Even the weather was fighting her, Courtney Rogers thought
as she pulled the pickup truck out of a skid on the two-
lane highway.
If she'd known this freak storm was blowing up like a
nasty surprise from the gods of the north, she never would
have gone into Spur City.
"No, be honest. You would have left at five in the morning
to beat the storm," she muttered.
Since Ernie Hastings, her damn unreliable ranch manager,
had quit six weeks ago, she'd been too short of help to
send anyone else for food and other supplies. And too
short of money to leave the buying to someone who might
choose sugar cereal instead of oatmeal.
Only, the trip into town hadn't quite turned out the way
she'd expected. Midge Buckley had walked rapidly in the
other direction when she'd seen Courtney coming, and Jeb
Bittner at the general store had given her a hard time —
just for the heck of it.
"Well, I guess you never really know your neighbors," she
muttered, then switched on the radio.
An antique Hank Williams song filled the cab.
Unfortunately, it was the wrong choice, since old Hank was
singing about lost love, and she couldn't stop herself
from reacting to the sadness of the lyrics.
When her vision blurred, she blinked her eyes. "Get a
grip," she ordered herself. "You've come through bad times
before. You'll do it again."
The swirling flakes and another recent snowfall hid the
craggy Montana landscape, but she knew this stretch of
road as well as she knew the vegetable garden in back of
the ranch house.
She'd been born and raised in this country, and she'd been
traveling back and forth to Spur City since her mom had
strapped her into an infant car seat for the trip.
The Golden Saddle horse farm where she lived was a legacy
from her parents. Mom had died five years ago. Dad had
lived three years longer. And she'd been back home for the
past two years — while her marriage was coming apart at
the seams.
Her own lost love. Buried under a clash of lifestyles and
values. And finally...buried for good.
She didn't want to think about that. She'd loved Edward
Rogers, even when she'd told him it was all over between
them.
But she'd still prayed they could work things out. And
after their divorce, her former husband had come to see
her one last time before shipping out to an overseas
assignment in Lukinburg.
Could they have made the out-of-kilter relationship work?
She didn't know. Because Lieutenant Edward Rogers hadn't
come home alive. He'd left her with a load of guilt and...
She tightened her hands on the wheel. "Like Daddy always
said, there's no use crying over spilled milk. You've got
to clean up the mess and go on from there."
All she could do was go forward and try to dig herself out
of the mess that had become her life.
Maybe her new ranch manager, Riley Watson, would make a
difference.
And maybe he'd be just another piece of bad news. Up
ahead, the road crossed under a bridge, and she squinted
because she thought she saw a figure on the span above
her — just visible through the whirlpool of flakes.
A man was looking toward her. She couldn't see him very
well, but his posture looked strangely rigid... as if
someone had fashioned him out of ice.
She squinted into the storm, trying to work out what the
guy was doing out here in the middle of nowhere. Was he in
trouble and looking for help from a passing motorist down
here on the highway?
If so, she felt obligated to stop, because in this open
country he could freeze to death if his vehicle had broken
down.
She slowed, still dividing her attention between the man
and the highway. Come to think of it, she didn't see a
vehicle. Had he walked to the bridge from farther down the
highway?
As she squinted up at him, he moved. She blinked, trying
to figure out what she was seeing. It looked as if he'd
raised a rifle to his shoulder and was aiming it down
toward her.
There was no other car or truck on the road.
If that guy was really planning to shoot at some-one — it
was her.
"No," she whispered into the silence of the car. Her heart
was thumping as she sped up, trying to swerve out of the
way or make it under the bridge before he could fire.
But she was too late. A rifle shot cracked. And the slug
tore into the glass just above her head and to the right.
It was as though a stone had hit the windshield. Only that
was no stone.
She skidded on the snow-covered road, skidded under the
bridge, then kept barreling forward. Fighting the wheel,
she managed to keep from crashing into the concrete
abutment on her right. Defensive driving lessons her dad
had given her leaped into her mind, and she pumped the
brakes to slow her speed. But she still wasn't able to
control the truck. When she shot out from under the
bridge, she was heading toward the shoulder.
Her hands were clenched on the wheel as she plunged off
the snow-covered blacktop, crunched across the gravel and
into a field.
Lord knew what was under the snow. The truck swayed, and
she fought to keep the vehicle from turning over.
Probably her efforts had little to do with the eventual
outcome, but she came to a stop against something solid
she couldn't see. Probably a rock.
Quickly she cut the engine. Still clutching the wheel, she
struggled to bring her breathing back to normal as she
fought a terrible sense of dread.
"Think rationally," she ordered herself. "Going into panic
mode won't do you any good."
