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Last Year
“You can’t sell Elliott Ridge,” Carter Elliott sputtered into his phone. “Dad—that’s our home.” He stood in the middle of his quarters at Naval Base Coronado, where his SEAL team was stationed. During the past twelve years, his missions had pushed him to his mental and physical limits, but the pain that lanced through him now was unlike anything he’d known before. His family had owned Elliott Ridge in Montana for generations. Carter still had nightmares about the day he’d left it. He’d sworn he’d get back there somehow. Planned to make things right so his whole family could return.
“Couldn’t have been much of a home considering how fast you ran from it,” his father countered gruffly. Carter’s parents lived in South Carolina now, driven there by his father’s ailments. His dad would be pacing their condo’s small, modern living room, a caged tiger fretting against his constraints. “I seem to remember you cast the final vote to leave, but all five of you boys couldn’t wait to get out of there. Now you’re spread around the world playing superheroes. What do you care if I sell the Ridge?”
Guilt surged through Carter, and his fingers gripped his phone hard. “You know I cast that vote to save your life. I couldn’t stay there and watch you kill yourself.”
“You boys made a mountain out of a molehill.”
“No, Dad. It was the other way around. You were trying to make a molehill out of a mountain. Trying to pretend the six of us could run a mill and logging business it took dozens of men to operate. I did what I had to do, just like my brothers. You’re still alive, so it was worth it.”
“Meanwhile you’ve spent the past twelve years trying to get yourself killed,” his father said. “Doesn’t matter what happens to the Ridge anyway. None of you are ever coming back.”
“Like hell I’m not.” Carter surprised himself with his vehemence, given that until this moment he’d had no immediate plans to leave the SEALs. He’d never figured out how to fix what he’d done. Didn’t even know where to start when it came to reclaiming the little town where he’d grown up. Now it seemed like he’d run out of time.
He refused to believe that, though. Carter thought fast. This couldn’t be the way things ended. The Ridge gone, his family scattered to the four winds. “Look, my current term of service expires next year. I haven’t extended it yet. I can be back at the Ridge next April. You can wait that long, can’t you?” He didn’t give himself time to think over the implications of his words. He’d be turning his back on a career he’d invested his entire adult life in. Walking away—again.
“Why would you do something like that?”
“So I can bring the place back to what it should be.” Wasn’t that what his father wanted? It was what he wanted, career or no career. Elliotts belonged in Montana. They belonged at the Ridge.
“Can’t be done,” his father said. “The Ridge emptied out for a reason.”
“Because the price of lumber crashed along with everything else. No one was building houses. Things are different now.” This defeatist attitude wasn’t like his dad at all. Had something happened he didn’t know about? “Are you having heart problems again?”
“I’m fit as a fiddle.”
Thank god. “Except that hip of yours,” he pointed out to cover his relief.
“After the surgery it’ll be good as new.”
So why was he set on selling the Ridge now?
“Thing is.” His father hesitated. “I got a good offer.”
“For the property?” Carter’s stomach knotted, and he sat down on the edge of his bed. He hadn’t expected things had progressed that far. Who could afford to buy an entire town?
“That’s right.”
“You really want to sell, Dad?” He couldn’t fathom it. Carter hadn’t been back there since he left, but the Ridge still anchored his world. He knew every inch of the place.
Loved it.
There was a long silence. “No one said anything about wanting to sell.”
Relief flooded Carter all over again. His father wasn’t committed to selling yet, which meant this phone call was more of a fishing expedition than an announcement of his intentions. Well, Carter supposed he’d been hooked. Hell, now that he’d considered going home, he couldn’t wait to be reeled in.
“Then let me give it a go.”
“You won’t get your brothers back to Montana.”
“Yes, I will. Lincoln and Hudson miss the Ridge. Nate, too.” They talked about it from time to time, swapping reminiscences when their mother roped them into family video chats.
“What about Gage?”
“Haven’t talked to him lately.” He neglected to say he rarely did. There were things between them that hadn’t been right since they left Montana.
“He’s a stubborn one.”
“And you aren’t?” Carter asked.
“Maybe I am. Maybe you are, too,” his father said. “But stubborn won’t pay our debts.”
“How bad are they?” He turned and paced the other way. His father had upgraded the mill equipment right before the crash. If he hadn’t, they might have been able to ride out the years where it was almost impossible to sell lumber.
