Atonement
His eyes widened as the baby kicked his hand. He felt its little foot just below the surface. The movement awakened some primitive emotion deep inside him, because he felt an instant connection to this child she was carrying. Ethan’s baby.
Tessa smiled. “That’s your niece.”
He nodded, praying she was telling the truth, because it would mean Ethan was alive—or at least had been only months ago—and part of his brother lived in this woman. Being his brother’s identical twin, Dillon felt as if he was part of this child, as well.
If what she said was true, Tessa had been close to his brother, something he himself hadn’t been for years. If true, she, too, had loved Ethan. No doubt still did. Because of that, he couldn’t let her go after Ethan alone. The only way he could protect her and this baby was to keep her close. If it was true, she might know more about his brother than he did. Between them, they might stand a chance of finding Ethan—if he really was alive.
He couldn’t help being skeptical. It came with the job. He met Tessa’s gaze. His brother was alive. But where was he now? And how was Dillon going to find him? Ethan hadn’t used his real name when he’d met Tessa. That must mean someone had been looking for him.
“I’ll see what I can find out through regular channels,” Dillon said. “In the meantime, I don’t want you staying in a motel.” Before she could argue, he quickly added, “Come stay out at the ranch. I have plenty of room. You’ll be more comfortable there.”
“And you can keep an eye on me.”
“And vice versa.”
She pretended surprise. “Did you think I might suspect you’d go after Ethan without me?”
He smiled. “In the meantime, I want you to have this.” He began to fill out a check for five thousand dollars.
“I already told you—”
“It’s just a loan until we find Ethan and he can pay you back what he owes.” He held out the check.
She glanced at him and the check for a moment before taking it. “A loan. Only until we find Ethan.”
Part of him called himself a damned fool. He could be five thousand dollars poorer tomorrow—if she didn’t steal him blind at the house before disappearing as quickly as she’d appeared in his life.
But once he’d felt that tiny foot against his palm, Tessa Winters had had him.
* * *
THE FIRST THING Dillon did was check to see if anyone had disappeared around the time of Ethan’s alleged death in the desert. He found what he was looking for in a short police report about a wrangler who’d been reported missing from a dude ranch near Palm Springs. The man had left behind his truck and some of his belongings.
There was just the one mention of the missing man. No follow-up. The man’s name was Buck Morgan. His former address, though, was Wisdom, Montana.
Dillon had a bad feeling the man was now buried in the local cemetery under Ethan’s headstone. He remembered the day he’d laid his brother to rest. There hadn’t been a funeral. No one in the area knew Ethan, and Dillon wouldn’t have taken his brother’s remains back to western Montana. Too many bad memories there for both brothers.
Had Ethan been watching the day Dillon had placed the ashes in the container at the grave site? That thought made him both angry and incredibly sad—and even more determined to find his brother, if indeed he was still alive.
The last Dillon had heard, his brother was working on a ranch over on the Powder River near Ekalaka, Montana. But that had been two years ago, and Ethan had never stayed in any one place long.
Dillon put in a call to the ranch just in case the owner might have known where Ethan was headed next. Possibly Wisdom, Montana?
When the ranch owner answered, he introduced himself as Undersheriff Dillon Lawson of Big Timber.
“Ethan Lawson, oh, you bet I remember him,” the female ranch owner said, giving Dillon a bad feeling he knew what was coming next. “He left here owing me money. Any chance you’re a relative?”
“Brother. How much does he owe you?”
“Two hundred.”
“I’ll put a check in the mail today,” Dillon said, wondering how much it was going to cost him by the time he was through looking for his twin. “Do you happen to know where he went after he left your ranch?”
“Not likely, since he left in the middle of the night. The two of them absconding in the night like the thieves they were. The other one got me for five hundred. I don’t suppose you want to pick up his tab, as well?”
“The other one?”
“Luke Blackwell. Running with him, your brother was headed for trouble. I hired Luke against my better judgment, since when I checked the ranch he’d worked for I was warned that he’d gotten involved with the rancher’s granddaughter. Luke gave me some song and dance about the girl chasing him. I weakened. Big mistake. Last I heard, Luke did some hard time in Deer Lodge. Not surprised.”
