Tough Enough

  Her heart ached at his words. In the next room, J.D. sang in that voice that had haunted her every dream for years.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  He nodded and touched a tear on her cheek with his fingertip. “Yeah, I know you are. But you’re making a big mistake with him. He’s back here, probably thinking you’re what he needs.” She could feel Pete’s gaze on her face. “With J.D., nothing will ever be enough. Not even you.”

  Pete’s words hit a chord in her. J.D. hadn’t found happiness with his music. Did he see her as just another goal to be reached? The thought battered her heart.

  “Haven’t you ever asked yourself where J.D. got his start nine years ago?”

  Denver caught her breath.

  “Max.” Pete spit out the word. “J.D. made a deal with Max. Money for the promise that he’d never come back for you. Max bought him off, and J.D. took the money and ran.”

  She let the air slip from her lungs, her wounded heart fighting to keep beating. “I don’t believe you.” Max wouldn’t demand such a deal, and surely J.D. would never—

  “You want to know what happened to that photo?” he asked as he started to walk away from her. “I ripped J.D. out just like I’d like to rip him from your heart.”

  As she watched Pete stalk away, she felt a fear, heart-deep, and an emptiness as cold and dark as a winter night. She staggered to the doorway of the lounge, stunned by Pete’s jealousy of J.D. as much as by his claim that Max paid J.D. never to come back. Was J.D. that sure he would never want to come back, that he could never love her?

  On stage, Pete announced that he and the famous J. D. Garrison were going to sing a song they had written together as teenagers. Anyone in the audience would have thought they were still the best of friends.

  Their voices blended beautifully. Tears of sadness stung Denver’s eyes. She’d known Pete harbored some envy when it came to J.D., but she had never realized how much. And it had nothing to do with music.

  She stumbled down the hallway to the ladies’ room and stared into the mirror. “Oh, Max.” She washed her hands and splashed the achingly cold water on her face. She would get to the truth, she told herself as she left the room. Her resolve wavered, however, when she saw Deputy Cline in the shadows beside the stairway in the lobby. The music had stopped. And Cline was in deep conversation with J.D. They seemed to be arguing.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, joining them.

  Both men quit talking abruptly. Cline stepped back and pulled off his hat. There was a weariness about him as if he hadn’t had much sleep lately.

  “Denny,” J.D. said, “it seems the deputy has frozen your uncle’s assets until a deposit for $150,000 can be explained.” His look warned her to be careful.

  She frowned at Cline. “Why would you do that?”

  The deputy attempted a sympathetic smile. “The money might have been acquired illegally.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she snapped at him.

  “Are you saying Max squirreled away that much?” Cline asked.

  Money had never meant much to Max. “Obviously someone put it in his account to cast doubt on his character.”

  “One hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” Cline chuckled. “I wish someone would cast that much doubt on my character.” He sobered. “Know anyone with that kind of money who hated your uncle enough to do that?”

  Denver shook her head. Max didn’t have any enemies that she knew of, let alone rich ones.

  “It could be a smoke screen,” J.D. interjected. “To lead you in the wrong direction.”

  Cline stood for a moment looking from one of them to the other. “Well, until we get to the bottom of it, that money stays right where it is. The Great Falls police have picked up a hitchhiker matching the description of the one seen with Max. They’re holding him until I can drive up and talk to him.”

  Denver stared at Cline. “You can’t still believe a hitchhiker killed my uncle. Not after this $150,000 has turned up. Unless you think the hitchhiker put it in Max’s account.”

  Cline scratched his red neck. “I’m just covering all my bets. Maybe this hitchhiker didn’t kill your uncle. But he might have seen who did.”

  “So you think that’s a possibility?” Denver asked, amazed Cline had thought of it.

  He grinned. “Anything’s possible.”

  “When will you be talking to him?” she asked.

  “First thing in the morning.”

  “I can’t wait to hear what he has to say.” Finally, maybe they’d have a lead. “Have you found Davey?” she asked, and realized belatedly that either way he would be a sore point with Cline.

