Hero's Return

The Montana spring air had a sharp bite to it tonight. She shivered but kept walking, the bundle in her arms cradled protectively against her chest. The creek was much higher than the last time she’d been here and running much faster. She felt another shiver, this one from fear.

She’d forgotten the distance from the bridge to the creek’s surface. The water would be icy cold, stealing her breath away, as if that was the worst of her problems. For a moment, she looked downstream. All she could see was darkness. Large old cottonwood limbs leaned out over the stream, casting even blacker shadows over the inky water.

Tucker Cahill was late. Maybe he wasn’t coming. She wished he wouldn’t, but she knew this cowboy. He’d come. They always did.

Reaching the middle of the bridge, she stopped to wait. The wind was strong here. It swept her long blond hair into her eyes, but she didn’t dare let go of the bundle in her arms to brush it aside.

Instead, she stood, buffeted by the tempest of her emotions more than the rising gale. She knew that if she wasn’t careful she could lose her balance and be pitched into the water below before it was time. There was no railing on the footbridge. One misstep and she would be over the side, falling for what would seem like forever before she struck the powerful current and was swept away.

She glanced toward the opposite end of the bridge. What if he’d changed his mind about meeting her tonight? He was already suspicious. One clear thought surfaced as she waited. She didn’t want to do this anymore. Couldn’t. It had to stop—and it would—tonight.

Sensing Tucker, she glanced toward the shoreline and saw movement. She watched as seventeen-year-old Tucker Cahill made his way along the creek bank. The big handsome cowboy moved in long, determined strides. Of course he’d come, because he didn’t want to let her down. He was already that kind of man at seventeen. She felt a mixture of shame, anger and disgust. He knew what kind of woman he was meeting tonight. Why had he let it go this far?

A part of her wanted to warn him off, to send him back, to let this one go. But there would be consequences downstream if she did. No, she had to finish this.

When he spotted her in the dim starlight, she saw that he was immediately alarmed to see her teetering so close to the edge of the bridge. He called to her, telling her not to move, as he strode, long legged, along the creek bank and then up onto the footbridge.

“Don’t come any closer,” she warned him as she hugged the bundle tighter and told him how he had ruined her life.

The emotion in her voice made him hesitate, but only for a moment. The bridge swayed as he took a few tentative steps toward her, his boots echoing on the worn wood.

She balanced on the razor’s edge of the bridge before calling out another warning, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. He thought he could save her from more than the strong current beneath her. He wasn’t the first man to think that.

The wind pushed at her back. The bridge swayed. And yet she didn’t jump. For a moment, she thought she couldn’t go through with it. She looked down at the bundle in her arms. The tiny nose and mouth, the brown of the eyes shiny in the starlight. But ultimately, she knew she had no choice. There was no turning back now. She was in too deep; they all were.

“Please, don’t move!” the cowboy pleaded and quickened his step as he kept coming.

The footbridge swayed crazily under her feet. Tears stung her eyes as she looked down at the water. She was so tired. She just wanted this to be over. No matter the cost, it would end tonight.

Tucker was gaining on her fast. If she didn’t move...

She wavered for a moment on the precipice until he was almost to her before she jumped. As her head went under in the freezing cold water, only then did she let go of the burden in her arms and was quickly swept away.

CHAPTER ONE (#u5116cf9d-d5b1-50f9-bf71-3d2d10e4b2be)

Skeletal Remains Found in Creek

The skeletal remains of a woman believed to be in her late teens or early twenties were discovered in Miner’s Creek, outside Gilt Edge, Montana, yesterday. Local coroner Sonny Bates estimated that the remains had been in the creek for somewhere around twenty years.

Sheriff Flint Cahill is looking into missing-persons cases from that time in the hopes of identifying the victim. If anyone has any information, they are encouraged to call the Gilt Edge Sheriff’s Department.

“NO, MRS. KERN, I can assure you that the bones that were found in the creek are not those of your nephew Billy,” Sheriff Flint Cahill said into the phone at his desk. “I saw Billy last week at the casino. He was alive and well...No, it takes longer than a week for a body to decompose to nothing but bones. Also, the skeletal remains that were found were a young woman’s...Yes, Coroner Sonny Bates can tell the difference.”

He looked up as the door opened and his sister, Lillie, stepped into his office. From the scowl on her face, he didn’t have to ask what kind of mood she was in. He’d been expecting her given that he had their father locked up in one of the cells.

