Tough Enough

  They stood staring at each other, across the years and the choices that separated them.

  “Is that file worth dying over?”

  Pete smiled. “Or killing over? Yes.” He edged toward the door. “If this landed in the wrong hands …” He shook his head. “Take care of Denver. I can’t protect her anymore. But don’t break her heart again, old buddy. Not again.” The gun leveled at J.D.’s heart, Pete stepped to the trapdoor and waited for J.D. to move so he could slip through it.

  J.D. moved back, but at the last moment grabbed his arm. “Dammit, Pete, I can’t let you leave with the file.”

  Pete shook off J.D.’s hold. “But the only way you can stop me is to take this gun away from me, and I can’t let you do that. Trust me on that, J.D.”

  J.D. looked from the pistol to Pete’s face. Would Pete really shoot him? “Tell me I’m not a fool to trust you.”

  Pete smiled, his eyes as blue as they’d been in his youth and just as hard to read. “Oh, you’re a fool, all right, J.D.,” he said, and dropped through the hole into the night.

  J.D. stood in the tree house, praying he hadn’t made a fatal mistake.

  LILA WADE ANSWERED the door of her doublewide trailer in a hot pink chenille robe and fuzzy bunny slippers. Most of her short brown hair was still trapped in curlers; some had escaped and stood on end, giving her a comical look.

  “Yes?” she muttered, squinting as she held the door open.

  Denver introduced herself.

  “I know who you are.” Lila had partaken of at least a few beers this night. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to talk to you about my uncle,” Denver said, hoping they wouldn’t be forced to have this discussion on the front steps. “It will just take a moment.”

  Lila made a face but opened the door wider for Denver to enter. “Lester’s going to be home soon, you know.”

  Denver didn’t know. Lila motioned toward the couch, and Denver sat down, dropping deeper than she expected into the worn-out cushions. “I’m checking into some recent cases my uncle was working on before his murder.” She tried to work her way to the edge of the couch but gave up. “You hired him a few weeks ago to follow your husband.”

  Lila let out a snort as she picked up a bottle of bright red fingernail polish and continued what Denver had obviously interrupted. “Don’t ask me why I did it. I was telling Clara—Clara Dinsley, you know her—”

  “She’s the beautician at ClipTop.”

  Lila nodded, the polish brush dangling from her fingers. “I was telling her I thought that damned Lester was chipping around on me. And she suggested hiring Max. I guess she’d hired him once.” She waved that away as another story. “So I did. It was just plain silly. Lester with another woman! He can’t even handle the one he has.” She let out a brittle laugh as she screwed the lid down tight on the polish.

  “Where was Lester those nights you thought he was with another woman?” Denver asked.

  Lila’s face stiffened as if a mud mask she’d applied had suddenly dried. “Just foolin’ around with the boys. Drinkin’, stuff like that.” She got to her feet, careful not to touch her nails. “Lester will be home soon. I don’t want him finding you here.”

  Denver nodded as she pushed herself out of the couch. “Well, thank you.”

  “No problem. I hope I helped you some.” Lila closed the door behind her. Denver walked to Maggie’s car and, as she climbed in, turned to look back. She caught Lila peeking out the curtains. And she wondered just what Lester Wade had been doing those late nights. And why Lila had lied for him.

  THE CALL FROM CALIFORNIA came just before J.D. showed up at Maggie’s door. It was from a member of his band who’d tired of leaving messages at the Stage Coach and was trying to track J.D. down. Denver took the message. She handed it to J.D. when he came in. It read:

  I hope things are going better, that you’re writing some new songs, and that you’ve changed your mind. Hurry back.

  J.D. read it, then crumpled the note and threw it into the fireplace. Denver saw the dark frustration in his eyes and doubted he’d written any new songs. He’d been too busy helping her. But what did “hope … you’ve changed your mind” mean?

