Welcome to Mystery, Montana, a small town with dark secrets…

The body found in the Dunrovin Ranch stables isn’t just a crisis for Wyatt Fitzgerald’s family or his top priority as sheriff—Gwen Johansen is both the victim’s sister…and Wyatt’s ex. And in a small town like Mystery, events of the past don’t seem to fade. Maybe she’d misjudged his potential when they were younger, but now he could be her greatest ally—and not just in the investigation. That is, if he can work his way around a broken heart. With the killer circling, the clock is counting down on more than Christmas, a time when family means everything and forgiveness is the best gift of all.

Something was wrong.

The store was a mess. The glass teapot, the one he had noticed the day before, was on the floor, shattered into several pieces. Beside it on the floor was a bloody handprint.

It felt like the world was collapsing around him. He glanced back at Gwen. She didn’t need to see this, but he couldn’t keep her from the truth…or what they could possibly find if they went into the shop.

“Gwen,” he said, turning around slowly to face her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, all the playfulness that she had been exuding disappearing.

He shrugged. “I can’t be sure until I look.”

“What do you want me to do?”

He could make her wait in the car, but whoever was gunning for her had to be someone they both knew, someone close to them, and it was likely it was someone who could lure her out of the car…and do whatever they deemed necessary.

He couldn’t risk it.

Ms. Calculation

Danica Winters

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DANICA WINTERS is a multiple-award-winning, bestselling author who writes books that grip readers with their ability to drive emotion through suspense and occasionally a touch of magic. When she’s not working, she can be found in the wilds of Montana, testing her patience while she tries to hone her skills at various crafts—quilting, pottery and painting are not her areas of expertise. She believes the cup is neither half-full nor half-empty, but it better be filled with wine. Visit her website at www.danicawinters.net.

To Mom

You show me what it means to be empowered.

I couldn’t have done any of this without you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

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

Prologue

There was nothing that could make a woman go crazy more quickly or more profoundly than a man. The same went for mares and studs, and the proof was the lame horse that had brought Bianca to Dunrovin Ranch in the little town of Mystery, Montana.

The paint had her rear end backed into the corner of her stall, an instinct to protect herself from predators who, if she’d been in the wild, would have already taken advantage of her injury and moved in for the kill.

Bianca snorted slightly at how the instincts between animals and people were the same. When everything was stripped away—the names, the relationships, the social frameworks and the money—humans were nothing more than animals.

According to Mrs. Fitz, the paint mare had been in heat and had gotten into a fight with another mare when they’d turned the paint out. Normally the two mares had gotten along, their hierarchy and roles within their social group well established, but due to the proximity of a buckskin stallion, things had taken a turn for the worse and the mare had injured her foot in the fight. Bianca wasn’t sure if the animal’s leg was sprained or broken; she’d have to get her hands on the horse before she’d know.

“Hey, baby,” Bianca cooed as she slowly opened the stall’s door and moved in closer to the mare.

The horse gave a long huff as it looked over at her. It had the wide eyes of an animal in pain and it was breathing hard. Her left front leg was swollen and angry-looking, and from the state of it, it was easy to see why Mrs. Fitz had been upset when she’d called. If a horse broke a leg, which appeared to be the case here, it sadly often ended with the animal being euthanized.

It was the worst part of her job—making the choice between life and death.

In preparation for the worst, she’d already drawn up the syringe of Beuthanasia and left it in her bag just outside the stall in an attempt to keep from spooking the animal more than necessary. Though the recommended dose was two milliliters for every ten pounds, she’d doubled it. It was always better to have too much of the powerful anesthetic—it was more humane. One little prick of a needle and a squeeze and the numbness would wrap the animal’s world in a shroud of darkness.

The mare moved to paw the ground in agitation, but as she shifted her weight, she stumbled and squealed in pain. The sound made the hairs on Bianca’s arms rise. She personally knew all about pain—though hers was of the emotional kind. The kind no one noticed, until they looked deep in her eyes and then—fearing what they saw would catch—they turned away.

The whites of the mare’s eyes were showing, her chest was flecked with saliva and sweat rolled down her coat. These were just more signs that what Bianca feared doing most may be just the thing she would be forced to do. She already hated herself for the choices she had made in her private life. This would only make her feel worse.

She watched the horse carefully as she approached with metered caution. A hurt animal was a dangerous thing.

“It’s okay, girl,” she whispered.

The mare threw her head and staggered as the motion forced her to catch her body weight on the injured leg.

“No, sweetheart, no, calm down.” Bianca moved closer and gently ran her hand down the mare’s leg. From touch alone, she couldn’t feel a definite break.

Maybe she could save the animal after all. Some of the dread she’d been feeling drifted from her. Perhaps today, instead of taking a life, she could save one.

Bianca stood up and traced her fingers over the star on the mare’s forehead. The horse’s ears flicked to the right, like a finger pointing to something just over her shoulder.

Bianca turned to see what the animal was looking at. The person was small, but they moved fast.

The needle plunged into Bianca’s neck. The anesthetic burned as they forced the syringe’s contents into her.

Bianca’s scream echoed through the stable as she grasped at the empty syringe that protruded from her skin. She fumbled with it, pulling it out and watching in horror as the needle fell onto the hay strewn at their feet.

Red boots... She recognized those horrible boots.

The darkness flooded in from all sides as the anesthetic pumped through her body.

She’d been right. More Beuthanasia had been better.

Death came quick.

Chapter One

Everyone in law enforcement would admit the worst aspect of the job was notifying the next of kin when a loved one died. Today that job fell on Wyatt Fitzgerald’s shoulders... Well, not fell exactly, so much as it was a weight he’d offered to bear. The fact that they were only a few weeks away from Christmas only made it that much harder.

He parked his patrol unit at the end of the Johansens’ driveway, as far from the front door as possible so he would have plenty of time before he would have to face them—and his former high school girlfriend, Gwen. The last time they had spoken, almost a decade ago, she’d made it clear she hated him. What he was about to do would only make her hatred for him worse, and he wouldn’t be able to hold those feelings against her.

Though it was early in December, he was surprised they hadn’t started to decorate for the holidays. When he’d been younger, they’d always had the Widow Maker Ranch decked out, complete with handmade pine-bough wreaths and thousands of lights. From the look of the derelict place, with its shabby siding and in-need-of-new-shingles roof, it was like the Johansens were just waiting for someone to arrive with news like his.

This moment, his coming to the door with the news of the death of their beloved sister and daughter, would be etched in their memories forever. And he would always be remembered as the catalyst for this tragic change in their lives. Without a doubt, they would always blame him for the hurt they were about to experience. In a way, he felt almost responsible for Bianca’s mysterious death.

The snow crunched under his boots as he made the long march up the driveway to the ranch house’s door. Maybe he should have brought along the other officer. They’d always been taught to go in pairs. It made it easier to face what had to be done. But this time, under all the extenuating circumstances, he felt this was one journey he had to make on his own—that was, right up until the door was within his line of sight.

He would make it quick. Like a Band-Aid. One rip and it would all be over—at least for him. Then the real pain would begin for them. He cringed at the thought of how Bianca and Gwen’s mother, Carla, would take the news. Ever since her husband’s accident with the hay tedder at Dunrovin Ranch, she’d never been the same and she’d never forgiven his family or the crew that helped run the place. To her, everything about the accident had been Dunrovin’s fault, and therefore its owners—Wyatt’s parents—were to blame.

