CHAPTER ONE

      Election night

      IT WAS THE old priest’s limp that caught Ainsley Hamilton’s attention as the presidential election results were announced over the loudspeaker. A deafening roar rose from the bundled-up crowd gathered at the fairgrounds outside Beartooth, Montana, that cold November night.

      Her father, Buckmaster Hamilton, had just been announced the new president. Music began to play loudly as the throng cheered. She watched the priest, hunched over his cane, edging ever closer to the platform where her father would be giving his acceptance speech. Ice crystals danced in the night air against the backdrop of the Crazy Mountains. Millions of stars twinkled in the velvet blue of Montana’s big sky overhead. There was an excitement in the air as well, an electricity that had her feeling warm inside.

      Ainsley’s heart surged. She was so proud of her father, so happy for him. This was his night. He’d worked hard to get here. She told herself that nothing could spoil it for him, especially her sister Kat’s concerns about security. The fairgrounds were crawling with Secret Service agents, sheriff’s department deputies and National Guard; even the sheriff himself was here.

      Her gaze went again to the priest as he limped forward. The crowd parted for him, seeing his physical disabilities as well as his determination to get closer. When he finally reached the elevated platform where she was standing with her family, he leaned heavily on the cane as if trying to catch his breath. Like her, he must have wanted to be part of this history-making night.

      Another roar erupted from those gathered as her father strode out onto the stage. He smiled and nodded, then turned to motion to his wife and six daughters. They had been waiting in the wings out of the cold for this moment. Ainsley looked at her sisters.

      Bo smiled at her, so pregnant with her twins that she appeared to be wearing a small tent. The grown twins, Harper and Cassidy, were holding hands, both crying. Olivia was dabbing at her eyes, as well. It was clear that they had all been moved to tears, all except sister Kat, who looked nervous as their mother led the way across the stretch of red carpet to her waiting husband.

      Out of the corner of her eye, Ainsley noticed that the old priest was straining to see. His limp looked painful, she thought as she saw him clutch his cane with both hands. She knew her interest in him was because of his limp. It reminded her of another man, a man she’d trusted her heart to recently only to have it broken.

      As if she needed a limp to remind her of Sawyer Nash and what a fool she’d been. Thoughts of him were never more than a heartbeat away. Unconsciously, she ran a fingertip over the burn scar on her wrist, another reminder of Sawyer.

      The crowd was roaring again as Sarah joined her husband, followed by one daughter after another. Ainsley fell back, letting her sisters go ahead of her. Too many emotions had her feeling vulnerable. She wasn’t ready to face all of these people right now.

      As Kat started down the carpet to join their father, Ainsley had no choice but to join them. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that this night was for her father, the first Montanan to be elected president. The excitement of the crowd filled her heart to bursting.

      Standing on the platform next to her family, she smiled at her father through her tears. Her pride in him closed her throat as she tried not to cry with this many people watching.

      Fortunately, the cameras—just like the Secret Service agents—were trained on the future president as he hugged each of them and then stepped to the microphone to make his acceptance speech. She and her five sisters and mother moved back toward the warm room again as he took his place to the applause of the massive crowd.

      Buckmaster Hamilton had won by a landslide, and no one within four hundred miles wanted to miss this, even on such a cold night.

      Ainsley had been making her way back, willing herself not to cry, when the priest looked up and their eyes met. Recognition made her stumble. She would have fallen if her mother hadn’t caught her arm.

      But Ainsley hardly noticed. She was staring down into the priest’s face. He wasn’t as old as he had seemed when she’d first spotted him moving through the crowd, leaning so heavily on his cane. Even more shocking was that she knew him. A childhood memory surfaced in a wave of guilt because of the promise she’d been forced to keep all those years ago.

      The man had been younger back then, but so had her mother. From her bedroom window, she’d watched the two of them out by the stables.

      Ainsley, barely twelve, had seen at once that there was something wrong as the man had approached her mother. Her mother had taken a step back. Suddenly the man had grabbed her mother’s arm. Her mother had been struggling to get free of him. Ainsley hadn’t been able to hear them, but she could tell that they were arguing.

      She’d rushed down the stairs and ran out to the cool shadows of the stables where they were standing. The man had seen her and quickly let go of her mother’s arm. She’d been close enough that she heard what he said to her mother.

      “This isn’t over, Sarah.” Then he’d disappeared around the back of the building, but not before his gaze had bored into Ainsley. She’d known she would never forget those eyes. An electric blue that felt as if they had branded her.

      “Who was that?” she’d demanded of her mother, recalling how he’d said her mother’s first name.

      “No one.” Her mother had quickly wiped her eyes. “A stable hand. I had to fire him.”

      “He hurt you!” Ainsley had cried, seeing where the man’s fingers had bit into her mother’s arm.

      “I’m fine,” she’d said, pulling down her sleeve to hide it before she’d taken Ainsley’s shoulders in her trembling hands. “You can’t tell anyone about this, your sisters, especially your father. It will only upset him. I’ve taken care of it. The man won’t be back. Do you hear me? Promise you won’t ever tell.”

      “But he said—”

      “Please.”

      It was the word please coming out almost as a sob that had made Ainsley make a promise she’d guiltily kept all these years. Weeks later her mother would drive her SUV into the Yellowstone River and be presumed dead when her body wasn’t recovered from the iced-over river. For twenty-two years her mother would be dead—until recently when she’d returned from the grave with no memory of where she’d been.

      Now those electric-blue eyes from her childhood burned into hers for one startling instant before they shifted to where her mother was standing next to her after steadying Ainsley when she’d stumbled.

      It happened in a split second. But felt like slow motion. The man’s hands twisted the top off the cane. Even when he raised what looked like a toy plastic pistol, she knew it was as real as her memory. Even as her mind argued that he would have had to go through security to get in here tonight, she knew he’d somehow avoided detection. Just as she knew he’d come here not to kill the new president—but the woman he’d argued with all those years ago.

      As he raised the weapon, pointing it at her mother, Ainsley cried out. But her voice was lost in the roar of the crowd. All eyes, including those