damp from her shower. He caught a whiff of her now too-familiar scent. She smelled heavenly. He couldn’t help but think about their lovemaking and wish he had awakened her this morning.
Emma refilled his coffee cup, giving him another of her knowing looks. This one held a warning he couldn’t ignore. He knew making love with Billie Rae shouldn’t have happened. Legally, she was a married woman. But to his way of thinking, Duane had broken the vows, destroying that fragile thing that made a marriage.
He knew Emma was worried about him getting too close to Billie Rae and getting his heart broken. But he wondered if it wasn’t already too late. Damned if he would ever regret what had happened between them, no matter what today brought. He didn’t kid himself. He knew that Duane was still out there looking for Billie Rae—and that she knew it as well. Whatever was going to transpire between them, it wasn’t over yet.
Emma kept up a cheerful chatter as she and the cook, Celeste, served homemade pancakes with huckleberry syrup. Tanner watched Billie Rae put away a dozen of the silver-dollar-sized cakes, smiling to himself. A good appetite was a sure sign that she was bouncing back.
“She doesn’t want to hear any of this,” Tanner said after Emma told a particularly funny story she’d heard about him as a boy. Billie Rae was smiling, looking relaxed, looking as if she belonged in this kitchen.
“I wish you’d gotten a chance to meet my husband Hoyt,” Emma was saying. “He could tell you some stories about his boys. But Hoyt’s off digging fence post holes with Tanner’s brothers.”
Hoyt hadn’t been home last night when Tanner and Marshall returned from the rodeo with Billie Rae. Tanner’s father, according to Emma, had been at a ranchers’ association meeting about some rustlers operating across the border in Wyoming.
It was odd, though, that Hoyt had already taken off so early this morning. Tanner hadn’t even seen him before he left. His father had been putting in long hours recently, almost as if avoiding home.
He frowned at the thought and hoped everything was all right between his father and Emma. He and his brothers hadn’t been happy when their father had sprung a new wife on them. But once they’d been around Emma for five minutes, they too had fallen in love with her.
Tanner was told she was nothing like Hoyt’s other wives. He’d been too young to remember Laura, his father’s first wife. She’d drowned in a boating accident. Tasha, his father’s second wife, Tanner had heard was killed by a runaway horse.
A third wife, Krystal, had disappeared shortly after Hoyt had brought her to the ranch. Tanner vaguely remembered her. After all that tragedy, his father had gone years without a woman in his life.
Then, out of the blue, he’d come home with Emma. She was older, closer to Hoyt’s age, more full-figured, redheaded and had a fiery temper that had earned her respect from all of the men in the family. She’d changed things around here, but in a good way. And Tanner had never seen his father happier. Until recently, when he seemed to be avoiding being home.
“What would you like to do first this morning?” he asked Billie Rae after breakfast.
“Is there a pawnshop or jewelry store in Whitehorse?”
Tanner shook his head. “But there are several in Havre. I’d be happy to drive you.”
“No, I couldn’t possibly ask you—”
“You didn’t ask. I’m volunteering, unless you need to go back to the fairgrounds for your vehicle?”
“The pickup I was driving isn’t mine.”
“Then I guess we don’t need to worry about it.”
She nodded but he saw the dark cloud move over her eyes. She had a lot to worry about. They both did. She was worried about Duane, and Tanner was worried that this woman who had come crashing into his life would leave it just as suddenly.
“It’s a nice drive to Havre,” he said. “We’ll have lunch and shop for whatever you need. I could use the day off, but don’t tell my stepmother.”
Emma swatted him as she passed.
Billie Rae nodded, tears in her eyes. “You have all been so kind. I really wish—”
“No regrets.” Emma stopped next to her chair to lay a hand on her shoulder. “No tears, either, not on such a beautiful morning,” she said. “You two best get goin’. Make sure Billie Rae gets whatever she needs in Havre.” Emma pressed a wad of cash into Tanner’s hand along with another silent warning look.
He was to make sure nothing happened to Billie Rae and that he didn’t make things worse for her—as if he hadn’t already.
“We’ll be fine,” he told his stepmother. He had a shotgun in his pickup, and this morning he’d put a pistol under the seat. He wasn’t taking any chances—he’d already done that last night.
SHERIFF MCCALL CRAWFORD looked up to find a young woman standing in front of her desk.
“There wasn’t anyone out front,” the teenager said, looking nervous. She was slightly built, though tall and regal in appearance. Her straight shoulder-length hair was white blond, her eyes a clear, disarming blue. She had a pretty face that belied how young she really was, since on closer inspection McCall realized she was no more than a girl, probably not even out of high school.
“Can I help you?” McCall asked the girl.
“You’re the sheriff?” She glanced at the open door and the name stenciled on it. “I thought the sheriff’s name was Winchester?”
“I recently got married.” It had been more than a year and a half, but McCall was wondering why she’d bothered to change her name, since everyone in town still called her Sheriff Winchester. “Why don’t you have a seat and tell me what seems to be the problem.”
“It’s my aunt, Aggie Wells,” the girl said as she pulled up one of the orange plastic chairs across from McCall’s desk and sat down. “She’s missing.”
“How long has she been missing?”
“Several weeks now.”
Several weeks? “Why have you waited this long to report her missing, Miss … ? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Cindy Ross. My aunt is gone a lot with her job. But this time she didn’t call or come home.”
“Where is home?”
“Phoenix, Arizona. That’s where I live with my father.”
“And your aunt?”
“She stays with us when she’s in town. Like I said, she travels a lot but she calls me every few days from wherever she is and always calls on Sunday.”
“So you haven’t heard from her since …”
“The second week of May, that Sunday. She called to say she would be flying home that afternoon.”
“Called from … ?”
“Here. Whitehorse. She said she was
