Chapter Three
Dylan stepped into the cottage, closing the door behind him as he swore.
What had Rowena been thinking answering his intercom, let alone turning someone away and not even mentioning it to him? Add to that she’d apparently taken a note from his mailbox?
It made him even more suspicious as to why she was here.
He couldn’t shake the feeling she was waiting for something.
Or was it someone? He hated being this distrustful, but then again, his deceased wife’s former friend had always made him feel like that.
Too bad he hadn’t been more distrustful of his wife.
Maybe then he wouldn’t have looked like such a fool when the truth came out.
He went into his small study, swung a shelf of books aside to reveal the safe and opened it.
Inside, he took out the phone, unable to shake the foreboding feeling he’d had the moment the acting sheriff had shown up.
He saw that he had a message.
Instantly, he knew there was trouble.
Only two people had this number and one of them was dead.
Hurriedly, he listened to the message.
Disturbing news.
Allen Zimmerman.
Cops have ruled it an apparent suicide.
Watch your back.
His pulse jumped, heart dropping.
Dylan swore and hurriedly put the phone back before quickly closing the safe and replacing the shelf of books.
There was no way Allen had killed himself.
No possible way.
This had to be because of the rumored leak he’d been warned about.
Feeling shaken, he walked back out to the living room to find Rowena pouring herself a drink.
He glanced back at his open study door.
Had she heard the voicemail? He felt anger race through his veins like hot lava.
“I didn’t hear you buzz to get in the gate,”
he said, drawing on training he’d been trying hard to forget.
“Nor did I hear you drive up.”
Never show anger or any other emotion when confronting a suspected enemy.
Never show your hand—until you’re ready.
She turned toward him and smiled.
“I didn’t buzz in.
I got your passcode from your groundskeeper.
I didn’t want to bother you.”
“You’ve certainly made yourself at home,”
he commented, keeping both his concern and his irritation at bay—at least for the moment.
“I need your cell phone number.”
She beamed at that as if she thought he might call her for a date and told him her number, which he wrote down.
“Make you a drink?”
she asked still smiling as she finished making one for yourself.
“Thanks, but I’m fine.”
“Suit yourself,”
she said as she sighed and made her way to one of his deep leather chairs.
She dropped into it and kicked off her heels.
Dylan Walker hadn’t wanted company.
He’d certainly not invited anyone to his ranch—especially the woman who’d shown up.
“I have to ask, what are you still doing here, Rowena?”
He’d been caught off guard when she’d showed up at his gate and he’d foolishly let her in.
“How can you even ask that?”
she said with a laugh as she flipped her blond bob.
“I’m worried about you.
Ginny would have wanted me to make sure you were all right.”
Ginny.
He hated to even hear his deceased wife’s name on this woman’s lips—even if Rowena still called herself Ginny’s best friend.
He couldn’t imagine what Ginny had seen in her, but as it turned out he didn’t know either woman—his bride or her alleged best friend—very well.
During his short marriage, Ginny had a lot of friends from different walks of life.
She’d never had trouble keeping them at arm’s length if she didn’t care for them.
That’s why Rowena had been such a surprise, especially when she kept turning up at their house, at parties at other friends, at fundraisers.
He’d wondered what Ginny saw in Rowena, who wore her wealth like a lot of people Ginny had known—and disliked.
“I’m fine, so you need not have worried—let alone come all this way,”
Dylan assured her.
Rowena raised a finely shaped brow, her lips tilting up in a smile that didn’t seem to reach her green eyes.
“I thought you’d be glad to see me.”
She glanced around.
“I would think you’d get lonely out here all by yourself.”
She took a sip of her drink, looking relaxed, too relaxed.
She was beautiful, rich and privileged.
Like him, she’d apparently grown up in the rarified air of a Manhattan high-rise penthouse, summered abroad or jetted with friends to exclusive locations.
Surprisingly, his path had never intersected with Rowena until Rowena and Ginny had become friends.
He studied her for a moment, remembering the day she’d been the one at the gate wanting to be let in.
That had been four days ago.
He’d been more than surprised to see her.
She’d said she was passing through Montana.
People didn’t pass through Montana, not unless they were coming from Chicago or Seattle or on a backroad to Canada.
Dylan had called her on it, and she’d admitted that she’d come to see his ranch.
Another lame excuse.
“You know how close Ginny and I were.
She would have wanted me to check up on you.”
He wasn’t sure about either of those answers.