  “I understand if you have to go back—”

  “You’d better get some sleep,” he said, cutting her off. “We have to be at Grayling Pass before daybreak. I’m going to spend the night here with you and Maggie just in case—”

  She nodded and went down the hall to the linen closet to pull out sheets and blankets for him. “Can’t you tell me what it is, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” He turned his back to her and began making himself a bed on the couch with the bedding she handed him.

  “Fine. Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s great.” She spun on her heel and started down the hall.

  “Denny.”

  She turned to find him silhouetted against the firelight.

  “You don’t understand.” His voice, soft as a caress, tugged at her.

  “No, I don’t,” she said, closing the distance between them. “Why don’t you tell me? It’s being here with me, isn’t it? It’s hurting your career.”

  He let out an oath and took her shoulders in his hands. “It’s not you. It’s the songs. They’re gone.” He dropped his hold on her and moved over to the fire.

  She stared at his back. “What do you mean they’re gone?”

  “The music has been in my head ever since I can remember.” He turned to look at her. “Then one day, I woke up and it wasn’t there anymore. And I didn’t care.” His gaze met hers and held it. “Until I saw you again.”

  She stepped into his arms and he held her. The fire crackled behind them.

  “Go to bed,” he said softly, kissing the top of her head. “We need to get some rest.”

  She nodded and moved away, knowing nothing she could say would erase the pain in his eyes. Behind her, she heard J.D. collapse on the couch.

  She stopped in Maggie’s room to tell her good-night, then went into the guest room, stripped down and crawled into bed. For so long, her heart broken, she’d focused all her thoughts and energy on losing J.D. Now as she lay staring up at the ceiling, she felt only his hurt, his pain. If she followed her heart, she knew exactly where it would lead. To the man on the couch in the other room. She didn’t care where J.D.’s heart was headed. He needed her. While she wasn’t sure how to help him, as she drifted off to sleep, she promised herself when the time came, she’d be there for him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Long before sunrise, J.D. pulled off Highway 191 into a plowed area not far from Grayling Pass on the far side of Fir Ridge. “What’s wrong?” he asked as the darkness settled around them.

  Denver glanced back at the highway. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t think we were followed, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  She looked behind her again and he could tell she didn’t believe that. “It’s nothing,” she said again. “Probably just the heebie-jeebies.”

  J.D. knew those well. He’d lain awake last night thinking about Denny. As he studied her face in the shadowy darkness, he wondered what the future held for them. That old spark of hope he’d thought dead stirred in his heart. For a while, he’d forgotten about liars and murderers; he’d even forgotten about Pete and the case file.

  “Denny, last night, after you left the Stage Coach, I followed Pete out to your cabin. He went to that tree house we built.”

  “The tree house?”

  “He found the case file Max had hidden there.”

  “So there was a case file.” She grumbled softly under her breath. “Why didn’t I think of the tree house? Only Max would hide it there. What was in the file?”

  J.D. chewed at his cheek. “I don’t know. Pete wasn’t in the mood to show me.”

  “What?”

  “He had a gun,” J.D. explained. “But that was only one reason I didn’t try to stop him.”

  He heard her
chuckle. “So which one of us is the bigger fool?”

  He grinned. “I’d say it’s a toss-up.” He rubbed his whiskered jaw and stared out into the dark. “What are the chances I can talk you into staying here and letting me get the information from Davey?”

  Her laugh was low as she climbed out of his pickup. He concentrated on the dark for a moment, wondering if they were just as foolish to trust Davey, then followed her.

  The faint starlight did little to illuminate the predawn sky. Denver fingered the tiny flashlight in her jacket pocket, but quickly rejected the idea. As J.D. handed down her cross-country skis and backpack from the pickup, she felt the blackness envelop her and the memory of Davey’s wreck on Horse Butte came back in vivid detail like an omen. Her fingers shook as she snapped her boots into the bindings; she told herself it was just the cold.

  She swung the backpack on, automatically pulling her long braid out from under the strap. Bending down to put on his rental skis, J.D. was an ebony-etched shadow in the night beside her. She was getting used to having him around.

