Montana Midwife
Montana Midwife
Cassie Miles
Rushing to the aid of a pregnant woman, midwife Tab Willows arrives at the scene of a horrifying murder.Then her sexy teenage crush Aiden Gabriel lands his rescue chopper – he’s only got better with age – and now he’s determined to protect Tab from a serial killer. But can he also reignite their spark?
Casually Tab leaned against the fence beside Aiden. “It almost sounds like you’re asking me to help.”
“Does it, now?”
“You bet it does. It’s almost like we’re investigating. Both of us. Together.” She covered her smug grin by draining the last of her coffee. “I seem to recall something you said about not wanting my help because it was too … What was it you said? It was too dangerous for a delicate flower like me.”
“I’m real sure I never called you a flower.”
“I added that part,” she said. “You know what you said.”
He shoved away from the fence and stood tall before her. “If you’re done with your I-told-you-so, I’d like to put things into motion.”
“And you want me to help you investigate.” She looked up through her eyelashes.
“I reckon I do.”
About the Author
Though born in Chicago and raised in LA, USA TODAY bestselling author CASSIE MILES has lived in Colorado long enough to be considered a semi-native. The first home she owned was a log cabin in the mountains overlooking Elk Creek, with a thirty-mile commute to her work at the Denver Post.
After raising two daughters and cooking tons of macaroni and cheese for her family, Cassie is trying to be more adventurous in her culinary efforts. Ceviche, anyone? She’s discovered that almost anything tastes better with wine. When she’s not plotting Mills & Boon
Intrigue books, Cassie likes to hang out at the Denver Botanical Gardens near her high-rise home.
Montana Midwife
Cassie Miles
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In memory of Rosemary Heiser.
She will be missed.
Chapter One
On a high ridge overlooking the Little Big Horn River, Tab Willows sat up straight in the saddle and lifted her arm above her head. Finally, she had a signal for her cell phone. There was no way she could find Misty and her boyfriend unless they gave her better directions to their location. This horse didn’t come equipped with GPS.
She hit the redial.
Misty Gabriel answered immediately. “Tab, where are you? I need you.”
Panic trembled in her voice, which was understandable for a woman in labor with her first baby. For some unexplainable reason, Misty and Clinton had decided to go off-roading and had gotten their vehicle stuck in a creek bed that was damp with melt from a recent snow. The early November weather wasn’t bad right now, but night was coming. With the darkness came an icy chill.
Tab hadn’t been working with Misty as a regular client in her midwife practice, but she felt an obligation and a connection to this young woman she used to babysit, even though, as adults, they didn’t appear to have much in common. Misty was the spoiled seventeen-year-old daughter of a wealthy ranching family. Bubbly and blonde, she giggled with every other breath. In contrast, Tab seldom laughed out loud. Her overall appearance—dusky-colored skin and straight black hair worn in a single braid down to her waist—favored her mother’s Crow heritage. Her blue eyes came from her dad.
“I’m looking down at the area you described,” Tab said, “but I don’t see your Jeep. Give me directions.”
“Like what?” She giggled nervously. “It’s not like there are street signs or anything.”
Focus, Misty. “Any unusual rock formations?”
“Oh, yeah. On the other side of the river and up a slope, there’s a big cave we used to play in when we were kids.”
“Half-Moon Cave.”
That landmark told Tab the approximate whereabouts. When Misty had first called, she’d said there were no passable roads, which was why Tab was on horseback. She wished she’d taken her van; there was a decent route that ran fairly close to Misty’s location.
“Half-Moon Cave, that’s right.” Her giggle broke into a sob. “You’ve got to hurry. Clinton hit his head.”
Of course, he did. This situation just got worse and worse. “Is he conscious?”
“Kind of. He was trying to push the Jeep out of the mud and he slipped and conked his forehead on the bumper.”
On horseback, there was no way to evacuate a man with a concussion and a woman in labor. “Let’s talk about you. How far apart are your pains?”
“I don’t know. It just hurts.”
“And how many months along are you?”
“Eight-ish. The doctor said I could have the baby any time now.”
In the best-case scenario, Misty was experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions that wouldn’t lead to childbirth. Or she could be going into early labor. “I want you to stay calm. Take slow, steady breaths, okay?”
“Whatever you say, Tab.”
“One thing I don’t understand,” she said. “Why didn’t you call your brother to come for you?”
Her brother, Aiden Gabriel, provided a private rescue-helicopter service for the local hospitals, the sheriff and national park rescue teams. Because he also worked on the family ranch, he wasn’t always available, but Tab knew that Aiden would drop everything to rescue his baby sister.
“Aiden is a big old jerk,” Misty said. “And he doesn’t like Clinton.”
An opinion Tab could easily comprehend. Clinton had taken his very pregnant girlfriend on an off-road adventure, gotten them stuck and then knocked himself unconscious. Clearly, he wasn’t the sharpest arrow in the quiver. “Brace yourself, Misty. I’m calling your brother. You need his help.”
“Maybe not. I think I see somebody coming.”
“Stay where you are,” Tab said sharply. “I can’t find you if you go wandering off.”
“Okay. See you later, elevator.”
“Real soon, harvest moon.”
Tab smiled as she remembered the rhyming games she and Misty played ten years ago. Tab had been sixteen. Her life had been split between living with her dad in Billings and with her grandma, Maria Spotted Bear, on the Crow reservation. When her dad had been hired to do contracting work at the Gabriel ranch near Henley, she’d tagged along and had gotten recruited as a live-in babysitter for seven-year-old Misty.
That summer had been a rough time for the Gabriel family. Misty’s dad had been killed in a car accident. Tab felt like she could understand Misty’s grief because she’d lost her mom and knew what it was like to have a parent die too young. She and Misty had bonded but their friendship wasn’t the main thing that happened that summer. That summer, Tab had fallen in love for the first time.
Looking down at her cell phone, she remembered the tall, lean, handsome Aiden Gabriel with his thick brown hair and his dreamy gray eyes. He’d been twenty-one when he came home from college and shouldered the responsibilities of a ranch owner, helping his mom to cope when her husband died. Though Tab never told anyone, she’d dreamed of Aiden every night, imagining his kiss and what it would feel like to be held in his strong arms. Once, he’d given her a necklace with a shiny four-leaf clover pendant, which she’d worn for years before tucking it away in her jewelry box.
Tab hadn’t spoken to Aiden since moving back to this area, but she’d seen him recently at a meeting in Crow Agency where the topic was the ongoing law enforcement problems on the reservation. After noticing that he was still the best-looking cowboy she’d ever seen, she’d grabbed one of his business cards and recorded his number on her phone to use in case of birthing emergencies. This circumstance qualified. She hit the speed dial.
On the third ring, he answered, “This is Aiden Gabriel.”
“Hi, it’s Tab.” A pause stretched between them. He didn’t remember her. And wasn’t that a knife to the gut? She clarified, “Tab Willows. I saw you at that law enforcement meeting in Crow Agency and took your card.”
“Tabitha.” He was one of the few people who used her full name. “You haven’t been around for a while. I heard you were at nursing school in Missoula.”
“That’s right.” Hearing his voice cast her backward in time to when she was a lovesick teenager wishing on a star that he’d notice her. She swallowed hard. “I’m a midwife.”
“We have some catching up to do.”
Tongue-tied, she mumbled, “Guess so.”
“It’s been a long time, but I’ll never forget that pretty, young girl with long black hair who used to race my fastest horse across the fields bareback.”
He’d thought she was pretty? If he’d told her when she was sixteen, she would have exploded in a wild burst of angst and joy. Even now, his compliment made it hard for her to breathe. “Misty needs your help.”
“What happened?”
“She called me because she’s having labor pains. She and her boyfriend got their Jeep stuck in a creek bed, and she needs to be evacuated.”
“Are you with her?”
“On my way,” Tab said. “But I can’t bring her in because I’m on horseback. Misty said they were near Half-Moon Cave.”
“I know where it is,” he said. “Tabitha, I hope you remember what was discussed at that meeting. If you’re riding alone, you should be prepared for trouble.”
In her work, she often traveled alone, heading to remote locations to work with women in labor. And she didn’t take unnecessary chances. A rifle scabbard was tucked under her saddlebags. “I’m armed.”
“See you there.”
With her cell phone tucked into the pocket of her brown denim jacket, she flicked the reins and nudged her heel into the flank of Shua, her grandma’s blue-black mare with the white blaze on her forehead. With minimal direction, the horse descended from the ridge and galloped across a wide valley dotted with patches of old snow.
As she directed Shua uphill through a stand of pine trees, she wondered how she could arrange to ride back to the hospital in the helicopter with Aiden. Unfortunately, she couldn’t abandon her horse, even though Shua could probably find her own way back to the corral outside her grandma’s house. The chopper ride would have to wait for another day.
If she took Misty as a client, she’d have plenty of opportunity to see Aiden. Not that she needed an excuse. Her midwife work made it important to know the emergency providers. She had every reason to call him and set a coffee date or invite him to her grandma’s house and bake him a pie. Did he still like apple? Would he still think she was pretty?
A blast of gunfire echoed through the canyons and across the fields. Three shots.
Shua reared back. Tab’s memories and daydreams shattered. There was trouble ahead.
If her reckoning was correct, Half-Moon Cave was just over the next rise. She urged her horse to go faster. From the hilltop, she looked down at a field near the canyon walls and saw the open-top Jeep with the rear tires buried up to the hubcaps in the mud. Taking her rifle from the scabbard, Tab held it to her shoulder and peered through the scope for a better look at the vehicle. There was a man sprawled in the backseat; she couldn’t tell if he’d been shot. Misty was nowhere in sight.
This couldn’t be good. Tab cocked her rifle and fired into the air. Her gunfire would warn off attackers and let Misty know that help was on the way.
Two more shots answered hers.
Rifle in hand, Tab rode fast. Her long braid bounced against her back, and the wind streamed across her cheeks. Her protective instincts came to the fore as she remembered the vulnerable child she babysat so long ago.
Approaching the Jeep, she shouted, “Misty?”
Loud sobbing came from a tangle of willows and cottonwoods that bordered the river. Still on horseback, Tab approached. If any real marksmanship was required, she’d need to dismount and brace herself. Right now, she wanted the option of fast maneuvering on Shua.
“Misty, are you all right?”
“I’m over here.”
In a small clearing, Tab saw the body of a man who had been shot in the chest. His jacket hung open. His eyes stared blankly at the darkening sky. He wasn’t moving.
Kneeling on the ground beside him was Misty. She held her bloody hands in front of her as though afraid to touch anything. A rifle lay on the ground.
Misty turned her tear-streaked face toward her. “I didn’t kill him. I swear I didn’t.”
THOUGH AIDEN WAS ALWAYS on call for emergencies, it usually took a while for him to get started because he had to drive to the air field in Henley to pick up his six-passenger helicopter, a Bell Long Ranger. Today, he needed only to walk from the barn to the helipad near his cabin at the Gabriel family ranch. Earlier today, he’d given piloting lessons to a couple of the ranch hands. With winter coming, there wasn’t as much work for the cowboys to do, and Aiden could use some part-time help with his newly established rescue business.
Less than fifteen minutes after Tabitha’s call, he was in the cockpit. He fastened his seat belt, depressed the starter, checked the fuel-pressure gauge, opened the throttle and pointed the nose toward the southeast. If he’d been following roads, the drive to Half-Moon Cave near the Little Big Horn River would have taken nearly an hour. Swooping through the sky cut his arrival time to approximately twenty minutes. Top speed was necessary. From what Tabitha had told him, Misty might be giving birth at any moment.
He hadn’t been pleased when his baby sister turned up pregnant. Misty was fourteen years younger than he was, not much more than a child herself. Aiden still had a hard time thinking of her as a mother, but the idea of having a nephew had grown on him.
As his mom constantly pointed out, it was time for a new generation in the Gabriel family. Mom would have preferred a marriage before the baby, but she’d take what she could get, especially since it didn’t look like Aiden would be heading toward the altar any time soon. His long-distance relationship had fizzled last month when they’d argued about where to spend Christmas. Aiden had point-blank refused to make the trip to Los Angeles to hang tinsel on palm trees, and his lady had no interest in coming to the ranch. The breakup had been inevitable. They’d grown apart.
Using his headset, he put through a call to Tabitha’s cell phone. When she answered, he clarified his directions. “I think I’m getting close. I’m following the course of the river.”
“We’re on the east side. Near a dried-up creek. Please hurry, Aiden.”
He heard the note of urgency in her voice. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“Misty is fine.” She paused. “There’s been a shooting.”
“Are you safe?”
“I think the shooter took off, but I can’t be sure.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said. “Tell me when you hear me getting close.”
“I think we’re okay,” she said. “We took cover by the river.”
He leaned forward as though his will could force the chopper to fly faster. The landscape below was a rugged sea of dry field grass and clumps of sage brush. “Did you see the gunman?”
“I can barely hear you, Aiden.”
“Stay on the line.” Like a 911 operator, he needed to maintain contact so he’d be aware of the situation. “What can you tell me?”
“Not much. Misty will have to do the explaining.”
A shooter had come after his sister? His grip tensed on the cyclic stick as he swerved to the left. He never expected anything like this, never thought violence would reach out and touch his family. “Was anyone shot?”
“Yes,” she said tersely. “It’s not Misty or her boyfriend. Somebody else.”
“Is he seriously wounded?”
“I really can’t hear you,” Tabitha said.
“Don’t hang up. Keep the line open.”
He should have expected something like this. Law enforcement had become a serious problem in the area, especially on the Crow reservation. Tribal lands spread across nearly two and a half million acres with only a handful of officers and a couple of agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to keep order. And the situation in Henley wasn’t much better. Budget cuts had sliced the police and sheriff’s department to the bare bone.
At the meeting in Crow Agency, the tribal police told them to be on the lookout for two girls from Henley who were last seen on the rez before they went missing. Nobody mentioned the possibility of a serial killer, but the threat was implied. Both of the missing girls were blondes like Misty.
“Aiden, I can hear your chopper.”
On the opposite side of the river, he saw the sandstone cliffs and rock formations. “I’m near Half-Moon Cave.”
“Do you see us? Do you see the Jeep?”
He spotted Clinton’s open-top vehicle stuck in the creek bed. Beside it was a black horse. Relief flooded through him when he saw Misty in her bright pink jacket step out from the cover of the trees and wave with both arms. She was safe. For now.
Chapter Two
Aiden stood over the body of a man who wasn’t much older than his sister. The fresh blood on his shirt made a vivid splash of crimson against the dry prairie grass in the clearing. The wind sighed through the bare branches of trees, and the rushing of the river played a quiet dirge. The family and friends of this young man would mourn his passing. Out of respect for them and for the victim, Aiden spread a tarp from the helicopter over the body.
He stood and took a step back.
His sister had a talent for getting into trouble, but this went beyond her usual. When he turned, he saw Misty was standing by the Jeep with her boyfriend. This time, she’d gotten herself involved in a murder. There would be consequences.
Before landing, he’d done an aerial sweep of the area and had seen nothing that appeared threatening. In the afternoon sunlight, his vision extended for miles in every direction. He hadn’t spotted the shooter fleeing or hiding among the rocks and brush. There were no signs of a getaway vehicle, which didn’t surprise Aiden. Almost an hour had passed since the first phone call from Tabitha; that was plenty of time for a shooter to put distance between himself and the scene of the crime.
If there was a shooter …
As he moved to the edge of the clearing, Tabitha joined him. “I’m glad you covered him,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if that would disturb evidence.”
“We aren’t exactly dealing with a crack team of CSI investigators.” He’d done enough work with local law enforcement to know the drill. “The police will be more concerned with obvious stuff. That’s Misty’s rifle on the ground. Do you know how it got here?”
“You need to ask her.”
“There’s a smear of blood on the stock.”
“When I arrived,” Tabitha said, “Misty was kneeling beside the body. I think she was trying to help. She had blood on her hands.”
“Do you think she did it?” He asked the question of the sky and the hills and the river. “Do you think she killed that young man?”
“I don’t know.”
Though he wasn’t sure what he’d do, Aiden had to know the truth. “Misty isn’t a murderer.”
“No, she’s not.”
