B.J. Daniels - Reunion At Cardwell Ranch

He tried to laugh off the thought of someone following him. First cat burglars now this? Well, there was one way to find out, he thought as he neared the Corral Bar. He slowed and pulled in. The car went on past.

The windows on the vehicle had been tinted, so he hadn’t gotten a good look at the driver. If he had to guess, he’d say male. As it disappeared up the road, he told himself the driver hadn’t been following him anyway.

He thought about going inside the bar and having a burger and a beer. This was his father and uncle’s favorite bar. Their band often played here.

But he was too antsy. He wanted to get back and find out if McKenzie had gotten him the house...and the painting. He pulled back on the road headed toward Big Sky again, his thoughts going to his cat burglar. The forgery at the house had to have been painted by someone with a whole lot of talent as Taylor West had said.

So if it was a forgery, who had painted it? Not some dead man named H. F. Powell unless he’d painted it before his demise. But the big question was why would his thief take it instead of the authenticated original?

She wouldn’t. So if he was right and she’d been coming out of the house when he’d arrived, then she’d been in the process of stealing the original when he’d stopped her.

Which meant McKenzie was about to make a deal for a forgery.

Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he glanced in his rearview mirror. The brown car was back.

He felt a start at the sight of it behind him again. As he glanced in his rearview mirror again he saw that the vehicle was coming up fast. The canyon road had been plowed, but the dark pavement was still icy. Add to that the twists and turns the highway took as it wound through the Gallatin Canyon and the driver of the car was going way too fast.

Laramie had only a moment for his brain to take it all in before he realized that the driver had no intention of slowing down. A curve was coming up, one with a steep rock face on one side of the road and a precarious drop to the frozen river on the other.

He felt the vehicle’s bumper connect with the back of his rental. Just a tap. But on the icy road that was all it took. The rental SUV began to fishtail on the ice as the dark car bumped into him again. He could feel the tires lose traction and the next thing he knew he was sliding toward the river. He felt the tires go off the pavement. A wall of snow rushed over the hood.

Expecting the SUV would be pitched into the river and break through the ice, Laramie braced him. Moments later, heart in his throat, he was shocked when the deep snow off the side of the highway stopped his descent just yards from the frozen river. He sat, so shaken he didn’t notice the dark car backing up on the highway above him until he heard the roar of the engine.

Looking up, all he saw was the dark tinted windows on the passenger side as the car sped away.

* * *

THE PULLED PORK sandwich was to die for, just as Tara had said. Sid couldn’t believe she hadn’t been to Texas Boys Barbecue before this. The beans and coleslaw were quite good, too. She had downed the cola on the drive back to the cabin but had saved the rest until she’d reached home. Once there, she’d pulled a cold bottle of beer from the grocery bag and sat down at her kitchen table to devour the barbecue. She couldn’t help licking her fingers.

Her father would have loved the food, she thought, and then pushed the thought away. While he was always with her, driving her more than ambition, remembering him often brought aching pain. One day that pain would go away, once she accomplished the job she’d set for herself, she told herself as she cleaned up the mess and changed her clothes.

Back at her easel, she considered the painting she was working on. It was one of her father. He was standing by a horse next to the corral. His battered straw cowboy hat was pushed back, sunlight on his weathered face. Behind him were the rocky cliffs and scrub pine of her youth. She was painting it from memory since all the photos had been lost.

She thought of the stash of original artwork she had hidden all these years. It had been years since anyone had seen those paintings—herself included.

Until recently.

* * *

LARAMIE CALLED 911 the moment he was out of the SUV and standing at the edge of the highway. He couldn’t believe how lucky he’d been. Just a few more yards and the rental would have been in the river.

Marshal Hud Savage came on the line. “What’s this about you being forced off the road?”

He told him and Hud promised to have a wrecker sent down to get his rental out of the snowbank.

Laramie had given him what little description he could of the vehicle that had forced him off the road. As with the alleged cat burglar, he had little information other than the car was large and brown with tinted windows.

“It happened too fast,” he said. “But there was no doubt of the driver’s intent.” He could almost see Hud nodding.

“Had you passed the driver? Or had any interaction before this?”

“No. I saw the car earlier up by Taylor Fork, then again later when I went for a drive up the canyon.” He could tell that Hud had little hope of finding the vehicle. “Can you do me a favor? Find out what Taylor West drives.”

“Taylor West, the local artist?” Hud asked with obvious surprise.

Hud told him that West owned a large SUV and an older-model pickup. Neither matched the description Laramie had given him.

“What makes you think Taylor West had anything to do with running you off the road?” Hud had wanted to know.

“Nothing really,” Laramie said. “That’s just the first place I noticed the car following me, after I visited the artist. I’m probably wrong about there being a connection.” And yet he had a feeling that if Taylor hadn’t been behind it, then someone he knew definitely was. But he had no idea why. “Maybe I ticked off the driver somehow.”

“Maybe,” Hud said. “You sure you weren’t going too slow?”

“Maybe.”

* * *

TAYLOR WEST PACED the floor after the Texan left. He’d been so shaken that he would have poured himself a drink if there’d been any booze in the house. But his wife had dumped every drop she could find down the drain before she’d left. He’d dug out enough from his hiding places that he’d been fine. Until now.

“When are you coming back?” he’d demanded as he’d watched her throw her clothes into two suitcases and head for the door.

“When you get some help with your drinking.”

He didn’t need any help. He drank fine without it.

The old joke fell flat. He knew it was more than his drinking. She’d been trying to let him down easy, he thought as he looked around the house. He hadn’t realized what a mess it was until he’d seen it through his visitor’s eyes. What had Laramie Cardwell been thinking, showing up unannounced at his door like that?

“It’s that damned painting,” he said as he opened one kitchen cupboard after another, not even sure what he was looking for—then he remembered where he’d hidden a bottle of bourbon months ago and felt better.

In the laundry room, he moved the washer out a little. Reaching behind it, he groped around, feeling nothing but air and cobwebs. Panic filled him. The drive to the nearest liquor store was a good ten miles. He couldn’t go to the nearest bar since he’d been kicked out of it.

His hand brushed over the cold throat of the bourbon bottle. His relief rushed out in a laugh that sounded too loud in the small room. Clutching the bottle, he withdrew it, wiped off the dust with one of his dirty shirts lying on the laundry room floor and headed for the kitchen.

Unable to find a clean glass, he took his first drink straight from the bottle. The liquor bathed his tongue in bliss, warmed his throat and quenched his thirst. He took another drink as the first one reached his belly and sent a golden glow through him.