Charlotte Douglas - Montana Secrets

The whine of an engine straining on a steep grade and the clash of changing gears jerked her from her recollections, and anger flashed through her. Besides Megan, memories of Ryan were all she had, and she resented anything that interrupted her reminiscence. Pushing to her feet, she watched the unfamiliar vehicle approach.

The battered pickup pulled to a stop before the front gate, and the driver stepped out. Even in the gloom of the gathering twilight, Cat immediately recognized the huge man’s threatening silhouette.

Snake Larson.

She shivered with the unearthly awareness that her trip down memory lane had conjured up the last person in the world she wanted to see.

“Hello, Snake,” she called as he swaggered toward the porch. “What are you doing back from Billings? I heard you’ve been working a construction job down there the last few years.”

He grinned, teeth gleaming yellow in the dim light. “Job’s finally finished. I’ve come home to work trails for the Forest Service this summer.”

At the bottom of the steps, he stopped and removed his hat. His eyes, small and unpleasant, at least looked clear. He didn’t act drunk, either, but with Snake, the difference between sobriety and inebriation was hard to discern. He was infamous for his volatile moods, unpredictable escapades and an amazing capacity for holding his liquor.

“Good to see you again, Cat.”

“If you’ve come to visit Dad, I’ll get him.” She started toward the door.

“Don’t bother,” Snake called. “It’s you I’m looking for.”

“Why?” A sudden chill enveloped her.

“It’s been five years since your fiancé was killed. Figured you might be ready to get out a bit.”

She suppressed a shudder. “I don’t think so.”

“We can drive over to Bonner’s Ferry. Have us some steaks and a few beers. Dance a bit. Kick up your heels. Surely you’re ready to quit moping by now. And your daddy can baby-sit that bastard brat of yours.”

His attitude was the same surly mix of arrogance, conceit and insensitivity for which he’d always been famous, and Cat struggled to rein in her flaring temper at the man’s deliberate crudeness.

She forced a smile. “You’ve made a wasted trip. I’ve had supper already, and I have to work tomorrow.”

Snake’s fleshy face twisted in a snarl, and his tongue flicked across his thick lips. “So, the rumors are true.”

“What rumors?”

“That you’re going to marry that weakling of a high school principal, Todd Brewster.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, Snake, nor half of what you see, as my daddy always told me.”

He started up the porch steps. “Well, if you’re not marrying Brewster, there’s no harm in your riding over to Bonner’s Ferry with me. We’ll skip the steaks and cut straight to the beers and dancing.”

In spite of her attempts to contain it, her anger ignited. “What part of no don’t you understand? I’m not going anywhere with you. I have classes to teach tomorrow and papers to grade tonight.”

“Damn, Cat, what’s the fun of being a teacher if you can’t break the rules?”

Snake lumbered across the porch toward her, and she was struck by two distinctly opposite reactions. The first was a sense of déjà vu so clear and indelible she expected Ryan to appear at any second, wrench Snake’s arm behind his back and send him flying headlong off the porch. The second was the terrible realization that this time she was on her own, with her back to the porch wall and Snake Larson bearing down on her like the Great Northern Express whose tracks ran through High Valley’s lower forty.

He was so close, she could smell his whiskey-laced breath. The man, unpredictable at best when sober, meaner than his deadliest namesake when drinking, apparently already had several shots under his belt. Claustrophobia closed in on her, clamping down on her lungs, making her struggle for air. She gauged her chances of making a break inside before he could grab her, and they weren’t good.

Suddenly, the screen door slammed. Snake glanced toward the noise, then stopped his advance and took a few awkward steps backward.

“Evening, Mr. Erickson,” Snake mumbled, with a look on his face like a kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Hello, Snake.”

Her father stood in front of the door, his Winchester rifle cradled casually in the crook of his arm. Gabe’s reputation for handling the weapon with extraordinary speed and accuracy was legendary throughout the county. From the suddenly respectful expression on Snake’s face, Cat knew her tormentor was aware of her father’s skill. Even though the tragic events of the past had left Gabriel sunken and prematurely aged, nothing had affected his proficiency with a gun.

“What do you want here, Snake?” Gabriel demanded.

Snake turned the brim of his hat in his hands, mangling its shape. “Came to ask Cat dancing.”

“And what did she say?”

“Said she can’t.”

“Guess you’ll be leaving then, won’t you?”

One-handed, Gabriel cocked the lever of the rifle and pointed it toward Snake.

Snake rammed on his battered Stetson, lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender and eased off the porch and down the steps. He took the path at a trot without a backward glance, but at the gate, either his courage or his liquor kicked in, because he turned and shouted, “You ain’t seen the last of me.”

“Get out of here, Snake,” her father warned, “before I fill your truck—and your worthless hide—full of holes.”

Muttering a string of foul curses, Snake wrenched open the door of his pickup, climbed inside and started the engine. Grinding the gears, he circled the truck in the road in front of the house, knocking a section of picket fence flat in the process. With his engine screaming in protest and his tires spewing dust, he gunned down the road toward town.

Cat couldn’t stop shaking, more from anger than from fright. Her father put his arm around her and led her inside.

“I made some fresh coffee,” he said. “How ’bout I pour us both a cup?”

“You think he meant it?” Cat asked, following her father into the kitchen.

“About coming back?” Gabriel shook his head. “We’re forty miles from town. Why would he waste his time?”

Pure, unadulterated meanness, Cat thought, but she kept her opinion to herself.

Under the bright lights of the kitchen, the heavy toll on Gabe of working the ranch alone the last five years was even more pronounced. His thick, golden hair had turned white soon after her mother died, but since the embassy bombing, her father had seemed to shrink and waste away before her eyes. The only times he laughed were when he played with his granddaughter. Cat didn’t want to cause him more worry by voicing her concerns about Snake Larson.

She had no doubt that Snake would make good on his promise to return, and she intended to stay ready and remain on guard. Marc had taught her to shoot years ago. Tomorrow, she’d start target practice again.

She couldn’t count on Ryan to protect her this time. A sob threatened to break loose from her throat. Ryan, unlike Snake Larson, would never be coming back to High Valley Ranch. The terrorist bomb in Tabari five years ago had made sure of that.

They hadn’t even found enough of Ryan to send home to bury.

At the same time Cat Erickson was having coffee in the ranch kitchen with her father, halfway around the world an infuriated Ryan Christopher burst into Colonel Barker’s office at the reconstructed Tabarian embassy. He slammed the door behind him and stormed the commanding officer’s desk.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Ryan shouted.