“He looked me right in the eyes and swore he had nothing to do with Rogers’s death,” Aaron said, leaning against the kitchen counter in his parents’ house. He folded his arms across his chest and stared blankly out the window overlooking the front yard. “He even brought up that he’d been at work—something he knew I’ve already verified—when Rogers was shot. And when I asked him about shooting the cows and about Cochran saying he’d mentioned Rogers more than a few times, he just… shrugged. Said Cochran was probably trying to shove his crimes off on him because Cochran knows I’m looking for ‘any excuse’ to bring Zach in. Those were his words.”
Jeremiah pressed his mouth into a flat line. “He’s playing games with you.”
“No shit, Jere.”
He glanced sharply at Jeremiah as soon as he said it and opened his mouth to apologize, but Tracie threw the cinnamon roll dough she was rolling out down on the counter, and he winced.
“Aaron Samuel Hammond! That was way out of line.”
“Yes, it was. I’m sorry, Jere.” He raked his hands through his hair and sighed. “This whole thing is really bugging me. Rogers, as much as he drove me nuts and generally treated me like crap most of the time we worked together, deserved better than this. His wife deserves better. But even worse than that, I just feel so goddamned helpless. I don’t like waiting to see what Zach’s going to do next, but that’s all I can do. Wait and hope no one else dies.”
“Guess I’m not going back up to the cabin this summer,” Jeremiah observed.
“No, not unless I get a lucky break. I’ve got nothing on Zach other than what Cochran’s saying, and with the evidence contradicting him, that’s not enough to arrest Zach for even the cows. I’m not going to let you stay by yourself in a place where I am damned sure now your cousin has been.”
“So… when am I going to be able to get up there to clear out the cabin?”
“What time is Steven’s funeral this afternoon?” Tracie asked.
“Not until four,” Aaron replied.
“It’s a slow day down here, so why don’t you boys go up and get it done this morning? Shouldn’t take you more than two or three hours, and that’ll leave you with plenty of time to get home and showered and changed before you have to head into town, Aaron.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “We could do that. Promise you’ll make sure everyone saves us some of those cinnamon rolls?”
“You know I will.”
“Mind if we stop by Heather’s on the way up?” Jeremiah asked. “We were going to work on my office today, and I need to let her know there’s been a change in plans.”
“You sure you don’t want to do that instead?”
“I do, but I need to get my stuff out of the cabin. Even if you catch a break or Zach slips up, we’ll be moving the cows down in a few more weeks, anyhow.”
“Good point. All right, let’s get this done.” Aaron leaned down and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Love you, Mom.”
Jeremiah did the same. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you both. See you in a couple hours.”
They headed out to Aaron’s truck. Murphy was sprawled in the sunshine in the front yard, but when he saw Jeremiah, he jumped to his feet.
“Not this time, Murph,” he said to the dog. “There won’t be any room for you once we get everything loaded in the truck. Stay. Oh, don’t give me that look.”
Murphy laid in the grass with his head on his front paws, staring up at Jeremiah with the whites showing at the bottom of his eyes and gave a practiced and exquisitely pathetic sigh.
“I’m not sure who was the best thing to happen to whom in that relationship,” Aaron remarked, nodding his head toward the Aussie.
“It’s mutual.”
“He’s a great dog.”
Jeremiah nodded in agreement, and he swore Murphy’s expression turned just a tiny bit smug at those words.
Aaron tried to apologize again for snapping at him as he drove away from the house, but Jeremiah wouldn’t let him. This whole situation was probably harder on Aaron than on the rest of them. The burden of figuring out how to prove what his instincts were screaming at him was entirely on him, and while he was in the position to do something about it, he couldn’t until or unless he had that proof.
It made Jeremiah tired just thinking about how frustrating that must be.
Since he’d made the decision to stop letting fear of Zach govern him, he had been remarkably calm about the whole situation, and it wasn’t fun watching Aaron struggle with this.
He tried not to dwell on the fact that this was just one more way Zach was winning. Somehow he’d find a way to make his cousin pay for this and every other pain and frustration he’d inflicted on Jeremiah and the people he cared about since he’d set foot in Montana.
“Too bad you didn’t die with your old man,” he muttered.
“What’d you say?” Aaron asked.
