here,” he said more sternly over his shoulder.
Still stunned by the kiss and anxious about her horse, she set off after him. The ground was soft under her feet. She saw where fresh soil had washed down through the pines, forming a dark, muddy gully.
Her horse was partway up the hillside near where the rain a few nights ago had loosened the soil and washed it down the hillside. As Brody approached, the mare snorted and crow-hopped away a few feet.
“She’s afraid of you,” she called to his retreating backside. She could hear him speaking softly to the horse as he approached. She followed, although she was no match for his long legs.
An eerie quiet fell over the hillside as she stepped into the shadowed pines. She slowed, frowning as she finally got a good look at her horse. The mare didn’t seem to be hurt and yet Harper had never seen her act like this before.
“I thought I told you to stay back,” Brody said as she came up behind him. “You’ve never been good at following orders, have you?”
So he did remember her sneaking downstairs at her sisters’ parties. She felt a bump of excitement at that news, but it was quickly doused. Past him, she saw that her horse’s eyes were wild. The mare snorted again, stomped the ground and shied away, to move a few yards back from them and the gully.
“What is wrong with her?” Harper demanded, afraid it was something she had done.
“She’s reacting to what the hard rain dislodged and sent down the hillside in an avalanche of mud,” Brody snapped. What was he talking about? As she started to step past him to get a look, he put a hand out to stop her. “Harper, you don’t want to see this.”
She did want to see whatever it was and resented him telling her she didn’t. Protective was one thing, but the man was being ridiculous. She’d been raised on a ranch. She’d seen her share of dead animals, if that’s what it was. She stepped around him, determined to see what the storm had exposed.
At first all she saw were old grimy, weathered boards that looked like part of a large wooden box. Then she saw what must have been inside the container before it had washed down the slope and broken open.
Her pulse jumped at the sight, her mind telling her she wasn’t seeing what her eyes told her she was. “What is that?” she whispered into the already unnerving quiet as she took a step back.
“From the clothing and long hair, I’d say it was the mummified body of a woman who, until recently, had been buried up on that hillside.”
SENATOR BUCKMASTER HAMILTON rubbed his temples, his headache worsening. He caught his reflection in a wall of glass on the other side of the room. He was a big man who looked like the Montana rancher he was. His blond hair had grayed at the temples. He wondered if he’d be totally gray by the election.
Often, he feared he wasn’t cut out for this. He hated these staff meetings and all the minutiae that went with them. Angelina had always handled the things that didn’t require his personal attention, which apparently had been most everything. His appreciation of her had gone up tenfold since his wife’s death. No wonder the Silver Bow County sheriff still suspected him of her death. It was the guilt he felt that the sheriff was picking up on. The night of her death, he’d planned to tell her he was leaving her for his former wife, Sarah.
“It comes down to who can win,” his campaign manager, Jerrod Williston, was saying. “Everyone thinks you have the Republican primary in the bag. Not until you’re the nominee are we going to let up, though.”
Buckmaster half listened to Jerrod as he looked around the conference table. Angelina had handpicked everyone here from the finance director and press secretary to the field director, treasurer and volunteer coordinator. Under them were political organizers, schedulers, technology managers, office managers and legal advisers. Fortunately, Jerrod had stepped up since Angelina’s death, making it possible for him to stay on the election trail without facing a lot of the organization that came with such a huge campaign.
Angelina had hired Jerrod, saying he was the best. He’d only run a few other campaigns for presidential candidates, but he came highly recommended, according to her.
“He’s tough, but he has charm,” Angelina had said. “He’ll be dead honest with you about how the campaign is going, but lie like a pro on camera. And he looks damn good on TV. One look at him and you see a Republican.”
Jerrod looked like a movie star and dressed like a CEO. He was in his midthirties, had numerous degrees and spoke as if born with a silver spoon in his mouth. It was easy to see why Angelina had chosen him.
“He’ll get you elected,” she’d said as if there had never been any doubt.
“We’re out of the honeymoon period with the media,” Jerrod was saying. “They loved you, hung on your every word, treated you like the father they wished they’d had. But now that we’re coming down to the wire, every reporter assigned to you is waiting for you to screw up so they can get that sound bite. Be careful. Warn your family, too. This is the point where we have to be scandal-free. And that applies to everyone in this room.”
As the rest left, Jerrod brought him over two aspirin tablets and a glass of water. Buckmaster smiled and downed them.
“Not what you expected, huh?” his campaign manager said, pulling out a chair next to him.
He had to admit it wasn’t. He’d spent months traveling across the country, visiting foreign governments, eating on the run, sleeping in so many hotels that he often woke up and didn’t know where he was. He’d talked until he was sick of his own voice. “I thought that if I was elected, I could help my country. Make it a better place for my children and grandchildren. Do my part in making it a better world.”
Jerrod laughed. “A noble enterprise.”
“Is it?” he asked. “I read somewhere that this race between all the candidates is going to cost six billion dollars. Aren’t there places all that money could be better spent?”
“Look how many jobs a lot of us have because a bunch of men and women have decided to run for president,” Jerrod said with a laugh. “It’s democracy at work.” He got to his feet. “You’ll feel better after the primaries.”
“Only if I win,” Buckmaster said, and forced a smile.
“You will. I’ll see to that. In the meantime...”
“Right. Don’t say anything stupid. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“And keep those daughters of yours out of trouble.”
The senator got to his feet with a chuckle. “No problem. My six daughters have always been perfect in every way.”
Jerrod chuckled. “Right. Perfect angels. We’re so close now, we can’t let anything stop us.” He hesitated only a moment, his blue-eyed gaze sharpening. “I wanted to talk about your former wife.”
Sarah. The woman who, twenty-three years ago, had tried to kill herself, and failing that, had disappeared only to return with seemingly no memory of where she’d been or why she’d done what she had. Buck
