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“Not when I knew her . . .”
The wistful ring in Caleb’s voice rankled Chase. How had this slightly unsavory man been connected with his mother? The thought that she’d even known Caleb Johnson bothered Chase more than he’d like to admit.
In the distance the sound of a freight train whistle pierced the air as the boxcars clattered on ancient tracks. The noise broke the mounting tension in the room. Caleb glanced at his watch and then, shrugging off the memories of a distant past, stood abruptly. “Look, I’ve got a plane to catch. Do we have a deal?”
Chase glanced down at the check. Two hundred grand. Damn, but that money could make the difference between making it or not, especially with Conway intent on ruining him. With a nagging feeling that he was making the worst decision of his life, Chase clasped Caleb Johnson’s outstretched hand.
“Deal,” he said and then reached into the drawer of his desk for a pen and signed all four copies of the partnership agreement.
“You’ve made the right decision.”
Chase doubted it but tried not to second-guess himself.
Caleb stuffed his copies of the paperwork into the pocket of his expensive, Western-style jacket and smiled in satisfaction. “Oh, there’s one other thing,” he said, walking to the door.
Here it comes, Chase thought, bracing himself for the elusive catch in the agreement. “What’s that?”
“One of my neighbors is fighting me about developing Summer Ridge.”
“Just one?”
“So far . . . oh, well, it’ll all be cleared up by the time you come to Martinville. There’s always a way to get people to come ’round to your way of thinking, y’know.”
Yeah, like two-hundred-thousand dollars, Chase thought cynically.
Caleb waved a big hand and opened the door of the trailer before walking down the three worn steps to the parking lot. Chase watched the big man from Montana drive off in a rented white Cadillac and tried to ignore the absurd feeling that he had just sold his soul to the devil; the same devil who had known his mother all those years ago.
Chapter One
Hawthorne Farm
Martinville, Montana
August 16, 1987
The sun blazed hot in the summer sky. Dry grass crackled and grasshoppers flew from the path of the buckskin gelding and its rider as the horse headed toward the clear stream slicing through the arid field.
Sweat beaded on Dani’s forehead and slid down her spine. She lifted the rifle to her shoulder and cocked it, her eyes squinting through the sight at the target: a tall, blond man with broad shoulders, a tanned, muscular torso, slim hips and the nerve to trespass on her property by wading in Grizzly Creek. No doubt this stranger was another one of Caleb Johnson’s men.
The element of surprise was on her side and definitely to her advantage. The stranger’s back was to her, his sweat-glistened muscles rippling as he waded in the mountain stream, his eyes scouring the clear ice-cold water. It didn’t appear that he had heard the warning click of the hammer of her Winchester or seen the horse and rider approach.
Dani’s elegant jaw hardened with determination and her lips tightened though her hands shook as she took aim. “Move it, mister!” she shouted.
The target looked up and visibly started, the muscles of his naked back bunching as he spun around to face her. Water sprayed upward from his sudden movement.
“Get the hell off my property!”
The stranger just stood in the middle of the creek as if dumbstruck, his eyes narrowing against the bright Montana sun and his body poised as if to run. But there was nowhere to hide. Aside from a few scraggly oaks, the fields of brittle sun-dried grass offered no cover. The gently sloping land was barren and dry as a bone.
Dani softly kicked the buckskin and advanced on the object of her outrage. When she was near enough to see the man clearly, she smiled at the mixture of indignation, horror and fury in his sky-blue eyes.
“I said, move it,” she repeated, stopping the gelding a few feet from the creek and cocking her head in the direction of the bank where a pile of his belongings—shirt, fishing reel and worn boots—lay on the grass.
His square jaw was thrust forward, his tanned skin nearly white over his face as he slowly waded out of Grizzly Creek. He kept his gaze on the barrel of the rifle as she moved forward. The steel glinted a threatening blue in the afternoon sun. Dani kept the Winchester trained on the stranger’s every move as he bent down, picked up a plaid work shirt and angrily stuffed his sinewy arms through the sleeves.
She placed t
he rifle across her thighs. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing on my land?” she suggested, breathing once again when she realized that this man was complying with her orders. Some of Caleb Johnson’s thugs hadn’t been so easily buffaloed.
