Can a stubborn cowboy recapture the one who got away?

Ledger McGraw may know all about horses, but he doesn’t know anything about the lie that broke up his first romance with waitress Abby Pierce. Abby, tricked into marrying the wrong man, is at the end of her tether in her abusive relationship. When she learns the truth about her terrible marriage, she becomes desperate to escape it—before her jealous husband kills her.

Though Ledger’s heart was wounded by Abby, he’ll still do anything to protect her and free her from her violent spouse. He’s determined to win her back and reignite their passion…

“Where are you taking me?” Abby asked from the passenger seat of the pickup.

He could tell that each word hurt her to speak. He would have brought the Suburban so she could lie down in the back but he hadn’t known how badly she was hurt.

“To the hospital,” he said.

“No!” She tried to sit up straight but cried out in pain and held her rib cage. “That’s the first place he’ll look for me.”

“Abby, you need medical attention.”

“Please.”

He quickly relented. He couldn’t let Wade near this woman, which meant no hospital. At least for now.

“I’ll take you to the ranch and call our family doctor. But, Abby, if he says you have to go to the hospital—”

“Then I’ll go.” She lay back and closed her eyes. “I didn’t want you involved.”

“I’ve always been involved, because I’ve always loved you.”

She said nothing. He could tell that she was in a lot of pain. It had him boiling inside. If he could find Wade right now…

Dead Ringer

B.J. Daniels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

B.J. DANIELS is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. She wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. She lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and three springer spaniels. When not writing, she quilts, boats and plays tennis. Contact her at www.bjdaniels.com, on Facebook or on Twitter, @bjdanielsauthor.

This book is dedicated to JoAnn Hammond, who was one of the first in Whitewater to read one of my books :) So glad we got to know each other—and share a love for quilting and reading.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Abby Pierce opened her eyes and quickly closed them against the bright sunlight. She hurt all over. As she tried to sit up, a hand gently pushed on her shoulder to keep her flat on the bed.

“Don’t sit up too fast,” her husband said. “You’re okay. You’re in the hospital. You took a nasty fall.”

Fall? Hospital? Her mouth felt dry as dust. She licked her lips. “Can you close the drapes?”

“Sure,” Wade said and hurried over to the window.

She listened as he drew the drapes together and felt the room darken before she opened her eyes all the way.

The first thing she saw was her husband silhouetted against the curtains. He was a big imposing man with a boyish face and a blond crew cut. He was wearing his sheriff’s deputy uniform, she noted as he moved back to the bed to take her hand.

She’d known Wade for years. She’d married him three years ago. That was why when she saw the sheepish look in his brown eyes, she knew at once that he was hiding something.

Abby frowned. “What was I doing that I fell?”

“You don’t remember?” He cleared his throat, shifting on his feet. “You asked me to bring up some canning jars from the garage? I’m so sorry I didn’t. If I had you wouldn’t have been on that ladder...” He looked at her as if expecting... Expecting what?

“Canning jars?” she repeated and touched her bandaged temple. “I hit my head?”

He nodded, and taking her hand, he squeezed it a little too hard. “I’m so sorry, Abby.” He sounded close to tears.

“It’s not your fault,” she said automatically, but couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to the story. There often was with Wade and his family. She frowned, trying to understand why she would have wanted canning jars and saying as much.

“You said something about putting up peach jam.”

“Really? I wonder where I planned to get peaches this time of year.”

He said nothing, avoiding her gaze. All the other times she’d seen him like this it had been after he’d hurt her. It had started a year into their marriage and begun with angry accusations that led to him grabbing her, shaking her, pushing her and even slapping her.

Each time he’d stopped before it had gone too far. Each time he’d been horrified by what he’d done. He’d cried in her arms, begging her to forgive him, telling her that he couldn’t live without her, saying he would kill himself if she ever left him. And then promising he’d never do it again.

She touched her bandaged head with her free hand. The movement brought a groan out of her as she realized her ribs were either bruised or maybe even broken. Looking down, she saw the bruises on her wrists and knew he was lying. Had he pushed her this time?

“Why can’t I remember what happened?” she asked.

“You can’t remember anything?” He sounded hopeful, fueling her worst fears that one of these days he would go too far and kill her. Wasn’t that what her former boyfriend kept telling her? She pushed the thought of Ledger McGraw away as she often had to do. He didn’t understand that she’d promised to love, honor and obey when she’d married Wade—even through the rough spots. And this she feared was one of them.

At the sound of someone entering the room, they both turned to see the doctor come in.

“How are we doing?” he asked as he moved to the foot of her bed to look at her chart. He glanced at Wade, then quickly looked away. Wade let go of her hand and moved to the window to part the drapes and peer out.

Abby closed her eyes at the shaft of sunlight he let in. “My head hurts,” she told the doctor.

“I would imagine it does. When your husband brought you in, you were in and out of consciousness.”

Wade had brought her in? He didn’t call an ambulance?

“Also I can’t seem to remember what happened,” she added and, out of the corner of her eye, saw her husband glance back at her.

The doctor nodded. “Very common in your type of head injury.”

“Will she get her memory back?” Wade asked from the window, sounding worried that she would.

“Possibly. Often not. I’m going to prescribe something for your headache. Your ribs are badly bruised and you have some other abrasions. I’d like to keep you overnight.”

“Is that really necessary?” Wade asked, letting the drapes drop back into place.

“With a concussion, it’s best,” the doctor said without looking at him. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her.”

“We can talk about it,” Wade said. “But I think she’d be more comfortable in her own home. Isn’t that right, Abby?”

“On this, I think I know best,” the doctor interrupted.

But she could see that Wade was worried. He apparently wanted to get her out of here and quickly. What was he worried about? That she would remember what happened?

If only she could. Unfortunately, the harder she tried, the more she couldn’t. The past twenty-four hours were blank, leaving her with the terrifying feeling that her life depended on her remembering.

Chapter Two

When the phone rang at the Sundown Stallion Station late that afternoon, Ledger McGraw took the call since both his brothers were gone from the ranch and his father was resting upstairs. They had been forced to get an unlisted number after all the media coverage. After twenty-five years, there’d finally been a break in the McGraw twins kidnapping case.

“I need to talk to Travers,” Jim Waters said without preamble. “Tell him it is of utmost importance.”

Ledger groaned inwardly since he knew his father had almost fired the family attorney recently. “He’s resting.” Travers McGraw, sixty, had suffered a heart attack a few months ago. He hadn’t been well before that. At the time, they hadn’t known what was making him so sick. His family had assumed it was the stress of losing his two youngest children to kidnappers twenty-five years before and his determination to find them. His father was convinced that they were still alive.