“Nothing important.”
When Aaron pulled up in front of Heather’s cabin, she was sitting out on her deck with a cup of coffee. And, damn, in those cutoff jeans, a black tank top, her feet bare, and her rich, dark hair hanging loose around her shoulders, she was incredibly sexy.
“Hey there, baby girl,” he greeted as he climbed the stairs.
She grinned. “I still love that. I’ve been trying to come up with something for you, but so far, nothing’s good enough.”
“Call me anything you want. Just don’t call me late for dinner.”
This time she laughed. “Where did you come up with that?”
“God only knows where I heard it first. Hey, Aaron and I are heading up to clear out the allotment cabin, so we’ll have to wait until this afternoon for our work date.”
“I have a better idea. I’ll come up and help.”
“Sure. If you want.”
“Better than sitting at home being bored. I’ll meet you boys up there.”
Jeremiah nodded and jogged back to Aaron’s truck.
When they arrived at the cabin, he stared up at it for a minute, unable to pinpoint why he’d expected it to be any different than it had when he’d left it the day Rogers had been shot. Austin had done the herd checks since that morning with Jeremiah tied up down at the ranch rebuilding a shed that had collapsed after a big aspen had fallen on it during the thunderstorms three nights ago, so Jeremiah hadn’t been back up in the past four days.
He was going to miss being up here. Before this summer, he’d liked this cabin well enough, and he had fond memories of previous stays in it and of enjoying the utter peace that came with it, but there were now even better memories attached to the old log structure.
This was where he’d fallen in love with Heather.
No point in denying he was in love with her.
He’d been attracted to her since the first time he’d met her, and he’d suspected for a long time that they could have something incredible together, but it wasn’t until he’d finally worked up the courage to invite her out for drinks on her birthday that he’d begun to realize just how incredible. They were kindred souls—scarred but still fighting.
“Despite everything, this cabin has been damned good to you this summer, hasn’t it?” Aaron observed. For the first time in four days, a smile graced his face.
“Yes, it has.”
“Are you thinking of asking her to marry you?”
“I’ve been thinking about that for a long time.”
“Not like you are now, I’d say.”
Jeremiah chuckled and got out of the truck. Standing beside Aaron, he gazed up at the cabin with his hands in his pockets. “No, not like now. Before, it was a daydream. Now, it’s…. It’s hard to imagine my life without her in it.”
Aaron laughed. “I bet every man who’s ever found the love of his life has said those words or something like them.”
“Did you?”
“Twice. Both with Erica and with Skye. So don’t screw it up because I can tell you from those years between them that being alone after you’ve tasted real love is agonizing. It’s an ache that’s always there.”
“Way to pile on the pressure, Aaron. Thanks.”
Aaron clapped him on the shoulder.
“If you want to get started in there, I’ll get the chairs and barbecue loaded and check the stable,” Aaron offered.
“Sounds good.”
Jeremiah pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, quickly scanning the interior. Nothing had been disturbed. He got to work packing his clothes and books first. There wasn’t much, so it wouldn’t take him long, but he’d gotten barely halfway through that task when Heather showed up.
Leaning in the open door of the cabin, she glanced around the interior. “I’m never going to look at this place the same again.”
“How did you look at it before?” he asked.
“As nothing more than a dusty old cow camp cabin.” She pushed off the door and sauntered over to him, draping her arms around his neck and angling her body against his.
“And now?”
“My own personal heaven.”
“Sounds delight—”
She cut him off with a blatantly passionate and demanding kiss that brought his mind right back to that cool, misty morning and making love to her for the first time right here in this cabin on that bunk. Heaven was a fitting description.
“Think we have time for one more round here before it belongs to the Forest Service again and not to us?” she asked huskily, wiggling her brows. “Aaron’s busy outside, and I’m sure he’d agree to give us some privacy. We could make it quick.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
She pushed him down onto the bunk and straddled his waist, but instead of tumbling into a deliciously sensuous storm of passion, they broke into laughter. He pulled her head down and kissed her.
Footsteps on the porch alerted him to Aaron’s imminent arrival.
“Hey, Jere, I—” The older man stopped short in the doorway, and after a fleeting moment of wide-eyed surprise, he grinned. “Never mind. Carry on.”
