Buch lesen: «The Rancher's Twins»

CHAPTER ONE

JONATHON BLACKWELL INHALED a deep breath in an attempt to calm the herd of agitated cattle mustering inside his chest. It didn’t help. Nothing would, save for getting in and out as quickly as possible. Shopping on a normal day was bad enough. Shopping when he was short on time was downright aggravating. Why weren’t items where they should be? And was it his imagination or were products rarely to be found in the same spot twice?

Although he had to admit, Brewster Ranch Supply was more organized than most, and if he had to shop, he supposed this was the least irritating option. Trout, on the other hand, enjoyed a trip to Brewster’s, where there was always a treat waiting for him at the checkout counter.

“Almost done, buddy.” The black-and-white border collie stood beside him sniffing a rack of vegetable seeds. “Only a couple more things.”

Jon trudged through Brewster’s “home” section, where he puzzled way too long over what kind of sheets a woman might like on her bed—cartoon cats seemed a little silly and more like something he’d buy for his five-year-old twins, while tiny hearts felt vaguely inappropriate. Telling himself he was overthinking it, he tossed a daisy-printed set into the shopping cart. It was just that any little thing he could do to facilitate a smooth transition for his new nanny, he wanted to do.

Nanny thoughts stirred his already churning anxiety. He needed to get back to his ranch, the JB Bar, because adding to his urgency was a sick calf that needed medicating, a cattle guard that needed fixing at the main gate, cows and heifers in labor and a generator for the calving shed that wouldn’t start. Somewhere in between all that he needed to wash the new sheets and make the bed in the soon-to-be nanny’s room.

Sofie, the wife of his best friend, Zach, was watching the twins but it felt like bad form not to be there to welcome his new employee and... The word warn popped into his head, and he felt a sting of guilt for even thinking that word with respect to his children. A rush of love and affection followed. He adored his girls but the honest truth was that an explanation was only fair where the twins were concerned.

Conscience feeling scratchy, he grabbed a package of those raspberry-flavored fruity snacks the girls liked from the end of the aisle. Those, he noticed, were always in the same place and perfectly aligned to the sight line of a small child.

“Meds for the calf and we’re out of here,” he told Trout and headed toward the refrigerated unit. At least he would have no problem finding bovine medication.

Or so he thought.

Frustrating seconds ticked by as he scanned the shelves. A soft voice from behind him interrupted his search. “Hey, Jon, can I talk to you for a minute?” He glanced over his shoulder but didn’t budge from his position in front of the display case.

“I’m sorry, Grace. But I’m in a huge hurry. Can it wait until—”

A silk-clad arm snuck in beside him, nimble fingers plucking a bottle from the shelf below the one he’d been searching. “Here.” The bottle-holding hand then smacked lightly against his chest.

Taking the bounty, he studied the label. “Uh...” No wonder he hadn’t found it sooner. Why were companies always changing label designs and bottle sizes and making things look different? “Thank you.” With a final glance at the medication and a shake of his head, he shut the refrigerator door and turned to face the petite blonde now standing rigidly in front of him. “This is it.”

Adjusting her glasses, she gave him a brisk nod and an of-course-it-is look. Her gaze seemed to soften as Trout edged closer to examine her shoe. She gave the dog a pat.

“How did you...?”

“Dad said you called this morning.”

Dad was Frank Gardner. He and his wife, Alice, owned Brewster Ranch Supply. Grace had recently returned to Falcon Creek and was working for her parents while she established her own accounting business. Jon was her first client.

And what Grace said was true—Jon had called earlier to make sure the medication was in stock. Had that only been this morning? It felt like days ago. Ranching and hard work went hand in hand, but springtime meant calving season, which pushed it to a whole different level. His day had started hours before dawn and wouldn’t end until after dark. Technically, it wouldn’t end at all, not for a few more weeks, anyway, until his last cow had calved.

Grace was still staring at him. “It will only take a minute.”

“What will?” he asked.

“What I need to speak with you about. I know how busy you are, Jon. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Please.”

The earnest expression on her face gave him pause. Seeing as how Grace was currently doing his taxes, he felt it imprudent to refuse. Maybe something had come up.

“All right, then,” Jon agreed, even as an unsettling feeling began to creep over him. Grace looked...off.

Exhaling a loud sigh of relief, she took off toward the back of the store like a horse for the barn, her heels clicking smartly on the scarred wood floor. The thump of his boots and the tap of Trout’s toenails joined in discordant harmony as they followed.

Inside her office, which also doubled as a supply room, he was surprised to see Katie Montgomery already seated in the chair in front of Grace’s desk. Katie was the daughter of the ranch foreman on the Blackwell Ranch, his grandfather’s spread. Katie and her sister, Maura, had grown up there and, at seven years younger, Katie felt like his kid sister.

She looked up from her phone. The frown she’d been wearing transformed into a tight smile. “Hi, Jon. Hey, Trout.” The dog gave her a friendly nudge and an enthusiastic tail-wag. Katie scratched his neck. Strands of reddish hair had pulled loose from her braid and she looked as tired as Jon felt.

“Hello, Katie.”

