He couldn’t believe she’d been right next door last night in CJ’s old room. “You don’t know anything about me or my family.”
“You might be surprised,” she said with a flip of her hair. That shiny black wave cascaded over her shoulder before she swung it back. “Did you know I was going to come live here as soon as my father got some things settled with your mother? Apparently, whatever those things were, your mother decided to settle them permanently.”
Brand didn’t remember much about his mother’s marriage to Dixon Malone. He’d been too young, and he figured his mother had been, too. But he’d heard through local scuttlebutt since then that the marriage had been the knock-down, drag-out variety. The man had spent a lot of time in town at the bar telling anyone who would listen what he thought of Charlotte Stafford. Not that most people in the county didn’t know that she was hell on wheels.
“Just think, we would have met years ago if those things had worked out and your mother hadn’t killed him,” Birdie said. “My father was a big man. I’m just curious who helped her get him into that well. She had to have an accomplice. Any ideas?”
He stared at her. The thought had never crossed his mind. Until now.
“Okay,” Birdie said. “I guess I’ll be going, then, since you don’t seem to be in any shape to provide those answers. Thanks for the accommodations last night, and no, I’m not leaving town until I see Charlotte Stafford behind bars—and her accomplice in the cell next to hers.” She smiled as she held his gaze. “Don’t worry. Our paths will cross again.” She made it sound like a promise. Or a threat.
Turning her back on him, she started toward the stand of cottonwoods along the river. “By the way, Brand Stafford,” she said over her shoulder, “you look like hell.”
He watched her go, only a little surprised that she didn’t seem concerned he might try to stop her again and have her arrested for trespassing. The way his life was going today, he felt no compunction to do so. Anyway, he didn’t doubt he’d see her again.
Wiping dirt off himself as he walked back toward the house, he felt as if he’d been in a brawl. His head hurt, his stomach ached, and his pride was definitely bruised. Yet all he could think as he turned to see her disappear into the trees was, that was Dixon Malone’s daughter?
His mother was definitely not going to like this. Normally, he would have felt sorry for anyone brash enough to take on Charlotte Stafford. But this time, he thought his mother might have met her match in Birdie Malone.
BIRDIE CLIMBED INTO her SUV parked on the county road, grinning to herself. She kept thinking about the expression on Brand Stafford’s face when he found himself flat on his back on the ground. He’d underestimated her, something she should have been used to when it came to men. She’d expected more from one of the Stafford men, though.
Still, she couldn’t help grinning. Earlier she’d pretended not to know who he was, but she’d known. One of his friends had called him by name when the men were playing pool at the back of the bar last night. She’d been curious about him long before that. Curious about his whole family, but maybe especially him because the two of them were about the same age.
She couldn’t wait until their paths crossed again, only next time he’d be ready for her—and so would his family. Which was fine with her. She wanted them to know that she was coming for the Stafford matriarch. She wouldn’t rest until her father’s killer was behind bars doing the time Charlotte so richly deserved.
But she had to admit as she drove toward Powder Crossing, she hadn’t expected her reaction to the Stafford Ranch, let alone Brand. The place was much more impressive than her father had described. That had been almost thirty years ago. The house had grown over that time as the Stafford children had.
Seeing it made her realize how large, how beautiful, how wonderful it would have been to grow up there. Her father had told her that once he was settled, she would have two older sisters and three brothers. Brand, because they were so close in age, had been her father’s favorite. He used to talk about him a lot. She’d been excited, anxious to meet them, dreaming of her new life. He’d described them all as cute, but Brand was the cutest.
Brand was a whole lot more than cute. She could still smell the fresh-from-the-bath scent of him on her. His longish dark blond hair had still been wet, and he’d been half naked, his feet bare—like his muscled chest. Under other circumstances, she told herself, she might have flirted her way off the Stafford Ranch.
She reminded herself why she was in the Powder River Basin. Still, her thoughts shifted like the breeze, drifting back to Brand. His kind of handsome—even hungover—mixed with his Stafford confidence, had made her catch her breath. Not that she hadn’t noticed the way his jeans fit him, or that broad, rock-hard chest of his.
But his blue eyes... With a start, she recalled that Charlotte had emerald green eyes, according to Jason Murdock, the PI she’d originally hired to find her father. Brand’s siblings, she’d been told, had variations of green. Brand was the one outlier?