“There’s the monthly payment and then there’s the balloon payment to close out the loan we got to buy all that equipment. The balloon payment is due two years from now.” His father named the sums, and Carter whistled. He did some calculating in his head. It was June now, and it took time to separate from the Navy, but if he could get home to the Ridge by next April, that would give him just over a year to get the mill up and running and earn enough to make that large final payment. “If you can’t pay off that loan, I’ll have to sell,” his father continued. “I just liquidated the last property we own in town. That’ll cover the payments and taxes and so on until you get there next spring, but that’s it. The rest is on you.”
Carter swallowed. There it was: the bottom line. The real reason for this phone call. Without more town properties to sell, his dad couldn’t hold on to the Ridge by himself. He needed Carter and his brothers to get the mill running again in order to keep up with the payments.
That meant Carter would have to scare up buyers for their lumber. He’d need sources for logs once they ran out of the surplus they’d left behind. He’d need to get their own logging operation up and running again. He’d need to find dozens of men to sign on and do the work. His mind ticked through the steps. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“If I’m going to take this on, I want more than just your promise not to sell,” he said, realizing he was giving up a secure career for a very risky proposition.
“Oh yeah? What else do you want?” his father challenged him.
“The day we pay off those debts, I want you to sign over the Ridge to the five of us. If I’m going to throw heart and soul into the place, I need to know I can stay there—for the rest of my life. There’ll always be a place there for you and Mom, of course.”
He waited for his father’s answer. He’d never bargained with him before, man to man. When he’d left home, he was barely eighteen. The baby of the family.
“Deal,” his father said. “The whole point of the Ridge is to pass it down. But no one gets a piece of it unless they help. You tell your brothers that. If they don’t show up next spring and stay long enough to pay off that loan, don’t bother showing up at all.”
Carter heard the steel in his voice and knew his father meant it. He hadn’t forgiven them for walking away last time, even if they’d done it to save his life.
He swallowed the words he wished he could say. The apology he could never seem to choke out. “Will do, Dad. What about that offer you got, though? You might not get another one if you pass it up. What if we fail?”
“That offer isn’t going anywhere. I’ll get your mother to write up something for you to sign. We’ll make this official. Better call your brothers,” his father said. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
When he hung up, Carter lowered his phone and wondered what had just happened. Whose idea was it for him to leave the Navy and resurrect Elliott Ridge—his or his father’s?
Somehow he wasn’t sure anymore.
Carter decided it didn’t matter. It was his vote that had shut down Elliott Ridge twelve years ago. It was his job to bring it back to life. It was the best kind of mission, after all. One that required strategic planning, careful consideration, tactical maneuvers and determination. For once, no one would be shooting at him while he worked, either.
Could he pull it off?
His father was right; it wouldn’t be easy. He lifted his phone again. Called his brother Nate, the best listener of the bunch. He’d help figure out the best way to approach the others.
“Carter? What’s up?”
Carter took a deep breath. “You ready to go home?”
This Year
“Dad? I’m home.” Amanda Stakewell entered her ground-floor apartment, kicked off her high heels and breathed a sigh of relief. It was only nine o’clock in the evening, two full hours earlier than she’d told her father to expect her. She’d been prepared to find him parked in front of the television or fixing himself a snack, but although the lights were on throughout her apartment, the television was off and the visible rooms empty. Amanda locked the door behind her, hesitated, then checked to make sure the bolt had engaged.
Maybe he’d decided to do some painting. Usually, he did so only while she was at work. He’d told her the light was better during the day and he could paint for only an hour or two at a time, since his back gave him trouble. Strange to think of her father as old enough to have ailments like that.
He’d definitely changed in the eleven years he’d been away. His hair was streaked with gray now. He was thinner, too. Amanda remembered a man who’d loved a good dinner more than anything, but these days he picked at his meals and swallowed vitamins several times a day.
“Dad?” she called again. She switched off the lights in the kitchen and headed down the hall to where the bedrooms were tucked away. “I’m back early. Want to watch something?”
The night hadn’t been a success. She’d joined the other women in her office to celebrate her boss’s twentieth year with Biddington Foods, but all anyone wanted to talk about was the rising cost of living in Los Angeles. One of her coworkers, a smug sixty-year-old who owned a bungalow in Los Feliz, grilled her on how much she’d saved since she’d come to work five years ago. Amanda was proud she’d put anything aside, but Gwen had tsked at her. “You’ll never even own a condo at that rate.”
Didn’t she know it.
