Gun-Shy Bride

“So, catch any poachers lately?” his cousin asked as he cast out into the pond and sat down on the edge of the earthen dam. It was an inside joke, something Buzz had always asked from the time Luke had become a game warden.

“A few,” he answered, just as he always did with Buzz.

Eugene laughed as he watched his red-and-white bobber float on the dark surface of the water. Long shadows lay across the pond, the sky behind him ablaze with the setting sun.

Luke suspected his cousin hadn’t just come out here to fish.

“Sit down,” Eugene said, an edge to his voice. “You look like any minute you’re going to check my fishing license.”

It would be just like his cousin not to have one. Eugene liked to push the limits.

“I told you. I’ve got to get some sleep,” Luke said, realizing he wasn’t up to dealing with Eugene’s problems right now, or his excuses.

“Sure. I know. You have a job,” Eugene said sarcastically.

“Whatever it is, I’m really not up to it tonight.”

“Yeah, you got your own problems, huh. Don’t want to hear about mine.” His cousin swore, reeled his line in, checked the bait and threw it back out. “I need money. I’m not screwing with you. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Luke sighed. “How much are we talking?”

“Fifty grand.”

He let out a low whistle. “How the hell did you—”

“You’re starting to sound like Buzz,” Eugene said in a warning tone.

“Sorry, but that’s a lot of money.”

“You think I don’t know that? I just made a few bad bets down in Billings and now they’re threatening to kill me.”

It was Luke’s turn to swear. “How long are they giving you to come up with the money?”

“Six weeks, but that was two months ago,” Eugene said. “I’ve heard they’re looking for me.”

“I don’t have that kind of money.” Luke had invested most everything he had in the house and land.

“You could put this place up. It’s got to be worth a bunch. How many acres do you have here, anyway?”

Luke felt as if he’d been sucker punched. He waited until his initial anger had passed. “I can’t do that,” he said, turning to leave. He wasn’t stupid enough that he didn’t know what would happen if he put up his place for the money. “There are already two mortgages on it.”

“Even ten thou would help,” Eugene said, pleading. He didn’t seem to notice the tip of his rod bend as a fish took the bait.

The fish was the only one taking the bait today. “Sorry.” This was one mess Eugene would have to get out of on his own.

“Yeah, sure you’re sorry,” Eugene said bitterly.

Luke’s cell phone rang. He checked it and groaned inwardly. “I have to take this.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

Luke hated leaving things this way between them. He wished there was something more he could say. But the only thing Eugene wanted to hear was that Luke was going to bail him out, just as he had done too many times in the past.

Instead, as he left he pointed to his cousin’s pole. “You have a fish.”

McCall was on the outskirts of Whitehorse when she got the call on her cell phone. The moment she heard the sheriff’s voice, she knew.

“Where are you?” Grant asked.

“On the edge of town. Something up?” She hadn’t heard anything on her radio. There was little crime in Whitehorse. The weekly sheriff’s reports consisted of barking dogs, checks on elderly residents, calls about teens making too much noise and a few drunk and disorderlies.

The sheriff seemed to hesitate. “Pepper Winchester phoned me.”

McCall had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Still, it hit with a thud that set off her pulse. Hadn’t she known this would happen? And yet, she’d hoped blood really was thicker than water.

“Pepper seemed to think you were on sheriff’s department business, investigating her son’s disappearance,” Grant said. “I assured her that wasn’t the case. I can understand how you might have wanted to see her.”

McCall said nothing, hating the pity she heard in his voice. He thought the only reason she’d gone out there was to see her grandmother.

He cleared his throat. “She said if you came back she’d have you arrested for trespassing. I’m sorry.”

McCall bit back an unladylike retort. Her grandmother was turning out to be everything she’d heard she was, and the sheriff’s sympathy wasn’t helping.

“It might be a good idea to stay away from the Winchester Ranch,” Grant said before he hung up.

As she pulled into Whitehorse, McCall’s two-way radio squawked. She listened for a moment as the dispatcher said there’d been a call about a disturbance at the Mint Bar.

She started to let the other deputy on duty pick it up since she was off the clock.

But when she heard who was involved, she said she’d take the call and swung into a parking space outside the Mint.

She heard Rocky’s voice the moment she opened the bar door. A small crowd had gathered around the rock collector. As she walked in, she recognized most of the men. One in particular made her regret she’d taken the call.

Rocky was at the center of the trouble but in the mix was Eugene Crawford. At a glance, she saw that both men were drunk. Eugene as usual looked as if he was itching for a fight.

“Excuse me,” she said, easing her way into the circle of men around Rocky. Closing her hand around Rocky’s upper arm, she said, “It’s time to go home.”

“Well, look who it is,” Eugene said. “It’s the girl deputy.”

Eugene had been the school bully and she’d been his target. It was bad enough in grade school, but in high school it had gotten worse after she turned him down for a date.