“Do you really think I would be calling if it wasn’t urgent?” Waters demanded. The fiftysomething attorney had been like one of the family almost from the beginning—until a few months ago, when he and Travers had gotten into a disagreement.

“Jim, if this is about legal business—”

The attorney swore. “It’s about the kidnapping. You might recall that we originally used my number to screen the calls about the twins. Well, I am apparently still on the list. I was contacted.” He paused, no doubt for effect. “I have reason to believe that Oakley has been found.”

“Found?” Ledger asked, his heart in his throat. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the crime had come and gone, but after their father had hired a true-crime writer to investigate and write a book about it, new evidence had turned up.

That new evidence had led them all to believe that his father’s gut instinct was right. The twins were alive—and probably adopted out to good families, though illegally. The McGraw twins had been just six months old when they were stolen from their cribs. The ransom money had never been spent and had only recently turned up—with the body of one of the kidnappers. That left whoever had helped him take the babies still at large.

Ledger was thankful that he’d been the one to answer the phone. His father didn’t need this kind of aggravation. “All those calls are now being vetted by the sheriff’s department. I suggest you have this person contact Sheriff McCall Crawford. If she thinks—”

“He has the stuffed toy horse,” Waters interrupted. “I’ve seen it. It’s Oakley’s.”

Ledger felt a shock wave move through him. The stuffed toy horse was a critical piece of information that hadn’t originally been released to the public. Was it possible his little brother really had turned up? “Are you sure? There must have been thousands of those produced.”

“Not with a certain ribbon tied around its neck.” The information about the missing stuffed animal was recently released to the press—sans anything about the ribbon and other things about this specific toy. “Oakley’s stuffed horse had a black saddle and a small tear where the stitching had been missed when it was made, right?”

He nodded to himself before saying, “You say you’ve seen it?” It was that small detail that no one would know unless they had Oakley’s horse, which had been taken out of his crib along with him that night twenty-five years ago. “Have you met him?”

“I have. He sent me a photo of the stuffed horse. When I recognized it, I drove down to talk to him. Ledger, he swears he’s had the stuffed horse since he was a baby.”

Letting out a breath, he dropped into a nearby chair. A few months ago they’d learned that the babies might have been left with a member of the Whitehorse Sewing Circle, a group of older women quilters who placed unwanted babies with families desperate for a child. The quilting group had been operating illegally for decades.

Not that the twins had been unwanted. But the kidnapper had been led to believe that was the case. The hope had been that the babies had been well taken care of and that they were still alive, the theory being that they had no idea they’d been kidnapped. His father had made the decision to release more information about what had been taken along with the babies in the hopes that the twins would see it and come forward.

And now it had happened.

“What’s his name?” Ledger asked as he gave himself a few minutes to take this all in and decide what to do. He didn’t want to bother his father with this unless he was sure it wasn’t a hoax.

“He goes by Vance Elliot. He’s in Whitehorse. He wants to see your father.”

* * *

“ABBY DOESN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING,” Wade said as he walked past his father straight into the kitchen to pull a can of beer out of the refrigerator.

He popped the top, took a long swig and turned to find his father standing in the kitchen doorway frowning at him.

“I’ll pay you back,” he said, thinking the look was because he was drinking his old man’s beer.

“What do you mean she doesn’t remember anything?”

“I was skeptical at first, too,” he said, drawing out a chair and spinning it around so he could straddle it backward at the table. “But when I told her she fell off a ladder in the garage, she bought it. She couldn’t remember why she would have been on a ladder in the garage. I told her she was going to get jars to put up some peach jam.”

Huck Pierce wagged his head. “Where in the hell would she get peaches this time of year?”

“How should I know? It doesn’t matter. She’s not putting up any jam. Nor is she saying a word about anything.”

“You are one lucky son of a gun, then,” Huck said.

“Don’t I know it? So everything is cool, right?”

“Seems so. But I want you to stay by your wife’s side. Keep everything as normal as possible. Stick to your story. If she starts to remember...” He shrugged. “We’ll deal with it if we have to.”

Wade downed the rest of his beer, needing it even though he was technically on duty at the sheriff’s department. He didn’t want his father to see how relieved he was. Or how worried about what would happen if Abby remembered what had really happened to her.

“Great, so I get to hang out at the hospital until my shift starts. That place gives me the creeps.”

“You’re the one who screwed everything up. You knew what was at stake,” his father said angrily.

“Exactly.” Wade knew he couldn’t win in an argument with his father, but that didn’t stop him. “So what was I supposed to do when she confronted me? I tried to reason with her, but you know how she is. She was threatening to call the sheriff. Or go running to her old boyfriend Ledger McGraw. I didn’t have a choice but to try to stop her.”

“What you’re saying is that you can’t handle your wife. At least you don’t have some snot-nosed mouthy kid like I did.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, crushing the beer can in his hand. “I’ve heard all about how hard it was raising me.” He reached in the refrigerator for another beer, knowing he shouldn’t, but needing the buzz badly.

Before he could pull one out, his father slammed the refrigerator door, almost crushing his hand. “Get some gum. You can’t have beer on your breath when you go back to the hospital, let alone come to work later. Remember, you’re the worried husband, you damned fool.”

* * *

LEDGER HAD JUST hung up with the attorney when he got the call from his friend who worked at the hospital.

“I shouldn’t be calling you, but thought you’d want to know,” she said, keeping her voice down. “Abby was brought in.”

“That son of a—”

“He swears she fell off a ladder.”

“Sure she did. I’ll be right there. Is Wade—”

“He just left to go work his shift at the sheriff’s department. The doctor is keeping Abby overnight.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s pretty beat up, but she’s going to be fine.”

He breathed a sigh of relief as he hung up. When it rained it poured, he thought as he saw his father coming down the stairs toward him. Travers McGraw was still weak from his heart attack, but it was the systematic poisoning that had really almost killed him. Fortunately, his would-be killer was now behind bars awaiting trial.

But realizing that his second wife was trying to kill him had taken a toll on his father. It was bad enough that his first wife, Ledger’s mother, was in a mental hospital. After the twins were kidnapped, Marianne McGraw had a complete breakdown. For twenty-five years, it was believed that she and the ranch’s horse trainer, Nate Corwin, had been behind the kidnapping. Only recently had Nate’s name been cleared.

“I heard the phone,” Travers said now. He’d recovered, but was still weak. He’d lost too much weight. It would be a while until he was his old self. If ever.

