River strong, p.3
River Strong, page 3
The sheriff had no idea where it was going—or if it was going anywhere. He liked Bailey’s company and she seemed to find his job fascinating. She also liked to talk about the valley’s history. Since Stu had taken his dad’s job as sheriff, he remembered stories his father had told. Those seemed to interest Bailey, too. She was especially interested in the feud between her family and the Staffords.
“Thanks, but I don’t need anything,” Stu had said, touched that Cooper would ask if he wanted anything from the West Coast. “Have a nice trip. When are you coming back?”
“Not sure. Only a day or two.”
He’d gotten the impression Coop had wanted to say more, but Stu had to take a call and his friend had waved goodbye as he’d left.
CHAPTER TWO
CHARLOTTE STAFFORD STUDIED herself in the small compact mirror as the plane readied for takeoff. She hated the grim line of her mouth, the lines around her eyes. Her emerald green eyes had once been her best feature. Those and her long legs. She had a flash of memory of those slim, sun-browned legs wrapped around Holden McKenna’s body and snapped her compact shut.
“Are we ever going to get off the ground?” she demanded of the attendant.
“The pilot said it would only be a little longer,” the young male answered. “Can I get you anything else before we take off?”
She waved away the question with a shake of her head and looked out the window before turning her gaze on her son. CJ had been lifted from his wheelchair into a seat on the private plane she’d hired. His mood appeared worse than her own.
It was its own kind of hell to see him like this. She’d been so sure that the doctors she was paying an enormous amount of money to would repair the damage to her son. She refused to believe he wouldn’t walk again.
Charlotte felt the plane begin to move, finally. She looked out the window, preparing herself for returning to the Powder River Basin. In her absence, her sons Brand and Ryder had seen to the ranch along with ranch manager, Boyle Wilson. She groaned inwardly at the thought of Boyle, who’d been employed as far back as she could remember.
She never questioned his loyalty to her since he’d made little secret of the fact that he was interested in dating her. Like that was ever going to happen. Still she didn’t doubt the man would kill for her, if asked. He also hated the McKennas, especially Holden, as much or more than she did. But over the years, she also knew that he’d been collecting secrets about her and her family like gold nuggets, storing them away until one day he might want to cash them in. It was why she would never fully trust Boyle.
Charlotte valued loyalty above all else, but seldom got it, she thought as the plane taxied out onto the airstrip for takeoff. She wielded control with an iron fist, using both her money and her power to get what she wanted. Most everyone knew better than to cross her. Those who didn’t quickly learned what happened if they did cross her, she thought bitterly as the plane’s engines began to rev.
She closed her eyes as the craft sped down the runway and lifted off. In the months she’d been gone, a lot had happened. But she assured herself that she would be home soon to take care of things as she always had—on her own terms.
* * *
THE TALK AT the Dirty Business meeting that evening was all about the two men the gas company had brought in to guard their equipment, Frankie and Norman Lees, so Oakley hadn’t been paying a lot of attention. She’d already researched both men, hearing stories about how they’d handled things in Wyoming before CH4 gas company had moved into the Powder River Basin.
She had no doubt that they were dangerous. If anything, CH4 hiring thugs had the Dirty Business group even more divided on how to go forward. As it was, most of the group had always been opposed to vandalizing the gas rigs.
Oakley tuned out the old arguments until she heard her name mentioned.
“It’s not stopping drilling,” rancher Ralph Jones said again tonight. “I think talking to your neighbors, making sure they know what’s at stake, is still the best approach, especially when it comes to your mother, Oakley.”
One of the men in the crowd spoke up. “I know for a fact that your brother CJ ordered more drilling on the Stafford Ranch.”
“It will be over my dead body,” Oakley assured him. There was a splattering of applause.
“I don’t think that’s funny,” Ralph said, getting the meeting back under control. “These men they brought in, they’re dangerous. I heard from down in Wyoming what they did when they caught anyone even near the equipment—let alone anyone trying to stop the drilling. You could very well end up dead.”
Oakley felt her phone notify her of a text. She stepped outside the meeting room. It was from her mother. It was the news she’d been waiting for. Charlotte and CJ were in-flight back to Powder Crossing and the ranch. She was demanding to see her. She felt her heart rise to her throat. A summons from her mother was never a good thing.
“You all right?” Pickett asked as he came out of the meeting and walked down the empty hallway to where she stood. The meeting was about to break up. Several lawyers and activists had been talking at length about what they’d done in Wyoming to try to stop the drilling.
All she could think about was whether or not her mother would be at the ranch before they returned from Miles City.
But as Pickett approached, long-legged and rangy, her thoughts strayed from her mother’s return and even further from methane gas drilling. A lock of his sun-streaked hair flopped down onto his forehead, drawing her gaze to the light in his eyes. He had dark blue eyes so different from Duffy’s pale ones. He was harder to read than Duffy, too. The easygoing ranch hand often joked around, but when he was serious, there was an intensity that often made her heart beat a little faster.
Like now, she felt very aware of him standing so close to her. It was as if he radiated a kind of heat. Or was it electricity?
