Kitabı oku: «A Cahill Ranch Novel»
The renegade cowboy returns
It’s been nine years since Trask Beaumont left Gilt Edge, Montana, with an unsolved crime in his wake, and Lillian Cahill has convinced herself she’s finally over him. But when the rugged cowboy with the easy smile suddenly shows up at her bar, there’s a pang in her heart arguing the attraction never faded. And that’s dangerous, because Trask has returned on a mission to clear his name and win Lillie back.
Tired of running, Trask knows he must uncover the truth of the past before he can hope for a future with the woman he’s never forgotten. But if Lillie’s older brother, the sheriff, learns that Trask is back in town, he’ll arrest him for murder. Now Trask is looking for a showdown, and he won’t leave town again without one—or without Lillie.
Renegade’s Pride
B.J. Daniels
MILLS & BOON
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This summer I rode behind the boat on a tube called Big Mable with one of my granddaughters who has no fear. As we were flying over the waves, mostly airborne, laughing, screaming and hanging on for our lives, I thought this is what keeps me writing. So this one is for Hayden, the teenager who I first rode with when she was five—and just as fast. Thanks for keeping me young and reminding me always that life is an adventure.
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
Extract
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
A SLIVER OF moon hung high in Montana’s immense night sky as Ely Cahill made his way out of the mountains. In the distance, he could see the ranch with its huge barn and, past it, the sprawling house where he’d once lived with his wife, Mary, which meant he didn’t have that much farther to go.
He stopped at the edge of the dark pines to shift the heavy pack on his back. It had been easier making this trek when he was younger. Now at almost seventy his gold panning in the mountains took a lot more out of him. He couldn’t bear the thought of the day he might not be able to make this trip.
Moving again, he licked his lips, anxious for that first drink he’d have once he reached town. He’d been prospecting in the mountains for over a month now and had found enough gold that it was weighing down his pocket, begging to be traded for cash.
A cloud passed over the moon, pitching the Western landscape into shadow. As if a spider had raced along his bare skin, Ely shuddered and shifted the pack again. He stopped to sniff the wind, alert to danger. At first he thought it might be a bear ahead in the shadowed darkness. He’d cleared the pine trees that blanketed the mountain and now looked down on the pasture. Nothing moved that he could see.
The moonlight glinted off the chain-link fence enclosure in the middle of the pasture. He felt his pulse bump up as his stomach did a slow, sickening roll. He had lived with the horror of what was buried inside that fence for years.
Now he listened, his ears attuned to trouble. As if what was buried there wasn’t frightening enough, it was what the enclosure attracted that made his blood run cold. Goose bumps rippled over his skin, an eerie chill in the night air.
After all these years, Ely knew every sound the night made in this part of Montana, from an owl hoot to a hawk’s cry to the snap of a twig under the weight of a predator’s paw. It was one reason he’d survived in the wilds all these years alone, which was the way he liked it.
Over the next rise, the lights of town beckoned. He licked his lips again, needing that drink more than ever. Boots heavy, he pushed on through the tall grass as he searched the horizon for whatever had spooked him. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt his skin prickle at this particular spot. He suspected it wouldn’t be the last.
His hand went to the back of his neck. He rubbed his nape under his long, curly graying hair and considered taking a detour around this particular spot. But it would take him a lot longer, and he was anxious now for noise and lights and food he hadn’t had to cook himself. Also, he could almost taste that first shot of hooch.
He’d been in the mountains too long. His stomach rumbled at the thought of hot cooked food. Cloud cover blocked the silver moonlight, deepening the darkness over the pasture that stood between him and civilization. He took a step, then another, the tall grass whickering against his filth-crusted canvas pants as he moved. He said the words like a mantra: whiskey and a bath in a tub with hot water and real soap. It propelled him forward a few more steps before he stopped again.
Nothing moved. Even the wind had stopped as if holding its breath. He might have thought he’d gone deaf if not for the tremulous thump of his heart.
It was on a night like this in 1967 that he’d first seen them. The memory was too fresh. He cursed himself for letting his thoughts take that particular path.
“Don’t be a damned fool,” he said out loud, needing to hear something, even his own voice. “They aren’t out there.”
