Nikki didn’t kid herself that this was going to be easy. She’d heard from other journalists that the family hated reporters and all of them except Travers had refused to talk about the kidnapping. She desperately needed someone on that ranch who would be agreeable to help her. Ledger might be the one.
Nikki wished she had more time before making her move. But the clock was ticking. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the kidnapping was approaching rapidly. It still gave her a chill when she looked at the photographs she’d taken of Marianne McGraw. It hadn’t been her imagination. The woman had risen up from her chair, eyes wild, hands clenched around the “babies” in her arms.
If Nikki had had any doubt that the woman was still in that shell of a body, she no longer did. Now she had to find out if the rumors were true about Marianne and Nate Corwin.
From across the street, she watched Ledger take a seat in his usual booth. A moment later, the redhead put a cup of coffee, a menu and the folded edition of what Nikki assumed was the Milk River Courier on his table.
The local weekly had just come out this morning. Ledger had been interviewed, which surprised her, since it was the first time she knew of that he’d spoken to the press, but it also made her even more convinced that Ledger was her way into the family.
Inside the café, she watched Ledger looking bashful as he picked up the menu, but he didn’t look at it. Instead, he secretly watched the redheaded waitress as she walked away.
Nikki saw something in his expression that touched her heart. A vulnerability that made her turn away for a moment. There was a yearning that was all too evident to anyone watching.
But no one else was watching. Clearly this young man was besotted with this redhead. Today, though, Nikki noticed something she’d missed the days before.
As she watched the waitress return to the table to take his order, she saw why she’d missed it. Along with the obvious sexual tension between them, there was the glint of a gold band on the young woman’s left-hand ring finger.
Her heart ached all the more for Ledger because this was clearly a case of unrequited love. Add to that an obvious shared history and Nikki knew she was witnessing heartbreak at its rawest. The redhead had moved on, but Ledger apparently hadn’t.
High school sweethearts? But if so, what had torn them apart? she wondered, then quickly brushed her curiosity aside. Her grandfather had often warned her about getting emotionally involved with the people she wrote about.
She knew in this case, she had to be especially careful.
“Care, and you lose your objectivity,” he’d said when, as a girl, she’d asked how he could write about the pain and suffering of people the way he did. “The best stories are about another person’s pain. It’s the nature of the business because people who’ve lost something make good human-interest stories. Everyone can relate because we have all lost something dear to us.”
“What have you lost?” she’d asked her grandfather, since she’d never seen vulnerability in him ever.
“Nothing.”
She’d always assumed that was true. Nothing stopped her grandfather from getting what he wanted. He’d go to any extreme to get a story and later to run the newspaper he bought, even if it meant risking his life or his business. But then again, that was one of the reasons Nikki suspected her grandmother had left him to marry another man. Not that her grandfather had seemed to notice. Or maybe he hid his pain well.
Ledger McGraw was in pain and it couldn’t help but touch her heart. Nikki knew her grandfather would encourage her to use this new information to her advantage.
“Keep your eye on the goal,” he’d always said. “The goal is getting the best story you possibly can. You aren’t there to try to make things better or bond with these people.”
That had sounded cold to her.
“It’s all about emotional distance. Pretend you’re a fly on the wall,” he’d said. “A fly that sometimes has to buzz around and get things going if you hope to get anything worth writing about.”
Nikki now felt anxious. She had to make her move today. Ledger would be finishing his breakfast soon. She couldn’t put this off any longer. Just as she decided it was time, she saw Ledger grab the redhead’s wrist as she started to step past his table.
Nikki saw those too shallowly buried emotions arc between them as the waitress reacted to whatever he was saying to her. The waitress jerked free of his hold and looked as if she might cry. But Nikki’s gaze was on Ledger’s face. His pain was so naked that she couldn’t help feeling it at heart level.
Ledger McGraw was incredibly young, his protectiveness for this woman touching. He’s still a boy, Nikki thought, and felt guilty for what she was about to do.
* * *
LEDGER IMMEDIATELY REGRETTED grabbing Abby’s wrist. Without looking at her, he said, “He’s hurt you again.”
“Don’t, Ledger.”
As she jerked free of his hold, he raised his gaze to meet hers again. “Abby.” The word came out a plea. “Any man who would hurt you—”
“Stay out of it, please,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “Please.” Her lowered voice cracked with emotion. “You don’t understand.”
He shook his head. He understood only too well. “A man who hurts you doesn’t love you.”
Her throat worked as she hastily brushed at her tears. “You don’t know anything about it,” she snapped before rushing toward the kitchen and away from him. “He just grabbed my wrist too hard. It’s nothing.”
He swore under his breath, realizing he didn’t know anything about it. He’d never understood what she saw in Wade Pierce. He especially didn’t understand why Abby stayed with the man.
Ledger finished what he could eat of his breakfast. Digging out the cost of his meal and tip from his jeans’ pocket, he dropped the money on the table, grabbed his hat and left.
Once outside, he stopped in the bright sunlight as he tried to control the emotions roiling inside him. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen the bruises, even though Abby had done her best to hide them. The bastard was mistreating her—he was sure of it.
He wanted to kill Wade with his bare hands. It was all he could do not to drive over to the feedlot and call the man out. But he knew that the only thing that would accomplish was more pain for Abby.
When was she going to see Wade for what he really was—a bully and a blowhard and... With a curse, he realized that Abby might never come to her senses. She was convinced he couldn’t live without her.
“Ledger?”
He turned at the sound of a woman’s voice.
Marta, the other waitress and a friend of Abby’s, held out the newspaper to him. “You forgot this,” she said, sympathy in her expression.
That was the trouble with a small town. Everyone knew your business, including watching your heart break. He hadn’t looked at the newspaper, wasn’t sure he wanted to. He hadn’t been thinking when the publisher had cornered him.
He took the paper from Marta and mumbled, “Thanks,” before the door closed. Gripping the newsprint, he turned toward his ranch pickup. He felt light-headed with fury and frustration and that constant ache in his heart. Not to mention he was worried about what would happen when the rest of the family saw the story in the paper.
And yet, all he could think about was driving over to the feedlot and dragging Wade out and kicking his butt all the way from Whitehorse to the North Dakota border.
But even as he thought it, he knew he was to blame for this. He’d let Abby get away. He’d practically propelled her into Wade’s