For the first time since he’d landed, he looked directly at Tabitha. Her blue-eyed gaze was disconcerting, partly because the color was unexpected and partly because she was a lot prettier than he remembered with high cheekbones and a strong, stubborn chin. Her long black braid glistened in the fading sunlight. Though he should have been focused on his sister and the murdered man, this beautiful woman distracted him. His fingers itched to unfasten her braid and caress her silky hair.
“There is a plus side,” she said. “Emergency medical evacuation isn’t necessary. Not for Misty, anyway.”
He watched her full lips as she spoke. “Does that mean she isn’t in labor?”
“I haven’t done a full exam, obviously. But her mysterious labor pains seem to have disappeared, and she’s a month away from her due date. I advised her to check with her doctor in case there are complications. She might need to be on bed rest.”
“I like that idea.” With an effort, he reined in his inappropriate thoughts about Tabitha’s long legs and slender waist. “It’d be nice to keep Misty close to home before the baby comes.”
“I’m more concerned about Clinton.” Her crisp, professional tone helped create a distance between them. “I patched up his head wound, but he’s had a concussion and needs to be under observation.”
“I understand.” But he didn’t agree. He could have cited five or six times when he’d been knocked unconscious and had survived just fine. “I’m mighty glad you got here when you did. This situation could have been worse. Not that there’s anything worse than murder.”
Even if his sister was the killer? Surely, there was an explanation. Self-defense?
“We should call the sheriff,” Tabitha said.
“But this is reservation land. That means we call the Crow police chief, Joseph Lefthand. I’ve worked with him before. He’s good at his job.”
“I agree. Joseph is a good, dedicated lawman.”
He took out his cell phone. “I’ll call him.”
“Wait,” she said. “The tribal police don’t have the resources to process forensic evidence, and I want to make sure the investigation is done right. This isn’t a straightforward murder.”
“It’s not that complicated.” He didn’t need to go into detail about how his aerial sweep failed to show evidence of a killer on the run, or how Misty’s rifle was on the ground beside the body. “We’re looking at an obvious case of self-defense.”
“That’s not what Misty says.”
“Do you believe her, Tabitha?”
“I do. Your sister might be irresponsible, but she’s not a liar.” She arched an eyebrow. “Please call me Tab. The only other person who uses my full name is my grandma, and that’s only when she’s mad at me.”
Her slight smile made him want to see a full-fledged grin and to hear her laughter. “I remember your grandma. Maria Spotted Bear.” He looked past the Jeep to where a black mare was grazing. “Is that her horse?”
“Shua,” Tab said. “Don’t ask me why a black horse is named with the Crow word for blue. Grandma has her reasons.”
“Is she well?”
“According to her, she’s in great health. But she’s been diagnosed with a touch of congenital heart failure. A couple of months ago, she fainted and broke her wrist. One of the reasons I moved back here was to take care of her.”
“Sorry to hear that she’s ailing.”
Tab shrugged. A simple gesture, but he found it charming. “How’s Sylvia?”
“Mom is strong as an ox. It’s hard to believe she’s almost sixty.”
A silence stretched between them. Much had happened in the ten years they’d been out of contact. Though he’d never been a real chatty sort of guy, he had an urge to tell her everything about his life, his hopes and his dreams. With so much to say, he didn’t know where to start.
Tab took the first step. “Let’s talk to your sister, and then we can decide who to call.”
Together, they returned to the Jeep where Misty leaned against the front bumper with her arms cradling her belly. Clinton stood beside her. He’d slapped his cowboy hat onto his head, almost covering the gauze bandage that Tab had applied.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Clinton said. “I should have protected my girl. But I was out cold.”
“And you didn’t see anything,” Aiden said.
“No, sir.”
He turned to his sister. “I’m guessing that you were attacked. Maybe this guy—”
“David Welling.” There was a hitch in her voice. “His name is David Welling.”
“Okay, David Welling came at you, maybe he—”
“I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“Calm down, sweetie. Take a nice, slow, deep breath.” He waited until she’d composed herself before he continued, “It’s not your fault. You had to shoot David in self-defense.”
“I didn’t shoot anybody.” She shook her head, and her curly blond hair whipped across her face. “I never would shoot anybody.”
Aiden exchanged a glance with Tab. She’d warned him that his sister’s story was complicated. “Take your time, Misty. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I was waiting for Tab. I heard a noise over by the river, and I got my rifle out of the back of the Jeep. I was scared that somebody might come after us. Poor Clinton was unconscious, and I couldn’t let anybody hurt him.”
“Whoa,” Clinton said. “I’m not helpless. I could’ve got to my feet and taken care of you.”
Aiden held up his hand, signaling Clinton to stop. “I’m listening to Misty, now.”
She continued, “As soon as I got a little bit closer—”
“Did you take the rifle with you?”
“I left it right here.” She pointed to the front bumper. “I figured that if I needed it, I could run back and grab it real quick.”
“But I thought you were trying to protect Clinton?”
She tapped her foot. “Do you want to hear this, or not, Aiden?”
Understanding her motivations was like asking a chicken why it pecked in the dirt. “Go on.”
“I recognized David. I dated him before he graduated high school and moved away from Henley.”
As far as Aiden could tell, she’d dated most of the male population of Henley High, which made it even more astounding that she’d ended up with a pea brain like Clinton. “Is this David Welling any relation to Bert Welling who runs a gas station in Henley?”
“Bert is his uncle,” Misty said. “David used to pump gas for Bert before he moved to Billings with his dad. Anyway, when I saw him standing there in the clearing, I said hi. And he said I shouldn’t be here, and I told him that we were stuck, and he said I needed to get away from here, to get the hell away from here.”
Her eyes welled up with tears. “Then I heard the shots. David grabbed his chest and fell down. And there was blood. Oh my God, there was a lot of blood.”
“Did you see who shot him?”
“I hit the dirt. I thought they were shooting at me. I covered my head and I thought about my baby. I couldn’t let anything bad happen to my baby, I just couldn’t.”
Her hands flew up to cover her face as heavy sobs shook her shoulders. For once, Clinton did the right thing, stepping forward to comfort her and hold her against his chest. His protective attitude made Aiden wonder if there was something Misty had left out of her story.
Clinton might have been the shooter. Misty could be claiming responsibility to keep her boyfriend from being a suspect. But that didn’t make sense. A self-defense plea worked just as well for Clinton as for Misty. Aiden doubted that either one of them would be charged with murder … except for one hitch. The victim appeared to be unarmed.
As Misty’s sobs abated, Aiden asked, “Why was your rifle in the clearing?”
“I ran back to get it, but the gun wasn’t where I left it.”
“Where was it?”
“Right about here.” She pointed to a clump of sagebrush that was about twenty yards from the clearing. “I could tell it had been fired.”
“Are you saying that the killer used your rifle?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see him?” he asked.
“He must have run off.”
Or maybe he turned invisible. Aiden was getting more and more frustrated with her story. “How long between when you heard the shot and ran back to get the rifle?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think, Misty.”
Tears streaked down her cheeks. “Don’t be so mean to me.”
“I can help,” Tab said. “When I heard the first shot, I was on the other side of those hills. It took five or six minutes before I got to the crest and could see the Jeep. Clinton was unconscious in the backseat. I fired a warning shot in the air to scare off anybody who might be hanging around.”
“I shot back,” Misty said. “I didn’t aim at anything. I was just shooting in the air. Twice.”
Aiden fitted the pieces together. According to his sister, a mysterious shooter had killed David Welling using her rifle, and then disappeared within five minutes. He gauged the distance from where she found the rifle to the trees and shrubs that bordered the river. Though it was possible that the killer could make that dash, it was unlikely. Why use Misty’s rifle? Why choose this particular moment to kill David Welling? And what was Welling doing out here in the first place?
After patting his sister on the arm and offering reassurances that he hoped weren’t empty, Aiden pulled Tab to one side. His senses registered the clean fragrance of her shampoo and the warmth that emanated from her body, but he kept his mind trained on the problem at hand.
“You’re right,” he said to Tab. “This investigation is beyond the resources of the tribal police. But we still need to contact Joseph Lefthand.”
“I’m not sure of the procedure,” she said.
He explained. First, they needed to notify tribal police of a crime committed on their land. In most cases, the Crow were happy to pass on the problem and cede jurisdiction through an agent of the federal government, namely someone from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Then the county sheriff would take over.
“I hope the sheriff can get started with his investigation before dark.” She looked toward the sun sinking in the west. “There might be footprints from the gunman. Or evidence of his vehicle.”
“If Misty’s story is accurate,” he said, “ballistics will show that the bullets came from her rifle.”
“There might be fingerprints.”
“In addition to Misty’s prints.” She’d already said that she fired the gun and would, therefore, have gunshot residue on her clothes.
He wished that his sister had come up with a more convincing story—something about how David Welling attacked her, and she was forced to defend herself. The idea of a murderer who could appear out of nowhere and vanish in the blink of an eye was improbable. It sounded like a lie. And lying made Misty look as if she had something to hide.
If this investigation went wrong, it was entirely possible that his sister would be delivering her baby in jail.
Chapter Three
While Aiden and Clinton messed around with the Jeep, trying to dig out the rear tires, Tab took a striped wool blanket from her saddlebags and handed it to Misty. “Spread this on the ground. Choose a spot that’s out of the wind.”
“Why?”
“You might as well get comfortable. It’s going to take a while for the authorities to get here.”
Definitely an understatement. When Aiden had put through calls to the tribal police, the BIA and the sheriff, she’d heard the growing frustration in his voice. Everybody promised to respond just as soon as they could, which meant they had other business to clean off their plates.
Though Tab thought that murder should take precedence, she was accustomed to bureaucracy. There was nothing to do but wait. She dug through her saddlebag, ignoring the medical equipment, and found a square plastic container packed with more practical supplies.
“All this waiting around sucks,” Misty said. She turned her gaze toward the clearing where the body lay covered by a tarp. “But I won’t leave. I owe it to David to talk to the sheriff. I’m the only witness.”
And the most obvious suspect. In spite of the giggles and the frequent flipping of her blond hair, Misty wasn’t a fool. The girl had to realize how implausible her story about the vanishing gunman sounded. She had to know that she could be charged with murder.
Tab followed her to a spot beside a low flat rock and helped her lay the blanket over the dried prairie grass. “Tell me about David.”
“We only went out on one date. There wasn’t any kissing or anything.” Misty gave her a conspiratorial grin. “Can I tell you a secret? You have to promise not to let Aiden know.”
As Tab felt herself being drawn more deeply into the situation, her defenses rose. The smart move would be to back off. She was a midwife, not a policewoman. A murder investigation wasn’t her problem. But her heart wouldn’t let her abandon Misty. “Does your secret have anything to do with David Welling’s death?”
“No way,” Misty said.
“Then I won’t tell anybody else. I promise. Wild horses won’t drag it out of me.”
“In sophomore year at Henley High, me and Lisa and Heather made a bet. Whoever was the first to date every guy in the junior and senior class was the winner.”
“Why juniors and seniors? You were sophomores.”
“The boys our age were dorks, and most of them didn’t have their driver’s licenses. That’s why we went for the older guys. Our bet wasn’t as wild as it sounds. There were only seventy-six guys total in both classes.”
Their bet sounded like a sure way to get into trouble. Tab imagined these three little heartbreakers sowing havoc at Henley High. “What counted as a date?”
“The guy had to invite you. It could be a study date or a ski trip or going to a party. Or they had to buy you something, like if you went out in a group and they paid for your burger.”
“What happened with you and David?”
“He was fixing a flat tire for me at his uncle’s gas station—”
“Wait a minute. How old were you?”
“Not old enough to have my license, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“You stole the car?”
“Borrowed it from Aiden. He was too busy running the ranch and learning how to pilot his chopper to be worried about me.” She rolled her eyes. “Geez, Tab. I started driving around on the ranch as soon as I was big enough to see over the steering wheel. You know how it is.”
“I do.” Tab had attended high school in Billings—a city where regulations were enforced. Though Henley was less than fifty miles away, she knew that different rules applied. “So, you and David were at the gas station. Then what?”
“We got to talking. I barely knew him. He was really shy and quiet, didn’t play football or basketball. But he had a real cute smile.”
“And you started flirting.”
“He bought me an orange soda.” She giggled. “He asked me out, too. But I turned him down.”
“Why?”
“When he bought the soda, I could cross him off my list. And he was nice, you know. I didn’t want to lead him on.”
Tab was glad to hear that Misty had a conscience, after all. “Who won the bet?”
“Nobody. We all found boyfriends, and we didn’t want to be with anybody else. It’s funny, you know. I probably never would have gone out with Clinton if it hadn’t been for that bet. And now, he’s my baby’s daddy.”
“And you’re happy about that?”
“You bet I am.” Misty positioned herself on the blanket with her legs tucked under. With her pregnant belly, she looked like a blond Buddha. “This is a nice, thick blanket. Why did you bring it along?”
“When you first called and said you were in labor, I thought I might be delivering your baby out here.”
“Oh. My. God. That is so totally not sanitary.”
Tab didn’t bother with a long, thoughtful explanation about how childbirth was a natural process not an illness that required hospitalization. Midwifery was her lifework, and she didn’t feel a need to justify her profession. Some people got it. Others didn’t.
“My ancestors have been having babies without hospitals for a very long time. So have yours.”
“I guess you’re right. The Gabriels have been ranching in this area since the early 1900s. I don’t guess there were many hospitals back then.”
An accurate assumption, but Tab was fairly certain that Misty’s great-grandmother had the best care that money could buy. The Gabriels had a history of wealth and power that held true to the present day. Their cattle ranch provided employment for many people in the area. The family reputation might work in Misty’s favor when it came to murder charges, but Tab suspected that there were those who resented the Gabriel clan and would take perverse pleasure in seeing Misty behind bars.
“I want to talk to you about stress,” Tab said.
“Okay.”
“When you’re pregnant,” Tab said, “it’s not good for you to be under a lot of stress. That means it’s not good for your baby, either.”
“What can I do? Is there some kind of herb I can take?”
Many natural remedies were used to encourage labor, but Misty wasn’t at that point. “You’re already taking prenatal vitamins, right? And probably extra iron.”
Misty bobbed her head. “And I’m drinking herbal teas, mostly chamomile. I like doing organic stuff. I made Clinton take a class on natural childbirth that they were teaching at the hospital in Henley.”
“Good for you.” Tab squatted at the edge of the blanket and opened the plastic container she’d brought from her saddlebags. “Those breathing techniques are also useful for dealing with stress. Concentrate on inhaling and exhaling. Do you ever meditate?”
“You mean like yoga? Nope, that’s not my thing.”
“What helps you slow down and relax?” Tab assumed from Misty’s confused expression that slowing down wasn’t part of her agenda. “How about music? Do you listen to music?”
“All the time.” She dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out a tiny player attached to ear buds. “Mostly country and western. Is that unstressful?”
“Better than heavy metal,” Tab said. “When you feel yourself getting tight inside, just plug in your music, close your eyes and tune out all the other distractions.”
From the plastic container, she unpacked a simple picnic of crackers, cheese, jerky, an apple and a six-pack of bottled water. Misty pounced on the jerky. “You’re a mind reader, Tab. I was starving.”
Working with pregnant women taught her that she couldn’t go wrong with healthy snacks. “Dig in before the guys figure out that there’s food over here.”
Aiden’s effort to get the Jeep unstuck had deteriorated to walking about the vehicle, scratching his head and scowling. Clinton was doing much the same. Very likely, they’d come to the conclusion that when the sheriff got here, they could hook up a winch.
Sitting back on her heels, Tab watched as Misty devoured a chunk of jerky, took a huge swig from the water bottle and gave a loud burp followed by a giggle. “Sorry,” Misty said. “That was gross.”
“A little bit.”
“My body keeps doing this weird stuff. I have to pee all the time.”
“Can you feel the baby kicking?”
“I can.” A happy smile brightened her face. “That part is really cool.”
Tab was reminded of the seven-year-old she used to babysit. That summer had been rough on the girl. Not only had she lost her father, but her mother had been so devastated that she could barely drag herself out of bed. And Aiden had been preoccupied with the day-to-day operations at the ranch. Throughout, Misty maintained a relentlessly cheerful attitude to hide her pain and vulnerability.
“I wish I could stay here and wait with you,” Tab said, “but I need to leave soon.”
