BAILEY CAME INTO the McKenna Ranch house and looked around as if surprised to see the sheriff in her father’s office. “What’s going on?” she asked, looking from Stuart to her father and back. Her long dark, wavy hair was pulled back, making her blue eyes seem larger, more luminous. Beautiful but wild, Holden’s nearly thirty-year-old daughter seemed to be a mystery to everyone who knew her—maybe especially to the sheriff.
“Didn’t you get my message?” Holden demanded.
“I haven’t checked my phone.” She sounded testy.
Stuart wondered why she still lived on the ranch in the home she’d grown up in. He knew from her brother Cooper that she came and went at all hours. She spent so little time here, her brother had wondered if she was living somewhere else, with someone else.
The sheriff had long wondered what kept her in the Powder River Basin. At one point, he’d thought it might be him, but lately she hadn’t been coming around after months of showing up at his house unexpectedly.
She’d always just seemed to want a cold one and to talk as if curious about all manner of things—as if she was just killing time. She would curl up on his couch, drink a beer, ask him what he thought about a wide range of subjects from extraterrestrial beings and marriage to politics and local gossip. Then she would leave.
He’d thought she was lonely and just needed someone to talk to. He hadn’t complained about her unannounced appearances because he’d enjoyed her visits, had gotten to the point that he looked forward to them. Then they’d stopped as abruptly as they’d started, and he’d feared that she’d finally packed up and left not just the area, but the state.
She’d never taken to ranching or Powder Crossing. Stuart remembered the girl she’d been, quiet, her face always in a book. But he’d gotten the impression that she was more aware of what was going on around her than people knew. Why she’d come back after graduating from college was a mystery, although he had a theory. He knew the look of a broken heart mixed with disillusion and disappointment. He’d been there, so he’d recognized it in the young woman who’d returned to Powder Crossing. He’d figured she’d come home to heal and then would be gone. But she was still here. Kind of.
“Holly Jo’s been kidnapped,” Holden said, emotion making his voice rough. “We’re trying to find her and get her back.”
“Kidnapped?” Bailey chuckled nervously. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” her father demanded.
“Why would anyone want to kidnap her?”
It was an odd question, Stuart thought, since it seemed obvious to him. Holly Jo was Holden McKenna’s ward, Holden was wealthy, and Holly Jo was a child, easier to keep and control. “You think they should have taken you instead?” Stuart asked.
Bailey shifted those blue eyes to him. He caught the flash of amusement in them. “Why not? I’m McKenna blood, Holden’s only daughter, the light of his life.”
He heard the raw exposed sarcasm as she tried to mask hurt. Stuart figured her father must have heard it as well. Bailey hadn’t been happy about her father bringing home a then-twelve-year-old without any explanation as to why he had or what Holly Jo meant to him, according to Cooper.
“Do you know anything about Holly Jo’s kidnapping?” the sheriff had to ask her.
She shot him a look as lethal as the business end of a shotgun. “Of course not. I’ve been so busy, I’ve barely seen the girl.” Her look dared him to disagree. She hadn’t been busy with him, not for some time now. He had to wonder what Bailey had been doing. No one seemed to know, especially her family.
“Is there any reason you’d want to see her gone?” he asked.
Bailey’s lips formed a hard, thin line, eyes darkening. “I didn’t kidnap her. Why would I?” She shook her head. “Sorry, wasn’t me, but...” She shot her father a look. “I will be interested to find out who did kidnap her and why. If there is nothing else...” She was looking at Stuart again, a promise in her gaze stirring a need inside him that he’d been ignoring for months. The memory of another woman trying to kill him had made him gun-shy. He could see that Bailey enjoyed stirring up his libido and watching him squirm—enjoyed it much more than he did.
She’d been playing some game with him for a while now. He wondered how it ended. He figured there was no way he wouldn’t come out the loser. It was the way his history with women always ended. Except Bailey was different, he told himself. She wanted something more from him. He just didn’t know what it was yet.
“I’ll never understand that girl,” Holden said as Bailey went to her room.
“She’s not a girl anymore,” Stuart said, also watching her leave.
“That’s what makes her even more dangerous.”
The sheriff heard the warning in the rancher’s voice even before the rancher voiced it.
“You don’t want to get involved with that one,” Holden said. “I don’t know what makes her so angry, but she’s a man-eater.”
Stuart agreed with Holden about her being dangerous. She was the kind of woman a man would have to be a fool to fall in love with. If he thought he’d had his heart ripped out of his chest before, he hated to think what Bailey McKenna would do if he let her get to him.
IT DIDN’T TAKE long for word to spread. Charlotte had called area ranchers, asking for their help and telling them that Holly Jo had been kidnapped. She was offering a reward for anyone who found her.
She knew the sheriff would be furious with her for not checking with him before doing this, but by now, she suspected everyone had already heard the news about the kidnapping anyway. Not surprisingly, the first call she got was from Stuart. “I’m not sure a reward is a good idea—let alone telling everyone in the county that Holly Jo has been kidnapped.”
“Isn’t this the fastest way to find her if she is still in this river basin?”
The sheriff sighed. “The kidnapper is bound to hear about this. If he panics, he might do something we will all regret. He might also demand money now. Before, he said he just wanted Holden to admit to something he’s done.”
“I’m sure your list of suspects is very long.”
“Your name was at the top.”
“Stuart, you don’t believe I kidnapped that girl. Everyone knows what Holden did to me. Anyway, he has already admitted it many times.”
“Brand might not feel the same. Have you talked to him?”
“Not yet, but I know my son. He would never kidnap anyone, especially some young girl. I thought he had an alibi, anyway. You’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Where would you suggest I look?”
“Did Holden tell you how he came to be Holly Jo’s guardian?” Silence. She chuckled. “That’s what I thought. Seems you already know where to look.”
After Charlotte hung up with the sheriff, her eldest daughter called. Even six months ago, that wouldn’t have been a surprise. But since Cooper McKenna returned to town after being gone for two years and stole Tilly’s heart, the two had gotten married. Charlotte had tried to stop it from happening by disowning her daughter, taking the one thing Tilly loved maybe as much as Cooper away from her—the Stafford Ranch.
But not even that could get her daughter to change her mind, so Charlotte had lost her. They hadn’t spoken, not even at the wedding, which Charlotte had attended but quickly left after Tilly and Cooper were wed.
“I just heard what you did,” Tilly said without preamble.