Laughing too hard to do that, Heather climbed off the bunk and offered her hands to help Jeremiah up. After popping his head briefly out the door to see what Aaron needed—to say he was going to drive over to the Royal R to borrow some tie downs as it appeared someone had borrowed his out of his truck and not put them back—Jeremiah started stripping the blankets and sheets off the foam mattress.
“That’ll take him at least fifteen minutes,” Heather said, wiggling her brows. “You sure I can’t convince you?”
“Baby girl, fifteen minutes is not nearly long enough to satisfy either of us.”
“I suppose you’re right. Anyhow, I’m not in the mood for a quickie. I’m in the mood for an all-dayer.”
Jeremiah chuckled. “We may have to settle for an all-nighter.”
“You’re on, Jere Bear.” She curled her lip. “God no, not that. Sorry. That was cheesy as hell. Ugh. I’ll think of something.”
He didn’t bother trying to fold the blankets and sheets perfectly since they were bound for the washer anyhow. After he’d stuffed them in the back seat of Heather’s truck, he returned to the cabin and grabbed the bungies from under the bunk. With Heather’s help, he rolled the foam mattress, secured it, and hauled it outside. After he’d dumped it in the bed of the truck, he returned for his suitcases. Heather turned to him with the silver cross dangling from her fingers.
“I never figured you for the religious type,” she remarked.
“I’m not. I found….”
Son of a bitch.
“Jere?” she asked.
There had been a lot going on the last couple weeks and he’d had a lot on his mind, but how had the key to Zach’s involvement in everything that had happened this summer slipped his mind?
“I found it the day I moved into the cabin. I’m pretty sure it’s Zach’s, but when I found it, I thought it had been planted here. After we met Randall, I thought he was the one that did it. But if he’s telling the truth about Zach shooting the cows….”
“How sure are you that this is Zach’s?”
“It’s plain, but that X there is just like the one he carved into his. Just like it. He said….”
He heard the words as clearly in his head as if Zach had just spoken them. He took the necklace from her and studied it with a renewed interest, paying closer attention to the clasp. It wasn’t, as he’d thought, undamaged. It appeared to be at a glance, but when he tested it, it didn’t stay closed. The spring inside must’ve broken.
“He said, ‘people around here are quick to trust a guy wearing a cross.’ He even had a whole philosophy about it, about how it needed to be a simple one like this and not some gaudy blinged-out cross because too many people here associate those with rappers and gangs. At the time, I thought he was being sarcastic, but I guess he was right. It certainly worked like a charm for him. No one ever thought to point the finger at him… until I ratted him out. If he dropped this here….”
“Is there any way to prove beyond a doubt that it’s his?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, if we get really lucky and he was wearing it in his mugshot or something.”
“With the luck you’ve had in your life, it’s bound to turn around sometime, right? Maybe now’s that time.”
He tipped his head back and exhaled. “Wouldn’t that be great?”
Of course, knowing his luck, there would be no way to prove the cross was Zach’s. It’d fit right in with everything else he and Aaron knew but couldn’t prove. He set the necklace on the table and went back to packing, turning now to the kitchen.
When he heard Aaron’s truck returning, his heart leapt and he snatched the cross off the table and trotted outside.
“Hey, Aaron!”
The sheriff glanced up as he stepped out of his truck.
“I found something you need—”
Movement to his left caught his attention, and he snapped his mouth closed.
His heart lunged.
The visage had changed some in the past sixteen years, but Jeremiah instantly recognized the slender man with the neatly trimmed dark hair and the terrifyingly cool and soulless hazel eyes so similar in shape to the ones that looked back at him whenever he passed a mirror.
Zach.
And his gun was trained on Aaron.
Time slowed to a crawl.
From the corner of his vision, Jeremiah saw Aaron’s gaze shift to follow his at the same time Zach’s fingers tightened around the grip of the 9mm. His cousin tipped his head to line up the sights.
“NO!”
Jeremiah leapt off the porch, somehow keeping his feet when he landed on the packed dirt of the road, and sprinted for his cousin. Zach’s gaze didn’t waver from Aaron. Behind him, Heather screamed his name, but he barely heard her.
