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Chapter Twenty-Eight

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

B RAND HAD ALREADY arranged for a ride back to Powder Crossing for them, Birdie realized. Still, she was surprised to see Ryder, Brand's younger brother, leaning against a Stafford Ranch club cab pickup, waiting for them.

After slightly awkward introductions, she insisted Brand ride up front. Ryder, who resembled the green-eyed, blond-haired side of the family, appeared quiet like his brother. But there was no doubt that he was more than a little curious about what his big brother had been up to—almost dying in the McKenna house fire at the top of the list. Birdie figured she too was on that list, somewhere near the top.

"I guess we're going to have to catch up," Ryder said and shot her a look in the rearview mirror as he drove.

"I would imagine you've already heard most everything," Brand said.

"Right, I get away from the ranch so much. Not to mention that I haven't seen you in days. Apparently, a lot has been going on that I haven't heard about." He glanced pointedly at Birdie, who kept her expression blank.

"I'm sorry to have left you with all of the ranch work recently," Brand said. "Wasn't my intention. I just got caught up in everything after I got the results of the DNA test I took." She saw him glance at his brother. "Don't pretend you haven't heard."

"You're my brother. Who can believe a DNA test, anyway," he scoffed, but Birdie could see that he was grinning. Brand reached over and gave Ryder's shoulder a quick squeeze.

"Anything I've missed in the past few days?" Brand asked.

"If you're asking about Mother..." Ryder sighed. "She's back to her old self, pretty much. Apparently, she took your DNA news hard, because she organized a search of area ranches for Holly Jo, offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward for anyone who found her."

"Doesn't sound like our mother."

Ryder nodded. "Exactly. She's scarier when she isn't herself, I swear," he said with a chuckle.

She sat forward in her seat. "You know I'm in the area to prove that your mother killed my father, Dixon Malone, right?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah," Ryder said. "Everyone in the county knows. What they don't know is what you're doing with my brother."

Birdie sat back, cutting her eyes to Brand, before looking out the side window. The pickup cab fell silent, which could have been her answer, because she didn't know what her and Brand's relationship was either. Lovers. Friends? More or less than either?

Ryder and Brand talked ranching the rest of the way to Powder Crossing. It gave her time to think about everything that had happened. She hadn't had time to really deal with her near-death experience or anything else. Maybe especially her growing feelings for Brand Stafford.

She knew she was avoiding dwelling on both as she turned her thoughts to what she'd come to town for in the first place—seeing that her father got justice. She concentrated on that, going over everything she'd learned, and was surprised when they reached Powder Crossing so quickly.

Ryder dropped her off at the hotel. Brand started to get out of the truck to talk to her, but she didn't give him a chance.

"We'll talk later," she said, hopping out to hurry into the hotel. Once inside, she glanced back to see him standing next to the pickup, a frown on his handsome face, before climbing back inside with his brother and leaving.

Birdie breathed a sigh of relief before going upstairs to her room, showering, changing and heading across to the Wild Horse Bar. A half-dozen regulars were already sitting on stools at the bar, even though it was early in the day.

She spotted Elmer and motioned him over to the table where she took a seat. The elderly retired ranch hand hesitated before sliding off his stool. His buddies were joking about her being too young for him. He looked a little flushed as he approached. She motioned to a chair, and he sat, looking like he might bolt at any moment.

"You're going to get me in trouble," he said.

She suspected a part of him enjoyed the attention. "I need a little more of your help." He was the only person who had told her about Charlotte Stafford getting a call and going over to the McKenna Ranch. "Who could have called Charlotte that night?" He shook his head. Maybe he didn't know. "Someone must have either overheard the call or saw her leave late that night after my father had been gone for a while, presumably having gone to the McKenna Ranch. How would she know that he went there?"

Elmer shrugged, but she could see this time he knew something. He'd put his hands on the table and was fidgeting.

"That you know this means someone told you," she pointed out. "Elmer." She laid a hand on one of his. "Please."

He glanced around, acting almost scared. "I shouldn't," he said, lowering his voice. "You need to talk to Boyle Wilson, Charlotte Stafford's ranch manager. He's a son of a biscuit-eating cactus. Don't tell him I told you." She nodded. "Best watch yourself around him, you hear?"

"Is he the one who told you?"

Elmer scoffed. "He doesn't talk to the likes of me. I worked under him for a while at one of the first ranches he managed. Meaner than a kicked rattler."

"Then who?"

