Blackbird Lake (31 page)

Giff had done his best to make sure the other gal got in late so they could lock the door again and have the McKinnon woman all to themselves.

But now she wasn’t even headed to town, not yet.

And, worse, she wasn’t alone.

Where the hell were she and Tanner going?

He clenched his hands on the steering wheel as he
realized he’d have to inform his client there was a little hitch in their plans. Maybe even a major change.

Reaching for his cell, he eased back on the accelerator, keeping Tanner’s truck in his sights.

His employer had landed at Gallatin Field Airport nearly an hour before. He’d rented a car and was already headed to the damned quilt shop in downtown Lonesome Way. The guy was uptight and so keen to get his hands on this woman he probably hadn’t even stopped along the way to piss or eat any breakfast. The bastard wanted answers and he wanted them bad.

He was already riled up and pissed as all hell that during all this time Giff hadn’t managed to produce anything conclusive, nothing substantial enough to use, except a few photos that didn’t prove squat.

So now that his client was finally here, the guy was pumped. Ready to tear up this town and whoever got in his way, if need be. Giff figured it would be best if the man never found out how much time he’d been spending at the casino in Billings, trying to rack up enough dough to keep his ex-wife from squawking since he’d missed three or four child support payments, all the while billing his deep-pocketed client by the hour.

Better that the boss should keep all that fury raging inside him centered on the woman, and not on Giff. His sister’s husband had recommended him for this job and he didn’t want any crap hurled back at his brother-in-law, or his sister would get royally pissed.

’Course he could take the guy if he had to, but he’d rather get paid in full and finish this job ASAP with a wad of cash in his pocket. The way Giff figured it, that could happen as early as this afternoon.

He punched the client’s number into his cell, then sped up a little, careful to keep a good distance back from the rodeo champ’s truck as it rumbled away from the outskirts of town, headed in the direction of Sage Creek and the rolling prairie beyond.

Could be those two were headed to some nice secluded romantic spot. A good place to corner the woman, if that was where the boss wanted to do it.

But you never know, Giff reminded himself. The client might want to go a different route. He might want to go after the kid.

Giff could handle that, too. He’d followed Carly McKinnon when she dropped little Emma off at an apartment building in town, apparently for one of her sleepover dates with the old bag—that Davies woman.

Eenie meenie miney mo. Let the client choose how this will go.

One way or another, this job was gonna be finished and done. And he’d be cruising back to Wyoming with a pocketful of dough before the sun stuck its head out the next morning.

Laureen was twelve miles from town and singing lustily along to Brad Paisley on the radio when her engine light flashed on.

“Oh, crap. What’s
this
going to cost me?” Her heart sank as she slowed, staring at the flashing light.

This was turning out to be some week. Three days before, her clothes dryer had conked out and she’d had to fork over almost three hundred bucks for a new one—which hadn’t even been delivered yet. And the night before, she’d finally had her “date” with Cal Meeks, the rancher from Livingston who’d paid good money for a chance to go out with her.

And what happened?

What always seemed to happen. Nothing.

She’d shown up at the Lucky Punch Saloon for dinner with him and never made it as far as sitting down at a table, much less picking up a menu.

She’d swept into the Lucky Punch in her new red stilettos, wearing her new red lipstick and a dress the same color, which she’d ordered online—a pretty, knee-length silky
number that her sister-in-law, who viewed her modeling it on Skype, insisted made her look five pounds thinner.

So she felt almost beautiful for once as she peered around the room for Cal—and there the bastard was—cozying up at the bar with a rail-thin brunette in tight jeans and a glittery scoop-necked top. The girl’s boobs were as false looking as her eyelashes and she could barely be old enough to have graduated college.

And didn’t look smart enough to get into one.

“Uh…Laureen. Hey.”

He spotted her and sauntered over, flushing just a little, while the brunette watched, sipping her wine and eyeing the other men lined up at the bar.

“Uh, look, Laureen, this isn’t going to happen.”

“What do you mean by that?” she managed to bite out in a tight little voice, shock, anger, and humiliation squeezing through every pore of her body.

But he pretended not to notice. “It’s nothing personal, honey. Honest. But I met someone else. It just happened. I lost your phone number, or I’d have called you. Don’t worry—they can keep that donation for the animal shelter—but you and me…honey, it just isn’t meant to be.”

“Damned straight it isn’t, you slimeball—” she began, but he turned on his heel and hurried back to the brunette before she could finish telling him where he could go.

Feeling like an idiot, she spun around and headed out of there as fast as she could walk in those damned shoes. But she saw Big Billy wiping down the bar, casting a couple of glances at her as she fought to keep the anger from showing in her face.

It was hard to read his eyes, but there might have been a flicker of pity there.

Laureen had ducked out faster than you could slap a tick.

Guess it’s just my lucky week,
she decided, staring in disgust at the red engine light on her dashboard. Now she’d have to fork over even more money at the body shop—
and
be late for work. And Carly was counting on her to open up—

Her car sputtered. Crap. Crap. And crapola.

Then it did more than sputter…it jolted…slowed…stopped.

Laureen choked back a shriek of frustration as she realized a tire had gone flat. Engine light, flat tire. What next? A hurricane whirling across the sky and blowing her and her piece-of-crap car into the next county? Into a sink-hole?