“Do you know what he went to prison for?” Dillon asked.
“Felony theft. He was caught stealing a backhoe. The bum actually tried to get me to give him a recommendation before the parole board hearing, promising to offer him a job when he got out. Like I would ever let him back on my ranch. If you’re looking for your brother, he’ll be wherever Luke went after he got out. The two were thicker than thieves.” She chuckled bitterly.
Dillon asked for her address, thanked her for the information and hung up. He quickly checked to see how Luke Blackwell had fared with the judicial system.
Luke had done only eighteen months in prison before his release. He had gotten a rancher by the name of Halbrook Truman of the Double T-Bar-Diamond to promise him a job when he got out.
The Double T-Bar-Diamond was in Big Hole country over by Wisdom, Montana. Dillon felt his heart beat a little faster. He’d never trusted coincidences. As he started to place a call to the ranch, he changed his mind. He hadn’t been to that part of southwestern Montana in years. It was only a half day’s drive, one he wouldn’t mind taking.
Also, he was curious why Halbrook Truman had hired Luke Blackwell. Felons had a hard time getting jobs. If the rancher had checked into Luke’s past at all, he would have found out just how unreliable the man was—not to mention that he’d gone to prison for theft. But maybe Luke had proved he could change and now still worked at the ranch.
With Sheriff Frank Curry back at work, there was no reason Dillon couldn’t follow up on this. He called the cell phone number Tessa Winters had given him before he’d left her at the ranch. She answered on the second ring, sounding breathless.
“Are you all right?” he asked alarmed.
“Fine, I left my cell phone on the porch. I was down at the corral admiring your horses.”
With relief, he asked, “Did Ethan ever mention working on a ranch called the Double T-Bar-Diamond?” He heard her start to say no just before he quickly added, “For a man named Halbrook Truman?”
“Halbrook,” she said. “I have heard that name. Who is he?”
“A rancher over in western Montana. I think Ethan might have worked for him before he left for Arizona. I’m going over there to talk to him.”
“Not without me.”
He smiled and shook his head, telling himself he should have known she wouldn’t sit tight for long. The woman was resolute. Look how she’d found him. He wondered if he would have ever known there was even a chance Ethan was alive if she hadn’t shown up at his door.
“In that case, how do you feel about a road trip? It will also give us a chance to talk.” There was so much he wanted to know. About Ethan—and whatever trouble his twin had gotten himself into.
But he was also very curious about Tessa Winters.
CHAPTER SIX
DILLON GLANCED AT the young pregnant woman in his passenger seat. Not for the first time, he saw her turn to look behind them.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
She seemed startled by the question and reticent to answer. “You’ll think I’m silly, but I’ve had the strangest feeling I was being followed.”
“All the way from California?”
“Crazy, huh?”
Maybe. Maybe not. Who knew what kind of people his brother had gotten involved with? It scared him, though, to think that the trouble might have followed her.
“You said on the phone earlier that you recognized the name Halbrook,” he said.
She nodded. “A man stopped by a day or two before Ethan left. Ethan went outside to talk to him, but I overheard them arguing. Ethan mentioned the name Halbrook. It’s unusual enough, I remembered it.”
“Did you ask Ethan what the argument was about?”
“He told me he owed the man money. I asked how much and suggested he use the money I had in savings to pay the man. I hadn’t liked the look of the man and didn’t want him coming back around.”
“Ethan didn’t jump at that?”
“He said he didn’t want my money, that it was for our house.” She scoffed at that now. “He knew I’d put the money in both our names. Talk about trusting.”
“Tell me about you,” Dillon said, and glanced over at her. “If you don’t mind.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you’d like to share with me.”
* * *
TESSA THOUGHT ABOUT that for a moment. More to the point, what did she really know about Dillon? He wasn’t his brother—that much was clear. He was a man who worked both as an undersheriff and at his own ranch. He was kind and generous and compassionate, and he’d taken an entirely different route in life than his brother had.
