She didn’t hear him behind her until he spoke.
“I was sorry to hear about your mother,” he said so close she felt his warm breath on her neck and caught a whiff of his aftershave. The same kind he’d used when he was hers.
Without turning, she gave a nod of her head, the wind burning her eyes, and jerked open the pickup door, sending a glance to Warren across the hood that she was more than ready to leave.
As she climbed into the truck and started to pull the door shut behind her, Hud dropped one large palm over the top of the door to keep it from closing. “Dana…”
She shot him a look she thought he might still remember, the same one a rattler gives right before it strikes.
“I just wanted to say…happy birthday.”
She tried not to show her surprise—or her pleasure—that he’d remembered. That he had, though, made it all the worse. She swallowed and looked up at him, knifed with that old familiar pain, the kind that just never went away no matter how hard you fought it.
“Dana, listen—”
“I’m engaged.” The lie was out before she could call it back.
Hud’s eyebrows up. “To anyone I know?”
She took guilty pleasure from the pain she heard in his voice, saw in his face. “Lanny Rankin.”
“Lanny? The lawyer?” Hud didn’t sound surprised, just contemptuous. He must have heard that she’d been dating Lanny. “He still saving up for the ring?”
“What?”
“An engagement ring. You’re not wearing one.” He motioned to her ring finger.
Silently she swore at her own stupidity. She’d wanted to hurt him and at the same time keep him at a safe distance. Unfortunately she hadn’t given a thought to the consequences.
“I just forgot to put it on this morning,” she said.
“Oh, you take it off at night?”
Another mistake. When Hud had put the engagement ring on her finger so many years ago now, she’d sworn she’d never take it off.
“If you must know,” she said, “the diamond got caught in my glove, so I took it off to free it and must have laid it down.”
His brows shot up again.
Why didn’t she just shut up? “I was in a hurry this morning. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “Must be a big diamond to get stuck in a glove.” Not like the small chip he’d been able to afford for her, his tone said.
“Look, as far as I’m concerned, you and I have nothing to say to each other.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry into your personal life.” A muscle bunched in his jaw and he took on that all-business marshal look again. “I’d appreciate it if you and Warren wouldn’t mention what you found in the well to anyone. I know it’s going to get out, but I’d like to try to keep a lid on it as long as we can.”
He had to be joking. The marshal’s office dispatcher was the worst gossip in the canyon.
“Anything else?” she asked pointedly as his hand remained on the door.
His gaze softened again and she felt her heart do that pitter-patter thing it hadn’t done since Hud.
“It’s good seeing you again, Dana,” he said.
“I wish I could say the same, Hud.”
His lips turned up in a rueful smile as she jerked hard on the door, forcing him to relinquish his hold. If only she could free herself as easily.
The pickup door slammed hard. Warren got in and started the engine without a word. She knew he’d heard her lie about being engaged, but Warren was too smart to call her on it.
As sun streamed into the cab, Warren swung the pickup around. Dana rolled down her window, flushed with a heat that had nothing to do with the warmth of the sun or the January Thaw. She could see the ranch house down the hillside. Feel the rattle of the tires over the rough road, hear the wind in the pines.
She promised herself she wouldn’t do it even as she reached out, her fingers trembling, and adjusted the side mirror to look back.
Hud was still standing where she’d left him, looking after them.
Happy birthday.
Chapter Two
Well, that had gone better than he’d expected, Hud thought with his usual self-deprecating sarcasm.
She was engaged to Lanny Rankin?
What did you expect? It’s been years. I’m surprised she isn’t married by now. But Lanny Rankin?
He watched the pickup disappear over the hill, listening until the sound of the engine died away and all he could hear was the wind again.
Yeah, why isn’t she married?
Lanny Rankin had gone after Dana before Hud had even driven out past the city limit sign. He’d had five years. So why weren’t the two of them married?
He felt a glimmer of hope.
Was it possible Dana was dragging her feet because she was still in love with him—not Lanny Rankin?
And why wasn’t she wearing her ring? Maybe she didn’t even have one. Maybe she wasn’t engaged—at least not officially.
Maybe you’re clutching at straws.
Maybe, but his instincts told him that if she was going to marry Lanny, she would have by now.
A half mile down the hillside, he could see Warren’s pickup stop in a cloud of dust. Hud watched Dana get out. She was still beautiful. Still prickly as a porcupine. Still strong and determined. Still wishing him dead.
He couldn’t blame her for that, though.
He had a terrible thought. What if she married Lanny now just out of spite?
And what was this about selling the ranch? The old Dana Cardwell he knew would never put the ranch up for sale. Was she thinking about leaving after it sold? Worse, after she married Lanny?
She disappeared into the ranch house. This place was her heart. She’d always said she would die here and be buried up on the hill with the rest of her mother’s family, the Justices.
He’d loved that about her, her pride in her family’s past, her determination to give that lifestyle to her children—to their children.
Hud felt that gut-deep ache of regret. God, how he hated what he’d done to her. What he’d done to himself. It didn’t help that he’d spent the past five years trying to make sense of it.
Water under the bridge, his old man would have said. But then his old man didn’t have a conscience. Made life easier that way, Hud thought, cursing at even the thought of Brick Savage. He thought of all the wasted years he’d spent trying to please his father—and the equally wasted years he’d spent hating him.
Hud turned, disgusted with himself, and tried to lose himself in the one thing that gave him any peace, his work.
He put in a call to Coroner Rupert Milligan. While he waited for Rupert, he shot both digital photographs and video of the site, trying not to speculate on the bones in the well or how they had gotten there.
Rupert drove up not thirty minutes later. He was dressed in a suit and tie, which in Montana meant either a funeral or a wedding. “Toastmasters, if you have to know,” he said as he walked past Hud to the well, grabbing the flashlight from Hud’s hand on his way.
Rupert Milligan was older than God and more powerful in this county.