Every year prices rose while her salary stayed pitifully low, and Amanda had begun to feel a sense of rising panic every time she consulted a real estate website. When she’d first come to LA, she’d amused herself attending open houses in desirable neighborhoods, dreaming of the day when she’d take possession of her first home. In those fantasies she always had a handsome husband—and a pregnancy bump. She wanted a family. A partner. She wanted to be making progress in her life.
Somehow she never seemed to get anywhere.
When Gwen switched to grilling her about her love life, Amanda decided she’d had enough. She’d said her good-nights and come home instead.
At least her father was here now, she told herself as she passed her bedroom, always neat with her bed made and decorative pillows in pretty array. He’d resurfaced in her life several months ago, swearing he wanted to start over and be the dad she’d always deserved. Ever since, she’d been putting him up on the sofa bed in the small “bonus” room she’d been using for her office. She braced herself to face the chaos she knew she’d meet when she got to his door. He had a habit of tossing covers and clothes on the floor, as if waiting for someone else to come and clean up after him. Lately, Amanda had stopped doing so. He was a grown man, after all, and a guest stopped being a guest after they’d been living with you for months. When the mess bothered her too much, she simply closed the door.
Right now his door was open, giving a full view inside, and Amanda stopped short when she noticed his sofa bed was tidied away and the top of his tiny dresser was bare.
“Dad?”
His portable easel was disassembled, and several canvases were propped against the hide-a-bed. Her father’s suitcases sat on the floor beside them. One was closed tight. The other lay open, full of clothing and the notebooks he was always filling with sketches and ideas. Amanda moved into the room. He was ready to leave, by the looks of things. There was his shaving kit and toiletries bag. There were all the clothes she’d washed and folded just yesterday.
There was—
What was that?
Amanda bent down to see. An unframed canvas was rolled up and tucked among his clothes in the open suitcase. As she drew it out, she could see it had been previously stretched on a frame but removed for transport, something well within her father’s capabilities.
She gingerly picked it up, unrolled it and gasped.
Amanda knew that painting.
She’d seen it at the Warden Gallery only two weeks ago with her father. It was part of a traveling exhibit featuring famous works by Deloitte, but at the time, Amanda wouldn’t have cared if it featured finger paintings by local kindergarteners. When she was viewing art with her father, she could pretend he’d never disappeared from her life at all. He was so engaged then, so talkative, his sly humor resurfacing, the way it had when she was a girl.
Afternoon in Sunshine and Shadow was one of many of Leonard Deloitte’s paintings featured in the exhibition. A small canvas among larger, showier ones, it was considered one of his best. It had to be worth millions.
Why was it here in her father’s luggage?
Amanda closed her eyes. She knew exactly why it was here. They’d been down this road before, and her entire family had paid for it dearly.
She replaced the canvas carefully before picking up the top sketchbook from the pile she’d moved.
Page after page of studies confirmed her suspicions. Her father had been planning this for months. Years, maybe. When had he found out this painting would be part of a traveling exhibit? How many museums had he visited along the way to study it as it moved across the continent from city to city?
More to the point—when had he decided to come back into her life? Before or after he decided to steal a masterpiece?
Pain spiked through her again. Amanda knew the answer to that question, too. Which meant every moment she’d savored with her father had been just another lie.
She thought again of their trip to the exhibit. Her father had excused himself at one point, needing to visit the men’s room, and now that she thought about it, he’d been gone awhile, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary. She’d figured some other work of art had caught his attention on his way back to meet her. Her father could stand lost in contemplation of a painting for hours if no one was there to herd him onward.
Had he made the switch then?
No. That would be impossible. The place had been full of people.
Maybe he’d taken a page from his old partner, Buck Bronson, and found a connection who worked at the gallery. Maybe someone had met him at the back door after-hours, taken his forgery and switched it for the original when no one else was around. Her father could have gone back to fetch the real masterpiece any day when she was at work.
It didn’t matter how he’d done it.
Afternoon in Sunshine and Shadow sat here in his bag, and her father was ready to run.
He was ready to leave her without saying goodbye.
Again.
Her throat ached with the betrayal she felt. How could she have been such a dupe? What kind of father used his daughter as cover when he was plotting a crime?
Where was he now? Was he meeting with some new criminal friends? Or a go-between who’d turn over the painting to a rich benefactor who wanted to build a private collection? Last time Buck had been the one with all the connections. Could her father really pull off a transaction like this all on his own?