What scared her was that in Dillon she glimpsed what she had wanted to see in his twin. She knew it was crazy, but Ethan had been just enough like his brother that she felt she already knew Dillon. She trusted him, and trust didn’t come easily to her. Ethan’s betrayal had only made her less trusting.
“I was born and raised in California. My parents were killed in a car wreck when I was two. I was in the car, but I miraculously survived. A neighbor lady took me in and raised me until her death, when I was sixteen. After that, I was on my own.” She’d purposely left out the part about the foster homes the county had put her in. She’d barely survived those with her life. That had been the real miracle.
Dillon studied her for a moment before turning back to his driving. He seemed to sense the parts she’d left out and was kind enough not to ask.
“You want more for your daughter,” he said after a moment.
“Of course I do,” she said. “I suppose that is the real reason I came all this way looking for Ethan. I wanted to give him another chance to be a father to our daughter.”
“What about another chance with you?”
She shook her head. “He used up his last chance when he left the way he did.”
* * *
DILLON COULD SEE what his brother had seen in Tessa. Ethan would have liked her independence, the fire in her, not to mention her beauty both inside and out. Ethan had chosen well. So why had he burned his bridges when he’d left?
Because he’d known he wouldn’t be back?
“I’m sorry my brother hurt you,” Dillon said as the Montana countryside blurred past, a tableau of shades of green from the new bright grasses to the deeper, richer shades of the cool pines. The mountains rose around them, most still snowcapped.
“It was my own fault.” She turned as if to gaze out at the passing landscape.
“You must have seen something good in him. Isn’t it possible he really did want to change? Really did want everything he said he did?”
She let out a sound that made him hurt inside. “Better to think that than I’m a fool who was taken in by a handsome cowboy, right?”
He could see that Tessa had thought herself smarter. She’d let herself be fooled by a man. She hadn’t yet learned that love was a heart thing, often with no brain involved.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. He hadn’t thought to check for a tail. Then again, he hadn’t thought he needed to. There were cars and pickups and a couple semis behind them. If they were being followed, he couldn’t tell.
“There was no warning?” he asked, hoping to get her talking about Ethan.
“The signs were there. I just chose not to see them.”
“Signs?”
“He’d been more moody in the days right before he left. Antsy and uncharacteristically impatient. More secretive, too. If I asked him where he’d been or what he was looking at on the computer—”
“He had a computer?” This surprised Dillon. Ethan had ranted about the new technologies on his visit two years ago. He’d said that was why he worked on ranches. He didn’t have to learn how to use a computer, let alone a smartphone.
Tessa’s chuckle had a bitter edge to it. “No, he didn’t own a computer. Other than his old pickup and his saddle, had he ever owned anything?”
“So he used yours. Do you still have it?” He could see that she understood at once.
“I checked it after he left. I thought...” She looked away.
He knew exactly what she’d thought. An online romance with another woman.
“He had said he was looking for a new saddle. I showed him how to use a search engine. He wasn’t dumb. He didn’t ask for my help after that.”
Dillon knew his brother wasn’t shopping on the internet for a saddle. So what had he been looking for? “Did he find a saddle?”
Another short laugh. “He wasn’t looking for a saddle. He was looking for a gun.”
“A gun?” Dillon asked.
“He had guns—a .357 he kept rolled up in its holster beside the bed, and a hunting rifle, a .30 Winchester, that hung on the rack in his pickup. Both were old. I suspect they meant something to him?”
“Our uncle Jack gave him the .357 before Jack died. The Winchester was our grandfather’s.” Dillon was a little surprised, given his brother’s lifestyle, that he’d somehow managed to hang on to them.
He’d never thought of Ethan as being sentimental. Nor had he seemed like someone who cared about possessions. More and more Dillon was realizing how little he knew his twin.
He cracked his window, needing air. The more he learned about his brother, the more sick at heart he became. The lush spring Montana landscape was a tapestry of contrasts, from the new bright green grass to the dark pines of the mountains, from the blinding white snow capping the peaks to the cloudless blue of the sky. The sweet scents reminded him of springs when they were boys.
The one thing he knew now without a doubt was that Tessa had known his brother. When and for how long? Well, that was still the question, wasn’t it? But he wouldn’t be looking for his brother unless part of him believed her, believed Ethan was alive.
