Big Sky Standoff

“I’m sorry, Morgan, is talk of Dillon Savage making you uncomfortable?” he asked innocently.

Nate shot him a warning look.

“It’s all right, Nate,” she said, smiling at the older Waters. “Yes, I knew Dillon…well.” Her smile broadened. “Do I care that he’s out of prison? Not in the least. Dillon and I were over a long time ago.”

Shade looked at his son to see if he believed any of that bull. Nate had never had any sense when it came to women. Apparently, he was buying everything Morgan told him, probably because he had a good view of the woman’s breasts in that low-cut top.

“Then you didn’t write him while he was in prison or go see him?” Shade asked, ignoring the look his son gave him.

“No,” Morgan said, her smile slipping a little. “We’d gone our separate ways long before Dillon went to prison.”

She was lying through her teeth. He suspected that she’d been keeping Dillon up on everything going on in the county, especially at the W Bar.

“Well,” Shade said, with exaggerated relief, “I guess the only thing Nate and I have to worry about with Savage out is losing our cattle.” He dug into his steak as he noted with some satisfaction that his son had lost his appetite.

AS JACKLYN WILDE DROVE east past one small Montana town after another, Dillon realized he didn’t have any idea where they were headed or what she had planned for him.

But that was the idea, wasn’t it? She wanted to keep him off balance. She didn’t want him to know too much—that had been clear from that first day she’d come to see him in prison.

He glanced over at her now. Back when she’d been trying to catch him rustling, he’d known only what he’d heard about her. It wasn’t until he’d come face-to-face with her and the gun she had leveled at him that he’d looked into her steel-gray eyes and realized everything he’d heard about her just might be true.

She was relentless, clever and cunning, cold and calculating. Ice water ran through her veins. In prison, anyone who’d crossed her path swore she was tougher than any man, but with a woman’s sense of justice, and therefore more dangerous.

He couldn’t argue the point, given that she was the one who’d put him behind bars.

“So when are you going to tell me the real reason you got me out?” he asked now.

Outside the pickup, the landscape had changed from mountains and towering, dark green pines to rolling hills studded with sagebrush. Tall golden grasses undulated like waves in the breeze and the sky opened up, wide and blue from horizon to horizon. It truly was Big Sky Country.

“I thought I made myself clear on that point,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road. “You’re going to help me catch rustlers.”

He chuckled and she finally looked over at him. “Something funny about that?”

“You didn’t get me out of prison to catch rustlers. You are perfectly capable of catching any rustler out there and we both know it.” He met her gray eyes. In this light, they were a light silver, and fathomless. The kind of eyes that you could get lost in. But then the light changed. Her gaze was again just a sheet of ice, flat and freezing.

“I need your expertise,” she said simply.

Right. “Well, I’ll be of little help to you if you keep me in the dark,” he said, smiling wryly as he changed tactics. “Unless you have something besides rustling on your mind. I mean, after what happened the first time we met…”

Her eyes narrowed in warning. “The only reason you aren’t still behind bars is because you were good at rustling. That’s the only talent of yours I’m interested in.”

He lifted a brow, still smiling. “That’s too bad. Some of my other talents are even more impressive. Like my dancing,” he added quickly. He could see she hadn’t expected that was where he was headed.

“I’m surprised you had the time, given how busy you were stealing other people’s cattle.”

He shrugged. “All work and no play… What about you, Jack? What do you do for fun?”

“Mr. Savage, I told you, our discussions will be restricted to business only.”

“If that makes you more comfortable… How about you tell me where we’re headed then, Jack.”

“You’ll be updated on a need to know basis, Mr. Savage, and at this point, the only thing you need to know is that I’m Investigator Wilde or Ms. Wilde. Not Jack.”

“Still Ms., huh? I guess it’s hard to find a cowboy who’s man enough to handle a woman like you.”

Her jaw tightened, but she didn’t take the bait.

He gazed out the windshield, enjoying himself. There were all kinds of ways to get even, he realized. Some of them wouldn’t even get him sent back to prison.

Too bad he’d so often in the past four years revisited the day she’d caught him. It was like worrying a sore tooth with his tongue. He’d lost more than his freedom that day.

There’d been only one bright spot in his capture. After she’d cuffed him, he’d stumbled forward to steal one last thing: a kiss.

He’d taken her by surprise, just as she had him with the capture. He’d thought about that kiss a lot over the years. Now, as he glanced over at her, he wondered if he’d be disappointed if he kissed her again. When he kissed her again, he thought with a grin. And he would kiss her again. If only goodbye.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Savage?” she asked.

“Naw, just remembering the day you caught me,” he said, and chuckled.

“Lewistown,” she said irritably, making him laugh. “We’re headed for Lewistown.”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” The center of the state. A hub of cattle ranches. How appropriate, given that rustlers had run rampant there back in the 1800s. It had gotten so bad that some ranchers took matters into their own hands. On July 4, 1884, a couple of suspected rustling ringleaders, “Longhair” Owen and “Rattlesnake Jake” Fallon, were busy shooting up the town when a band of vigilantes gunned them down in the street. Longhair Owen took nine bullets and Rattlesnake Jake eleven.

Dillon wondered how long it would be before a band of vigilantes started shooting first and asking questions later, given how upset the ranchers were now over this latest ring of rustlers. Was that why Jack had gotten him out? Was she hoping some ranchers would string him up?

Staring out at the landscape, he knew that the only reason she’d told him where they were headed was because he wouldn’t be getting an opportunity between here and there to call anyone and reveal their destination.

“Your lack of trust cuts me to the core,” he said as he ran his finger along the tiny scar behind his left ear, where the chip was embedded under his skin.

Much like Jacklyn Wilde had gotten under his skin and been grating on him ever since. He told himself he’d be free of both before long. In the meantime, he tried not to think about the fact that Jack as well as her superiors would know where he was at any given moment.

“You sure that monitoring chip isn’t bothering you?” she asked, frowning at him.

He hadn’t realized she’d been watching him. Apparently she planned to keep a close eye on him—as well as monitor his every move.

“Naw,” he said, running his finger over the scar. “I’m good.”

Her look said he was anything but, and they both knew it.

SHADE WATERS always made a point of walking up the road to the mailbox after lunch, even in the dead of winter.

While it was a good half mile to the county road and he liked the exercise, his real motive was to get to the mail before anyone else did.

The letters had been coming for years now. He just never knew which day of the week, so he always felt a little sick as he made the hike up the road.

Even after all this time, his fingers shook a little as he pulled down the lid and peered inside. The envelope and single sheet of stationery within were always a paler lavender, as if the paper kept fading with the years.

Today he was halfway up the ranch lane when he saw Gus come flying down the county road, skidding to a stop and almost taking out the mailbox.