Kitabı oku: «Corralled»
“I’m done. They can take every penny I made. I don’t care.” Blythe smiled. “I have a job as of today. I don’t need more than that.”
Logan liked her attitude. He just wasn’t sure he believed she could go from being rich and famous to being poor and unknown.
“Anyway, it probably doesn’t matter,” she added with a toss of her head.
“What do you mean, it probably doesn’t matter?”
Again she looked away. He reached over to turn her to face him again. “What aren’t you telling me? What was the real reason you ran away with me?”
“I told you. It was my girlhood fantasy to run away with a cowboy,” she said.
He shook his head. “The truth, Blythe.”
She swallowed, her throat working for a moment, then she sat up a little straighter as if steeling herself. “I think someone has been trying to kill me.”
About the Author
USA TODAY bestselling author BJ DANIELS wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. That first book, Odd Man Out, received a four-and-a-half-star review from RT Book Reviews and went on to be nominated for Best Intrigue that year. Since then she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and many nominations and awards for best book.
Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. Daniels is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.
To contact her, write to BJ Daniels, Po Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538, USA or e-mail her at bjdaniels@mtintouch.net. Check out her website at www.bjdaniels.com.
Corralled
USA Today Bestselling Author BJ Daniels
MILLS & BOON
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This is for my little brother, Charles Allen Johnson
who, like the rest of the Johnson family, has always
given me something to write about.
Chapter One
As he heard the music, he slowed his Harley, the throb of the engine catching the beat coming from the out-of-the-way country-western bar.
His kind of place.
He had been headed back to his hotel before that. But drawn to the music, he parked his motorcycle out front and pushed through the door into the dimly lit room. A clamor of glass and conversation competed with the band onstage.
Like him, most everyone inside was dressed in jeans and boots. The dance floor was packed, the air scented with beer and perfume as he stepped up to the bar and ordered a cold one.
Later he would recall sensing her presence even before he turned, a draft beer in hand, and first laid eyes on her.
He shoved back his Stetson, leaning against the bar, as she made her way through the crowd on the dance floor as if heading for the door. Her tight jeans hugged her hips as they swayed to the music, her full breasts pressing into the fabric of her Western shirt.
His gaze went to her boots, a pair of fancy Tony Lama’s so fresh out of the box that he could almost smell the new leather. That alone would have made him steer clear. Then he saw her face. It wasn’t classically beautiful or even unusual enough to hold most men’s attention.
No, but her expression of total bliss caught him like a well-thrown lasso. She stopped him in his tracks as he watched her. She was clearly lost in the music and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
When she finally looked up, her gaze locked with his. Her eyes were the color of worn jeans, her lashes dark and thick like her hair cascading from beneath her straw cowboy hat. She’d tied her hair back with a red ribbon, but loose tendrils had escaped and now framed her face.
As she started past him, impulsively he stepped in front of her. “I think you owe me a dance.”
Her lips turned up in an amused smile. “Is that right?”
He nodded and, leaving his leather jacket on the bar stool, took her hand. She didn’t put up a fight as he led her out onto the dance floor as one song ended. If anything, she seemed curious.
“You sure you can keep up with me?” she said challengingly as a fast song began.
He grinned, thinking the woman had no idea who she was dealing with. He was Montana born, raised on country music and cowboy jitterbug. But to his surprise, she had no trouble staying with him, giving back everything she got. He loved the way she moved with the music, all grace and sexy swing.
Everything about her surprised and thrilled him, especially the way they moved together. It was as if they were one of those older couples he’d seen in Montana bars who had danced together for years.
When the song ended and a slow dance began, she started to draw away, but he dragged her back and into his arms. She looked at him, that challenge still lighting those washed-out blue eyes of hers.
“What makes you think I don’t have friends I need to get back to?” she asked as he pulled her closer, the two moving as one to the sweet sounds coming off the guitar player’s strings.
“Why would you want to go back to them—if there really are people waiting for you—when you can dance with me?”
