When they drove in, Holly Jo tried not to look at the house. She blamed herself for getting kidnapped. If she hadn’t, none of this would have happened. But when Elaine stopped the SUV by the stable and Pickett Hanson stepped out, she pushed the guilt aside and let out a cry of joy. He’d been teaching her to trick ride—until he fell in love with Oakley Stafford, took off, got married and went on a honeymoon. Holly Jo had been afraid he wouldn’t come back—but here he was.
He grabbed her and swung her around when he saw her. Then set her down and looked at her. She’d been afraid he was going to mention the kidnapping and everything she’d been through. But he smiled and said, “I swear you’ve grown six inches since I’ve been gone.”
Filled with relief, she hugged him tight, and he hugged her back.
“I’ve got Honey all saddled for you,” Pickett said. “Thought you might want to go for a ride while I catch up with Elaine.”
She nodded. She thought of crying herself to sleep while kidnapped, hoping to dream of Honey and pretend she was galloping through the pasture again. She ran back to the car to get her clothes so she could change. Sure enough, Honey was waiting for her and let out a whinny when she saw her. She hugged the mare’s neck, brought to tears, then hurriedly changed and led the horse out to the pasture.
But it wasn’t until she was in the saddle, loping across the ranch, her whole world before her, that she told herself she was going to be all right. She thought how when she closed her eyes she saw Darius on fire and pushed it away as she felt the wind in her face. Breathing in the scent of leather and horse, she told herself that she would survive this.
Even as she did, though, she knew she would never be the girl who’d walked over to a woman driving a pickup one morning. That Holly Jo was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
BRAND HAD ALREADY arranged for a ride back to Powder Crossing for them, Birdie realized. Still, she was surprised to see Ryder, Brand’s younger brother, leaning against a Stafford Ranch club cab pickup, waiting for them.
After slightly awkward introductions, she insisted Brand ride up front. Ryder, who resembled the green-eyed, blond-haired side of the family, appeared quiet like his brother. But there was no doubt that he was more than a little curious about what his big brother had been up to—almost dying in the McKenna house fire at the top of the list. Birdie figured she too was on that list, somewhere near the top.
“I guess we’re going to have to catch up,” Ryder said and shot her a look in the rearview mirror as he drove.
“I would imagine you’ve already heard most everything,” Brand said.
“Right, I get away from the ranch so much. Not to mention that I haven’t seen you in days. Apparently, a lot has been going on that I haven’t heard about.” He glanced pointedly at Birdie, who kept her expression blank.
“I’m sorry to have left you with all of the ranch work recently,” Brand said. “Wasn’t my intention. I just got caught up in everything after I got the results of the DNA test I took.” She saw him glance at his brother. “Don’t pretend you haven’t heard.”
“You’re my brother. Who can believe a DNA test, anyway,” he scoffed, but Birdie could see that he was grinning. Brand reached over and gave Ryder’s shoulder a quick squeeze.
“Anything I’ve missed in the past few days?” Brand asked.
“If you’re asking about Mother...” Ryder sighed. “She’s back to her old self, pretty much. Apparently, she took your DNA news hard, because she organized a search of area ranches for Holly Jo, offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward for anyone who found her.”
“Doesn’t sound like our mother.”
Ryder nodded. “Exactly. She’s scarier when she isn’t herself, I swear,” he said with a chuckle.
She sat forward in her seat. “You know I’m in the area to prove that your mother killed my father, Dixon Malone, right?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Ryder said. “Everyone in the county knows. What they don’t know is what you’re doing with my brother.”
Birdie sat back, cutting her eyes to Brand, before looking out the side window. The pickup cab fell silent, which could have been her answer, because she didn’t know what her and Brand’s relationship was either. Lovers. Friends? More or less than either?
Ryder and Brand talked ranching the rest of the way to Powder Crossing. It gave her time to think about everything that had happened. She hadn’t had time to really deal with her near-death experience or anything else. Maybe especially her growing feelings for Brand Stafford.
She knew she was avoiding dwelling on both as she turned her thoughts to what she’d come to town for in the first place—seeing that her father got justice. She concentrated on that, going over everything she’d learned, and was surprised when they reached Powder Crossing so quickly.
Ryder dropped her off at the hotel. Brand started to get out of the truck to talk to her, but she didn’t give him a chance.
“We’ll talk later,” she said, hopping out to hurry into the hotel. Once inside, she glanced back to see him standing next to the pickup, a frown on his handsome face, before climbing back inside with his brother and leaving.
Birdie breathed a sigh of relief before going upstairs to her room, showering, changing and heading across to the Wild Horse Bar. A half-dozen regulars were already sitting on stools at the bar, even though it was early in the day.
She spotted Elmer and motioned him over to the table where she took a seat. The elderly retired ranch hand hesitated before sliding off his stool. His buddies were joking about her being too young for him. He looked a little flushed as he approached. She motioned to a chair, and he sat, looking like he might bolt at any moment.
“You’re going to get me in trouble,” he said.
She suspected a part of him enjoyed the attention. “I need a little more of your help.” He was the only person who had told her about Charlotte Stafford getting a call and going over to the McKenna Ranch. “Who could have called Charlotte that night?” He shook his head. Maybe he didn’t know. “Someone must have either overheard the call or saw her leave late that night after my father had been gone for a while, presumably having gone to the McKenna Ranch. How would she know that he went there?”
Elmer shrugged, but she could see this time he knew something. He’d put his hands on the table and was fidgeting.
“That you know this means someone told you,” she pointed out. “Elmer.” She laid a hand on one of his. “Please.”
He glanced around, acting almost scared. “I shouldn’t,” he said, lowering his voice. “You need to talk to Boyle Wilson, Charlotte Stafford’s ranch manager. He’s a son of a biscuit-eating cactus. Don’t tell him I told you.” She nodded. “Best watch yourself around him, you hear?”
“Is he the one who told you?”
Elmer scoffed. “He doesn’t talk to the likes of me. I worked under him for a while at one of the first ranches he managed. Meaner than a kicked rattler.”
“Then who?”
He leaned closer and whispered, “Boyle brags a lot that he knows everything that goes on out there on the spread. Get him drunk enough and he really shoots off his mouth. Truth is, he’s had his eye on Charlotte for years. Seems to think that someday he’ll own that ranch because he knows so many of her secrets. Said she’d been out in the stables, got a call, said something about Dixon and the McKenna Ranch. Then she took off late that night in her rig. Didn’t say it, but it would have been just like him to follow her.”
Birdie’s heart began to pound harder, stealing her breath. If any of this was true, Boyle Wilson might have seen her father’s murder—and his murderer.
*
CHARLOTTE HADN’T GONE back to the hospital or tried to see Holden again after that first time. All that mattered, she told herself, was that he was going to live. She hadn’t lost him from this earth. She could live with that. She had to, since that was all she was going to get.
