but the first few quotes, one from his brother Ledger and the other from their father, when he’d grabbed up the paper and headed for his truck.
It was just like the publisher to talk to Ledger. His brother was too nice, too polite. If the publisher had approached him, the man would have gotten one hell of a quote. Instead, Ledger had said that the loss of the twins was “killing” his father after twenty-five years of torture.
How could their father still be convinced that Oakley and Jesse Rose were alive? Travers McGraw had this crazy fantasy that the twins had been sold to a couple who, not realizing the babies were stolen, had raised them as their own.
Cull and his brothers had tried to reason with him. “How could this couple not have heard about the kidnapping? It was in all the newspapers across the country—not to mention on the television news nationally.”
His father had no answer, just that he knew the twins were alive and that they would be coming home one day soon.
He knew his father had to believe that. The alternative—that his wife and her alleged lover had kidnapped and killed the twins for money—was too horrible to contemplate.
Under the newspaper fold were the photographs of the babies that his father had provided. Both had the McGraw dark hair, the big blue eyes like their other siblings. Both looked angelic with their bow-shaped mouths and chubby cheeks. They looked like the kind of babies that a person would kill for.
When he’d seen that this year his father was doubling the reward for information, Cull had lost it.
With a curse, he could well imagine what his stepmother was going to say about this. Worse, a reward that size would bring every crank and con man out of the woodwork—just as it had over the years. What had his father been thinking? He was desperate, Cull realized, and the thought scared him.
His father had been sick and didn’t seem to be getting any better. Was this a last-ditch effort to find the twins because he was dying? Cull felt rattled as the idea sunk in. Was their father keeping the truth from them?
Accompanying the story were also photos of Oakley and Jesse Rose digitally age-progressed to show what the twins could look like now. Cull shuddered. How could his father bear to look at these? It was heartbreaking to see what they would have looked like had they lived.
The rest of the story was just a rehash of the kidnapping that summer night twenty-five years ago. What wasn’t in the story was that Travers McGraw had sold his most prized quarter horse to raise the ransom demand, and that even after horse trainer Nate Corwin’s arrest, the $250,000 ransom had never been recovered.
Nor was there anything about what Travers and Marianne had lost. Not to mention the children left behind. Their mother was in a mental institution and their father had fallen into a debilitating grief and held on to a crazy hope that might be killing him.
Cull wadded up the newspaper and threw it onto the passenger-side floorboard. Had he really thought he could keep this from his family? It was only a matter of time before everyone back at the ranch saw this. His stepmother, Patricia, had long ago tired of this yearly search for the twins. This latest story would set her off royally.
The local weekly paper was only the beginning, he thought with a curse. With the twenty-fifth anniversary of the kidnapping mere days away, other papers would pick up the story and run it, including television news shows.
A part of him wanted to leave town until things died back down again. But as upset as he was with his father, he knew he couldn’t run away. His father needed his sons, maybe now more than ever before. Because he might be sicker than they thought. Because once the story was out about the huge reward...
He backed out of his space, wanting to get home and put out as many fires as he could. He’d just thrown the pickup into first gear and gone only a few feet when a young woman stepped off the curb right in front of his truck.
Cull stomped on the brakes, but too late. He heard the truck make contact and saw her fall, disappearing from view before he could leap out, his heart in his throat, to find her sprawled on the pavement.
Cull knelt beside the dark-haired woman on the pavement, terrified that he might have killed her. He heard people come running out of the café. Someone was calling 9-1-1 as he touched the young woman’s shoulder. She didn’t stir.
“Is she alive?” someone cried from in front of the café. “The 9-1-1 operator needs to know if she’s breathing and how badly she’s injured.”
Cull took the young woman’s slim wrist and felt for a pulse. But his own heart was pounding so hard, he couldn’t tell if she had one. He leaned closer to put his cheek against her full lips and prayed.
With a relief that left him weak, he felt her warm breath against his skin. As he drew back, her eyes opened. They were big and a startling blue as bright as the Montana day. A collective sigh of relief moved through the crowd as the woman tried to sit up.
“Don’t move,” Cull ordered. “An ambulance is on the way.”
She shook her head. “An ambulance?” She seemed to see the people around her. “What happened?”
“You stepped out into the street,” he said. “I didn’t see you until it was too late.”
“Please let me up. I’m fine.”
“But I hit you with my truck.”
She sat up, insistent that she was fine. “Just help me to my feet.” She glanced around on the ground next to her. “Where is my purse?”
Just then Sheriff McCall Crawford pushed her way through the crowd. “What happened?” she asked as she knelt beside the woman.
“She stepped into the street,” Cull said. “I hit my brakes but—” He’d had so much on his mind. He hadn’t even seen her until she’d stepped off the curb.
“I told you,” the woman said. “You didn’t hit me. You might have bumped into me and then... I must have fainted.” She looked around her. “If you would just hand me my purse...”
The sheriff glanced around as well, spied her large shoulder bag and handed it to her. “Are you sure you’re all right, Miss...?”
“St. James. Nikki St. James.”
“Still I’d like the EMTs to have a look at you,” the sheriff insisted.
“That really isn’t necessary. I feel so silly. If I had been paying attention...”
“No,” Cull said. “I was the one not paying attention.”
The ambulance arrived and two EMTs jumped out. Cull stepped back to let them get to the woman. Nikki St. James. He frowned. He’d seen that name somewhere recently.
The sheriff pulled him aside. “I’m going to have to write up a report on this. I suggest you call your insurance agent.”
“She said she was fine.”
“It doesn’t appear that you actually
