Excerpt of Outlaw Lovers by Pat Warren

All small towns have their secrets, Nick Dean thought as he drove north on Montana's Route 191. Some more than others. The town of Whitehorn, northwest of Billings, seemed to have more than its fair share, or so he'd discovered these past few days.

He swung his blue Blazer into the passing lane to go around a slow-moving station wagon, its windows steamed up by a carload of kids of varying ages and a harassed-looking woman driver. It was dusk, that nebulous time of evening just before the streetlights come on. A cold October wind whipped occasional clumps of tumbleweed across the highway, adding to the feeling of desolation. With a shiver, Nick rolled up his window.

Of course, having been born in Red Lodge, near the southern border close to Wyoming, and having spent most of his adult life in Montana, he was used to often-frigid weather. He even enjoyed it much of the time. The day's high of thirty-eight, dropping at least ten degrees since mid-afternoon, was warm compared to what it would be at the height of winter, when the wind-chill factor could take it down to thirty below in an hour. Glancing at a darkening sky thick with churning gray clouds, he decided it was entirely possible that the first snowstorm of the season was building.

That was all he needed right now.

Nick rolled his shoulders to get the kinks out. He'd been on the move from early morning, starting off with breakfast at the Hip Hop Café, hanging around over coffee refills, trying to overhear conversations or bits of gossip. Some people had been chatty and friendly, others outright suspicious. He'd learned several interesting things since he'd arrived in town, especially from the older generation, but nothing concrete.

Next, he'd spent several hours at the Whitehorn library checking out old newspapers in their morgue. After a late lunch he'd driven to the Whitehorn County Hospital, where he'd persuaded a young redhead in medical records to allow him to paw through some old files.

After all that he still had more questions than answers as to what had happened to Charlie Avery, whose remains had been discovered recently on the Laughing Horse Reservation north of town. He had a few suspects—men who hadn't exactly seen eye-to-eye with Charlie—but not a shred of proof that pointed to any one person actually doing him in.

Nick ran a hand through his flyaway blond hair, feeling the frustration. For the most part, he enjoyed his work. Being a private investigator meant he was his own boss, worked his own hours and got to call most of the shots. It sure beat the years he'd put in with the Butte Police Department working vice. That job, too, had called for patience, something his father had taught him as a teenager working in the family construction business. The problem was that most of the people who hired private investigators wanted action now.

He watched the streetlights come on and noticed that now his was the only vehicle on this stretch of highway, both ahead and behind. Most of the residents of Whitehorn were home having dinner in their warm kitchens. He wasn't really hungry, so he decided to drive on to the Whitehorn Motel, where he'd rented a room, and pick up something from their coffee shop later.

Luck was with him on this case, Nick acknowledged, at least as far as his client was concerned. Melissa Avery, the woman who ran the Hip Hop Café, was anxious to find out what had happened to her father after he'd disappeared some twenty years ago. But because of the elapsed time, she realized that the trail might be cold and that Nick wouldn't have results quickly. The first thing he'd done when he'd arrived in Whitehorn after driving the hundred thirty-six miles from Butte had been to check with the coroner, where he'd verified Melissa's right to be concerned.

Charlie Avery had definitely been murdered.

But by whom and for what reason—that was what Nick was intent on discovering. And he would, he felt certain. He'd never taken a case yet that he hadn't solved, though admittedly, some took months, while a few had been resolved in a matter of weeks.

That's where patience came in. An investigator had to carefully gather facts; keep extensive notes; interview anyone and everyone remotely connected to the victim, his family and friends; ascertain motives, opportunity and means. Eventually, the pieces of the puzzle would fall into place. That's where the satisfaction came in, unlike police work where, often as not, catching the culprit didn't necessarily mean a conviction. Smart, high-paid lawyers, legal technicalities, uncertain witnesses—any one of those and a number of other factors, and the criminal walked.

Nick had found that frustration much harder to deal with than the patience required to unravel a mystery.