He leaned closer and whispered, "Boyle brags a lot that he knows everything that goes on out there on the spread. Get him drunk enough and he really shoots off his mouth. Truth is, he's had his eye on Charlotte for years. Seems to think that someday he'll own that ranch because he knows so many of her secrets. Said she'd been out in the stables, got a call, said something about Dixon and the McKenna Ranch. Then she took off late that night in her rig. Didn't say it, but it would have been just like him to follow her."

Birdie's heart began to pound harder, stealing her breath. If any of this was true, Boyle Wilson might have seen her father's murder—and his murderer.

*

C HARLOTTE HADN ' T GONE back to the hospital or tried to see Holden again after that first time. All that mattered, she told herself, was that he was going to live. She hadn't lost him from this earth. She could live with that. She had to, since that was all she was going to get.

She'd been so relieved when she'd heard that Holly Jo was safe—and so was Brand. That Brand and Birdie Malone had saved Holly Jo and had barely gotten out of that burning house still made her weak. She could have lost her son—if she hadn't already, she told herself.

Her first impulse had been to rush to the hospital to see him, but she'd talked herself into checking on his condition instead. Brand was being released this morning. Ryder had said he would pick him up, and Charlotte had thanked him.

She had something else to do that she told herself was more helpful than racing to Billings and showing up in his hospital room. It would take a lot more than that to heal the distance between her and her son.

Pulling out her phone, she made the call. "Elaine, where are you right now?"

"I'm at the ranch. I brought Holly Jo from the hospital. She needed to see her horse and go for a ride. Pickett is back. That definitely made her day. I'm sure he'll start the trick-riding lessons again."

"The house? I heard it was a total loss."

"It is, but you know Holden. He plans to build something bigger and better once he's released from the hospital."

"When is that going to be?" Charlotte asked.

"Not for a while yet. How are you doing?"

It was so like Elaine to think of her and ask. "I have an idea I want to run by you." She glanced around her living room, feeling the silence like an accusation. She'd pushed everyone she cared about away. "I have this huge house over here that's pretty much empty. I'd like to offer it to you and Holly Jo and Holden and anyone else who needs a place to stay."

Charlotte took a breath. "It would be a lot handier for all of you than going back and forth from town. I would imagine you'd been planning to stay in the hotel," she said, rushing on before Elaine could stop her. "I was thinking I could use some time away, so the place would be all yours. Ryder and Brand have their own wing and are always off working on the ranch and never around anyway. You'll love my kitchen. Please, before you say no—"

"That is so generous, Charlotte."

"I really would love it if you would take me up on my offer. You can all stay as long as you want. It would be closer to the McKenna Ranch while the new house is being built. You'd have the place to yourselves. But Ryder and Brand would be around if you needed anything." At least, she hoped Brand planned to stay on the ranch. "It would give Holden a chance to get to know his son."

Silence. Then Elaine said, "Let me talk to Holden about it. I think it's a lovely idea. But where are you planning on going?"

"I haven't decided yet."

More silence. "I'll let you know."

Charlotte disconnected more determined than ever to make changes in her life. One in particular had needed to be made for years, she thought as she left the house.

*

T HE TIMES B IRDIE sneaked onto the Stafford Ranch, she'd made sure that most everyone was away from the house or in bed asleep.

Even with Holly Jo safe back at the McKenna Ranch, she suspected everyone, including those at the Stafford Ranch, would be on the lookout for anyone on the property who shouldn't be. That would mean her.

But she wasn't going to the main Stafford Ranch house—or anywhere near Brand. She didn't need to ask him what he would think of her approaching his mother's ranch manager to prove that his mother was a murderer.

Before she'd left Elmer, she'd gotten the information she needed to find Boyle Wilson's cabin. It was in a spot where he had privacy and could come and go at will unseen. Which also meant he wouldn't have known if someone had seen him leave the night Dixon Malone was killed. He could have followed Charlotte to the McKenna house that night, since apparently he had a romantic interest in his employer. He could have witnessed the murder and kept it to himself to use later as leverage. According to Elmer, that was the kind of man the ranch manager was.

Boyle's cabin was on the other side of the dense stand of cottonwoods, far away from the house and some distance from the bunkhouse. There was a path out the back door to the stables, but the front door faced the mountains in the distance. Out his front window was miles of ranch land and little else until the pastures rose to foothills and higher.

