Honor Bound

* * *

AS LUCK WOULD have it, the first person Ainsley had to deal with this morning was Gunderson.

“The canyon scene isn’t going to work out. I need you to find some other locations we can use, and I need them by noon,” he ordered. “By the way, you look terrible.”

“Thanks.” Her cell phone rang as she was heading for the stables. It was her sister Kat. “Good morning,” she said by way of greeting. “I can’t talk. I need to get saddled up and off to work.”

“You call that work?” Kat said but quickly got to her reason for phoning. “Dad asked me to call and make sure you were going to be home for election night.”

“Mother already called me early this morning to confirm that I would be there. Did she mention to you that there is going to be a party, kind of a celebration of their marriage? Apparently we’re putting it on for them. I said we would help.”

Kat groaned. Besides refusing to call her mother, she still acted suspicious of everything Sarah did. “Whatever,” she said of the party. “Election night we’re all going to be at the Beartooth Fairgrounds, along with a thousand well-wishers and who knows how many crazies who might want the family dead.”

“What are you talking about?” Ainsley asked. “This isn’t about The Prophecy, that anarchist group from the 1970s that you’re convinced our mother was a part of, is it?”

“She was the leader.”

Ainsley rolled her eyes as she entered the stables. Ted was already saddling her horse. He grinned at her and mouthed, “Knew you’d need it this morning.”

She mouthed thank you back.

“Security will be a nightmare, but you know Dad,” Kat was saying. “We’ve all done our best to talk him out of it. The Republican Committee wanted it in the capital in Helena, but Dad wants it here. We should all wear bulletproof vests, not that it would probably do any good since Sarah’s MO is bombs.”

Kat had always been the doomsday negative sister, so it was hard to tell if there really was a security problem or if this was just Kat being Kat. Except since she’d met Max and fallen in love, she’d been more upbeat.

“I’m sure there will be dozens of Secret Service to protect him,” Ainsley said, trying to lighten the conversation. “Let’s just be happy for Dad.”

“There will be a lot of Secret Service, but only because Sheriff Curry insisted on it. You know Dad. He thinks he’s invincible. Frank is calling in local law enforcement as well as the National Guard.”

“So it should be fine.”

“Yep, one big happy family on parade.”

Ainsley knew her sister’s sarcasm stemmed from her problems with their mother and this crazy idea of hers that their mother was some kind of terrorist. “Now that Dad and Mom are married again—”

“I’m not worried about putting on a party for the two of them. There’s a lot you don’t know. Let’s just hope Dad survives election night. Let’s hope we all do. I have to go.”

Ainsley disconnected, her headache pounding. Kat couldn’t forgive their mother for disappearing for twenty-two years from their lives. Since it had only been months after the twins were born, Ainsley had speculated that maybe their mother had been suffering from postpartum depression. Why else would she leave six children and a husband she professed to love to try to kill herself that night in the river?

She sighed. Kat’s problems with their mother aside, what was that about Dad surviving election night? Why did Kat always have to be so dramatic? And what was this about Mother being the leader of The Prophecy? She wondered where Kat got this kind of stuff. As far as Ainsley knew, some of the members had tried to throw their mother under suspicion to hurt their father’s presidential campaign, but it hadn’t worked.

Ainsley wasn’t looking forward to election night either for her own personal reasons. She hated being in the spotlight. But this wasn’t about her. It would be their father’s night. He’d worked hard for this and deserved to have his family by his side when he won the election, which according to the polls, was in the bag.

She felt goose bumps along with a surge of pride. Her father would make a wonderful president. She just hoped it was everything he thought it would be. As for their mother... Just a few more days and she would be home. Then she could decide if Kat’s concerns were valid.

“Good, I’m not too late to catch you.”

She turned to find Kitzie standing in the stables doorway, silhouetting her against the bright October day. “A peace offering,” Kitzie said and held out what looked like a small breakfast burrito wrapped in plastic. “I just ran into Gun, so I know you missed breakfast. Sorry about spiking your tea last night.”

Ainsley took the burrito. “Thank you. Actually, you might have done me a favor last night. Now I’ll never drink again.” They both laughed.

“Well, I’d better get to work,” Kitzie said and turned to leave.

She looked down at the burrito. Just the smell was enough to make her want to barf. “Hungry?” she asked Ted.

His blue eyes lit up. “Always.”

“I thought that might be the case,” she said, and thanked him again for saddling her horse before riding out.

* * *

BUCK STOOD AT the window of another nondescript room in yet another city. He was tired, but he could see the end just days away. Except there was a bone-weariness about him this morning that he couldn’t seem to shake off. He knew it well. It was a feeling of impending disaster. It had been with him now for almost two years—not long before Sarah dropped back into their lives.

He told himself that he was too busy finishing up his campaign to worry. But late at night he would suddenly come out of a deep sleep and sit straight up in bed, terrified for apparently no good reason.

Of course there was a reason. Not that he let himself go down that particular perilous trail during his waking hours.

“This is it, Buck,” Sheriff Curry had said to him the last time he was home. The sheriff had stopped by the ranch and said they should take a walk.

Buck hadn’t wanted to hear whatever it was that Frank wanted to tell him. For more than two years since Sarah had returned, the sheriff had been warning him about Sarah and what Frank feared she was capable of doing.

“The election is only days away,” he’d argued. “Whatever it is you have to tell me—”

“Let’s walk,” Frank had insisted.

When they were out of hearing distance of the house, the sheriff had stopped and turned to him. “We only have a few more days. I’m just concerned about the venue—”

“Sarah isn’t going to do anything.” He’d wished that he’d sounded more convincing. The woman he’d married hadn’t come back. Instead, this different Sarah had returned. Not a bad different necessarily. But definitely an unsettling different.

She was...stronger in some ways. Maybe scarier because of it. Add to that what had been happening since her return from the dead. People had been dying around them and all because of an anarchist group from the 1970s called The Prophecy.

He thought of the pendulum tattoo on Sarah’s buttock. She swore she had no idea how it had gotten there or that she had nothing to do with the group—even though she’d known the members back in college. And it did appear that they had tried to implicate her—and failed.

So why was he so worried during those dark pre-dawn hours?

His campaign manager, Jerrod Williston, came into the room. A bright young man in his mid-thirties with blond hair and blue eyes, Jerrod had proven that he was the best at what he did.

He was on his cell, talking rapidly, but stopped when he saw Buck standing by the window.

“I’ll get back to you,” he said into the phone. Pocketing the cell, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Buck tried to shake off the premonition of disaster. “Just a little tired.”

“It’s Sarah,” Jerrod said with a groan.

“Why do you say that every time?” Buck demanded, instantly annoyed. He’d spent the past two years defending Sarah to not just Jerrod, but also his daughters and everyone else, including the sheriff.

“Because every time it is Sarah. What has she done now? I thought all was well. Married, living in the main house on the ranch, none of the six daughters causing trouble. What could be wrong with Sarah now?” Jerrod sounded as testy as Buck felt.