Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch - B.J. Daniels [20]
"The office would be fine," she said. "Just let me know when."
"Dana, I really am sorry about—" he waved a hand "—everything."
Her smile felt as sharp as a blade. "Good night, Hud." She closed the door in his face but not before she heard him say, "Good night, Dana," the way he used to say it after they'd kissed.
She leaned against the door, her knees as weak as water. Dammit, she wasn't going to cry. She'd shed too many tears for Hud Savage. He wasn't getting even one more out of her.
But she felt hot tears course down her cheeks. She wiped at the sudden wetness, biting her lip to keep from breaking down and bawling. What a lousy day this had been. This birthday was destined to go down as the worst.
Joe let out a bark, his old eyes on her, tail wagging.
"I'm not mad at you," she said, and squatted to wrap her arms around him. "I know you always liked Hud. Didn't we all?"
Dana had never been one to wallow in self-pity. At least not for long. She'd gone on with her life after Hud left. His coming back now wasn't going to send her into another tailspin.
She rose and walked to the kitchen window, drawn to it by what she now knew had been in the old well all these years. The horror of it sent a shudder through her. Was it possible she had known the woman? Or worse, she thought, with a jolt, that Angus had? Hud had reminded her that her father had owned a .38.
With a groan, she recalled the time her father had let her and Hud shoot tin cans off the ranch fence with the gun.
Through the falling snow, she looked toward the hillside and hugged herself against the chill of her thoughts before glancing at the kitchen clock.
There was time if she hurried. She'd heard that her dad and uncle were playing with their band at the Corral Bar tonight. If she left now she might be able to talk to both of them and still get back in time for her date with Lanny.
She was anxious to talk to her father—before he and her uncle had time to come up with a convincing story. The thought surprised her. Why had she just assumed he had something to hide? Because, she thought with a rueful grin, he was her father and she knew him.
By now the canyon grapevine would be humming with the news about the body in the well. After all, Jordan had heard all the way back in New York City.
She'd just have to weather the blizzard—the storm outside as well as the arrival of her brother tomorrow from New York.
She groaned at the thought as she took her coat from a hook by the door. It was a good ten miles down the road to the bar and the roads would be slick, the visibility poor. But she knew she wouldn't be able to get any sleep until she talked to her father.
She just hoped it was early enough for him to be halfway sober, but she wasn't counting on it.
* * *
AS HUD DROVE AWAY from the ranch, he kept saying the words over and over in her head.
She isn't engaged. She isn't engaged.
He smiled to himself. Admittedly, it was a small victory. But he'd been right. She wasn't engaged to Lanny.
Maybe even after all this time, he knew Dana better than she'd thought.
As snow continued to fall, he drove across the narrow bridge that spanned the Gallatin River and turned onto Highway 191 headed south down the Gallatin Canyon, feeling better than he had in years.
The "canyon," as it was known, ran from the mouth just south of Gallatin Gateway almost to West Yellowstone, ninety miles of winding road that trailed the river in a deep cut through the steep mountains on each side.
It had changed a lot since Hud was a boy. Luxury houses had sprouted up all around the resort. Fortunately some of the original cabins still remained and the majority of the canyon was National Forest so it would always remain undeveloped.
The drive along the river had always been breathtaking, a winding strip of highway that followed the river up over the Continental Divide and down the other side to West Yellowstone.
Hud had rented a cabin a few miles up the canyon from Big Sky. But as he started up the highway, his headlights doing little to cut through the thick falling