B.J. Daniels - Unforgiven

* * *

DESTRY HAD WATCHED FROZEN to the spot as the pickup came to a dust-boiling stop next to her. The early evening light ricocheted off the windshield, blinding her for a moment before the driver’s side window came down.

The shock of coming face-to-face with Rylan after all these years sent a tremor through her. She stared into those familiar brown eyes, seeing the Rylan West she’d fallen in love with as a girl. For a moment, lost in his gaze, she had the overpowering feeling that if he would just get out of that pickup and take her in his arms they could find their way back to each other.

“Destry?” The sound of her name on his lips made her heart pound with the familiarity of it.

She found her voice. “I wondered when I’d see you. I should have known what it would take. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

He shoved back his Stetson. “I reckon not. I need to see your brother.”

She shook her head. Before he’d left town, she’d tried to convince Rylan that her brother couldn’t have killed Ginny. “If you just knew him the way I do...”

But his mind had been made up. Just as it was today. She could see it in the clenched muscles of his strong jaw, in the set of his broad shoulders. He’d looked the same way the day of his sister’s funeral when he’d gone after Carson, the two of them getting into a fistfight at the cemetery until Rylan’s father had broken it up.

“I was hoping...” She couldn’t even bear to say the words, her hopes like daggers through her heart. She’d dreamed about the day she would see Rylan again. Her dream crumbled like the dried leaves on the cottonwoods nearby, turning to dust in the wind.

The man she’d known was gone. It was high time she let go of the past. Let go of Rylan West.

* * *

RYLAN NEARLY BUCKLED under the pain he saw in her eyes. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

She sighed, cloaking the hurt with a smile, a smile with an edge to it. Anger fired her blue eyes. It burned hot as a flame. She knew what he planned to do.

For weeks after Ginny’s murder, he’d tried to find proof that would put Carson Grant behind bars. What he kept running into was the same thing that had kept Carson free all these years—a lack of evidence.

“I have to get my sister justice since the law isn’t going to. As Ginny’s oldest brother, I owe her that.”

“And you think this is the way?” she said, sounding sad and disappointed in him.

“Stay out of this, please.”

“Carson’s my brother.”

“And Ginny was my sister. At least you still have your brother.”

“Not if you have your way.”

He had no intention of killing Carson—just getting the truth out of him, one way or the other. He snatched off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. Now that he and Carson were both back, Rylan intended to see his sister’s murderer behind bars. He said as much to Destry.

“He didn’t do it, Rylan,” she said. “He never left the ranch that night.”

“According to his alibi. You. But we both know that was a lie.” He fought back the image of her naked in his arms the night they’d made love for the first time at the old abandoned ski lodge high on the mountain. Little did they know what was happening in the valley below them.

Her hands went to her hips, her gaze blazing. “Carson didn’t know I’d left the ranch to meet you. It was an honest mistake since you and I were both sneaking around back then.”

“I notice that even you didn’t bring up Carson’s other alibi.”

“What would be the point? My brother could have a half dozen alibis and you still wouldn’t believe him.”

Rylan swore because she was right. “You have to admit his best friend isn’t the most reliable alibi, not to mention that Jack French would say the moon was made of cheese if your brother asked him to. Destry, when are you going to stop covering for your brother and see him for what he really is?”

She took a step toward the pickup, her fists balled at her sides. “When are you going to realize that you might be wrong?”

Rylan looked away, his jaw tensing in frustration. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.” He’d never believe Carson wasn’t Ginny’s killer, and Destry would defend her brother until hell froze over. “We both know why your brother is back in town. The county attorney threatened to bring Carson back in handcuffs if he didn’t return for questioning about the new evidence.”

“New evidence? Is that true?”

He saw her surprise. “Your father didn’t tell you? I thought you would have heard.” But then again, Destry hardly ever left the ranch, from what he’d heard.

“I just assumed WT forced Carson to come back,” she said.

Rylan shook his head. “A gold hair clip with my sister’s name on it was found under the stage at the Royale. We’re pretty sure Ginny was wearing it the last time we saw her.”

“So she was at the old theater that night?”

“The sheriff thinks she might have met someone there, probably her killer, then was taken by car to where her body was left.” He looked away, fighting the roiling emotions boiling inside him.

“Maybe now the real killer will be found,” Destry said.

He hated the hopefulness he heard in her voice. She would be devastated when the truth came out.

“Destry,” he said, as kindly as he could, “the county attorney wouldn’t have forced your brother to come back here unless the evidence pointed to him.”

Her blue eyes narrowed to slits. “If you’re so sure this so-called new evidence will prove my brother guilty, then why are you out here ready to take the law into your own hands?”

“Because the law in this county is Sheriff Frank Curry. Everyone knows that he does whatever your father tells him to.”

Destry shook her head angrily. “Or because you know a hair clip isn’t going to prove that my brother had anything to do with her death.”

“Not unless someone can place your brother in the old theater that night.”

“Don’t you think if my brother had been there, someone would have mentioned it by now?” she demanded.

She had always been strong and determined. It was one of the reasons he’d loved her more than life. If his sister hadn’t been murdered that night, he didn’t doubt they’d be married now, probably have a couple of kids.

Did Destry ever think about what might have been? She’d made a life for herself on the W Bar G. He’d heard how she had taken over after her father’s plane crash. She was born to ranch, that’s what people said. They also said how lucky WT was to have such a daughter. Everyone liked Destry and with good reason.

Carson, though, was another story.

“I warned your brother that if I ever saw him again... Destry, I can’t live with myself unless I do something. Can’t you understand that?” He hated the pleading he heard in his voice. It upset him that it mattered what she thought of him, even after all these years.

Her gaze softened. “I can understand. But not this way. Find out who your sister was meeting in town that night.”

He flinched at the mental picture of the coroner and EMTs bringing his sister’s body out of the shallow ditch beside the road a few miles outside of town. The killer had thrown her into the ditch, leaving her for dead, leaving her to die alone beside the road.

“She ran into your brother,” he snapped.

She made an impatient sound. “How can you be so sure that Ginny wasn’t seeing someone else that she kept not only from Carson, but also from your parents and even from you?” she demanded.

He swore under his breath as he slapped his hat back on to his head. “Some mystery man? That’s just some story your brother cooked up to shift suspicion onto someone else. This isn’t getting us anywhere. It’s the same old argument. It’s why I left eleven years ago. Your brother killed her.”