Atonement

“I should let you go. You probably need to get to work. Speaking of work, I’m headed that way myself. See you at the office.” Dillon had been acting sheriff in Frank’s absence and realized how little he liked being the boss. “Your star and gun are in my desk drawer. It’s great to have you back.”

Dillon had almost mentioned the woman who’d shown up at his ranch yesterday, but figured he could talk to him about it later back at the office. Frank was a good sounding board, and he’d need it. The woman had thrown him for a loop.

He left the house and drove the twenty-five miles into Big Timber from his ranch out in the valley. He’d just crossed the Yellowstone River, the water a clear cool green, when he spotted Tessa Winters’s car. It was parked in front of a motel on the edge of town.

He slowed, telling himself there was no reason to stop. He’d said his piece yesterday. But it bothered him that the woman was still in town. She’d made this already hard day even tougher with her accusations. Just seeing her car put him in a foul mood.

What was she still doing here? He couldn’t bear the thought that she might go around town telling people that a man she thought was Ethan Lawson had not only impregnated her, but also abandoned her and stolen her money.

Against his better judgment, he swung into the motel parking lot, pulled alongside the woman’s car and got out.

All the curtains were drawn across the motel room windows. This time of the morning any guests from last night were long gone—except for Tessa Winters. Leaning down, he peered into her car. His brother’s vehicles had often been filled with fast-food containers and beer cans, growing up. Ethan had never been neat.

Wouldn’t a person expect Ethan’s “girlfriend” to be just as bad? The immaculate interior of her newer-model car seemed to prove she was lying about ever living with his brother. He tried the passenger-side door. Locked. He knew he should just walk away. More than likely the woman was just getting a late start this morning. She would clear out of town and he could put her accusations behind him.

But being the law enforcement officer he was, he walked around the car and took down the license plate number. He realized he was still upset that the woman had tried to shake him down. For all he knew, she might have a police record a mile long.

Stepping back to his own vehicle, he ran her plates. No priors. The woman was squeaky-clean. Even the car checked out.

There was only one red flag. The car was owned by Tessa Winters of Rancho Mirage, California—a town not that far at all from where Ethan had been killed near Parker, Arizona.

CHAPTER FOUR

SHERIFF FRANK CURRY loved her.

Nettie Benton felt a rush of heat as she watched Frank get out of his pickup and start up the steps to the Beartooth General Store.

She’d waited years to hear those words, and finally had six months ago. That knowledge was the only thing that had kept her going in the months since he’d confessed how he felt about her. She’d seen little of him during that time. She’d known he’d been trying to find his ex-wife, and she had lived in fear of what he would do when he did. She’d never seen him so angry, and while she didn’t blame him for wanting to kill Pam, she prayed he would come to his senses before he did anything that could land him in prison.

They would all sit easier if Pam was gone for good, Nettie especially, since the crazy woman had tried to run her down out in the street in front of the store. But that had been months ago, and there’d been no sign of Pam since.

The bell over the front door jangled, and Frank walked into the store. At just the sight of him, Nettie felt like she had as a girl. Frank Curry was a large broad-shouldered man who looked like an old-time sheriff. He had a thick, drooping, blond mustache flecked with gray, and a weathered Montana look that belied the gentleness in him. He wore jeans, boots, a uniform shirt and a gold star, his gray Stetson resting on a full head of graying blond hair.

To her he would always be that young man who’d shown up at her house on a motorcycle, wanting her to run away with him. His hair had been long and blond as summer wheat back then. He’d been wild and carefree and had made her heart race at just the sight of him.

No wonder her mother had talked her out of going off with Frank. Instead Nettie had married dull, safe Bob Benton. His parents had given them the store, which was something Bob had never had one iota of interest in running.

The store, though, had saved her during all those years of marriage to Bob. But now he was gone, and the ink on the divorce papers had dried a long time ago.

All water under the bridge, Nettie thought as she smiled at the sheriff. “Glad to see you back in uniform.” Like everyone else, she’d been worried he would never go back to being sheriff. Just as she had worried that he would never love her again. She’d broken his heart. Or at least that was what he’d told her all those years ago.

He gave a slight nod, his smile racing straight to her heart. “It feels good. I’m sorry I haven’t been by for so long—”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said as he made his way to her. “No apologies are necessary.”

“Yes, they are. You asked me to fix your office door months ago. Is it still sticking?”

She nodded and smiled. “I just don’t close it.”

“Otherwise you would be locked in?” He shook his head.

“It’s no big deal. I can always call Kate across the street to come get me out. Anyway, you’ve had more important things on your mind. The usual?” She was already getting him an orange soda from the cooler.

“I’ve missed you,” he said as she opened the bottle on an old-fashioned opener on the wall and handed it to him. Their fingers brushed and she felt that familiar thrill.

She didn’t want to tell him how much she’d missed him. Or how much she’d feared he would never come back. She’d survived on what he’d said before he left. He loved her.

“Is this your first day back at work?” she asked.

He nodded and took a drink.

He’d changed over the past six months. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, though, but he seemed reconciled. A man like Frank Curry believed he could “fix” most anything—or at least should be able to. He’d blamed himself for Pam being the way she was.

“I’m so glad you gave up on finding Pam,” Nettie said.

Again he merely nodded.

She thought of the man who’d taken off out of the store, murder in his eye, to find Pam. So what had changed? she wondered as she studied him. Pam Chandler was still dangerous. She was still out there somewhere. Nettie lived with that knowledge every day. She didn’t cross the street to the post office or the Branding Iron Café without looking around for the crazy, vindictive woman. She no longer walked down to the store at night unless someone was with her. At the house, she locked all her doors, even in the daytime, something pretty much unheard of in most of rural Montana.

“I’d better be going,” Frank said. He had a deep voice. It had always sent heat racing through her blood. His gaze met hers and she felt a catch in her throat. “I was thinking you might want to go to a movie tomorrow night.”

He was asking her for a date? It had been so long in coming that she didn’t answer at first, out of shock.

“That is, if you’re free.” He sounded not so sure of things between them. Understandably, since it wasn’t that long ago that she’d given up on him and had spent some time with another man.

She shoved that thought away. “I would love to go,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

He smiled then and he was the Frank Curry she’d fallen so desperately in love with so many years ago. That love had lingered and only recently begun to bloom again, like a glacier lily coming up after a long, hard Montana winter.

Stepping down the hall, he took a look at her office door.

“Frank, I don’t want you to be late for work. The door can wait.”

“It looks as if I’m going to have to take it down and plane off some of the wood. The store must have shifted on its old foundation. I’ll fix the door this weekend. Just don’t get locked in.”

“I won’t.” His concern warmed her heart. She pushed aside her worries about him as he leaned over and kissed her softly on the mouth. He tasted of orange soda and smelled of the outdoors. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him to her, but he was already drawing back, saying, “Don’t want to be late my first day back on the job.” And he was gone, the bell over the door jingling.

Nettie moved to the window to watch him leave, her fingers pressed to the glass, her heart pounding. She had waited so long for this.

Please don’t let anything spoil it.

* * *

TESSA STARTED AT the knock on her motel room door. Her first thought was, No one knows I’m here. No one but Ethan, or whatever the man wanted to call himself.

At the second knock, she moved to the door and asked, “Yes?”

“Ms. Winters, I’d like to have a word with you.” Ethan’s voice, though more authoritative. Just the sound of it hurt. “It’s Undersheriff Dillon Lawson.”