The gun fired just as Jeremiah came between Zach and Aaron, but he didn’t slow and didn’t look back to see if Aaron had ducked for cover, trusting the sheriff’s well-trained instincts to save him. He barreled into his cousin, and with his arms locked around Zach’s waist, he picked him up and slammed him down onto the hard earth. He grabbed Zach’s wrist and wrenched the pistol free from his hand, turning it on his cousin.
“Do it,” his cousin spat.
“You should’ve just killed me instead of trying to mess with my head first.”
“What would be the fun in that?”
Jeremiah’s hands trembled, and he adjusted his grip on the gun. He rocked back on his heels and rose to his feet, keeping the gun on Zach. His cousin climbed slowly—almost lazily—to his feet and smirked.
“You can’t do it, can you.”
Just pull the trigger and this all ends right here. Right now. You’ll never have to fear him again.
The world seemed to tilt around him, and he blinked to clear his vision, but that didn’t help as a stronger wave of dizziness assaulted him. Why was it suddenly so hard to breathe?
Zach’s face split in a demonic grin. “I may not get the cop, but at least I got you.”
That didn’t make any sense. But then Jeremiah coughed, and hot droplets splattered his chin. His mouth tasted metallic, like blood. Aaron appeared beside him, the .38 he kept in his truck gripped lightly in his steady hands.
“Keep your gun on him, Jere.” With his sidearm in one hand, Aaron unbuckled his belt and slipped it free from his jeans. “You make even the tiniest move to run and I will gun you down right here, right now, Zach.”
The longer Jeremiah held the gun on Zach, the more his hands shook. His cousin held his gaze with that malicious, smug gleam burning in his eyes while Aaron bound his hands behind his back. What did he have to be smug about? He was on his way back to prison, this time for attempted murder at the very least, and yet… that didn’t seem to matter. It was as if he’d already gotten what he wanted and twenty to life behind bars was worth it.
“I win,” he said.
“Jere, you all right?” Aaron asked.
He couldn’t seem to form the words to answer. The gun slipped from his hand, and he sank to his knees, vaguely aware of a sharply increasing pain in his chest. He glanced down to see a dark red stain spreading on his white T-shirt. He pressed his fingers to it, surprised when they came away wet and red, too.
At least I got you….
Laughter swirled around him, uncontrollable with a triumphantly maniacal edge to it. The meadow and forest and mountains careened wildly.
Agony exploded.
“Jeremiah!” Aaron yelled, jumping around Zach to catch him as he started to fall forward. “Shit!”
He gasped again, clutching at his chest and fighting for breath, but every attempt to draw in air made the pain worse. He stared up at Aaron’s terrified face, clinging to the sight of those familiar blue eyes.
“God damn it! Heather, I need the first aid kit. Passenger side of my truck, under the seat.”
There was no answer, but the laughter stopped abruptly with the crunch of breaking bone. The cursing that followed ended just as quickly.
“Heather! I need the first aid kit now! Jere’s shot—in the chest.” Aaron repeated the location of the first aid kit and turned back to him, pressing his hand over the gunshot wound. “Stay with me, Jeremiah.”
He nodded, but he didn’t have the strength or the breath left to answer.
“I already lost Erica like this. You will not die in my arms like she did. You hear me, little brother?”
* * *
The insane laughter broke the spell, and Heather strode down the steps, side-stepping Aaron as he leapt to stop her.
Zach tore his gaze from Jeremiah, and he laughed even harder as if he had nothing to fear from her. She caught him square in the nose with a fast jab.
He stopped laughing.
“You fucking bitch!”
A left hook to the mouth shut him up, and a right hook sent him stumbling backwards. She chased him down and got in two more punches—another jab with her left and an uppercut with her right that snapped his head backwards. His eyes rolled back into his head as he crashed to the ground.
“Heather!”
Aaron’s sharp bellow jerked her around. With the adrenaline pounding through her, she didn’t hear his words, but when her brain put the pieces of the scene before her together—Aaron clutching Jeremiah in his arms with his hand over Jere’s chest and a crimson blotch stark against Jere’s white T-shirt—she raced to Aaron’s truck and located the first aid kit under the passenger seat.
When she returned, her eyes sidetracked to Jeremiah. He was conscious but frighteningly pale and his breathing was far too fast and shallow. Fine droplets of blood speckled his lips and chin. Terror like she’d never known gripped her.