His stomach clenched as he realized this moment, his coming to the door with tragic news, was something Carla had gone through once before. Their shared past would amplify everything. He hated having to be a part of her pain once again.

He took a long breath in a failed attempt to calm his anxiety and knocked on the front door. The glass rattled as he tapped, loose thanks to the years of neglect since Mr. Johansen’s death.

The last time Wyatt knocked on this door had been the night of their senior prom. If only he could go back in time to the days when his biggest worries were centered on how much playtime he would get in the Friday-night football game, and whether or not Gwen would be free to watch.

The curtain was drawn back and Carla’s face appeared in the window. Her nose was red and purple and covered with the spider veins indicative of a long-term alcoholic—not that he could blame her after the life she had led. Her wind-burned skin, the mark of all serious ranchers, had more lines than he remembered and her hair had turned gray, but she still had the same dark eyes of a haunted woman.

“What the hell do you want? I’m fresh out of doughnuts,” she said through the glass, her words slowed by booze even though it was early in the day.

“Mom, seriously?”

He recognized Gwen’s voice and his heart picked up pace as she stepped into view. Some feelings really didn’t change over ten years, no matter how much they should have.

Unlike her mother, Gwen was even more beautiful. Her long blond hair was haloed around her face, as wild as the woman it belonged to. She looked at him and her mouth opened in surprise, her hands moved to her hair and she tried to force it to submit. Pulling it back, her blue eyes picked up the bits of the morning sun, making them glow with life. Her eyes were just like Bianca’s, reminding him of the death that had brought him here.

Gwen opened the door and stood in silence for a moment as she stared at him in his full uniform. Without saying hello, she turned to her mother. “What did you do last night?”

He shifted his weight, uncomfortable that she was chastising her mother in front of him like he wasn’t even there.

Carla rubbed her nose drunkenly, like she was trying to process her daughter’s accusation. “I wasn’t doin’ nothing.”

“Then why is Deputy Fitzgerald standing on our doorstep?”

So they weren’t on a first-name basis anymore. Apparently she wasn’t feeling the effects of nostalgia like he was. He forced his feelings down. It didn’t matter what she thought of him; that wasn’t why he was here.

Carla looked at him and frowned as though replaying the events of last night through her mind. As he looked at her, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was still drunk from the night before, or if the alcohol on her breath was just this morning’s continuation of last night’s party.

“I don’t think I was driving.” She leaned around him, looking out into the driveway for a car that wasn’t there. “Bubba drove me home. I kinda remember...”

Gwen crossed her arms over her chest as she glared at her mother. “Are you kidding me? You don’t even remember how you got home last night? This has to stop. It’s only a matter of time until you’re going to get into real trouble—” Her glare shifted to him as if she remembered exactly who he was. “So what did she do this time? How bad is it?”

The look on her face made him want to be standing anywhere but in her bull’s-eye.

“Actually, I was here for—”

“Where’s Bianca?” Carla interrupted, glancing behind her for her other daughter—a daughter who wasn’t going to come.

“Mom, be quiet. Bianca will be along,” Gwen said, moving between her mother and the door as if she was so embarrassed by her mother’s ramblings she wanted to hide her from his view.

He cleared his throat, wishing he had loosened the top button of his uniform before he’d made his way to the door. Even his body armor felt tight, and he gave it a slight tug in an effort to dispel some of the discomfort he was aware wasn’t really physical.

“Actually, I’m here about Bianca.” As soon as the name fell from his lips, Gwen’s scowl disappeared, replaced by a wide-eyed look of fear.

“She’s upstairs,” Gwen said, absently motioning toward the wooden staircase that led to the second floor of the ranch house. “Do you want me to go get her up?” There was an edge to her voice, a sharpness that came with panic.

He moved to touch her, but stopped and gripped his hands together in front of him to keep his body and emotions under control.

“I’m afraid to tell you this, Ms. Johansen,” he said, moving slightly so he could look the older woman in the face as well. “Mrs. Johansen. I’m sorry, but in the early morning hours, we found Bianca’s body. She is...deceased.”

He knew he should have just said dead, but he couldn’t get the word past his lips. It was too harsh for Bianca, the veterinarian who’d been a regular at Dunrovin. He’d seen her so many times over the years, and they had a friendship based on their mutual attachment to animals—and her sister. In fact, Bianca had been kind to him, offering him tidbits about Gwen’s life and her dating status, and once in a while pushing him to make his move to get her back. But he’d always brushed away Bianca’s urging. He and Gwen had already had their chance—he couldn’t go through that kind of heartbreak. It nearly broke him once. He couldn’t risk something that raw again.

“Deceased?” Gwen said the word as though she tasted its full, bitter flavor and spat it out.

He wanted to look down at the ground, to escape that gaze of hers that made every part of him charge to life. “Yes. I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

Carla stared at him and blinked, the action slow and deliberate. “No.”

Gwen’s hand slid down the door with a loud squeak, like nails on a chalkboard...but he knew what the sound really was—it was the sound of a heart breaking.

She collapsed on the floor, her head hitting the wood with a thump so loud he rushed to her side to make sure she was still conscious.

“Gwen...Gwen, are you okay?” He touched her face and looked into her eyes. They were filled with tears, tears that wet his hand as they dripped over his skin and fell to the floor. There wasn’t blood or a bruise where her head had hit the ground, but she wasn’t okay. She wasn’t going to be okay for a long time.

He stroked away her tears as she lay on the floor and cried. Her body was riddled with sobs, hard and heavy.

He wanted to tell her everything was going to be all right. That she would get through this. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to lie.

Some people held the belief that time healed all pain, but he knew all too well it wasn’t true. All time did was push it further from the mind, but just like a deep flesh wound, any time he brushed the area the pain was just as all-consuming and powerful as when the blow first struck. That cliché about the healing power of time was for the weak—for the ones who couldn’t face the reality of a future filled with wounds that wouldn’t heal.

Regardless of the state Gwen was in, he knew how strong she was. How much it took to bring her to this point. And he’d been the one to break her.

He hated himself.

“Shh...” he said, trying to calm her and help her in the only way he knew how.

Carla opened the door wider and stepped by him and out into the crisp morning air. “Not again...”

Gwen looked at her mother and, moving his hand aside, she rubbed the tears from her face and took a series of long breaths. “I’m fine... I’m fine...” she said, as though she was trying to convince herself. She sat up and smoothed back her hair.

Wyatt stepped out of her way and tried to ignore his feelings of rejection at her pushing him away. “Currently, Bianca’s body is at the crime lab. As her death was unattended, she will need to undergo an autopsy in order for us to generate a full report.”

Carla hugged herself as she rocked back and forth. Gwen stood up, and, brushing off her red plaid nightgown, she stepped to her mother’s side and wrapped her arm around Carla’s shoulders. “It’s okay, Mom. It’ll be okay.”

At least one of them had the strength to feed Carla the lines she needed to hear.

Gwen looked at him, her eyes red and thick with restrained tears. “A full report? What does that mean? You don’t know how she died?”

He shook his head. “The coroner was unable to make a determination as to the cause of death. It will need to be fully investigated by the medical examiner.”

She frowned and her gaze flicked to the right as though she was remembering something. She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped, and then after a moment started again. “Where did you find her?”