That was why Ledger wasn’t sure how his father would take the news Waters had called with earlier—especially if it led to yet another disappointment. And yet Ledger couldn’t keep the attorney’s call from him. If there was even the slightest chance that this Vance Elliot was Oakley...

“You should sit down.”

His father didn’t argue as he moved to a chair and sat. He seemed to brace himself. “What’s happened?”

“Jim Waters called.”

Travers began to shake his head. “Now what?”

“He’s still apparently the contact person for the family on some of the old publicity,” Ledger said.

His father knew at once. “Oakley or Jesse Rose?”

“Oakley. Jim says the young man has the stuffed horse that was taken along with Oakley from his crib the night of the kidnapping. He says he’s seen the toy and that it is definitely Oakley’s.”

His father’s eyes filled to overflowing. “Thank God. I knew they were alive. I’ve...felt it all these years.”

“Dad, this Vance Elliot might not be Oakley. We have to keep that in mind.”

“He has Oakley’s stuffed horse.”

“But we don’t know how he got it or if it was with Oakley when he was given to the woman at the Whitehorse Sewing Circle,” Ledger reminded him.

“When can I see him?” his father asked, getting to his feet.

“He’s in town. Waters wants to bring him over this evening. I said it would be fine. I hope that was all right. If it goes well, I thought you might want him to stay for dinner. I can tell the cook.” Their cook for as far back as Ledger could remember had recently been killed. They’d been through several cooks since then. He couldn’t remember the name of the latest one right now and felt bad about it. “Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that it really is Oakley.”

His father smiled and stepped closer to him to place a hand on his shoulder. “I am so blessed to have such good sons. Speaking of sons, where are Cull and Boone?”

“Cull and Nikki are checking into some of the adoptions through the Whitehorse Sewing Circle.” Nikki St. James was the crime writer who’d helped unlock some of the kidnapping mystery—and stolen Cull’s heart.

“I doubt the twins’ adoptions were recorded anywhere, and with the Cavanaugh woman dying not long after the twins were kidnapped... You haven’t heard anything yet?”

Ledger shook his head. “They said that clues to what happened to some of the babies were found stitched on their baby blankets. But the twins wouldn’t have quilted blankets made for them because of the circumstances.” Pearl Cavanaugh had been led to believe that the twins were in danger, so she would have made very private adoptions for Oakley and Jesse Rose.

“And Boone?”

“He went to check on that horse you were interested in, remember?”

Travers nodded, frowning. Loss of memory was part of the effects of arsenic poisoning. “Maybe I’ll just rest until dinner.”

Ledger watched his father go back up the stairs before he headed for his pickup and the hospital.

* * *

“YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE,” Abby said the moment she opened her eyes and saw Ledger standing at the end of her bed. Her heart had taken off like a wild stallion at just the sight of him. It always did. “Wade could come back at any time.”

Ledger had been her first love. He’d left an ache in her that she’d hoped would fade, if not eventually go away. But if anything, the ache had grown stronger. He’d broken her heart. It was why she’d married Wade. But ever since then, he’d been coming around, confusing her and making being married to Wade even harder. He seemed to think he had to save her from her husband.

It didn’t help that Ledger McGraw had breakfast on the mornings that she waitressed at the Whitehorse Café. She’d done nothing to encourage him, although Wade didn’t believe that.

Fortunately, Wade had only come down to the restaurant one time threatening to kill Ledger. Ledger had called him on it, saying they should step outside and finish it like men.

“Or do you only hit defenseless women?” Ledger had demanded of him.

Wade lost his temper and charged him. Ledger had stepped aside, nailing Wade on the back of his neck as he lumbered past. Abby had screamed as Wade slammed headfirst into a table. He’d missed two weeks’ work because of his neck and threatened to sue the McGraws for his pain and suffering.

She knew his neck wasn’t hurt that badly, but he’d milked it, telling everyone that Ledger had blindsided him.

Wade’s jealousy had gotten worse after that. Even when she’d reminded him again and again, “But you’re the one I married.”

“Only because you couldn’t have McGraw,” he would snap.

Ledger’s name was never spoken in their house—at least not by her. Wade blamed him for everything that was wrong with their marriage—especially the fact that she hadn’t given him a son.

They’d tried to get pregnant when they’d first married. Since he’d joined the sheriff’s department and changed, she’d gone back on the pill in secret, hating that she kept it from him. She told herself that when things changed back to what she thought of as normal, she would go off the pill again.

Now she couldn’t even remember what normal was anymore.

Ledger took a step toward her. He looked both worried and furious. It scared her that he and Wade might get into another altercation because of her.

“I didn’t come until I was sure Wade wasn’t here,” Ledger said as he came around the side of her bed. “When I heard, I had to see you. You fell off a ladder?”

She nodded even though it hurt her head to do so. “Clumsy.” She avoided his gaze because she knew he wouldn’t believe it any more than she did.

“What were you doing on a ladder?”

“Apparently I was getting down some canning jars to put up peach jam.”

Ledger looked at her hard. “Apparently? You don’t remember?”

“I seem to have lost the past twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, Abby.”

She could tell that he thought she was covering for Wade. It almost made her laugh since she’d covered for him enough times. This just wasn’t one of them. She really couldn’t remember anything.

Ledger started to reach for her hand, but must have thought better of it. She tucked her hand under the sheet so he wouldn’t be tempted again. She couldn’t have Wade walking in on that. It would be bad enough Ledger just being here.

“It was a stupid accident. I probably wasn’t paying attention. I’m fine.”

He made a face that said he didn’t believe it as he reached out to brush the dark hair back from her forehead.

She flinched at his touch and he quickly pulled back his fingers. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “Did I hurt you?”

Abby shook her head. His touch had always sparked desire in her, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “My head hurts, is all.”

She looked toward the door, worried that Wade might stop by. When he’d left, she could tell that he hadn’t liked leaving her. Even though he was supposed to be on duty as a sheriff’s deputy, he could swing by if he was worried about her, especially since he was determined to take her home.

Ledger followed her gaze as if he knew what was making her so nervous. “I’ll go,” he said. “But if I find out that Wade had anything to do with this—”

“I fell off a ladder.” She knew it was a lie, and from the look in Ledger’s eyes, he did, too. But she had to at least try to convince him that Wade was innocent. This time. “That’s all it was.”

She met his gaze and felt her heart break as it always did. “Thank you for stopping by,” she said even though there was so much more she wanted to say to him. But she was Wade’s wife. As her mother always said, she’d made her bed and now she had to lie in it for better or worse.

Not that her mother didn’t always remind her that Ledger hadn’t wanted her.