Misty nodded as she screwed the top back onto the water bottle. When she looked up, her eyes were troubled. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Am I going to jail?”
Tab couldn’t promise a good outcome. Even if Misty was completely innocent, there were no guarantees. “I don’t know.”
AN HOUR LATER, THE SUN dipped low in the western sky. None of the law enforcement people had yet arrived on the scene, but Tab couldn’t wait any longer. Nightfall came early in November, and she didn’t want to ride home in the dark. It wasn’t far to her grandma’s house, probably only seven or eight miles, but there wasn’t a clearly marked trail between here and there, and she didn’t want to take a chance on getting lost.
After she gave Misty a hug, Tab made her way through the sage and dried prairie grass to where Shua was nibbling at a shrub. Aiden strode toward her. “Leaving so soon?”
“Not that it hasn’t been fun,” she said. “The sheriff can contact me later for a statement.”
“I’m glad you’re heading out while there’s still enough light to see where you’re going. You haven’t lived around here for a couple of years. Things change.”
As far as she could see, the change was minimal. The local landmarks—rolling hills, ridges and the river—were much the same as when she was a kid. On the opposite side of the Little Big Horn, she saw the sandstone cliff and the familiar arch above Half-Moon Cave. The land was eternal; the people were different.
She glanced over her shoulder at Misty’s little nest on the striped wool blanket. Though Clinton had his arm around her, Misty’s shoulders slumped, and her head drooped. “I’m worried about her,” Tab said. “If there’s anything I can do to help, call me.”
“Sure.”
His hand rested on Shua’s neck, and he stroked along the line of the horse’s mane. The gesture was completely natural, like the absentminded way you might pet a cat that jumped on your lap. This casual attitude around livestock said a lot about Aiden.
Unlike most of the men she’d dated in Billings and Missoula, he’d grown up on a ranch and was 100 percent cowboy. Right now, he was wearing a baseball cap instead of a Stetson, but he still looked the part with his long, lean body, his scuffed boots and his well-worn jeans. His hands were calloused. His wrists were strong. And his gray eyes had that cool awareness that came from hours of staring across the wide prairies, watching over several hundred head of cattle.
Had he changed? She wasn’t sure.
Though she wasn’t sixteen anymore, she was still a little bit blinded by her crush on him. When she looked at him, her pulse rate quickened. She had to swallow hard before she trusted herself to speak without stammering.
“I’m serious about having Misty call me,” she said. “She needs a friend.”
“You got that right. The girls she used to pal around with in high school are off at college, joining sororities and having all kinds of fun.” A frown tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I wanted that for her. Misty’s a smart kid.”
“You make it sound like her life is over.”
“She wanted to be a lawyer, talked about it all the time. She was planning to take on injustice and set the world straight. She’d sent off her application to a couple of universities, and she’d gotten accepted.”
“A lawyer, huh? That’s terrific.”
“Now, she’s going to be stuck on the ranch.”
Tab didn’t like his attitude and all that it implied. “She doesn’t have to give up her dreams. Having a baby isn’t the end of the world for Misty.”
His gaze met hers, and she braced herself for a bullheaded argument about how womenfolk are supposed to stay home and tend the young. Instead, Aiden said, “You’re right.”
“You’re damn right that I’m right.” She’d gotten herself all puffed up for no reason. “Right?”
“I’m not fighting you, Tab.”
“Well, good.”
“Misty needs to hear that she’s still got opportunities. She can still go to college and to law school.” His expression warmed. “It’d be good for her to spend time with you.”
Being close to Misty meant also being near him, which might be the very definition of a win-win situation. She cleared her throat and reached for her saddle. “I should mount up.”
“Not yet.”
When he lightly touched her shoulder, she spun around to face him. He was standing so close that she could see the prisms and facets in his eyes. “What is it, Aiden?”
“If you’ll wait a bit before you get up on your horse, I’d like to walk with you.”
“Suit yourself.”
Taking the reins, she stepped in front of Shua and made a clicking noise. The horse ambled along behind her as she and Aiden strolled along a path that followed the winding course of the river.
“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I’d like to escort you all the way back to your grandma’s place and make sure you get home safely.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Can you? If Misty’s story is true, the shooter might still be in the area.”
She looked up at him. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”
“It’s unlikely he’s still around, but it’s something to keep in mind. At that meeting in Crow Agency, nobody actually said we might be facing a serial killer. But it’s possible.”
She remembered the serious tone of the meeting and the warning to be on the lookout. “I thought the meeting was about two missing girls from Henley who were last seen on the rez.”
“There’s more to the story,” Aiden said. “A couple of months ago, at the end of the summer, the sheriff in Billings found the body of a tourist who had been camping. She was raped and murdered. Since then, three other girls have disappeared. All the victims are blonde, like Misty.”
Tab touched her long, black braid. “I guess that means I’m safe.”
“You can’t make that kind of assumption with a crazy person. His M.O. might change in a flash.”
Fear nibbled at the edge of her mind. “I’ll keep my rifle handy. And I won’t dawdle.”
“Call me when you get home.”
Her cell phone wasn’t much protection. Not only was the reception spotty but nobody would reach her in time if she called for help. “He used Misty’s rifle. Does that mean he doesn’t have his own gun?”
“I don’t know,” Aiden said.
“Have you been working with the police? You seem to know a lot about the murdered tourist and the girls from Billings.”
“I volunteer my chopper to look for missing persons, keeping an eye on things from the sky. I like to go up as often as possible.”
“You enjoy flying?”
“From the first time I rode in a chopper, I loved it—swooping through the skies, leaving gravity behind and soaring free.” The tension in his face relaxed as he looked heavenward and grinned. “It’s the freedom. No restraints. No regrets.”
“And no responsibilities,” she said.
“That, too.”
Aiden had been forced to take on a lot after his father died. He’d had to leave college and take care of the ranch. No wonder he wanted Misty to have a wider scope of opportunity. “I’ve never been in a helicopter.”
“A virgin,” he said.
In more ways than one, but he didn’t have to know about that part of her life. “You make it sound exciting.”
“It’s a different perspective,” he said. “I know a lot about this territory. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to walk along with you. We might run into something along this path.”
“Something?”
“Somebody,” he said.
She heard a rustling in the brush beside the river and turned to look. “What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
A skinny man with a wild gray beard crept out from behind a tree. Over his shoulders, he wore a buffalo robe. He held a ski pole in each hand, using them as walking sticks.
“Visitors,” he shouted. “Welcome, pretty lady.”
Tab stood and stared. Her jaw dropped, and she felt her eyes pop wide like a cartoon version of herself. What the hell?
Chapter Four
Aiden relished the look of shock on Tab’s face. It wasn’t easy to ruffle her feathers, but he’d succeeded. She recovered her poise quickly. Her gaping mouth snapped shut, and her full lips smoothed into a slightly upturned line that wasn’t exactly a smile. Under her breath, she muttered, “Good thing you warned me about this little something. I might have shot him.”
No fear. Her first thought was to grab her rifle and stand ready to protect herself. He liked that attitude. This lady wasn’t about to scream or take off running, not her. Not Tab.
Thinking of her as Tab instead of Tabitha was becoming easier. The longer name—Tabitha—rolled off his tongue with an almost musical resonance. Tab was one crisp, practical syllable. It suited her. The way he figured, a woman named Tab could stand up for herself while a Tabitha would be the type to flutter her eyelashes and swoon.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“His name is Wally, but everybody calls him Buffalo Man.”
“Certainly not because of his size,” she said. “He couldn’t weigh more than one twenty-five including the fur cape and ski poles. What’s he doing here?”
“He camps along the river. I spotted his tent when I did my visual sweep in the chopper.”
Feet together, the scrawny gray-haired man hopped toward them, mimicking the technique of a downhill skier. Gradually, he was coming closer.
“He could be the shooter,” Tab said.
“I don’t reckon so. His campsite is another mile or so downriver. He was there when I flew over.” Besides, Aiden had become fairly well acquainted with the old man. “He’s not a murderer. A thief? Maybe. But not a killer.”
Wally claimed to be part Crow, but nobody on the rez claimed him back. A drifter, he’d been in this area for three or four years. When he occasionally showed up at the Gabriel ranch looking for work, Aiden would find him something to do with the stipulation that Buffalo Man take a long soak in a hot tub and shave his whiskers. In a lucid moment, Wally had confided that he’d lost his job, his wife and his house, but he wasn’t sad or self-pitying. He’d chosen to go back to nature.
Usually, he wasn’t so talkative, and today he said nothing as he approached. When he was about five feet from them, Aiden caught the whiff of a powerful stench—the smell of old campfires and dirt. He held up a hand. “That’s close enough, Wally.”
Buffalo Man bared his yellow teeth in a grin. “That’s a pretty horse.”
“Thank you,” Tab said. “Do you live out here?”
“It’s my right. I’m Indian, like you.” He cocked his head to one side. “You’re Maria Spotted Bear’s granddaughter.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know things. Lots of things.”
“You’d better not be spying on my grandma,” she said. “I wouldn’t like that.”
He dug the tips of his ski poles into the earth and planted his fists on his skinny hips. “I am not a Peeping Tom. I have my dignity. You can ask Aiden. Go on, ask him.”
“Wally does work for me at the ranch. He’s a good handyman.”
“Handy Wally, that’s my moniker.”
Aiden watched Tab’s expression as her suspicion faded. It was her nature to be friendly. Her tribe had a tradition of welcoming strangers and sharing whatever they had. She took a step toward Wally and held out her hand as she offered a Crow greeting. “Ka-hay. My name is Tab Willows.”
He vigorously shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Tab.”
“It must get lonely out here. If you’re hungry or want company, come to my grandma’s house.”
“I don’t take charity.”
“I wasn’t offering,” Tab said. “We’ll make a trade. My grandma can use the skills of a handyman.”
His yellow smile split his wizened face. Peering through his tangled mop of hair, his eyes were alert and intelligent. “I would be honored to visit the home of Maria Spotted Bear.”
Though Wally had never shared his prior occupation, Aiden believed he was an educated man. His use of language was usually correct, he had a decent vocabulary and he was smart enough to know how to survive in the wild. His antisocial weirdness came from a lack of interaction with other people. He chose to be a hermit. But that didn’t mean he was nuts.
“I have a couple of questions for you,” Aiden said. “No doubt you noticed the commotion this afternoon.”
“Gunfire. I heard it. And I saw Tab riding across the hills, coming from the east. And the chopper.” He looked up at the fading light of the afternoon. “I saw your chopper. You must have seen me, too. I waved.”
Aiden nodded. “What about people? Did you see or hear any people on the ground?”
Abruptly, Wally hunkered down on the ground. His voice lowered to a whisper. “After the gunfire, I thought I should take a look and see if anybody needed my help. Voices carry a long way out here.”
“Could you hear what anyone was saying?”
Wally pointed to Tab. “You. I heard you talking.”
“What about earlier than that. Before Tab, did you hear voices?”
He shook his head. “I was too far away. When I got close, I heard your baby sister.”
“Misty,” said both Aiden and Tab.
“She laughs a lot.” Wally gave a creaky chuckle of his own. “A pretty sound. Her laughter sounds like splashing water. Not like the other girls who come out here with their boyfriends. They squeal and shout and make a terrible ruckus with their parties.”
Half-Moon Cave had always been a favorite gathering spot for high school parties and make-out sessions. The opening of the cave was a wide arch, similar to a band shell, and the interior provided shelter from the wind and rain. Aiden guessed that if they crossed the river and went to the cave, they’d find the remains of campfires and plenty of rusted beer cans.
“The sheriff is going to be here soon,” Aiden said. “He’s going to want to talk to you about what you saw or heard.”
“No, sir. This is reservation land. I don’t have to talk to the sheriff.”
“Joseph Lefthand will be here, as well,” Tab said. “It’s important to help them. There’s been a murder.”
“I know.” Wally popped up. “I got close enough to see the dead man, and then I turned around. None of my business.”
“Did you know the man who was killed?” Aiden asked.
“I might have seen him before. Once or twice. I see a lot of things. People don’t much notice me.” He looked directly at Tab. “Not that I go out of my way to spy on people. I mind my own business.”
Aiden stepped closer to Wally and looked him straight in the eye, compelling his attention. “Bad things have been happening on or near the rez. Young girls from Henley and Billings are going missing. At least one of them was murdered. Have you seen or heard anything that could lead to the killer?”
“The man who was killed was here with a girl. She had hair like a golden waterfall.”
“If you saw her photo, could you identify her?”
Wally stroked his beard and considered. “It was after dark, and I didn’t really see her face. She was wearing a baby-blue sweatshirt.”
That item of clothing could help identify David Welling’s companion. “Did you hear them talking?”
“He said her name.” Wally tugged harder on his beard. “Ellen or Elizabeth. It was something like that.”
David might have a connection with one of the missing women. And David had been murdered. If Wally stepped forward as a witness, it could put him in danger. He shouldn’t be camping out here by himself.
Aiden patted him on the shoulder of his buffalo robe. “Until this is over, you might want to come and stay at the ranch. My mom has some work for you. She’s going to be putting up Christmas decorations.”
“I’ll come after the weather gets colder,” Wally said. “Right now, it’s nice and warm. The river is low and slow. I go swimming in it every day. Keeps me young.”
Aiden hoped Wally’s outdoor skills would also keep him alive. He hated to think of anything bad happening to the eccentric old man.
AFTER TAB RETURNED TO HER grandma’s house, she took care of Shua and fed the horse in the barn beside the corral. By the time she transferred her medical supplies from the saddlebags into the back of her van, the dusk had turned into dark—a still, calm night. The deep solitude soothed her. Not that she would forget the murder, the threat of a serial killer and the potential of jail time for pregnant Misty. Tab was involved, truly involved, and she was committed to doing whatever she could to help.
But not right this minute. For now, she needed to clear her mind. She inhaled. The cold night air swept into her lungs and refreshed her mind and her spirit.
A few months ago, when she moved back here, she’d been worried that she’d be bored to death. Though the Crow half of her DNA connected her to this land and the traditions of her tribe, she’d spent most of her life in cities like Billings and Missoula where there were things to do and places to go. Not that her social life had ever been a whirlwind of parties and dates. Instead, she’d kept herself busy with her schooling and with work. After graduating from nursing school in Missoula, she’d been part of a midwife clinic that also offered prenatal and postnatal care. She’d learned so much from the other midwives.
Now, she worked alone. She was the expert.
Outside her grandma’s house, she looked up at the moon and the millions of stars that spread their silvery light across the hills and distant cliffs. A couple hundred yards away, she saw the lights from other homes where the Martins and the Tall Grass families lived. The only sound was the rustling of wind across the prairies and the winged swoop of raptor birds hunting in the night.
Light shone through the windows in her grandma’s kitchen where Maria Spotted Bear was probably preparing dinner and not wearing her wrist brace. Though the cast had been removed, Tab wanted Grandma Maria to protect her injured wrist until she was full strength. Twice a day, they performed therapeutic exercises. Every night, her grandma wrapped her wrist in herbal poultices. The same combination of Western medicine and Crow healing practices applied to the pills Grandma took for her heart condition.
As soon as Tab came through the front door, she heard Grandma singing in the kitchen. The stereotype of the stoic tribal elder didn’t hold true for her grandma who always seemed surrounded by music and happy chatter.
Entering the kitchen, Tab saw her grandma remove a tray of cornbread from the oven. The wrist brace was nowhere in sight.
“Don’t worry,” Grandma said as she set the cornbread in the center of the kitchen table. “I can lift this. It’s not too heavy.”
“Smells good.” Tab wasn’t in the mood to argue. She hugged the rounded shoulders of the small woman whose long white hair was fastened at her nape with an ornately beaded barrette. “Do you know the one they call Buffalo Man?”
“A crazy old badger. He lives down by the river.”
“Just to warn you, I kind of invited him to drop by anytime for dinner.”
“That’s my Tabitha.” Her grandma chuckled. “From the time you were a little girl, you were always bringing home strays.”
“His real name is Wally, and he’s willing to work for his supper as a handyman. Having him drop by might be useful. The barn roof needs patching.”
“How did this new friendship happen?” Grandma sat at the kitchen table. “You left the house to deliver a baby, and you picked up an old man in a buffalo robe.”