And yet every fiber of his being knew better. They were here again. It was his only thought as he turned and tried to run, knowing it was a fool thing to do in the dark in a pasture full of gopher holes.
He’d taken only a few strides when his foot dropped into a gap. He fell face-first, the weight of his heavy pack slamming him down hard into the earth. The fall knocked the wind out of him.
Sprawled in the dirt, he gasped for air as he heard them coming. It was the same swishing sound as before, but this time there were two of them. He sucked in a ragged breath and tried to hold it.
Telling himself that maybe they wouldn’t see him if he stayed down, he waited. The waiting was too painful. He lifted his head just enough to peer over the tall grass. They looked larger than he remembered, their bodies hidden beneath the huge blinding-white space suits they wore. He could hear their breathing systems swishing in and out as they labored through the tall spring grass.
Ely thought he might be able to outrun them. He tried to slip off his backpack. It caught on his coat sleeve. Maybe if he could get to his pistol, but there wasn’t time.
He put his face against the cold ground and prayed they wouldn’t take him this time.
CHAPTER TWO
SHERIFF FLINT CAHILL didn’t even bother to look up as the door to his office banged open first thing the next morning.
“Seriously?” his sister, Lillie, demanded as she strode to his desk. “You arrested our father again?” Hands on her hips, she glared at him with narrowed gray eyes from a face that could only be described as adorable—even when furious.
He sighed. “What would you have me do? Ely was drunk and disorderly. Again. Anyone else who behaves the way he does gets thrown in the slammer.”
“He’s not just anyone else.”
“No, he’s not. Did I fail to mention he resisted arrest? Deputy Harper is sporting a shiner this morning.”
“I’ve wanted to slug Harp a few times myself,” Lillie said, looking toward the cell block as if the deputy was the last person she wanted to see this morning.
“I hope you brought Ely some clean clothes. He...soiled himself.”
“You’d piss yourself too if you saw what I did,” his father called from his cell down the hallway.
“Nothing’s wrong with his hearing, anyway,” Flint muttered under his breath as Lillie set a large brown paper bag with the clothing in it on his desk.
“Nothing’s wrong with his mind, either!” Ely called back.
Flint shook his head and lowered his voice. “You know, Lillie, you don’t have to be the one to bail him out all the time. You could send one of our brothers to do the dirty work.”
She said nothing as Deputy Harper Cole came in as if on cue. She gave him a disinterested nod. He eyed her with his one good eye, the one that wasn’t swollen shut. Lillie, clad in a pink T-shirt, worn jeans and sandals, had her long, curly dark hair pulled up in a ponytail. “Mornin’, Lillie. You’re looking fine.”
“Harp, please take these to Ely and make sure he changes,” Flint said, holding out the bag to his deputy before Lillie gave the man another black eye. Messing with this particular Cahill would be a huge mistake. Lillie had grown up with five older brothers. She could hold her own and Flint didn’t want to have to arrest her too.
He could tell his sister was fired up and wondered if it was only about Ely’s arrest or if there was more going on with her. He would have asked, but when she was in this mood, questioning her would be like poking a porcupine with a short stick.
He could hear Ely arguing with the deputy from his cell down the hallway. “I’m telling you something has to be done about him,” Flint said quietly to his sister. This was a matter they were going to have to deal with.
“He’s fine.”
“He’s not fine. We can’t keep putting our heads in the sand and pretending that he isn’t getting worse.”
She shook her head. “How about you stop arresting him?”
“You know I can’t do that. Fortunately, he spends most of his time up in the mountains. But every time he comes out...” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The thick dark hair was something all of the Cahills shared, along with the gray eyes.
“You need to cut him some slack. What would be wrong with that? He’s an old man. He’s your old man.”
Flint shook his head as their father came out grumbling, but wearing clean clothes. He still looked wild from his full gray beard to those piercing light gray eyes so like his own. But he wasn’t the worse for wear given how much he had to drink last night.
“You’re going to regret not listenin’ to me,” Ely said to his son. “I’m stone-cold sober this morning. I told you what I seen last night. I ain’t crazy. It’s them from outer space agin. They’re back and they’re hangin’ around our missile silo. Any fool knows no good’ll come from that. I’m tellin’ you. Them devils is up to somethin’. Somethin’ bad.”