“I’m here for you, Abby. If you ever need me...”

She felt tears burn her eyes. If only that had been true before she’d married Wade. “I can’t.” Her heart broke as she dragged her gaze away from his.

As if resigned, she watched out of the corner of her eye as he put on his Stetson, tipped it to her and walked out.

* * *

ATTORNEY JIM WATERS looked at the young man sitting in the passenger seat of his car as he drove toward the ranch later that evening. Vance Elliot. Here was Waters’s ticket back into the McGraws’ good graces.

He’d bet on the wrong horse, so to speak. Travers’s second wife, Patricia McGraw, had been a good bet at the time. Pretty, sexy, almost twenty years younger than her husband. She’d convinced him Travers wasn’t himself. That she needed a man she could count on. She’d let him believe that he might be living in that big house soon with her because Travers had some incurable ailment that only she and Travers knew about.

He’d bought into it hook, line and sinker. And why wouldn’t he? Travers had been sick—anyone could see that. Also the man had seemed distracted, often forgetful and vague as if he was losing his mind. He’d been convinced that Travers wasn’t long with this world and that Patricia would be taking over the ranch.

Little did he know that she was poisoning her husband.

As it turned out, Patricia was now behind bars awaiting trial. Since he had stupidly sided with her, things had gone downhill from there. He was hanging on to his job with Travers by the skin of his teeth.

But this was going to make it all right again, he told himself. He couldn’t let a paycheck like McGraw get away. His retainer alone would keep him nicely for years to come. He just needed to get Travers’s trust back. He saw a lot more legal work on the horizon for the McGraws. If this young man was Oakley, he would be back in the McGraw fold.

His cell phone rang. Patricia McGraw again. Travers’s young wife wouldn’t quit calling even though he’d told her he wasn’t going to help her, let alone defend her.

Nor did he need to hear any of her threats. Fortunately, no one believed anything she said. Since Travers McGraw was idolized in this county, people saw her as the gold digger who’d married him—and then systematically tried to kill him. She got no sympathy. In fact, he doubted she could get even a fair trial.

“I’m innocent, you bastard,” she’d screamed the last time he’d taken her call. “You did this. You framed me for this. Once I tell the sheriff—”

He’d laughed. “Like anyone will believe you.”

“I’ll take you down with me!”

He’d hung up and the next time his phone had rung it had been Vance Elliot.

Waters slowed to turn into the lane that led up to the main house. He shot the man next to him a glance. Vance looked more like a teenager than a twenty-five-year-old.

The man who might be Oakley stared at the house, a little openmouthed. Waters remembered the first time he’d driven out here and seen it. The house was impressive. So were the miles of white wooden fence, the expensive quarter horses in the pasture and the section after section of land that ran to the Little Rockies.

He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to learn that he was part of this even at his age—let alone twenty-five. If Vance Elliot really was the long-ago kidnapped McGraw twin, then he was one lucky son of a gun.

“You all right?” he asked Vance as they drove toward the house.

The man nodded. Waters tried to read him. He had to be scared to face Travers McGraw, not to mention his three older sons. But he didn’t look it. He looked determined.

Waters felt his stomach roil. This had better be real. If this wasn’t Oakley McGraw he was bringing to Travers...

He didn’t want to think about how badly this could go for him.

Chapter Three

Sheriff McCall Crawford happened to be standing at the window as Huck and Wade Pierce had come into work. Wade looked wrung out. She’d heard that his wife was in the hospital with a concussion after falling off a ladder.

McCall watched the two men. She’d inherited Huck when she’d become sheriff. Before that, she’d worked with him as a deputy. He’d made it clear that he thought a woman’s place was in the home and not carrying a badge and gun. Huck hadn’t been any more impressed when he’d been passed over and she’d become sheriff.

He was a good old boy, the kind who smiled in your face and stabbed you in the back the first chance he got. She didn’t trust him, but she couldn’t fire him without cause. So far, he’d done nothing to warrant it, but she kept her eye on him—and his son, Wade. The minute she caught him stepping over the line, he was gone. As for his son... She’d had hopes for him when he’d hired on, seeing something in him that could go a different way than his father. Lately, though...

Both looked up as if sensing her watching them from the window. She raised her coffee mug in a salute to them. Their expressions turned solemn as they entered the building.

Neither man was stupid. Both were hanging on by a thread, and if the rumors about Wade mistreating his wife could ever be proved, he would be gone soon. But in a small community like this, it was hard to prove there was a problem unless the wife came forward. So far, Abby hadn’t. But now she was in the hospital after allegedly falling off a ladder. Maybe this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

McCall’s cell phone rang. She stepped to her desk and picked up, seeing that it was her grandmother. It felt strange having a relationship with her after all those years of never even laying eyes on the woman.

“Good evening,” she said into the phone.

“What are you still doing at work this late?” Pepper demanded.

“I was just about to leave,” McCall said. The day had gotten away from her after she dropped her daughter off at day care and came in to deal with all the paperwork that tended to stack up on her desk. Most of the time, she and Luke could work out a schedule where one—if not both of them—was home with Tracey.

But several days a week, her daughter had to go to a day care near the sheriff’s office in downtown Whitehorse. McCall had checked it out carefully and found no problems with the two women who ran it. Tracey seemed to love going because she was around other children. For a working mother, it was the best McCall could do.

“So is there any truth to it?” her grandmother demanded in her no-nonsense normal tone of voice. “Has one of the McGraw twins been found?”

The question took McCall by surprise. For twenty-five years there had been no news on the fraternal twins who’d been kidnapped. Then a few months ago a true-crime writer had shown up at the McGraw ranch and all hell had broken loose. While some pieces of the puzzle had been found, the twins hadn’t been yet.

Now was it possible one of them had been located?

“I heard it’s the boy, Oakley,” her grandmother was saying. “Apparently your theory about who might have adopted out the children was correct. It was the Whitehorse Sewing Circle. That bunch of old hens. You should arrest them all.” Most of the women involved in the illegal kidnappings were dead now. “On top of that, that crazy daughter of Arlene Evans almost escaped from the loony bin last night.”

McCall hadn’t heard about that, either. It amazed her that Pepper often knew what was going on in town before the sheriff did—even though the Winchester Ranch was miles south of Whitehorse.

“Thank you for all the information. Is that it? Or was the bank robbed?”

Pepper laughed. “You should hire me since I know more of what is going on than you do.” It was an old refrain, one McCall almost enjoyed. Almost.