The discomfort he had been feeling amplified. “She was found in the stables of the Dunrovin Ranch.”

“Your family’s place? Again?” Gwen asked, like she was calling him out for somehow being party to her sister’s death.

He nodded, guilt rising in him as her poorly veiled accusation struck. “One of my mother’s mares had come up lame. Last night, Bianca came to assess the animal and determine a course of treatment. We found Bianca’s body at about 1:00 a.m. From our estimates she had been dead for at least an hour.”

“No one found her until then?” Gwen’s voice rang with disgust. “How is that possible? You have more hands and staff than most working ranches. Someone had to have found her before then.”

He heard the slam at the fact that his family’s place was merely a guest ranch and not a working cattle ranch like theirs. Her words were flecked with pain, anger and denial—whatever she said now couldn’t be held against her.

“I don’t know the ranch’s current schedule. I’ve been out of that world, or at least a casual bystander, ever since I went to work for the department.” He realized he was answering her and defending himself against her allegations when all he should have been doing was being compassionate and taking the verbal hits she chose to let fly.

“You’re a bastard,” Carla spat out. “You and your dang family. You’re a scourge on the valley. You are the reason...you’re the reason my daughter’s gone. And now you tell me you don’t know how she died. You’re about as good at police work as your family is at ranching.”

Gwen sucked in an audible breath at the sting of her mother’s lashes. “Mother, stop.” She let go of her mother’s shoulders, repulsed.

Carla pointed at him with an unsteady finger. “You can’t tell me I’m wrong. He is doing a piss-poor job. How dare he come here without answers. If he was a real cop, he’d be able to tell us what we need to know. He’d be able to tell us about Bianca.”

It was as though her mother’s words had pulled Gwen back from the platform of anger she’d been standing on a moment before, a platform that had been targeted at him.

She looked at him with a mix of pity and pain. “Don’t say that, Mom. Just go inside. Go to bed and sleep off the booze.”

Carla shook her head, but staggered inside and toward her bedroom at the back of the house.

Gwen leaned against the porch’s white railing. “Did she commit suicide?” she asked, the question coming out of nowhere...almost as though she knew something he didn’t.

“Right now we believe that may be so, but we are unsure as to the cause of death—we’ll have to wait on the results of her autopsy. But may I ask if you believe Bianca had motive to kill herself?” he asked, wondering if Gwen knew something that would help him make sense of Bianca’s death.

She shrugged. “Vets have high rates of suicide—more than a lot of other professions.” She said it like it was just another fact from a book she read and had nothing to do with her reality.

“Was she having some mental health issues? Issues you believe would have led to her taking her own life?”

Gwen sighed. “She’s been unhappy, and with the holidays coming up... But I don’t think she’d have the power to do something like that. She wouldn’t.” She shook her head, like she could shake the idea from her mind.

But now the cat was out of the bag and there was no going back. His investigation had just moved from what some had assumed was a natural death to something else entirely. Why would a woman like Bianca, who had a family who loved her and a mother who clearly needed her, be that unhappy—was it her mother’s drinking, or something more? What had been going on in her life?

His gut twisted with a nagging feeling that everything wasn’t as it seemed—and that his life, as well as Gwen’s, was about to get turned upside down.

Chapter Two

She couldn’t even look Wyatt in the eyes. Why did he have to be involved with the investigation of her sister’s death? There had to be at least a dozen other guys on the force who could have stepped in on this one—at least to notify Gwen and her mother of the death. Yet, there he stood...with his broad shoulders, honey-colored skin, scruffy jaw and those cheekbones, all of which often found their way into her dreams. It only made the news worse.

Regardless of what he said, there was no way Bianca could be dead. Gwen had just seen her yesterday at the dinner table. They’d had grilled steaks and Bianca had cooked the potatoes—if Gwen looked, she was sure the knife Bianca had touched was probably still sitting unwashed in the sink. How could it be possible that the woman she’d talked to, and shared a bottle of wine with, was gone this morning? No.

She dabbed her eyes. It wasn’t real. A fresh tear twisted down her cheek.

It was stupid, but as she cried, she couldn’t handle the thought that Wyatt had seen her turn into a blubbering mess. When he saw her after the last time, she was supposed to be at her best—maybe down a size or two, hair perfectly colored and flung in symmetrical curls over her shoulders like one of those models from the pages of Country Living. But no...he had to break her heart—though admittedly, the last time she’d seen him, she may have been the one doing the breaking.

Was that why he had agreed to take on the assignment of telling them about Bianca’s death? She wiped the rest of the wetness from her face and stomped down the steps of the porch and into the driveway.

She just needed fresh air—anything to pull her into a different reality, where none of this was really happening.

“Gwen?” Wyatt called after her.

She stopped but she didn’t turn around. She couldn’t look at him and his ridiculously sexy features. Not right now. Right now she’d like to look at anything but him...the oh-so-confusing him.

“What, Wyatt? What do you want? You gave me the news you came here to give. Now I’ve got to go to work. This ranch and the cows on it are all we have—if I don’t turn a profit this year, it’s over.” Her knees felt weak, but she refused to let herself to succumb to the feeling. She had to be strong. She had to fake it...at least until he was gone, and then she could turn into a big mess for as long as she needed.

If there was any silver lining to what was happening, it was that her mother had drunk enough whiskey to pass out for at least the rest of the day. The last thing she needed was to have to deal with that train wreck before she had everything figured out—she could only handle one major catastrophe at a time.

“Don’t run off, Gwen. I need to ask you a few more questions.” He rushed to walk by her side, so she sped up.

“Ask away, but you’re going to have to walk because I’ve got to feed the horses.” She motioned toward the red barn that sat in the distance.

“In your nightgown?” he asked, motioning toward the red plaid thing she’d forgotten she was wearing. “And you do know you’re wearing slippers, right?”

She stopped and spun to face him, but carefully pulled her nightgown over her moccasins. He was wearing a stupid, charming grin—a grin she wanted to slap right off his face. How dare he, at a time like this?

“What do you want to know?” As she thought about the things he’d want to ask—Bianca’s favorite restaurant, where she’d liked to spend her time, her love life—she choked up and had to take a long breath. She couldn’t cry again.

He reached up, so slowly that she watched his motion and thought about moving out of the radius of his touch, but she stayed put. He took her shoulder gently and stroked her arm with his thumb. It made her think of her favorite mare, Dancer. The mustang was fifteen, yet anytime she was stressed or acting out, all Gwen had to do to calm her was rub her hands down her flanks and make those same circles with her thumbs.

No matter how much Wyatt might have liked her to be, she wasn’t a damned horse that would turn soft under his touch and bend to his wants. He should have known better. It hadn’t worked in the two years they had dated in high school either. In fact, it only infuriated her.

She pulled away from his touch. The place his hand had been chilled and she covered it with her own hand, trapping some of the leftover heat.

“Gwen, it’s okay to be upset about this. If you want, I can take care of the livestock. Why don’t you go inside and lie down? I can come back and talk to you another time if you’d like.”

Some of her anger at the world slipped with the kindness in his voice. He wasn’t here to hurt her. He was here to do his job. And maybe, just maybe, he was here because he was still her friend and he could look past how she had treated him when they were younger—not that it had been unjustified, her anger toward him, but she should have been kinder. His heart had been just as much on the line as her own.