“If you gentlemen will excuse us,” McCall said, drawing Rocky away from the fracas.

“What’s this about some grave Rocky found south of town?” Crawford demanded.

“Probably just a fish story like the one you told when you came in,” one of the men ribbed Eugene.

McCall led Rocky toward the door. He was being the perfect docile drunk. A few more feet and they would be out of the bar.

“I asked you a question, Deputy,” Eugene said, coming up behind her and grabbing her arm.

“Let go,” she said as he tightened his grip on her. “Let go now, Eugene.” He smelled of fish and sweat and meanness.

“Or what? You going to arrest me?” His nails bit into her flesh. “Try it,” he said and gave her a shove, slamming her into the jukebox.

She staggered but didn’t fall. “Going to need some backup,” McCall said into her radio as Rocky leaped to her defense.

Before she could stop him, Eugene coldcocked Rocky, who hit the floor hard. Eugene was turning to take on the others who’d jumped in when the bartender came over the bar with his baseball bat.

It took McCall, Deputy Nick Giovanni and the bartender to get Eugene Crawford restrained and into handcuffs. Nick took Eugene to the jail while McCall drove Rocky home. He was quiet most of the ride.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked as she walked him to his front door. “I’d feel better if I took you by the emergency room at the hospital.”

“I’m fine,” Rocky said, looking sheepish. “I guess I have a glass jaw, as they say.”

“Eugene hit you awfully hard.”

Rocky seemed to have sobered up some. “You know that was a grave I found, don’t you?”

McCall said nothing.

“I know I said I thought it was old, but it wasn’t. And it wasn’t no Indian grave like Eugene was saying, and I think you know that, too.”

She patted his shoulder. “Get some rest.” As she turned toward her pickup, all she wanted was to go home and put this day behind her.

But as she drove the few miles out of town and turned down the river road to her small old cabin beside the Milk River, she saw the pickup parked in her yard.

She slowed as she recognized the logo on the side of the truck. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. She felt her heart drop as she pulled alongside and Game Warden Luke Crawford climbed out.

LUKE HATED THE WAY HE FELT as he watched McCall walk toward him. He was again that awkward, tonguetied, infatuated seventeen-year-old—just as he’d been the first time he’d ever kissed McCall Winchester.

A lot of things had changed in the years since, but not that.

“Luke?” She stopped in front of her pickup. One hand rested on her hip just above the grip of her weapon. She was still in uniform except for her hat. Some of her long dark hair had come loose from the clip at the nape of her neck and now fell over one shoulder.

He tipped his hat. “Sorry to bother you.”

She frowned, clearly waiting for him to tell her what the hell he was doing here. She had to have heard he was back in town.

“I got another call tonight about some poaching down in the river bottom,” he said.

“On my property?”

He pointed down into the thicket of tangled willows and cottonwoods. “On the place down the river, but I believe they used the river road to get in and out so they had to have gone right past your place. I was wondering if you heard anything last night? Would have probably been between two and four this morning.”

“I pulled the late shift last night so I wasn’t around. Sorry.”

He nodded and asked who else knew her schedule.

“You saying the poachers knew I would be gone last night?”

“It crossed my mind. Your place is the closest.”

She leaned against the front of her pickup, clearly not intending to ask him inside. The Little Rockies in the distance were etched a deep purple against the twilight. He noticed in the waning light that she looked exhausted.

“Rough day?” he asked, feeling the cool air come up out of the river bottom.

“You could say that.” She was studying him, waiting as if she expected him to tell her the real reason he was here.

But he’d said everything years ago and she hadn’t believed him then. No reason she’d believe him now.

He closed his notebook. “I’d appreciate it if you kept an eye out and gave me a call if you see or hear anything.”

She pushed herself off the front of her pickup. “You bet.”

“The poachers are driving a pickup, probably a half ton or three-quarter-ton four-wheel drive.”

“Like half the residents in this county,” she said.

“Narrows it right down for me.” He smiled, hat in his hand, thinking that even as exhausted as McCall was she’d never looked more beautiful. He told himself to just get in his truck and get out of there before he said something he’d regret.

She smiled, a tired almost sad smile. “Well, I hope you catch ‘em.”

“Me, too.” He put on his hat, tipped it, and turned toward his pickup. As he slid behind the wheel, he saw that she’d gone inside her cabin. The lights glowed golden through the windows. He sat for a moment, wishing—

Mentally he gave himself a swift kick and started the truck, annoyed for going down that old trail of thought. From the beginning he and McCall hadn’t stood a chance, not with the bad blood between their families. He’d been a fool to think that they did.

But for a while, she’d made him believe they were destined to be together, star-crossed lovers who’d found a way. They’d been young and foolish. At least he had, he thought as he left.

He didn’t dare glance back, knowing he was wasting his time if he thought she cared a plugged nickel for him.

If he had looked back, though, he would have seen her standing in the deepening shadows of her deck, hugging herself against the cool of the night, watching him drive away.

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