Promise from a Cowboy. C.J. Carmichael
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flashed light over the area. Something gold sparkled. “It’s some kind of coin. Should I leave it here? Or take it?”
Savannah didn’t answer for a long time. Then in a quiet voice she said, “Take it.”
He slipped the coin in his pocket. Once he’d satisfied himself that there was nothing else he hadn’t noticed, he started crawling toward the bales.
“There are some old hay bales up here. Stand back while I toss them down. They’ll probably break apart when they fall, then after you mound up the hay, I’ll jump.”
“I’ve been wondering how you were going to get down.”
“No problem,” he said, mostly out of bravado. He was looking at a fifteen-foot drop and these bales were the small, square kind.
“Okay. I’m out of the way.”
“Here they come, then.” He heaved one, then the other, over the edge. As he’d predicted, the old twine broke apart on impact and the hay spilled free onto the dirt floor.
Savannah lost no time in piling the hay into the softest landing pad possible. “I wish we had more.”
“And I wish that damn ladder hadn’t broken,” he mumbled. He’d better not break an ankle with this fool maneuver. Hobbling around in a cast wasn’t his idea of how to spend the summer months.
He sat down, letting his legs dangle over the open side of the loft. Savannah was standing back, watching.
“This is crazy,” she said. “Why don’t you wait while I drive to my place? I can be back with a proper steel ladder in under an hour.”
He didn’t fancy hanging around this loft like a damsel in distress for five more minutes, let alone an hour.
“Incoming,” he called out. Then he let the rest of his body follow his feet off the edge of the loft.
* * *
B.J. ROLLED AS HE HIT the hay pile and ended up a few feet from the tips of Savannah’s boots.
Her heart had taken a leap of its own when he’d jumped, but she managed to sound cool. “You look good down there.”
He levered his body up with his strong arms, then hopped to his feet. “Don’t push your luck, woman.”
For a moment he stood his ground, too close for comfort, making her aware of how much stronger and tougher he’d grown in the years since he’d left Coffee Creek.
Of course, she was stronger and tougher, too, but mostly in ways that couldn’t be seen.
“You all right?” she asked, trying to switch her focus from her feelings—which were ridiculously fragile right now—to his well-being.
He took a few tentative steps. “Seem to be.” He handed her the flashlight, which she hadn’t even noticed he was still carrying. Then he dug the coin out of his pocket. “What do you make of this?”
She stepped out of the barn, surprised to see that the sun was almost behind the distant Highwood Mountains to the west. She studied both sides of the coin. It looked brand-new, but was dated more than a century ago. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I wonder if it’s valuable?”
B.J. had followed her outside and now he looked over her shoulder at the coin. “Seems like an odd thing for a young guy to have dropped out of his pocket.”
“Maybe our runaway took more than his father’s watch with him.”
“It does look like something from a collection. Maybe he planned to pawn it for cash.”
“Whoever stole the watch mustn’t have known about the coin.” She put it in her pocket. Strange this wasn’t found during the investigation. After eighteen years exposed to the elements, she was certain no fingerprints could have survived. B.J.’s handling of the coin pretty much guaranteed it. But she’d store the coin in the evidence room at the office, just in case it turned out to be significant.
She glanced back at the barn, then at B.J. She wondered what he was thinking. There had been moments, back there, where it had felt like old times between them.
She’d done a lot of thinking on the long drive home from Oregon. For so many years she’d blamed B.J. for the party, and for Hunter’s subsequent downward spiral.
She realized now that she’d been unfair.
B.J. had been good to her brother. He’d taught him to ride, and to wrestle a steer and rope a calf—all skills that Hunter still put to good use on the rodeo circuit. He’d included Hunter in their group of friends, most of whom were responsible kids who worked hard at school and were involved in sporting events in their spare time.
The wildest thing they ever did was gather at the creek bank behind Main Street to drink a few beers on weekend nights.
“That party was Hunter’s idea, wasn’t it?”
“Kind of late now.” B.J. shrugged. “But yeah.”
“Why did you lie?”
“Why do you think?” he asked quietly.
Her heart sank. There could be only one answer. “You did it for me.”
After she’d picked Hunter up from the sheriff’s office, her brother had really laid it on thick about how B.J. had insisted they all take their ATVs out to that barn. According to Hunter, B.J. was the one who’d sourced the hard liquor, as well.
She’d been so upset, she’d refused to take B.J.’s calls. And she’d avoided him at school, too.
Two months later, they’d graduated from high school—and then B.J. and Hunter were both gone.
She put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Well. It was probably for the best. We were too young.”
Back then, yes. She nodded. “So how long are you home for? Where’s the next rodeo?”
“Not sure.” B.J. picked up his hat, which he’d left on a rock when he’d gone into the barn earlier. He glanced up at the sky and frowned. “Looks like a storm is blowing in.”
“That happened fast.” She thought of the other night, eighteen years ago. According to her brother, the big thunderstorm had blown in quickly then, too.
B.J. glanced at her motorbike. “You better get moving before those clouds get here.”
“You, too.”
Yet they both stood for a few seconds longer, watchful and tentative as good memories and bad battled it out. She’d come out here hoping to convince herself that the story Hunter and B.J. had told all those years ago had been true.
Instead, she was certain that there was more to the story. A lot more. And Travis McBride’s family deserved to know what it was.
Chapter Four
It was dark by the time Savannah coasted the bike down her driveway. She was glad to see Regan’s car parked next to her SUV. While she didn’t begrudge her hardworking sister a little fun, lately she’d been going out a lot after work, and Savannah worried she wasn’t getting enough rest.
Regan’s summer job at Monahan’s Equestrian Center started shortly after dawn and didn’t end until six o’clock. The work was physically demanding—primarily cleaning barns, grooming horses and oiling tack. Rolling in at midnight, then getting five hours sleep, just didn’t cut it in Savannah’s opinion.
She parked her bike in the garage—which was too crammed with junk to fit a car or truck—then went in the back door.
“Regan? I’m home. Did you check the mail?” She shook her hair free from the confines of her helmet, then hung up her jacket.
“I