B.J. Daniels - Hard Rustler

The white siding could use an overall paint job and the emerald trim needed a touch-up. But if she closed her eyes, she could picture herself and her sisters, the three Clementine girls, on that wide porch drinking Grandma Frannie’s lemonade and giggling like the schoolgirls they’d been.

She hadn’t realized that she’d closed her eyes until she felt them burn with tears. Her guilt was like one of her grandmother’s knitting needles to her heart. Yes, she should have made it to Frannie’s funeral. She’d had her reasons, and they hadn’t all been out of embarrassment for the way her life had turned out.

Her grandmother would have understood because Annabelle had always been the favorite. At least, that’s what she told herself.

“You’re so much like me, Annabelle Clementine, that sometimes I swear you’ll be the death of me.” Then Grandma Frannie’s expression would soften and she’d press a cool palm to Annabelle’s cheek. “So much like me. It’s like seeing myself at your age.”

“That’s why I’m your favorite,” she’d say, and her grandmother would shake her head and laugh before telling her to run along outside.

But it had to have been true. Otherwise, why would Frannie have left her the only thing she had of any value—this house. And left it only to her instead of to all three sisters?

A tap on the passenger-side window startled her. Her eyes flew open, but it took a moment to chase away the bittersweet memories along with the guilt and the tears.

* * *

REALTOR MARY SUE Linton glanced at the silver sports car and shook her head. Leave it to Annabelle to show up in something like that. She shouldn’t have been surprised since this was the Annabelle Clementine she’d known since grade school.

She had been surprised, though, when her former classmate had called and asked Mary Sue to represent her in the sale. Not surprised. Shocked. The two of them had never been friends, traveling in a completely different circle of friends, even as small as the classes had been. The truth was that Annabelle hadn’t uttered two words to her throughout four years of high school. Did people still say stuck-up?

Blonde and blue-eyed, with a figure that Mary Sue would have killed for, Annabelle was The Girl Most Likely to Become Famous. At least, that’s what it had said in their senior class yearbook. Everyone knew Annabelle was going to be somebody. Annabelle had said it enough times.

But, then again, she’d also said that she would never come back to Whitehorse. And here she was.

Still, why come all this way to sell her grandmother’s house? Mary Sue had told her on the phone that she could deal with everything but the paperwork and save her the trip. She had expected Annabelle to jump at it. Instead, the woman had insisted on coming back to “handle” things.

“If you don’t trust me to get you the best price...” Mary Sue had started to say, “you can kiss my—”

But Annabelle had interrupted with, “It’s my grandmother’s house.”

Right. Just like it had been her grandmother’s funeral. Everyone in town had turned out. Annabelle’s two sisters had flown in and out. No Annabelle, though. So was Mary Sue supposed to believe the house had sentimental value to this woman? Not likely.

After tapping on the sports car window, she bent down and looked in. One glance and it was clear that her former classmate had aged well. She looked better than she had in high school. Mary Sue felt that old stab of jealousy.

She started to tap again, but to her surprise, Annabelle appeared to be furtively wiping away tears. Shocked at such a sign of emotion, Mary Sue was taken aback. Maybe she was wrong about Annabelle. Maybe she did have a heart. Maybe she did care about her grandmother. Maybe she even cared about this house and Whitehorse and the people she’d once snubbed.

The thought almost made her laugh though as her former classmate climbed out of the convertible sports car saying, “Okay, let’s get this over with so I can get out of this one-horse town.”

* * *

DAWSON UNLOADED THE horse trailer, parked it and went into the ranch house he’d built himself. He’d worked hard the past thirteen years and now had a place he was proud of on the family ranch. The oldest son of two, he’d had to take over helping his mother run the ranch after his father had died. He’d worked hard and was proud of what he’d been able to accomplish. Annabelle wasn’t the only one who’d done well over the years, he told himself with no small amount of defensiveness.

“Got a chip on your shoulder, do you?” he grumbled with a curse. He’d been thinking about her again. All the way to town he’d been trying to exorcize her from his thoughts with little luck. Before she’d left town, she’d made him feel as if he was never going to amount to anything. It still stuck in his craw.

He kept seeing her sitting in her car while he refueled it. She hadn’t even had the good grace to look at him—not to mention acknowledge that she’d once known him. Known him damned well, too.

Dawson gave that memory an angry shove away. When Annabelle Clementine had left town in a cloud of dust years ago, she’d said she was never looking back. Well, today proved that, didn’t it?

Worked up over his run-in with her, he told himself he just needed a hot shower and clean clothes. But as he caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he came to a startled stop and had to laugh. He wouldn’t even recognize himself after two weeks in a hunting camp in the Missouri Breaks.

He stared at his grizzled face and filthy, camp-worn clothes, seeing what she’d seen today. Even if she had recognized him, seeing him like that would only have confirmed what she’d thought of him all those years ago. He looked like a man who wasn’t going anywhere.

Stripping down, he turned on the shower and stepped in. The warm water felt like heaven as he began to suds up in a fury. He just wanted that woman out of his hair—and his head. But his thoughts went straight as an arrow to that image of her standing beside the river. Her long blond hair gleaming in the sunlight and that black outfit hugging every unforgettable curve he’d once known so well. Growling, he turned the water to cold.

Out of the shower and toweling himself off, he looked at his reflection in the mirror again. Was it really possible that she hadn’t known him? He reached for his razor, telling himself it didn’t matter. With a curse, he acknowledged that he’d been lying to himself for years about his feelings for her—ever since that day he’d rescued her from his tree house when she was five.

And he’d rescued her again today, he thought with a curse. He just never learned.

* * *

ANNABELLE TOOK THE key from her pocket and opened her grandmother’s front door, Mary Sue Linton at her elbow. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside, bracing herself for more painful memories. Instead, shock stopped her cold just inside the door.

“You can’t sell the house like this,” Mary Sue said, stating the obvious next to her. “I thought you said your sisters cleaned everything out?”

“They said they took what they wanted.” She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her grandmother hadn’t been a packrat, she’d been a hoarder. The house was crammed full of...stuff. She could barely see the floor. The rooms appeared to be filled with furniture, knickknacks, stacks of newspapers and magazines, bags of clothing and clutter. The house looked more like a crowded old antique shop than a home. Unfortunately it didn’t take a trained eye to see that all of this wasn’t even junkshop worthy.

“What am I supposed to do with all of this?” she demanded. “I can’t very well have a garage sale this time of year. If there was anything in all this mess worth selling.” It was late November. Christmas was only weeks away.