One by one, she gathered her mental resources. Then,
slowly and deliberately, she took a physical inventory.
She felt no sudden pains. And when she moved her arms and
legs, they worked. With shaky fingers, she unbuttoned her
coat and reached inside to press her hand against her
middle. Everything seemed to be okay — no thanks to the
guy up on the bridge.
Oh, Lord — the guy on the bridge! She'd forgotten about
him for a moment. Would he come down here to finish her
off? Or was hitting her pickup enough?
With a jerky motion she reached for the gun that she kept
in the compartment of the truck door.
Seconds ticked by. Then minutes. And she began to relax a
little. It looked as if the shooter had turned tail and
run.
But she was still in big trouble. The windshield was a
maze of cracks, the temperature was below zero, and the
snow was going to bury her truck in no time flat.
With her gun across her lap and one eye cocked toward the
road, she picked up the cell phone from the seat beside
her and tried to make a call.
Reception out here was never great, and the snow didn't
help. All she got was a notice on the screen that the
service couldn't make the connection.
"Oh, sugar," she muttered, slapping the phone down and
peering outside.
Despite the dire circumstances, she grinned. Her campaign
to improve her language was working. She'd reached for a
curse and managed to say "oh, sugar" instead of something
stronger.
After waiting several minutes to make sure she wasn't
being stalked, she tried to turn the motor on again. But
the truck wouldn't start. Which meant she couldn't run the
heater. And she could already feel the cold creeping
inside the cab.
She peered out the window, thinking about her limited
options.
She could try to walk, which wouldn't get her far in this
weather. Or she could stay put and hope someone found her —
and not the guy up on the bridge who had pulled the
trigger.
Neither choice was good. But she figured that staying in
the truck offered the best chance of survival.
THE SMOTHERING CLOUD OF SNOW swirling out of the sky was
disorienting, Riley Watson thought as he drove toward the
Golden Saddle Ranch. In fact, everything about this
assignment was disorienting.
Three weeks ago he'd been working as part of a team — the
Big Sky Bounty Hunters. With Bryce Martin, Jacob Powell,
Aidan Campbell, Joseph Brown and the rest. Now he was all
alone on a Montana highway in the middle of a blizzard —
and fighting a feeling of unreality.
He swallowed hard. Too bad an explosion had changed
everything.
But he knew it had been Big Sky's best option. After
escaping from Boone Fowler's torture camp on Devil's Fork
Island, they'd pulled off a pretty nifty charade. As far
as the world — and the bad guys — knew, everybody on the
team, including himself, had been blown to smithereens.
The rest of the men were lying low, waiting for Riley's
signal to come out of hiding.
Like a slippery eel, Fowler had slithered away. But Big
Sky had pinpointed his location. He had rented some unused
buildings on the Golden Saddle Ranch and reconstituted his
gang as the Montana Militia for a Free America, a
supposedly law-abiding group of men who only wanted to
defend themselves against the forces of big government.
There were other similar groups out here — which made the
cover story all too plausible.
So why had ranch owner, Courtney Rogers, given Fowler a
place to stay? Was she a pal of his? Was she working for a
terrorist organization? Or was she an innocent bystander
caught in the middle of a bad situation?
Big Sky couldn't simply drive up to her front door, ask
some pointed questions and expect straight answers. So
Colonel Cameron Murphy, their leader, had devised a plan
to put Riley onto the ranch where he could find out what
Fowler was up to and what role Ms. Rogers was playing in
the game.
Privately, Riley didn't much like the scenario, because it
could put an innocent woman in jeopardy.
If she was really innocent. He'd pored over the
information they'd given him about her, trying to figure
her out. She was twenty-eight. She'd been born out here in
the middle of nowhere and lived all her life on the Golden
Saddle — except for four years at the university, then a
year in Billings after she'd gotten married. But she'd
come home to the ranch when her husband had taken an
overseas assignment. And her marriage had been rocky after
that.
She was a rancher at heart. As a girl, she'd won a bunch
of blue ribbons with her 4-H projects. And she could rope
and ride, shoot and tend the stock with the best of the
guys. As far as he could see, she was happy in this patch
of Montana.
But Edward Rogers couldn't stay put in one place. He liked
travel — and danger. Which was how she'd ended up a widow.
And now Big Sky was messing with her life. For starters,
they had paid Rogers's ranch manager, Ernie Hastings, a
large sum of money to walk out on her. Then Riley had
applied for the job. His fake résumé had looked good in
the e-mails he and Mrs. Rogers had exchanged. This
afternoon, he was on the way to the ranch for a face-to-
face interview.