  “No, as a matter of fact, I have more important things to do than worry about a fifteen-year-old runaway,” he snapped. “And one more thing, Ms. McCallahan. The next time you withhold information from my department, you’re going to be the guest of the county. Got that?” He tipped his hat to J.D. and stomped off.

  Denver turned her glare on J.D. “You told him about my ransacked cabin and the man who jumped us?”

  “Someone had to. This is a homicide investigation, remember?”

  “And a lot of good it did telling Cline,” Denver said, daring him to argue with her. “Look what he came up with at Max’s office. Nothing. He isn’t going to solve this case and you know it.”

  “We can’t be sure of that.”

  Tears rushed to her eyes. “I’m not sure of anything—or anyone. Not anymore.” She turned to leave, but he grabbed her arm.

  “You told Pete, didn’t you?” he demanded.

  She jerked away; her gaze snapped up to his. “I don’t expect you to understand. I needed answers and I owed Pete that much.”

  J.D. slammed his fist against the wall. “Dammit, Denny, you may have just made the biggest mistake of your life.”

  “No, J.D., I did that the day I fell in love with you.” She turned, tears blinding her, and ran.

  Chapter Ten

  J.D. caught her just outside the door and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her the way he’d wanted to from the moment he saw her with that lamp in her hand at Max’s apartment. An electricity danced between them. Her body felt as wonderful as he’d expected it would. But nothing prepared him for the sweet taste of her or the desire that swept through him as they kissed. All the memories of the past melded with the present, shocking him with one simple earthshaking fact: he’d never felt this way about a woman before. They both stumbled back from the kiss. Denver looked as dazed as he felt.

  “And what was that all about?” she demanded, her voice as shaky as his knees.

  “I just wanted to kiss you,” he answered truthfully.

  She nodded as if she’d expected as much from him. “Answer one other question then. Where did you get the money to go to California nine years ago?”

  He knew where this had come from. Pete.

  “Did Max give you money?” she asked, her eyes begging him to say no.

  J.D. looked her in the eye. “Yes.”

  “And you made a deal with him that you would never come back into my life, right?”

  “Denny, you were just a kid when I left.”

  “I see.” She started to turn away from him.

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him again. “No, you don’t see. But you’re going to.” He led her to his pickup. “Get in. And this time, Denny, don’t argue.”

  With a regal air, she climbed into the cab, slamming the door behind her. He joined her from the driver’s side. The neon of the Stage Coach Inn sign flickered across the windshield. He could hear her angry breathing and feel his own pulse accelerate out of fear. He’d found Denny again and he didn’t want to lose her.

  “I did take money from Max,” he said. “He offered it to me to give me a start. I later paid it back with interest. But there was no deal.” He touched her shoulder, her heat rushing through his fingers and into his blood. The effect this woman had on him!

  “Max obviously wanted y
ou out of town as badly as you wanted to go.” He heard what could have been a laugh—or a sob—come from her. She turned her face toward the side window away from him.

  “Denny, all I ever promised Max was that I’d never hurt you. He just wanted you to be happy,” he said, his hand gently rubbing her shoulder. “And he knew that couldn’t happen if you quit school and took off with me. I had nothing to offer you. I didn’t even know where I’d be sleeping or eating or—” His laugh was low and self-deprecatory. “No, the big thing was, I didn’t know if I had talent. I was betting everything on a talent I wasn’t even sure existed. I couldn’t have asked you to go with me even if we hadn’t been kids, even if—”

  She turned to look at him. “—you’d been in love with me?”

  He felt her gaze warm his face and he smiled wryly. “I was too full of myself to know how I felt about anyone.”

  Denver’s answering smile was as sad as the knowing look in her eyes.

  “That day at the fire tower, I didn’t realize what you were offering me,” he said softly. “I do now.”

  They sat in silence for long minutes. “It’s getting late,” she said. “I’d better get to Maggie’s.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “No.” She started to open the door, but he stopped her.

