Steel Resolve

* * *

THERE WERE DAYS when Dana felt all sixty-two of her years. Often when she looked at her twenty-eight-year-old daughter, Mary, she wondered where the years had gone. She felt as if she’d merely blinked and her baby girl had grown into a woman.

Being her first and only daughter, Mary had a special place in her heart. So when Mary hurt, Dana did too. Ever since Chase and Mary had broken up and he’d left town, her daughter had been heartsick, and Dana had had no idea how to help her.

She knew that kind of pain. Hud had broken her heart years ago when they’d disagreed and he’d taken off. But he’d come back, and their love had overcome all the obstacles that had been thrown at them since. She’d hoped that Mary throwing herself into her accounting business would help. But as successful as Mary now was with her business, the building she’d bought, the apartments she’d remodeled and rented, there was a hole in her life—and her heart. A mother could see it.

“Sis, have you heard a word I’ve said?”

Dana looked from the window where she’d been watching Mary unsaddling her horse to where her brother sat at the kitchen table across from her. “Sorry. Did you just say cattle thieves?”

Jordan shook his head at her and smiled. There’d been a time when she and her brother had been at odds over the ranch. Fortunately, those days were long behind them. He’d often said that the smartest thing he’d ever done was to come back here, make peace and help Dana run Cardwell Ranch. She couldn’t agree more.

“We lost another three head. Hud blames paleo diets,” Jordan said, and picked up one of the chocolate chip cookies Dana had baked that morning.

“How many does this make?” she asked.

“There’s at least a dozen gone,” her brother said.

She looked to her husband who sat at the head of the table and had also been watching Mary out the window. Hud reached for another cookie. He came home every day for lunch and had for years. Today she’d made sandwiches and baked his favorite cookies.

“They’re hitting at night, opening a gate, cutting out only a few at a time and herding them to the road where they have a truck waiting,” the marshal said. “They never hit in the same part of any ranch twice, so unless we can predict where they’re going to show up next... We aren’t the only ones who’ve had losses.”

“We could hire men to ride the fences at night,” Jordan said.

“I’ll put a deputy or two on the back roads for a couple of nights and see what we come up with,” Hud said and, pushing away his plate and getting to his feet, shot Dana a questioning look.

Jordan, apparently recognizing the gesture, also got to his feet and excused himself. As he left, Hud said, “I know something is bothering you, and it isn’t rustlers.”

She smiled up at him. He knew her so well, her lover, her husband, her best friend. “It’s Mary. Stacy told me earlier that she mailed a letter from Mary to Chase a few weeks ago. Mary hasn’t heard back.”

Hud groaned. “You have any idea what was in the letter?”

“No, but since she’s been moping around I’d say she is still obviously in love with him.” She shrugged. “I don’t think she’s ever gotten over him.”

Her husband shook his head. “Why didn’t we have all boys?”

“Our sons will fall in love one day and will probably have their heartbreaks as well.” She had the feeling that Hud hadn’t heard the latest. “She’s going out with Deputy Dillon Ramsey tonight.”

Hud swore and raked a hand through his graying hair. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that there was something about him that made me nervous.”

She laughed. “If you’re that worried about him, then why don’t you talk to her?”

Her husband shot her a look that said he knew their stubborn daughter only too well. “Tell her not to do something and damned if she isn’t even more bound and determined to do it.”

Like he had to tell her that. Mary was just like her mother and grandmother. “It’s just a date,” Dana said, hoping there wasn’t anything to worry about.

Hud grumbled under his breath as he reached for his Stetson. “I have to get back to work.” His look softened. “You think she’s all right?”

Dana wished she knew. “She will be, given time. I think she needs to get some closure from Chase. His not answering her letter could be what she needed to move on.”

“I hope not with Dillon Ramsey.”

“Seriously, what is it about him that worries you?” Dana asked.

He frowned. “I can’t put my finger on it. I hired him as a favor to his uncle down in Wyoming. Dillon’s cocky and opinionated.”

Dana laughed. “I used to know a deputy like that.”

Hud grinned. “Point taken. He’s also still green.”

“I don’t think that’s the part that caught Mary’s attention.”

Her husband groaned. “I’d like to see her with someone with both feet firmly planted on the ground.”

“You mean someone who isn’t in law enforcement. Chase Steele wasn’t.”

“I liked him well enough,” Hud said grudgingly. “But he hadn’t sowed his wild oats yet. They were both too young, and he needed to get out of here and get some maturity under his belt, so to speak.”

“She wanted him to stay and fight for her. Sound familiar?”

Hud’s smile was sad. “Sometimes a man has to go out into the world, grow up, figure some things out.” He reached for her hand. “That’s what I did when I left. It made me realize what I wanted. You.”

She stepped into his arms, leaning into his strength, thankful for the years they’d had together raising a family on this ranch. “Mary’s strong.”

“Like her mother.”

“She’ll be all right,” Dana said, hoping it was true.

* * *

CHASE WAS DETERMINED to drive as far as he could the first day, needing to put miles behind him. He thought of Fiona and felt sick to his stomach. He kept going over it in his head, trying to understand if he’d done anything to lead her on beyond that one night. He was clear with her that he was not in the market for anything serious. His biggest mistake though was allowing himself a moment of weakness when he’d let himself be seduced.

But before that he’d explained to her that he was in love with someone else. She said she didn’t care. That she wasn’t looking for a relationship. She’d said that she needed him that night because she’d had a bad day.

Had he really fallen for that? He had. And when she became obsessed, he’d been shocked and felt sorry for her. Maybe he shouldn’t have.

He felt awful, and not even the miles he put behind him made him feel better. He wished he’d never left Montana, but at the time, leaving seemed the only thing to do. He’d worked his way south, taking carpenter jobs, having no idea where he was headed.

When he’d gotten the call from his mother to say she was dying and that she’d needed to see him, he’d quit his job, packed up and headed for Quartsite, Arizona, in hopes that his mother would finally give him the name.

Chase had never known who his father was. It was a secret his mother refused to reveal for reasons of her own. Once in Arizona, though, he’d realized that she planned to take that secret to her grave. On her death bed, she’d begged him to do one thing for her. Would he take her ashes back to Montana and scatter them in the Gallatin Canyon near Big Sky?

“That’s where I met your father,” she said, her voice weak. “He was the love of my life.”

She hadn’t given him a name, but at least he knew now that the man had lived in Big Sky at the time of Chase’s conception. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

* * *