Atonement

CHAPTER THREE

DILLON WATCHED THE young woman walk down the road to where she’d left her newer-model compact car. Apparently she’d wanted to surprise him. Well, she’d done that, all right.

He couldn’t make out the plate number from where he stood, but it looked like a California license plate. His brother had been killed in Arizona. Not that far away, possibly.

What Ethan had been doing down in Arizona, Dillon had no idea. Had this woman even ever met Ethan?

On the form she’d tried to get him to sign, he’d seen that her name was Tessa Winters. But that might have also been a lie, just like swearing that Ethan was the father of her baby. Hell, he realized with a start, the woman might not even be pregnant.

He half wished he’d arrested her for trying to scam him.

As the dust settled behind her car, Dillon felt as if he’d imagined the entire encounter, like a bad dream. And yet it nagged at him. He kept recalling her expression when she’d seen the photographs. There was no way she could have been acting. She’d been shocked, but not half as shocked as she’d been when she’d looked at the newspaper clippings.

She hadn’t known Ethan was dead.

Dillon shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. Maybe that was why it had left him so upset. When she’d gotten a good look at him earlier, she’d fainted. Or at least she’d pretended to.

He tried to brush off the whole incident. The woman had tried to run some kind of con on him. It hadn’t worked. Case closed.

Going back to the table, he gathered up the photos and clippings. The newspaper clippings were worn from looking at them so many times. It had been a horrendous accident. According to the coroner Dillon had spoken with in Arizona, speed and alcohol had been involved.

He was hit again with guilt for not saving his brother. The fact that he’d tried when they were younger didn’t count. He should have tried harder, he thought as he put the photos and newspaper clippings back in the drawer where he kept them. Ethan was gone. He had to accept that. Or at least try to live with it.

But the woman had left him stirred up. He couldn’t work with the filly now. The horse would sense his tension. He’d thought he was handling the one-year anniversary of his brother’s death fairly well—until the woman had shown up.

Gathering himself up, he decided the best thing he could do was some good, hard, physical labor. He headed for the horse stalls. Nothing like mucking stalls to wear himself out.

It had been a mild winter. Today the sun felt warm on his back as he walked to the barn, but the breeze had a nip to it, and he’d heard on the radio earlier that there was talk of snow in the mountains in the next day or so.

Spring in Montana could be a terrible tease. One day would be beautiful and the next as much like winter as a day in January. Dillon had seen thirty-six springs come and go. His father used to say a bad Montana spring after a long winter was what separated the men from the boys.

Maybe it was true. His mother certainly hadn’t fared well on those snowy spring days. She said an unpredictable spring broke not only its promise, but ultimately your heart. Dillon figured that might also be true of the man she’d married. It probably explained, too, why his mother had left on a snowy spring day.

He shook his head at the thought. His mother should have left the old man many springs before she did. Dillon had given up hope of her ever escaping, so he’d been as shocked as his father when she’d finally done it. Not by packing up and leaving, like she should have done years before. No, it had taken an aneurysm to free her of Burt Lawson. She’d died in her sleep in the bed next to him.

Burt Lawson was a heartless bastard. Anyone who’d ever met him would tell you that, including his two sons. That was why no one had expected that Erma’s dying would break the old man the way it had—especially not Dillon. Apparently Burt had had a heart after all. Her passing had killed him, turning him into an even more bitter old man before death took him.

Dillon pushed away thoughts of the past and, entering the barn, picked up a shovel and went to work.

He spent the rest of the day doing backbreaking labor, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t get the incident with the woman off his mind. He told himself she probably wasn’t even pregnant. There were forms a woman could buy to look that way. But his mind kept coming back to why she would come all the way to Montana when it was so easy to prove she was lying.

He hated things that made no sense. It was one reason why he’d been drawn to law enforcement. He liked to think that crimes could be solved with a cool, calm logic. He was a man who believed in justice.

Just thinking of the .45 in the woman’s shoulder bag made him sorry again that he hadn’t arrested her. She’d threatened an officer of the law with what he assumed was a loaded weapon, and she’d tried to extort money from him in the most egregious way.

Well, she’d realized her mistake once she’d seen the photos and Ethan’s obit, he thought. Her attempt to blame Dillon had failed, so she’d packed it up and left before even telling him how much money he’d allegedly stolen from her.

And that form releasing the biological father of any right to the baby... That, he was sure, had been for pure show.

After she’d learned that he was undersheriff of this county, she’d backed down quickly enough. Had she done her homework, she’d have known that. Nope, she wouldn’t be back to try to shake him down again.

