are the kids?” Hilde asked.
“With Stacy.” She loved that her older sister was so good about taking all of the children to give Dana a break. Stacy’s daughter, Ella, was almost five now. Dana’s twins were four, Mary was eight and her oldest, Hank, was nine. Where had those years gone?
“So, you’re out on the town?” Hilde asked and then seemed to notice how nervous Dana was. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“My cousin Dee Anna Justice, the real one. Except apparently she goes by DJ. I talked to my uncle, Walter, whom I was led to believe was dead.” She didn’t want to bias Hilde against the real Dee Anna Justice any more than she might already be, given the past. But she also couldn’t keep anything from her. “Walter called from prison.”
“Prison?”
Dana nodded. “He assured me that his daughter is nothing like him. In fact, she hadn’t talked to him in years until recently. She doesn’t know she has family, he said. She was never told about us. My uncle was hoping that I would contact her and invite her to come to Montana for the holidays so she can get to know her family.”
Paling, Hilde’s hand went to her protruding stomach and the baby inside her. Three years ago, a young woman claiming to be Dee Anna had come to the ranch. Dana, who had so desperately wanted to connect with a part of her family she hadn’t known even existed, had fallen for the psychopathic, manipulative woman’s lies, and they had all almost paid with their lives.
But Hilde had suffered the most. Dana still couldn’t believe that she’d trusted the woman she thought was her cousin over her best friend. She would never forgive herself. The fake Dee Anna, it turned out, had been the roommate of the real Dee Anna Justice for a short period of time. The roommate had opened a piece of her mail and, since they resembled each other, had pretended to be Dee Anna. Dana had believed that the woman was the real Dee Anna Justice and almost lost everything because of it.
“Why would he keep something like that from her?” Hilde finally asked.
“Because his family had disowned him when he married a woman they didn’t approve of. He thought his family would turn both him and his daughter away, apparently.”
“But now?”
“Now, he said with Christmas coming, he hoped I would reach out to her and not turn her away as his family had done. She doesn’t have any other family, he said.” She saw Hilde weaken.
“I told my uncle about the woman who pretended to be Dee Anna. He was so sorry about what happened,” Dana said quickly. “He said he’d never met DJ’s former roommate, but that he was shocked, and his daughter would be, too, to learn that the woman was capable of the horrible things she did.”
Hilde nodded. “So, you’ve contacted her?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that without talking to you first.”
Her friend took a breath and let it out. “It’s all right.”
“I won’t if it upsets you too much,” Dana said, reaching for Hilde’s hand.
“You’re sure this time she’s the real Dee Anna Justice?”
“Hud ran both her and her father through the system. She has been working as a travel writer, going all over the world to exotic places and writing about them under the pen name DJ Price.” One of the perks of being married to the local marshal was that he wouldn’t let anyone else come to visit without first finding out his or her true identity.
“So Colt knows that the real Dee Anna has turned up?”
The only good thing that had come out of that horrible time three years ago was Deputy Marshal Colt Lawson. He had believed what Hilde was saying about the fake Dee and had ended up saving her life as well as Dana’s and the kids’. Now the two were married, and Dana had never seen Hilde looking happier, especially since she was pregnant with their first child.
“I talked to Colt first. He said it was up to you, but none of us wants to take any chances with this baby or your health.”
Hilde smiled. “I’m as healthy as a horse and the baby is fine. As long as we’re sure this woman is the real Dee Anna and not a murdering psychopath.”
The other Dee, the fake Dee Anna Justice, had set her sights on Dana’s husband, Marshal Hud Savage, planning to replace Dana. So Dana and her children had to go, and Hilde, the interfering friend in the woman’s mentally disturbed mind, along with them. Dana shivered at the memory.
She had nightmares sometimes, thinking they were all still locked in that burning barn. “That Dee Anna is dead and gone.”
Hilde nodded. “But not forgotten.”
“No, not forgotten. It was a lesson I will never forget, and neither will Hud.” She smiled and squeezed her friend’s hand. “I’m just glad you and I are okay.”
“We’re more than okay. I know how much family means to you. Contact your cousin and tell her she’s welcome. I would never stand in the way of you finding more of your relatives on your mother’s side.”
“I want you to meet her. If for any reason you suspect anything strange about her—”
Hilde laughed. “I’ll let you know if she tries to kill me.”
Beau Tanner had always known the debt would come due, and probably at the worst possible time. He’d dreaded this day since he was ten. Over the years he’d waited, knowing there was no way he could deny whatever request was put to him.
The sins of the father, he thought as he stared at the envelope he’d found in his mailbox this morning. The return address was for an attorney in San Diego, California. But the letter inside was from a California state correction facility prisoner by the name of Walter Justice.
He wondered only idly how the man had found him after all these years, forgetting for a moment the kind of people he was dealing with. Beau could have ended up anywhere in the world. Instead, he’d settled in the Gallatin Canyon, where they’d first met. He suspected Walter had kept track of him, knowing that one day he would demand payment for the debt.
The letter had been sent to his home address here on the ranch—instead of his office. So he knew before he opened it that it would be personal.
Telling himself just to get it over with, Beau studied the contents of the envelope. There were two sheets of paper inside. One appeared to be a travel article about Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas. The other was a plain sheet of paper with a printed note:
Take care of my daughter, DJ. Flight 1129 from LA arriving in Bozeman, Montana, Thursday at 2:45 p.m. Dana Cardwell Savage will be picking her up and taking her to Cardwell Ranch. I highly advise you not to let her know that you’re watching out for her—and most especially that it was at my request.
It was signed W. Justice.
Under that he’d written, “Cell phone number for emergencies only.”
Today