“So what kind of gun was he looking for online?” He couldn’t fathom that, even if Ethan had wanted another gun, why he would look for it on the internet. Not when he could pick one up at a local gun show. Again, it didn’t sound like his brother.
“He’d deleted the sites he went to. But I hadn’t told him about how the computer kept a history of the sites visited.” She shrugged, giving away more than she probably meant to. Even back when they’d been talking marriage, she hadn’t completely trusted the man she’d fallen in love with.
“Why would he feel the need to lie about what he was looking for?” Dillon asked after a moment.
Tessa seemed to pull herself out of the past. She came out of it angry again, but he suspected it was more with herself than Ethan. “Why would he lie about everything? I have no idea. I just know that he was looking at antique rifles. I saw on one site that a similar rifle to the one he was viewing went for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“So he was just looking.”
“I guess so. He’d been saving his money. I thought for a house for us, but he could have been saving it to buy a rifle, for all I know.”
Odd. Again not like his brother. Dillon couldn’t see him wanting an antique rifle even if he could afford it. So what was that about?
“Did you ever ask him?”
She nodded. “He got defensive, said it didn’t have anything to do with me and that I should stay out of his business. It was the same day the man had stopped by whom he said he owed money to.”
“The day you heard Ethan mention the name Halbrook?”
She nodded. “Ethan stormed out, but came back later and apologized. He was gone the next morning with my money.”
“But he left the photo,” Dillon said.
“Only because he dropped it, he was in such a hurry to clear out.”
“Maybe. The thing is, if he was in trouble, which I think we can assume, then maybe he dropped it on purpose, knowing you would find me.”
* * *
TESSA SCOFFED AT that. “Why didn’t he just contact you himself if he wanted your help?”
“Because he’s too stubborn. Ethan likes to believe he can take care of himself. He wouldn’t ask for my help ever.” He looked over at her, something soft and tender in his gaze. “But he would want you to find me because he’d know I’d take care of you and the baby if anything hap—”
“You think he sent me to you?” She couldn’t help but laugh. “Ethan didn’t exactly seem worried about what was going to happen to me and our baby when he took my money and left.”
“I think you’re wrong about that.”
“Wouldn’t it have been a whole lot easier if he’d just left me your name and address?”
He turned his attention back to the road. She saw his jaw work. “Would you have come all the way to Montana to see his brother?”
She studied him for a moment. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. You strike me as an independent woman with a lot of pride. Ethan obviously knew you. He knew you’d track down the ranch from the photograph.” He glanced over at her. “He knew you were smart and resourceful. He knew you’d find me.”
Tessa let that sink in as she watched the countryside blur past.
She had never seen such beautiful, remote country. They had traveled along Interstate 90 through pine-studded mountains past Paradise Valley and over the Bozeman Pass. From there they drove along clear rivers, winding through more mountains to reach Butte, home of the huge open-pit mine, before leaving behind civilization again.
She hated reliving those last few weeks with Ethan. Worse, she hated to admit even to herself how badly he’d hurt her. How badly she’d let him.
Could Dillon be right? Had Ethan cared about her and the baby? He had an odd way of showing it. But if he was in trouble... She reminded herself that Ethan had apparently faked his own death and changed his name—pretty drastic behavior even for him. Which, according to his brother, indicated that he’d been in serious trouble.
And then he’d met her.
So why hadn’t he kept running? Surely a wife and baby hadn’t been in his plans.
As much as Tessa hated doing it, she stewed over the days before Ethan left. He’d been angry about her questioning his time on the computer. He hadn’t wanted her to know that he was looking for a rifle. That made no sense.
“Had Ethan gotten angry with you before?” Dillon asked, as if he’d noticed her chewing at her lower lip and glowering out the window.
“He was just looking for an excuse to cut and run,” she said.
“My brother has always been...complicated.”
She chuckled at that as she glanced over at Dillon. She couldn’t help remembering what he’d said about her being strong and smart, what he’d figured out about her after meeting her twice. She suspected he was a good undersheriff, good at dealing with most people. But not his brother, apparently. He’d said he hadn’t seen Ethan in two years, hadn’t even known where he was.
