Promise from a Cowboy Read online

  “You two make a great couple,” he said.

  And that’s when his mother joined the group. She was decked out in a stylish skirt and trimmed Western shirt, looking spry and fit for a woman in her sixties.

  “You did well, Robert James.” The words were right, but the tone held the note of contained disapproval that he was used to hearing from his mother.

  “Thanks, Mom. I’m glad you could be here.”

  She nodded, then turned to her daughter. “I’m tired. Think I’ll head back to the hotel.”

  “Oh.” Cassidy’s face fell. “Would you like us to come with you?”

  “No. You go ahead and celebrate.” She sighed. It was the drinking and partying that accompanied rodeo that she most disapproved of. “I suppose you’ve earned the right to a little fun.”

  “We’ll have fun,” Cassidy agreed. “But you know we won’t overdo the drinking. We never do.”

  B.J. wondered if his sister thought she was speaking for him, too, when she said that. If so, she wasn’t being entirely honest.

  “Ready to head over to the Rogue Saloon?” Cassidy asked him, once their mother had departed.

  “I’ll meet you there. I promised an interview to a reporter from the Mail Tribune.” His sister didn’t look too disappointed, and neither did Farley. He was definitely the third wheel tonight. Maybe he’d just skip the party. He wasn’t much in the mood, anyway.

  It turned out there were a couple of reporters waiting to interview him, and he answered their questions politely, giving the stock answers that he had memorized years ago.

  He’d thought he was finished, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “B.J.?”

  The nerves that ran along his spine tingled at the sound of her voice.

  He turned slowly, taking the time for a good long look before he answered. Savannah—the local sheriff back home—wasn’t in uniform tonight. She was wearing her thick, dark hair long, and in her jeans, brown boots and black-and-gray shirt, she could have been just another pretty rodeo fan.

  She had on silver hoop earrings and a silver star that hung from her neck by a black ribbon. But what really drew his gaze were her eyes, dark and wary.

  “How are you, Savannah?” He almost couldn’t believe it was really her. For eighteen years she’d barely spoken to him—except when official duty required her to, like the day his brother Brock had died.

  She shrugged, as if to say it didn’t matter how she was.

  “Something’s happened,” she said.

  His heart contracted painfully. “Not another accident.”

  “No.” She held out her hand in a reassuring gesture. “No. Nothing like that. It’s about the fire.”

  He understood immediately that she was referring to the awful night that had changed everything between them. She’d been home babysitting her little sister while he went out partying with their friends and her twin brother, Hunter.

  Right from the beginning things had gone wrong. First the location. Hunter had been keen for their group to ride ATVs out to an abandoned barn on Olive’s estranged sister’s property. B.J. hadn’t felt right about it, but he’d gone along.

  Then a big electrical storm had struck, spooking the girls and sending them running. Only Brock and Hunter had stayed behind to witness the barn catching fire. Not until later did they discover that a vagrant had been passed out in the loft. Rain had put out the fire before the barn burned down, but smoke inhalation killed the vagrant.

  B.J. had been the one to insist on calling the authorities. He’d also done what he thought was the noble thing—taking the blame for inviting his friends out to his aunt’s barn. He’d wanted to protect his girlfriend’s brother, not ever considering that Savannah would blame him for getting Hunter in trouble.

  “Isn’t that ancient history?”

  “I wish.” She exhaled her annoyance. “I had a visit from a private investigator from L.A.” She frowned as a young man carrying two beers in his hands jostled her shoulder. “Could we find someplace quiet to talk?”

  He thought about his trailer. Too small, too intimate. The saloon where Cassidy and Farley were headed would be noisy. “I could stand some food. Want to go out for a steak?”

  She hesitated, and he could see the mistrust in her eyes. Even after all these years, it hurt.

  She blamed him for what had happened to her brother. Always a kid who invited trouble, Hunter had grown even wilder after the fire. He’d given up on school, found a rougher set of friends, and two months later, on his and Savannah’s eighteenth birthday, had stolen money from their mother and run off to his first rodeo.

  Since then he’d been traveling from one state to the other, always on the move.

  On the surface—and to Savannah—it probably seemed as if he and Hunter lived pretty similar lives. But the heavy drinking and gambling that sucked up most of Hunter’s energy was not B.J.’s scene.

  “My truck is parked close.” She pointed to the visitor lot. “How about we talk there?”

  Though she worded it as a question, she didn’t wait for him to answer—just started walking as if she expected him to follow.

  B.J. stood his ground. Following wasn’t something he did a lot of. But this was Savannah and he had to hear what was on her mind. With a sigh, he set off after her.

  * * *

  SAVANNAH COULD FEEL her phone vibrating as she moved away from B. J. Lambert. Good. She needed a distraction.

  As soon as she’d started talking to him, she’d realized approaching B.J. was a mistake. She’d thought enough years had passed that he would be almost like a stranger to her now. But strangers—not even the best-looking ones—didn’t make her palms sweat.

  She was a sheriff, damn it. She was supposed to be tough.