Right now his eyes were dark, his brows knitted in concern. For a man who was seldom serious, he couldn’t have been more appealing than at this moment.
Her body reacted, tingling with anticipation, but anticipation for what? She turned to him, closing a little more of the distance between them, aware of the quiet, the privacy, the almost intimacy, in the empty hallway.
She felt her heart kick up a beat as her gaze took in the cowboy she never saw alone. Duffy was always either with them or close by. Pickett’s worn Western shirt stretched across his broad, muscled shoulders. He’d rolled up the sleeves, exposing strong forearms, still tanned from the summer and working outdoors.
Tucked into his jeans, the shirt made her aware of his slim waist. He wore a pair of recently washed newer jeans. Like his shirt, the fabric looked soft as it gently hugged his lanky, long legs.
“Oakley?” He looked even more concerned.
She found her voice, part of her shocked by the range of emotions making her body feel light and at the same time her breasts feel heavy. “My mother’s headed home,” she said.
“CJ?” he asked as he leaned against the wall, casually studying her, and yet the look in his eyes warmed her to her boots. Her toes curled a little.
“He’s coming with her. I can’t see her leaving his side. Clearly, she had no plans to return home without him.”
He nodded. “You haven’t seen him since...” He didn’t need to finish, but she suspected he’d hesitated because he hadn’t wanted to remind her of the shooting. Or the fact that she couldn’t remember the last time she saw her brother from before she was shot.
What it did remind her of was the night she’d awakened to find the ranch hand beside her hospital bed. Pickett had been holding her hand, filling her with both warmth and a sense of safety. She’d had the feeling that it hadn’t been the first time he’d sat in that chair holding her hand, his head down as if in prayer. How many times had he come to her room like this in the night when her mother wasn’t around to stop him?
She’d never asked him. She hadn’t let on that she knew—even after she regained consciousness. Instead, she’d closed her eyes and squeezed his hand when she’d found him in her room. When she’d awakened again, he’d been gone. He’d never mentioned it, either. It had been their secret.
“Are you going to be all right?” he asked now.
Oakley nodded, even though she wasn’t that sure. Facing her brother would be one of the hardest things she’d ever done. Except maybe recovering from the bullet he’d fired into her back.
“That could move things up a bit with the drilling,” he said, still studying her.
She could only nod, trying to think about the new gas well she was determined to stop. Instead, she breathed in Pickett’s fresh-from-the-shower scent as if it was the best thing she’d ever smelled. She fought the urge to move even closer. She knew that if she touched his shirt, it would be soft, the arm under it solid. That was Pickett. Solid.
“You ready to face him?”
It had been months since CJ had shot her, months since she’d seen him while he was in Minnesota recovering. She had little sympathy for him. He’d almost killed both her and Tilly. He was to blame for his injuries that had left him paralyzed, but she doubted he would see it that way. He’d never accepted blame or experienced remorse for his actions from the time he was a boy.
“Of course you’re going to have conflicting feelings,” Pickett was saying. “He’s your brother and yet—”
“And yet, he almost killed me and I’m still not sure why. I’m angry and hurt, but I also need answers.” With CJ returning, she would finally get to confront him for what he’d done to her, but she wanted more than that. She wanted to know the real story.
Pickett frowned. “I thought it was because he’d assumed you were meeting someone on the McKenna Ranch, and he fired a warning shot to stop you.”
“That’s what he told my sister, Tilly, but I suspect there is more to it. I just need to remember everything before I was shot. I don’t even know what I was doing there that day.”
“Or what your brother was doing there,” he said quietly.
She looked into his eyes and felt electricity arcing between them. This was something new, something she hadn’t felt before. When she looked into the depths of those eyes, she could have sworn that he was feeling it, too. She swallowed, feeling strangely self-conscious. “I have a lot of questions.”
“And a lot of anger,” he noted, his gaze intent on her. Pickett listened like no one she’d ever known. “If your mother is as protective of CJ as you said she is...”
She smiled and tried to still the jitters she felt being this close to the ranch hand. She’d never felt them quite this strongly before. Something was different tonight, a closeness, an intimacy, because of being alone here. If he touched her, she knew she would walk into his arms. The thought of being held in those arms, of being pressed against his strong chest, of being protected in a way she’d never known, filled her with a need so strong that it threatened to overwhelm her.
But Pickett didn’t touch her—ever—not like Duffy, who often threw his arm around her, pulled her into his chest for a hug or nudged her to get her attention. Even if Pickett accidentally brushed against her in passing, she’d felt sparks fly. And suspected he had, too, and that was the reason why he tried not to touch her.
She’d never been more aware of the man than she was right now. She yearned for him to touch her with his suntanned, callused fingertips... That she yearned so deeply for his touch—let alone that she felt such an overwhelming desire tonight to be in his arms—shook her to her core.
“I need to tread lightly,” she said as if warning herself not only about how she handled CJ and her mother, but also how she reacted to Pickett right now.
She blamed her emotions on the thought of seeing her mother and CJ again. That was what had her off balance, she thought, even as she knew some of it was Pickett. She couldn’t trust herself, let alone her emotions, she warned herself.