Flint shot his sister a see-what-I-mean look. Back in the late 1950s, their grandfather had signed over a two-acre plot of land in the middle of his ranch so the US government could bury missiles in perpetuity for national defense.
The US Air Force had buried a thousand Minuteman missiles three stories deep in ranch land just like theirs. A missile on constant alert and capable of delivering a 1.2 megaton nuclear warhead to a target in thirty minutes was still buried in their backyard. The program was called MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction.
Ely believed it was that missile that had brought a UFO to their land back in 1967. He swore it landed and aliens had taken him aboard their spaceship and did medical experiments on him. And that had made him known as the biggest crackpot in the county.
“Come on, Dad,” Lillie said, sending a scowl at Flint. “You must be hungry. Let’s get you to my place—”
“I want to go home,” Ely said as they headed for the door. “Home to my cabin.”
She glanced back at Flint, no doubt knowing what he thought about that idea.
“He shouldn’t be alone,” Flint said to their retreating backs.
“Don’t pay him no never mind, Lillie Girl. Flint always did have a stick stuck—”
“Dad, maybe we should stop at the grocery store first and get you some food,” she said, cutting him off.
“Got plenty of food at home,” their father argued. “Put up a nice buck into jerky last fall. But I could use a little whiskey, so maybe we should stop by your bar.”
* * *
LILLIE WAS STILL fuming as she drove her father out of town toward the bar she and her twin brother, Darby, owned, the Stagecoach Saloon. Darby was eight minutes older and never let her forget it.
They’d opened the place in an old two-story stone stage stop not far from the ranch. She’d wanted a way to preserve the building and Darby had suggested a bar and café.
“Don’t you be listening to Flint, my Lillie Girl,” her father said again as they were driving out of town. “You know how he is.”
She nodded and smiled over at him, even though her bad temper was still flaring inside her. She’d never understand her brother. Flint was the black sheep of the family. The one who had followed every rule from the time he was young, while the rest of them disliked rules and seldom followed them, especially when the Cahill clan banded together.
True, it had always been Flint who bailed them out of trouble before their parents got wind of what they’d been up to. But he’d also had to lecture them at length, which never went over well.
“Flint’s worried about you,” she said now to her father. “So am I.”
Ely shook his head. “No reason to worry.”
He sounded so unconvincing that she shot him a glance, surprised how old he looked. She often didn’t see him for weeks or sometimes months at a time. He would disappear into the mountains. Then she’d get a call that he’d been arrested and she always took it upon herself to get him out of jail.
“What happened last night?” she asked as she’d done so many times before.
He was quiet for long enough that she thought he either hadn’t heard her or wasn’t going to answer. “In the mountains I can hold the memories at bay. But once I come down...” He cleared his throat and looked over at her. “I swear on your mother’s grave that I saw ’em last night. They was in the same pasture as where I was took. I feared they’d come back for me. They was almost on me when I smelled whatever gas they use to knock people out. When I come to, I was lying in the pasture and they was gone.” He shuddered. “I don’t think they took me this time, though.”
Lillie didn’t know what to say. She’d first heard about her father’s abduction by aliens in the school yard from Ronnie Eckert. He’d taunted her until she’d slugged him and bloodied his nose. “Take it back!” she had yelled at him. “Take it back or I’ll hit you again.”
A teacher had broken them up. Lillie had run home fast as the wind to tell her mother what had happened before the school called home. One look at her mother’s face and she’d known it hadn’t just been Ronnie making up stories.
“Your father claims he was abducted by aliens near the missile silo on our ranch,” she’d said. “It’s old news.”
“But is it true?” she’d demanded.
“Your father believes it was.”
Of course, Lillie had questioned him, both fascinated and horrified by the idea that it might actually have happened. Often she had lain in the tall grass at night and stared up at the stars wondering if there were other beings out there.
His story about his abduction was a little disappointing, though. Men in white space suits, their faces obscured by their helmets, had grabbed him. He’d thought they communicated telepathically, but he also remembered them talking to each other. He’d seen their lips moving but hadn’t been able to hear them because of their huge helmets and the swishing sound of the breathing systems.