So why was he wondering where she’d gone?

* * *

TESSA TRIED TO still the pounding of her heart as she drove into Big Timber. It had always been like this. The man evoked feelings and desires in her like no other man ever had. She’d seen something in him, a sweetness that he’d tried hard to hide. Wasn’t that why she’d overlooked her misgivings and let him into her heart?

She shook her head, furious with herself. After everything the man had done to her, part of her had been drawn to this rancher version of Ethan even more strongly than to the old Ethan. It was when she’d seen him working with the filly. She remembered the way his large, tanned, callused hands had stroked the horse’s neck, the soft words he’d uttered as he’d removed the halter rope.

Chastising herself under her breath, she couldn’t believe she’d let him sucker her in again, and now she was leaving without her money—or the signed form that would relinquish his rights to their child. She felt like pulling the car over and just sitting and bawling.

But Tessa swore that she wouldn’t shed any more tears for the man. She couldn’t believe he’d used his dead brother’s name. What kind of man did that?

If it was true and the real Ethan Lawson had been killed in a car wreck one year ago tomorrow, then no wonder the man she’d known hadn’t mentioned that he had an identical twin. He had stolen Ethan’s identity. Was it any surprise that a man like that would steal her heart and her money?

Sick to her stomach at the realization, she wished she’d asked for copies of the newspaper clippings. But she should be able to verify it online....

Part of her argued for putting it all behind her. How could she, though, when she was carrying the man’s baby? She couldn’t have him showing up one day and trying to take her child.

Ahead she slowed as she spotted a motel not far from the Yellowstone River just outside town. The small Western town of Big Timber, Montana, didn’t quite live up to its name. She didn’t see any big timber. The pioneers must have cut all the trees down when they’d built the town. How ironic, she thought as she pulled in front of the motel unit marked Office.

After checking in, Tessa used her phone to go online to verify Ethan’s death. She felt foolish. But when the man she’d known as Ethan had disappeared, even if he had given her his real last name, she still wouldn’t have thought to search for him online. A self-professed saddle tramp, he’d appeared to be a cowboy who worked on ranches where he got room and board. She had doubted he’d ever had an apartment, paid a utility bill or owned more than his old pickup and his saddle. Which meant no paper trail, so she hadn’t even bothered to look.

No, when he’d taken off without a word in the middle the night with her money and hadn’t returned, Tessa hadn’t gone to a computer to find him. She hadn’t planned on going after him at all. What would be the point? She certainly hadn’t wanted a man like that back.

But then she’d found a dog-eared snapshot he’d left behind, and very pregnant and running on emotions like gas fumes, she’d changed her mind about finding him. She’d wanted to look him in the eye one last time.

And now she had.

* * *

FRANK CURRY COULDN’T believe how much time had passed since he’d turned in his star and gun and walked away from the only job he’d ever loved. He’d been ready to quit being sheriff, furious with the system that couldn’t find his ex-wife, Pam Chandler, and put her behind bars.

Pam had attacked him, tried to kill the only woman he’d ever loved and done horrible things to the daughter he hadn’t known existed until a year ago.

Now as he stood looking at the calendar hanging on his kitchen wall, he was thankful that his undersheriff, Dillon Lawson, had insisted he take a leave of absence instead of quitting.

His six months were up today and he was anxious to get back to his job. He’d missed being sheriff and had come to realize how much he needed it. For months now, he’d been on a quest to find Pam and put an end to the horrible things she’d done to the people he loved. He’d been crazed and was now thankful he’d finally found peace.

Glancing up, he peered out the window at his ranch yard and realized what had caught his eye. A bird had landed on the telephone line that ran from his house to the barn.

Frank blinked, his pulse jumping with both surprise and pleasure. He froze, afraid to move for fear the bird would fly away. Or worse, that it would prove to be a pesky magpie instead of a crow. He’d studied crows for years, having had a family of them on the ranch.

The crows had been the one constant in his life, other than his job. He’d named the birds, could tell them apart by their calls and thought of them as family. He’d been more than heartbroken when last year one of his crows had been killed. The family had left, warning other crows of the danger. For months he hadn’t seen a crow on his property.

Until now.

He told himself it was sign that the worst was behind him.

* * *

AFTER A RESTLESS night, Dillon was surprised to get a call from Frank Curry. “Frank, it’s good to hear from you.” It was early, but he was up, dressed and ready to go to work.

“I wanted to see how you were doing,” the sheriff said.