“Heather!”
Aaron’s voice yanked her attention to his face.
“I need you to look in the first aid kit and see if there’s something plastic—like maybe cellophane wrap on the bandages. I need that and the medical tape. Then I need you to get out some gauze sponges and the scissors. You’ll have to cut his shirt off him, and when I lift my hand away, I need you to mop up the blood around the wound so I can tape the plastic over it.”
“Why—?”
“I think the bullet hit his lung—I can feel the wound sucking as he breathes. I need to stop air from getting into his chest and crushing his lung.”
She popped open the first aid kit and located the items Aaron requested, focusing on his step-by-step instructions to keep her hands from shaking. They were surprisingly steady as she cut Jeremiah’s T-shirt open, and she exhaled. She could do this. She’d seen plenty of blood in her life, had patched up injured horses and herself. This was no different.
Except that this was Jeremiah and he was dying.
She ripped that thought out of her head before it had time to take root and glanced away, searching for any distraction. Her gaze landed on Zach still lying prone in the dirt where he’d fallen.
“I knocked him out,” she uttered. “Zach.”
“Great. I really don’t give a damn about him right now,” Aaron said. “Are you ready for this?”
She had no idea what to expect when he took his hand off the wound and lifted what was left of Jeremiah’s ruined shirt away from it… and there wasn’t much to see. Just a lot of blood. Too much blood. Marred by the occasional air bubble, it oozed like a sluggish red river from the tiny hole in Jeremiah’s chest. At least it wasn’t a gushing torrent. That was good, right?
“Focus, Heather.”
Nodding, she wiped around the wound as best she could, trying to ignore the tears seeping down the sides of Jeremiah’s head as he glanced between her and Aaron with a building panic flashing in his eyes.
“Shh, little brother,” Aaron murmured. “I bet it hurts like hell now, doesn’t it? No, don’t try to talk. Just stay as still as you can, all right? Stay with us, Jere. We’re not going to let you die. Not today. Not after you’ve survived so much already. And not when life is really getting good.”
He glanced at Heather when he said that last bit, and the emotion in his eyes—fear and hope entwined—centered her. She could do this. She had to. Because she’d finally found the man she could spend the rest of her life with and she would not lose him. Not until they were old and gray and ready to greet death on their terms, like old friends because they’d both already had a brush with it.
Aaron kept talking while she worked, and when she had the wound as dry as it was going to get while it was still bleeding, he said in the same soothing voice he’d used with Jeremiah, “Okay, Heather. Grab those alcohol pads now, alternating with gauze sponges as you need.”
With that done, Aaron laid the plastic over the wound and asked her to tape it in place.
“That’ll have to hold you until the pros can get here,” Aaron murmured to Jeremiah. “All right, Heather, now I need you to go over to the Royal R and call for a life flight. The GPS coordinates for the cabin are in the center console of my truck, on the Forest Service map. Tell the dispatcher what happened, tell them Sheriff Aaron Hammond is on scene but needs backup. Then call my mother at the main house and have her send Henry or Nick up. Got all that?”
He rattled off a few more instructions for her and then sent her off.
She didn’t want to leave Jeremiah, but he was in good hands with Aaron.
The next forty-five minutes were the longest of her life.
The local Northstar EMTs and Henry had arrived at the cabin before she made it back from the Royal R, and one of Aaron’s deputies showed up seconds after she did. Because she would only be in the way if she tried to go to Jeremiah, she sat on the steps of the cabin and watched and hoped. Aaron’s deputy checked Zach over while the EMTs were working on Jeremiah—his nose was broken and it appeared he had a concussion as well. That gave Heather a modicum of satisfaction.
Finally, the sound of an approaching helicopter filled the meadow, echoing and re-echoing off the mountain and forest. The cattle, who’d been grazing on the lush alpine grasses as if nothing was out of the ordinary, scattered as the life-flight helicopter landed on the soft, spongy ground. Heather shielded her eyes from the wall of dust and pine needles kicked up off the road by the wind its blades created.
She jumped off the steps and ran with Aaron across the soft, uneven meadow to say goodbye-for-now to Jeremiah as he was carried out to the chopper.