“Well, let me know when you find out something worth hearing about,” Pepper said. “I’m having lunch with the rest of your family tomorrow. Maybe sometime you can come out.” With that, her grandmother was gone, leaving McCall to smile before she dialed Travers McGraw’s number.

* * *

VANCE ELLIOT WATCHED the landscape blur past and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

“You all right?” the attorney asked from behind the wheel of the SUV. The fiftysomething man wore a dark suit, reminding Vance of an undertaker. No one wore a suit like that, not around these parts, anyway. So Jim Waters must be some highfalutin lawyer who made a lot of money. But then, he worked for Travers McGraw, Vance thought as he saw the huge ranch ahead. Travers McGraw probably paid him well.

“I’m a little nervous,” he admitted in answer to the lawyer’s question. He was about to come face-to-face with Travers McGraw and his three sons. He’d heard enough about them to be anxious. Plus, the attorney had already warned him.

“They aren’t going to believe you, but don’t let that rattle you,” Waters said. “They’ve had a lot of people pretend to be the missing twins, so naturally they’re going to be suspicious. But having the stuffed horse will help. Then there is the DNA test. You’re ready for that, right?”

Right. That alone scared the daylights out of him, but he simply nodded to the attorney’s question.

He watched the ranch house come into view. He couldn’t imagine growing up on a place like this. Couldn’t imagine having that much land or that much money. Nor could he deny the appeal of being a McGraw with all the privileges that came with it.

He knew he was getting ahead of himself. There were a lot of hoops he had to jump through before they would accept that he was Oakley, the missing twin. But at least he could admire the house until then. It was huge with several wings that trailed off from the two-story center.

He’d heard stories about lavish parties where senators and even the governor had attended. That was before the twins were kidnapped, though, before the first Mrs. McGraw went to the loony bin and the second one went to jail.

But the house and grounds were still beautiful, and the horses... A half dozen raced through a nearby pasture as beautiful as any horseflesh he’d ever seen. Horses were in his blood, he thought with a silent laugh. And as Waters turned into the long lane leading to the house, he thought maybe horses were in his future.

“There is nothing to be afraid of,” the attorney said. “Just tell them what you told me.”

“I will.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. Just stick to the story. The attorney had believed him. So Travers McGraw should, too, right? The stuffed horse had opened the door. The DNA test would cinch it.

As Waters brought the SUV to a stop in front of the house, Vance picked up the paper bag next to him and held it like a suit of armor to his chest.

“Try to relax,” the attorney said. “You look like you’re going to jump out of your skin.”

He took a deep breath and thought of his run-ins with the law as a horse thief. He’d talked his way out of those. He could handle this.

Think about the payoff, he reminded himself. This place could be his one day.

* * *

“DAD, I DON’T want you getting upset,” Boone McGraw said as they waited in Travers’s office. “You know what the doctor said.”

“I had a heart attack,” his father said impatiently. “Given the state of my health and why it was so bad, I’m fine now. Even the doctor is amazed how quickly I’ve bounced back.”

Ledger stood by the office fireplace, as anxious as the rest of his family. They all knew that their father had bounced back because even before this phone call, Travers McGraw was determined the twins were alive and that he would see them again.

And now, after releasing more information to the press, maybe one of the twins had come forward. Ledger couldn’t help being skeptical. They’d been here before. Except this time, this one had Oakley’s stuffed horse, which had been in his crib the night he was kidnapped. Would his father finally be able to find some peace?

Or, after twenty-five years, had too much time passed? Oakley would be a grown man, no longer that cute six-month-old baby who’d been stolen. He would have lived a good portion of his life as someone else, with other parents. He would have his own life and the McGraws would all be strangers to him.

Ledger feared this wasn’t going to be the homecoming his father was hoping for as he heard a vehicle pull up out front. He looked from his father to his brother and then went to answer the door. Better him than Boone, who already looked as if he could chew nails. It was going to take a lot to convince Boone that whoever was headed for the door was the lost twin.

Unable to wait for a knock, Ledger opened the door. Attorney Jim Waters and the young man, who might or might not be his brother, were at the bottom of the porch steps. His gaze went right to the young man, who looked dressed in all new clothing from the button-down shirt to the jeans and Western boots. He was tall, broad-shouldered and slim hipped like all the McGraw men.

At the sound of the front door opening, Vance Elliot looked up, his thick dark hair falling over his forehead. Ledger saw the blue eyes and felt a shiver.

This might really be his brother.

“Vance Elliot, this is Ledger McGraw,” Waters said by introduction.

“Please, come in,” he said, unable to take his eyes off the young man. “My father and brother are in his office.”

* * *

LEDGER LED THE two men into his father’s office and closed the door. The new cook, a woman by the name of Louise, he’d made a point of learning, was in the kitchen making dinner. Cull and Nikki should be back soon. Unless they decided to stay in Whitehorse and go out to dinner. He still couldn’t believe how hard his brother had fallen for the true-crime writer.

“Please sit down,” Travers said, getting to his feet to shake hands with Vance. He waited until everyone was sitting before he asked, “So you think you might be my son Oakley. Why don’t you start by telling us something about you?”

Vance shifted in his chair. He held a large paper bag on his lap, the top turned under. Ledger assumed the stuffed toy horse was inside. He would have thought his father would want to see it right away.

“I don’t know exactly where to begin. I was raised in Bear Creek, south of Billings, on a small farm. My parents told me when I was about five that I was adopted.”

“Did you have other siblings?” Travers asked.

Vance shook his head. “Just me.” He shrugged. “I had a fine childhood. We didn’t have much but it was enough. I went to college in Billings for a while before getting a job on a ranch outside of Belfry. That’s about it.”

“And how did you become aware that you might be one of the missing McGraw twins?” his father asked.

“I heard about it on television. When they mentioned the small stuffed horse and showed a photo of what it might look like, I couldn’t believe it. I’d had one just like it as far back as I could remember.”

“Is that what’s in the bag?” Boone asked.

Vance nodded and stood to place the bag on the desk in front of Travers. He took a step back, bumped into the chair and sat again.

The room had gone deathly quiet. Ledger could hear nothing but his own heart pounding as his father pulled the bag closer, unfolded the top and looked inside.

A small gasp escaped his father’s lips as he pulled the toy stuffed horse from the bag. Ledger saw the worn blue ribbon around the horse’s neck and swung his gaze to Vance. If he was telling the truth, then this man was Oakley, all grown up.

* * *

WATERS COULDN’T HELP the self-satisfied feeling he had when he saw Travers McGraw’s expression. He’d felt the same way when he’d seen the toy stuffed horse. It was Oakley’s; there was no doubt about that.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a done deal until after the DNA tests were run, but he was on the home stretch.