She laughed. It had a musical quality that pulled at him just as he’d been drawn to the bar band earlier.
“You are quite full of yourself,” she said as if not minding it all that much.
He shook his head. “I just know there is nothing I want to do tonight but dance with you,” he said honestly.
She grew serious as the song ended and another boot-stomping tune began. Her gaze locked with his as he let go of her.
“Up to you,” he said quietly. Her answering smile was all invitation.
He took her hand and whirled her across the middle of the dance floor as the music throbbed, the beat matching that of his heart as he lost himself in the warm spring night, the music and this woman.
He made only one mistake as the band took a break not long before closing. He offered to buy her a drink, and when he turned back, she was gone.
As he stepped to the front door of the saloon, he was in time to see her pull away in an expensive silver convertible sports car, the top down. She glanced over at him as she left and he saw something in her expression that made him mentally kick himself for not getting her number. Or at least her name.
As she sped off, he walked back to the bar to finish his drink. He told himself that even if he had gotten her number or her name, he was only in Bigfork until tomorrow. He had to get back home to the ranch and work. But damned if he wouldn’t have liked to have seen her again.
When he pulled on his leather jacket, he felt something in the pocket that hadn’t been there earlier. Reaching his hand in, he pulled out a key. It wasn’t like any he’d ever seen before. It was large and faux gold and had some kind of emblem on it. He couldn’t make it out in the dim light of the bar, but he had a pretty good idea who’d put it in his jacket.
Finishing his beer, he pocketed the key again and left. As he climbed onto his bike, all he could think about was the woman. He couldn’t remember a night when he’d had more fun or been more intrigued. Did she expect him to know what the key went to or how to find her? She expected a lot from this country boy, he thought with a smile.
He was still smiling as he cruised back to his hotel. The key was a challenge, and Logan Chisholm liked nothing better than a challenge. But if she was waiting for him tonight, she’d have a long wait.
THE NEXT MORNING LOGAN woke to see the key lying on the nightstand next to his bed. He’d tossed it there last night after taking a good look at it. He’d had no more idea what it went to than he had at the bar.
Now, though, he picked it up and ran his fingers over the raised emblem as he thought about the woman from the bar. He needed to get back to Whitehorse, back to work on his family’s ranch, Chisholm Cattle Company. The last thing he needed was to go chasing after a woman he’d met on a country-western bar’s dance floor miles from home.
But damned if he could leave the Flathead without finding her.
“Have you ever seen one of these?” Logan asked the hotel clerk downstairs.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Chisholm, I—”
“Isn’t that a key to the Grizzly Club?” asked another clerk who’d been standing nearby. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But I have a friend who stayed out there once.”
“The Grizzly Club?” Logan asked.
“It’s an exclusive gated community south of here,” the clerk said. “Very elite. You have to have five million dollars to even apply for a home site inside the development. A lot of famous people prefer that kind of privacy. There are only a few of these gated communities in Montana.”
Logan knew about the one down by Big Sky. He thought about the woman at the bar last night. He couldn’t see her living there, but he supposed it was possible she’d hooked up with some rich dude who’d invented computer chips or made a bundle as a famous news broadcaster. Or hell, maybe she invented the chip.
It wasn’t like he really knew her after only a few dances on a spring Friday night at a country-western bar, was it?
He thought it more likely that she was a guest at the club. At least he liked that better than the other possibilities. “So you’re saying this key will get me into the place?”
The clerk shook his head. “That key is to the amenities once you get inside. You don’t need a key to get in the gate. There is a guard at the front gate. If someone lost their key, the guard might be able to tell you who it belongs to. I noticed it did have a number on it.”
Logan didn’t like the sound of a guard, but what did he have to lose? “How do I get there?”
Outside, he swung onto his bike and headed down Highway 35 south along the east side of Flathead Lake. The road was narrow, one side bordering the lake, the other rising steeply into the Mission Mountain Range. Flathead was the largest freshwater lake in the western United States, just slightly larger than Lake Tahoe. This morning it was a beautiful turquoise blue. Around the lake were hundreds of orchards making this part of Montana famous for its Flathead cherries.
