B.J. Daniels - Boots and Bullets

Boots and Bullets

BJ Daniels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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He feared Kate Landon didn’t have any idea what she was getting into. Worse, how dangerous it might get.

“I’ve always wanted to know the truth.”

That feeling that he was meant to come here, meant to meet this woman, overwhelmed him. The answer was in this town, but so was the danger.

He was worried about her and not just because of his damned dream. She was putting her faith in him.

And he feared that if he kissed her, it wouldn’t stop there.

He couldn’t make Kate Landon any promises and she was the kind of girl who deserved promises from a man.

BJ DANIELSwrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. That first book, Odd Man Out , received a four-and-a-half star review from RT Book Reviews and went on to be nominated for Best Intrigue for that year. Since then she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and many nominations and awards for best book.

Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. Daniels is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.

To contact her, write to BJ Daniels, PO Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538, USA, or e-mail her at bjdaniels@mtintouch.net. Check out her website at www.bjdaniels.com.

This book is dedicated to the Malta Quilt Club and all the other wonderful and amazingly talented women who are teaching me to have fun with fabric. Quilting keeps me sane when words fail me. Thanks ladies!

Cyrus Winchester opened his eyes and blinked in confusion. He appeared to be in a hospital room. From down the hall came the sound of a television advertisement for an end-of-season fall sale.

He told himself he must be dreaming. The last thing he remembered was heading to Montana to spend the Fourth of July with the grandmother he hadn’t seen in twenty-seven years.

Glancing toward the window, he saw a gap in the drapes. His heart began to pound. The leaves were gone off the trees and several inches of fresh snow covered the ground.

A nurse entered the room, but she didn’t look in his direction as she went over to the window and opened the curtains. He closed his eyes again, blinded by the brightness.

As he tried to make sense of this, Cyrus could hear her moving around the room. She came over to the bed, tucking and straightening, humming to herself a tune he didn’t recognize. She smelled of citrus, a light, sweet scent that reminded him of summer and driving to Montana with the windows down on his pickup, the radio blaring.

With a start, he realized that wasn’t the last thing he remembered!

His hand shot out, grabbing the nurse’s wrist. She screamed, drawing back in surprise, eyes widening in shock. What was wrong with her?

He opened his mouth, his lips working, but nothing came out.

“Don’t try to talk,” she said and pushed the call button with her free hand. “The doctor will be glad to see that you’re back with us, cowboy.”

Back with us?

Cyrus tried again to speak, desperate to tell her what he remembered, but the only sound that came out was a shh.

The nurse gently removed her wrist from his grasp to pour him a glass of water. “Here, drink a little of this.”

Gratefully he took the cup from her and raised his head enough to take a sip. He couldn’t believe how weak he felt or how confused he was. But one thought remained clear and that was what he urgently needed to tell someone.

He took another swallow of water, feeling as if he hadn’t had a drink in months.

“Sheriff.” The word came out in a hoarse whisper. “Get. The. Sheriff. I saw it. The nurse. Murdered. In the hospital nursery.”

Cyrus tried to make sense of what his twin brother was telling him. “No, Cordell,” he said when his brother finished. “I know what I saw last night.”

His brother’s earlier relief at seeing him awake had now turned to concern. “Cyrus, you’ve been in a coma for three months. You just woke up. You wouldn’t have seen a murder unless it happened in the last twenty minutes.”

“I’m telling you. I saw her. A nurse or a nurse’s aide, I don’t know, she was wearing a uniform and she was lying on the floor with a bloody scalpel next to her just inside the nursery door.” He saw his brother frown. “What?”

“You’re in a special rehabilitation center in Denver and have been for the last two months. There is no nursery here.”

Cyrus lay back against the pillows, looking past his identical twin to the snow covering the landscape outside. “The hospital was a brick building. Old. The tiles on the floor were worn.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught his brother’s surprised expression. “There is such a place, isn’t there?”

“You just described the old hospital in Whitehorse, Montana, but you haven’t been there for months,” Cordell said.

“But I was there, right?”

“Yes, for only one night. They were in the process of moving you to the new hospital the night you were … “

“You’re eventually going to have to tell me what happened to me,” Cyrus said.

“What’s important is that you’re conscious. The doctor said everything looks good and there is no reason you shouldn’t have a full recovery. As for this other issue, we can sort it out later when—”

“A nurse was murdered. ” Cyrus swallowed, his mouth and throat still dry from lack of use.

“I’m sorry, but it had to have been a dream. You say you got up out of bed that night—”

“I buzzed for the nurse, but no one answered the call button, so I got up and walked out past the nurse’s station,” Cyrus said, seeing it as clearly as his brother standing before him. “The nurses’ station was empty, but I remember looking at the clock. It was two minutes past midnight. I could hear someone down the hall talking in whispers in one of the rooms. I walked in that direction, but as I passed the nursery windows—”

“Cyrus, this is the first time since your accident that you’ve been conscious,” Cordell said gently. “That night in the old Whitehorse hospital, you were hooked up to monitors and IVs. There is no way you got up and walked anywhere. I’m sorry. I know it seemed real to you, whatever you think you saw, but it had to have just been a bad dream.”

“Then how do you explain the fact that I can remember exactly how the old tiles felt on my bare feet or the way the place smelled, or that I can describe the hospital to you if I was never awake to see it?”