  “Dammit, Denny, can’t we stop fighting each other?” She met his gaze and held it, the hurt in her eyes softening.

  “I need to be alone to think,” she whispered.

  He wanted to kiss her again right now. Her lips looked full and soft, her eyes shimmered, and it was all he could do not to take her in his arms. “You’d better get out of here before I kiss you,” he said.

  She opened the pickup door, then leaned back in to kiss him. He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. The first kiss had been sweet and stunning; this one started a fire in him he knew could never be put out. He drew her closer, pressing his lips and body to hers, feeling a bond that filled the holes in his heart.

  She pulled away first. “I have to think,” she mumbled as she slipped out of the pickup.

  He watched her go, surprised by what he found himself wishing for.

  THE NIGHT AIR MINGLED with memories. J.D. grinning at her, holding her, threatening to kiss her. Denver forced herself to relive those first few months after his sudden departure. The hurt that had holed up inside her for so long finally moved on. Her heart soared, a kite in a strong wind, flying high into the night, free. She felt tears sting her eyes as the memories overwhelmed her. Memories of J.D. and Pete and Max. They’d always been connected, always been part of the happiest time of her life. Growing up on the lake with Max and the boys. Loving J.D. for as far back as she could remember.

  Had Max really been trying to buy J.D. off, or had he just wanted J.D. to have a chance at reaching his dream? Max had always been proud of him. And Max had always known how Denver felt about J. D. Garrison.

  She stopped on Maggie’s steps recalling the kisses, the feel of his lips, the way her heart had pounded and her limbs had turned liquid. Just the touch of him made her insides ache. The night caressed her, clear and cold, while the dark velvet sky, splattered with a shower of silver as silver as J.D.’s eyes, smiled down on her. She breathed in the night air, savoring it the way she savored J.D.’s kisses. A laugh escaped her lips; she hugged herself, smiling. The past suddenly gave her a sense of peace. And the future?

  J.D. still had a hold on her as strong as ever. He’d warned her not to trust him with her heart. What did he know that she didn’t? No, the future held no peace, only a restlessness that she knew wouldn’t end with the capture of Max’s killer. It wouldn’t end as long as J. D. Garrison had her heart. And she realized now that that would be forever.

  Denver opened the door to find Maggie standing in the middle of a ransacked living room.

  “Look what they’ve done,” Maggie cried. “What in God’s name was Max involved in?”

  J.D. SAT IN HIS RENTED pickup down the street from the Stage Coach Inn waiting for Pete. He fought to quell his anger at Pete for lying about the reason why Max had given him money and why he’d taken it. Was there nothing Pete Williams wouldn’t do to keep Denny? What frightened J.D. was not knowing Pete’s motives. Was it only out of love for Denny? Or was he trying to hide his role in Max’s death? As much as J.D. had first fought the idea, he now considered Pete Williams a prime suspect.

  The back door of the Stage Coach opened and Pete came out and climbed into his pickup. It was parked next to an old school bus. The entire bus had been painted black, including the side windows, and the name Montana Country Club had been slapped on the side in an array of colors. J.D. remembered a bus he’d driven during his early touring days that looked a lot like it. Instantly he felt guilty for his success.

  J.D. waited, then fell in behind at a safe distance, following Pete north out of town. He wasn’t even a little surprised when Pete turned onto the Rainbow Point road. He was headed for Denny’s cabin. J.D. turned out his lights, letting the bright sky overhead keep him on the road between the tall lodgepole pines, probably much like Pete had done that night on his way to the shortcut road on Horse Butte.

  J.D. parked at the edge of a snowbank, not far from where Pete had left his pickup, and followed, keeping the thin beam of Pete’s flashlight flickering through the trees ahead of him in sight. It took J.D. a moment to realize where Pete was headed—to the large tree house the three of them had built one summer when they were kids.

  J.D. moved closer. The flashlight beam bounced with each step as Pete climbed up the makeshift ladder. Then the light went out for a moment as Pete disappeared inside the tree house. Through the cracks in the walls, J.D. saw the light come on again and heard Pete rummaging around, apparently searching for something.

