Showdown!

“Enjoy it while you can. It isn’t my usual style.”

She sipped the hot brew while he checked the road and declared it safe. The water was no more than six inches deep now. She retrieved her travel kit, freshened up, then paid a visit to the other side of the trees.

“You seem to think of everything—sleeping bag, stove, coffee, tea,” she said as they finished the last of the coffee, both of them in the front seat again.

“A person would be foolish to live in the mountains and not be prepared to wait out a storm.”

“Do you get lots of snow in Idaho?”

He grinned in that special way he had—rather humorous, more than a little sexy and definitely intriguing. It was his smile that had first suggested she could trust him. He’d rewarded her faith by being a perfect gentleman last night.

“Not as much as some places, but enough. Put that parka on. It’s about thirty-six degrees this morning,” he told her. “I don’t want you catching a chill before I get you to the ranch. My gear doesn’t extend to nursing facilities.”

She sighed raggedly, grateful her trust hadn’t been misplaced. There were so few people she dared put her confidence in these days. This man was very…nurturing.

She considered the descriptive word and, while she sensed there was more, much more, to the handsome deputy, it was a reasonable assessment of him.

“Ready?” he asked.

She nodded and noticed his glance at her hair. Since she didn’t have to hide it under a cap, she’d left it down around her shoulders.

“You look very different from your casino appearance.”

Lifting her chin, she returned his cool appraisal. “That was for work.”

“Or to hide your identity from someone?”

Her heart lurched at his correct assessment. She started to reply, then thought better of it. When unsure of what to say, it was better to be silent. He studied her briefly, then started the truck and drove onto the pavement. Almost three hours later, they arrived at a small lake formed by a dam. A community nestled close by. She opened the map of the state and asked where they were.

“Lost Valley. The town serves the ranchers and the tourists taking the scenic route on their way to Yellowstone or the Tetons or, heading west, those going to Hells Canyon in the summer.”

In the winter, she imagined, the place must be like a deep freeze. She mused on what it would be like, being snowed in for days on end. Her gaze was drawn to Zack, and her heart gave another of those odd lurches.

“Dalton,” she said suddenly. “Wasn’t there a gang by that name in the Wild West days?”

“Yeah. There’s a connection, but we’re descended from the branch that had the good guys.”

His grin was infectious. Smiling, she studied the map again and then the peaks around them when they topped a hill west of the valley.

From this vantage point, she could see all the way down to Lost Valley and the tiny town of the same name tucked in close to the reservoir. The valley was 5000 feet high, according to the map. He-Devil Mountain to the north was 9393 feet high. They were someplace between the two and still climbing.

“We’re nearly home,” he told her.

She gazed all around the panoramic scene of peaceful valley and majestic peaks, the lake and evergreen trees. “It’s beautiful here,” she said. “The most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”

He gave her a skeptical glance.

“Well, I’ve only been in Southern California and then Nevada, actually only in Las Vegas, until yesterday,” she admitted. “But I’ve always been fascinated by mountains and how they formed, the vast upheavals of the earth and the forces of nature and all that.”

“Yeah, it’s fascinating,” he agreed.

She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere. Keeping her thoughts to herself, she picked out more odd names on the map. There was a She-Devil Mountain, the mate to He-Devil, she decided, smiling.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

“The names. Seven Devils Mountains. He-Devil. She-Devil. Are there others?”

“There’s one called the Devil’s Tooth. Another is Mount Ogre. Mmm, the Tower of Babel, Mount Baal, the Goblin. Those are the official seven. On the ranch, we have an escarpment with a flat boulder on it that we named the Devil’s Dining Room.”

“Does your Uncle Nick live there alone?”

“No. My twin brothers live on the ranch. My cousins live in Boise but visit often.”

“How many cousins did you say you have?”

“Three.”

A frisson swept along Honey’s scalp. Zack, his two brothers, the three cousins and Uncle Nick. That made seven. She inhaled sharply as her imagination leaped from the seven Daltons to the Seven Devils Mountains.

As if reading her thoughts, he said, “No, the mountains weren’t named in honor of my family.”

Looking at his devilish grin, she wondered about that.

Honey realized she would never find her way back to town as they wound around hills and through canyons. At last they crossed a wooden bridge over a dry creek, and the land opened into a flat valley ringed by tree-covered ridges.

Nestled on a rise, protected in a curving sweep of pine trees, was a stone and split-log ranch house. “Rambling” described it perfectly. Wings spread out to each side of the central structure, which had a porch across its face.

“Home,” Zack said. “There’s Uncle Nick.”

An older man came out onto the porch. His hair was white and lay in an attractive wave sweeping back from his forehead just like his nephew’s. His face was tanned and lined. A tall man, as tall as Zack, his rangy frame retained the lanky appearance of youth. She estimated his age to be late sixties, early seventies.

“What happened to your parents?” she asked.

“They died when we were young.”

“How?”

“My father and mother, plus my dad’s twin brother and his girlfriend, came home one year to visit, bringing us kids with them. They went out on the town one night. There was an avalanche and they never made it back. Since Uncle Nick was the only kin, he and Aunt Milly were saddled with six additional kids to raise.”

“Aunt Milly was the one who died in the accident? It was her little girl who was kidnapped?”

“Yes.”

Honey considered the events that had occurred in his family. Like her, Zack was an orphan who had been taken in by a relative. She felt a bond with him, one of tragedy.

“I’m sorry about your parents and the others,” she said a bit stiffly, but sincerely.

“It was a long time ago.”