Lulabelle chuckled. “Spoken like the young thing you are.” Stepping back, she said, “You’d better come in.”
“Aren’t you going to ask us why we’re here?” While Brand had asked the question, it was Birdie the older woman looked at. She winked and grinned.
“You need my help,” Lulabelle said and waved them into her house. The decor was much like the woman, loud, colorful and over-the-top. Birdie liked it, but she could tell that Brand was taken aback, reminding her how different their environments and situations had been growing up.
The woman motioned them to two overstuffed colorful chairs. The room was full of almost a dozen of them, all different colors and shapes scattered around the large living room. No couch or end tables or much floor space—just chairs.
“You have a lot of friends?” Birdie asked as she picked a club chair in purple, yellow and black stripes. Brand, she noticed, had taken a brown-and-white animal-print one.
Lulabelle dropped into a lime-green high-back chair, tucking her bare feet under her. “I just like chairs. I see one I like...” She shrugged. “But you didn’t come here to talk about my decor.”
Birdie couldn’t help but like the woman and her idiosyncrasies because, in Lulabelle’s case, they weren’t for show. “We need your help in finding Holly Jo Robinson,” she said, since Brand was busy glancing around as if questioning why she’d thought coming here was a good idea.
“Robinson? That’s the name she goes by? Huh. The sheriff didn’t mention that when he stopped here,” Lulabelle said and shook her head. “I can’t believe Holden thought I had taken the child. He should know I’m more direct than that. If I wanted something from him, I’d tell him to his face.” She laughed. “I’ve done it enough times.”
Birdie reached into her purse and took out the bag with the small stuffed duck inside. “This is Holly Jo’s.”
Lulabelle took the bag as if it contained something rare and fragile. She looked at Birdie, then at Brand, before she slowly unzipped the bag. She bent, took a whiff and closed her eyes. Birdie watched her.
She didn’t know if this woman was clairvoyant or not. But she firmly believed that everyone had at least a little sixth sense. Most people didn’t recognize it. She thought about her father and their connection. She’d felt that connection snap all those years ago. She’d only been a child, but she had been able to feel his presence even apart. Until that one night.
Lulabelle was still breathing in the duck, eyes closed. Brand looked ready to leave as he slid forward a little in his chair. Birdie wasn’t finished yet. “Do you have any idea where she might be or who might have taken her?”
“She’s alive,” Lulabelle said, opening her eyes. “I can’t tell you where she is... It’s dark.” She seemed to hesitate before she took another deep breath and closed her eyes again. She sat perfectly still. “She’s still in the Powder Crossing area. Near the mountains. The building... I can’t... It seems to be abandoned, but not for very long... I smell sour milk.” She opened her eyes. “A milking barn?”
Lulabelle looked down at the toy, then up at them. She must have seen their disappointment since her description fit a lot of the ranches and farms in the basin area and in all of rural Montana.
“She’s safe,” the seer said. Her unspoken words seemed to hang in the air. For now. Her expression was grim as she met Birdie’s gaze. “She’s afraid. She thinks he plans to kill her. And she might be right.”
Birdie felt a chill. The message was clear. Holly Jo had to be found—and soon.
ON THE WAY back from Miles City, Brand knew he’d put it off as long as he could. It was time to go home to the ranch. “I have to see my mother,” he told Birdie as she dropped him off at his pickup after their visit to Lulabelle. He stood in the open door of her SUV, finding it hard to know what to say. They’d already been through a lot together, and yet they didn’t really know each other.
Fate had thrown them together, but he had no idea why. He found himself fighting his attraction to her. She intrigued him, but at the same time, she was trouble he didn’t need. That he’d never met anyone like Birdie was putting it mildly. He never knew what she would do next.
He’d spent his life keeping his head down, avoiding drama, staying in his lane. Birdie was just the opposite. She was a wrecking ball, and she’d come to town to destroy his family.
“You aren’t going to get into any kind of trouble, are you?” he asked.
She laughed. “Like come sneaking around your ranch again?”
He wouldn’t have put it past her. Something told him she didn’t have a plan, instead tended to wing it as the mood struck her. How could he be attracted to someone so not like him? Not to mention the fact that his mother had been married to her father—not that it made them related exactly. He couldn’t let himself forget why she was in Powder Crossing. Or what she planned to do before she left.
“You look worried,” she said, studying him openly. “Something bothering you?”
He let out a bark of a laugh. “Just thinking what an unlikely pair we are.”
She grinned. “We must look pretty good together, because everyone seems to be staring at us.”
Glancing around, he saw at least that part was true. There were several couples outside the bar smoking. They all looked in his and Birdie’s direction with interest before talking among themselves. He hated to think what the locals were saying, and he doubted they knew the half of it.
“We should exchange cell phone numbers, don’t you think?” she said.
He hesitated, but told himself he’d rather know what she was up to than be surprised. He handed over his phone. She entered her number, texted herself from his phone, then handed it back. “Call me,” she said. “And good luck with your mom.”
“Right.” He let out a sigh.
“I’ll only be a phone call away,” she said, then added, “Or closer.”
He chuckled and shut the passenger door of her SUV. Birdie Malone, he thought and shook his head, but he was smiling as he climbed into his pickup and drove out to the ranch.
As Brand pulled up to the ranch house, he saw his mother’s SUV parked out front and lights still on in the house. He’d never wanted to have this conversation and still didn’t know what he was going to say. What was there to say? He was the son of Holden, the man his mother had reputedly hated for years.
He and his siblings had grown up under the dark cloud of her bitterness toward Holden and his family. Brand couldn’t blame everything on his mother. After his trial, CJ would probably be on his way to prison. But life certainly would have been more pleasant without the Stafford-McKenna rivalry since they were neighbors, with only a creek between their two ranches.
But all of that was ancient history, Brand told himself. Just like his conception. It had happened. The question was, where did they go now?
He opened the front door, feeling almost as if he should have knocked. But he was still living here, still welcome here. At least, he thought so. Then again, except for Ryder, the rest of his siblings had already left—either because their mother had thrown them out or they’d gone to jail or they’d escaped through marriage. Brand wondered how much longer he could live here.
The moment he stepped in, he saw her. Charlotte Stafford, tall and willowy like the empress overseeing her realm. Her long blond hair was reined into a braid that fell more than halfway down her back. He saw more gray threaded through it than he had noticed before.
She turned as he entered the house, looking as if she’d been waiting for him, wearing her ready-for-battle expression.
“Mother,” he said, surprised at the bubble of anger that welled up at the sight of her. Maybe he should have waited longer before confronting her.
Something flickered in her emerald green eyes. Fear? It was gone in an instant. She would have prepared herself for this, built up her defenses. Hell, she probably had practiced what she was going to say. He was no match for her, never had been.
He started for his end of the wing and his room when she said, “We aren’t even going to talk about it?”