Frank’s six-month administrative leave was coming to an end. Dillon hoped the sheriff was calling to say he was ready to come back to work. Frank had been the best sheriff he’d ever run across—that was, until Frank’s ex-wife had done everything possible to break him. Dillon had feared that the woman was going to succeed.

“How I’m doing?” Dillon said with a laugh. “Shouldn’t that be what I’m asking you?”

“I’m fine. I’ve been doing a lot of repairs around the ranch, riding my horse up in the Crazies some and, of course, visiting my daughter.”

“How is Tiffany?” Dillon asked.

“Okay.” In other words, the same hateful girl who’d tried to kill her father. Dillon knew that the sheriff had spent a lot of time at the state mental hospital, visiting her. Recently he’d heard that a court date might be set for Tiffany’s hearing. If found competent, she would stand trial as an adult even though she’d been only seventeen when, allegedly brainwashed by her bitter mother, she’d tried to kill Frank.

“Guess what? There’s a crow sitting on my phone line to the barn,” Frank said.

Dillon could hear how that cheered Frank. He knew Frank needed something positive in his life. The sheriff had always enjoyed watching the crows that had taken up residence in his yard.

“They are so much like humans,” Frank had once told him. They’d been on a stakeout, and Frank had pointed out the way the crows reacted to each other. Dillon had never paid much attention to the birds before that. He’d always thought a crow was a sign of death or some dark omen or another.

But Frank saw the birds as good luck. He’d watched his family of crows grow on his ranch and had become very attached to them. Then Frank’s daughter, Tiffany, had killed one out of spite. The rest of the birds had left and hadn’t returned. Until now. Maybe.

“One of the crows saved my life that day,” Frank had told him. “It flew at Tiffany, distracting her and allowing me to get the gun away from her, otherwise I wouldn’t be here today.”

Dillon wasn’t sure he believed the bird had purposely helped Frank, but as long as Frank did, that was all that mattered. He’d quit asking Frank if his crows had come back.

“Dillon, I was worried about you. I know what today is,” Frank was saying. “How are you holding up?”

It surprised him that Frank had remembered, with everything the man had been going through. “Ethan’s on my mind, of course, but I’m okay. Thanks for thinking of me, though. How are you doing?”

“I’m thinking I will come back to work today.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard yet,” Dillon said, and couldn’t help smiling. Frank sounded better. No, more than that. He sounded good. Had he finally accepted things?

While the entire country had been looking for Pam Chandler for months, she hadn’t turned up. It was as if she’d dropped off the face of the earth. Dillon had feared that Frank’s obsession with finding his ex-wife would be the downfall of not only his career, but also his life.

Even though Dillon had finally talked him into taking six months, he’d had little hope that Frank would return to the job if Pam wasn’t found. It had been so hard to see Frank go down that long, dark road. He’d feared Frank would end up finding Pam, killing her and going to prison.

“How was New Mexico?” Dillon asked now.

Frank laughed softly. “I should have known you were keeping track of me. I chased down a lead, but no one down there has seen Pam since she cleared out a year ago. How is the drug investigation going?”

A shipment of cocaine with a street value of over five million dollars had disappeared from a plane that had crashed in the Beartooth Mountains, south of Big Timber, early last summer. The pilot had been killed in the crash, and four others ended up dead before it was over, two of them murdered by an unknown assailant.

“No more leads,” Dillon said. “The DEA has the case. I assume you didn’t find a connection to the drugs in New Mexico?” He’d seen the phone numbers on one of the drug runner’s cell and had discovered, as he was sure Frank had, that the man had called the ranch where Frank’s ex-wife had been staying. It was a thin connection and apparently it hadn’t panned out.

“I couldn’t find anything that would suggest they knew each other in New Mexico, even though they’d lived in the same town. Nor did I find any connection to Judge Bull Westfall where Pam had been staying.”

“I’m sorry, Frank. As you know, we have an APB out on Pam. But we haven’t gotten any hits.” Normally an easygoing, excellent sheriff, Frank had been pushed to his limit by his ex. Pam was dangerous. She’d done terrible things to Frank since their divorce. One of the worst was not telling him she was pregnant when they’d split eighteen years ago, and raising her daughter, Tiffany, to hate the father she’d never even met—until last year. Since then, Frank had been working to keep the girl out of prison—and getting her the mental help she needed at the state hospital.

“I should let you go. You probably need to get to work. Speaking of work, I’m headed that way myself. See you at the office.” Dillon had been acting sheriff in Frank’s absence and realized how little he liked being the boss. “Your star and gun are in my desk drawer. It’s great to have you back.”

