Big Sky Standoff. B.J. Daniels
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when he saw the cut barbed wire and the fresh horse tracks in the dirt.
Tom was in his fifties, tall, slim and weathered. He’d taken over the ranch from his father, who’d worked it with his father.
A confirmed bachelor not so much by choice as circumstances, Tom liked being alone with his thoughts, liked being able to hear the crickets chirping in the sagebrush, the meadowlarks singing as he passed.
Not that he hadn’t dated some in his younger days. He liked woman well enough. But he’d quickly found he didn’t like the sound of a woman’s voice, especially when it required him to answer with more than one word.
He’d been riding since early morning and had seen no sign of trouble. He knew he’d been pushing his luck, since he hadn’t yet lost any stock. A lot of ranchers in this county and the next had already been hit by the band of rustlers. Some of the ranchers, the smaller ones, had been forced to sell out.
Shade Waters had been buying up ranch land for years now and had the biggest spread in two counties. He had tried to buy Robinson’s ranch, but Tom had held pat. He planned to die on this ranch, even if it meant dying destitute. He was down to one full-time hired man and some seasonal, which meant the place was getting run-down. Too much work. Not enough time.
On top of that, now he had rustlers to worry about. And as he rode the miles of his fence, through prairie and badlands, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his luck was about to run out. This latest gang of rustlers were a brazen bunch. Why, just last month two cowboys had driven up to the Crowley Ranch to the north and loaded up forty head in broad daylight.
Margaret Crowley had been in the house cooking lunch at the time. She’d looked out, seen the truck and had just assumed her husband had hired someone to move some cattle for him.
She hadn’t gotten a good look at the men or the truck. But then, most cowboys looked alike, as did muddy stock trucks.
Tom could imagine what old man Crowley had said when he found out his wife had just let the rustlers steal their cattle.
Tom was shaking his head in amusement when he spotted the cut barbed wire. Seeing the set of horseshoe prints in the dirt, he brought his horse up short. He was thinking of the tracks when he heard the whinny of a horse and looked up in time to see a horse and rider disappear into a stand of pines a couple hundred yards to the east.
Tom was pretty sure the rider had seen him and had headed for the trees just past the creek. From the creek bottom, the land rose abruptly in rocky outcroppings and thick stands of Ponderosa pines, providing cover.
“What the hell?” Tom said to himself. He looked around for other riders, but saw only the one set of tracks in the soft earth. He felt his pulse begin to pound as he stared at his cut barbed wire fence lying on the ground at his horse’s feet.
Tom swore, something he seldom did. He squinted toward the spot where he’d last seen the rider. This part of his ranch was the most isolated—and rugged. It bordered the Bureau of Land Management on one corner and Shade Waters’s land on the other.
The man had to be one of the rustlers. Who else would cut the fence and take to the trees when seen?
Still keeping an eye on the spot where the horse and rider had disappeared, Tom urged his mount forward, riding slowly, his hand on the butt of his sidearm.
Chapter Three
Jacklyn silently cursed Dillon Savage as she drove, glad she hadn’t gotten a speeding ticket. Wouldn’t he have loved that? It was bad enough she’d proved his point that everyone broke the law.
She couldn’t believe she’d let him get to her. Like right now. She knew damned well he wasn’t really sleeping. She’d bet every penny she had in the bank that he was over there smugly grinning to himself, pleased that he’d stirred her up. The man was impossible.
She tried to relax, but she couldn’t have been more tense if she’d had a convicted murderer sitting next to her instead of a cattle rustler. But then, she’d always figured Dillon Savage was only a trigger pull away from being a killer, anyway.
She could hear him breathing softly, and every once in a while caught a whiff of his all-male scent. With his eyes closed, she could almost convince herself this had been a good idea.
Desperate times required desperate measures. She had her bosses and a whole lot of angry cattlemen demanding that the rustlers be stopped. Because of her high success rate in the past—and the fact that she’d brought in the now legendary Dillon Savage—everyone expected her to catch this latest rustling ring.
She’d done everything she could think to do, from encouraging local law enforcement to check anyone moving herds late at night, to having workers at feedlots and sale barns watch for anyone suspicious selling cattle.
Not surprisingly, she’d met resistance when she’d tried to get the ranchers themselves to take measures to ward off the rustlers, such as locking gates, checking the backgrounds of seasonal employees and keeping a better eye on their stock.
But many of the ranches were huge, the cattle miles from the house. A lot of ranches were now run by absentee owners. Animals often weren’t checked for weeks, even months on end. By the time a rancher realized some of his herd was missing, the rustlers were long gone.
Everyone was angry and demanding something be done. But at this point, she wasn’t sure anyone could stop this band of rustlers. These guys were too good. Almost as good as Dillon Savage had been in his heyday.
And that was why she’d gotten him out of prison, she reminded herself as she turned on the radio, keeping the volume down just in case he really was sleeping. She liked him better asleep.
Lost in her own private thoughts, she drove toward Lewistown, Montana, to the sounds of country music on the radio and the hum of tires on the pavement. Ahead was nothing but trouble.
But the real trouble, she knew, was sitting right beside her.
DILLON STIRRED as she pulled up in front of the Yogo Inn in downtown Lewistown and parked the pickup.
He blinked at the motel sign, forgetting for a moment where he was. His body ached from the hours in the pickup, but he’d never felt better in his life.
Opening his door, he breathed in the evening air. A slight breeze rustled the leaves on the trees nearby. He stretched, watching Jack as she reached behind the seat for her small suitcase.
“I can get that,” he said.
“Just take care of your own,” she replied, without looking at him.
Inside the motel, Dillon felt like a kept man. He stood back as Jack registered and paid for their two adjoining reserved rooms, then asked about places in town that delivered food.
“What sounds good to you?” she asked him after she’d been given the keys, both of which she kept, and was rolling her small suitcase down the hallway.
She traveled light, too, it appeared. But then, he expected nothing less than efficiency from Jack.
“What sounds good to me?” He cocked a brow at her, thinking how long it had been.
“For dinner,” she snapped.
“Chinese.”
She seemed surprised. “I thought you’d want steak.”
“We had steak in prison. What we didn’t have was Chinese food. Unless you’d prefer something else.”
“No, Chinese will be fine,” she said as she opened the door to his room.
He looked in and couldn’t help but feel a small thrill. It had been years since he’d slept in a real bed. Past it, the bathroom door was open and he could see a bathtub. Amazing how he used to take something like a bathtub for granted.
“Is everything all right?” Jack asked.
He nodded, smiling. “Everything’s