She ran her hand down her nightgown and started to move back toward the house. Maybe she should lie down, take a break, have a cup of coffee and collect her thoughts. She thought about sending him away, but it made her heart shift in her chest.

“The last thing I want is to be alone right now.” She was surprised by her blunt honesty. It was unlike her, but, then again, nothing about this morning was in the realm of normal. “If you don’t have anywhere else to be, maybe you can wait while I get dressed and then take care of the animals. Then we can head up to Bianca’s cabin.”

Wyatt frowned. “She had a cabin?”

Gwen sighed as she walked back into the house and motioned to her mother’s bedroom door as a loud snore escaped from under the door. “We each adopted one of the hands’ cabins at the edge of the property. Having a place of your own comes in handy when she gets a little too out of hand.”

“How often does that kind of thing happen?” His face twisted with concern but not judgment, and it softened some of the hard edges of her feelings toward him.

Most of the time, when people talked to her about her mother’s problem, it was with a mixture of pity and judgment. Then again, few people wanted to bring it up. It was like the worst-kept secret of Mystery, Montana, that her mother and her family were one hot mess. In fact, it would probably be only a matter of time before the news of her sister’s death would hit the airwaves. She would know as soon as it did because within the hour casseroles would start showing up on their doorstep.

She looked toward her mother’s bedroom. At least it was unlikely Carla would get up to answer the door in the condition she was in. Gwen glanced up at the clock. On days like this, when her mother had been drinking all night, Carla normally wouldn’t get up until it was time to go to the bar again. Tonight, she’d probably be in hog heaven—getting free drinks from the other lushes and lechers who frequented the bar, all in honor of her daughter’s death.

Hate reverberated through her—but the hate wasn’t just for her mother, or their situation, or even her sister’s death. It was hate for everything.

Her life was such a disaster. And there was nothing she could do about it. No way to control all the emotions that flooded through her. All she could do was feel. She glanced back at Wyatt, staring at him for a moment too long.

“Do you want me to get you something?” he asked, motioning toward her upstairs bedroom. “You can just sit down. I’ll grab your gear.” His face turned slightly red, as though he’d suddenly realized that “gear” may involve her panties.

She shook her head and walked to the stairs, his embarrassment pulling her back to reality. “I’ll be right back.”

When she reached her room, it took all her strength not to collapse onto the bed and bury her face into the pillows and scream—yell at the world, tell it of her hate, tell it of her pain, tell it about the injustices that filled her life.

* * *

BEING ALONE IN the Johansens’ house felt surreal, like somehow he was reliving moments of his past—moments he had fought hard to forget. He walked to the fireplace and looked at the collection of pictures that rested on the mantel. All were covered with a thick layer of dust, forgotten or perhaps intentionally ignored by the women of the house. He rubbed the dust off the closest one. The picture was of a man, whom he recognized as Mr. Johansen, wearing a Hypercolor shirt and drinking a Miller Lite beside a small, white, inflatable kiddie pool. A young blonde girl was splashing water and laughing. The man wasn’t smiling, rather he was looking off into the distance as a cigarette trembled on his lip, almost as if he were looking into a future where only tragedy waited.

Carla’s snoring sounded from the other room, reminding him of why he’d always hated coming into this house.

He glanced at all the other pictures. None were from any time within the last fifteen years. It was like life had stopped the moment that Mr. Johansen died. He could only imagine what would happen to their lives now that Bianca was gone as well.

Wyatt had to get out. He couldn’t let himself get sucked back into this world. Not when it was clear that Gwen could barely tolerate him. He couldn’t carry her through this like he used to carry her through the nights her mother had left her alone when Gwen was younger. He couldn’t save her—he’d already tried.

He rushed outside to the barn. Horses he could understand. Women, on the other hand... Women were an entirely different issue.

One of the barn cats sauntered over to him as he made his way inside. It wrapped itself around his legs, rubbing against him. He picked it up and scratched under its chin as it purred and kneaded the front of his shirt. As he stood there stroking the long gray hair of the cat, he glanced up at the hayloft. They had spent so many hours up there, just him and Gwen. They had been able to talk for hours; it had always seemed like they would never run out of things to discuss. They’d had this wonderful bond with each other that, no matter how many women he’d dated since, he was never able to re-create. Maybe it was the one thing he missed most about her—their deep bond, so strong that he could feel it even when no words were spoken.

Putting the cat down, he moved over to the bales of hay. He pulled off flakes and dropped them into the stalls for each of the horses. Though it was cold, in an effort to keep the hay from digging into his uniform, he stripped off his uniform shirt and his ballistics vest, leaving only his tank top. It felt good, the chill of the winter air, the scratching of the hay against his arms and the smell of horses on his skin.

He wasn’t involved with the business of his family’s ranch enough anymore to really help in the everyday comings and goings, and sometimes, when he caught a whiff of fresh hay or the heady fragrance of sweet oats, he missed being more available.

There was a thin cough, and he turned around. Gwen stood in the barn’s doorway, looking at him in a way that made him wonder if it was attraction or revulsion. He moved to grab his shirt and vest, but she stopped him with a wave of the hand.

“It’s fine. Just be comfortable. There’s not going to be anyone up at the cabin who’s going to care if you’re wearing your uniform. At least not since...” She trailed off, as though she couldn’t bring herself to talk about Bianca.

He grabbed his shirt and slipped it over his tank top anyway. It felt strange to be standing in front of her even semi undressed. In all their time together, they hadn’t taken things to a deeply physical level.

He stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was still the same girl he had known before, or if she had given up on her quest to wait until marriage. He’d always appreciated, or at least respected, the effort it took to restrict oneself from pleasures of the flesh, but it wasn’t a dogma that he had been able to follow.

She looked disappointed when he put on the shirt—or was she relieved? It would have been so much easier if he could just read minds.

The drive to the cabin was short, but the entire time he had been glancing over at her, wondering what she was thinking and trying to hold back from asking her the million questions running through his mind. Most were stupid, insipid... Whether or not she liked her job at the ranch, what it was like to still be living with her mother or, for that matter, why she was still choosing to live with Carla. No matter if Gwen stayed or went, her mother would continue her self-destructive behavior. It was only a matter of time...

He pulled to a stop in front of the cabin that Gwen had directed them to. There was a small chicken coop outside it, and there was a bevy of hens clucking inside, waiting to be fed.

Gwen nearly jumped out of the patrol unit and ran to the chickens. She grabbed the bucket out of the galvanized can beside the coop and poured the cracked corn into the trough. The hens came running in a flurry of feathers and clucks.

He stood and watched her, taking in the sight of her body flexing as she moved around the coop. She seemed nervous, but he could have her all wrong. Most people he could read at a glance. The ability to tell whether someone was lying, hiding something or telling the truth came with the job. Yet he didn’t have the same innate gift when it came to Gwen. She was his enigma.

“I’m going to go inside. Feel free to take your time out here, okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. That’s fine. I’ll be out here if you need me.” She didn’t bother to look back at him, fully consumed with opening the henhouse to collect this morning’s eggs. This late in the year, without a light in the henhouse, they both knew that there wouldn’t be many, if any, eggs, but he didn’t say anything.

He walked to the front of the cabin. Its walls were made of the aged, gray logs like those from the pioneering days when the town had been founded. The wooden door sat crooked in the frame, listing like Bianca’s drunk mother. For a moment, he wondered if Bianca had left it like that on purpose as a reminder of what she had to move past in order to live her own life.

