Page 1 of Reckoning with the Cowboy
PROLOGUE
My Angel,
Thank you for writing to a guy like me. I can’t tell you how much it means to hear from someone on the outside. I get so lonely here, especially knowing that I’m locked up for something I didn’t do and may never get out.
Tell me about your life, your friends, this town where you live. I always wanted to go to Montana. Do you have a boyfriend? I had a girlfriend before I got locked up. I had dreams. I want to hear yours.
I’ll stop. Please keep writing me and I will write back. I live for your letters.
Your prison pen pal,
Shane
CHAPTER ONE
Josephine Brand’s head jerked up, her attention drawn to the dirt road past her house. She took a whiff of the air as if trouble had a scent. Maybe it did because she felt the hair quill on the back of her neck.
Her rocking chair creaked on the worn boards of the front porch as she sat forward to see better. The road seemed to remain stubbornly empty as the large bowl of unsnapped green beans shifted on her lap.
A breeze played at a loose lock of her long dark hair. Unconsciously, she tucked it behind her ear, her focus on the road that led into the town of Dry Gulch. It was another beautiful late fall Montana day. She could hear the rustle of the dried leaves on the aspens next to the old farmhouse, smell the odor of burning weeds and feel the shadow overhead as a flight of geese made a dark V against the cloudless sky.
“Those beans won’t snap themselves,” her baby sister said from the other side of the screen door.
“Sorry, Amy Sue.” Josie went back to work snapping beans to be canned for the long winter ahead. “Just gathering wool.” It had been her grandmother’s expression. The reassuring memory of Nana sitting out here on this very porch had always been like a touchstone, just not today.
Try as she may, she couldn’t shake off a sense of foreboding. Her grandmother had told her it was a gift, this sensing things. Josie had never tried to put a name to it. Sometimes she sensed trouble, although hers was never as strong as Nana’s, never as clear. Amy Sue had always been skeptical, saying she didn’t believe Josie had inherited anything except their grandmother’s bossiness. But Josephine knew better. While she often couldn’t see what was coming, she felt an uneasiness—just as she did right now.
“You need to learn to trust it,” her grandmother used to say. “You also need to stop being afraid of it.”
She knew Nana had been right. Josie was skeptical about her so-called gift and wished she were instead happily oblivious and never had a sense of what would come. Like now. She could feel trouble on the wind, sure as the devil. As she continued snapping the beans, though, she kept checking the road as if expecting what was coming.
Several thoughts skittered through her mind, but she couldn’t formulate a clear vision. She never had been able to. Nor did she want to. Yet she couldn’t shake off the foreboding she felt. Even if she refused to see, she couldn’t help theknowing.
What she was sure of… It wasn’tsomethingcoming. It wassomeone—and it was personal.
* * *
ClancyRoberts oftencomplained that nothing ever happened in the sleepy rural town of Dry Gulch. Even that old familiar community rhythm had slowed to a crawl, she thought as she came out of the drugstore to look down a deserted Main Street.
A dust devil picked up dried leaves from the gutter, sending them whirling down the street. She watched, feeling the wind on her face, as a large tumbleweed sailed past like in an old Hollywood-movie-set ghost town.
This was her life, she thought with a groan. Dry Gulch was in a slow-motion death spiral. But no one seemed to notice or care. While other parts of Montana were booming, one glance in either direction of Main Street told you this town wasn’t going anywhere but down.
And that was the hard part for Clancy. She knew she would have to pack up and leave soon if she hoped to make anything of herself.
“I’ve already stayed too long,” the nineteen-year-old said to the wind, then shielded her eyes as she saw raised dust on the road. Looking closer, she could make out what looked like a pickup pulling a rented trailer. The rig didn’t look familiar. As it drew closer, she saw why. The vehicle had out-of-state plates. Curious, she squinted into the wind and dust trying to make out what state. Texas? Florida?
For the life of her, she couldn’t remember the last time anyone new had moved into town—let alone to the area. The local population had been dropping for some time, with older folks passing on and their kids moving away for more education or better jobs.
She got only a glimpse of the driver behind the wheel and felt her pulse jump even as she told herself it couldn’t be.
* * *
Wind rockedCordellLander’spickup as it rumbled into town. A tumbleweed blew past, cartwheeling across the street ahead of him like a warning. People would know soon enough that he was back, he thought with a grimace. Even if he’d let someone know about his impending arrival, no red carpet would have been rolled out. Far from it. In fact, he was expecting just the opposite given the way he’d left Dry Gulch.
He had been planning to return soon—just not for the reason he was now, he thought as he pulled to a stop in front of the former car dealership, now empty with a for-sale sign in the window. He’d been driving for two days almost straight through and was beyond exhausted. But there hadn’t been time to stop.
Now, though, he wanted to get out and walk the rest of the way. He’d needed to stretch his legs and prepare himself for what was about to happen.