“What did they do to you?” she’d asked, holding her breath.
“They conked me out with some kinda gas. I woke up in the pasture starin’ up at the stars. But I remember being in a small cramped place before that. I still taste somethin’ metallic when I think about it.”
She’d known then why everyone in the county believed that Ely Cahill no longer had all his ducks, let alone had them in a row. He’d always been part mountain man, disappearing into the mountains in search of gold or wild animals he could kill for meat for his family, even though they raised beef.
His father had been a rancher, but Ely had never taken to it and was glad when two of his sons had taken the place over. “Rather have a nice whitetail buck any day over a slab of beef,” he often said. “Lost my taste for beef after them aliens took me.”
“He’s made our family a laughingstock,” her brother Tuck had said not long before he’d left for good. That had been right after high school. Tucker said Gilt Edge was just too small for him, gave him claustrophobia. But she’d always suspected something had happened to make him leave.
Lillie forced those thoughts back into a dark corner along with others she kept locked up there as she parked in front of the Stagecoach Saloon.
“Home sweet home,” she said as she admired the historic two-story rock building. She never tired of looking at it. It had been a stagecoach stop back in the 1800s when gold had been coming out of the mine at Gilt Edge. Each stone, like the old wooden floorboards inside, had a story, she thought with pride. If only this building could talk.
With her twin brother, they’d restored it. The lower floor had been turned into a bar and café, while the upstairs had been remodeled into a home for herself. She’d furnished it with restored pieces she’d picked up at garage sales and junk shops and loved every one of them.
She also had the best view in the county. From her living room window she could see three of the four mountain ranges surrounding the area. She loved this old building and the life she and Darby had built with it. But deep in her heart there was always that feeling of something missing. Someone. Even when she didn’t say his name or imagine his face, there was always that ache of something lost, something she feared she would never have again.
“Come on, let’s see what we can cook up for you,” she said to her father.
He smiled over at her. “Could use some breakfast now that you mention it.”
She laughed. His appetite was legend. “What do you say to chicken fried venison steak, eggs, hash browns and biscuits and milk gravy?”
“That’s my girl,” Ely said.
But as she started to open her door, she saw something...someone move along the side of the building. Her brother Darby wasn’t here yet or his pickup would have been parked in the spot next to the big old pine tree. She’d gotten only a glimpse of what she thought was a man hiding in the trees.
She handed the keys to the place to her father. “Here, you go on in and I’ll be right with you.” She waited for him to climb out before she reached under the pickup seat and pulled out the .45 pistol she kept wrapped in a piece of an old blanket.
Slipping from behind the wheel, she unwrapped the gun, tucked it into the waist of her jeans and covered the weapon with the hem of her T-shirt.
Her father had made it as far as the front door. He turned and looked back at her. “Everything all right, Lillie Girl?” he called.
“Fine, Dad. Just need to check something.”
He nodded, hesitating as if worried about her. Say what you will about Ely Cahill, he wasn’t as far gone as her brother wanted her to believe, she thought.
“I’m fine. You make yourself at home. I’ll join you in a minute.”
As he unlocked the front door of the bar and disappeared inside, she moved to the pine trees that flanked the stone building on three sides.
Stepping to the edge of the building, she began to work her way carefully along the side, keeping to the shadows. Even as she did, she told herself she had imagined the broad shoulders, the slim hips, the glimpse of dark wavy hair under the Western straw hat as she had so many times over the years.
She’d gone only a dozen yards when she saw him. She felt a tremor move through her. With shaking fingers, she reached under her T-shirt and pulled the gun to level it on the broad back of the man standing only feet away.
“Don’t move!” she ordered, surprised that her voice sounded so unruffled when her heart had taken off like a wild horse in the wind at the sight of him.
“You wouldn’t shoot a man in the back.”
The deep resonance of his voice sent her pulse thundering in her ears. She’d heard that voice only in her dreams for the past nine years. The ache she felt was laced with hurt and anger, not to mention the hit her pride had taken.
“In your case, I’ll make an exception,” she said, easing her finger onto the trigger. Her thoughts whirled like tumbleweeds in the wind. Trask Beaumont had the nerve to show his face around her after all this time? After all that he’d done?