The Grizzly Club sign was so small and tasteful that he almost missed the turn. The freshly paved road curled up into the mountains through dense, tall, dark pines. Logan always felt closed in by country like this because it was so different from where he lived. The Chisholm Cattle Company ranch sat in the middle of rolling Montana prairie where a man could see forever.
At home, the closest mountains were the Little Rockies, and those only a purple outline in the distance. Trees, other than cottonwoods along the Milk River and creeks, were few and far between. He loved the wide-open spaces, liked being able to see to the horizon, so he was glad when the trees finally opened up a little.
He slowed as he came to a manned gate. Beyond it, he could make out a couple of mansions set back in the trees. Was it possible one of them was owned by the woman he’d met last night? That could explain the new boots, since few people in this kind of neighborhood were from here—let alone lived here year-around.
He tried to imagine her living behind these gates even for a few weeks out of the year and decided she had to be visiting someone. A woman like that couldn’t stand being locked up for long, he told himself.
The guard was on the phone and motioned for him to wait. Logan stared through the ornate iron gate and realized that the woman he was looking for could work here. And that expensive sports car convertible she was driving? She could have borrowed her boss’s car last night.
He smiled. And like Cinderella, she’d had to get the car back before morning or suffer the consequences. Now that seemed more like the woman he’d met last night, he thought with a chuckle.
The guard finished his conversation and turning, perused Logan’s leathers and the Harley motorcycle. He instantly looked wary. Logan realized this had been a mistake. No way was this man going to let him in or give him the name of the woman connected to the key. More than likely, the guard would call security. The best he could see coming out of this was being turned away—but only after he’d made a fool of himself.
Fortunately, he didn’t get the chance. From the other side of the gate, he saw the flash of a small silver sports car convertible coming through the trees. The top was still down. He caught a glimpse of the driver.
She’d done away with her cowboy attire, including the hat. Her hair blew free, forming a wave like a raven’s wing behind her as she sped toward the gate. She wore large sunglasses that hid most of her face, but there was no denying it was the woman from the bar.
“Never mind,” Logan said to the guard and swung his bike around as the gate automatically opened on the other side of the guardhouse and the sports car roared out.
Logan went after her.
He couldn’t believe how fast she was driving, taking the curves with abandon. He saw her glance in her rearview mirror and speed up. Logan did the same, the two of them racing down out of the mountains and onto the narrow road along the lake.
This woman is crazy, Logan thought when she hit the narrow two-lane highway and didn’t slow down. She wanted to race? Then they would race.
He stayed right with her, roaring up beside her when there was no traffic. She would glance at him, then gun it, forcing him to fall behind her when an oncoming car appeared.
They were almost to the town of Bigfork when she suddenly hit the brakes and whipped off the road onto a wide spot overlooking the lake. She’d barely gotten the car stopped at the edge of the rocky cliff, the water lapping at the shore twenty feet below.
Logan skidded to a stop next to her car as she jumped out and, without a word, climbed onto the back of his bike. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she leaned into him and whispered, “Get me out of here.”
After that exhilarating race, she didn’t need to ask twice. He was all the more intrigued by this woman. He roared back onto the highway headed north toward Glacier National Park. As she pressed her body against his, he heard her let out a sigh, and wondered where they were headed both literally and figuratively.
Caught up in the moment, he breathed in the cool mountain air. It smelled of spring and new beginnings. He loved this time of year. Just as he loved the feel of the woman on the bike behind him.
The sun was warm as it scaled the back of the Mission Mountains and splashed down over Flathead Lake. At the north end of the lake, Logan pulled into a small out-of-the-way café that he knew catered to fishermen. “Hungry?”