“Would the two of you like to stay for dinner?” Travers asked, putting the toy back into the sack and rising to his feet. “I’d like to hear more about your childhood, Vance.” It was clear he was fighting calling the young man by that name.

He’d also seen Travers’s face when the two of them had walked into the office. The horse rancher had looked shocked by how much the young man resembled Travers’s own sons.

Waters looked to Vance before he said, “We’d love to stay for dinner. If you’re sure it isn’t an inconvenience.” He thought of the years he’d sat at the big dining room table and eaten under this roof. If this went the way he expected it to, he’d be a regular guest again.

“Wonderful,” Travers said as he came around his desk. Putting an arm around Vance, he steered him toward the dining room at the back of the house. “Where are you staying?”

Vance cleared his voice. “I spent last night at a motel in town.”

“You can stay here on the ranch if you’d like,” Travers said. “I don’t want to pressure you. Give it some thought. We can discuss it after dinner.”

Waters smiled to himself. This couldn’t have gone any better. Vance was in—at least until the DNA test. But if he passed that...

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked caller ID. Patricia, the soon-to-be former wife of Travers McGraw. He was sure his boss would ask him to handle the divorce. It would be his pleasure.

Chapter Four

Abby was dressed and sitting in the wheelchair waiting when her husband came into her hospital room the next afternoon. She felt fine, except for a headache and no memory of what had happened to her. But hospital policy required her to be “driven” down to the exit by wheelchair after her doctor came in.

Wade stopped in the doorway. She gave him a smile to reassure him that she was all right. He’d been so worried. She’d never seen him like that before.

He tried to smile back, but his expression crumbled. He burst into tears, dropping to his knees in front of her wheelchair.

“Oh, babe, I’m so sorry.”

“Wade, this wasn’t your fault. You have to quit blaming yourself,” Abby said, wishing it was true, as he squeezed her hand with what felt like desperation.

“I just don’t know what I would do if I lost you,” he was saying. “When I thought you were dead... Abby, I love you so much. Sometimes I do stupid things. I lose my temper or—”

“Well, fortunately, you didn’t lose her,” his father said from behind him in the doorway. Neither of them had heard Huck, so she didn’t know how long he’d been standing there.

Her husband surreptitiously wiped at his tears but didn’t get up. Nor did he let go of the one hand he held of hers too tightly.

“In fact, son, she looks like she feels much better,” Huck said as he entered the hospital room. “But you should have gotten those jars from the garage when she asked you to. I’m sure you won’t make that mistake again.”

Wade squeezed her hand even tighter. “No, I won’t,” he said, his voice sounding strained. “I swear.”

“Then let’s get this woman home. Can’t let crime run rampant because of peach jam,” Huck said with a laugh.

Wade got up slowly as if he had a terrible weight on his shoulders. Abby watched him use the wheelchair arms to support himself as he lumbered to his feet.

She’d blamed his job at the sheriff’s office for the change in her husband, but as she felt the tension between Wade and his father, she wondered how much of the change in him was Huck’s doing. Her father-in-law often talked about making his son a man. It was no secret that he thought Wade wasn’t “tough” enough.

The doctor came in then to talk to her about her recovery. He still questioned whether she should be going home. She could tell that he was worried about her—and suspicious of her accident.

But Abby found herself paying more attention to what was going on out in the hallway. Huck had drawn Wade out into the hall. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but just from her husband’s hunched shoulders, she knew that Huck was berating him. Talk about the kettle calling the skillet black, she thought.

* * *

“STOP YOUR DAMNED BLUBBERING,” Huck said, taking Wade’s arm and halfway dragging him down the corridor. “You didn’t do anything wrong, remember? So quit apologizing.”

“Easy for you to say,” Wade said under his breath.

“You need to be more careful. If the doctor had overheard you...” His father shook his head as if Wade was more stupid than he’d even originally thought. “On top of that, the nurse said that Ledger McGraw stopped by to see your wife after you left,” Huck said.

Wade swore and kicked at a chair in the hallway. It skittered across the floor, before Huck caught it and brought it to a stop with a look that told him to cool it. Wade wanted to put his fist through the wall. “He just won’t stay away from my wife.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Huck asked, sounding as angry as Wade felt.

“I’m going to find the son of a bitch and kill him.” He smacked the wall hard with his open palm. The pain helped a little.

“This is your problem—you go off half-cocked and just screw things up,” his father said. “Listen to me. You want to get rid of him? I’ll help you, but we won’t be doing it when you’re out of control. We’ll plan it. As a matter of fact, I have a way we can be rid of Ledger McGraw and the rest of them, as well.”

Wade stared at his father. “What are you saying?” He narrowed his eyes. “This is about the long-standing grudge you hold against Travers McGraw.”

“What if it is? I don’t just whine and cry. I take care of business.”

He shook his head at his father. “I know you said you used to date Marianne before she married Travers, but—”

“But nothing.” Huck wiped a hand over his face, anger making his eyes look hard as obsidian. “She was mine and then he had to go and marry her, and look how that turned out.”

“You might be crazier than she is,” Wade muttered under his breath, only to have his father cuff him in the back of the head as they headed back to Abby’s room.

* * *

ABBY LISTENED TO the rain on the roof for a moment before she realized that she was alone. She rolled over to find the bed empty. More and more Wade was having trouble sleeping at night.

He’d said little after bringing her home from the hospital. Once at the house, he’d insisted she go to bed. He’d brought her a bowl of heated canned soup. She’d smelled beer on his breath, but had said nothing.

“I’ll let you get some rest,” he’d said after taking her soup tray away.

Sometime during the night she’d felt him crawl into bed next to her. She’d smelled his beery breath and rolled over only to wake later to find his side of the bed empty.

Now she found him sitting outside on the covered porch. He teetered on the edge of the chair, elbows on his knees, head down as if struggling with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Abby approached him slowly, half-afraid that she might startle him. His volatile mood swings had her walking on eggshells around him. The floorboards creaked under her feet.

Wade rose and swung around, making her flinch. “What are you doing?” he demanded gruffly.

“I woke up and you weren’t in bed. Is everything all right?”

“I just needed a little fresh air. You don’t have to be sneaking up on me.”

Abby desperately wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him, to plead with him to tell her what was making him so miserably unhappy. She blamed herself. They’d been good together once. Hadn’t they?

But clearly he was in no mood for the third degree. Also she’d learned to keep her distance when he was drinking. But she knew he was hurting. Because of her fall? Or because of something else?