She had hoped that Murdock would find evidence she could use, but he hadn’t. When her father’s body had finally been found in an abandoned well on property near the Stafford Ranch, it had been quite by accident—and not by the PI.
If Dixon Malone’s remains hadn’t been found, everyone would have gone on believing that he’d simply disappeared, left in the middle of the night, deserting his new family the way he had left Birdie and her mother. Everyone would have gone on believing a lie about her father, something she was determined to set straight. She didn’t just want justice. She wanted everyone to know the kind of man he’d really been, a man who’d loved his daughter to the moon and back, as he used to say.
She swore that she would put him to rest—once she saw his killer in prison. Until then, she couldn’t move on with her life.
HOLLY JO TRIED to open her eyes. Her lids felt too heavy. She could barely move, her numb cold limbs lying on the hard concrete floor on nothing but an old blanket. Prying her eyes open, she tried to make sense of where she was. Somewhere small and dark. Only slits of light slipped through the single boarded-up window—just enough that she could see it was still daylight.
She felt confused, her head groggy. What had happened? Why was she here? Struggling to remember, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her skull pounded, and she had an awful taste in her painfully dry mouth.
Glancing around, she found herself in a small room. There was a bucket nearby on the concrete floor and a plastic bottle of juice. There was only the one door. She got up on wobbly legs to try it. Locked. As she dropped back onto the blanket, memory forced its way into the dense fog in her brain. Her heart began to pound wildly as she remembered.
Stumbling to her feet again, she moved to the door and tried the knob again. Her pulse punched up another notch as she realized she was locked in and no one knew where she was.
“Hello?” she called, her voice raspy and low. “Someone?” Silence. Her legs felt too weak to hold her up. Her head began to swim. She felt sick to her stomach as she began to cry.
Her hands pummeled the door. She screamed for help until she could no longer stand, no longer shout or cry. Sliding down, she crawled over to the plastic bottle of juice and drank all of it before crawling back into the corner to her blanket. She closed her eyes and pressed her body against the wall to make herself as small as possible. She feared the man would be back. She was defenseless against him. But she also feared he wouldn’t come back.
Her throat was so sore that she didn’t want to cry again. “I want my mom,” she whispered and felt hot tears stream down her cheeks. “Mama,” she cried, even though she knew her mother couldn’t hear her because she was dead. No one could hear her. Holly Jo was lost and alone and scared.
Close your eyes. Go back to sleep. She could feel exhaustion and something more dragging her down, feel herself falling into that deep dark well she’d awakened from. Blackness began to move in behind her eyelids, the emptiness filling her head.
She welcomed it. Anything so she didn’t have to think the one thought that paralyzed her with fear.
What if no one ever found her?
CHAPTER FOUR
PULLING ON LATEX GLOVES, Stuart inspected what appeared to be a ransom note with growing concern. The message was short and to the point. The person who claimed to have taken Holly Jo said they would be contacting Holden with his or her demands. “How did you get this?”
Holden pointed at the open envelope on the desk. “Elaine found it in the mailbox this morning with the rest of the mail.”
It hadn’t come by US mail. No stamp, no postmark, no return address. Holden’s name and that of the ranch had been printed on the envelope with exaggerated precision as if to hide the person’s true handwriting.
“Do you have any idea why someone would take Holly Jo?” the sheriff asked.
Holden shook his head, but Stuart could see that he was worried it might be a personal grudge. Holden was a powerful and wealthy man with a huge ranch. He had made enemies over the years—not to mention the open war between him and Charlotte Stafford. Their offspring had gotten involved in the rivalry as well as their ranch staff.
He figured Chisum Jase “CJ” Stafford had often taken advantage of that rivalry for his own interests. But while he wouldn’t have put kidnapping past CJ, Stuart didn’t think this was his doing from behind bars.
But Holden also had a hotheaded older son who made no secret of his resentment of Holly Jo, according to what the sheriff had heard from his friend Cooper. Treyton McKenna and his father had been at odds for some time, but even more so after Holden had brought Holly Jo home to live with them. Treyton had also been vocal on how he felt about his brother Cooper marrying Tilly Stafford. But kidnapping the girl? What would he hope to gain?
“What are you going to do?” Holden demanded. “Holly Jo’s been missing for hours. We have to find her.”