Realizing how isolated the cabin was made Birdie hesitate. She considered herself brave, but not foolish to the point of facing down death. Elmer, who was clearly afraid of Boyle, had warned her. She didn't doubt that the man was as evil as the retired ranch hand believed him to be.

But this couldn't wait, she told herself. Tonight, she might find out the truth. Once she did, there was nothing keeping her here. She thought about Brand and the silence in the pickup after Ryder had asked about them. They'd been a novelty in Powder Crossing, something to gossip about. Even after all they'd shared, how could they be more than that?

The sun had long set behind the mountains to the west. Twilight had settled over the Stafford Ranch. Long dark shadows had formed under the cottonwoods. As she approached Boyle's cabin, keeping to the pockets of darkness, she heard voices. The closer she got, the louder they became. A man and a woman were arguing. At first she couldn't make out what they were saying—until she reached the front of the cabin.

Through a partially opened window, she heard the woman say, "Boyle, I didn't come out here to argue with you."

She crouched down so she could see inside the lit cabin. Charlotte Stafford?

Boyle, a rugged, surly-looking man with a smirk on his face, took a step toward her. "You think you came out here to fire me?" He laughed. "If that was true, you would have called me up to the main house like you usually do. Queen-of-the-manor-like. But no." He took another step. Charlotte held her ground. "You came down to my cabin for the very first time for a whole other reason, and we both know it." He reached out as if to touch her, but she slapped his hand away.

"I wanted to look you in your eye when I fired you, and I didn't want anyone else to hear this," she said.

"Didn't want anyone to hear? You mean family? Or staff. You don't think I've noticed that you've cut your household staff down to nothing and your young'ins have scattered to the wind? This ranch is in trouble, Charlotte."

"It's Mrs. Stafford to you, Boyle."

His head tipped back, and a roar of laughter came out. "Why don't you admit it? How long has it been since you've had a man in your bed? A real man, not Holden McKenna, the man who used you and dumped you how many times?"

Her hand came up fast. Boyle didn't have time to avoid her slap. The sound of it ricocheted through the small cabin. But he was fast enough to grab her hand and jerk her toward him. He caught her at her waist with his free arm and slammed her against him.

"You're going to find out what a real man feels like," he growled as he shoved her up against the wall, trapping her there with his body. Charlotte fought hard, but he already had one of her hands and grabbed the wrist of the other, trapping them both in his huge hand. Pinned against the wall, she struggled as he bent to kiss her.

Birdie had shot up from where she was crouched the moment Boyle grabbed Charlotte. She rushed to the door and threw it open as the ranch manager let out a cry and jerked back from the kiss. She saw that his lip was bleeding, his face a distorted mask of fury.

"You bitch!" He drew back, fisted his free hand and swung it at Charlotte's face.

But before it reached its destination, Birdie grabbed his arm and cranked it down behind Boyle's back. At the same time, she got a knee between his legs and brought him down hard on the wood floor. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep a man his size and strength down, though, so she quickly jumped back, expecting him to rise and attack as he started to get up from the floor.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charlotte pull a shotgun down from the gun rack by the door. She swung around, ratcheted a shell into the chamber and pressed the end of the barrel against the back of Boyle's head before he could get to his feet.

He froze.

Birdie exchanged a look with the woman. "Let's call the sheriff?"

Charlotte seemed to think about that. "Or I could pull this trigger and save the sheriff the ride out here."

"And join your son in prison," Boyle groused from where he was sprawled on the floor.

"I'll call for help." Birdie pulled out her phone and dialed 911.

"You don't want to do this, Charlotte," Boyle said. "Who knows what might come out of my mouth once I start talking to the sheriff?"

Charlotte ignored him, seeming unconcerned. "I don't think we've met," she said after Birdie made the call and pocketed her phone again. "I'm assuming you know who I am. Charlotte. Charlotte Stafford." The shotgun was still pressed to the back of Boyle's head. She looked like a woman who knew how to use the firearm, and Birdie figured Boyle knew it, too.

"Birdie. Birdie Malone."

The older woman nodded. "Dixon's daughter. I believe I did hear that you've been seeing my son Brand, and that the two of you saved Holly Jo." Her eyes narrowed as she studied her. "It looks like I owe you."

Birdie said nothing, but she knew exactly what she'd ask for if given a choice. Someone owed her the truth about her father's death. But was it Charlotte Stafford?

From the way the woman was looking at her, she suspected that Charlotte had already guessed what Birdie wanted from her—and that Birdie wouldn't stop searching for the truth until she found it.

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