It was raining harder now. She hugged herself, the damp seeping through her thin nightgown. There’d been a time when he would have noticed just how thin the fabric was, how it clung to her rounded breasts and hips. Back then he would have pulled her to him, his breath warm against her neck. That husky sound in his voice as he told her how much he wanted her, needed her. How he couldn’t live without her.

Wade didn’t give her another look as he sat down again, turning his back to her. “You should go to bed.”

She felt tears burn her eyes. Wade kept pushing her away, then losing his temper because he thought some other man might want her.

“I saw Ledger McGraw looking at you when you came out of the grocery store,” Wade would say. “I’m going to kill that son of a—”

“You can’t kill every man who looks at me,” she would say.

“You like it when he looks at you.”

She would say nothing, hoping to avoid a fight, but Wade would never let it go.

“He wants you. He isn’t going to give up until he tears us apart. Not that he would ever marry you. He had that chance already, remember? Remember how he lied to you, cheated on you—”

There was nothing she could say to calm him down. She knew because she’d tried. “Wade, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Right, I’m ridiculous. I’m no McGraw, am I?”

“I married you.”

“Only because you couldn’t have Ledger.”

She would try to hug him and he would shove her away, balling his hands into fists. “You never got over him. That’s what’s wrong with our marriage. You’re still yearning for him. I can see it in your eyes.”

He would shove her or grab her, wrenching her arm. It would always end with him hurting her and then being sorry. He would berate himself, loathing that he was now like his father. He would promise never to do it again, beg her forgiveness. Plead with her not to leave him.

And each time, she would forgive him, blaming herself for setting him off. Then they would make love and it would be good between them for a while.

At least, that was the way it used to be. Lately, it took nothing to set Wade off. And there was no pleading for forgiveness or any making up afterward.

“It isn’t like anyone else wanted to marry you,” her mother told her when she’d seen Abby wince from one of Wade’s beatings. Her mother loved to rub salt in the wounds. “It’s plain to see that you aren’t making him happy. You’d better do whatever it takes or he’s going to dump you for a woman who will. Then where are you going to be? Divorced. Left like a bus at the Greyhound bus station. No man will want you then.”

Abby had bit her lip and said nothing. She’d made her bed and now she had to lie in it. That was her mother’s mantra.

“And stay clear of that McGraw,” her mother had warned. “Men always want you when you’re with someone else. But the minute they get you, they lose interest. So don’t be thinkin’ the grass is greener with him. You already know you can’t trust him. Look how he broke your heart. Just be glad Wade was willing to marry you since you weren’t exactly white-wedding-dress material, now, were you?”

Now she stared at the back of her husband’s head for a moment, then padded barefoot back to bed. If only she could remember how she’d gotten hurt. She had a feeling that would have answered all of her questions about what was happening with her husband.

* * *

“ABBY’S STARTING TO REMEMBER,” Wade told his father the next day. He’d been relieved that he had to work. The last thing he wanted to do was sit around with her. He felt as if he was going to come unraveled at the seams as it was. She knew she hadn’t fallen off a ladder. He saw it in her eyes and said as much to Huck.

“So what? It isn’t like she’s going to tell anyone,” his father said. “If she was going to do that, she would have done it a long time ago.”

“She’s going to leave me.”

Huck swore. “She would have done that a long time ago, too. She’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Everyone knows.” As he’d wheeled Abby out to his patrol car parked at the emergency entrance, he’d seen the way the nurses were looking at him. Everyone knew now that he was his father’s son—a bastard who mistreated his wife. He was thankful he and Abby hadn’t had a kid. What if he took his anger inside him out on his own son?

“Snap out of it!” his father barked as they stood talking by their patrol cars. “You’re in the clear.”

Wade shook his head. “I’m afraid she’s going to remember why we fought. If she remembers what she overheard you and me talking about...”

“I thought you said she didn’t remember anything?”

He shrugged. “She says she doesn’t, but the way she looks at me... She’s going to start putting it together. I can see it in her eyes.”

“Bull. If she remembered, she’d either go to the sheriff or she’d be in your face. What she needs to do is get back to work, keep her mind off...everything. In the meantime, you need to stay calm. You can’t mess up again.”

“I’ll treat her real good,” he said more to himself than his father. “I’ll make up for everything.”

“That alone will make her suspicious. Do what you normally do.”

“Get drunk and stay out half the night?” Wade asked his father in disbelief. “And you think that will help how?”

“It won’t make you seem so desperate. Stop saying you’re sorry. It was her damned fool self who climbed up that ladder to get those canning jars.”

Wade stared at him. He’d always known that his father bought into his own lies, but this was over the top. “She’s not stupid. She knows damned well she didn’t fall from a ladder.” He felt a sob deep in his chest begging to get out. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it together. “You don’t live with her. You have no idea what it’s like. She knows she can do better than me. She’s always known. If she ever finds out that we lied to her about Ledger McGraw and that girl at college—”

Huck swore a blue streak. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you miserable little miscreant. It’s our word against McGraw’s. He swore nothing was going on, but if she didn’t believe him then, she sure isn’t going to now. She isn’t going to find out unless you confess everything. She married you. Don’t blow this. If she remembers what we were talking about when she overheard, then we’ll deal with it. In the meantime, go get drunk, get laid, stop worrying.”

* * *

ABBY COULDN’T SIT STILL. The doctor had told her to rest, but she felt too antsy. Not being able to remember nagged at her. She got up and turned on the television.

Standing, she flipped through the channels, but found nothing of interest and turned it off.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a book lying open on the floor next to her chair. As she bent to pick it up, she winced at the pain in her ribs. Dizzy, she had to grab hold of the chair arm for a moment.

She stared at the book, trying to remember. Had she been reading? It bugged Wade when she read instead of watched television with him. He took offense as if her reading made him feel dumb. It made no sense. No more sense than what had happened to her. Why would she have been reading if she was going to get canning jars down to make peach jam?

Marking her place, she put the book down and walked into the kitchen to open the refrigerator. Of course there were no peaches in there. Had she really thought there would be this time of year? Her ribs hurt worse as she breathed hard to fight back the nausea. She hadn’t fallen off a ladder. Why did she keep trying to make Wade’s story plausible?

She turned to look at her house, seeing her life in the worn furniture, in the sad-looking cheap artwork on the walls, in the creak of the old floorboards under her feet.

Her gaze went to the floor as she caught a whiff of pine. Someone had cleaned the kitchen floor—but not with the cleaner she always used. Wade? Why would he clean unless...

Heart beating hard, she noticed that he’d missed a spot. She didn’t need to lean any closer to know what it was. Dried blood. Her blood.

