Redemption (25 page)

“Why don’t you pull your rig over and come join me,” he said. “This is as good a place as any for what I have to tell you.” He met her gaze and held it. “It’s either that, or I can take you into Big Timber to my office. Whichever you prefer.”

His words made her heart drop. “Like you said, this is as good a place as any to talk.” Most everyone in these parts visited in the middle of the road anyway. It didn’t seem strange to her in the least, knowing the sheriff.

By the time she’d pulled over and gotten out, she saw that the sheriff was standing on the other side of her truck, looking into the bed. She knew he’d seen the dirty shovel, but most rural Montanans carried a shovel to either clear a ditch on the ranch or dig their vehicle out of snow or mud.

They climbed into his patrol pickup and Kate braced herself, fearing what was to come.

The sheriff took off his Stetson and raked a hand through his hair before turning to look at her. “Something’s happened.”

She held her breath.

“A man broke into Loralee Clark’s house yesterday evening. Fortunately, she wasn’t home. But when he came back today, armed and threatening her, she fought back.”

So this wasn’t about her. “Is she all right?”

He nodded. “She thought she’d killed him, but she’d only wounded him. We’re looking for him now.”

“That’s good, but what does that have to do with me?”

“Loralee says the man she wounded was Cecil Ackermann.”

Kate let that sink in. Cecil. The oldest and possibly the most dangerous of the Ackermann boys. “I still don’t see—”

“Kate, I need you to be honest with me. I let you give me a runaround the last time we talked, but things have changed now.” He dropped a photograph on the seat between them.

* * *

S
HERIFF
F
RANK
C
URRY
watched the way Kate’s hand trembled as she picked up the photo as if it was made of glass. He’d seen the change in her expression the moment her eyes lit on the two in the snapshot.

“Where did you get this?” she asked, her voice breaking with emotion. She wiped at her tears as she looked over at him.

“Loralee Clark. She apparently never forgets a face. She was so sure she knew you that she went through all her photos until she found this one.”

Kate nodded.

“She said it was taken shortly after you were born.” He couldn’t help marveling at the resemblance of mother and daughter. Or the difference from this photo to the one taken eighteen months later of Teeny and her daughter.

“So you really are Teeny Ackermann’s daughter,” the sheriff said, unable to hide his surprise.

She didn’t deny it.

“According to Loralee, your stepbrother is dangerous. If he’s looking for you—”

“He’s already found me.”

Frank nodded. “You were the one who called in from the bar pay phone with the description of the pickup and the two men you said appeared to be armed and about to break into the general store.”

She didn’t deny that, either.

“Apparently after they eluded my deputy, they left for a while, but at least Cecil might have been hiding out on your father’s old place.”

“Cullen Ackermann wasn’t my father.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Oh?”

“Claude Durham was.”

* * *

B
ILLY
W
ESTFALL POSSESSED
a handful of talents that had gotten him where he was in life. If he had to list those talents, he’d have to put good looks and charm at the top. His genes weren’t far behind. He was blessed to have been born into the Westfall family.

He supposed some people wouldn’t see that as a talent, but they would be wrong. Staying on the good side of his grandfather was a talent he’d acquired at a young age.

Bull Westfall not only had control of the family fortune, he also had the power. A former state senator, he also knew the right people. If anyone could get something done, it was Bull.

The Westfall ranch was thirty miles back up the Boulder River—fifty miles from Beartooth. The house sat in a wide basin of brilliant spring green.

As Billy turned down the road, several horses on the other side of the fence raced along with him, their manes blowing back in the wind.

He’d never come out here when he didn’t appreciate the beauty of the spot or the grandeur. In a grove of trees stood the massive house, white-framed with a red metal roof and a wide, screened-in front porch that overlooked the river and the most fertile of Westfall land.

As he parked out front, he saw his grandfather riding in.

Bull Westfall was a short, stout man with huge, muscled shoulders that gave the impression of a bull. Thus the nickname.

Billy walked out across the yard to meet his grandfather. Shading his eyes, he tried to read what kind of mood Bull was in today. Bull cultivated a temper that apparently had something to do with his short stature.