Jon glanced around, considered sitting on a crate marked Farm Cat Tasty Food and then decided to remain standing. Trapped in a cramped room with these two women would normally feel like a treat. That was not the case right now. The air was thick and charged with tension, like that brief, hair-tingling moment of warning right before a thunderstorm came barreling down from the Rockies. You knew it was coming but there wasn’t much you could do about it except hunker down and brace yourself. When neither woman seemed inclined to get on with it, he looked pointedly from Grace to Katie and back again.

“What’s going on, ladies?”

Grace lowered herself into the chair behind her desk. “This is very difficult for me. I consider both of you friends... I hate having to do this, but I know you both will appreciate it if I just get to the point.”

“I know I will.” Tasks ticked through his mind again like a slide-show to-do list.

“I can’t get a hold of Big E,” Grace said. Big E was the name most everyone used when referring to his grandfather, Elias Blackwell. Jon wasn’t surprised, since most of the time Big E didn’t want to be gotten a hold of.

“Uh...” Jon wasn’t sure how this was his problem.

“Katie needs to order supplies, but the bill hasn’t been paid for a couple of months.”

That was odd.

“How long has it been since you’ve called your grandfather?” Katie asked him.

Was it his imagination or was that a twinge of accusation in her tone? Tough, smart, hardworking and honest, Katie also had a way with horses that could turn even the most seasoned cowpoke green with envy. Ranching was in her blood and Jon respected that. He would never say that anyone had an easy relationship with Big E, but Katie’s was about the smoothest he’d ever seen. He wasn’t quite sure how she managed it.

The phone rings both ways, he wanted to answer. But didn’t. His issues with his grandfather had nothing to do with Katie.

Holding his tongue, he looked toward Grace instead. “What do you mean you can’t get a hold of him?”

“Katie told me he’s not home.”

“Did you try his cell phone?”

“I’ve been trying it for over a week now.”

A week? A ripple of concern trotted up his spine. Jon hadn’t known Big E had plans to go anywhere. But he didn’t exactly keep himself up-to-date with the comings and goings of his grandfather and his stepgrandmother, Zoe. In a general sense, Jon did his dead-level best to stay away from Big E’s fifth wife, while he and Big E’s relationship might be described as cordial on a good day and tense on its worst. Thinking back, it had been at least a week since he’d spoken to Big E. And that conversation, like most of their communications, had been ranch-related.

“Huh. Well, Katie, where is he? How long has it been since you’ve spoken to him? Or your dad?”

Katie inhaled a breath, held it for a couple of seconds and then let it out. “I don’t know where he is. Dad hasn’t spoken to him.”

That troubling feeling gathered a head of steam and galloped headlong through his bloodstream.

“I’m sorry, Jon.” Grace’s pained expression seemed a perfect reflection of what he was feeling. “Your grandfather, it seems, has gone missing.”

* * *

“LYDIA NEWBURY, LYDIA NEW-W-BURY, Lydia New-bur-r-ry...” Lydia was practicing saying her new last name. Her biggest problem would be slipping up and saying Newton. But Tanner assured her that was the point; it was similar enough to her real name that if she did slip it would be easy to cover.

She studied the ancient map of Montana in the faded, dog-eared road atlas and wondered why—why did she continue to stare at the worn page? It wasn’t like the JB Bar Ranch was suddenly going to appear on the paper before her in the form of a little black dot like the quaint town of Billings, which unfortunately was now far, far behind her. Nor was it going to present itself as a pretty, powder blue squiggle, either, like the winding, picturesque Yellowstone River that she was traveling roughly parallel to.

The view beckoned through the windshield and pulled her focus outside the vehicle again. Awesome, these mountains, but in the truest, most uncorrupted sense of the word. She glanced back down at the map, at the mapmaker’s attempt to shade in a likeness of the Rocky Mountains. Ha. Not even a camera could do justice to these peaks jutting from the earth in all their rugged, snowcapped glory.

Philadelphia seemed light-years away. She took a second to be thankful for that and for the fact that she’d made it this far. Every mile felt like a tiny victory, a step closer to freedom.

She’d pulled over on the highway because she knew she had to be close. The turnoff was somewhere east of Livingston, but she couldn’t remember how many miles. She’d entered the ranch’s “address” into her phone at the car lot in Billings where she’d purchased the used SUV. That is if “JB Bar Ranch, Old Tractor Road, Falcon Creek, MT” could be considered a proper address. GPS had recognized the place, so she’d gone with it, but cell service had been spotty and with the constant searching for service, her battery was dead.

Tanner had handpicked this job for her and a few days ago it had seemed like the perfect solution. Working as a nanny and living on a ranch in Montana meant she was virtually untraceable. No rental agreement meant no address and no bills in her name. The perfect hiding place. A bitter chuckle slipped out of her at the irony of a hiding spot so good she couldn’t even find it.

And if she didn’t hide, Clive would find her.

As if Lydia leaving him and taking his money wasn’t bad enough, the four dollars she’d left in his bank accounts was going to push him over the edge. A fresh spike of fear left her limbs tingling. Why had she done that? In those last triumphant seconds, she’d gotten greedy. Heady with accomplishment and vengeance, the idea had come to her. A little dig to get back at him after all those months of putting up with his abuse.