He pushed the door open. His breath caught in his throat. Papers were strewn around the room, every drawer was open and the couch cushions had been thrown from their places, one precariously close to the woodstove. Either Bianca was the kind who never cleaned, or someone had turned the place over.

In an effort to avoid causing Gwen any more emotional trauma, he walked inside and closed the door. He pulled out his camera and clicked a few pictures. It was odd how, in just a few short hours, his assignment had led him from thinking this was a natural death to a possible suicide to now something much more sinister.

He couldn’t say if Bianca’s death was a murder. Nothing about Bianca’s body or presentation at the scene had pointed toward a struggle or malevolent act, but his instincts told him to push the investigation deeper.

Unfortunately, he was leaving in a few days for a prisoner transfer in Alaska. If he followed his instincts, he could be wrapped up in this investigation for weeks—and he had been wrong before. Just a year ago, he’d wasted time investigating a case similar to this. Maybe it had been his bravado, or his need to follow every lead, but he’d spent two weeks tracking down every thread just to find out from the medical examiner that their victim had died of a methadone overdose. The guy had been seeking euphoria—and all he’d found was the grave.

Wyatt walked through the cabin, careful not to disturb things in case he needed to call in his team of investigators—and what a team it was, two of the least-trained CSI guys anyone had ever met. In fact, he wasn’t sure if Lyle and Steve had ever gone to college, or if their certification had come from some online university where they never had to actually set foot on a crime scene to graduate.

There was a squeak from behind him. Gwen stood there, her hands over her mouth as she stared at the mess of papers, clothes and overturned chairs.

“Do you know who would have done this?” he asked, staring at her.

Her eyes were wide and she dropped her balled fists to her sides. She glanced at him and shook her head.

He’d been wrong about Gwen. He’d thought he couldn’t read her. Yet when she looked at him, he could see she was lying.

Chapter Three

They’d gone through everything. Or at least it felt like it. Gwen closed her sister’s dresser drawer with a thump.

“Anything?” Wyatt asked, motioning toward the drawer that had been filled with her sister’s bras.

From an objective point of view, it struck her as a bit funny and maybe a touch endearing that Wyatt, the type-A man who seemed most at home in his squad car, was squeamish about riffling through her sister’s underwear drawer. In high school he had seen just about every pair of panties that Gwen had owned, though things had always stopped there.

She glanced over at him. He had been good-looking back in the day, but he was nothing then compared to the man he had become—the man she had just watched throwing bales of hay around like they were pillows rather than seventy-five pounds of dead weight. If things had been different, if she could have ignored the pull of reality, she could have stood there all day and watched him sweat.

He brushed past her, leaving the room, and he still carried the sweet scent of hay, horses and leather. The heady aroma made her lift her head as she drew in a long whiff of the man she had once loved.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t been in relationships, it had only been a few months—wait, a year—since her last thing. It hadn’t quite been a Facebook-official relationship. No, it had been more of a burger-and-a-beer/Netflix-and-chill kind of thing. No real feelings beyond lust and the occasional need for a back rub. It had been great until he had suddenly disappeared, and two months later she had seen the guy’s engagement to another woman splashed across their tiny paper, the Mystery Daily.

The news hadn’t hurt so much as caused her the emotional whiplash that came with being so quickly replaced. A month after the engagement announcement, she still hadn’t gotten an invite to the wedding that nearly the entire population of the small town had received. She had always resigned herself to the belief that everyone knew everyone’s business in Mystery—yet a few had still asked her why she hadn’t gone and she had been forced to tactfully remove herself from the conversation.

“You okay?” Wyatt surprised her as he touched her shoulder ever so lightly.

How long had he been standing there?

She nodded, thankful he’d pulled her from her thoughts. “What do you think they were looking for in here?” She motioned around her sister’s cabin.

“First, we don’t know if this was a they kind of situation. Maybe your sister did this. There’s no proof that her death was anything unnatural, or more than a—”

Suicide.

He didn’t need to finish the sentence to inflict the pain that came with the word.

“My sister wouldn’t kill herself. You knew her. You saw her almost every week. Do you really think that she could do something like that—or like this?” She waved at the strewn couch cushions. “No one turns over their own place.”

He looked away, but she could see in the way his eyes darkened that he was already thinking the same thing.

The desk where her sister’s laptop normally sat was conspicuously empty. But the printer was still there, and there was a wastebasket on the ground, its contents strewn across the floor like everything else in the cabin. She pulled away from Wyatt’s touch and picked up one of the balled-up pieces of paper. Uncurling the wad, she found an email. It was dated November 27—one week earlier. She didn’t recognize the email address or the long bits of code that her sister included in the printout. It looked like it had been pulled from the printer before it was done, and long dabs of ink were smudged down the paper’s length.

“What’s that?” Wyatt asked, sidestepping her as though he was trying his best not to touch her again.

“I dunno... It looks odd, though,” she said, flipping the page so he could see.

It was probably nothing. She crumpled the paper in her hands and, picking up the garbage can, dropped it in. Maybe she was looking too hard and trying to see things that were not really there—she glanced at Wyatt—especially when it came to him.

He bent down and picked up another of the papers. He sucked in a breath as he looked over the page.

“What is it?”

He held the paper and didn’t move, almost as though if he stood still she wouldn’t have asked the question.

She stepped closer and looked over his shoulder.

The email was almost identical to the one she had picked up, but instead of black smudges of ink, the message was there in its entirety:

RUN AND LIVE.

STAY AND DIE.

CHOICE IS YOURS.

Why hadn’t Bianca told anyone about the threat? And why, oh, why, had she chosen to stay?

* * *

HE SENT A picture of the email to the head of the IT department, Max, along with a promise that if Max got back to Wyatt within a day, Wyatt would personally take him on a ride-along. He hated ride-alongs, especially when it entailed taking a person who would ask more questions than a kid on Mountain Dew. Yet without a doubt, it would expedite the process—and he needed answers as soon as possible.

He was having one heck of a time focusing on anything other than the way he wanted to take Gwen into his arms and hold her. She looked so broken. Every time she stopped moving, she zoned out, almost as though she couldn’t find the strength to start moving again.

He knew the feeling all too well. It was why he never stopped—the moment you started bringing up the pain was the moment the world collapsed around you. In his line of work, it was best to just bury the past...along with anything else that kept him up at night. Bianca’s death was definitely going to fall in that category.

Bianca had looked nearly pristine when he’d arrived on scene. Her hair was pulled back into her signature ponytail and her scrubs were still clean, like she’d just pulled them out of the dryer before she had come out to the ranch.

His heart sank at the thought of the ranch. No wonder Gwen was so lost. She had so many reasons to be angry. So many people she could point a finger at, and no one more than him. Even in the event of Bianca’s death he could be held responsible—at least tangentially. He had likely been home, resting comfortably after a long day on shift. If he’d been more involved in the comings and goings of Dunrovin, if he had agreed to feed the horses, or been around at all, maybe she would still be alive. Not that Gwen knew that—but her being unaware didn’t relieve any of his guilt.

Gwen was doing it again, staring at the floor like it was the exact spot where Bianca had been found. His hands twitched with the need to feel her in them.

“Let’s go. I’ll run you back home.”

She jerked as though she had forgotten where they were.