“Long story.”
“The stew can simmer for a while.”
Not holding back, Tab told the whole story of Misty and the murder, the possible serial killer connection, the chopper and Aiden. When she mentioned his name, she heard a breathless change in her voice. She pictured the tall, lean cowboy, and a rush of excitement went through her. In an attempt to hide that reaction, she turned her back on Grandma and opened the refrigerator door to take out a pitcher of cold water.
“Aiden Gabriel,” her grandma said. “He’s a handsome man.”
“Is he?” Her tone pitched to a higher octave. “I didn’t notice. I was more concerned about his sister.”
“You don’t fool me. When you were a girl and spent the summer at the Gabriel ranch, you liked him, liked him very much.” She sang a little song about sailing away with the man of her dreams. “Didn’t you ask me for a totem to cause a man to fall in love with you?”
Tab didn’t deny it. “I was a silly teenager then.”
“And now, you’re both grown up. Could be good timing. From what I hear, Aiden broke up with his long-time girlfriend. She lives in California and doesn’t care about ranch life.”
Tab poured cold spring water into a Mason jar and took a sip. People who lived on the rez seemed isolated, and yet the gossip grapevine relayed information more quickly than cell phone texting. “How do you know so much about Aiden’s love life?”
“His mother and I see each other often. I bring her baked goods, and Sylvia gives me beef. She’s happy about the blessing of a new baby.”
“It doesn’t bother her that Misty is so young and so unmarried?”
“If anyone understands about unexpected pregnancy, it’s Sylvia Gabriel.” Grandma leaned back in her chair and folded her hands on her lap, a signal that she was about to tell a story. “Sylvia nearly died in childbirth. She had a difficult labor, ending in Caesarian section and a serious loss of blood. But after she had Aiden, she wanted more children. She and her husband tried everything. I know this because she came to me and asked how to increase her fertility.”
Maria Spotted Bear not only had a reputation as an excellent baker but also for healing and cures. Tab had learned young how to locate, harvest and prepare many herbs for teas and salves. “Red clover, squaw berry and yams. Those are all good to promote fertility.”
“Nothing worked and she gave up—satisfied to have a healthy son and a good marriage. Fourteen years later, when Sylvia was thirty-seven years old, she had Misty. A happy surprise.”
Her cell phone buzzed. The screen showed Aiden was the caller. As soon as she saw his name, she remembered that she’d promised to call him when she reached her grandma’s house.
“I’m home,” she said when she picked up. “We’re just about to sit down for dinner.”
“I’m glad, but that’s not why I was calling.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t sure whether to be pleased that he trusted her to take care of herself, or to feel bad that he wasn’t checking up on her.
“Misty asked if you could come over to the ranch tonight, maybe in an hour or so. Is that convenient?”
His tone was cool and distant, more appropriate for a business transaction than a personal request. “Aiden, what’s going on?”
“They found another body. She’s from Henley, and her name is Ellen.”
That was the name Wally mentioned. He’d said that Ellen was with David Welling. “A blonde?”
“Yes.”
She heard other voices in the background. They were arguing. “What else?”
“The victim was wearing a gold, engraved wristwatch. It belongs to my sister.”
The link to another murder was bad for Misty. Her story about the mystery gunman who grabbed her rifle and disappeared sounded even more flimsy. Tab didn’t know how she could help other than to offer moral support. Sometimes, that was enough. “I’ll be there.”
Chapter Five
If Tab had gotten her way, she would have tucked her grandma into bed for a solid eight hours of sleep before she left. But Grandma really wanted to come along. She argued that Sylvia Gabriel was a very good friend of the family, and friends take care of friends. What Grandma didn’t say was that these murders were more exciting than anything that had happened since the fire at the casino in Crow Agency.
Sitting in the passenger seat of Tab’s van, she fiddled with the wrist brace Tab had insisted that she wear. “The tribe should have jurisdiction. The dead girl was found on the rez.”
Tab was tired of running through the logistical reasons why Joseph Lefthand couldn’t handle a complicated investigation. She jumped to the bottom line, which was something her grandma—who took part in tribal council—would understand. “It would be expensive. The tribe would have to hire a special coroner to do the autopsies.”
“Are they going to cut that poor girl open?”
Tab shot her a skeptical glance. With her long white braids, patterned wool jacket, long skirt and moccasins, Maria Spotted Bear was just a few head feathers short of playing a tribal elder at the annual reenactment of Custer’s Last Stand. Not an entirely true image. Grandma kept up with the times.
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know about autopsies,” Tab said. “You’ve got television on satellite dish. You’ve watched police shows.”
“And hospital shows to keep up with what you’re doing.” Slyly, she asked, “Are those shows truthful?”
“Yeah, sure,” Tab muttered sarcastically. “Every doctor is gorgeous, and every case is fascinating.”
“You see what I mean? I’ve heard about detectives, but I don’t know what they do.”
Tab shrugged. “Neither do I. Not exactly.”
“I can tell you one thing. To find a killer, you don’t need fancy equipment or autopsies. You need to be smart.” Grandma tapped the side of her head. “A real detective should have the instincts of a hunter.”
“Do you think Joseph Lefthand has those instincts?”
“Better him than Sheriff Steve.”
Tab had met both men at the meeting in Crow Agency. Both seemed decent and hard-working. Both were deeply concerned about the young women who had gone missing. Tab wondered if she ought to be more worried since she and Grandma lived alone without any security other than the rifles they kept in the front closet.
Her van jostled along the back roads between her grandma’s house and the Gabriel ranch. Though Tab hadn’t driven the route in years, she remembered the way. When she spent the summer at the ranch, she’d traveled back and forth many times. Later, on other visits to her grandma, she’d make a point of stopping by to see Misty … and maybe to catch a glimpse of Aiden.
“When was the last time you came to the ranch?” her grandma asked.
“It must have been two years ago. Misty was in high school.” She’d been surprised by Misty’s physical maturity. The little girl she’d once known had become a woman, but she’d still run to greet Tab and give her a massive hug. She hadn’t seen Aiden on that trip.
Her grandma nodded. “After you moved to Missoula for nursing school, you barely had time for me on your visits.”
When Tab came to her grandma’s house, there was usually a specific reason, like taking care of home repairs or making sure her grandma got a checkup with the local doctor. Though Maria Spotted Bear was self-sufficient and didn’t need constant watching over, both Tab and her dad made a point of checking in with Grandma, just to be sure she was okay.
As her van rounded the last curve leading to the Gabriel ranch, Tab saw lights shining from every window of the two-story, cedar-sided ranch house with the peaked roof. Several vehicles parked outside the three-car garage to the left of the house. To the right was a barn with a corrugated metal roof. She knew that Aiden lived in a separate cabin behind the barn. Did he keep his helicopter back there?
She parked her van at the end of a row of cars. From the back, she took a satchel containing a sweet potato pie and the cornbread her grandma had made for their dinner. Maria Spotted Bear never went visiting empty-handed, even though it seemed somewhat inappropriate to bring pie to a murder investigation.
Approaching the house, Tab glanced at the far left upstairs window under the eaves. That had been her bedroom during the summer she’d lived here. She remembered a long-ago night when she couldn’t sleep and had perched on the sill, looking out at the long, straight driveway. She’d spotted Aiden, striding toward the house with his border collie trotting along beside him. For some reason—she’d never known why—he wasn’t wearing a shirt, just his jeans, boots and hat. For a moment, he’d paused. His shoulders rose and fell as though he was sighing. He’d taken off his beat-up Stetson and tilted his head to gaze at the moon. The silvery light bathed him in an ethereal glow—an image that branded itself indelibly in her mind.
Her grandma climbed the three steps to the veranda ahead of her and rapped on the door. A stocky woman in a denim vest opened the door.
“Maria Spotted Bear,” the woman said in an authoritative alto voice. “Is this an official visit? Are you representing the tribal council?”
“I’m here as Sylvia’s friend,” her grandma said. “This is my granddaughter, Tab Willows. Tab, this is Laura Westerfall. She’s with the BIA.”
Briskly, Laura shook Tab’s hand. “You’re the midwife. I’ve been meaning to pay you a visit.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Tab was actually more suspicious than pleased. Agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs often caused trouble for the tribe.
“You’re a trained nurse, right? And you worked with a women’s clinic in Missoula.”
“Have you been checking up on me?” Tab asked.
“Yes, I have. If you’re planning to stay in this area, I might have a proposition for you. Recently, some grant money has come available for rural medical care, and I’d like to focus on women’s health.”
“On the reservation?” Tab found it hard to believe there would be any significant financial aid for the relatively small Crow population. Any money at all surprised her.
“I’m thinking of a wider area.”
“So am I.” The women in this wide-open country—on and off the rez—had a long way to go to reach a hospital. Many were too poor to afford decent medical care. Even the services of a midwife stretched their budgets. “Are you saying the BIA could help?”
Laura combed her fingers through her short brown hair and smiled as she held out her business card. “Give me a call. We need to talk about a women’s clinic.”
In spite of the current problems, Tab’s spirits lifted as she imagined being able to help those who had so few resources. A grant from the BIA might be a dream come true.
Grandma interrupted her thoughts, taking the satchel with the pie and cornbread from her hands. “Where are your manners, girl? I came here to comfort Sylvia.”
“In the kitchen,” Laura said.
“I’ll take care of her,” Grandma promised. “You two should go into the living room. The boys sound like they’re arguing, getting ready to lock horns.”
Through an archway to the left was a paneled living room with heavy leather furniture and rugged coffee tables. In front of the moss rock fireplace, Sheriff Steve Fielding stood toe to toe with Aiden. Since the sheriff wasn’t much taller than Tab, Aiden towered over him and the two deputies he’d brought with him.
Aiden’s voice was a low, dangerous growl. “I see no valid reason to take my sister into custody.”
“If that’s the only way you’ll let me talk to her, I’ve got no damn choice.” The sheriff waved his men into action. “Deputies, I want you to arrest—”
“Hold on.” Laura inserted herself into their argument. “What’s the problem, gentlemen?”
Aiden spoke first. “I wanted Sheriff Fielding to handle this investigation because I believed he was better equipped to pursue the trail of evidence in a thorough manner. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe all he wants is a quick arrest.”
“You’re the one who’s wrong,” Fielding said. “I came here to talk to Misty. Just to talk. I need some answers.”
“You already took her statement.”
“That cockamamie story about a mysterious shooter?”
“I won’t have you harassing my sister. She’s been through enough today.”
Though Tab agreed that Misty shouldn’t be subjected to more stress, she realized that Aiden was behaving in an unreasonable manner. And his overprotective attitude made it look like he had something to hide. “I have a compromise. What if the sheriff questions Misty while Aiden is present?”
The sheriff pointed his long, sunburned nose at her and squinted like someone who needed glasses. “You’re Tab Willows, right? I need to take your statement.”
“I’m happy to cooperate,” she said.
“But that’s not why you came here.” His squint became even more pronounced. “You live with Maria Spotted Bear. Are you here to speak for your tribe?”
The politics were getting annoying. Just because Tab was half Crow, it didn’t automatically make her a representative of her people. She was miles out of touch with local issues. Most of her life had been spent in Billings and Missoula. Not on the rez.
“I’m here as a concerned person,” she said. “Young women are being murdered and their bodies dumped on the rez. I want to see the killer brought to justice.”
“That’s the voice of common sense,” Laura said, backing her up. “Listen to her.”
“You have no standing here, Agent Westerfall.” The sheriff hitched up his belt. “You arranged for Joseph Lefthand to cede jurisdiction. This is my purview.”
“Don’t forget that I’m a federal agent, Sheriff. I’m not here to give orders, but I see no reason why we can’t do as Tab suggested.”
“Here’s your reason,” the sheriff said. “I can’t get the truth from Misty while she’s hiding behind her big brother.”
Before Aiden exploded again with righteous anger, Tab grasped his forearm and squeezed hard, compelling his attention. He wasn’t helping anything by being pigheaded. She stared into his eyes. “I’ll be with Misty while she’s talking to the sheriff. Is that all right with both of you?”
“It’s done.” Laura gestured toward the hall. “Sheriff Fielding will wait down here in the office. Tab will bring Misty to talk with him immediately.”
Everybody moved quickly, anxious not to destroy the fragile moment of truce. Tab found herself being escorted up the staircase by Aiden. This time, he was holding her arm above the elbow in a tight grip. His outrage manifested in a bodily heat that sizzled in the air around him.
Under his breath, he said, “I’ll be damned if I let the sheriff connect Misty to these murders. He’s delusional.”
“Calm down.” She fought to keep from being drawn into the vortex of his anger. “We have only a few minutes. Fill me in.”
“The first victim was raped,” he whispered.
“And the girl they just found?”
“We won’t know until after the autopsy. They’re transporting the body to Billings.” His jaw clenched. “Usually, the sheriff would call on me for transport in the chopper. Now he’s treating me like a suspect. It’s crazy. These are sex crimes. How could Misty be involved?”
On the landing at the top of the staircase, she gazed into Aiden’s gray eyes, searching for the truth. “The sheriff must have a reason.”
“He talked to Wally who went into detail about the wild parties he’s seen up and down the river.”
“Did he tell the sheriff that he saw David with a blonde girl named Ellen?”
Aiden nodded. “If Wally can be trusted, David knew the victim, but so did a lot of other people. She’s a local girl. The sheriff thinks these disappearances might be a bullying thing gone wrong. When the second victim was found wearing Misty’s wristwatch, he figured she was part of the gang.”
Aiden had said that the sheriff wanted a quick solution, and she thought he might be right. Supposing these murders were the actions of a gang tied Welling’s death to those of the missing girls. It made for a tidy solution.
She asked, “Why would he think Misty was involved?”
“She has a reputation for being wild.” Aiden shook his head and looked away. “Whenever there’s trouble, she seems to be the ringleader.”
Tab attempted to put a positive spin on his words. “She’s a leader. Headstrong. Determined.”
“Great qualities if you’re doing something good. And if not …” He drew in a breath and exhaled slowly. “It’s not her fault. I haven’t done a good job raising her.”
“You’re not her parent.”
“Gabriel Ranch and everything that happens here is my responsibility.”
He spoke with calm conviction as though his words were indisputable. When Aiden’s father died, he took on that mantle. The buck stopped with him. He was the protector, the caretaker and the final authority, even though his mother had taken over the day-to-day chores and the running of the ranch.
Seeing Aiden with his head bowed made her realize that he wasn’t the perfect, ideal man she’d cherished in her memories. He was real. He suffered just like any other man. Beneath his strength was a thick layer of sadness. He’d given up everything for his family. Somehow, that made him even more attractive to her. She wanted to comfort him and tell him that everything was going to be all right.
“Let me handle the sheriff,” she said. “If Misty is under too much stress, I’ll call an end to the questioning.”
He looked doubtful. “What if—”
“Stop,” she said quietly. “There’s only one thing that needs to happen. Misty has to tell the truth.”
“That’s what scares me.”
His fear touched her.
Though it seemed impossible, Misty could be involved in these dark, terrible crimes. Tab didn’t want to believe it was possible.
Chapter Six
In the downstairs office at the ranch, the decor showed a more feminine touch than the rest of the house. Sylvia spent most of her time behind the polished-oak desk, surrounded by antique wooden filing cabinets. A jar of jelly beans sat at the corner of the desk beside a bowl of fresh yellow roses. The computer screen saver showed a Degas painting of ballet dancers.
Sheriff Fielding perched on the edge of the desk facing Tab and Misty who were at opposite ends of a blue love seat. From what Aiden had told her, Tab knew that the sheriff considered Misty to be a prime suspect. But she saw hesitation and doubt in his eyes.
With a flannel robe belted above her pregnant belly, Misty couldn’t have looked less like the ringleader of a murderous gang. Under the pink velour robe, she wore striped yellow pajamas. Her freshly washed hair piled on top of her head with wispy blond curls escaping to frame her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed as though she’d been crying.
The sheriff cleared his throat. “Misty, it’s very important for you to be honest with me and tell me everything, even if you think it might get somebody else in trouble. This isn’t like high school. People are getting killed.”