  She’d come to the rodeo in the first place hoping to see her brother. But though he was registered, Hunter hadn’t shown up.

  A typical Hunter move. And since he refused to own a cell phone, she had no easy way to locate him.

  Talking to B.J. had been the logical next step. Until she’d looked into those knowing gray eyes of his and had felt all her insides come undone.

  As she reached for her phone, she hoped B.J. would get stubborn and refuse to cooperate. But she could hear the sound of his boots scuffing along the hard-packed dirt behind her.

  She’d started something now. The Lord only knew where it would end.

  Savannah glanced at her phone’s display, hoping the call would be official business requiring her to leave Central Point, Oregon, right this minute. But the number was from the Mountain View Care Home back in Coffee Creek.

  “Savannah Moody.”

  “I can’t find my slippers.”

  She tried not to sigh. The staff at the care home had been instructed to restrict her mother’s calls. But Francine Moody could be ingenious, and no one appreciated that better than Savannah.

  Over the years her mother’s calls had become increasingly frequent and ever more muddled. Francine had never had the strongest hold on reality. Now it was mostly beyond her grasp.

  “Mom, hang up the phone and ask Aubrey to help you find them.”

  “Who’s Aubrey?”

  “She feeds you dinner every evening, remember? The nice woman with the smile you say reminds you of Goldie Hawn?”

  Actually, aside from her dyed blond hair and winning smile, Aubrey looked nothing like the winsome movie star. But the association seemed to help her mom’s failing memory.

  “Oh, yes, Goldie Hawn. Do you remember when she—”

  “Mom, I’ve got to go now, okay?” If she let her ramble on, her mother would spend the next thirty minutes rehashing the plot of some old movie. “I’ll be home again in a few days and I’ll visit you then.” She closed her phone, hoping B.J. hadn�
�t heard any of that. His pity about her down-and-out family was the last thing she needed.

  A few steps away from her truck, Savannah pulled out her keys and clicked the unlock button. She’d just slid behind the steering wheel, when B.J. plopped himself right next to her.

  She stared straight ahead, trying to adjust to his presence. But even without looking she could sense his long, muscular form beside her.

  B.J. was too tall to be a cowboy, but that hadn’t stopped him from being a success at it. He had a high forehead and a strong jaw and chin, and intense gray eyes that hinted at green when the light was right.

  From the first time she’d met him—at age fifteen when she’d walked into class as the new kid in town—she’d thought he was the best-looking guy she’d ever seen.

  She still thought that.

  Reluctantly.

  Asking him to come to her truck had been a mistake. She’d thought a restaurant would be too intimate. But her cab had never felt so small, and if there’d been a table between them, at least she wouldn’t have had to sit so close that their shoulders practically touched.

  The table also would have hidden the long line of his jean-clad thigh. And surely, in a restaurant, she wouldn’t have been able to hear the sound of him breathing.

  “This is real cozy, but an open window would be nice.”

  Quickly she inserted the key, then powered down both windows. “Sorry. This is awkward.”

  “It doesn’t have to be, Savannah.”

  Was he serious? She had to check his expression to be sure, but he didn’t seem to be mocking her.

  “I heard your mom was in the care home in town now. How is she adjusting?”

  So he had heard the call. Damn.

  “Pretty good. Half the time she doesn’t really understand where she is, anyway.”

  “That’s got to be tough.”

  Savannah shrugged. Life with her mother had always been tough. Francine had been a flighty parent and an erratic housekeeper. But only recently had she crossed the line and become careless to the point of causing harm. Two years ago she’d flooded the main floor bathroom of their home on a twenty-acre plot of land just outside of town. The next month she’d almost set the house on fire.

  “Do the doctors think she has Alzheimer’s?”

  “No. She remembers some things just fine. She can tell you the exact year she planted each of the perennials in the garden at home. She’s just got...really bad judgment when it comes to everyday decisions. Her doctor insisted that she needed round-the-clock care, and since I can hardly afford that, there was no option but to send her away.”

  Savannah did her best not to sound bitter. But it wasn’t easy, knowing that if Olive Lambert ever got really sick, her kids would have no trouble affording top-notch medical care.

  At one time the discrepancy between the Lamberts and the Moodys hadn’t bothered her at all.

  But that was before her brother’s future had been compromised by a prank that had turned into a full-blown disaster. On the surface it didn’t seem that bad. A bunch of foolish high school kids trespassing in an old barn and having an underage drinking party.

  It wasn’t their fault the storm had blown in. Or that lightning had struck, setting the barn on fire.

  But the presence of that vagrant in the loft troubled Savannah. It seemed too much of a coincidence. There had to be more to the story than either B.J. or her brother was letting on.

  “What about Regan?” B.J. asked, continuing his polite inquiries about her family. “I heard she graduated from the University of Montana this year, same as my sister, Cassidy.”

  Savannah couldn’t help but perk up at the mention of her ten-year-younger sister. “She sure did. She’s applied to medical school, too.” Every day Savannah checked the mail with a hope that bordered on desperation. She so much wanted her baby sister to have the success and respect that she deserved.