He took care to lock the door to the cabin to stop anyone from coming back in, and then he held her hand on the way back to the car. Her fingers were limp in his. She was a ghost of what she used to be—strong and hot, as wild and free as the Montana mountains and wilderness that surrounded them. He wished he could pull her from her stupor, pull her back to the land of the living instead of falling deeper into the pit of the despondent.

It wasn’t long before they were bumping down the Widow Maker Ranch’s long, snowy driveway, laden with potholes and ruts left over from hard use in summer and fall. As Wyatt twisted and turned, trying to avoid the worst of the bumps and the largest snowdrifts, he was reminded of how life was just like a road—full of obstacles and dangers.

Something hit the car and he tapped on the brakes as he tried to identify the source of the sound. There was another thump and he pulled to a stop.

“What was that?” Gwen asked, looking around.

Pastures lined both sides of the drive, grasses so tall that even in the snow it looked like they were in a sea of brown reeds—making it nearly impossible to see who or what could have been responsible for the sound.

“Stay inside,” he said as he stepped out of the car.

He walked to the front of the patrol unit. On its fender were the scattered, oozing remnants of two eggs. He turned just in time to see Carla holding a carton and pulling her arm back to take aim.

“Stop, Carla!” he ordered, his voice hard-edged and full of authority.

The egg flew through the air, missing him by just a few inches and smacking against the car’s windshield.

Gwen stepped out of the car and slammed the door. “Mother, what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Her mother smeared her forearm under her nose and dropped the carton of eggs, its contents rolling on the ground at her feet. “He’s a bastard...” She motioned to Wyatt as though he couldn’t hear her. “It’s his damned fault.” She reached behind her back.

His fine-tuned senses kicked into full gear. “Hands where I can see them!” he yelled.

Carla laughed, her sound high and malicious. “You don’t get to order me around. I’ve known you since you were born. You loved my daughter. You knew Jimmy. Yet you did nothing...nothing to protect my Bianca. You let your family’s demons take her.”

There were any number of demons she could have been talking about when it came to his family, but in this moment it didn’t matter—all that mattered was what she was holding behind her back and what she planned on doing with it.

“Put your hands where I can see them.” He slowly reached down for the Taser on his utility belt.

The last thing he wanted to do was to tase Gwen’s mother. Things were already tense enough, but no matter what his feelings toward Gwen and her family were, his job and their safety came first.

“I don’t want to hurt you... I don’t...” Carla said as she moved toward him, her motions jerky as though her body and her mind were in disagreement. “But you and your family... You all keep ruining my life. You want to take everything from me.”

“We didn’t take anything from you.” He knew he shouldn’t argue with the grief-crazed woman, but he couldn’t hear her drag his family through the mud anymore. She needed to be pulled back to reality.

She dropped her hand to her side. In her grip was a snub-nosed revolver.

Either she was going to shoot him or herself—either way, he couldn’t allow her to keep that gun in her possession.

“Drop the gun, Carla,” he said.

She looked at him, and a tear slipped down her cheek. As the wind kicked up, he could smell the strong scent of whiskey wafting from her—even stronger than before.

She shook her head, the action slow and deliberate.

“Mother. No. Don’t do this,” Gwen said. “You can’t play at this. Not again. Wyatt is a deputy. He has every right to shoot you if you lift that gun. Drop. It. Now.”

Not again? Was Carla’s threat something she did on a regular basis?

He thought his family had the corner on putting the fun in dysfunctional.

Gwen stepped around the car and moved toward her mother.

“No,” he ordered, putting his arm out and trying to stop her without actually losing sight of the gun. “Stay back, Gwen.” He tried to hedge his tone between the hard edge of work and the softness of the feelings he still carried for her, but it came out much sharper than he intended.

Gwen looked at him like he had struck her.

He chastised himself, he’d screwed that all up, but now wasn’t the time to fully explain himself. “I don’t want her to hurt you.”

“She’s my mother,” she spat out. “She’s not dangerous. Really. You need to trust me.”

He felt the slice of her words as she cut away at his flaw—trust had never been his strong suit and she knew it. Why did she have to call him out at a time like this?

If something happened, if Carla pulled that trigger, he would have to answer to those above him. They would never understand if he went against procedure—even for a woman he used to know and her daughter, whom he wanted to get to know again.

“Your mother or not, Gwen, she can’t do this.” He raised his Taser. “This is the last time I ask, Carla,” he said, moving into range. “If you don’t put the gun down, I will be forced to tase you. Your choice.”

Carla lifted the gun.

“Wyatt, no!” Gwen yelled.

He pulled the trigger.

Carla hit the ground, convulsing as the electricity pulsed through her.

He ran to her side and kicked the gun from her hand before picking it up and opening the cylinder to look for rounds. The gun was empty.

Chapter Four

The next morning, Wyatt puttered around his trailer on the edge of the Dunrovin Ranch. Sleep had been elusive, and as he waited for the coffee to fill his cup, his mind wandered to Gwen and Carla. He shouldn’t have taken Carla down. Then again, what choice had she given him? He’d warned her—repeatedly. Did she think he was bluffing? That he wouldn’t pull the trigger?

If he was good at anything it was falling back onto his training—and he was a better officer for it, though it didn’t always make him a better person. There was a certain safety and comfort that came with being inflexible.

He couldn’t be like Gwen—she seemed to have her emotions and well-being dictated by the people in her life all the time. For as long as he had known her, she had been living her life in accordance with her mother’s ever-changing needs. In a way, he pitied her for her role as caregiver. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to be in a major relationship when they were younger—her life was already overtaken by the emotional needs of her mother. Were things any different now, or was she still emotionally unavailable?

He grabbed his coffee, slipped on his utility belt and moved toward the front door. Work waited. He needed to figure out exactly what happened to Bianca before things could get any more confusing with Gwen.

His phone pinged with an email. It was IT. He sipped the hot black coffee as he opened the message.

Fitz—

Took a look at the printout of the email you sent me. Looks like it was originally sent from a computer at the Mystery County Public Library from a one-use email account. Hope that helps. Let me know if you got any more questions.

Can’t wait for the ride-along. Next week?

—Max

That was one ride-along that wouldn’t really be worth it. Max was a great guy, but the information he’d sent was nearly useless. The only thing Wyatt could pull from it was that whoever had made the threat was probably a local.

The library was completely outdated; its desktop computers were still the same ones used during the advent of dial-up. No one went there to use the computers. The beasts were so slow that most people avoided them. Maybe he could run with that—the librarians might remember someone who had used them to send Bianca the threatening email. If everything went smoothly, he could get to the bottom of the email by the end of the day, Gwen could once again move to the back of his mind and things could return to his habitual, inflexible normal.

He opened the door.

Leaning against the fence was Gwen. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail as high and tight as her expression. She was looking out into the field, watching as two of his mother’s mares nibbled at the bits of grass sticking out of the snow.

“How long have you been out here?”

She turned slightly to face him, but she didn’t greet him with a smile. “Long enough to know that you slept in.”

He glanced down at his phone. It was 8:00 a.m. Most ranchers were up at five in order to get the daily chores taken care of. When he’d been working on the ranch in high school he’d followed that schedule, but now that he was on his own, he rarely forced himself to get out of bed that early. Yet Gwen undoubtedly still thought he was the kid he had once been—what would he have to do to prove that he’d changed?