  J.D. sneaked to the bottom of the tree and climbed up as quietly as he could. As he reached the trapdoor, he wished he had a gun. He didn’t like guns. But right now, holding heavy, cold steel in his hand would have given him a real feeling of security. He slipped through the open trapdoor.

  DENVER HELPED MAGGIE clean up the house. Like hers, it hadn’t been ransacked as badly as Max’s office and apartment. Just enough to make her and Maggie both feel violated.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Denver asked after they’d finished. Maggie had built a fire in the fireplace and collapsed in front of it.

  “I’m just mad now,” she said. “I want these people stopped.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. There’s someone I need to talk to—Lila Wade. She’s the woman Max was working for right before his death.”

  “Yes, that’s the one who suspected her husband of cheating on her,” Maggie returned.

  Denver explained what she and J.D. had discovered in the file, including the notation at the bottom. “I’m hoping Lila might be able to shed some light on it. Mind if I borrow your car? J.D. and I left my Jeep at the lake.”

  “Of course not.” Maggie handed her the keys. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

  Denver shook her head. “I don’t want her to feel like we’re ganging up on her.”

  PETE STOOD OVER an old box that had once doubled as a bench, leafing through a manila file folder by flashlight. The smell of the old wooden tree house flooded J.D. with memories of the three of them and the club they’d formed to protect their treetop fort. Just kids. Silly kids.

  “Interesting reading?” J.D. asked.

  Pete jumped, the file folder snapping shut in his hands. “I thought you’d be with Denver.”

  “Did you? Is that why you told her about Max giving me money?”

  Anger showed in Pete’s eyes and in the tight set of his jaw. “You forced me to do that because you wouldn’t stay out of things. Your interference is causing me a lot of headaches.”

  J.D. sighed, suddenly tired. And afraid. “What’s going on, Pete? I assume that’s the case file everyone’s been looking for. What’s so important about it?”

  Pete
glanced at the folder in his hands. “You don’t know how badly I need this. When I was talking to Denver tonight, she reminded me of the tree house.”

  Max had hidden it where he thought Denny would find it. Had he forgotten about Pete? Or had he trusted Pete so much it got him killed? “There was a time when we were best friends, when we trusted each other,” J.D. said.

  Pete gripped the file tighter. “That was before Denver fell in love with you and stayed in love with you.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with Denny and me,” J.D. said, realizing it probably had more than he knew to do with them. “Let me see the file.”

  Pete ran the back of his hand across his mouth. “I can’t do that.” His hand dropped to his jacket pocket.

  J.D. swore as he stared at the pistol Pete pulled, then looked up at his friend’s face. “Tell me you didn’t kill Max.”

  “Would it do any good?”

  “I don’t believe you’re a murderer.”

  “Why not? You already know I’m a liar.”

  “But not a killer,” J.D. said with more confidence than he felt.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t bet your life on that, old buddy,” Pete said, moving toward the trapdoor, the gun pointed at J.D.’s chest.

  J.D. held his ground. “The name of Max’s murderer is in that file, isn’t it? Who are you protecting, Pete?”

  “How do you know I’m not just protecting myself?” They stood only a few feet apart; J.D. could taste the tension between them. He estimated the distance and wondered whether he could reach Pete, take the gun away and not get either of them killed.

  “Don’t do it, J.D. There’s been enough bloodshed.”

  “If you care about Denny, tell me what’s in that file. She isn’t going to give up looking for Max’s killer and you know it.”

  Pete swore. “Can’t you make her see how dangerous this is?”

  “Just how dangerous is it, Pete?”

  “It could get her killed.”

  J.D. shook his head. “Turn the file over to Cline.”

  Pete seemed amused by that idea. “Cline?” He glanced down at the folder. “This is about a lot more than just who killed Max, don’t you realize that? Stay out of it, old buddy. And keep Denver out.”