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Maybe it was time to make a change in his life. He’d never been cut out to be a sheriff. He’d thought about leaving Powder Crossing, but there was nowhere he wanted to go, nothing he’d always wanted to do. So what did that leave?
Stuart chuckled to himself. He wanted to be Cooper McKenna. No, he amended that. If he was being truly honest, he only wanted what his best friend had—what came with being Holden McKenna’s son. A ranch, roots, a family and now a bride.
Had it really not been all that long ago that Stuart had wanted Tilly? Not because he loved her, but because he’d known she’d always been Cooper’s from the time they were kids.
That he was that small, that damaged, that begrudging, made him feel even worse about himself.
He looked over at Abigail. What the hell was he doing? She drove as carefully as someone who knew they were drunk. Maybe she was doing her own soul searching. No, he thought, she appeared to be debating something. The bad feeling that filled him earlier confirmed that this trip wasn’t about a burger.
As if making up her mind, she slowed and pulled off onto a dirt road into a grove of trees next to the river. Without leaves, the stark-limbed cottonwoods looked like fingers clawing at the cloudy Montana sky.
He noticed for the first time that a storm was coming in from the west. Snow? It wouldn’t be that unusual this time of year. But it always seemed to happen just when the land had been bearing off and the temperatures had been rising, giving everyone a break from winter.
But he doubted that was why he felt a chill as Abigail pulled over to the side of the road and cut the engine.
“I thought this was about a burger,” he said, hoping his tone didn’t reveal just how anxious he was. She wasn’t looking at him. Red flag alert! All his instincts were telling him he should never have gotten into this car. His hand was already resting on the gun at his hip, hoping he could pull it quickly enough if he had to in this small SUV.
“I haven’t been honest with you,” she said, turning a little in her seat to look at him. He was watching her hands that now worked nervously in her lap. “I didn’t come to Powder Crossing because of the job at the hospital or my photography.”
“I know,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “You do?”
“You came to town because of Leann Hayes.”
All the air seemed to rush from her as she leaned her head back. She looked as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “How long have you known?”
“I was suspicious from the start, but I didn’t know until you drugged me and searched my office files and my home.”
She froze for a moment before she licked her lips and sighed. “So you know. You didn’t say anything so I thought...”
She’d thought that she’d gotten away with it. Maybe he wasn’t as lousy a sheriff as she thought he was. “What is your connection to her?”
“She was my friend,” Abigail said. “We were like sisters.”
“Had you been in touch with her since she came to Powder Crossing?”
“Of course, I just told you. We were like sisters.”
That bad feeling he’d had earlier now settled in his gut. “Then you knew about her relationship before she came to Powder Crossing, before she met me.” He was watching her closely. “Did she tell you about me? About Cooper?”
He still had his hand on his gun when she reached with her left hand into the driver’s side door cubby. He’d been ready but all she pulled out was a tissue. She blew her nose, dropping the tissue back into the door’s side pocket.
“She didn’t love you,” Abigail said. Her gaze when she turned it on him was brittle and bright. Her words came out fast and hard. “She was trying to get away from you. She said you were obsessed with her. That you used to follow her. She was terrified that you would kill her if she didn’t go back to you.”
“That’s not true,” he said, even as he groaned inwardly, knowing it could have been true. He’d tried to hang on to her. He had been obsessed. He’d followed her a few times, furious when he’d heard that she’d hooked up with his best friend. It had been a bad time in so many ways. He wasn’t that man anymore. He’d promised himself he would never be that man again.
“She’d broken things off with me. She’d moved on. She was with Cooper McKenna.” Why were they arguing about this? “Abigail, Leann was leaving town with some man she’d fallen in love with. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Cooper.”
“No,” she cried. “That’s a lie. We’d been saving our money to get a house together in Billings. I was going to work at the hospital there and she was going to open her own photography studio. She was a much better photographer than I am. She was teaching me.”
He saw it now. The only personal thing in her house, a photograph taken by a friend. “Leann took that photo in your house,” he said.
But she wasn’t listening; her expression went dark again. “She didn’t want any of you, especially Rory Eastwood. But like most men, he wouldn’t leave her alone.” He felt his pulse jump. “She said she had to leave the state to get away. She was trying to get away from all of you, but especiallyyou.” There was spittle on her lips, her eyes wild and leaking angry tears.
He felt his chest tighten as he began to make sense of her words. This wasn’t about him, no matter what she said. “You knew about Rory and Leann?” he said, heart in his throat. Clearly, Abigail knew more than he did. “You saw her that night,” he said quietly and saw that it was true. “You were her friend. You were trying to help her.”
“Ilovedher. We were like sisters.” Her voice broke. “We had plans. She’d promised.” Her expression hardened. He felt the tension in the car spike. “I came to save her from you, from Rory, from all the men who’d hurt her, deserted her, confused her. She said she was sick of all of you. Sick of the life she’d been living. She’d promised she would change. That it would just be the two of us.”