Dillon had almost mentioned the woman who’d shown up at his ranch yesterday, but figured he could talk to him about it later back at the office. Frank was a good sounding board, and he’d need it. The woman had thrown him for a loop.

He left the house and drove the twenty-five miles into Big Timber from his ranch out in the valley. He’d just crossed the Yellowstone River, the water a clear cool green, when he spotted Tessa Winters’s car. It was parked in front of a motel on the edge of town.

He slowed, telling himself there was no reason to stop. He’d said his piece yesterday. But it bothered him that the woman was still in town. She’d made this already hard day even tougher with her accusations. Just seeing her car put him in a foul mood.

What was she still doing here? He couldn’t bear the thought that she might go around town telling people that a man she thought was Ethan Lawson had not only impregnated her, but also abandoned her and stolen her money.

Against his better judgment, he swung into the motel parking lot, pulled alongside the woman’s car and got out.

All the curtains were drawn across the motel room windows. This time of the morning any guests from last night were long gone—except for Tessa Winters. Leaning down, he peered into her car. His brother’s vehicles had often been filled with fast-food containers and beer cans, growing up. Ethan had never been neat.

Wouldn’t a person expect Ethan’s “girlfriend” to be just as bad? The immaculate interior of her newer-model car seemed to prove she was lying about ever living with his brother. He tried the passenger-side door. Locked. He knew he should just walk away. More than likely the woman was just getting a late start this morning. She would clear out of town and he could put her accusations behind him.

But being the law enforcement officer he was, he walked around the car and took down the license plate number. He realized he was still upset that the woman had tried to shake him down. For all he knew, she might have a police record a mile long.

Stepping back to his own vehicle, he ran her plates. No priors. The woman was squeaky-clean. Even the car checked out.

There was only one red flag. The car was owned by Tessa Winters of Rancho Mirage, California—a town not that far at all from where Ethan had been killed near Parker, Arizona.

CHAPTER FOUR

SHERIFF FRANK CURRY loved her.

Nettie Benton felt a rush of heat as she watched Frank get out of his pickup and start up the steps to the Beartooth General Store.

She’d waited years to hear those words, and finally had six months ago. That knowledge was the only thing that had kept her going in the months since he’d confessed how he felt about her. She’d seen little of him during that time. She’d known he’d been trying to find his ex-wife, and she had lived in fear of what he would do when he did. She’d never seen him so angry, and while she didn’t blame him for wanting to kill Pam, she prayed he would come to his senses before he did anything that could land him in prison.

They would all sit easier if Pam was gone for good, Nettie especially, since the crazy woman had tried to run her down out in the street in front of the store. But that had been months ago, and there’d been no sign of Pam since.

The bell over the front door jangled, and Frank walked into the store. At just the sight of him, Nettie felt like she had as a girl. Frank Curry was a large broad-shouldered man who looked like an old-time sheriff. He had a thick, drooping, blond mustache flecked with gray, and a weathered Montana look that belied the gentleness in him. He wore jeans, boots, a uniform shirt and a gold star, his gray Stetson resting on a full head of graying blond hair.

To her he would always be that young man who’d shown up at her house on a motorcycle, wanting her to run away with him. His hair had been long and blond as summer wheat back then. He’d been wild and carefree and had made her heart race at just the sight of him.

No wonder her mother had talked her out of going off with Frank. Instead Nettie had married dull, safe Bob Benton. His parents had given them the store, which was something Bob had never had one iota of interest in running.

The store, though, had saved her during all those years of marriage to Bob. But now he was gone, and the ink on the divorce papers had dried a long time ago.

All water under the bridge, Nettie thought as she smiled at the sheriff. “Glad to see you back in uniform.” Like everyone else, she’d been worried he would never go back to being sheriff. Just as she had worried that he would never love her again. She’d broken his heart. Or at least that was what he’d told her all those years ago.

He gave a slight nod, his smile racing straight to her heart. “It feels good. I’m sorry I haven’t been by for so long—”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said as he made his way to her. “No apologies are necessary.”

“Yes, they are. You asked me to fix your office door months ago. Is it still sticking?”

She nodded and smiled. “I just don’t close it.”

“Otherwise you would be locked in?” He shook his head.

“It’s no big deal. I can always call Kate across the street to come get me out. Anyway, you’ve had more important things on your mind. The usual?” She was already getting him an orange soda from the cooler.

“I’ve missed you,” he said as she opened the bottle on an old-fashioned opener on the wall and handed it to him. Their fingers brushed and she felt that familiar thrill.