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Cassie Miles
Rushing to the aid of a pregnant woman, midwife Tab Willows arrives at the scene of a horrifying murder.Then her sexy teenage crush Aiden Gabriel lands his rescue chopper – he’s only got better with age – and now he’s determined to protect Tab from a serial killer. But can he also reignite their spark?
Casually Tab leaned against the fence beside Aiden. “It almost sounds like you’re asking me to help.”
“Does it, now?”
“You bet it does. It’s almost like we’re investigating. Both of us. Together.” She covered her smug grin by draining the last of her coffee. “I seem to recall something you said about not wanting my help because it was too … What was it you said? It was too dangerous for a delicate flower like me.”
“I’m real sure I never called you a flower.”
“I added that part,” she said. “You know what you said.”
He shoved away from the fence and stood tall before her. “If you’re done with your I-told-you-so, I’d like to put things into motion.”
“And you want me to help you investigate.” She looked up through her eyelashes.
“I reckon I do.”
About the Author
Though born in Chicago and raised in LA, USA TODAY bestselling author CASSIE MILES has lived in Colorado long enough to be considered a semi-native. The first home she owned was a log cabin in the mountains overlooking Elk Creek, with a thirty-mile commute to her work at the Denver Post.
After raising two daughters and cooking tons of macaroni and cheese for her family, Cassie is trying to be more adventurous in her culinary efforts. Ceviche, anyone? She’s discovered that almost anything tastes better with wine. When she’s not plotting Mills & Boon
Intrigue books, Cassie likes to hang out at the Denver Botanical Gardens near her high-rise home.
Montana Midwife
Cassie Miles
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In memory of Rosemary Heiser.
She will be missed.
Chapter One
On a high ridge overlooking the Little Big Horn River, Tab Willows sat up straight in the saddle and lifted her arm above her head. Finally, she had a signal for her cell phone. There was no way she could find Misty and her boyfriend unless they gave her better directions to their location. This horse didn’t come equipped with GPS.
She hit the redial.
Misty Gabriel answered immediately. “Tab, where are you? I need you.”
Panic trembled in her voice, which was understandable for a woman in labor with her first baby. For some unexplainable reason, Misty and Clinton had decided to go off-roading and had gotten their vehicle stuck in a creek bed that was damp with melt from a recent snow. The early November weather wasn’t bad right now, but night was coming. With the darkness came an icy chill.
Tab hadn’t been working with Misty as a regular client in her midwife practice, but she felt an obligation and a connection to this young woman she used to babysit, even though, as adults, they didn’t appear to have much in common. Misty was the spoiled seventeen-year-old daughter of a wealthy ranching family. Bubbly and blonde, she giggled with every other breath. In contrast, Tab seldom laughed out loud. Her overall appearance—dusky-colored skin and straight black hair worn in a single braid down to her waist—favored her mother’s Crow heritage. Her blue eyes came from her dad.
“I’m looking down at the area you described,” Tab said, “but I don’t see your Jeep. Give me directions.”
“Like what?” She giggled nervously. “It’s not like there are street signs or anything.”
Focus, Misty. “Any unusual rock formations?”
“Oh, yeah. On the other side of the river and up a slope, there’s a big cave we used to play in when we were kids.”
“Half-Moon Cave.”
That landmark told Tab the approximate whereabouts. When Misty had first called, she’d said there were no passable roads, which was why Tab was on horseback. She wished she’d taken her van; there was a decent route that ran fairly close to Misty’s location.
“Half-Moon Cave, that’s right.” Her giggle broke into a sob. “You’ve got to hurry. Clinton hit his head.”
Of course, he did. This situation just got worse and worse. “Is he conscious?”
“Kind of. He was trying to push the Jeep out of the mud and he slipped and conked his forehead on the bumper.”
On horseback, there was no way to evacuate a man with a concussion and a woman in labor. “Let’s talk about you. How far apart are your pains?”
“I don’t know. It just hurts.”
“And how many months along are you?”
“Eight-ish. The doctor said I could have the baby any time now.”
In the best-case scenario, Misty was experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions that wouldn’t lead to childbirth. Or she could be going into early labor. “I want you to stay calm. Take slow, steady breaths, okay?”
“Whatever you say, Tab.”
“One thing I don’t understand,” she said. “Why didn’t you call your brother to come for you?”
Her brother, Aiden Gabriel, provided a private rescue-helicopter service for the local hospitals, the sheriff and national park rescue teams. Because he also worked on the family ranch, he wasn’t always available, but Tab knew that Aiden would drop everything to rescue his baby sister.
“Aiden is a big old jerk,” Misty said. “And he doesn’t like Clinton.”
An opinion Tab could easily comprehend. Clinton had taken his very pregnant girlfriend on an off-road adventure, gotten them stuck and then knocked himself unconscious. Clearly, he wasn’t the sharpest arrow in the quiver. “Brace yourself, Misty. I’m calling your brother. You need his help.”
“Maybe not. I think I see somebody coming.”
“Stay where you are,” Tab said sharply. “I can’t find you if you go wandering off.”
“Okay. See you later, elevator.”
“Real soon, harvest moon.”
Tab smiled as she remembered the rhyming games she and Misty played ten years ago. Tab had been sixteen. Her life had been split between living with her dad in Billings and with her grandma, Maria Spotted Bear, on the Crow reservation. When her dad had been hired to do contracting work at the Gabriel ranch near Henley, she’d tagged along and had gotten recruited as a live-in babysitter for seven-year-old Misty.
That summer had been a rough time for the Gabriel family. Misty’s dad had been killed in a car accident. Tab felt like she could understand Misty’s grief because she’d lost her mom and knew what it was like to have a parent die too young. She and Misty had bonded but their friendship wasn’t the main thing that happened that summer. That summer, Tab had fallen in love for the first time.
Looking down at her cell phone, she remembered the tall, lean, handsome Aiden Gabriel with his thick brown hair and his dreamy gray eyes. He’d been twenty-one when he came home from college and shouldered the responsibilities of a ranch owner, helping his mom to cope when her husband died. Though Tab never told anyone, she’d dreamed of Aiden every night, imagining his kiss and what it would feel like to be held in his strong arms. Once, he’d given her a necklace with a shiny four-leaf clover pendant, which she’d worn for years before tucking it away in her jewelry box.
Tab hadn’t spoken to Aiden since moving back to this area, but she’d seen him recently at a meeting in Crow Agency where the topic was the ongoing law enforcement problems on the reservation. After noticing that he was still the best-looking cowboy she’d ever seen, she’d grabbed one of his business cards and recorded his number on her phone to use in case of birthing emergencies. This circumstance qualified. She hit the speed dial.
On the third ring, he answered, “This is Aiden Gabriel.”
“Hi, it’s Tab.” A pause stretched between them. He didn’t remember her. And wasn’t that a knife to the gut? She clarified, “Tab Willows. I saw you at that law enforcement meeting in Crow Agency and took your card.”
“Tabitha.” He was one of the few people who used her full name. “You haven’t been around for a while. I heard you were at nursing school in Missoula.”
“That’s right.” Hearing his voice cast her backward in time to when she was a lovesick teenager wishing on a star that he’d notice her. She swallowed hard. “I’m a midwife.”
“We have some catching up to do.”
Tongue-tied, she mumbled, “Guess so.”
“It’s been a long time, but I’ll never forget that pretty, young girl with long black hair who used to race my fastest horse across the fields bareback.”
He’d thought she was pretty? If he’d told her when she was sixteen, she would have exploded in a wild burst of angst and joy. Even now, his compliment made it hard for her to breathe. “Misty needs your help.”
“What happened?”
“She called me because she’s having labor pains. She and her boyfriend got their Jeep stuck in a creek bed, and she needs to be evacuated.”
“Are you with her?”
“On my way,” Tab said. “But I can’t bring her in because I’m on horseback. Misty said they were near Half-Moon Cave.”
“I know where it is,” he said. “Tabitha, I hope you remember what was discussed at that meeting. If you’re riding alone, you should be prepared for trouble.”
In her work, she often traveled alone, heading to remote locations to work with women in labor. And she didn’t take unnecessary chances. A rifle scabbard was tucked under her saddlebags. “I’m armed.”
“See you there.”
With her cell phone tucked into the pocket of her brown denim jacket, she flicked the reins and nudged her heel into the flank of Shua, her grandma’s blue-black mare with the white blaze on her forehead. With minimal direction, the horse descended from the ridge and galloped across a wide valley dotted with patches of old snow.
As she directed Shua uphill through a stand of pine trees, she wondered how she could arrange to ride back to the hospital in the helicopter with Aiden. Unfortunately, she couldn’t abandon her horse, even though Shua could probably find her own way back to the corral outside her grandma’s house. The chopper ride would have to wait for another day.
If she took Misty as a client, she’d have plenty of opportunity to see Aiden. Not that she needed an excuse. Her midwife work made it important to know the emergency providers. She had every reason to call him and set a coffee date or invite him to her grandma’s house and bake him a pie. Did he still like apple? Would he still think she was pretty?
A blast of gunfire echoed through the canyons and across the fields. Three shots.
Shua reared back. Tab’s memories and daydreams shattered. There was trouble ahead.
If her reckoning was correct, Half-Moon Cave was just over the next rise. She urged her horse to go faster. From the hilltop, she looked down at a field near the canyon walls and saw the open-top Jeep with the rear tires buried up to the hubcaps in the mud. Taking her rifle from the scabbard, Tab held it to her shoulder and peered through the scope for a better look at the vehicle. There was a man sprawled in the backseat; she couldn’t tell if he’d been shot. Misty was nowhere in sight.
This couldn’t be good. Tab cocked her rifle and fired into the air. Her gunfire would warn off attackers and let Misty know that help was on the way.
Two more shots answered hers.
Rifle in hand, Tab rode fast. Her long braid bounced against her back, and the wind streamed across her cheeks. Her protective instincts came to the fore as she remembered the vulnerable child she babysat so long ago.
Approaching the Jeep, she shouted, “Misty?”
Loud sobbing came from a tangle of willows and cottonwoods that bordered the river. Still on horseback, Tab approached. If any real marksmanship was required, she’d need to dismount and brace herself. Right now, she wanted the option of fast maneuvering on Shua.
“Misty, are you all right?”
“I’m over here.”
In a small clearing, Tab saw the body of a man who had been shot in the chest. His jacket hung open. His eyes stared blankly at the darkening sky. He wasn’t moving.
Kneeling on the ground beside him was Misty. She held her bloody hands in front of her as though afraid to touch anything. A rifle lay on the ground.
Misty turned her tear-streaked face toward her. “I didn’t kill him. I swear I didn’t.”
THOUGH AIDEN WAS ALWAYS on call for emergencies, it usually took a while for him to get started because he had to drive to the air field in Henley to pick up his six-passenger helicopter, a Bell Long Ranger. Today, he needed only to walk from the barn to the helipad near his cabin at the Gabriel family ranch. Earlier today, he’d given piloting lessons to a couple of the ranch hands. With winter coming, there wasn’t as much work for the cowboys to do, and Aiden could use some part-time help with his newly established rescue business.
Less than fifteen minutes after Tabitha’s call, he was in the cockpit. He fastened his seat belt, depressed the starter, checked the fuel-pressure gauge, opened the throttle and pointed the nose toward the southeast. If he’d been following roads, the drive to Half-Moon Cave near the Little Big Horn River would have taken nearly an hour. Swooping through the sky cut his arrival time to approximately twenty minutes. Top speed was necessary. From what Tabitha had told him, Misty might be giving birth at any moment.
He hadn’t been pleased when his baby sister turned up pregnant. Misty was fourteen years younger than he was, not much more than a child herself. Aiden still had a hard time thinking of her as a mother, but the idea of having a nephew had grown on him.
As his mom constantly pointed out, it was time for a new generation in the Gabriel family. Mom would have preferred a marriage before the baby, but she’d take what she could get, especially since it didn’t look like Aiden would be heading toward the altar any time soon. His long-distance relationship had fizzled last month when they’d argued about where to spend Christmas. Aiden had point-blank refused to make the trip to Los Angeles to hang tinsel on palm trees, and his lady had no interest in coming to the ranch. The breakup had been inevitable. They’d grown apart.
Using his headset, he put through a call to Tabitha’s cell phone. When she answered, he clarified his directions. “I think I’m getting close. I’m following the course of the river.”
“We’re on the east side. Near a dried-up creek. Please hurry, Aiden.”
He heard the note of urgency in her voice. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“Misty is fine.” She paused. “There’s been a shooting.”
“Are you safe?”
“I think the shooter took off, but I can’t be sure.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said. “Tell me when you hear me getting close.”
“I think we’re okay,” she said. “We took cover by the river.”
He leaned forward as though his will could force the chopper to fly faster. The landscape below was a rugged sea of dry field grass and clumps of sage brush. “Did you see the gunman?”
“I can barely hear you, Aiden.”
“Stay on the line.” Like a 911 operator, he needed to maintain contact so he’d be aware of the situation. “What can you tell me?”
“Not much. Misty will have to do the explaining.”
A shooter had come after his sister? His grip tensed on the cyclic stick as he swerved to the left. He never expected anything like this, never thought violence would reach out and touch his family. “Was anyone shot?”
“Yes,” she said tersely. “It’s not Misty or her boyfriend. Somebody else.”
“Is he seriously wounded?”
“I really can’t hear you,” Tabitha said.
“Don’t hang up. Keep the line open.”
He should have expected something like this. Law enforcement had become a serious problem in the area, especially on the Crow reservation. Tribal lands spread across nearly two and a half million acres with only a handful of officers and a couple of agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to keep order. And the situation in Henley wasn’t much better. Budget cuts had sliced the police and sheriff’s department to the bare bone.
At the meeting in Crow Agency, the tribal police told them to be on the lookout for two girls from Henley who were last seen on the rez before they went missing. Nobody mentioned the possibility of a serial killer, but the threat was implied. Both of the missing girls were blondes like Misty.
“Aiden, I can hear your chopper.”
On the opposite side of the river, he saw the sandstone cliffs and rock formations. “I’m near Half-Moon Cave.”
“Do you see us? Do you see the Jeep?”
He spotted Clinton’s open-top vehicle stuck in the creek bed. Beside it was a black horse. Relief flooded through him when he saw Misty in her bright pink jacket step out from the cover of the trees and wave with both arms. She was safe. For now.
Chapter Two
Aiden stood over the body of a man who wasn’t much older than his sister. The fresh blood on his shirt made a vivid splash of crimson against the dry prairie grass in the clearing. The wind sighed through the bare branches of trees, and the rushing of the river played a quiet dirge. The family and friends of this young man would mourn his passing. Out of respect for them and for the victim, Aiden spread a tarp from the helicopter over the body.
He stood and took a step back.
His sister had a talent for getting into trouble, but this went beyond her usual. When he turned, he saw Misty was standing by the Jeep with her boyfriend. This time, she’d gotten herself involved in a murder. There would be consequences.
Before landing, he’d done an aerial sweep of the area and had seen nothing that appeared threatening. In the afternoon sunlight, his vision extended for miles in every direction. He hadn’t spotted the shooter fleeing or hiding among the rocks and brush. There were no signs of a getaway vehicle, which didn’t surprise Aiden. Almost an hour had passed since the first phone call from Tabitha; that was plenty of time for a shooter to put distance between himself and the scene of the crime.
If there was a shooter …
As he moved to the edge of the clearing, Tabitha joined him. “I’m glad you covered him,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if that would disturb evidence.”
“We aren’t exactly dealing with a crack team of CSI investigators.” He’d done enough work with local law enforcement to know the drill. “The police will be more concerned with obvious stuff. That’s Misty’s rifle on the ground. Do you know how it got here?”
“You need to ask her.”
“There’s a smear of blood on the stock.”
“When I arrived,” Tabitha said, “Misty was kneeling beside the body. I think she was trying to help. She had blood on her hands.”
“Do you think she did it?” He asked the question of the sky and the hills and the river. “Do you think she killed that young man?”
“I don’t know.”
Though he wasn’t sure what he’d do, Aiden had to know the truth. “Misty isn’t a murderer.”
“No, she’s not.”
For the first time since he’d landed, he looked directly at Tabitha. Her blue-eyed gaze was disconcerting, partly because the color was unexpected and partly because she was a lot prettier than he remembered with high cheekbones and a strong, stubborn chin. Her long black braid glistened in the fading sunlight. Though he should have been focused on his sister and the murdered man, this beautiful woman distracted him. His fingers itched to unfasten her braid and caress her silky hair.