Rowena was the only one who said she and Ginny were best friends.
He’d often thought the friendship was one-sided, so why had Ginny let Rowena cling to her like she had?
Shaking his head, he realized he’d let her do the same thing.
When he’d let her in the gate, he’d thought she’d be gone by morning.
Just passing through, like she said.
So why was she still here, and why was he letting her stay?
“What are you really doing here?”
he asked as he sat down on the edge of the chair across from her and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s a valid question.”
Rowena gave him an irritated look.
“I told you.
I wanted to see your ranch I heard you’d bought.”
She sighed.
“I also wanted to see how you were doing.
It hasn’t even been a year since Ginny died.”
“Do you really think you need to remind me how long ago it was that my wife was murdered?”
he demanded as he pushed to his feet.
“And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Maybe you should,”
she said.
“Have you talked to anyone about it?”
He mugged a face in answer.
“Don’t you think you need to deal with all of it?”
“I just told you I don’t want to talk about it.
Let’s talk about your life.
What happened to your last relationship, which number was he?”
She rose as well.
“You’re just being spiteful now.”
Dylan didn’t want to take out his frustration on this woman.
But what was she doing here? Surely she didn’t have romantic designs on him.
She wasn’t that clueless.
“The sheriff was here wanting to talk to you,”
he said, watching her.
“I just texted her office your number.”
“I saw her.
Wasn’t she just cute as a button?”
The use of the phrase made her sarcasm irritate him even more.
“And pregnant!”
She laughed.
“How do you know she was pregnant unless…”
He stared at her.
“You were parked close by watching her?”
Watching me, he thought.
“I waited until she left,”
she said.
“Why would she want to talk to me?”
“She wanted to know about a visitor I apparently had at my gate while I was out horseback riding yesterday morning,” he said.
“A visitor?”
She took a sip of her drink.
He glared at her.
“Apparently you failed to mention it.”
“Oh, that deluded woman? I wasn’t about to let her in.
I really couldn’t understand anything she was saying.”
“Probably made it easier to find out what was going on when you read the note you saw her leave in my mailbox.”
Rowena froze for a moment, then sighed.
“It was all nonsense, I couldn’t make heads nor tails out of—”
“I want to see the note.”
She blinked then finished her drink.
She stood and walked to the bar to make herself another one.
“I threw it away.”
“Did she mention on the note that she was pregnant?”
“Do you think that was her problem?”
Rowena asked, turning to look at him wide-eyed.
“Must be something that’s catching up here in these parts.”
“I’m serious.”
She waved a hand through the air as if swatting away a pesky fly.
“What does it matter?”
“Maybe it’s nothing,”
he admitted.
“The sheriff just had a few questions.
But you’ve only made things more difficult for me.”
“If it makes you happy, I’ll talk to the sheriff when she calls.”
She looked at him, brow raised, as she walked to her chair with her fresh drink.
“Is this all that has you so upset? I thought it was because you’d heard the news out of DC.”
He looked at her in surprise, almost expecting her to tell him about Allen Zimmerman, his old boss, except she shouldn’t know anything or anyone from that world.
She’d been the rich divorcee who moved in next door and became friends with his wife.
The party girl who he’d often found finishing off a second or third bottle of wine in the afternoon with Ginny while he’d been at work.
“I was afraid it would upset you when you heard that they were reopening the car bombing investigation that killed our Ginny,”
she said, making a sad face.
Our Ginny? At least she was smart enough not to mention his brother, Beau, who just happened to be in the car with her when it exploded.
“Where did you hear they were reopening the case?”
“A friend who works in the prosecutor’s office.
Maybe they’ll finally find the person who did it and you’ll get closure.
That is why you moved way out here, wasn’t it? To forget?”
“Did your friend say why they were reopening the case?” he asked.
“No, they’re being really hush-hush about it,”
she said and shrugged.
“I do wonder why.”
So did he.
He realized he did want that drink.
At the bar, he found he was anything but calm now.
“Does the name Lindsey Martin mean anything to you?”
he asked as he poured some bourbon into a glass.
“No, should it? Who is she?”
“The woman who’d tried to get in yesterday, the one you turned away, the one whose note you destroyed,”
he said and took a gulp of his drink.
“But you wouldn’t know anything about that, right?”
“Really, Dylan,”
she said as she rose to join him at the bar.
She stood so close that he could feel the heat coming off her well-toned body.
She dropped her voice and asked seductively, “Whatever are you accusing me of?”
