Redemption (31 page)

Kate stumbled back, aghast at what she’d done and even more terrified of what she would have to do if she hoped to live. Wiping the blood from her eye, she saw a shovel propped against the side of the house. Not her shovel. As she snatched it up, she realized that Gallen had been digging before she’d come upon him.

He lunged at her. She hefted the shovel and swung as hard as she could. The handle of the shovel rattled in her hands as the blade end connected with his skull. The sound would haunt her to her dying day, she thought as his entire body shuddered and dropped like a stone to the ground. A piteous sound escaped his lips and then he fell silent.

She stood over him, breathing hard, the shovel still in her hands. She’d watched too many movies where the heroine dropped her weapon and turned her back on the killer only to have him attack her again.

But Gallen didn’t move, and from where she stood, she couldn’t see his chest rising and falling—and she wasn’t about to step closer to find out.

* * *

A
MANHUNT WAS STILL ON
for the missing and apparently wounded Cecil Ackermann. Sheriff Frank Curry had been in contact with his deputies, but there’d been no sign of Cecil. Or his brother Gallen.

As the hours went on, Frank was hoping both had left the county. Not that he expected that was the last he would see of them.

He was heating some soup on the stove after Tiffany left when his phone rang. It was the dispatcher. She hadn’t been able to raise any of the deputies, but a rancher in the area had said he was driving the road by the Clark place when he saw what appeared to be a light up at Ackermann Hollow.

“I’d seen lights up the hollow a few times lately,” Loralee had told him. “Thought I was just imagining it. But last night when I saw it again, I decided to investigate.”

“I’ll drive up and take a look,” he told the dispatcher as he pulled his soup off the stove. He’d had his deputies watching the perimeter of the hollow, but had given them specific orders not to go inside the fence.

As he headed for the hollow, Frank wasn’t too worried about any of the old booby traps or land mines Cullen Ackermann had laid for trespassers. He figured the military had found most if not all of them. He was more worried that if the man’s sons had been staying up there, they might have built some of their own.

He didn’t want to send a deputy into anything like that. Frank remembered too well the guilt his father had suffered after the raid on the place thirty years ago.

As he drove up the road, he saw tire tracks in the dirt on a jeep trail next to the fence. He turned up the trail, skirting the fence and the signs warning trespassers to stay off the property.

They hadn’t kept everyone out, Frank saw as he slowed to a stop next to a place in the fence where the wire had been cut. He could see tracks where a vehicle had turned around. More than once. Kate? Or the Ackermanns?

He looked in the general direction of the house, but the pines were too thick here to see any lights. The last thing he wanted to do was go on the property. But if Cecil and Gallen Ackermann had been hiding out up here, they might still be on the property.

Frank grabbed his shotgun, climbed out and squeezed through the hole in the fence. Two sets of tracks were distinguishable in the dirt—a man-size boot and what could have been a woman’s or a small man’s.

He moved through the pines as quietly as possible. A light breeze moaned through the high boughs. Even in the twilight, heat still hung like a heavy black cloak over the hollow. Within a few yards of the house, Frank stopped, feeling the hair rise on the back of his neck.

Even as a boy, this hollow had given him the creeps.

Now he caught a familiar scent on the increasing breeze and felt his stomach roil. Nothing smelled quite like death. Violent death had always smelled stronger to him.

He took a few steps toward the house. The door stood open, a deep black hole inside. He heard a sound and froze again. A gust of wind caught the door, making it groan as it scraped across the weathered floor, and making him jump.

His nerves were like a live wire. His hands gripping the shotgun felt moist. Sweat ran down his face. He made a swipe at it.

He thought of his daughter and felt his heart rate kick up a couple of beats. He was just getting to know her. Suddenly he was afraid that he might get killed up here in this godforsaken hollow and that he might never spend another moment with her.

Bracing himself, he stepped around the corner of the house.

