Unforgiven

“What about the sheriff?” he’d asked.

“He has a few questions, that’s all.”

A few questions about Ginny’s murder after all these years?

Clearly WT didn’t realize how dangerous it was for him being back here, he thought, recalling the look on Nettie Benton’s face when he’d driven by her store earlier today. There had been no reason to try to sneak back here. In a community this small, there were few secrets.

This was Montana where there was still a large portion of the rural population that believed in taking the law into their own hands—just as they had in the old days. That could mean a rope and a stout tree.

He mentioned that now to his father.

“I told you not to worry about any of that,” WT said without looking up.

“Don’t worry about it? Do I have to remind you that the last time I saw Rylan West he swore he’d kill me if he ever saw me again?”

His father finally looked up from his plate, his expression one of mild amusement. “I guess you’d better not let him see you then.”

* * *

DESTRY FOUND THREE W Bar G cows standing in the middle of the county road, just as a neighboring rancher had described over the phone. She slowed the truck, all three cows glancing at her but not moving. They mooed loudly, though, associating the sound of a truck with the delivery of hay.

“You girls are out of luck,” Destry said as she began to herd them with the pickup back up the road toward W Bar G property. She regretted missing her brother’s first dinner at home, but hoped he would understand. He and his fiancée needed time alone with WT so they could work out whatever was going on. Her being there would have only made things more strained, she told herself.

As it was, her conversation with Cherry by the pool earlier had left her even more concerned about her brother. Apparently the two had met at the Las Vegas casino where they both worked, Cherry as a dancer and Carson in the office.

Destry couldn’t imagine her brother living in Vegas, let alone working in a casino; neither could she see him settling down on the ranch. But then again, she didn’t know him anymore.

She wondered how much Carson had told his fiancée about what had happened eleven years ago. Did Cherry know about Ginny’s murder? Or that Carson was still the number one suspect?

She lowered her pickup window to feel the air, driving slowly as she moved the cattle at a lazy pace down the road. They were in no hurry, and neither was she.

This far north, it wouldn’t get dark for hours yet. Even with the possibility of an approaching storm, it was one of those rare warm fall afternoons in Montana. The rolling hills had faded to mustard in contrast to the deep green of the pines climbing the mountains. As always, the Crazy Mountains loomed over the scene, a bank of dark clouds shrouding the peaks.

She loved living out here away from everything. In this part of Montana, you could leave the keys in your pickup overnight, and your truck would still be there in the morning. The rural area’s low crime rate was one reason Ginny West’s murder had come as such a shock. It rattled everyone’s belief that Beartooth was safe because you knew your neighbors. Now, like a rock thrown into Saddlestring Lake, Carson’s return would create wide ripples.

Ginny West’s murder—and her breakup with Carson right before it—would be rehashed in booths and at tables in the Branding Iron Café and on the bar stools at the Range Rider bar.

There were still plenty of people around who believed Carson had killed her. Rylan West among them, she reminded herself with a sinking heart.

What would he do when he heard that Carson was back?

The cows mooed loudly as she brought the pickup to a stop and got out to open the barbed-wire gate. She’d seen a broken fence post where she figured the cows had gotten out. She’d let Russell know. Overhead, a hawk soared on an updraft.

As she waded through the tall golden grass, grasshoppers buzzed and bobbed around her. She lifted the metal handle to loosen the loop attached to the gate and, slipping the post out, walked the gate back to allow the cows into their pasture.

At the sound of a vehicle on the wind, she looked up the road. Dust churned up in the distance.

“Come on girls,” she said to the cows, swatting one on the backside with her hat to finally get them moving. She could hear the growing sound of the vehicle’s engine and was thankful she’d managed to get the cows off the road in time. Once she had them inside the fence, she dragged the barbed-wire gate back over to the post.

Destry had just cranked down the lever that kept the gate taut and closed when she heard the truck slow. She turned, squinting in the cloud of dust, as the pickup stopped only feet from her.

When she saw who was behind the wheel, her heart took off at a gallop.

CHAPTER THREE

RYLAN SWORE AS HE SAW Destry standing at the edge of the road. Had he really thought he could come storming out to the ranch and not run into her? One look at her and he’d known he wasn’t ready for this.

Destry looked the same and yet completely grown up. Her hair was longer, that same rich russet color that reminded him of fall in Montana. It was plaited down her slim back except for a few strands that the wind lifted around her face under the shade of her straw hat. She wore a yellow-checked Western shirt and jeans, both accenting her more mature, rounded figure.

Her eyes were still that faded blue that often matched Montana’s big sky. As he looked into them, he felt that old spark. It burned into him, hotter than a Montana summer day.

One look at her and he realized all the running he’d done the past eleven years had been for nothing. He couldn’t escape the way he felt about this woman any more than he could forgive her brother for what he knew he’d done.

His sister’s murder was like a line drawn in the dirt. Neither of them could step over it. Destry was convinced her brother was innocent of Ginny’s murder. Rylan would never believe that. Nothing had changed.

“Destry,” he said through his open window. The word felt alien on his lips, and he realized how long it had been since he’d uttered it aloud. It brought with it an ache that made him grit his teeth.

* * *

DESTRY HAD WATCHED FROZEN to the spot as the pickup came to a dust-boiling stop next to her. The early evening light ricocheted off the windshield, blinding her for a moment before the driver’s side window came down.

The shock of coming face-to-face with Rylan after all these years sent a tremor through her. She stared into those familiar brown eyes, seeing the Rylan West she’d fallen in love with as a girl. For a moment, lost in his gaze, she had the overpowering feeling that if he would just get out of that pickup and take her in his arms they could find their way back to each other.

“Destry?” The sound of her name on his lips made her heart pound with the familiarity of it.

She found her voice. “I wondered when I’d see you. I should have known what it would take. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

He shoved back his Stetson. “I reckon not. I need to see your brother.”

She shook her head. Before he’d left town, she’d tried to convince Rylan that her brother couldn’t have killed Ginny. “If you just knew him the way I do...”

But his mind had been made up. Just as it was today. She could see it in the clenched muscles of his strong jaw, in the set of his broad shoulders. He’d looked the same way the day of his sister’s funeral when he’d gone after Carson, the two of them getting into a fistfight at the cemetery until Rylan’s father had broken it up.

“I was hoping...” She couldn’t even bear to say the words, her hopes like daggers through her heart. She’d dreamed about the day she would see Rylan again. Her dream crumbled like the dried leaves on the cottonwoods nearby, turning to dust in the wind.

The man she’d known was gone. It was high time she let go of the past. Let go of Rylan West.

* * *

RYLAN NEARLY BUCKLED under the pain he saw in her eyes. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

She sighed, cloaking the hurt with a smile, a smile with an edge to it. Anger fired her blue eyes. It burned hot as a flame. She knew what he planned to do.

For weeks after Ginny’s murder, he’d tried to find proof that would put Carson Grant behind bars. What he kept running into was the same thing that had kept Carson free all these years—a lack of evidence.

“I have to get my sister justice since the law isn’t going to. As Ginny’s oldest brother, I owe her that.”

“And you think this is the way?” she said, sounding sad and disappointed in him.