His eyes flickered over the hilly terrain to the left, the dormant scrub grass, the scraggly bushes. Winter was sneaking up on them. He flipped on the lights and had barely gone ten feet when something just ahead had him leaning toward the windshield and squinting. He hadn't been mistaken, Nick decided as he made out a form at the side of the road. A woman stood motioning for him to stop, yet he could spot no disabled vehicle. Surely she hadn't been out walking along this deserted strip of highway. Quickly, he pulled the Blazer to a halt.

Leaning over, Nick rolled down the window and studied her in his headlights. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, with long, windblown hair and a thin face. She seemed lost in the folds of an oversize tan raincoat as she approached, carrying what looked like a heavy canvas bag. "Car trouble?" he asked.

She answered his question with one of her own. "Can you give me a lift?"

"Sure." He shoved open the passenger door and watched her climb slowly inside. "Where you headed?"

She had trouble closing the door, but finally managed it. "I—I'm not sure. Where are you going?" She struggled to fasten her seat belt.

Up close in the light from the dash, Nick saw that she was quite pale and, despite the cold, her face looked flushed. "I'm heading for the Whitehorn Motel." Her blue eyes were huge and seemed a little vague. "But I could take you somewhere else. It's getting colder and looks like it may snow." At that, he turned the heater on.

"I don't want to trouble you. The motel's fine." Her voice was so low he had to lean closer to hear her.

Shifting into gear, Nick glanced over again. "Are you from around here?"

"No, no. I just came back to make sure she was all right."

"She?" But the woman was staring out the windshield, apparently unaware of his question. "You came back to make sure who was all right?"

Suddenly, she came to attention. "No one. Never mind."

Nick saw perspiration gathering on her face, unhealthy perspiration not caused by the heater, he was certain. "Are you all right? Maybe I should turn around and take you to the hospital."

"No, I'm fine. Really." She huddled in her coat, pulling up the collar.

"My name's Nick Dean," he said, giving it one more try as he downshifted around a steep curve. Another glance told him she had her eyes closed and wasn't planning on giving him her name, whether because she was ill or from a need for privacy, he couldn't tell. He wanted to ask her what she was doing on this lonely stretch of highway hitchhiking, if she knew someone in town and who the mysterious "she" she'd been checking on was. Still, it was none of his business. Perhaps the best thing he could do was to get her to the motel, where she could either check in or call someone.

As he straightened the vehicle after the curve, Nick suddenly felt the jolt of a tremendous explosion. Fire burst forth, flames shooting out from under the hood as the Blazer came to an abrupt stop. The driver's door shot open and Nick was thrown out, hitting the cold ground, then rolling down the embankment. His left shoulder and then his head took the worst of it. He had no time to prepare himself, no time to brace against the tumble and roll into the fall. As he plunged down the hill, he heard another roaring eruption.

He didn't see the black smoke billowing up from the wreckage, nor hear the lone, frightened scream of a woman. Before his body rammed into a cluster of prickly bushes that stopped his plunge down the incline, Nick Dean mercifully passed out.

Sara Lewis checked her watch and saw that it was nearly seven. The wind was really picking up, and it had begun to snow just as she'd left the Whitehorn County Hospital and climbed into her six-year-old white Volkswagen. Fortunately, the little car ran like a top, and the reliable heater had the interior warm in moments. She would have to dig out her fur-lined parka soon, Sara thought as she turned onto the two-lane road that paralleled Route 191. The highway would have gotten her back to the reservation more quickly, but she much preferred the slower pace of Pale Bluff Lane, especially when she was tired.

And she was tired, Sara admitted to herself as she shook back her long black hair. They'd had a shipment of valuable tapestries come in this morning at the Native American Museum where she was artifacts curator. She'd been in charge of the paperwork, cataloging each arrival, checking the authenticity and overseeing the hanging. She'd been anxious to get the job done before the five o'clock closing time, so she'd worked through her lunch hour.