She hesitated only a moment, then nodded, smiling, as she followed him into the café. He ordered them both the breakfast special, trout, hash browns, eggs and toast with coffee and watched her doctor her coffee with both sugar and cream.
“Are you at least going to tell me your name?” he asked as they waited for their order.
She studied him. “That depends. Do you live around here?”
He shook his head. “East of here, outside of a town called Whitehorse.” He could tell she’d never heard of it. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, a part of Montana most tourists never see.”
“You think I’m a tourist?” She smiled at that.
“Aren’t you?” He still couldn’t decide if she was visiting the Grizzly Club or lived there with her rich husband. But given the way she’d left that expensive sports car beside the lake, he thought his present-day Cinderella theory might not be that far off base.
Maybe he just didn’t want to believe it, but he was convinced she wasn’t married to some tycoon. She hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring last night or today. Not only that, she didn’t act married—or in a committed relationship. Not that he hadn’t been wrong about that before.
“Don’t you think you should at least tell me your name?” he asked.
She looked around the café for a moment as if considering telling him her name. When those pale blue eyes came back to him, she said, “Blythe. That’s my name.”
“Nice to meet you, Blythe.” He reached across the table extending his hand. “Logan. You have a last name?”
Her hand felt small and warm in his. She didn’t clean houses at the Grizzly Club, that was definite, he thought, as he felt her silky-smooth palm. Several silver bracelets jingled lightly on her slim tanned wrist. But she could still be a car thief.
“Blythe is good enough for now, don’t you think?”
“I guess it depends on what happens next.”
She grinned. “What would you like to happen next?”
“I’m afraid I have to head back home today, otherwise I might have had numerous suggestions.”
“Back to Whitehorse,” she said studying him. “Someone waiting for you back there?”
“Nope.” He could have told her about his five brothers and his father and stepmother back at the ranch, but he knew that wasn’t what she’d meant. He’d also learned the hard way not to mention Chisholm Cattle Company. He’d seen too many dollar signs appear in some women’s eyes. There was a price to be paid when you were the son of one of the largest ranch owners in the state.
“Someone waiting for you back at the Grizzly Club?” he asked.
“Nope.”
Their food arrived then and she dived into hers as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. She might not have, he realized. He had no idea who this woman was or what was going to happen next, but he didn’t care. He liked her, liked watching her eat. She did it with the same kind of passion and abandon she’d shown dancing and driving.
“I’ve never seen that part of Montana,” she said as they were finishing. She wiped her expressive mouth and tossed down her napkin. “Show me.”
He raised a brow. “It’s a five-hour drive from here.” When she didn’t respond, he asked, “What about your car?”
“It’s a rental. I’ll call and have the agency collect it.”
He considered her for a moment. “You don’t want to pick up anything from your house?”
“It’s not my house, and I like to travel light.”
Logan still wasn’t sure she was serious about going with him, but serious or not, he was willing to take her up on whatever she was offering. He liked that he had no idea who she was, what she wanted or what she would do next. It had been too long since a woman had captivated him to the point that he was willing to throw caution to the wind.
“Let’s ride then.” As they left the café, he couldn’t help but notice the way she looked around as if afraid of who might be waiting for her outside. He was reminded of how she’d come flying out of the Grizzly Club. Maybe she really had stolen that car she’d been driving and now he was harboring a criminal.
He laughed to himself. He was considered the rebel Chisholm brother. The one who’d always been up for any adventure, whether it was on horseback or a Harley. But as they walked to his motorcycle, he had a bad feeling that he might be getting into more than even he could handle.
Chapter Two
Sheriff Buford Olson hitched up his pants over his expanding belly, reached back into his patrol car for his Stetson and, closing the door, tilted his head back to look up at the hotel-size building called the Main Lodge.
Buford hated getting calls to come out to the Grizzly Club. It wasn’t that he disliked the rich, although he did find them demanding and damned irritating.