* * *

K
ATE STUMBLED INTO
the back of the café. Only a small light near the large walk-in refrigerator glowed dimly. She didn’t flip on another one, but went straight to the sink, where she turned on the water and let it run while she reached for a towel. Soaking it, she pressed the wet towel gently to her temple. The cold water felt good. But when she pulled back the white towel, she saw in the dim light that it was covered in her blood.

For a moment, she gripped the edge of the sink, waiting for the light-headedness to go away. Her head ached, but at least the double vision had passed. She knew she’d been a fool to drive all the way back here in the condition she was in. But all she could think about was getting back to the café.

Tears blurred her eyes. What had she done? Had she killed him?

He would have killed you if you hadn’t stopped him
. Even though she knew it was true, it made her sick to her stomach.

“I’m not doing this anymore, Claude,” she said to the empty, dark café.

But she knew, whether she looked for the gold or not, that man in the woods would be coming for her. Unless she’d killed him.

And then his brother would be coming.

This wasn’t over.

At the sound of the back door of the café opening, she turned, pressing her back against the edge of the sink and slipping into the darkness as the realization hit her. She’d failed to lock the door behind her—and she was unarmed.

Jack French stepped into the dim light at the edge of the room. It took a few moments for her heart to stop trying to pound out of her chest.

“Hey,” he said, stopping just inside the door. He squinted in her direction, but she could tell he couldn’t see more than her shape in the pool of darkness where she stood. “I wish you hadn’t taken off so fast this morning.”

“Oh?”

“I tried to catch up with you. I looked all over for you... Look, about me and Chantell—” He took a step toward her.

“It’s none of my business,” she said and moved deeper into the darkness of the café. She didn’t want him to see her like this. Worse, she didn’t want to need him, to want him now more desperately than ever. Even worse, she didn’t want to fall into his arms and beg him to hold her until her shaking stopped.

“Damn it, Kate, I’m not involved with Chantell Hyett. Truthfully? I can’t stand the sight of her. She only came to my cabin to talk to me about her father. It’s a long story. As for that kiss, well...that was all Chantell’s doing, not mine. That’s when I came after you, but you’d torn out of there so fast...” He took another step toward her.

“What are you doing here, Jack?”

That’s when he saw the bloody towel where she’d dropped it on the edge of the sink. “Kate?” He stepped to her, drawing her into the light by the back door. “My God, what happened to you?”

She willed herself not to break down, but the moment he took her in his arms, she began to sob uncontrollably. Jack swept her up and carried her upstairs to her apartment. Kicking open the bathroom door, he set her on her feet only long enough to turn a light and the shower on.

Kate caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror and almost passed out. She was covered in blood. Jack didn’t even take off his lucky boots as he stepped into the shower with her.

The warm water ran down her face, soaking her to the skin, before draining dark red. He held her until they were both drenched and the water circling the drain was clear again, then he stripped off her clothes and wrapped her in her robe. He dug in her medicine cabinet and bandaged the gash over her left eye.

Carrying her into the bedroom, he carefully set her on the bed, promising to come right back. She thought she heard him on the phone, but a few moments later, he came into the bedroom wrapped in one of her towels.

She’d quit sobbing, though she didn’t remember when exactly. The sight of him stirred a need greater than any she’d ever felt.

“Tell me what happened,” he said as he lay down beside her on the bed.

She touched his handsome face, running her fingertips along his strong jawline to his lips. The memory of those lips on hers—

A banging at the door startled her. She jerked her fingers back. “It’s him.” Fear made her heart race and her voice break.

“It’s just Carson. I called him to bring me a change of clothes and help me get you to the hospital.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

He cupped her cheek, his gaze locking with hers. “You do, Kate. You need stitches and I think you have a concussion.”

She stared after him as he went to answer the door. A moment later he was back, dressed and carrying her out to Carson’s pickup for the ride into Big Timber to the hospital.