But she'd gotten every piece finished and hung to her satisfaction. So she was comfortably tired, not drained. Afterward, it had been her choice to drive in the opposite direction from her home to the hospital. She had an arrangement with her friend, Dr. Kane Hunter, another Native American who worked in town. They'd grown up together and had remained good friends. One of the children in the reservation's day-care center where she volunteered on weekends—Chad Laughing Face, a chubby four-year-old—had diabetes and a family that had trouble affording insulin. Kane was good enough to tend the boy free of charge and to keep him supplied with insulin if Sara picked it up when needed. She'd been happy to oblige tonight, just one of the things she did on the reservation to make life easier for her people. Things she did quietly, as was her way.

Sara's stomach growled, reminding her that her body wasn't a machine and needed sustenance, and soon. Some hot, homemade soup would hit the spot, she thought, and the wheat bread she'd made yesterday. Then a cup of tea and a long soak in her claw-footed tub.

She smiled as she leaned into the curve she was rounding. By most people's standards, this was probably not an exciting evening for a twenty-nine-year-old woman in the prime of life. But it suited Sara just fine. She didn't crave excitement, never had. She liked her life; her small house on Laughing Horse Reservation, where she'd grown up; her job, which she'd trained for both at Montana State University and at the museum in Bozeman, where she'd worked part-time to pay the expenses her partial scholarship hadn't covered. A woman proud of both her heritage and her independence, Sara knew she was strong and stable.

She also knew that those were the very things that apparently frightened off most of the eligible male population. Sighing, she acknowledged not for the first time that she was caught between a rock and a hard place. While attending college, she'd dated some white men, but hadn't felt totally comfortable with any one of them. Certainly not Jack Kelly, the all-American football star who'd surprised her with his avid interest, then taught her the hardest lesson she'd ever learned. Though there were few Indian males living on Laughing Horse in her age group, she'd dated a couple. And there was the rub.

She'd come to believe that no white man would accept and respect her cultural background. And she hadn't run across a Native American man who was strong, dedicated and as dependable as Sara believed she needed a man to be. She was beginning to think she never would for with the exception of her good friend Jackson Hawk, who'd married Maggie Schaeffer recently, and Kane, who'd been in love with someone else for a long while, few young Indians were comfortable with themselves, had come to grips with their heritage and were therefore able to remain happily on the reservation.

And Sara couldn't picture herself living anywhere else.

Definitely a dilemma, she thought as she crossed over the intersection of Route 191 and turned onto the road leading to Laughing Horse. A dilemma but not a tragedy, she told herself. She had lots of friends, the warm love of her mother and grandmother, who both lived near her own small house, and work she enjoyed. Many people had far less.

Life was a trade-off, after all, and—

Sara instinctively stepped hard on the brakes as a tall figure loomed just ahead of her, caught in the twin circles from her headlights. He was apparently having trouble staying upright, and she might have missed him altogether if he hadn't been wearing a bright red jacket. Pulling off the road, she stopped by a thick copse of pine trees.

Shifting into Park, she left her lights on and jumped out of the car. For a moment she didn't see him, then realized he'd fallen onto the shoulder of the road. She rushed over, noticing that he was trying to sit up.

Dried grass clung to his thick blond hair and there were scrapes and bruises on his angular face. A large gash on his head near his left temple was bleeding, and his jeans were dirty and ripped. "What happened?" she asked quickly.

With his head pounding and his left shoulder hurting like hell, Nick was having trouble remaining in a sitting position. But he didn't think about his discomfort, only of getting help. "Blazer," he finally managed to answer. "Caught fire. Have to get the woman out."

Straightening, Sara looked in each direction and could see no Blazer, no fire, no woman. "Where did this happen?"

He waved a hand vaguely. "Up on the highway. Gotta get help. I started walking. Fell." He tried to push himself upright, but the effort was just too much.

"Here, let me help you." Sara moved to his side and slipped one arm around him.

"Oh!" he cried out. "My shoulder."