She grabbed for her purse and dug for her cell phone. She’d better let Carly know she’d be late opening the shop. Of course this had to happen the one day Carly said
she
was coming in late….

But…shit. Her cell phone. It wasn’t in her purse.

It was…

Laureen groaned. It was still charging in the kitchen, plugged in next to the microwave.

She’d skipped breakfast that morning, her stomach still topsy-turvy after her not-a-date date the previous night, and she hadn’t even noticed that she didn’t have her phone….

Laureen threw open the car door, slung her purse over her shoulder, and started walking, wondering when in hell this spell of bad luck was going to change.

But she hadn’t gone more than about twenty yards when an SUV came over a rise in the distance. It was coming fast, from the direction of town—a big black Explorer. The windows must have been rolled down, she decided, because some mean rock-and-roll was blasting, loud enough to waft clear up to the peaks of the Crazies.

The driver must be flooring it, she thought. It was coming real fast….

She scooted to the side of the road and was startled when the driver slammed on the brakes. The Explorer screeched to a stop just as it passed her, then it quickly backed up.

The music disappeared. Big Billy leaned out the driver’s-side window. The tattoos covering his thick neck gleamed like spilled ink in the sunlight.

“Hey, babe, it’s a long way to town. Looks like you could use a lift.”

“You got an appointment, son? I’m busy.”

Teddy Hodge plunked down his coffee cup and pushed his chair back from his computer. His shrewd gray eyes lasered in on Brady Farraday, but the young man standing tall in his doorway seemed undeterred by the cold-eyed stare of a career lawman.

“No, sir, no appointment, but this won’t take long.” Brady moved toward the sheriff’s large desk, littered with files and folders and empty Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup candy wrappers. He met Hodge’s stare unflinchingly.

“How’d you get past Lonnie?” the sheriff growled.

His secretary was a fierce watchdog. Only his deputy or his wife or granddaughter could get in this office without her waving them through. She was very protective of Teddy’s space, something he didn’t always appreciate.

Until moments like this one.

“I brought Lonnie a cinnamon bun from the bakery. And a half dozen chocolate-covered strawberries.” Farraday’s eyes glinted. “Then I told her I needed to speak to you about
a matter of the heart and I wouldn’t keep you more than three minutes.”

A matter of the heart
. Teddy stiffened. “That’s all it took?”

The sheriff’s lips twisted in disgust. Lonnie was usually tougher than that. But, knowing his own wife’s affection for chocolate, he reckoned the boy had hit on the one weakness a lot of women had in common.

“Well, you’ve wasted two minutes already, so you’d better talk fast.” He leaned way back in his chair.
Matter of the heart, be damned
. The Farraday kid smiled at him, but that smile didn’t get anywhere near his eyes. He looked damned determined—downright resolute.

Hodge would give him that much.

And nothing more.

“I’ve apologized to Deputy Mueller for that sucker punch I laid on him. But I never did apologize to you, sir. It was your officer I hit, and I had no business doing it.”

Hodge said nothing, just sat as still as a fence post, with his hands clamped on his stomach.

“Mueller’s a good man,” Brady Farraday said. “But I wasn’t one on that day. I…I kinda lost myself for a while. I don’t even know that man who acted that way—throwing a punch at an officer of the law. And I did a few other things I’m not proud of. But that’s not me, not who I really am, and I’m trying to be a better man. Trying to find the best in me again. And to be a man who deserves—”

He broke off and, for the first time, Hodge saw him swallow hard, saw the tension in his body, the telltale muscle flick in his neck. And he knew what the boy was doing didn’t come easy for him.

He also knew, somehow, that what he was going to say next really mattered.

But Hodge showed nothing, said nothing, giving him no help. Just glared at him in as intimidating a manner as he could muster, which, after forty years on the force, was pretty powerful stuff.

“I bid on that date with Madison because I care about her. And I believe she cares about me. It’d be nice to have your blessing before we go on that date, so she knows you won’t be angry with her. Could be it’s the only date we ever have—or maybe not. That’s up to her. But Madison’s been through a lot, sir, and she shouldn’t have to lose anyone else that matters in her life. Especially not because of me—”

Hodge jerked forward in his chair. “You really think you can come between me and my granddaughter?” he asked furiously.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Brady spoke quickly, but stood his ground. “I don’t want Madison worried. I don’t want her having to be torn up about anything. You and Mrs. Hodge are real important to her. So I’m telling you personally that I’m sorry I hit your deputy and—”

“You’ve done what you came to do, Farraday. Now get out.”

Brady’s broad shoulders stiffened. He frowned and started to turn away, but Hodge pushed himself heavily to his feet.

“Hold on! Just what are your intentions?” he spat out, and the younger man spun around to stare at him. “This is my granddaughter we’re talking about.”

“Yes, sir. And my intentions are to see where things go between us. To respect Madison—and to find out if she…well, if
we
…Actually, sir, our intentions are between the two of us, no disrespect meant.”

Hodge pursed his lips. Not bad for a hotheaded young man. Farraday seemed to have a cooler head these days.
Must’ve come to his senses since that day he slugged Zeke.

Madison had certainly been a whole lot less polite than this when Teddy had his wife invite her over to dinner so he could try to talk her out of going on any kind of a date with Brady Farraday. His granddaughter had told him in the bluntest of terms that she expected him to mind his own business. She said she loved him, and always would, but she could handle her own life all by herself and wouldn’t have anyone telling her what to do.