“Long night,” he said, but the moment he said it, he wished he hadn’t brought it up. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about why and who had kept him awake—or the guilt he felt about his action with Carla. Nothing good would come of bringing up the events of yesterday.

Gwen lifted her chin, but thankfully didn’t say anything.

Maybe she didn’t want to talk about it either.

He was tempted to apologize, but he couldn’t say he was sorry for doing what had to be done, and he didn’t want to start a fight, so he just kept his mouth shut. He clicked the door shut behind him and made his way out to her. He leaned against the fence beside her.

She smelled like a fresh shower and the sweet fragrance of roses. It was the same shampoo she had been using since they were young, and the smell made him remember the nights they had spent making out in the bed of his truck. He’d loved those nights under the stars, flirting with the boundaries of their relationship. His fingers twitched as he recalled running them up the soft skin of her belly, his touch only to be trailed with his languishing, hungry kiss. He’d wanted to make love to her so badly.

He moved, readjusting his body, which was responding to his memories. That was all they were—memories. They were as the seasons, the heat of summer all too soon replaced by the chill of the fall.

She stepped away from him, reached down and scooped a bit of the snow together, balling it. She laughed as she pitched it at him. Most of it disintegrated in the air before a tiny bit splattered on his jacket.

“Hey, now, what was that?” he asked with a laugh. He reached down and made a snowball and gently lofted it toward her.

She ducked with a laugh and it breezed past her. “Missed me,” she teased, sticking her tongue out at him.

It reminded him of when they were younger, full of life and joy. It was as if they were innocent again, and it made him long for what they had once been.

She wiped the bits of snow off her hands. “I stopped by hoping you would show me where you found Bianca.” Her voice was tinged with sadness, and it made him wish she would just go back to throwing snowballs.

He glanced in the direction of the main house that, from where they were standing, was completely out of view thanks to a large stand of cottonwoods. The barns were behind the house, but he could have drawn them in complete detail from memory, down to the tiny carving in the hayloft of W+G 4Ever he’d cut into the soft wood when they were kids.

“There’s nothing there. It wasn’t much of a crime scene.”

“You didn’t think it was a murder either, remember?”

Ouch. He thought about arguing with her about what exactly he was and wasn’t allowed to do with his investigations, and what he’d been presented with on scene, but he bit his tongue. Apparently she was still in the anger stage of her grief. Next came depression, at least for most people, but knowing Gwen as well as he did, he doubted that she would let him see her like that again.

He rubbed his fingers together as he recalled brushing her tears from her cheeks when she’d collapsed on the floor. It probably wasn’t normal for him to feel this way, but he appreciated that moment of weakness when he’d told her about Bianca’s death. For once, he’d gotten a real reaction—a response not muted by her strength or her desire to veil the truth. Getting to have the real her was another thing he missed about their dating.

It was a rare thing in this world to know the essence of a person—especially in a small town where everyone feared the jaw-jacking of the neighbors. Any little thing could be a full-blown phone-tree emergency. It was like living in a game of telephone. What may have started out as something innocent enough would be a prison-worthy offense in under twenty-four hours—and that fear kept everything muted, even emotions.

It was maybe the thing he hated the most about living in a small town.

He pushed off the fence and walked toward his patrol unit. Gwen had parked her father’s old beat-up Ford in front of his one-car garage.

She followed close behind him. “Are you going to take me over there? Or do I just need to go and figure it out?”

Yep, definitely still in the anger phase.

“In the car,” he said, answering her with the same level of shortness.

It wasn’t really a distance worth driving, but he immersed himself in the silence between them—letting it remind him of exactly all the reasons he should cap any of his nostalgic feelings for the girl he’d once known. The Gwen beside him, while she had many of the old habits he had once loved her for, was not the same.

He would give almost anything to see that smile he’d fallen in love with, the one he’d caught a glimpse of when she pitched the snowball at him. He’d always remember that girl.

He parked in front of the stables. A little girl was standing by the front door; her hands were red from the cold but she still had her thumb planted in her mouth. He smiled as he got out of the car and gave an acknowledging nod to his former sister-in-law Alli Fitzgerald’s daughter. He’d never really cared for Alli—especially after she had cheated on Waylon—but he’d always had a soft spot for her daughter and was glad that she had chosen to raise her child on the ranch.

The little munchkin, Winnie, had curly brown hair and a smile complete with all of her baby teeth in their gapped and crooked glory. And when she smiled at him, everyone on the entire ranch knew that he was mush. Whatever the girl wanted...it was hers.

He walked around to open the door for Gwen.

“How’s it goin’, Win?” he asked, sending the little girl a playful grin.

The two-year-old bounded over to him, throwing her arms around his knees. “Wy-ant!” she cried, saying his name with two distinct syllables. “You bring candy?”

He reached into the breast pocket of his uniform where he always carried fun-sized banana taffies for Winnie. “Oh, no,” he teased. “I’m all out!”

Her plump cheeks fell and her smile disappeared as she looked up at him. “Wy-ant... Don’t tease da poor girl,” she said it with all seriousness, but he couldn’t help but laugh as her high-pitched voice mimicked her mother’s words.

“Oh, well, if you say so.” He pulled the candy from his pocket and handed it to Winnie, who took it and ran toward the barn and out of the vicinity of anywhere her mother might see her gobble the treat.

Winnie turned back as she moved to slip through the barn door. “Thank you, Wy-ant.”

Gwen stood next to him. “Looks like you have a fan.”

He looked at her and smiled. “She is something special,” he said, wanting to add that the girl wasn’t the only special one in his life, but he stopped.

Gwen looked at him and moved to speak, but stopped and then walked to the barn where Winnie had disappeared. “Where did it happen?”

He motioned forward, opened the door for her and followed her inside. The lights were on, illuminating the darkened stalls. It was quiet since the horses had already been fed and turned out for the day. The place smelled like hay and horses, a smell that always reminded him of home.

“We found her in the back pen, just there,” he said, motioning to the stall.

Gwen stood still, staring in the direction he had pointed. Aside from it being the place where they’d found Bianca’s body, it was like every other barn—stacks of hay, the tack room, stalls and a door leading to the pasture. Yet Gwen was holding her arm around her body like this was the first time they’d ever been inside, even though there was evidence in the hayloft to the contrary.

Her gaze moved to the ladder that led up to the hayloft, and for a moment, he swore he saw a smile flicker over her lips. Was she thinking about the last time they had stepped up those rungs as well?

He walked around her, hoping she was envisioning all the possibilities of giving him one more shot in the hayloft. Moving to the stall, he looked to the spot where they had found Bianca. For a moment, he could see her there again. At the time, there had been talk about calling her family in, but he was glad now, looking back, that they hadn’t. Some things couldn’t be unseen. It would be hard enough for Gwen to see Bianca in the casket—the last thing she needed was to see her sister sitting in the middle of the horse stall surrounded by dirty hay, water buckets and the hooves of a hurt and scared mare.

The horse was gone and the stall had been recently cleaned so well that he could smell the strong, suspicious scent of bleach. That was unlike his mother or the staff—normally they never used bleach out here. Some things weren’t going to get completely clean no matter how much scrubbing they did, and a horse stall was one of them.

“What happened to the horse—is she okay?” Gwen asked.

The wood of the door was rounded and smoothed by the years of horses chewing it, but as he took his hand away it still scraped at his skin.

“My mother had another vet come in and take a look at her. Luckily, the horse’s leg wasn’t broken, just a sprain.”

