Corralled. B.J. Daniels
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She hesitated only a moment, then nodded, smiling, as she followed him into the café. He ordered them both the breakfast special, trout, hash browns, eggs and toast with coffee and watched her doctor her coffee with both sugar and cream.
“Are you at least going to tell me your name?” he asked as they waited for their order.
She studied him. “That depends. Do you live around here?”
He shook his head. “East of here, outside of a town called Whitehorse.” He could tell she’d never heard of it. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, a part of Montana most tourists never see.”
“You think I’m a tourist?” She smiled at that.
“Aren’t you?” He still couldn’t decide if she was visiting the Grizzly Club or lived there with her rich husband. But given the way she’d left that expensive sports car beside the lake, he thought his present-day Cinderella theory might not be that far off base.
Maybe he just didn’t want to believe it, but he was convinced she wasn’t married to some tycoon. She hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring last night or today. Not only that, she didn’t act married—or in a committed relationship. Not that he hadn’t been wrong about that before.
“Don’t you think you should at least tell me your name?” he asked.
She looked around the café for a moment as if considering telling him her name. When those pale blue eyes came back to him, she said, “Blythe. That’s my name.”
“Nice to meet you, Blythe.” He reached across the table extending his hand. “Logan. You have a last name?”
Her hand felt small and warm in his. She didn’t clean houses at the Grizzly Club, that was definite, he thought, as he felt her silky-smooth palm. Several silver bracelets jingled lightly on her slim tanned wrist. But she could still be a car thief.
“Blythe is good enough for now, don’t you think?”
“I guess it depends on what happens next.”
She grinned. “What would you like to happen next?”
“I’m afraid I have to head back home today, otherwise I might have had numerous suggestions.”
“Back to Whitehorse,” she said studying him. “Someone waiting for you back there?”
“Nope.” He could have told her about his five brothers and his father and stepmother back at the ranch, but he knew that wasn’t what she’d meant. He’d also learned the hard way not to mention Chisholm Cattle Company. He’d seen too many dollar signs appear in some women’s eyes. There was a price to be paid when you were the son of one of the largest ranch owners in the state.
“Someone waiting for you back at the Grizzly Club?” he asked.
“Nope.”
Their food arrived then and she dived into hers as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. She might not have, he realized. He had no idea who this woman was or what was going to happen next, but he didn’t care. He liked her, liked watching her eat. She did it with the same kind of passion and abandon she’d shown dancing and driving.
“I’ve never seen that part of Montana,” she said as they were finishing. She wiped her expressive mouth and tossed down her napkin. “Show me.”
He raised a brow. “It’s a five-hour drive from here.” When she didn’t respond, he asked, “What about your car?”
“It’s a rental. I’ll call and have the agency collect it.”
He considered her for a moment. “You don’t want to pick up anything from your house?”
“It’s not my house, and I like to travel light.”
Logan still wasn’t sure she was serious about going with him, but serious or not, he was willing to take her up on whatever she was offering. He liked that he had no idea who she was, what she wanted or what she would do next. It had been too long since a woman had captivated him to the point that he was willing to throw caution to the wind.
“Let’s ride then.” As they left the café, he couldn’t help but notice the way she looked around as if afraid of who might be waiting for her outside. He was reminded of how she’d come flying out of the Grizzly Club. Maybe she really had stolen that car she’d been driving and now he was harboring a criminal.
He laughed to himself. He was considered the rebel Chisholm brother. The one who’d always been up for any adventure, whether it was on horseback or a Harley. But as they walked to his motorcycle, he had a bad feeling that he might be getting into more than even he could handle.
Chapter Two
Sheriff Buford Olson hitched up his pants over his expanding belly, reached back into his patrol car for his Stetson and, closing the door, tilted his head back to look up at the hotel-size building called the Main Lodge.
Buford hated getting calls to come out to the Grizzly Club. It wasn’t that he disliked the rich, although he did find them demanding and damned irritating.
It was their private security force, a bunch of punk kids, who made his teeth ache. Buford considered anyone under thirty-five to be a kid. The “club” had given these kids a uniform and a gun and turned them into smart-ass, dangerous punks who knew diddlysquat about law enforcement.
Buford always wondered why the club had to call him in if their security force was so capable. It was no secret that the club liked to handle its own problems. The people who owned homes inside the gates didn’t want anyone outside them knowing their business. So the whole idea was to sweep whatever trouble the club had under one of their expensive Persian rugs.
Worse, the folks who owned the club didn’t want to upset the residents—or jeopardize new clientele—so they wanted everyone to believe that once they were behind these gates they were safe and nothing bad could happen.
Buford snorted at the thought, recalling how the general manager had asked him to park in the back of the main lodge so he wouldn’t upset anyone. The guard at the gate had said, “Sheriff Buford, right? I heard you were here for a complimentary visit.”
A complimentary visit. That had made him contrary enough that he’d parked right out front of “the Main Lodge.” Now, though, as he started up the wide flagstone steps, he wished he hadn’t been so obstinate. He felt his arthritis bothering him and, worse, his stomach roiling against the breakfast his wife had cooked him.
Clara had read in one of her magazines that if you ate a lot of hot peppers it would make you lose weight. She’d been putting hot chile peppers in everything they ate—and playing hell with his stomach.
The general manager he’d spoken to earlier spotted him and came rushing toward him. The diminutive man, whose name Buford couldn’t recall at first, was painfully thin with skin that hadn’t seen sunlight and piercing blue eyes that never settled more than a second.
“I thought I told you to park in the back.”
Buford shrugged. “So what’s the problem?” he asked as he looked around the huge reception area. All the leather, antler lamps and chandeliers, thick rugs and gleaming wood floors reminded him of Clara’s designer magazines.
Montana style, they called it. The Lodge Look. Buford was old enough to remember when a lot of places looked like this, only they’d been the real McCoy—not this forced Montana style.
“In here,” the general manager ordered, drawing him into a small, claustrophobic office with only one window that looked out on the dense forest. The name on the desk read Kevin Andrews, General Manager.
Kevin closed the door and for the first time, Buford noticed how nervous the man appeared. The last time Buford had been called here was for a robbery inside the gates. That time he’d thought Kevin was going to have a heart attack, he’d been