“Mrs. Kern, I have to go. I’m sorry Billy hasn’t called you, but I’m sure he’s fine.” He hung up with a sigh. “Dad’s in the back sleeping it off. Before he passed out, he mumbled about getting back to the mountains.”

A very pregnant Lillie nodded but said nothing. Pregnancy had made his sister even prettier. Her long dark hair framed a face that could only be called adorable. This morning, though, he saw something in her gray eyes that worried him.

He waited for her to tie into him, knowing how she felt about him arresting their father for being drunk and disorderly. This wasn’t their first rodeo. And like always, it was Lillie who came to bail Ely out—not his bachelor brothers, Hawk and Cyrus, who wanted to avoid one of Flint’s lectures.

He’d been telling his siblings that they needed to do something about their father. But no one wanted to face the day when their aging dad couldn’t continue to spend most of his life in the mountains gold panning and trapping—let alone get a snoot full of booze every time he finally hit town again.

“I’ll go get him,” Flint said, lumbering to his feet. Since he’d gotten the call about the bones being found at the creek, he hadn’t had but a few hours’ sleep. All morning, the phone had been ringing off the hook. Not with leads on the identity of the skeletal remains—just residents either being nosy or worried there was a killer on the loose.

“Before you get Dad...” Lillie seemed to hesitate, which wasn’t like her. She normally spoke her mind without any encouragement at all.

He braced himself.

“A package came for Tuck.”

That was the last thing Flint had expected out of her mouth. “To the saloon?”

“To the ranch. No return address.”

Flint felt his heart begin to pound harder. It was the first news of their older brother, Tucker, since he’d left home right after high school. Being the second oldest, Flint had been closer to Tucker than with his younger brothers. For years, he’d feared him dead. When Tuck had left like that, he’d suspected his brother was in some kind of trouble. He’d been sure of it. But had it been something bad enough that Tucker hadn’t felt he could come to Flint for help?

“Did you open the package?” he asked.

Lillie shook her head. “Hawk and Cyrus thought about it but then called me.”

He tried to hide his irritation that one of them had called their sister instead of him, the darned sheriff. His brothers had taken over the family ranch and were the only ones still living on the property so it wasn’t a surprise that they would have received the package. Which meant that whoever had sent it either didn’t know that Tucker no longer lived there or thought he was coming back for some reason.

Because Tucker was on his way home? Maybe he’d sent the package and there was nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately, a package after all this time didn’t necessarily bode well. At least not to Flint, who came by his suspicious nature naturally as a lawman. He feared it might be Tucker’s last effects.

“I hope you didn’t open it.”

Lillie shook her head. “You think this means he’s coming home?” She sounded so hopeful it made his heart ache. He and Tucker had been close in more ways than age. Or at least he’d thought so. But something had been going on with his brother his senior year in high school and Flint had no idea what it was. Or if trouble was still dogging his brother.

For months after Tucker left, Flint had waited for him to return. He’d been so sure that whatever the trouble was, it was temporary. But after all these years, he’d given up any hope. He’d feared he would never see his brother again.

“Tell them not to open it. I’ll stop by the ranch and check it out.”

Lillie met his gaze. “It’s out in my SUV. I brought it with me.”

Flint swore under his breath. What if it had a bomb in it? He knew that was overly dramatic but, still, knowing his sister... There wasn’t a birthday or Christmas present that she hadn’t shaken the life out of as she’d tried to figure out what was inside it. “Is your truck open?” She nodded. “Wait here.”

He stepped out in the bright spring day. Gilt Edge sat in a saddle surrounded by four mountain ranges still tipped with snow. Picturesque, tourists came here to fish its blue-ribbon trout stream. But winters were long and a town of any size was a long way off.

Sitting in the middle of Montana, Gilt Edge also had something that most tourists didn’t see. It was surrounded by underground missile silos. The one on the Cahill Ranch was renowned because that was where their father swore he’d seen a UFO not only land, but also that he’d been forced on board back in 1967. Which had made their father the local crackpot.

Flint took a deep breath, telling himself to relax. His life was going well. He was married to the love of his life. But still, he felt a foreboding that he couldn’t shake off. A package for Tucker after all these years?

The air this early in the morning was still cold, but there was a scent to it that promised spring wasn’t that far off. He loved spring and summers here and had been looking forward to picnics, trail rides and finishing the yard around the house he and Maggie were building.

He realized that he’d been on edge since he’d gotten the call about the human bones found in the creek. Now he could admit it. He’d felt as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. And now this, he thought as he stepped to his sister’s SUV.