“There is a plus side,” she said. “Emergency medical evacuation isn’t necessary. Not for Misty, anyway.”
He watched her full lips as she spoke. “Does that mean she isn’t in labor?”
“I haven’t done a full exam, obviously. But her mysterious labor pains seem to have disappeared, and she’s a month away from her due date. I advised her to check with her doctor in case there are complications. She might need to be on bed rest.”
“I like that idea.” With an effort, he reined in his inappropriate thoughts about Tabitha’s long legs and slender waist. “It’d be nice to keep Misty close to home before the baby comes.”
“I’m more concerned about Clinton.” Her crisp, professional tone helped create a distance between them. “I patched up his head wound, but he’s had a concussion and needs to be under observation.”
“I understand.” But he didn’t agree. He could have cited five or six times when he’d been knocked unconscious and had survived just fine. “I’m mighty glad you got here when you did. This situation could have been worse. Not that there’s anything worse than murder.”
Even if his sister was the killer? Surely, there was an explanation. Self-defense?
“We should call the sheriff,” Tabitha said.
“But this is reservation land. That means we call the Crow police chief, Joseph Lefthand. I’ve worked with him before. He’s good at his job.”
“I agree. Joseph is a good, dedicated lawman.”
He took out his cell phone. “I’ll call him.”
“Wait,” she said. “The tribal police don’t have the resources to process forensic evidence, and I want to make sure the investigation is done right. This isn’t a straightforward murder.”
“It’s not that complicated.” He didn’t need to go into detail about how his aerial sweep failed to show evidence of a killer on the run, or how Misty’s rifle was on the ground beside the body. “We’re looking at an obvious case of self-defense.”
“That’s not what Misty says.”
“Do you believe her, Tabitha?”
“I do. Your sister might be irresponsible, but she’s not a liar.” She arched an eyebrow. “Please call me Tab. The only other person who uses my full name is my grandma, and that’s only when she’s mad at me.”
Her slight smile made him want to see a full-fledged grin and to hear her laughter. “I remember your grandma. Maria Spotted Bear.” He looked past the Jeep to where a black mare was grazing. “Is that her horse?”
“Shua,” Tab said. “Don’t ask me why a black horse is named with the Crow word for blue. Grandma has her reasons.”
“Is she well?”
“According to her, she’s in great health. But she’s been diagnosed with a touch of congenital heart failure. A couple of months ago, she fainted and broke her wrist. One of the reasons I moved back here was to take care of her.”
“Sorry to hear that she’s ailing.”
Tab shrugged. A simple gesture, but he found it charming. “How’s Sylvia?”
“Mom is strong as an ox. It’s hard to believe she’s almost sixty.”
A silence stretched between them. Much had happened in the ten years they’d been out of contact. Though he’d never been a real chatty sort of guy, he had an urge to tell her everything about his life, his hopes and his dreams. With so much to say, he didn’t know where to start.
Tab took the first step. “Let’s talk to your sister, and then we can decide who to call.”
Together, they returned to the Jeep where Misty leaned against the front bumper with her arms cradling her belly. Clinton stood beside her. He’d slapped his cowboy hat onto his head, almost covering the gauze bandage that Tab had applied.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Clinton said. “I should have protected my girl. But I was out cold.”
“And you didn’t see anything,” Aiden said.
“No, sir.”
He turned to his sister. “I’m guessing that you were attacked. Maybe this guy—”
“David Welling.” There was a hitch in her voice. “His name is David Welling.”
“Okay, David Welling came at you, maybe he—”
“I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“Calm down, sweetie. Take a nice, slow, deep breath.” He waited until she’d composed herself before he continued, “It’s not your fault. You had to shoot David in self-defense.”
“I didn’t shoot anybody.” She shook her head, and her curly blond hair whipped across her face. “I never would shoot anybody.”
Aiden exchanged a glance with Tab. She’d warned him that his sister’s story was complicated. “Take your time, Misty. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I was waiting for Tab. I heard a noise over by the river, and I got my rifle out of the back of the Jeep. I was scared that somebody might come after us. Poor Clinton was unconscious, and I couldn’t let anybody hurt him.”
“Whoa,” Clinton said. “I’m not helpless. I could’ve got to my feet and taken care of you.”
Aiden held up his hand, signaling Clinton to stop. “I’m listening to Misty, now.”
She continued, “As soon as I got a little bit closer—”
“Did you take the rifle with you?”
“I left it right here.” She pointed to the front bumper. “I figured that if I needed it, I could run back and grab it real quick.”
“But I thought you were trying to protect Clinton?”
She tapped her foot. “Do you want to hear this, or not, Aiden?”
Understanding her motivations was like asking a chicken why it pecked in the dirt. “Go on.”
“I recognized David. I dated him before he graduated high school and moved away from Henley.”
As far as Aiden could tell, she’d dated most of the male population of Henley High, which made it even more astounding that she’d ended up with a pea brain like Clinton. “Is this David Welling any relation to Bert Welling who runs a gas station in Henley?”
“Bert is his uncle,” Misty said. “David used to pump gas for Bert before he moved to Billings with his dad. Anyway, when I saw him standing there in the clearing, I said hi. And he said I shouldn’t be here, and I told him that we were stuck, and he said I needed to get away from here, to get the hell away from here.”
Her eyes welled up with tears. “Then I heard the shots. David grabbed his chest and fell down. And there was blood. Oh my God, there was a lot of blood.”
“Did you see who shot him?”
“I hit the dirt. I thought they were shooting at me. I covered my head and I thought about my baby. I couldn’t let anything bad happen to my baby, I just couldn’t.”
Her hands flew up to cover her face as heavy sobs shook her shoulders. For once, Clinton did the right thing, stepping forward to comfort her and hold her against his chest. His protective attitude made Aiden wonder if there was something Misty had left out of her story.
Clinton might have been the shooter. Misty could be claiming responsibility to keep her boyfriend from being a suspect. But that didn’t make sense. A self-defense plea worked just as well for Clinton as for Misty. Aiden doubted that either one of them would be charged with murder … except for one hitch. The victim appeared to be unarmed.
As Misty’s sobs abated, Aiden asked, “Why was your rifle in the clearing?”
“I ran back to get it, but the gun wasn’t where I left it.”
“Where was it?”
“Right about here.” She pointed to a clump of sagebrush that was about twenty yards from the clearing. “I could tell it had been fired.”
“Are you saying that the killer used your rifle?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see him?” he asked.
“He must have run off.”
Or maybe he turned invisible. Aiden was getting more and more frustrated with her story. “How long between when you heard the shot and ran back to get the rifle?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think, Misty.”
Tears streaked down her cheeks. “Don’t be so mean to me.”
“I can help,” Tab said. “When I heard the first shot, I was on the other side of those hills. It took five or six minutes before I got to the crest and could see the Jeep. Clinton was unconscious in the backseat. I fired a warning shot in the air to scare off anybody who might be hanging around.”
“I shot back,” Misty said. “I didn’t aim at anything. I was just shooting in the air. Twice.”
Aiden fitted the pieces together. According to his sister, a mysterious shooter had killed David Welling using her rifle, and then disappeared within five minutes. He gauged the distance from where she found the rifle to the trees and shrubs that bordered the river. Though it was possible that the killer could make that dash, it was unlikely. Why use Misty’s rifle? Why choose this particular moment to kill David Welling? And what was Welling doing out here in the first place?
After patting his sister on the arm and offering reassurances that he hoped weren’t empty, Aiden pulled Tab to one side. His senses registered the clean fragrance of her shampoo and the warmth that emanated from her body, but he kept his mind trained on the problem at hand.
“You’re right,” he said to Tab. “This investigation is beyond the resources of the tribal police. But we still need to contact Joseph Lefthand.”
“I’m not sure of the procedure,” she said.
He explained. First, they needed to notify tribal police of a crime committed on their land. In most cases, the Crow were happy to pass on the problem and cede jurisdiction through an agent of the federal government, namely someone from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Then the county sheriff would take over.
“I hope the sheriff can get started with his investigation before dark.” She looked toward the sun sinking in the west. “There might be footprints from the gunman. Or evidence of his vehicle.”
“If Misty’s story is accurate,” he said, “ballistics will show that the bullets came from her rifle.”
“There might be fingerprints.”
“In addition to Misty’s prints.” She’d already said that she fired the gun and would, therefore, have gunshot residue on her clothes.
He wished that his sister had come up with a more convincing story—something about how David Welling attacked her, and she was forced to defend herself. The idea of a murderer who could appear out of nowhere and vanish in the blink of an eye was improbable. It sounded like a lie. And lying made Misty look as if she had something to hide.
If this investigation went wrong, it was entirely possible that his sister would be delivering her baby in jail.
Chapter Three
While Aiden and Clinton messed around with the Jeep, trying to dig out the rear tires, Tab took a striped wool blanket from her saddlebags and handed it to Misty. “Spread this on the ground. Choose a spot that’s out of the wind.”
“Why?”
“You might as well get comfortable. It’s going to take a while for the authorities to get here.”
Definitely an understatement. When Aiden had put through calls to the tribal police, the BIA and the sheriff, she’d heard the growing frustration in his voice. Everybody promised to respond just as soon as they could, which meant they had other business to clean off their plates.
Though Tab thought that murder should take precedence, she was accustomed to bureaucracy. There was nothing to do but wait. She dug through her saddlebag, ignoring the medical equipment, and found a square plastic container packed with more practical supplies.
“All this waiting around sucks,” Misty said. She turned her gaze toward the clearing where the body lay covered by a tarp. “But I won’t leave. I owe it to David to talk to the sheriff. I’m the only witness.”
And the most obvious suspect. In spite of the giggles and the frequent flipping of her blond hair, Misty wasn’t a fool. The girl had to realize how implausible her story about the vanishing gunman sounded. She had to know that she could be charged with murder.
Tab followed her to a spot beside a low flat rock and helped her lay the blanket over the dried prairie grass. “Tell me about David.”
“We only went out on one date. There wasn’t any kissing or anything.” Misty gave her a conspiratorial grin. “Can I tell you a secret? You have to promise not to let Aiden know.”
As Tab felt herself being drawn more deeply into the situation, her defenses rose. The smart move would be to back off. She was a midwife, not a policewoman. A murder investigation wasn’t her problem. But her heart wouldn’t let her abandon Misty. “Does your secret have anything to do with David Welling’s death?”
“No way,” Misty said.
“Then I won’t tell anybody else. I promise. Wild horses won’t drag it out of me.”
“In sophomore year at Henley High, me and Lisa and Heather made a bet. Whoever was the first to date every guy in the junior and senior class was the winner.”
“Why juniors and seniors? You were sophomores.”
“The boys our age were dorks, and most of them didn’t have their driver’s licenses. That’s why we went for the older guys. Our bet wasn’t as wild as it sounds. There were only seventy-six guys total in both classes.”
Their bet sounded like a sure way to get into trouble. Tab imagined these three little heartbreakers sowing havoc at Henley High. “What counted as a date?”
“The guy had to invite you. It could be a study date or a ski trip or going to a party. Or they had to buy you something, like if you went out in a group and they paid for your burger.”
“What happened with you and David?”
“He was fixing a flat tire for me at his uncle’s gas station—”
“Wait a minute. How old were you?”
“Not old enough to have my license, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“You stole the car?”
“Borrowed it from Aiden. He was too busy running the ranch and learning how to pilot his chopper to be worried about me.” She rolled her eyes. “Geez, Tab. I started driving around on the ranch as soon as I was big enough to see over the steering wheel. You know how it is.”
“I do.” Tab had attended high school in Billings—a city where regulations were enforced. Though Henley was less than fifty miles away, she knew that different rules applied. “So, you and David were at the gas station. Then what?”
“We got to talking. I barely knew him. He was really shy and quiet, didn’t play football or basketball. But he had a real cute smile.”
“And you started flirting.”
“He bought me an orange soda.” She giggled. “He asked me out, too. But I turned him down.”
“Why?”
“When he bought the soda, I could cross him off my list. And he was nice, you know. I didn’t want to lead him on.”
Tab was glad to hear that Misty had a conscience, after all. “Who won the bet?”
“Nobody. We all found boyfriends, and we didn’t want to be with anybody else. It’s funny, you know. I probably never would have gone out with Clinton if it hadn’t been for that bet. And now, he’s my baby’s daddy.”
“And you’re happy about that?”
“You bet I am.” Misty positioned herself on the blanket with her legs tucked under. With her pregnant belly, she looked like a blond Buddha. “This is a nice, thick blanket. Why did you bring it along?”
“When you first called and said you were in labor, I thought I might be delivering your baby out here.”
“Oh. My. God. That is so totally not sanitary.”
Tab didn’t bother with a long, thoughtful explanation about how childbirth was a natural process not an illness that required hospitalization. Midwifery was her lifework, and she didn’t feel a need to justify her profession. Some people got it. Others didn’t.
“My ancestors have been having babies without hospitals for a very long time. So have yours.”
“I guess you’re right. The Gabriels have been ranching in this area since the early 1900s. I don’t guess there were many hospitals back then.”
An accurate assumption, but Tab was fairly certain that Misty’s great-grandmother had the best care that money could buy. The Gabriels had a history of wealth and power that held true to the present day. Their cattle ranch provided employment for many people in the area. The family reputation might work in Misty’s favor when it came to murder charges, but Tab suspected that there were those who resented the Gabriel clan and would take perverse pleasure in seeing Misty behind bars.
“I want to talk to you about stress,” Tab said.
“Okay.”
“When you’re pregnant,” Tab said, “it’s not good for you to be under a lot of stress. That means it’s not good for your baby, either.”
“What can I do? Is there some kind of herb I can take?”
Many natural remedies were used to encourage labor, but Misty wasn’t at that point. “You’re already taking prenatal vitamins, right? And probably extra iron.”
Misty bobbed her head. “And I’m drinking herbal teas, mostly chamomile. I like doing organic stuff. I made Clinton take a class on natural childbirth that they were teaching at the hospital in Henley.”
“Good for you.” Tab squatted at the edge of the blanket and opened the plastic container she’d brought from her saddlebags. “Those breathing techniques are also useful for dealing with stress. Concentrate on inhaling and exhaling. Do you ever meditate?”
“You mean like yoga? Nope, that’s not my thing.”
“What helps you slow down and relax?” Tab assumed from Misty’s confused expression that slowing down wasn’t part of her agenda. “How about music? Do you listen to music?”
“All the time.” She dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out a tiny player attached to ear buds. “Mostly country and western. Is that unstressful?”
“Better than heavy metal,” Tab said. “When you feel yourself getting tight inside, just plug in your music, close your eyes and tune out all the other distractions.”
From the plastic container, she unpacked a simple picnic of crackers, cheese, jerky, an apple and a six-pack of bottled water. Misty pounced on the jerky. “You’re a mind reader, Tab. I was starving.”
Working with pregnant women taught her that she couldn’t go wrong with healthy snacks. “Dig in before the guys figure out that there’s food over here.”
Aiden’s effort to get the Jeep unstuck had deteriorated to walking about the vehicle, scratching his head and scowling. Clinton was doing much the same. Very likely, they’d come to the conclusion that when the sheriff got here, they could hook up a winch.
Sitting back on her heels, Tab watched as Misty devoured a chunk of jerky, took a huge swig from the water bottle and gave a loud burp followed by a giggle. “Sorry,” Misty said. “That was gross.”
“A little bit.”
“My body keeps doing this weird stuff. I have to pee all the time.”
“Can you feel the baby kicking?”
“I can.” A happy smile brightened her face. “That part is really cool.”
Tab was reminded of the seven-year-old she used to babysit. That summer had been rough on the girl. Not only had she lost her father, but her mother had been so devastated that she could barely drag herself out of bed. And Aiden had been preoccupied with the day-to-day operations at the ranch. Throughout, Misty maintained a relentlessly cheerful attitude to hide her pain and vulnerability.
“I wish I could stay here and wait with you,” Tab said, “but I need to leave soon.”
Misty nodded as she screwed the top back onto the water bottle. When she looked up, her eyes were troubled. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Am I going to jail?”