  Unlike their brother, Regan had always been easy to manage. She excelled at school, never broke the rules that her sister set for her and was helpful at home, doing most of the cooking—a job Savannah disliked.

  “She’ll make a great doctor,” B.J. said. “Remember how she was always trying to patch up those dolls of hers?”

  Savannah started to smile as she recalled the makeshift beds with their bandaged dolls that Regan would line up on the porch railing when she played “hospital.” But the memories, although happy, only reminded her of the special role B.J. had once played in her life.

  He’d been around a lot in those days. Regan had almost considered him a second brother. While she...well, she had considered him something a lot more intimate than that.

  She rubbed her temple. Last thing she wanted was to rehash the night everything had changed. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice. “Like I was saying, I had a visit from a private investigator from Los Angeles last week.”

  “Yeah?” B.J. sounded cautious.

  “The investigator—her name is June Savage—was hired by a wealthy man named Morgan McBride eighteen years ago to find his runaway teenage son, Travis.”

  B.J. twisted, spreading out his left arm along the back of the seat. She had his full attention now. “So we’re talking about our last year of high school?”

  He’d done the math and come up with the right answer.

  “Yes. Savage never did find the kid—well, not exactly a kid, he was nineteen years old when he went missing. But a few weeks ago a watch came up for sale on eBay. The watch was a McBride heirloom that hadn’t been seen since Travis ran away.”

  “This is sounding complicated.”

  She agreed. “Savage went to talk to the man who was selling the watch. Turns out he’d bought it at a pawn shop in Lewistown. Want to guess the year?”

  “Our graduation year?”

  “Right on the first try.”

  B.J. frowned. “Are you saying this kid was the man who died in the fire?”

  “Might be.”

  “I’ve always wondered who he was.” B.J.’s voice sounded raw.

  Savannah nodded. So had she. “Finding that watch caused June Savage to reopen her investigation. Previously she’d been concentrating her search in Mexico, since there had been signs pointing in that direction. This was the first time they considered Montana.”

  “Montana is one thing. How did Savage narrow it down to Coffee Creek?”

  “She was thorough. A search of death records for the year in question turned up the John Doe who died in that fire on Silver Creek Ranch. When she discovered that the body was roughly the same age and size as the missing McBride kid, she drove down to check it out.”

  “Hell.”

  “Yes. You realize, of course, that your aunt’s barn is less than an hour’s drive from Lewistown—where the watch was pawned. Here’s where it gets really interesting.” She paused a second. “The watch was sold to the pawn shop the day after the boy died.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “It must have been stolen. But less than twenty-four hours had passed between the time he ran away from his home in California and his death in the loft of that barn.” Which left a really short window of time when the watch could have been stolen.

  B.J. swore softly. “Do you think they’ll exhume the body?”

  “Shouldn’t need to. They ought to have dental records and a DNA sample on file. I’ve put through some paperwork to see if we’ve got a match. If we do, I’m guessing a state investigator will be appointed to reopen the investigation.”

  “I see.”

  Savannah studied his eyes, looking for more than he’d given her so far. But B.J. didn’t say anything further. Finally she’d had it.

  “Damn it, B.J. Don’t you think it’s time you told me what really happened that night?”

 
Chapter Two

  “Why?” B.J. felt sick and angry all at the same time. He’d thought about that vagrant a lot in the passing years. Who was he? What had he been doing in a barn that was so far off the beaten track, most people in Coffee Creek didn’t even know it existed?

  He’d assumed the guy must be homeless. And that he had no family. It seemed logical, since no one had ever come looking for him.

  But if he turned out to be this Travis McBride, then he had been someone’s son. And he’d been missed.

  The pain the McBrides must have gone through just didn’t bear thinking about.

  And now Savannah was on his case. “You never asked me what happened before. Never wanted to hear my side.”

  She looked shocked. “That isn’t true.”

  “It is.”

  She shook her head. “I had to come to the sheriff’s office to pick up Hunter. I heard the reports you gave to Sheriff Smith. Your parents were there, too. We got the whole story from both you and Hunter.”

  Yeah. She’d heard the “official” stories. But she’d never asked him privately about what had happened. He’d expected Savannah, of all people, would understand that he would do what he could to protect her brother. He’d done it for her, because he loved her and knew how much she worried about Hunter.

  But that had been a long time ago. They were different people now.

  “Right. And what makes you think I have anything to add, eighteen years after the fact?”

  Savannah’s gaze faltered. She glanced down at her hands, which were clenched in fists on her lap, then back at him. “It was just a hunch.”

  He shrugged. “I hear you’re a good sheriff. You should be proud of that. But you and me—we really don’t have anything to talk about. If you want to rehash what happened that night, maybe you should track down your brother.”

  * * *

  SAVANNAH WATCHED AS B.J. got out of her truck and started walking away. She felt empty inside, drained and tired. It had taken a lot of emotional energy to talk to him again after so many years.

  He’d been so closed to her. And mad. She hadn’t expected the anger.