He’d felt uneasy before Rowena had shown up at his door and then the acting sheriff.
He couldn’t believe Zimmerman was dead and now this news about the bombing case being reopened? Trouble often seemed to hitch a ride on an ill wind, as his brother Beau used to say.
Rowena, he suspected, like his dead brother, was that ill wind.
He’d thought he’d left that life behind him when he’d moved to Montana.
Clearly, he’d been wrong.
His past was coming for him and anyone who got in the way—like the acting sheriff, he thought with a curse—could be in the line of fire.
“Are you in some kind of trouble, Dylan?”
Turning toward Rowena, he smiled and dropped his voice just as she had done.
“Seriously, I think you’ve accomplished whatever it is you’ve come here for.”
“You’re wrong about that,”
she said, almost sounding sad.
“Would you mind terribly if I stayed just a few more days? I’ve come all this way.
There are some things I want to see while I’m out here.
I promise to stay out of your way, if you don’t mind me remaining in the main house that long.”
He wasn’t sure why he did it.
Because it wasn’t that much to ask? Or because it would give him time to try to find out what Rowena was really doing out here.
“A few days, but no more.
I’m sorry, but I need this time alone.
That’s why I bought this place.”
“I understand,”
she said.
“I know how much you loved Ginny and she loved you.”
He nodded, even though it was hard to do so.
Not everyone knew about Ginny’s betrayal—or his brother’s.
“I’ll be gone by the weekend,”
she promised and moved to kiss his cheek.
“Thank you,”
she whispered next to his ear.
With that, she left, leaving behind the scent of her perfume.
He watched her walk over to the main house and disappear inside as he locked the cottage door behind her and went into the study.
He reminded himself to change the passcode on the gate as soon as she was gone.
But right now, he desperately needed to find out what was going on.
Why would there be something new in the almost year-old bombing case now?
Back in Fortune Creek, Cat went straight to the hotel across the street from the sheriff’s department.
The entire town was only a few blocks long, with an old hotel, a general store with a gas station, a bar and a sheriff’s office.
The main drag dead-ended at the creek.
She’d been shocked that there was even a sheriff’s department here at all.
But it was the only law in this part of northwestern Montana, only miles from the Canadian border.
The hotel was a four-story narrow building that was being restored after years of remaining empty.
Former high school and NFL football star Ash Hammond had returned to town to buy the hotel after a career-changing injury.
He was behind the counter when she walked in.
Young and good-looking with dark-hair and a ready smile, Ash greeted her cheerfully.
He’d been one of the few people who had welcomed her with open arms.
Most of the locals preferred Sheriff Brandt Parker and made no bones about it, even when she pointed out that she was only acting sheriff until he returned.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
Ash said smiling.
“I was just about to head up the street to get some lunch.”
His options were limited for lunch—the café or the convenience mart.
“Want to join me?”
“Thanks, but I need to speak with one of your guests, Lindsey Martin.
What room did you put her in?”
she asked as she started for the stairs.
The old elevator had been refurbished, but she needed to get her steps in.
“In 307, except she isn’t there,”
Ash said.
“Checked her in, took her bags up and the next thing I knew the elevator opened and there she was with her bags saying she couldn’t stay.”
“She checked out?”
Cat couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her tone.
She’d told the woman that she’d be safe here in Fortune Creek—especially staying right across the street from the sheriff’s department.
“Did she say why she was leaving?”
Ash shook his head.
“Did she at least say where she was going?”
Another shake of his head.
“Surely she left me a message.”
He’d already started to shake his head before she said, “Any chance she went across the street to my office?”
“Sorry.
I carried her bags out to her vehicle, she got behind the wheel and left.”
Was it possible she’d gotten another threat? Cat wondered.
One that had scared her away? “What was her general demeanor?”
Ash shrugged.
“Maybe a little anxious to be on her way, but she wasn’t acting scared, if that’s what you’re thinking.
She just seemed to have changed her mind.”
About the hotel room or about her allegations against Dylan Walker? Cat wondered as she headed back across the street to her office.
As she did, she saw a vehicle drive in and park in front of the hotel.
She stopped to watch two men dressed in business attire climb out of an SUV.
She watched the larger of the two look around, his gaze lighting on her and the small sheriff’s department building before he turned and the two disappeared inside the hotel.
The men couldn’t have looked more out of place, which made her wonder what had brought them to Fortune Creek.