Tab couldn’t promise a good outcome. Even if Misty was completely innocent, there were no guarantees. “I don’t know.”
AN HOUR LATER, THE SUN dipped low in the western sky. None of the law enforcement people had yet arrived on the scene, but Tab couldn’t wait any longer. Nightfall came early in November, and she didn’t want to ride home in the dark. It wasn’t far to her grandma’s house, probably only seven or eight miles, but there wasn’t a clearly marked trail between here and there, and she didn’t want to take a chance on getting lost.
After she gave Misty a hug, Tab made her way through the sage and dried prairie grass to where Shua was nibbling at a shrub. Aiden strode toward her. “Leaving so soon?”
“Not that it hasn’t been fun,” she said. “The sheriff can contact me later for a statement.”
“I’m glad you’re heading out while there’s still enough light to see where you’re going. You haven’t lived around here for a couple of years. Things change.”
As far as she could see, the change was minimal. The local landmarks—rolling hills, ridges and the river—were much the same as when she was a kid. On the opposite side of the Little Big Horn, she saw the sandstone cliff and the familiar arch above Half-Moon Cave. The land was eternal; the people were different.
She glanced over her shoulder at Misty’s little nest on the striped wool blanket. Though Clinton had his arm around her, Misty’s shoulders slumped, and her head drooped. “I’m worried about her,” Tab said. “If there’s anything I can do to help, call me.”
“Sure.”
His hand rested on Shua’s neck, and he stroked along the line of the horse’s mane. The gesture was completely natural, like the absentminded way you might pet a cat that jumped on your lap. This casual attitude around livestock said a lot about Aiden.
Unlike most of the men she’d dated in Billings and Missoula, he’d grown up on a ranch and was 100 percent cowboy. Right now, he was wearing a baseball cap instead of a Stetson, but he still looked the part with his long, lean body, his scuffed boots and his well-worn jeans. His hands were calloused. His wrists were strong. And his gray eyes had that cool awareness that came from hours of staring across the wide prairies, watching over several hundred head of cattle.
Had he changed? She wasn’t sure.
Though she wasn’t sixteen anymore, she was still a little bit blinded by her crush on him. When she looked at him, her pulse rate quickened. She had to swallow hard before she trusted herself to speak without stammering.
“I’m serious about having Misty call me,” she said. “She needs a friend.”
“You got that right. The girls she used to pal around with in high school are off at college, joining sororities and having all kinds of fun.” A frown tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I wanted that for her. Misty’s a smart kid.”
“You make it sound like her life is over.”
“She wanted to be a lawyer, talked about it all the time. She was planning to take on injustice and set the world straight. She’d sent off her application to a couple of universities, and she’d gotten accepted.”
“A lawyer, huh? That’s terrific.”
“Now, she’s going to be stuck on the ranch.”
Tab didn’t like his attitude and all that it implied. “She doesn’t have to give up her dreams. Having a baby isn’t the end of the world for Misty.”
His gaze met hers, and she braced herself for a bullheaded argument about how womenfolk are supposed to stay home and tend the young. Instead, Aiden said, “You’re right.”
“You’re damn right that I’m right.” She’d gotten herself all puffed up for no reason. “Right?”
“I’m not fighting you, Tab.”
“Well, good.”
“Misty needs to hear that she’s still got opportunities. She can still go to college and to law school.” His expression warmed. “It’d be good for her to spend time with you.”
Being close to Misty meant also being near him, which might be the very definition of a win-win situation. She cleared her throat and reached for her saddle. “I should mount up.”
“Not yet.”
When he lightly touched her shoulder, she spun around to face him. He was standing so close that she could see the prisms and facets in his eyes. “What is it, Aiden?”
“If you’ll wait a bit before you get up on your horse, I’d like to walk with you.”
“Suit yourself.”
Taking the reins, she stepped in front of Shua and made a clicking noise. The horse ambled along behind her as she and Aiden strolled along a path that followed the winding course of the river.
“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I’d like to escort you all the way back to your grandma’s place and make sure you get home safely.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Can you? If Misty’s story is true, the shooter might still be in the area.”
She looked up at him. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”
“It’s unlikely he’s still around, but it’s something to keep in mind. At that meeting in Crow Agency, nobody actually said we might be facing a serial killer. But it’s possible.”
She remembered the serious tone of the meeting and the warning to be on the lookout. “I thought the meeting was about two missing girls from Henley who were last seen on the rez.”
“There’s more to the story,” Aiden said. “A couple of months ago, at the end of the summer, the sheriff in Billings found the body of a tourist who had been camping. She was raped and murdered. Since then, three other girls have disappeared. All the victims are blonde, like Misty.”
Tab touched her long, black braid. “I guess that means I’m safe.”
“You can’t make that kind of assumption with a crazy person. His M.O. might change in a flash.”
Fear nibbled at the edge of her mind. “I’ll keep my rifle handy. And I won’t dawdle.”
“Call me when you get home.”
Her cell phone wasn’t much protection. Not only was the reception spotty but nobody would reach her in time if she called for help. “He used Misty’s rifle. Does that mean he doesn’t have his own gun?”
“I don’t know,” Aiden said.
“Have you been working with the police? You seem to know a lot about the murdered tourist and the girls from Billings.”
“I volunteer my chopper to look for missing persons, keeping an eye on things from the sky. I like to go up as often as possible.”
“You enjoy flying?”
“From the first time I rode in a chopper, I loved it—swooping through the skies, leaving gravity behind and soaring free.” The tension in his face relaxed as he looked heavenward and grinned. “It’s the freedom. No restraints. No regrets.”
“And no responsibilities,” she said.
“That, too.”
Aiden had been forced to take on a lot after his father died. He’d had to leave college and take care of the ranch. No wonder he wanted Misty to have a wider scope of opportunity. “I’ve never been in a helicopter.”
“A virgin,” he said.
In more ways than one, but he didn’t have to know about that part of her life. “You make it sound exciting.”
“It’s a different perspective,” he said. “I know a lot about this territory. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to walk along with you. We might run into something along this path.”
“Something?”
“Somebody,” he said.
She heard a rustling in the brush beside the river and turned to look. “What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
A skinny man with a wild gray beard crept out from behind a tree. Over his shoulders, he wore a buffalo robe. He held a ski pole in each hand, using them as walking sticks.
“Visitors,” he shouted. “Welcome, pretty lady.”
Tab stood and stared. Her jaw dropped, and she felt her eyes pop wide like a cartoon version of herself. What the hell?
Chapter Four
Aiden relished the look of shock on Tab’s face. It wasn’t easy to ruffle her feathers, but he’d succeeded. She recovered her poise quickly. Her gaping mouth snapped shut, and her full lips smoothed into a slightly upturned line that wasn’t exactly a smile. Under her breath, she muttered, “Good thing you warned me about this little something. I might have shot him.”
No fear. Her first thought was to grab her rifle and stand ready to protect herself. He liked that attitude. This lady wasn’t about to scream or take off running, not her. Not Tab.
Thinking of her as Tab instead of Tabitha was becoming easier. The longer name—Tabitha—rolled off his tongue with an almost musical resonance. Tab was one crisp, practical syllable. It suited her. The way he figured, a woman named Tab could stand up for herself while a Tabitha would be the type to flutter her eyelashes and swoon.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“His name is Wally, but everybody calls him Buffalo Man.”
“Certainly not because of his size,” she said. “He couldn’t weigh more than one twenty-five including the fur cape and ski poles. What’s he doing here?”
“He camps along the river. I spotted his tent when I did my visual sweep in the chopper.”
Feet together, the scrawny gray-haired man hopped toward them, mimicking the technique of a downhill skier. Gradually, he was coming closer.
“He could be the shooter,” Tab said.
“I don’t reckon so. His campsite is another mile or so downriver. He was there when I flew over.” Besides, Aiden had become fairly well acquainted with the old man. “He’s not a murderer. A thief? Maybe. But not a killer.”
Wally claimed to be part Crow, but nobody on the rez claimed him back. A drifter, he’d been in this area for three or four years. When he occasionally showed up at the Gabriel ranch looking for work, Aiden would find him something to do with the stipulation that Buffalo Man take a long soak in a hot tub and shave his whiskers. In a lucid moment, Wally had confided that he’d lost his job, his wife and his house, but he wasn’t sad or self-pitying. He’d chosen to go back to nature.
Usually, he wasn’t so talkative, and today he said nothing as he approached. When he was about five feet from them, Aiden caught the whiff of a powerful stench—the smell of old campfires and dirt. He held up a hand. “That’s close enough, Wally.”
Buffalo Man bared his yellow teeth in a grin. “That’s a pretty horse.”
“Thank you,” Tab said. “Do you live out here?”
“It’s my right. I’m Indian, like you.” He cocked his head to one side. “You’re Maria Spotted Bear’s granddaughter.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know things. Lots of things.”
“You’d better not be spying on my grandma,” she said. “I wouldn’t like that.”
He dug the tips of his ski poles into the earth and planted his fists on his skinny hips. “I am not a Peeping Tom. I have my dignity. You can ask Aiden. Go on, ask him.”
“Wally does work for me at the ranch. He’s a good handyman.”
“Handy Wally, that’s my moniker.”
Aiden watched Tab’s expression as her suspicion faded. It was her nature to be friendly. Her tribe had a tradition of welcoming strangers and sharing whatever they had. She took a step toward Wally and held out her hand as she offered a Crow greeting. “Ka-hay. My name is Tab Willows.”
He vigorously shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Tab.”
“It must get lonely out here. If you’re hungry or want company, come to my grandma’s house.”
“I don’t take charity.”
“I wasn’t offering,” Tab said. “We’ll make a trade. My grandma can use the skills of a handyman.”
His yellow smile split his wizened face. Peering through his tangled mop of hair, his eyes were alert and intelligent. “I would be honored to visit the home of Maria Spotted Bear.”
Though Wally had never shared his prior occupation, Aiden believed he was an educated man. His use of language was usually correct, he had a decent vocabulary and he was smart enough to know how to survive in the wild. His antisocial weirdness came from a lack of interaction with other people. He chose to be a hermit. But that didn’t mean he was nuts.
“I have a couple of questions for you,” Aiden said. “No doubt you noticed the commotion this afternoon.”
“Gunfire. I heard it. And I saw Tab riding across the hills, coming from the east. And the chopper.” He looked up at the fading light of the afternoon. “I saw your chopper. You must have seen me, too. I waved.”
Aiden nodded. “What about people? Did you see or hear any people on the ground?”
Abruptly, Wally hunkered down on the ground. His voice lowered to a whisper. “After the gunfire, I thought I should take a look and see if anybody needed my help. Voices carry a long way out here.”
“Could you hear what anyone was saying?”
Wally pointed to Tab. “You. I heard you talking.”
“What about earlier than that. Before Tab, did you hear voices?”
He shook his head. “I was too far away. When I got close, I heard your baby sister.”
“Misty,” said both Aiden and Tab.
“She laughs a lot.” Wally gave a creaky chuckle of his own. “A pretty sound. Her laughter sounds like splashing water. Not like the other girls who come out here with their boyfriends. They squeal and shout and make a terrible ruckus with their parties.”
Half-Moon Cave had always been a favorite gathering spot for high school parties and make-out sessions. The opening of the cave was a wide arch, similar to a band shell, and the interior provided shelter from the wind and rain. Aiden guessed that if they crossed the river and went to the cave, they’d find the remains of campfires and plenty of rusted beer cans.
“The sheriff is going to be here soon,” Aiden said. “He’s going to want to talk to you about what you saw or heard.”
“No, sir. This is reservation land. I don’t have to talk to the sheriff.”
“Joseph Lefthand will be here, as well,” Tab said. “It’s important to help them. There’s been a murder.”
“I know.” Wally popped up. “I got close enough to see the dead man, and then I turned around. None of my business.”
“Did you know the man who was killed?” Aiden asked.
“I might have seen him before. Once or twice. I see a lot of things. People don’t much notice me.” He looked directly at Tab. “Not that I go out of my way to spy on people. I mind my own business.”
Aiden stepped closer to Wally and looked him straight in the eye, compelling his attention. “Bad things have been happening on or near the rez. Young girls from Henley and Billings are going missing. At least one of them was murdered. Have you seen or heard anything that could lead to the killer?”
“The man who was killed was here with a girl. She had hair like a golden waterfall.”
“If you saw her photo, could you identify her?”
Wally stroked his beard and considered. “It was after dark, and I didn’t really see her face. She was wearing a baby-blue sweatshirt.”
That item of clothing could help identify David Welling’s companion. “Did you hear them talking?”
“He said her name.” Wally tugged harder on his beard. “Ellen or Elizabeth. It was something like that.”
David might have a connection with one of the missing women. And David had been murdered. If Wally stepped forward as a witness, it could put him in danger. He shouldn’t be camping out here by himself.
Aiden patted him on the shoulder of his buffalo robe. “Until this is over, you might want to come and stay at the ranch. My mom has some work for you. She’s going to be putting up Christmas decorations.”
“I’ll come after the weather gets colder,” Wally said. “Right now, it’s nice and warm. The river is low and slow. I go swimming in it every day. Keeps me young.”
Aiden hoped Wally’s outdoor skills would also keep him alive. He hated to think of anything bad happening to the eccentric old man.
AFTER TAB RETURNED TO HER grandma’s house, she took care of Shua and fed the horse in the barn beside the corral. By the time she transferred her medical supplies from the saddlebags into the back of her van, the dusk had turned into dark—a still, calm night. The deep solitude soothed her. Not that she would forget the murder, the threat of a serial killer and the potential of jail time for pregnant Misty. Tab was involved, truly involved, and she was committed to doing whatever she could to help.
But not right this minute. For now, she needed to clear her mind. She inhaled. The cold night air swept into her lungs and refreshed her mind and her spirit.
A few months ago, when she moved back here, she’d been worried that she’d be bored to death. Though the Crow half of her DNA connected her to this land and the traditions of her tribe, she’d spent most of her life in cities like Billings and Missoula where there were things to do and places to go. Not that her social life had ever been a whirlwind of parties and dates. Instead, she’d kept herself busy with her schooling and with work. After graduating from nursing school in Missoula, she’d been part of a midwife clinic that also offered prenatal and postnatal care. She’d learned so much from the other midwives.
Now, she worked alone. She was the expert.
Outside her grandma’s house, she looked up at the moon and the millions of stars that spread their silvery light across the hills and distant cliffs. A couple hundred yards away, she saw the lights from other homes where the Martins and the Tall Grass families lived. The only sound was the rustling of wind across the prairies and the winged swoop of raptor birds hunting in the night.
Light shone through the windows in her grandma’s kitchen where Maria Spotted Bear was probably preparing dinner and not wearing her wrist brace. Though the cast had been removed, Tab wanted Grandma Maria to protect her injured wrist until she was full strength. Twice a day, they performed therapeutic exercises. Every night, her grandma wrapped her wrist in herbal poultices. The same combination of Western medicine and Crow healing practices applied to the pills Grandma took for her heart condition.
As soon as Tab came through the front door, she heard Grandma singing in the kitchen. The stereotype of the stoic tribal elder didn’t hold true for her grandma who always seemed surrounded by music and happy chatter.
Entering the kitchen, Tab saw her grandma remove a tray of cornbread from the oven. The wrist brace was nowhere in sight.
“Don’t worry,” Grandma said as she set the cornbread in the center of the kitchen table. “I can lift this. It’s not too heavy.”
“Smells good.” Tab wasn’t in the mood to argue. She hugged the rounded shoulders of the small woman whose long white hair was fastened at her nape with an ornately beaded barrette. “Do you know the one they call Buffalo Man?”
“A crazy old badger. He lives down by the river.”
“Just to warn you, I kind of invited him to drop by anytime for dinner.”
“That’s my Tabitha.” Her grandma chuckled. “From the time you were a little girl, you were always bringing home strays.”
“His real name is Wally, and he’s willing to work for his supper as a handyman. Having him drop by might be useful. The barn roof needs patching.”
“How did this new friendship happen?” Grandma sat at the kitchen table. “You left the house to deliver a baby, and you picked up an old man in a buffalo robe.”
“Long story.”
“The stew can simmer for a while.”