She couldn’t help being curious. The brothers were identical twins and yet one had become a lawman and the other an outlaw. “I take it you and Ethan weren’t close?”
He shook his head. “It’s a long story.” And clearly one he didn’t want to get into.
Ahead, a town appeared on the horizon. Tessa was relieved for a change in scenery as well as subject. At the edge of town, the sign read Welcome to Wisdom And the Big Hole Valley, Land of Ten Thousand Haystacks.
“Those are the Bitterroots,” Dillon said, pointing to the snowcapped mountains.
The whole scene was breathtaking. The Big Hole River wound through the valley, with the Bitterroot Mountains as a backdrop. There was a lushness to the country, a new-spring green that was almost blinding.
They followed the Big Hole River out of town, rolling along a gravel road, a jackleg fence on each side. In a field next to them a half dozen horses took off running through the tall grass, the wind blowing back their manes. Overhead, cumulus clouds floated on a sea of blue.
Not far down the road, she noticed the Posted signs. They were orange and stamped with the Double T-Bar-Diamond Ranch name.
“Is this ranch as large as it seems?” she asked, after they’d gone for miles with the Posted signs on both sides of the road.
“Montana has some huge ones,” Dillon said, and slowed as a massive log arch appeared on the right-hand side of the road ahead. The arch was made of log and metal. An ornate design of a huge elk had been cut into the metal.
Suddenly Tessa sat up straighter. “I think Ethan told me about this place.”
Dillon glanced over at her. “The Double T-Bar-Diamond Ranch?”
“Not by name. But if I’m right, there’s a large rock fireplace in the living room of the lodge with a huge elk mount over it. Ethan said the owner of the ranch was so proud of the elk because it was the first one he’d ever killed. Apparently he liked to brag about it and his other possessions. I could tell Ethan didn’t like the man. But when I showed an interest by asking about the ranch and when he worked there, Ethan said he didn’t want to talk about it. He said it wasn’t a place he wanted to remember and then he changed the subject.”
* * *
DILLON COULD HAVE told her that Ethan probably hadn’t wanted to talk about most ranches he’d worked, because more than likely he’d left under unpleasant—if not downright criminal—circumstances. Dillon thought of the one over on the Powder River and the two hundred bucks it had cost him. He wondered what it would cost him at this ranch.
He checked his mirror. Dust boiled up behind the pickup, obscuring anyone who might be following them. “What makes you think this is the ranch?”
“Its size,” she said. “I got the impression the man was very wealthy. But also that arch we just drove under? Did you see the elk artwork in the metal part?”
He already suspected Ethan had worked here. Now he was afraid of what they would find out about his brother as they came over a rise and a sprawling house came into view. Dillon hoped it hadn’t been a mistake bringing Tessa with him.
The house was a single story made of stone and log with a green metal roof. The roof and the house seemed to run forever along the river’s edge.
Dillon parked in front, bracing himself for more bad news as they got out and approached the gigantic carved wooden door.
A woman answered a few minutes after he’d pushed the doorbell. A military march song echoed through the house as she asked, “Yes?” She was dressed in a maid’s uniform.
“We’re here to see Mr. Truman.”
She nodded and led them into a massive living room. Dillon spotted the fireplace, a towering stone masterpiece, and the elk mount dwarfing the room. It looked like something out of Boone and Crockett. He and Tessa shared a look. It appeared he’d been right about his brother following Luke Blackwell here.
At the sound of boot heels on the stone floor, they both turned. One look at the man and Dillon knew this had to be Halbrook Truman, the ranch owner. He carried himself like a man in a hurry to get whatever he wanted with no doubt in his mind that he would succeed.
The fiftysomething rancher appeared distracted, so it took a moment before he looked up and actually saw them. His gaze went from Tessa to Dillon before he stumbled to a stop. “Ethan?” He started to laugh, shaking his head as if nothing surprised him anymore. “You’re the last person I expected to see—especially wearing a damned sheriff’s department uniform. Did you make Luke one of your deputies?” The man guffawed at his own joke.