Definitely not tourists, not this time of the year, she thought, as she made her way to her office and put the two men out of her mind—at least temporarily as she hoped Lindsey Martin and her baby were okay.
As pregnant as Lindsey had been, maybe she’d decided she needed to be closer to a hospital.
The entire Fortune Creek, Montana, sheriff’s office was matchbox size, with only Cat and Helen holding down the fort, so to speak.
As uneventful as things had been in town since she’d taken over, Cat wondered how Helen spent her days—let alone how the sheriff did.
Given the amount of knitted throws the elderly woman had produced in the short time Cat had been there, she had a pretty good idea at least how Helen filled her time in the office.
As Cat walked in, still worried and confused about Lindsey Martin’s quick exit, she found Helen knitting—of course.
The older woman barely looked up as the acting sheriff approached her desk.
“By any chance did the pregnant woman from earlier call and leave me a message?”
Helen didn’t look up from her knitting.
“Called.
In your office on your desk.”
“Thank you.”
Trying not to sigh, she went to her desk.
The message was written in Helen’s neat cursive.
Lindsey Martin: I changed my mind.
The time and date were written after it.
Lindsey had called the office with the message shortly after Cat had left town to talk to Dylan Walker.
Sticking her head out her door, she asked, “Did you get a phone number from her?”
“Called from the hotel right after you left.”
Back in her office, she glared at Helen through the office window, saying to herself, “Would have been nice to know on my way out to see Dylan Walker.”
Helen didn’t look up, which was probably just as well.
Cat wondered how she could ever get the woman to quit treating her like an outsider.
For that matter, it was the same with a lot of the residents of the town.
It wasn’t just that they liked Brandt Parker better, even though they did.
They seemed to question how a woman had gotten the acting sheriff job—especially a pregnant one who, while wearing a wedding ring, clearly didn’t have a husband living with her.
Cat figured it was none of their business and definitely not something she wanted to talk about.
She reminded herself that she only had a few months here.
She was determined to make the best of it, as boring and uneventful as the job had turned out to be.
Sitting down at her desk, she did question what she was doing here especially when she didn’t seem to be wanted.
It wasn’t as if she was interested in a popularity contest with the handsome cowboy sheriff Brandt Parker, because she would lose hands down.
He was loved and admired and apparently so handsome that some New Yorker named Molly had turned his head, tricked him into marriage and taken him off on some long honeymoon—at least that was the local story.
Cat almost felt sorry for the woman she’d never met.
This was a rough town to win over.
She wondered how Helen had taken it. She guessed not well.
As for the locals wanting to know her story, she saw no reason to share it.
She told herself that she wouldn’t be here that long.
Let them speculate all they wanted, she thought as she laid her palm on her stomach.
As she felt her baby move, that wonderful flutter she loved, she smiled to herself.
This was her story and no one else’s.
Turning back to business, she studied the message Lindsey had left.
Had the woman gotten cold feet after her get-rich plan hadn’t worked? Or had she been threatened again and scared off?
Cat balled up the message and chucked it into the trash.
She reached for the notes she’d started with the complaint against Dylan Walker.
She’d asked Lindsey if she wanted to get a restraining order against Walker.
She hadn’t.
Seeing how scared the woman had been, Cat had figured she’d speak to him first.
After that Ms.
Martin could decide how she wanted to proceed.
Now that she had talked to Dylan Walker, she wasn’t sure who she believed.
Lindsey had appeared frightened for herself and her baby.
Dylan had seemed straightforward in his responses with nothing to hide.
Which one was telling the truth?
A thought struck her.
Could Lindsey have been faking the pregnancy with a cushion under her clothes hoping to shake down the apparently wealthy Walker?
But if she was truly having his baby, why change her mind? Cold feet?
Cat thought about calling him to let him know that the woman had changed her mind.
But he’d said he didn’t know a woman by that name, and he hadn’t seemed worried that it would go any further than it had.
Also, he’d been willing to prove that he wasn’t the father of the baby—if it came to that.
She jotted a couple of notes down, retrieved Lindsey’s note from the trash, flattened it out and put it in a file folder in case the woman returned.
At least it had been a break in the monotony that was Fortune Creek law enforcement, she told herself.
Maybe she should ask Helen to teach her to knit, she thought, watching the blur of needles in the woman’s hands.
Might be a way to bond—and not go mad for the rest of the time she had left as acting sheriff.
Then again, could she trust that Helen wouldn’t “accidently”
jab her with a knitting needle?