On the third ring, he answered, “This is Aiden Gabriel.”
“Hi, it’s Tab.” A pause stretched between them. He didn’t remember her. And wasn’t that a knife to the gut? She clarified, “Tab Willows. I saw you at that law enforcement meeting in Crow Agency and took your card.”
“Tabitha.” He was one of the few people who used her full name. “You haven’t been around for a while. I heard you were at nursing school in Missoula.”
“That’s right.” Hearing his voice cast her backward in time to when she was a lovesick teenager wishing on a star that he’d notice her. She swallowed hard. “I’m a midwife.”
“We have some catching up to do.”
Tongue-tied, she mumbled, “Guess so.”
“It’s been a long time, but I’ll never forget that pretty, young girl with long black hair who used to race my fastest horse across the fields bareback.”
He’d thought she was pretty? If he’d told her when she was sixteen, she would have exploded in a wild burst of angst and joy. Even now, his compliment made it hard for her to breathe. “Misty needs your help.”
“What happened?”
“She called me because she’s having labor pains. She and her boyfriend got their Jeep stuck in a creek bed, and she needs to be evacuated.”
“Are you with her?”
“On my way,” Tab said. “But I can’t bring her in because I’m on horseback. Misty said they were near Half-Moon Cave.”
“I know where it is,” he said. “Tabitha, I hope you remember what was discussed at that meeting. If you’re riding alone, you should be prepared for trouble.”
In her work, she often traveled alone, heading to remote locations to work with women in labor. And she didn’t take unnecessary chances. A rifle scabbard was tucked under her saddlebags. “I’m armed.”
“See you there.”
With her cell phone tucked into the pocket of her brown denim jacket, she flicked the reins and nudged her heel into the flank of Shua, her grandma’s blue-black mare with the white blaze on her forehead. With minimal direction, the horse descended from the ridge and galloped across a wide valley dotted with patches of old snow.
As she directed Shua uphill through a stand of pine trees, she wondered how she could arrange to ride back to the hospital in the helicopter with Aiden. Unfortunately, she couldn’t abandon her horse, even though Shua could probably find her own way back to the corral outside her grandma’s house. The chopper ride would have to wait for another day.
If she took Misty as a client, she’d have plenty of opportunity to see Aiden. Not that she needed an excuse. Her midwife work made it important to know the emergency providers. She had every reason to call him and set a coffee date or invite him to her grandma’s house and bake him a pie. Did he still like apple? Would he still think she was pretty?
A blast of gunfire echoed through the canyons and across the fields. Three shots.
Shua reared back. Tab’s memories and daydreams shattered. There was trouble ahead.
If her reckoning was correct, Half-Moon Cave was just over the next rise. She urged her horse to go faster. From the hilltop, she looked down at a field near the canyon walls and saw the open-top Jeep with the rear tires buried up to the hubcaps in the mud. Taking her rifle from the scabbard, Tab held it to her shoulder and peered through the scope for a better look at the vehicle. There was a man sprawled in the backseat; she couldn’t tell if he’d been shot. Misty was nowhere in sight.
This couldn’t be good. Tab cocked her rifle and fired into the air. Her gunfire would warn off attackers and let Misty know that help was on the way.
Two more shots answered hers.
Rifle in hand, Tab rode fast. Her long braid bounced against her back, and the wind streamed across her cheeks. Her protective instincts came to the fore as she remembered the vulnerable child she babysat so long ago.
Approaching the Jeep, she shouted, “Misty?”
Loud sobbing came from a tangle of willows and cottonwoods that bordered the river. Still on horseback, Tab approached. If any real marksmanship was required, she’d need to dismount and brace herself. Right now, she wanted the option of fast maneuvering on Shua.
“Misty, are you all right?”
“I’m over here.”
In a small clearing, Tab saw the body of a man who had been shot in the chest. His jacket hung open. His eyes stared blankly at the darkening sky. He wasn’t moving.
Kneeling on the ground beside him was Misty. She held her bloody hands in front of her as though afraid to touch anything. A rifle lay on the ground.
Misty turned her tear-streaked face toward her. “I didn’t kill him. I swear I didn’t.”
THOUGH AIDEN WAS ALWAYS on call for emergencies, it usually took a while for him to get started because he had to drive to the air field in Henley to pick up his six-passenger helicopter, a Bell Long Ranger. Today, he needed only to walk from the barn to the helipad near his cabin at the Gabriel family ranch. Earlier today, he’d given piloting lessons to a couple of the ranch hands. With winter coming, there wasn’t as much work for the cowboys to do, and Aiden could use some part-time help with his newly established rescue business.
Less than fifteen minutes after Tabitha’s call, he was in the cockpit. He fastened his seat belt, depressed the starter, checked the fuel-pressure gauge, opened the throttle and pointed the nose toward the southeast. If he’d been following roads, the drive to Half-Moon Cave near the Little Big Horn River would have taken nearly an hour. Swooping through the sky cut his arrival time to approximately twenty minutes. Top speed was necessary. From what Tabitha had told him, Misty might be giving birth at any moment.
He hadn’t been pleased when his baby sister turned up pregnant. Misty was fourteen years younger than he was, not much more than a child herself. Aiden still had a hard time thinking of her as a mother, but the idea of having a nephew had grown on him.
As his mom constantly pointed out, it was time for a new generation in the Gabriel family. Mom would have preferred a marriage before the baby, but she’d take what she could get, especially since it didn’t look like Aiden would be heading toward the altar any time soon. His long-distance relationship had fizzled last month when they’d argued about where to spend Christmas. Aiden had point-blank refused to make the trip to Los Angeles to hang tinsel on palm trees, and his lady had no interest in coming to the ranch. The breakup had been inevitable. They’d grown apart.
Using his headset, he put through a call to Tabitha’s cell phone. When she answered, he clarified his directions. “I think I’m getting close. I’m following the course of the river.”
“We’re on the east side. Near a dried-up creek. Please hurry, Aiden.”
He heard the note of urgency in her voice. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“Misty is fine.” She paused. “There’s been a shooting.”
“Are you safe?”
“I think the shooter took off, but I can’t be sure.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said. “Tell me when you hear me getting close.”
“I think we’re okay,” she said. “We took cover by the river.”
He leaned forward as though his will could force the chopper to fly faster. The landscape below was a rugged sea of dry field grass and clumps of sage brush. “Did you see the gunman?”
“I can barely hear you, Aiden.”
“Stay on the line.” Like a 911 operator, he needed to maintain contact so he’d