Amanda texted him.
Dad? Where are you?
The answer came almost immediately. Where are you?
Home.
There was a long pause. Amanda stared at the tiny screen, willing him to offer her an explanation. Something that would stop the sting of shame that filled her, knowing he’d treat her like this, when she’d been so happy to welcome him back into her life.
Get out of there. Now!
Amanda wasn’t sure what she’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t this.
Why?
Buck’s coming! Amanda, leave right now!
Buck? Amanda stood up fast. Buck Bronson knew where she lived?
Amanda told herself to get a grip. Why wouldn’t he? Buck had served for years with the Dallas police, and his friends always seemed to have his back no matter what he did. He used to brag he knew cops all over the country. If he wanted her address, he could get it—even in LA. If he was out of jail already, he could be anywhere.
There was no time to ask for details. She grabbed the canvas, raced to her bedroom, wrapped it in a T-shirt and shoved it in her gym bag. She threw her purse over her shoulder and checked her phone again. More messages from her father.
GET OUT OF THERE! Now, Amanda!
Buck knows everything!
He’s been tracking us!
He’s on his way!
Did her father mean Buck knew he’d stolen a masterpiece? Was he coming to exact revenge for what happened last time?
He’d want the painting for himself.
Her heart pounding, Amanda turned to leave and heard a sound at her front door. Cold fear gripped her. Buck was already here. He was breaking into her apartment. She spun around, looking for another way out.
Her bedroom window was low and wide, already open to let in a spring breeze. She popped its screen, threw a leg up and over the sill, hopped outside and thrashed her way through the decorative bushes to reach the sidewalk. The concrete was cool under her bare feet in the gathering dark. The parking lot quiet.
Amanda ran.
Her footsteps sounded loud in the quiet of the night. Gravel sharp against the tender skin of her soles, she picked up speed.
Buck had been tracking them? For how long? How much did he know about her?
Did he know the make of her car? Her license plate number?
Had he hacked her phone?
Nearly stumbling, Amanda bobbled the small gadget she still held in her hand, caught it and threw it into a garbage can as she raced past.
When she finally reached her Toyota, she used the key to manually unlock it, not wanting to call attention to herself by pressing the button on her fob and activating the lights. She got in as quickly as possible, locked the door and started the engine. She kept her headlights off, hoping she could sneak past the building without Buck noticing her progress through a window.
She had a pair of runners in her gym bag. As soon as she was safely away, she’d pull over and put them on, but there wasn’t time for that now.
She had to get out of here.
There was no sign of Buck as she drove past the entrance to the building. No sign of anything amiss at all. Amanda pressed the gas pedal and sped away. Was Buck rummaging through their things even now? Did he know she’d taken the painting with her?
She should have left it behind. Should have never let her dad back into her life in the first place.
Should have known he hadn’t come back to make amends.
By now he’d be long gone. Ian Stakewell wasn’t the kind of man who stuck around when things got hard.
She needed to disappear, too.
Buck Bronson was a killer. He hated her family. She’d been safe while he was in prison, but now she needed to get out of town, fast.
After she returned the painting.
Amanda slowed for a moment, then pressed the accelerator again.
She wasn’t like her father. She had a moral compass. There was no way she was allowing this beautiful piece of art to fall into the wrong hands. Besides, if she returned it, her father wouldn’t be a criminal anymore. No harm, no foul. He could disappear again, and Buck would lose interest.
She would have her life back.
Such as it was.
Amanda shook the wayward thought from her head, pulled into the parking lot of the Warden Gallery, slowed to a stop and realized she hadn’t thought this through. It was well past closing time, and no doubt the gallery was wired with alarms. Cameras were probably recording her right now. She couldn’t just march up the steps and leave a masterpiece outside the door to be discovered in the morning.
In fact, she couldn’t return it herself at any time. There’d be too many questions she didn’t want to answer.
She couldn’t afford to wait for daylight, either. If Buck was tracking her, she had to make use of her head start.
All her bravado gone, Amanda started the car again, gripping the steering wheel tightly as she accelerated out of the parking lot. She swung onto Highway 15 and headed toward Las Vegas, as good a town as any from which to disappear.
She’d have to ditch her car. Pay cash for a flight out of town. Find somewhere to hide.
Who did you call for help when you couldn’t call the police?
Maybe no one, Amanda thought. She was on her own.
But she had her credit card. She could go anywhere.
As long as it wasn’t home.