Even at sixty-four, Bull wasn’t one to back down from a fight. Not that anyone with a lick of sense was apt to start one with him.

“Nice day for a ride,” Billy said as his grandfather swung down out of the saddle and handed the reins to one of the wranglers who’d run out to take them.

“William,” Bull said as he strode toward the house.

Billy had gotten his nickname and his height and good looks from his mother’s side of the family, bless her. Everyone had called him Billy from the time he could remember—except his grandfather. Even with his longer legs, though, he had to practically run to keep up with the older man.

“How’s that new business?” Bull asked without looking at him as they entered the cool shade of the porch.

“Going great. That’s why I stopped by. I’m working a case.”

Bull pushed open the door to the house and stepped in, stopping just a few feet into the foyer to glance back at him. “A case, huh?”

His grandfather hadn’t been happy when he’d quit being a deputy sheriff.

“I thought Frank Curry could teach you to be a man,” Bull had said.

“I
am
a man. My own man. I don’t need Frank Curry to teach me anything.”

His grandfather had looked skeptical, but said, “I suppose you have to learn somehow. Maybe this P.I. business of yours isn’t such a bad idea.”

Billy couldn’t have been happier at that moment to be his grandfather’s favorite. “Does that mean you’ll help me open my office?”

Bull was smart enough to know what Billy needed was an influx of money until he could get a few cases under his belt.

“Six months,” his grandfather had said. “I’ll give you six months, sink or swim.”

Unfortunately, his six months had come and gone. As Billy followed his grandfather through the house, he suspected the old man thought he’d come out for more money.

The place was large and well furnished. The hardwood floors gleamed next to the huge river-rock fireplace. The furniture was soft leather, all in butterscotch, with rich wood tables and towering bookshelves. His grandfather loved to read.

“You’re going to love it when I tell you who hired me,” Billy said as he followed his grandfather into a kitchen better equipped than a four-star restaurant.

Bull poured himself a large glass of milk and took a long drink.

“Sheriff Frank Curry.”

His grandfather slowly lowered his milk glass. “
Frank
hired you?”

Billy tried not to take offense. “I know. Pretty amazing since he never appreciated my potential.”

His grandfather was studying him in a way that made Billy a little nervous. Had he already guessed what this was about? Belatedly, he realized he probably should have kept his client’s name to himself.

“I could use your help with this one,” Billy said. “I need to know if you’ve heard from Pamela Chandler. I’m sure she’s kept in touch with you, or at least your sister.”

Bull’s expression didn’t change. He lifted the glass to his lips again and drained it. “You wasted your gas driving all the way out here.”

“Grandpa Bull, you have to help me,” Billy said, hating the whining of his voice.

Bull met his gaze with a steely, stubborn one. “Even if I knew where Pam was—”

“If anyone knows where she is, you do.”

“How many clients have you had so far?” The question took him off guard. So did the look in his grandfather’s eye. He couldn’t lie even though he wanted to.

“One,” he said and rushed on quickly. “That’s why it’s so important that I find Pamela Chandler.” He couldn’t miss Bull’s disappointed, sour expression. “I just opened my private-eye business. That’s why I need your help. Once I get—”

“I’ll do it.”

He stared at his grandfather. “You mean it?” He broke into a big grin. “Thank you so much. I appreciate this so—”

“Don’t grovel, William.”

An hour later, Bull called Billy’s office with Pamela Chandler’s address and phone number.

* * *

W
ORD WAS OUT.
The sheriff knew there would be no keeping a lid on this any longer. At least one Ackermann had been murdered and another was armed and on the loose. Residents would have to be warned.

Given the horror of the Ackermann history, people were bound to be scared.

With so little crime here, this kind of thing shook the foundation of everyone’s lives. This would bring back the horror of what had happened over thirty years ago. The media would have a field day.

After he dropped Loralee off at her daughter’s, he drove into Beartooth. Lynette was busy unloading a box of straw cowboy hats for the coming summer. She looked up when he walked in, the bell tinkling over his head.