* * *

ABBY REALIZED SHE had nowhere to go. But she desperately needed to talk to someone. Even her mother.

She knew she shouldn’t be driving, but her house wasn’t that far from her mother’s. Once behind the wheel she felt more in control. Seeing the blood, she’d quit lying to herself. She hadn’t fallen off a ladder. Wade had hurt her. Again. Bad enough for her to end up in the hospital.

Only she had no idea why, which terrified her.

Too upset to just sit around waiting for Wade to get off his night shift, she’d finally decided she had to do something. If only she could remember what they’d fought about. A vague memory teased at her, just enough to make her even more anxious. It hadn’t been one of their usual disagreements. It hadn’t even been Wade drunk and belligerent. No, this time it had been serious.

As she turned down the road, she saw the beam of a flashlight moving from behind her mother’s house toward the old root cellar. Abby frowned as her mother and the light disappeared from view.

Why would her mother be going down there this time of the night? She pulled up in front of the house and got out. As she neared the back of the house, she saw that her mother had strung an extension cord so she would have light down in the root cellar. It would be just like her mother to get it into her head to clean it out now, of all crazy possible times.

Abby had spent years trying to please her mother, but she felt she’d always fallen short. She almost changed her mind about trying to talk to her tonight. Her mother would be furious with her for not believing her husband—even though it was clear he was lying. Nan Lawrence was a hard woman to get close to. The closest they’d been was when her mother had pushed her to marry Wade after her breakup with Ledger McGraw. Not that it had taken a whole lot of pushing since she had been so heartbroken.

She’d just reached the back of the house and was about to start down the path to the root cellar when she heard a vehicle. A set of headlights flashed out as the car stopped in the stand of cottonwoods nearby. Someone had just parked out there.

Her first thought was Wade. He’d stopped by the house to check on her, found her gone and figured she’d run to her mother.

Hanging back in the deep shadow of the house, she watched a figure come out of the woods. It was too dark without the moon tonight to see who it was, but it was definitely a man, given his size. Wade? He stopped for a moment at the opening to the root cellar before lifting the door and disappearing inside, leaving the door ajar.

Although she couldn’t make out his face, she caught the gleam of a badge on a uniform. Abby almost turned back. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to see her mother now that she was here. She definitely didn’t want to see her mother and Wade. They would gang up on her like they often did, confuse her, make her feel guilty for not being a better wife. Make her believe that all of it was her fault.

And yet she was tired of running away from the truth. Wade had almost killed her. There couldn’t be another time. Not unless she had a death wish.

She moved toward the open door of the root cellar. Wade had left it open. A shaft of light rose up out of the earth as she walked toward it. Her head ached and she told herself now wasn’t the time to have it out with her husband.

But her feet kept moving, like a woman headed for the gallows.

The moon was still hidden well behind the cloud cover. She made her way across the yard until she reached the gaping hole of the root cellar.

The room belowground was larger than most root cellars. Having lived in Kansas as a child, her mother was terrified of tornadoes. No amount of talking had convinced her that tornadoes were rare, if not unheard of, in this part of Montana. She’d insisted that her husband build it large enough that if she had to spend much time down there, she wouldn’t feel cramped. So he had. He’d have done anything for her. No wonder he’d died young after holding down at least two jobs all of his life.

Abby braced herself on the open door and took the first step, then another. The steps were solid. Also she could hear voices below her that would drown out any noise she made. They wouldn’t hear her coming. She thought she might hear them arguing, but as she got closer, she realized there was only a low murmur rising up to meet her as if they were speaking in a conversational tone.

That alone should have warned her.

It wasn’t until she reached the bottom step that she saw she’d been wrong about a lot of things. The man with her mother wasn’t Wade. Nor was her mother down here cleaning.

Abby froze as she took in the sight. Black lights hung from makeshift frames along the earth ceiling. Under them green plants grew as far back into the root cellar as she could see.

Her mother and her visitor had frozen when they’d seen her. Deputy Sheriff Huck Pierce had a plastic bag filled with what looked like dried plants in his hand. Her mother had a wad of cash. Both quickly hid what was in their hands.

“What are you doing here?” her mother demanded. “You never stop by and tonight you decide to pay me a visit?”

Realization was like a bright white noise that buzzed in her aching brain. She stood stock-still. This, she realized, was why her mother had pushed her to marry Wade. It had nothing to do with him being her best choice. No, it was all about his father and the drug business her mother had been secretly running in her root cellar.

“Abby,” Huck said casually. “I thought you’d be home in bed.”

“I’m sure you did,” she said and looked to her mother.

A mix of emotions crossed Nan’s face before ending with resignation. “So now you know,” she said.

Yes, now she knew why her mother had berated her for not being a better wife to Wade. Even when Abby had told her how Wade hurt her, she hadn’t said, “Leave the bastard.” No, she’d told Abby that it was her fault. That she needed to treat him better. That she needed to put up with it. Otherwise, she would be a divorcée, and look how that had turned out for her mother after Abby’s father had died and she’d quickly remarried twice more and was now divorced again.

“I’ll let you handle this,” Huck said as he moved to leave. He tipped his hat as he edged past Abby as if she was a rattlesnake that couldn’t be trusted not to strike.

But it wasn’t Huck who she wanted to sink her venom into. It was her mother. All she’d wanted was her mother’s love, she realized now. But the woman was incapable of real love. Why hadn’t she seen that before?

“Don’t be giving me that look,” her mother snapped as she put away the empty jar that had held the dried marijuana the deputy had just bought. “I have to make a living. That’s all this is. You have no idea what it’s like being a single woman at my age. Anyway, it should be legal in this state. Will be one day and then I’ll be out of business. But until then...”

She thought of all the things she wanted to say to her mother and was surprised when the only words that came out were “I’m divorcing Wade.”

“You don’t want to do that.”

“You don’t want me to do that, you mean. Or is it Huck who wants me to stay with his son?”

“Huck and I agree that the two of you need to work some things out. You two married just keeps things...simple.”

“Simple for you since you’re apparently in business with his father.”

Her mother took a step toward her. “I won’t hear any more about this. What are you doin’ here, anyway? You should be home waiting for your husband. No wonder he has to take a hand to you.”

Abby heard herself laugh, an odd sound down in the root cellar. “It’s not going to work, Mother. All I’ve ever wanted was you to like me if not love me. I tried to do what you asked of me, thinking that one day...” She shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to turn in your little...operation or snitch on the deputy. Knowing Huck, he’d wiggle out of it and let you fry. But as for you and me?” She shook her head again and turned to leave.

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