It was their private security force, a bunch of punk kids, who made his teeth ache. Buford considered anyone under thirty-five to be a kid. The “club” had given these kids a uniform and a gun and turned them into smart-ass, dangerous punks who knew diddlysquat about law enforcement.
Buford always wondered why the club had to call him in if their security force was so capable. It was no secret that the club liked to handle its own problems. The people who owned homes inside the gates didn’t want anyone outside them knowing their business. So the whole idea was to sweep whatever trouble the club had under one of their expensive Persian rugs.
Worse, the folks who owned the club didn’t want to upset the residents—or jeopardize new clientele—so they wanted everyone to believe that once they were behind these gates they were safe and nothing bad could happen.
Buford snorted at the thought, recalling how the general manager had asked him to park in the back of the main lodge so he wouldn’t upset anyone. The guard at the gate had said, “Sheriff Buford, right? I heard you were here for a complimentary visit.”
A complimentary visit. That had made him contrary enough that he’d parked right out front of “the Main Lodge.” Now, though, as he started up the wide flagstone steps, he wished he hadn’t been so obstinate. He felt his arthritis bothering him and, worse, his stomach roiling against the breakfast his wife had cooked him.
Clara had read in one of her magazines that if you ate a lot of hot peppers it would make you lose weight. She’d been putting hot chile peppers in everything they ate—and playing hell with his stomach.
The general manager he’d spoken to earlier spotted him and came rushing toward him. The diminutive man, whose name Buford couldn’t recall at first, was painfully thin with skin that hadn’t seen sunlight and piercing blue eyes that never settled more than a second.
“I thought I told you to park in the back.”
Buford shrugged. “So what’s the problem?” he asked as he looked around the huge reception area. All the leather, antler lamps and chandeliers, thick rugs and gleaming wood floors reminded him of Clara’s designer magazines.
Montana style, they called it. The Lodge Look. Buford was old enough to remember when a lot of places looked like this, only they’d been the real McCoy—not this forced Montana style.
“In here,” the general manager ordered, drawing him into a small, claustrophobic office with only one window that looked out on the dense forest. The name on the desk read Kevin Andrews, General Manager.
Kevin closed the door and for the first time, Buford noticed how nervous the man appeared. The last time Buford had been called here was for a robbery inside the gates. That time he’d thought Kevin was going to have a heart attack, he’d been so upset. But once the missing jewelry, which turned out only to have been misplaced, was found, all was well and quickly forgotten.
Buford guessed though that it had taken ten years off Kevin’s life from the looks of him. “So what’s up? More missing jewelry?”
“This is a very delicate matter. I need you to handle it with the utmost care. Do I have your word?”
Buford felt his stomach roil again. He was in no mood for this. “Just tell me what’s happened.”
The general manager rose from his chair with a brisk “come with me.”
Buford followed him out to a golf cart. Resigned that he had no choice but to ride along, he climbed on. Kevin drove them through the ritzy residence via the narrow paved roads that had been hacked out of the pines.
The hotel-size houses were all set back from the road, each occupying at least ten acres from Buford’s estimation since the buildings had to take up three of those acres with guest houses of another half acre. Each log, stone and glass structure was surrounded by pine trees so he only caught glimpses of the exclusive houses as Kevin whipped along the main road.
Finally he pulled down one of the long driveways, coming to a stop in front of a stone monstrosity with two wide wooden doors. Like the others, the house was all rock and logs with massive windows that looked out over the pines on the mountainside and Flathead Lake far below.
Buford saw with a curse that two of the security force’s golf carts were parked out front. One of the garage doors was open. A big, black SUV hunkered in one of the three stalls. The others were empty.
Getting off the golf cart, he let Kevin lead him up to the front door. Bears had been carved into the huge wooden doors, and not by some roadside chainsaw artist. Without knocking, Kevin opened the door and Buford followed him inside.
He was hit at once with a familiar smell and felt his stomach clutch. This was no missing jewelry case.
