B.J. Daniels - Forsaken

Danger runs high and passions burn hot in Montana’s wild country

Big-city detective Bentley Jamison is a long way from home in the Beartooth wilderness when one of local rancher Maddie Conner’s ranch hands goes missing. Towering mountains and a small, tight community are as unfamiliar to Jamison as herding sheep, but he’s never shied away from a challenge. As the new deputy sheriff, he’s sworn to protect every inch of this rough terrain—starting with unraveling a mystery that has left Maddie a wide-open target.

Maddie’s as beautiful—and untamable—as the land around them. Like Jamison, she won’t back down from danger. But desire that flares hotter than their tempers only raises the stakes when a fierce storm traps them in the high mountains. Caught in a killer’s sights, Jamison and Maddie must trust one another, because now survival…and love…are all that matter.

Dear Reader,

When I worked as a features writer for the newspaper, I did a story about a sheepherder and his “tender” who’d spent three months back in the Beartooths—only them and a huge band of sheep.

It was the tender, a young man whose job it was to keep camp, that gave me the idea for Forsaken. The teen was so glad to be out of the mountains and told harrowing stories about his summer that included grizzly bears, storms and rough dangerous terrain.

What would it take to send a young man like that racing out of those mountains in absolute terror? And what about the widowed sheep rancher who must go into the remote area to check on not only her sheep—but her sheepherder? That was when my story was born.

I hope you enjoy the trip back into the Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains.

B.J. Daniels

Forsaken

B.J. Daniels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This book is dedicated to the Western ranchers, sheepherders and tenders who used to trail sheep to summer pastures in the “Beartooths.”

In 2003, after three months and 150 miles, the last band of sheep made the round trip for summer range in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth mountains, ending an era that dates back to the late 19th century.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER ONE

THE HORSE STUMBLED under him as he plunged down the steep mountainside, but he spurred on the mare. Around him, the dark pines swayed and sighed in the wind as he crashed down through them, his only thought to reach the ranch alive.

Terror quilled the hair on the back of his neck, but he didn’t dare turn around. Fighting to stay in the saddle, he raced along the creek before charging into the fast-running stream. The clear water showered up in an icy wave that soaked him to the skin and stole his breath.

His horse bolted up the other side, forcing him to cling to the saddle horn to stay on his mount. A pine bough caught him in the face, a sharp twig scraping across his cheek and cutting into his flesh.

Behind him, he heard a familiar sound over the roar of his pulse and the howling wind and the thundering hooves of his horse echoing through the timber. Behind him was that unearthly silence that had chased him out of the Beartooth Mountains.

Even as he rode the horse harder, he knew he’d never be able to outrun it—or the smell of death lingering on his skin.

* * *

DEPUTY SHERIFF BENTLEY JAMISON was the only one in the office when the call came in.

“That you, Frank?” a grating elderly male voice asked when the dispatcher put the call through.

“Sheriff Frank Curry is out of the office. This is Deputy Sheriff Bentley Jamison. What can I do for you?”

“Bentley Jamison? Never heard of you.”

Jamison must have said the next words a dozen times a day since he’d recently joined the force. “I’m new.”

“Huh,” the man said with a chuckle. “Bet you ain’t from around here, either.”

That was a bet the man would win. At least he hadn’t asked what most people did on meeting the new deputy. “What the devil are you doing way out here?”

“What can I do for you?” Jamison asked.

“Well, this is Fuzz Carpenter. You don’t know me, but I just run across a kid comin’ out of the Beartooths. He was a-ridin’ hell-bent for leather like the devil was chasin’ him. Had blood all over him. I flagged him down to try to find out what was wrong, but he wasn’t makin’ an ounce of sense. All I could get out of him was that he worked for the Diamond C sheep ranch. That’s ’bout all I can tell ya, exceptin’ I didn’t like the look in his eyes. Somethin’ bad happened back up in those mountains, sure as hell.”

Jamison wrote the words Diamond C Ranch on the pad next to his phone. “How long ago was this and where exactly?”

“Not ten minutes ago up the Boulder Road. He was a-headin’ back to the ranch, I’m supposing, since he was ridin’ in that direction last I saw of him.”

“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll check it out.”

The man grunted in response and hung up.

Jamison asked directions to the Diamond C from the dispatcher then climbed into his patrol SUV and headed toward what the locals called the Boulder. It was actually the Boulder River valley. As he left Big Timber, Montana, he followed the river, the tall thick cottonwoods only giving him glimpses of the clear, green water.

The valley was wide, broken up by plowed fields and creeks that ran down to the river in a winding trail of pines and cottonwoods. With breathtaking beauty, mountains soared up around him, snowcapped and covered in dark pines.

The nearer he got to the Diamond C, the more the valley narrowed. Sheer rock cliffs towered a thousand feet over the two-lane paved road, and ranches became fewer and farther between.

He passed the Natural Bridge and waterfalls up into the Absaroka mountain range, or the Beartooths as locals called them because of one jagged crag that looked like a bear’s tooth.

Not far after that, the pavement ran out and he found himself in a tight canyon with nothing but the roaring river still full from spring runoff and high mountains hemming him in.

The Diamond C was snuggled in a coulee back off an even narrower dirt road and across a private rickety bridge spanning the river. It was early June in Montana and the snow-fed creeks were all running high.

As he came over a small rise, he saw the house and low sheep barns. Wind buffeted his patrol SUV, letting out a low howl. Nearer to the house, he saw a lone wooden weather-grayed rocker teetering back and forth in the blustery wind at the edge of a wide porch. Freshly hung sheets billowed and snapped on the clothesline nearby.

He’d had his share of premonitions before. Several of them had saved his life. But none had ever been as strong as the feeling of dread that washed over him as he drove toward the white clapboard two-story farmhouse.