“Stupid, Lydia,” she whispered and pressed a fisted hand to her mouth. At first, he’d wonder, but it wouldn’t take him long to put those twos and twos together and figure out what all those fours meant.

And he would come after her.

Like a fugitive in a crime drama, she’d been flown by a pilot friend of Tanner’s to St. Paul, Minnesota. From there, she’d taken a bus to Billings, where she’d paid cash for the used SUV. Now, nearly two days later, she had a burner phone and a vehicle with Montana plates. The signed title and bill of sale were tucked in the glove compartment. The day before she’d left Philadelphia she’d paid every bill, withdrawn all her savings and then closed her bank account. She’d shut down her social-media sites and left her credit cards lying in plastic bits in three different trash cans scattered around the city. She was safe. She trusted Tanner, would never have been able to get this far without her close friend and attorney.

So why didn’t she feel safe?

“Don’t worry, Lydia Newbury. Your worrying days are over, remember? You can do this. Inside, deep inside, you are brave and clever and honest.”

Okay, so she was pretty clever, mostly honest and trying to be brave. She really, really needed to be brave. Like right now. The idea of stopping for directions, of showing her face anywhere along this interstate, caused the already taut coil of nerves inside her to tighten.

Flipping on her turn signal, she put the atlas on the passenger seat, inhaled a deep breath and glanced in the side mirror just in time to see the flashing blue and red lights of the police vehicle as it pulled in behind her.

A surge of adrenaline coursed through her bloodstream. “Newbury, Newbury,” she repeated, reminding herself. But what if he asked for her ID? This plan hinged on Lydia not using her real name.

In her rearview mirror, she watched a tall lanky man in a khaki outfit get out. His hat was dark brown. She turned off the signal, lowered her window and folded her hands together in her lap so he wouldn’t see them trembling.

“Howdy, ma’am.” His tone was friendly, but his ice-blue gaze hinted at a cop’s shrewdness. When he leaned down she could see freckles sprinkled across his nose and flaming red hair beneath the hat.

“Hi, there.” Lydia dredged up her best customer-service smile.

“Did you break down?”

“No, Officer. Thankfully, I did not.”

“Then is there a reason your car is sitting here on the side of the road?”

“An embarrassing one.” Shrugging a shoulder, she flashed him a cringe-smile. “I think I might be lost. I’m on my way to a ranch where I’ve been hired for a job.”

His mouth pulled down into a frown. His name tag read Deputy Tompkin.

“Not the Blackwell Guest Ranch, I hope? They don’t open for another month or so.”

Blackwell Guest Ranch? That couldn’t be a coincidence. “Maybe. I don’t know... I thought I was looking for Jonathon Blackwell of the JB Bar Ranch.”

“Oh! Of course.” He did the finger-snap-point as his face erupted with a smile. “You’re the new nanny. Oh, man, this is great.” Sticking out a hand, he said, “Deputy Scooter Tompkin. Pleased to meet you.”

Lydia felt a rush of relief. “Lydia,” she said, not quite able to bring herself to say her new last name. Shaking his hand, she added, “It’s wonderful to meet you, Deputy.”

“I can’t wait to tell the guys I met you. Jon Blackwell is a friend of mine. And I can assure you, he is going to be one happy camper to see you arrive. He’s got his hands full, that’s for sure. My sister babysat for him for a spell. A real short one.” He shook his head. “He’s certainly in need of a professional.”

Lydia felt a niggle of concern. She knew Jonathon Blackwell had a fourteen-year-old daughter. As a single dad, she’d assumed he would need more of a shuttle service than a babysitter. She imagined days of ferrying her charge to school and various lessons and activities, providing healthy meals and snacks, and asking the requisite questions about homework completion. At least, that’s what her nannies had done. Back when she’d had them, before her parents’ divorce. The idea of a troubled teen didn’t scare her, though. Having been one, coupled with her years of volunteering at Hatch House Group Home for Teens, meant she was fluent in troubled teen.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence. I’m pretty excited about it myself. If I can figure out how to get there.”

“You’re real close and it’s easy to find. Take the next exit ahead. Follow the signs for Falcon Creek until you come to a four-way stop, where you want to go straight ahead, not into Falcon Creek. After a few miles you’ll cross a bridge. Take a right—don’t take the spur that heads east. A ways after that, there’ll be a fork. You’re going to want to go straight, but don’t. Stay right and Old Tractor Road will be off to your left. Then you’ll see the sign that says JB Bar Ranch.”

“Um, okay, can you let me grab a pen and then start over at spurs and forks?”

He chuckled. “Tell you what, follow me, and I’ll take you right to the driveway.”

“Really?” Was this guy for real? “Deputy Tompkin, I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate that.” Lydia gave him a grateful smile, one she felt to the depths of her toes.

“Call me Scooter.”

“Wow. Okay, thank you, Scooter. You’re a lifesaver. I will find a way to repay this kindness.”

“Ah, it’s no problem. I’d do anything to help Jon.” Then he tipped his hat and said, “Welcome to Falcon Creek, Ms. Lydia.”