* * *

S
HERIFF
F
RANK
C
URRY
stared down into the dead man’s face. The wind sighed loudly in the tops of the pines, making goose bumps ripple over his skin. The temperature was dropping quickly and soon it would be pitch-black in this hollow. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t alone, and yet after making the call for backup and a coroner, he’d checked the perimeter around the house and found no one.

The dead man was one of the Ackermanns, given his resemblance to Darrell. He had the same narrow ferretlike face, the close-set dark eyes. The face of a killer, Frank thought.

Only someone had killed this man first.

It appeared he’d been in some sort of altercation before the other party had ended the fight. A red-handled object that appeared to be a small spade was buried deep in the man’s chest.

“What is this place?” Charlie Brooks asked behind him.

Frank hadn’t heard the assistant coroner approach and couldn’t help the way his body reacted.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Charlie said.

“It’s this place,” he told him. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of Ackermann Hollow.”

“I just got a brief history on my way up here via the EMT,” Charlie said and shivered as he glanced toward the opening in the mountain behind the house. “That’s where they found his first wife?”

Frank nodded. “She was in such poor shape she died shortly after she was rescued. My father always blamed himself for not raiding this place sooner.”

“And the new wife died, too.”

“One of her so-called husband’s booby traps.”

Charlie looked around as if expecting either a booby trap or a land mine to blow at any minute. Or worse maybe, one of the ghosts of this crazy-ass family to appear. Frank knew the feeling. “And this is one of the man’s sons?”

“I’m not sure which. I’m hoping it is the one who ransacked Loralee Clark’s house, the one she wounded. There’s a knot on his head, but it could be a more recent wound from whatever altercation took place before he was killed.”

“Well, it seems pretty obvious what killed him,” Charlie said, crouching down next to the body. “What the hell is this thing?”

“I have no id—” Frank stopped as a memory surfaced. He’d seen Kate LaFond with something like this. It had a red handle and had been strapped to her belt the other day as she was leaving the café.
“Idea,”
he finished. “But I think I know where to find out.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

K
ATE WOKE TO FIND
J
ACK
asleep next to her hospital bed. She touched the bandage on her temple. When she’d first opened her eyes, she’d been confused about where she was. The curtains were open on the first-floor window, a slight breeze blowing in the partially opened window next to Jack.

Sensing movement, he opened his eyes and smiled at her.

“Have you been here all night?”

He ignored the question and asked. “How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts.”

“Doc says you have a mild concussion. With that and the gash in your temple and the loss of blood, I would imagine your head does hurt.”

She stared into his handsome face. “You just keep saving me, don’t you?”

“It appears to be my life’s calling,” he said, getting to his feet to come to the bed. He took her hand in one of his and brushed back her hair from her forehead with the other.

He was so gentle, so sweet. Tears welled in her eyes. She fought to curb the flow as he said, “Do you remember anything I told you last night before I brought you to the hospital?”

She did, but she shook her head slightly. Even that made her nauseous.

“I’m not seeing Chantell, haven’t been since I got out of prison and have no desire to. She just showed up and tried to use her...charm...to keep me from going after her father.”

“Her charm, huh?” Kate smiled, then frowned as she realized what he’d said. “You’re going after the judge?”

“Already did. Not to worry. It’s all legal. He was behind the trumped-up rustling charge. He wanted me out of his daughter’s life, so he sent me to prison for two years.”

“Apparently it didn’t work.”

He shook his head. “Chantell and I were never serious. The only reason she kissed me at the branding was to make you jealous. She couldn’t stand the thought that I’d moved on. Chantell has this idea that all her old boyfriends are still pining away for her.”

“But not you,” Kate said quietly.

“Not me.”

“Jack, what happened in your barn...it had nothing to do with—”

“Excuse me.” They turned to see a nurse standing in the doorway. “I’m going to need you to step out for a few moments,” she said to Jack. “I need to check the patient.”

As Jack started to let go of her hand, Kate squeezed it. He met her gaze for a moment before he smiled, gave her a slight nod and left the room.