“I’m glad the horse is going to be okay.” She said it like it carried some measure of comfort that only one of the beings in this stall had lost its life. “Bianca would have liked to have known the horse was okay, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure she’s watching down.” As he spoke, he knew it was a platitude.

Gwen glanced over at him and put her hand on top of his. “Thanks. I know you don’t mean it, but thanks.”

Seriously, it was like she could read his mind sometimes and it scared the bejeezus out of him. As it was, however, with her warm hand on his, he would take whatever he could get. It was better than having her angry.

He took her hand in his. “I do mean it. Sort of.”

“You don’t believe in that stuff, remember?”

He shrugged. “What I believe doesn’t matter. What matters is that your sister was a good person. If there is any justice in this world, her soul will rest in peace, maybe where she can watch down on you and help keep you from finding yourself in too much trouble.” He smiled, trying to lighten the mood. He hated talk of death.

“If there was any justice in this world, Wyatt, she wouldn’t have been killed. And I wouldn’t be standing in the middle of the crime scene.”

“Actually,” a woman said, her voice cutting through the tension, “you aren’t really standing in the middle of the crime scene. Bianca died inside the stall.”

He turned to see Alli standing there, Winnie in hand, staring at them. Gwen pulled her fingers from his, and as much as he loved Winnie, he silently wished they hadn’t been interrupted.

“Heya, Alli. You’re right, but this is still part of the scene,” he said. “Come here, Winnie-girl.”

Winnie let go of her mother’s hand and scampered over, and he picked her up. She was heavy in his arms in a way that made him wish, for half a second, that he had a child of his own.

Gwen looked over at him and smiled, but the action was short-lived.

“You know, Wyatt, you don’t have to give Winnie a treat every time you see her,” Alli grumbled. “She’s getting spoiled. Soon she’s going to be a brat if you keep it up.”

He lifted Winnie so he could look up into her face. He turned her from right to left as though he was inspecting her. “Yep. Nope. Don’t see a brat here. Just see a few bats in the cave.”

Winnie giggled, the sound was infectious and he caught himself laughing with her.

“What, don’t you ever pick those boogies?” he teased.

Winnie reached up and stuck her finger in her nose. She lifted her finger for him to see. “Look, I get them boogies!” she answered excitedly.

“You’re just like your brother,” Alli said, her tone heavy with dislike. She reached over and grabbed Winnie and set her back on the ground. “Go wash your hands, girl.”

Winnie gave him a backward wave as she escaped the confines of the barn and the castigation of her mother.

“The gardens looked good this year,” he said, trying to make small talk with Alli.

She shrugged. “I’ll do better next year. It was just too dry a summer.”

He’d tried to work in the gardens one year, as his family sold their vegetables and fruits at the local farmer’s market every Saturday in the warm months, but he’d found in a single month that he had a brown thumb rather than a green one. Though, admittedly, he had been working there with their old gardener, Bernard, who’d had even less of an amicable nature than Alli. Not all professional gardeners he’d met were light on personality, but it seemed like the last couple his mother had employed were no Bob Hopes.

Then again, his mother hadn’t really hired Alli so much as been forced to bring her into the fold when Waylon had eloped with her. Now Wyatt’s brother had been gone for almost three years, but here they were stuck with the only part of him that he’d left behind.

Alli hadn’t always been rough to be around, but the day Waylon left everything likable about Alli had gone with him.

“How were the tomatoes this year?” Gwen asked, in what he assumed was some kind of olive branch.

“Not as good as I woulda liked, but I did pretty good at the market. The people in Kalispell ate them up. Get it?” She laughed at her own pun.

Gwen gave a light, polite laugh.

“That’s great.” He tried not to sound too dismissive, but with everything going on he wanted to get moving instead of getting stuck making small talk with the woman who betrayed his brother. “Do you know who cleaned up the stall? I’d like to talk to them.” He dipped his chin in the direction of the bleach jug that sat in the corner near the front door.

She looked in the direction and frowned. “I dunno. People have been coming and going ever since your crew came through and took the body out.” She turned to Gwen. “I’m sorry for your loss. It’s always hard losing someone you love.”

Gwen nodded in acknowledgment. “By chance, did anyone see a bag around here?” She stuck out her hands in measurement. “It was black, about yea big?”

“I didn’t see nothing. I ain’t been around here too much. Just saw your car out front and Winnie was munching on the candy. Put two and two together and thought I’d come say hi.” She shrugged. “If you’re looking for something specific, you might want to ask your mom, Wyatt. She’s been poking around in here.”

It didn’t surprise him that his mom would have been spending her time in here after everything had gone down—of all the folks at Dunrovin, she’d taken Bianca’s death the hardest. She had a soft spot for the vet.

“I’ll chat with her,” he said, all too aware that in the next conversation he had with his family he would have to tell them what direction the investigation had headed.

The news wouldn’t come without blowback. And that was to say nothing about what the death would do to the tourism that kept the ranch afloat. If anyone caught wind that this was a possible murder case, it would undoubtedly hurt his parents’ bottom line.

“Do you know where they dumped the hay from the stall?” Gwen asked, pulling him from thoughts of his family.

“Oh, yeah,” Alli said, her sullen frown returning. “They always take that out to the gardens. It’s high in nitrogen so I’m always making it into compost for the beds. Why?”

Gwen gave him a look, a look that told him that no matter how crappy he thought some of his investigations had been, they were going to be heading to entirely new levels.

“No, Gwen.” He shook his head. “The team already went through the stall before. They didn’t find anything. There’s no point going through...anything.”

“If you don’t want to get your hands dirty, Wyatt, that’s fine,” she said, but her tone told him there would be worse things than horse manure to deal with if he didn’t play along. “But this wasn’t their sister. I need to do everything in my power to figure out what exactly happened to Bianca. You loved her once too. I know. We both owe her to try our damnedest to solve her murder.”

Alli visibly twitched. “Murder?”

No. He hadn’t been ready for the rest of the world to learn what they had started to uncover.

He shook his head violently...almost too hard to be convincing. “No, not murder. Bianca wasn’t murdered.”

Alli raised an eyebrow. “Then what happened to her?”

He took Gwen by the hand and led her toward the back door of the barn and the gardens. “I don’t know yet, Alli...but that’s what we’re hoping to find out.” Even if it meant getting his hands dirty.

They grabbed a couple of pitchforks from the wall of tools and made their way from the barn.

“Good luck,” Alli called from behind them.

He couldn’t blame her for not joining them. Right now, he wished he was anywhere—even the prisoner transfer in Alaska—rather than here and having to do what needed to be done.

As they approached the mound of compost, Gwen pulled a bandanna out of her pocket and tied it over her face in what Wyatt assumed was an effort to save herself from breathing in the scent of manure for the next hour.

“Are you sure that you really want to do this?” he asked, sticking in his pitchfork and flipping through a frozen pile of the detritus. He could think of a thousand things he would rather being doing than going through a pile of compost for evidence they weren’t going to find.

She gave him a glance and her face was pinched tight, as though she was as disgusted by this as he was. “Just look.” She scraped at the pile.

He followed her lead, but all he could think of was how close they were and how much he’d rather be anywhere else with her.

He worked his way through the hay as diligently as he could, given the circumstances. After ten minutes, the cold had started to nibble at his fingertips. They were never going to find anything.

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