Not holding back, Tab told the whole story of Misty and the murder, the possible serial killer connection, the chopper and Aiden. When she mentioned his name, she heard a breathless change in her voice. She pictured the tall, lean cowboy, and a rush of excitement went through her. In an attempt to hide that reaction, she turned her back on Grandma and opened the refrigerator door to take out a pitcher of cold water.
“Aiden Gabriel,” her grandma said. “He’s a handsome man.”
“Is he?” Her tone pitched to a higher octave. “I didn’t notice. I was more concerned about his sister.”
“You don’t fool me. When you were a girl and spent the summer at the Gabriel ranch, you liked him, liked him very much.” She sang a little song about sailing away with the man of her dreams. “Didn’t you ask me for a totem to cause a man to fall in love with you?”
Tab didn’t deny it. “I was a silly teenager then.”
“And now, you’re both grown up. Could be good timing. From what I hear, Aiden broke up with his long-time girlfriend. She lives in California and doesn’t care about ranch life.”
Tab poured cold spring water into a Mason jar and took a sip. People who lived on the rez seemed isolated, and yet the gossip grapevine relayed information more quickly than cell phone texting. “How do you know so much about Aiden’s love life?”
“His mother and I see each other often. I bring her baked goods, and Sylvia gives me beef. She’s happy about the blessing of a new baby.”
“It doesn’t bother her that Misty is so young and so unmarried?”
“If anyone understands about unexpected pregnancy, it’s Sylvia Gabriel.” Grandma leaned back in her chair and folded her hands on her lap, a signal that she was about to tell a story. “Sylvia nearly died in childbirth. She had a difficult labor, ending in Caesarian section and a serious loss of blood. But after she had Aiden, she wanted more children. She and her husband tried everything. I know this because she came to me and asked how to increase her fertility.”
Maria Spotted Bear not only had a reputation as an excellent baker but also for healing and cures. Tab had learned young how to locate, harvest and prepare many herbs for teas and salves. “Red clover, squaw berry and yams. Those are all good to promote fertility.”
“Nothing worked and she gave up—satisfied to have a healthy son and a good marriage. Fourteen years later, when Sylvia was thirty-seven years old, she had Misty. A happy surprise.”
Her cell phone buzzed. The screen showed Aiden was the caller. As soon as she saw his name, she remembered that she’d promised to call him when she reached her grandma’s house.
“I’m home,” she said when she picked up. “We’re just about to sit down for dinner.”
“I’m glad, but that’s not why I was calling.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t sure whether to be pleased that he trusted her to take care of herself, or to feel bad that he wasn’t checking up on her.
“Misty asked if you could come over to the ranch tonight, maybe in an hour or so. Is that convenient?”
His tone was cool and distant, more appropriate for a business transaction than a personal request. “Aiden, what’s going on?”
“They found another body. She’s from Henley, and her name is Ellen.”
That was the name Wally mentioned. He’d said that Ellen was with David Welling. “A blonde?”
“Yes.”
She heard other voices in the background. They were arguing. “What else?”
“The victim was wearing a gold, engraved wristwatch. It belongs to my sister.”
The link to another murder was bad for Misty. Her story about the mystery gunman who grabbed her rifle and disappeared sounded even more flimsy. Tab didn’t know how she could help other than to offer moral support. Sometimes, that was enough. “I’ll be there.”
Chapter Five
If Tab had gotten her way, she would have tucked her grandma into bed for a solid eight hours of sleep before she left. But Grandma really wanted to come along. She argued that Sylvia Gabriel was a very good friend of the family, and friends take care of friends. What Grandma didn’t say was that these murders were more exciting than anything that had happened since the fire at the casino in Crow Agency.
Sitting in the passenger seat of Tab’s van, she fiddled with the wrist brace Tab had insisted that she wear. “The tribe should have jurisdiction. The dead girl was found on the rez.”
Tab was tired of running through the logistical reasons why Joseph Lefthand couldn’t handle a complicated investigation. She jumped to the bottom line, which was something her grandma—who took part in tribal council—would understand. “It would be expensive. The tribe would have to hire a special coroner to do the autopsies.”
“Are they going to cut that poor girl open?”
Tab shot her a skeptical glance. With her long white braids, patterned wool jacket, long skirt and moccasins, Maria Spotted Bear was just a few head feathers short of playing a tribal elder at the annual reenactment of Custer’s Last Stand. Not an entirely true image. Grandma kept up with the times.
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know about autopsies,” Tab said. “You’ve got television on satellite dish. You’ve watched police shows.”
“And hospital shows to keep up with what you’re doing.” Slyly, she asked, “Are those shows truthful?”
“Yeah, sure,” Tab muttered sarcastically. “Every doctor is gorgeous, and every case is fascinating.”
“You see what I mean? I’ve heard about detectives, but I don’t know what they do.”
Tab shrugged. “Neither do I. Not exactly.”
“I can tell you one thing. To find a killer, you don’t need fancy equipment or autopsies. You need to be smart.” Grandma tapped the side of her head. “A real detective should have the instincts of a hunter.”
“Do you think Joseph Lefthand has those instincts?”
“Better him than Sheriff Steve.”
Tab had met both men at the meeting in Crow Agency. Both seemed decent and hard-working. Both were deeply concerned about the young women who had gone missing. Tab wondered if she ought to be more worried since she and Grandma lived alone without any security other than the rifles they kept in the front closet.
Her van jostled along the back roads between her grandma’s house and the Gabriel ranch. Though Tab hadn’t driven the route in years, she remembered the way. When she spent the summer at the ranch, she’d traveled back and forth many times. Later, on other visits to her grandma, she’d make a point of stopping by to see Misty … and maybe to catch a glimpse of Aiden.
“When was the last time you came to the ranch?” her grandma asked.
“It must have been two years ago. Misty was in high school.” She’d been surprised by Misty’s physical maturity. The little girl she’d once known had become a woman, but she’d still run to greet Tab and give her a massive hug. She hadn’t seen Aiden on that trip.
Her grandma nodded. “After you moved to Missoula for nursing school, you barely had time for me on your visits.”
When Tab came to her grandma’s house, there was usually a specific reason, like taking care of home repairs or making sure her grandma got a checkup with the local doctor. Though Maria Spotted Bear was self-sufficient and didn’t need constant watching over, both Tab and her dad made a point of checking in with Grandma, just to be sure she was okay.
As her van rounded the last curve leading to the Gabriel ranch, Tab saw lights shining from every window of the two-story, cedar-sided ranch house with the peaked roof. Several vehicles parked outside the three-car garage to the left of the house. To the right was a barn with a corrugated metal roof. She knew that Aiden lived in a separate cabin behind the barn. Did he keep his helicopter back there?
She parked her van at the end of a row of cars. From the back, she took a satchel containing a sweet potato pie and the cornbread her grandma had made for their dinner. Maria Spotted Bear never went visiting empty-handed, even though it seemed somewhat inappropriate to bring pie to a murder investigation.
Approaching the house, Tab glanced at the far left upstairs window under the eaves. That had been her bedroom during the summer she’d lived here. She remembered a long-ago night when she couldn’t sleep and had perched on the sill, looking out at the long, straight driveway. She’d spotted Aiden, striding toward the house with his border collie trotting along beside him. For some reason—she’d never known why—he wasn’t wearing a shirt, just his jeans, boots and hat. For a moment, he’d paused. His shoulders rose and fell as though he was sighing. He’d taken off his beat-up Stetson and tilted his head to gaze at the moon. The silvery light bathed him in an ethereal glow—an image that branded itself indelibly in her mind.
Her grandma climbed the three steps to the veranda ahead of her and rapped on the door. A stocky woman in a denim vest opened the door.
“Maria Spotted Bear,” the woman said in an authoritative alto voice. “Is this an official visit? Are you representing the tribal council?”
“I’m here as Sylvia’s friend,” her grandma said. “This is my granddaughter, Tab Willows. Tab, this is Laura Westerfall. She’s with the BIA.”
Briskly, Laura shook Tab’s hand. “You’re the midwife. I’ve been meaning to pay you a visit.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Tab was actually more suspicious than pleased. Agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs often caused trouble for the tribe.
“You’re a trained nurse, right? And you worked with a women’s clinic in Missoula.”
“Have you been checking up on me?” Tab asked.
“Yes, I have. If you’re planning to stay in this area, I might have a proposition for you. Recently, some grant money has come available for rural medical care, and I’d like to focus on women’s health.”
“On the reservation?” Tab found it hard to believe there would be any significant financial aid for the relatively small Crow population. Any money at all surprised her.
“I’m thinking of a wider area.”
“So am I.” The women in this wide-open country—on and off the rez—had a long way to go to reach a hospital. Many were too poor to afford decent medical care. Even the services of a midwife stretched their budgets. “Are you saying the BIA could help?”
Laura combed her fingers through her short brown hair and smiled as she held out her business card. “Give me a call. We need to talk about a women’s clinic.”
In spite of the current problems, Tab’s spirits lifted as she imagined being able to help those who had so few resources. A grant from the BIA might be a dream come true.
Grandma interrupted her thoughts, taking the satchel with the pie and cornbread from her hands. “Where are your manners, girl? I came here to comfort Sylvia.”
“In the kitchen,” Laura said.
“I’ll take care of her,” Grandma promised. “You two should go into the living room. The boys sound like they’re arguing, getting ready to lock horns.”
Through an archway to the left was a paneled living room with heavy leather furniture and rugged coffee tables. In front of the moss rock fireplace, Sheriff Steve Fielding stood toe to toe with Aiden. Since the sheriff wasn’t much taller than Tab, Aiden towered over him and the two deputies he’d brought with him.
Aiden’s voice was a low, dangerous growl. “I see no valid reason to take my sister into custody.”
“If that’s the only way you’ll let me talk to her, I’ve got no damn choice.” The sheriff waved his men into action. “Deputies, I want you to arrest—”
“Hold on.” Laura inserted herself into their argument. “What’s the problem, gentlemen?”
Aiden spoke first. “I wanted Sheriff Fielding to handle this investigation because I believed he was better equipped to pursue the trail of evidence in a thorough manner. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe all he wants is a quick arrest.”
“You’re the one who’s wrong,” Fielding said. “I came here to talk to Misty. Just to talk. I need some answers.”
“You already took her statement.”
“That cockamamie story about a mysterious shooter?”
“I won’t have you harassing my sister. She’s been through enough today.”
Though Tab agreed that Misty shouldn’t be subjected to more stress, she realized that Aiden was behaving in an unreasonable manner. And his overprotective attitude made it look like he had something to hide. “I have a compromise. What if the sheriff questions Misty while Aiden is present?”
The sheriff pointed his long, sunburned nose at her and squinted like someone who needed glasses. “You’re Tab Willows, right? I need to take your statement.”
“I’m happy to cooperate,” she said.
“But that’s not why you came here.” His squint became even more pronounced. “You live with Maria Spotted Bear. Are you here to speak for your tribe?”
The politics were getting annoying. Just because Tab was half Crow, it didn’t automatically make her a representative of her people. She was miles out of touch with local issues. Most of her life had been spent in Billings and Missoula. Not on the rez.
“I’m here as a concerned person,” she said. “Young women are being murdered and their bodies dumped on the rez. I want to see the killer brought to justice.”
“That’s the voice of common sense,” Laura said, backing her up. “Listen to her.”
“You have no standing here, Agent Westerfall.” The sheriff hitched up his belt. “You arranged for Joseph Lefthand to cede jurisdiction. This is my purview.”
“Don’t forget that I’m a federal agent, Sheriff. I’m not here to give orders, but I see no reason why we can’t do as Tab suggested.”
“Here’s your reason,” the sheriff said. “I can’t get the truth from Misty while she’s hiding behind her big brother.”
Before Aiden exploded again with righteous anger, Tab grasped his forearm and squeezed hard, compelling his attention. He wasn’t helping anything by being pigheaded. She stared into his eyes. “I’ll be with Misty while she’s talking to the sheriff. Is that all right with both of you?”
“It’s done.” Laura gestured toward the hall. “Sheriff Fielding will wait down here in the office. Tab will bring Misty to talk with him immediately.”
Everybody moved quickly, anxious not to destroy the fragile moment of truce. Tab found herself being escorted up the staircase by Aiden. This time, he was holding her arm above the elbow in a tight grip. His outrage manifested in a bodily heat that sizzled in the air around him.
Under his breath, he said, “I’ll be damned if I let the sheriff connect Misty to these murders. He’s delusional.”
“Calm down.” She fought to keep from being drawn into the vortex of his anger. “We have only a few minutes. Fill me in.”
“The first victim was raped,” he whispered.
“And the girl they just found?”
“We won’t know until after the autopsy. They’re transporting the body to Billings.” His jaw clenched. “Usually, the sheriff would call on me for transport in the chopper. Now he’s treating me like a suspect. It’s crazy. These are sex crimes. How could Misty be involved?”
On the landing at the top of the staircase, she gazed into Aiden’s gray eyes, searching for the truth. “The sheriff must have a reason.”
“He talked to Wally who went into detail about the wild parties he’s seen up and down the river.”
“Did he tell the sheriff that he saw David with a blonde girl named Ellen?”
Aiden nodded. “If Wally can be trusted, David knew the victim, but so did a lot of other people. She’s a local girl. The sheriff thinks these disappearances might be a bullying thing gone wrong. When the second victim was found wearing Misty’s wristwatch, he figured she was part of the gang.”
Aiden had said that the sheriff wanted a quick solution, and she thought he might be right. Supposing these murders were the actions of a gang tied Welling’s death to those of the missing girls. It made for a tidy solution.
She asked, “Why would he think Misty was involved?”
“She has a reputation for being wild.” Aiden shook his head and looked away. “Whenever there’s trouble, she seems to be the ringleader.”
Tab attempted to put a positive spin on his words. “She’s a leader. Headstrong. Determined.”
“Great qualities if you’re doing something good. And if not …” He drew in a breath and exhaled slowly. “It’s not her fault. I haven’t done a good job raising her.”
“You’re not her parent.”
“Gabriel Ranch and everything that happens here is my responsibility.”
He spoke with calm conviction as though his words were indisputable. When Aiden’s father died, he took on that mantle. The buck stopped with him. He was the protector, the caretaker and the final authority, even though his mother had taken over the day-to-day chores and the running of the ranch.
Seeing Aiden with his head bowed made her realize that he wasn’t the perfect, ideal man she’d cherished in her memories. He was real. He suffered just like any other man. Beneath his strength was a thick layer of sadness. He’d given up everything for his family. Somehow, that made him even more attractive to her. She wanted to comfort him and tell him that everything was going to be all right.
“Let me handle the sheriff,” she said. “If Misty is under too much stress, I’ll call an end to the questioning.”
He looked doubtful. “What if—”
“Stop,” she said quietly. “There’s only one thing that needs to happen. Misty has to tell the truth.”
“That’s what scares me.”
His fear touched her.
Though it seemed impossible, Misty could be involved in these dark, terrible crimes. Tab didn’t want to believe it was possible.
Chapter Six
In the downstairs office at the ranch, the decor showed a more feminine touch than the rest of the house. Sylvia spent most of her time behind the polished-oak desk, surrounded by antique wooden filing cabinets. A jar of jelly beans sat at the corner of the desk beside a bowl of fresh yellow roses. The computer screen saver showed a Degas painting of ballet dancers.
Sheriff Fielding perched on the edge of the desk facing Tab and Misty who were at opposite ends of a blue love seat. From what Aiden had told her, Tab knew that the sheriff considered Misty to be a prime suspect. But she saw hesitation and doubt in his eyes.
With a flannel robe belted above her pregnant belly, Misty couldn’t have looked less like the ringleader of a murderous gang. Under the pink velour robe, she wore striped yellow pajamas. Her freshly washed hair piled on top of her head with wispy blond curls escaping to frame her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed as though she’d been crying.
The sheriff cleared his throat. “Misty, it’s very important for you to be honest with me and tell me everything, even if you think it might get somebody else in trouble. This isn’t like high school. People are getting killed.”
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Cassie Miles
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Rushing to the aid of a pregnant woman, midwife Tab Willows arrives at the scene of a horrifying murder.Then her sexy teenage crush Aiden Gabriel lands his rescue chopper – he’s only got better with age – and now he’s determined to protect Tab from a serial killer. But can he also reignite their spark?