With dread, he moved across the marble floor to where the walls opened into a football field–size living room with much the same furnishings as the club’s main lodge. The two security guards were standing at the edge of the room. They had been visiting, but when they saw Kevin, they tried to act professional.
Buford looked past them to the dead man sprawled beside the hearth of the towering rock fireplace. The deceased was wearing a white, blood-soaked velour robe and a pair of leather slippers on his feet. Apparently nothing else.
“Get them out of here,” Buford ordered, pointing at the two security guards. He could only guess at how many people had already tromped through here contaminating the scene. “Stay back and make sure no one else comes traipsing through here.”
He swore under his breath as he worked his way across the room to the fireplace and the dead man. The victim looked to be in his late fifties, but could have been older because, from the tightness of his facial skin, he’d had some work done. His hair was dark with distinguishing gray at the temples, a handsome man even in death.
It appeared he’d been shot in the heart at point-blank range. An expensive handgun lay on the floor next to the body in a pool of drying blood. Clearly the man had been dead for hours. Buford swore again. He’d bet that Kevin had contacted the Grizzly Club board before he’d called the sheriff’s department.
Around the dead man were two different distinct prints left in his blood. One was a man-size dress shoe sole. The other a cowboy boot—small enough that Buford would guess it was a woman’s. It was her prints that held his attention. The woman hadn’t walked away—she’d run—straight for the front door.
AT THE MOTORCYCLE, BLYTHE tied up her hair and climbed on behind the cowboy. She didn’t think about what she was doing as she wrapped her arms around him. All she knew was that she had to escape, and wherever Logan was headed was fine with her. Even better, this Whitehorse place sounded like the end of the earth. With luck, no one would find her there.
She reminded herself that she’d thought this part of Montana would be far from the life she wanted so desperately to leave behind. But she’d been wrong.
Running didn’t come easy to her. She’d always been a fighter. But not today. Today she only wanted to forget everything, hang on to this good-looking cowboy on the back of his motorcycle, feel the wind in her face and put her old life as far behind her as possible.
An image flashed in her mind, making her shudder, and she glanced down at her cowboy boots. She quickly wiped away a streak of dark red along the sole as Logan turned the key and brought the Harley to life.
She felt the throb of the engine and closed her eyes and her mind the way she used to tune out her mother when she was a girl. Back then it was to close out the sound of her mother and her latest boyfriend arguing in the adjacent room of the small, old trailer house. She had learned to go somewhere else, be someone else, always dreaming of a fantasy life far away.
With a smile, she remembered that one of her daydreams had been to run away with a cowboy. The thought made her hold on to Logan tighter as he shifted and tore out of the café parking lot in a shower of gravel.
Last night dancing with Logan she’d thought she was finally free. It was the best she’d felt in years. Now she pressed her cheek into the soft warmth of his leather jacket, lulled by the pulse of the motorcycle, the feel of the wind in her hair. She couldn’t believe that he’d found her.
What had she been thinking giving him that damned key? She’d taken a terrible risk, but then she’d never dreamed he would come looking for her. What if he had gotten into the Grizzly Club this morning before she’d gotten out of there?
She shook off the thought and watched the countryside blur past, first forest-covered mountains, then wide-open spaces as they raced along the two-lane highway that cut east across the state.
She’d gotten away. No one knew where she was. But still she had to look back. The past had been chasing her for so long, she didn’t kid herself that it wasn’t close behind.
There were no cars close behind them, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be looking for her.
For a moment, she considered what she’d done. She didn’t know this cowboy, didn’t know where he was taking her or what would happen when they got there.
This is so like you. Leaping before you look. Not thinking about the consequences of your actions. As if you weren’t in enough trouble already.
Her mother’s words rang in her ears. The only difference this time was that she wasn’t that fourteen-year-old girl with eleven dollars in the pocket of her worn jean jacket and her only possession a beat-up guitar one of her mother’s boyfriend’s had left behind.
She’d escaped both times. That time from one of her mother’s amorous boyfriends and with her virginity. This time with her life. At least so far.
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