“You plan to tread lightly?” He grinned. He had a great grin. “No offense, but you’re not really a light treader.”
She had to laugh. If felt good and lightened that tight feeling in her chest. Playing it cool had never been her strong suit. She’d always been more confrontational, speaking her mind and dealing with the consequences. “I might surprise you.” Or not, she thought, realizing that if anyone knew her, it was Pickett.
He’d seen her at her worst and her best over the years. A gawky fourteen-year-old when she’d met him for the first time on one of the many occasions she’d trespassed on the McKenna Ranch. She and Duffy had been friends since they were kids. Pickett and Duffy were already headed toward being best friends, but from that day on, she became part of the threesome.
Not all that much had changed—until tonight. Which made it hard to understand her reaction to this man she’d known for years.
“It isn’t like your mother doesn’t already know how you feel about drilling—especially on the Stafford Ranch,” he said. He had never seemed to feel the need to fill the quiet. She realized that his nerves were as tense as her own right now.
She could hardly breathe as Pickett moved a little closer. She saw the need in his eyes as he reached toward her and brushed back a lock of her hair, his gaze never leaving hers. His callused fingertips felt just as she knew they would when they brushed her forehead. “Oakley.”
Down the hall, a door burst open, noise and people spilling out. Pickett looked as if there was something more he wanted to say, to do, but the meeting had ended; people streamed out, filling the hallway with raised voices and commotion. Pickett dropped his hand to his side, looking as disappointed as she felt.
Duffy joined them, throwing an arm over Oakley’s shoulder as he had since they were kids and said, “We might have problems. Let’s talk in the truck.” He looked at her then, his gaze going from her to Pickett before he asked, “You okay? I was worried when you left the meeting.”
“Fine.” She looked past him to Pickett. Their gazes locked for only an instant, the moment between them gone, but not forgotten—at least not by her—as the three of them left.
*
ABIGAIL CREED GREETED the sheriff at the door with a kiss. The scent of dinner wafted out as she led him into the small house she rented behind the hospital. Powder Crossing was a typical small Montana town, but back in its day it had been a stage stop for travelers from Deadwood to Miles City.
Back then, there was the Belle Creek Hotel, still standing today, but little else was left of the original town. Now Powder Crossing had a community church, a café, a bar, a grocery, a convenience store that sold gas out front and muck boots, overalls, rope and feed in the back, a hotel with its own bar and a part-time post office.
Along with a sheriff’s department, the town had a small community hospital, with a couple of nurses and one semiretired doctor. For serious injuries, patients were flown to Miles City or Billings.
That was one reason Stuart had trouble understanding why a young pretty nurse would want to move to Powder Crossing to work part-time at the hospital. She’d said it was because she wanted to spend more time doing what she loved—photography. But he realized he’d never seen her with a camera.
He tried to put his uneasiness about the woman aside, telling himself he and his suspicious nature made him his own worst enemy.
“Hope you’re hungry,” she said, giving him a smile that promised more than dinner.
“I am. It smells wonderful,” he said as he followed her toward the kitchen, stopping to study a photograph on the wall. A self-portrait of Abigail? If so, she was much younger. Her gaze was lowered almost coyishly, her smile tentative. A younger sister possibly? “Is this you?”
“A friend took it a long time ago. I don’t have any of mine up yet,” she said from the kitchen.
He found himself staring at the photograph, trying to figure out what it was about the shot that bothered him. Maybe everything about Abigail Creed unsettled him for a reason. A nurse and an aspiring professional photographer, if true, Abigail was multitalented. So again, what was she doing in Powder Crossing? Also, it seemed strange that the only photo on her wall was taken of her by someone else.
But maybe what he found more unsettling was why she seemed interested in him. A small-town sheriff who’d lived his whole life here, who’d followed in his father’s footsteps right into the sheriff position. Hell, he even lived in the house he’d grown up in only blocks away from here. The farthest he’d ranged from Powder Crossing was when he went to the state police academy.
Abigail handed him a glass of wine. “Dinner will be ready soon. Make yourself comfortable.”
“I was just admiring your place.” He moved back to the living room. There were no photographs of friends or family. With a start, he realized that there was nothing personal at all.
He reminded himself that she hadn’t been in town all that long. But it had been months. Maybe she hadn’t had time to put up more than the one photograph taken by a friend.
He continued around the living room, out of sight from the kitchen and Abigail. It was the first time he’d been in her house. The other times they’d either gone out or she’d brought dinner to him at the office when he’d worked late.
Other than the one photograph, there was no others anywhere in her house. He opened a door quietly, peered into her bedroom and noticed the same thing. No photos of family or friends. No knickknacks. No mementos at all. She’d always been vague when asked where she was from.
“I’ve lived all over. My family traveled a lot. It must have gotten into my blood.” She was just as vague as to why she’d come to Powder Crossing. She’d said a job had opened up and she wanted to shoot some photographs of the area, not knowing how long she planned to stay. Maybe that was all it was.
