walls were covered with old photos of Texas family barbecues—just like in their other restaurants.
Through the pass-through he could see a gleaming kitchen at the back. Hearing his brothers—Tag, Jackson, Laramie and Hayes—visiting back there, he walked in that direction.
“Well, what do you think?” Tag asked excitedly.
Austin shrugged. “It looks fine.”
“The equipment is all new,” Jackson said. “We had to add a few things, but other than that, the remodel was mostly cosmetic.”
Austin nodded. “What happened to the restaurant that was here?”
“It didn’t serve the best barbecue in Texas,” Tag said.
“We’d hoped for a little more enthusiasm,” Laramie said.
“Sorry.”
“What about the space?” Hayes asked.
“Looks good to me.” He saw them share a glance at each other before they laughed and, almost in unison, said, “Same ol’ Austin.”
He didn’t take offense. It was actually good to see his brothers. There was no mistaking they were related either since they’d all inherited the Cardwell dark good looks. A curse and a blessing. When they were teens they used to argue over who was the ugliest. He smiled at the memory.
“Okay, we’re opening a Texas Boys Barbecue in Big Sky,” he said to them. “So buy me some lunch. I’m starved.”
They went to a small sandwich shop in the shadow of Lone Mountain in what was called Mountain Village. As hungry as he was, Austin still had trouble getting down even half of a sandwich and a bowl of soup.
During lunch, his brothers talked enthusiastically about the January 1 opening. They planned two grand openings, one on January 1 and another on July 4, since Big Sky had two distinct tourist seasons.
Apparently the entire canyon was excited about the Cardwell brothers’ brand of barbecue. His brothers Tag, Hayes and Jackson now had all made their homes in Montana. Only he and Laramie still lived in Texas, but Laramie would be flying back up for the grand opening whenever that schedule was confirmed. None of them asked if Austin would be coming back for that one. They knew him too well.
Austin only half listened, too anxious for a call from the marshal. When his cell phone finally did ring, he quickly excused himself and went out to the closed-in deck. It was freezing out here, but he didn’t want his brothers to hear. He could actually see his breath. He’d never admit it, but he couldn’t imagine why they would want to live here, as cold and nasty as winter was. Sure, it was beautiful, but he’d take Texas and the heat any day.
“I just left her hospital room,” the marshal said without preamble the moment Austin answered.
“So what do you think?”
“Apparently she has some loss of memory because of the concussion she suffered, according to her husband, which could explain some of your misgivings.”
“Did you see the bruises on her arms?”
The marshal sighed. “I did. Her husband said they’d had a disagreement before she took off. He said he’d grabbed her a little too hard, trying to keep her from leaving, afraid in her state what might happen to her. As it was, she ended up in a car wreck.”
“What does she say?”
“She doesn’t seem to recall the twenty-four hours before ending up upside down in her car in the middle of the highway—and even that is fuzzy.”
“You think she’s lying?” Austin asked, hearing something in the marshal’s voice.
Hud took his time in answering. “I think she might remember more than she’s letting on. I had some misgivings as well until Marc Stewart showed me a photograph of the four of them on his cell phone.”
“Four of them?”
“Rebecca and her sister, a woman named Gillian Cooper, Marc and the baby. In the photo, the woman in the hospital is holding the baby and Marc is standing next to her, his arm around her and her sister.”
Austin sighed. Gillian Cooper. Her sister. That could explain the watch. Maybe her sister had lent it to her. Or even given it to her.
“The doctor is releasing her tomorrow. I asked her if she wanted to return home with her husband.”
Austin figured he already knew the answer. “She said yes.”
“I also asked him to step out of the room. I then asked her if she was afraid of him. She said she wasn’t.”
So that was that, Austin thought. “Thanks for going by the hospital for me.”
“You realize there is nothing we can do if she doesn’t want to leave him,” Hud said.
Austin knew that from experience, even though he’d never understood why a woman stayed in an abusive marriage. Disconnecting, he went back into the restaurant, where his brothers were debating promotion for the new restaurant. He was in no mood for this.
“I really should get going,” he said, not that he really had anywhere to go, though he’d agreed to stay until the opening.
Christmas was only a few days away, he realized. Normally, he didn’t do much for Christmas. Since he didn’t have his own family, he always volunteered to work.
“Where are you going?” Tag asked.
“I’ve got some Christmas shopping to do.” That, at least, was true.
“Dana is planning for us all to be together on Christmas,” Tag said as if he needed reminding. “She has all kinds of plans.”
Jackson laughed. “She wants us all to try skiing or snowboarding.”
“There’s a sledding party planned on Christmas Eve behind the house on the ranch and, of course, ice skating on an inlet of the Gallatin River,” Hayes said with a laugh when he saw Austin’s expression. “You really have to experience a Montana Christmas.”
He tried to smile. Anything to make up for missing the wedding so everyone would quit bringing it up. “I can’t wait.”
They all laughed since they knew he was lying. He wasn’t ready for a Montana Christmas. He’d already been freezing his butt off and figured he’d more than experienced Montana after crashing in a ditch and almost getting killed by a woman with a tire iron. However, never let it be said he was a Scrooge. He’d go Christmas shopping. He would be merry and bright. It was only for a few days.
“You know what your problem is, Austin?” his brother Jackson said as they walked out to their vehicles.
Austin shook his head although he knew what was coming. He’d already had this discussion with Tanya in Houston.
“You can’t commit to anything,” Jackson said. “When we decided to open more Texas Boys Barbecues in Texas—”
“Yes, I’ve been told I have a problem with commitment,” he interrupted as he looked toward Lone Mountain. The peak was almost completely obscured by the falling snow. Huge lacy flakes drifted down around them. Texas barbecue in Montana? He’d thought his brothers had surely lost their minds when they had suggested it. Now he was all the more convinced.
But they’d been right about the other restaurants they’d opened across Texas. He wasn’t going to stand in their way now. But he also couldn’t get all that excited about it.
“Can you at least commit to this promotion schedule we have mapped out?” Hayes asked.
“Do what you think is best,” he said, opening the SUV door. “I’ll go along with whatever y’all decide.” His brothers didn’t look thrilled with his answer. “Isn’t that what you wanted me to say?”
“We were hoping for some enthusiasm, something,” Jackson said and frowned. “You seem to have lost interest in the business.”
“It’s not that.” It wasn’t. It was his life. At thirty-two, he was successful, a healthy, wealthy American male who could do anything he wanted. Most men his age would have given anything to be in his boots.
“He needs a woman,” Tag said and grinned.
“That’s all I need,” Austin said sarcastically under his breath and thought of Rebecca and the way she’d reacted to her husband. What kind of woman left her husband and child just before Christmas?
A terrified one, he thought. “I have to go.”
“Where did you say you were going?” Hayes asked before Austin could close his SUV door.
“There’s something I need to do.”
“I told you he needed a woman,” Tag joked.
“Dana is in Bozeman running errands, but she said to tell you that dinner is at her house tonight,” Jackson said before Austin could escape.
All the way to the hospital in Bozeman, all Austin could think about was the woman he’d rescued last night. Rescued? And then turned her over to a man who terrified her.
Austin thought of that awful old expression: she’d made her bed and now she had to lie in it.
Like hell, he thought.