He raised both hands in the air and turned slowly as if he hadn’t lost all of his good sense during those years away. He’d known her like no other man, like no other man ever would because she’d never let another get that close again.
Staring at him, she couldn’t believe it. How many times had she told herself that she would never see that face again, a face so handsome it had to be crafted by the Devil himself.
Her finger twitched on the trigger of the pistol as she reached into her jeans pocket for her cell phone.
“Easy, darlin’,” he said, taking a step toward her. “You don’t want to shoot me. You don’t want to call your sheriff brother on me, either.”
“You sure about that?” She thought of the night she’d waited for him until the sun rose and she’d realized he wasn’t coming back for her.
Trask Beaumont’s lips curved into the grin that had haunted her sleepless nights for years. That grin had not just let this man into her jeans but into her heart. “Damn, Lillie. I can’t tell you how I’ve missed you.”
“What are you doing here?” She hated the tremor she heard in her voice. She had her cell phone out. All she had to do was hit 9-1-1. Her brother would be there in a heartbeat. “I asked what you’re doing here.”
Before he could answer, a vehicle roared up on the other side of the building. She recognized the sound of the engine. Engine cut, the driver’s-side door opened and slammed. She listened as her brother Darby entered the bar, then yelled her name.
She glanced over her shoulder, afraid he’d come looking for her and catch the two of them out there. Knowing how her brothers’ felt about Trask, she hated to think what would happen. It was one thing to have him arrested. It was another to let one of her other brothers at him.
When she turned back, Trask was gone. Lillie blinked. It was as if he hadn’t been there at all. And yet her heart still thundered in her chest. If she dialed 9-1-1, Flint would come running.
She stood, the gun in her hand growing heavy, the phone just one keystroke away from the sheriff’s department dispatcher. Trask. He’d come back.
And now he was gone. Again. Had she not been sane, she might have believed that she’d conjured up his image from a desire she’d spent years trying hard to bury. But she hadn’t dreamed him. He’d left behind his boot prints in the dirt, and even if her eyes had deceived her, her heart had not.
Trask was back. Conflicting emotions warred inside her. Trask, after all these years. She pocketed her phone and slowly lowered the gun as she began to shake all over. Tears burned her eyes. Why would he come back now? How could he come back, knowing how dangerous it was for him?
“Lillie?”
Tucking the gun into the waistband of her jeans and covering it with her shirt again, she turned to find her brother standing a few yards away. Had he seen Trask?
“Have you lost your mind?” Darby demanded, making her fear she had. Before she could respond, he continued, “You leave Dad alone in the bar? Alone in a bar stocked with bright shiny bottles of booze? Didn’t you just get him out of jail?” He stopped his rant to frown. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”
She said the first thing that came to mind that might make sense. “Thought I saw a bear. Didn’t want it getting in the trash again.”
“We have worse problems in the bar. Come take care of your father,” he said only half-jokingly.
“He’s your father too,” she pretended to remind him as she followed him. Inside, she found Ely behind the bar with a bottle of whiskey clutched in his hand and a big grin on his face.
“I’ll be in the back,” Darby said with a disgusted shake of his head. “Apparently, you promised him a Johnson breakfast.” It had been their mother’s specialty named after her family.
The moment Darby disappeared in the back, her father asked, “Find what you was lookin’ for out there?” He was no longer grinning. Nor it seemed had he indulged in the whiskey. Darby’d had no reason to worry. Their father had only been pretending to start the day with whiskey.
Ely put the bottle down and poured them both a cup of coffee from the automatic coffeemaker that Darby had set last night.
“She thought she saw a bear,” Darby called from the back over the clatter of pots and pans.
“A bear?” her father repeated as he studied her over the rim of his coffee cup. He’d definitely seen Trask, she realized, but he was going to keep her secret, since he was the only one in the family who’d ever liked the man his daughter had fallen for at a tender age.
She swallowed the lump in her throat, touched that her father would understand why she wasn’t going to call the law on the only man she’d ever truly loved.
“Ya got to watch them bears, Lillie Girl,” her father said, looking worried, “’specially the renegade ones. They’ll turn you every way but loose.”
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