  It had snowed during the night. The earth lay cloaked in a soft white mantle. Away from the shadow of the trees, the snow glowed, clean and cold, a virgin tapestry. Denver skied to the top of the ridge and turned to watch J.D. glide toward her. Something in the way he crossed the snowfield tugged at her. His smooth, fluid grace. The power behind his gentle movements as he joined her on the ridge line.

  “Where to, Sunshine?” he whispered, just inches from her. Blame it on the quiet seclusion of the hillside. Or the cold air that seemed to suspend them in time. Or the fact that J. D. Garrison hadn’t called her Sunshine in years. Suddenly all she wanted was to be wrapped in his arms. To feel his warm breath on her neck. To have him kiss away the cold—and the fear.

  Even in the dull light, she was afraid he had seen what she was thinking and quickly turned away. But too late. His gloved hand clasped her shoulder and turned her to him. In an instant, she was in his arms, her skis entwined with his. His lips grazed hers tentatively. His kiss last night had been urgent, then soft, sweet and loving. This was a combination of the two. His lips caressed hers, his tongue explored the warm wetness of her waiting mouth. She melted into him, surrounded by his strong arms and the warmth of his body, the wondrous feel of his mouth on hers. His tongue touched hers, teasing, tempting, then plunged into her again, seeking, savoring. Slowly he pulled back to look at her, his breath as ragged as her own.

  “Oh, J.D.”

  He smiled ruefully and pointed to a large pine tree. “I think we’d better find a place to wait for Davey.”

  They crouched in the windblown hollow under the huge pine, hiding in the shadowy darkness beneath it. Denver focused her binoculars on the crest of the ridge. It was still too dark to make out anything but patterns of black. She rubbed her mittened hands together. Her breath came out in frosty white puffs.

  “Cold?” J.D. whispered.

  “A little.” Just the closeness of him was enough to fog up her binoculars.

  “Well, I’m freezing.” He put his arm around her and gently pulled her to him. “You wouldn’t let me freeze, would you?” She snuggled against him without protest and fought the sharp pang of desire that swept through her. His breath stirred the hair at her temple. She closed her eyes to the dark and listened to the rapid beat of his heart, her own answering with a thunder as she snuggled against him to wait for sunrise.

  THE SOUND OF A SEMI coming up Grayling Hill woke her up. Denver sat up under the tree, banging her head on a limb and sending a shower of new snow cascading down on her. In the silence after the truck topped the hill, she heard another sound. The soft click of a car door closing. She glanced over to find the spot under the tree beside her empty. J.D. was gone.

  Swearing, she raised her binoculars and scanned the wide stretches along the highway through the barren limbs of the aspens. The sky had lightened but not enough to distinguish much more than shapes. Then she saw them. Two figures, dressed in heavy coats and hats, unloading large packs from a light-colored van parked beside the highway. It was still too dark to recognize them, but one towered over the other. Could Davey be the smaller one? Denver scanned the hillside again. Where was J.D.?

  After a moment, the van drove away, and she watched the two finish loading their equipment onto a sled. Something glinted in the waning darkness, then the skiers covered the sled with a tarp and started east along the ridge line toward Yellowstone National Park, the larger man pulling the sled behind him.

  Denver watched with growing interest. These skiers were taking an awful lot of gear if they only planned to make the Fir Ridge Trail Loop through forest-service land and part of Yellowstone Park, ending on the outskirts of West Yellowstone. It was only a half-day loop, certainly not long enough for all the supplies and equipment they were carrying.

  She lowered her binoculars. They could be planning to go into the back country of the park and camp for a few days. Except … She brought the binoculars up to her eyes again. Except that it was spring, a bad time for a long ski trip, what with the snow rotting in sunny places on the mountainsides and with the grizzly bears coming out of hibernation in hungry, ill-tempered moods.

  Another semi downshifted for the long climb up the hill as the sky began to lighten over the dark purple of Mount Holmes peak. Denver cursed J.D. as she struggled to get out of her hiding place under the tree. How could he wander off now, of all times?