He saw surprise, then pleasure light her face before worry knitted her brow. “Afternoon, Lynette,” he said as he walked down the aisle to join her.

“What’s happened?” she asked, sounding scared.

Could she read him that easily? Then she had to know how he felt about her. How he’d always felt about her. “Any chance you could put the closed sign out so we can talk undisturbed for a moment?”

She scurried past him to the front door, flipped the sign and locked the door before turning back to him. “Let’s go into the office.”

He nodded, thinking that was probably a good idea, even though the office still reminded him of the man Lynette had married. Bob used to sit in there, going over the books, looking as dull as Frank suspected the man had been.

Lynette pulled the chair from behind the desk and sat down. So when he brought another chair in the room, they were facing each other, their knees nearly touching.

“If this is about Tiffany, I’m afraid she means you harm, Frank. I’ve already decided to give her back her money and send her packing.”

He shook his head. “Please don’t do that, Lynette. She’s my
daughter.
”

She swallowed and glanced away for a moment, but not before he’d seen the regret in her eyes. Like him, she must have wished for a child. Maybe even with him. “Is she? Is that what Pam told you? Or do you know it for a fact?”

“I haven’t talked to Pam yet, but I suspect it’s true. I’m trying to find her to see how it is that she didn’t get around to telling me all these years. Apparently Tiffany was led to believe I didn’t want her.”

“Frank, I’m so sorry.” She reached over to take his hand and squeeze it.

He held tight to it and gave her the rest of the news. “That man who was murdered down by the river? His name was Darrell Ackermann.”

She let go of his hand and pressed both of hers against her heart. “Not—”

“One of Cullen’s boys. Two of them were doing time down in Yuma and got out recently. Darrell and Gallen apparently headed for Montana. Loralee had one break into her place. She wounded him. We’re searching for him now. She swears it was the oldest, Cecil.”

“So they did survive.” Lynette was shaking her head. “So two of them are still on the loose?”

“That is the assumption.”

“Why have they come back now?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” He didn’t want to tell her about Kate LaFond, but he knew that by now Loralee had probably already told half the county. “Kate LaFond is Teeny Ackermann’s daughter.”

Lynette’s eyes widened. “With Cullen Ackermann.”

He shook his head. “She says Claude Durham is her father.”

* * *

N
ETTIE
B
ENTON COULDN’T
have been more shocked. “That’s why Claude left her the café.”

“Apparently.”

“And the Ackermann boys have come back because of her?”

Frank seemed to hesitate only a heartbeat, but it was long enough for Nettie to put it together. “She’s here for Cullen’s gold.”

The sheriff let out a laugh. “No one ever said you were slow on the draw, Lynette.”

“The digging. She’s been looking for it.” Nettie frowned. “The whole bunch of them believes it really exists?”

“I’m assuming so. Lynette, I have more questions than I do answers at this point.” He sounded so beat down, her heart went out to him.

She thought about Claude and the daughter no one knew he had. At least he’d known of her. “So you really think Tiffany is your daughter?”

“The age is right, and looking back, yeah, I think it’s possible,” he said.

Nettie had never liked Pam Chandler. The woman had thought she was better than everyone—especially Nettie, of whom she was bitterly jealous. It was no surprise Pam could be vindictive, but to keep a daughter from Frank all these years... If Tiffany
really
was his daughter.

“Tiffany is angry, understandably, with me. She believes I abandoned her and her mother.”

Nettie thought it was more than anger. “Are you sure you’re safe? Really, Frank, after seeing those sketches she did of you—”

Someone banged at the back door, making them both start.

“Oh, I forgot,” Nettie said. “I have another order being delivered this afternoon.” She got to her feet and went to the back door to let the delivery man in.

“We’ll talk soon,” Frank said, his gaze lingering on her like a caress.

All she could do was nod as Frank went to the front door, flipped the sign to Open and unlocked the door. “Be careful,” she called after him.

He turned and smiled back at her, but as he reached the porch steps, his gaze quickly moved up to the apartment over the store, even though Tiffany’s car wasn’t parked out front.