“See you in Missoula in a couple hours,” she yelled over the din, her voice cracking. “Hang in there, Jere. Okay?”
He nodded, but his eyes were closed and she heard one of the EMT’s say “…fading in and out of consciousness now…” so she had no idea if he’d heard her.
“You can’t leave me now. You said you wouldn’t leave me!” she called louder as they lifted him into the helicopter. “Remember that? I’m holding you to it because I love you, dammit.”
His eyelids flickered open for a moment.
No, that wasn’t enough. More than I love you. “I adore you. You hear that, Jere?”
This time, his eyes opened all the way and locked on hers. He’d heard her.
Then he was beyond her sight in the helicopter and it was taking off and she was clinging to Aaron in the hurricane howling around her. Long after she could no longer hear the helicopter, she held on to Aaron. He was the only thing holding her up as comprehension of everything that had happened in the last hour crashed down on her.
“He’ll be okay,” Aaron murmured, hugging her tightly. “He’s a fighter.”
With her face buried against Aaron’s shoulder, she cried as she had not allowed herself to cry since the night she’d cut her wrist. She might’ve felt as alone now as she had that night, if it weren’t for the feel of Aaron’s firm chest and his strong arms around her. Then Henry was hugging her, too, and she drew in a ragged breath to stop the tears.
She would not act like Jeremiah was already dead or give in for a second more to the fear that he wouldn’t win this fight.
“Stay strong, little sis,” Henry whispered. “Your hands all right? Because Zach’s face sure isn’t.”
She lifted hands and inspected them, but it was hard to tell what injuries she’d sustained with all the dried blood. Aaron asked Henry to help her wash them off while he talked to his deputy. She held her hands under the pump around the side of the cabin while Henry lifted the handle and brought it down repeatedly until frigid water sloshed out. The breath hissed between her teeth, but the cold water numbed the ache in her hands as she scrubbed them clean.
There were a couple minor cuts on the knuckles of her left hand, most likely from Zach’s teeth. Her right hand was okay… except that there was a vivid bruise forming around the two outside knuckles and it hurt a lot worse than her left hand did. She flexed her fingers, and a sharp pain shot through the outside edge of her hand.
She looked up at Henry, expecting some wise crack or other about giving Zach his just desserts, but for once, he wasn’t in a joking mood. She wished he was.
“Say something,” she said. “Please. Some smartass remark. Anything.”
“Remind me never to get into a fight with you.” He took her hands and examined them. “Left hand seems okay. But it looks like you might have a boxer’s fracture on your right.”
“I’ll get it looked at when we get to Missoula.”
Nodding, he tipped his head toward the road where Aaron and his deputy now had Zach secured in the deputy’s SUV. When they reached him, Aaron immediately embraced Heather again and then his brother.
Glancing between them, he asked, “You all right?”
“Fine,” Henry replied. “What the hell happened? All Heather could say was Jeremiah had been shot by his dickhead cousin.”
“More or less. But actually, he jumped in front of the gun. Zach was aiming at me,” Aaron said. “He started to say he had something I needed to see, and then Zach steps out of the woods there beyond the pump….”
Heather stepped away, and Aaron’s words faded behind her. She walked over to the spot where Jeremiah had pile-driven his cousin into the ground, ignoring the scattered drops of blood as she searched the dirt for a glint of silver.
There it was, mostly buried just to the right of where Zach had landed the first time. Jeremiah must’ve dropped it when he’d wrestled the gun from his cousin. She lifted it gently and blew the dust from it. It gleamed brightly—innocently—in the brilliant late morning sunlight. She walked back to the Hammond twins and handed it to Aaron.
“This is Zach’s. Jeremiah said he found it when he first moved into the cabin.”
Aaron nodded. “He’s positive?”
“Mostly, but he said it’d take a miracle to prove it was Zach’s.”
“Well, we need a miracle right now, but not that one. Hen, can you let everyone know what’s going on? Heather and I need to leave for Missoula. I don’t want Jere to wake up without family there.”
“Sure thing, bro,” Henry replied. “We’ll be right behind you. If he wakes up before we get there, give him our love.”
Heather latched on to that. Jeremiah would wake up again. With a burning ferocity, she refused to believe there was any other possibility, as if that alone was enough to keep him alive.