Justice at Cardwell Ranch Read Free Page A

right?” Hud asked as he placed his hand over hers and squeezed.
    She smiled and nodded. “I’m always all right when I’m with you.”
    He gave her hand another squeeze before he went back to driving. “I’m taking you home. Then I’ll go by the shop and pick up the kids.” Her friend Hilde had the kids in Big Sky. “But I’d better not find out you were up and about while I was gone.”
    Dana shook her head and made a cross with her finger over her heart. She lay back and closed her eyes, praying as she had since the spotting had begun that the babies she was carrying would be all right. Mary and Hank were so excited about the prospect of two little brothers or sisters. She couldn’t disappoint them.
    She couldn’t disappoint anyone, especially her mother, she thought. While Mary Justice Cardwell had been gone six years now, she was as much a part of the ranch as the old, two-story house where Dana lived with Hud and the kids. Her mother had trusted her to keep Cardwell Ranch going. Against all odds she was doing her darnedest to keep that promise.
    So why did she feel so scared, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Chapter Two
    Jordan watched Deputy Liza Turner ride her horse out of the pines. The past six years had been good to her. She’d been pretty back then. Now there was a confidence as if she’d grown into the woman she was supposed to become. He recalled how self-assured and efficient she’d been at her job. She was also clearly at home on the back of a horse.
    The trees cast long shadows over the stark landscape. Wind whirled the dried leaves that now floated in the air like snowflakes.
    “Jordan Cardwell,” she said as she reined in her horse at the edge of the cemetery.
    He came out through the gate, stopping to look up at her. “Deputy.” She had one of those faces that was almost startling in its uniqueness. The green eyes wide, captivating and always filled with curiosity. He thought she was more interesting than he remembered. That, he realized, was probably because she was out of uniform.
    She wore jeans and a red-checked Western shirt that made her dark hair appear as rich as mahogany. She narrowed those green eyes at him. Curiosity and suspicion, he thought.
    “I’m surprised to see you here,” she said, a soft lilt to her voice. She had a small gap between her two front teeth, an imperfection, that he found charming.
    “I don’t know why you’d be surprised. My sister might have inherited the ranch but I’m still family.”
    She smiled at that and he figured she knew all about what had happened after his mother had died—and her new will had gone missing.
    “I didn’t think you’d ever come back to the ranch,” she said.
    He chuckled. “Neither did I. But people change.”
    “Do they?” She was studying him in a way that said she doubted he had. He didn’t need to read her expression to know she was also wondering what kind of trouble he’d brought back to the canyon with him. The horse moved under her, no doubt anxious to get going.
    “Your horse seems impatient,” he said. “Don’t let me keep you from your ride.” With a tip of his hat, he headed down the mountain to the ranch house where he’d been raised.
    It seemed a lifetime ago. He could barely remember the man he’d been then. But he would be glad to get off the property before his sister and her husband returned. He planned to put off seeing them if at all possible. So much for family, he thought.
    * * *
    W HEN D ANA OPENED HER EYES, she saw that they’d left the wide valley and were now driving through the Gallatin Canyon. The “canyon” as it was known, ran from the mouth just south of Gallatin Gateway almost to West Yellowstone, fifty miles of winding road that trailed the river in a deep cut through the mountains.
    The drive along the Gallatin River had always been breathtaking, a winding strip of highway that followed the blue-ribbon trout stream up over the continental divide. This time