fight.
“Excuse me,” she said, easing her way into the circle of men around Rocky. Closing her hand around Rocky’s upper arm, she said, “It’s time to go home.”
“Well, look who it is,” Eugene said. “It’s the girl deputy.”
Eugene had been the school bully and she’d been his target. It was bad enough in grade school, but in high school it had gotten worse after she turned him down for a date.
“If you gentlemen will excuse us,” McCall said, drawing Rocky away from the fracas.
“What’s this about some grave Rocky found south of town?” Crawford demanded.
“Probably just a fish story like the one you told when you came in,” one of the men ribbed Eugene.
McCall led Rocky toward the door. He was being the perfect docile drunk. A few more feet and they would be out of the bar.
“I asked you a question, Deputy,” Eugene said, coming up behind her and grabbing her arm.
“Let go,” she said as he tightened his grip on her. “Let go now, Eugene.” He smelled of fish and sweat and meanness.
“Or what? You going to arrest me?” His nails bit into her flesh. “Try it,” he said and gave her a shove, slamming her into the jukebox.
She staggered but didn’t fall. “Going to need some backup,” McCall said into her radio as Rocky leaped to her defense.
Before she could stop him, Eugene coldcocked Rocky, who hit the floor hard. Eugene was turning to take on the others who’d jumped in when the bartender came over the bar with his baseball bat.
It took McCall, Deputy Nick Giovanni and the bartender to get Eugene Crawford restrained and into handcuffs. Nick took Eugene to the jail while McCall drove Rocky home. He was quiet most of the ride.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked as she walked him to his front door. “I’d feel better if I took you by the emergency room at the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” Rocky said, looking sheepish. “I guess I have a glass jaw, as they say.”
“Eugene hit you awfully hard.”
Rocky seemed to have sobered up some. “You know that was a grave I found, don’t you?”
McCall said nothing.
“I know I said I thought it was old, but it wasn’t. And it wasn’t no Indian grave like Eugene was saying, and I think you know that, too.”
She patted his shoulder. “Get some rest.” As she turned toward her pickup, all she wanted was to go home and put this day behind her.
But as she drove the few miles out of town and turned down the river road to her small old cabin beside the Milk River, she saw the pickup parked in her yard.
She slowed as she recognized the logo on the side of the truck. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. She felt her heart drop as she pulled alongside and Game Warden Luke Crawford climbed out.
LUKE HATED THE WAY HE FELT as he watched McCall walk toward him. He was again that awkward, tonguetied, infatuated seventeen-year-old—just as he’d been the first time he’d ever kissed McCall Winchester.
A lot of things had changed in the years since, but not that.
“Luke?” She stopped in front of her pickup. One hand rested on her hip just above the grip of her weapon. She was still in uniform except for her hat. Some of her long dark hair had come loose from the clip at the nape of her neck and now fell over one shoulder.
He tipped his hat. “Sorry to bother you.”
She frowned, clearly waiting for him to tell her what the hell he was doing here. She had to have heard he was back in town.
“I got another call tonight about some poaching down in the river bottom,” he said.
“On my property?”
He pointed down into the thicket of tangled willows and cottonwoods. “On the place down the river, but I believe they used the river road to get in and out so they had to have gone right past your place. I was wondering if you heard anything last night? Would have probably been between two and four this morning.”
“I pulled the late shift last night so I wasn’t around. Sorry.”
He nodded and asked who else knew her schedule.
“You saying the poachers knew I would be gone last night?”
“It crossed my mind. Your place is the closest.”
She leaned against the front of her pickup, clearly not intending to ask him inside. The Little Rockies in the distance were etched a deep purple against the twilight. He noticed in the waning light that she looked exhausted.
“Rough day?” he asked, feeling the cool air come up out of the river bottom.
“You could say that.” She was studying him, waiting as if she expected him to tell her the real reason he was here.
But he’d said everything years ago and she hadn’t believed him then. No reason she’d believe him now.
He closed his notebook. “I’d appreciate it if you kept an eye out and gave me a call if you see or hear anything.”
She pushed herself off the front of her pickup. “You bet.”
“The poachers are driving a pickup, probably a half ton or three-quarter-ton four-wheel drive.”
“Like half the residents in this county,” she said.
“Narrows it right down for me.” He smiled, hat in his hand, thinking that even as exhausted as McCall was she’d never looked more beautiful. He told himself to just get in his truck and get out of there before he said something he’d regret.
She smiled, a tired almost sad smile. “Well, I hope you catch ‘em.”
“Me, too.” He put on his hat, tipped it, and turned toward his pickup. As he slid behind the wheel, he saw that she’d gone inside her cabin. The lights glowed golden through the windows. He sat for a moment, wishing—
Mentally he gave himself a swift kick and started the truck, annoyed for going down that old trail of thought. From the beginning he and McCall hadn’t stood a chance, not with the bad blood between their families. He’d been a fool to think that they did.
But for a while, she’d made him believe they were destined to be together, star-crossed lovers who’d found a way. They’d been young and foolish. At least he had, he thought as he left.
He didn’t dare glance back, knowing he was wasting his time if he thought she cared a plugged nickel for him.
If he had looked back, though, he would have seen her standing in the deepening shadows of her deck, hugging herself against the cool of the night, watching him drive away.