  “You have such a way with words,” said a voice above her. Strong arms pulled her easily from the shelter beneath the pine boughs, then dropped her unceremoniously in the snow. She stumbled and almost fell.

  “Where have you been?” Denver demanded.

  “Keep your voice down,” J.D. whispered. “I just wanted to take a closer look.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Just two men. Davey wasn’t one of them. Let’s go home.”

  Denver watched the silhouettes of the two figures move across the ridge line as she reached for her skis. “I’m going to follow them.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Shh. Something isn’t right here and you know it.”

  “I know there’s another storm coming in, Davey tricked us into getting up early, he’s probably robbing your cabin right this moment, and at best, I know following these two men could be a waste of time. At worst—” His gaze locked with hers, warming her deep inside.

  “Are you trying to tell me you don’t think there’s anything suspicious about those two?”

  He glanced after the skiers. “Too much equipment, too early in the morning and too late in the season?”

  She nodded. “Want to try to convince me it’s a coincidence that Davey told me to be here at the same time those two showed up?”

  “No.”

  She slipped on her pole straps, grinning at him. “Then I’m going after them.”

  “I never doubted it for a moment.”

  “Then why did you argue with me?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper.

  “Habit?” He gave her a shrug and a grin. The grin made her want him to hold her again more than ever. “Maybe you ought to go back and let someone know what’s going on.”

  “Nice try,” she said.

  As they skied after the pair, Denver wondered what would happen when they all arrived at their destination. She thought of Max’s pistol in her backpack. It seemed little consolation as she skated her skis to gain speed, trying to catch sight of the men. She skied parallel to the trail and the men, keeping a good fifty yards to the south. Ahead of her, she watched J.D.’s back, his skis making a steady swish across the snow. She just hoped they weren’t being drawn into a trap.

  Not far up the trail, Denver realized they’d lost the skiers. The ridge line glistened in the silvery light of daybreak as she traced the horizon through her binoculars from Highway 191 across the gossamer-smooth snowfields to a thick stand of aspen several hundred yards ahead. Beyond the aspen grove, mountains cloaked in dense pines cl
imbed toward the heavens. The nearest road to the east was thirty miles away. Someone could get lost in this remote part of the country forever, she thought as she turned to search again among the bare aspen limbs etched against the skyline. She’d just lost two of them.

  “See ’em?” J.D. whispered beside her.

  “No.” She handed J.D. the binoculars and surveyed the countryside with her naked eye. “They couldn’t just disappear,” she whispered back. “They should be on the ski trail. Unless …” She glanced over at J.D.

  He lowered the binoculars. “Unless they knew we were following them. Or they have some reason not to take the trail.”

  Denver scoured the ridge line again. “They couldn’t have seen us. And this isn’t the Bermuda Triangle. They didn’t have that much lead time. They couldn’t have just vanished.” She reached for her poles to ski farther up the trail. Then she saw it.

  A movement. In the aspens. She motioned to J.D. Suddenly a figure glided from the trees, a sleek silhouette of arms and legs in stride as he skimmed across the snowy opening. In an instant, another skier burst from the trees.

  Denver gave J.D. a thumbs-up sign. “We have them now,” she said softly, watching the men head east toward Yellowstone Park and directly into the pines and the approaching storm. They were making their own trail as they went.

  J.D. grunted. “Or they have us.”

  “Don’t try to change my mind,” she advised.

  “I’m smarter than that.”

  Denver gave him a look that said she doubted it, as she tucked her binoculars into the backpack next to her camera, survival gear, including her hairbrush, and Max’s loaded pistol. As she zipped the top of the pack closed again, she eyed the approaching storm.

  “It’s pretty dangerous to ski into a storm, especially a spring storm,” he said quietly.

  A spring storm could drop several feet of snow in a matter of hours. People got lost every year; they went to sleep after wandering in circles and died of hypothermia. She and J.D. were breaking not one but two cardinal rules—they were skiing into a storm and they were alone. No one knew they were there. Except Davey. Wherever he might be.