Cardwell Ranch Trespasser - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,56
tears fall that she’d been fighting to hold back all day.
A moment later, Ronnie opened the door a crack. “Are you all right?”
Hilde almost laughed. Dana and Hud weren’t the only people looking at her strangely lately. “Colt Dawson just told me that he loves me.”
Ronnie started to laugh, clearly relieved. “That’s wonderful. I guess you must be one of those people who cries when they’re happy?”
Hilde nodded, although some of the tears were out of a deep sadness. In a matter of days, her life had changed so drastically it made her head spin.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” Ronnie asked. “If you don’t feel like locking up tonight by yourself—”
Hilde hadn’t realized it was so late. “No, I’m fine.”
Ronnie hesitated. Of course she’d heard about Dee’s alleged attack and probably even the restraining order.
“I don’t think there will be any trouble tonight,” Hilde said, thinking she should have gotten a restraining order against Dee. As if a restraining order would stop someone like her.
As Ronnie left, Hilde locked up behind her. She wasn’t quite ready to go home yet. A part of her was still chilled by the news that the woman posing as Dee Anna Justice was actually Camilla Northland, sister of Richard Northland, both of them believed to be cold-blooded killers.
It was easy for Hilde to believe that of Dee. She knew firsthand what the woman was capable of. The fact that Dee was probably out on the ranch right now having dinner with Dana and Hud and the kids...
Colt was right, of course. Calling out there to warn Dana was a waste of breath. It could even make matters worse.
Hilde turned out the lights in the front of the store and walked to the break room. Closing the door, she pulled out her cell phone. At the touch of one button she could get Dana on the line.
She thought about what she could say. She hit the button. The phone rang three times. They were eating dinner. Dana wasn’t going to answer the call.
Hilde had just started to hang up when it stopped ringing. “Dana?” She could hear breathing. “Dana, I just called to tell you that Colt just told me he loved me.”
“I’m sorry, but you have the wrong number.” The line went dead.
For just an instant, Hilde thought she had gotten the wrong number because that hadn’t been Dana’s voice.
Then her mind kicked into gear.
It had been Dee’s voice. She’d answered Dana’s cell phone.
* * *
COLT COULDN’T BELIEVE he’d blurted it out like that. I love you. He’d said it without thinking. He let out a chuckle. He’d just said what was in his heart.
He considered calling her back to warn her again about doing anything crazy. He had debated telling her about Dee to start with, afraid of what Hilde would do. For a woman who he suspected had never been impulsive in her life, she had been doing a lot of things on the spur of the moment lately.
Like telling him she loved him, too.
He felt his heart soar at the memory of her words. He couldn’t wait to get home for so many reasons.
The moment he walked into the airport terminal, though, he felt his heart drop. Something was wrong. He could feel it in the air as he hurried to the airline counter and saw that his flight had been canceled.
“What’s going on?” he asked of a man waiting in line. He could hear a woman arguing that she had to get to Salt Lake.
“All flights into Salt Lake City have been canceled for today because of a bad spring snowstorm,” the man said. “Snow’s falling at a rate of six inches an hour. I just saw it on the weather channel. Doesn’t look good even for in the morning.”
Colt felt like the woman arguing with the airline clerk. He desperately needed to get home. But unlike that woman, he realized he wasn’t going to be flying.
He’d just reached the car rental agency when Annie called from the marshal’s office in Big Sky. “Ready to be surprised? Dee Anna Justice did book a flight to New York City for tomorrow.”
He was surprised. “You’re sure?”
“I had the airline executive double-check. Because I called concerned about Dee Anna Justice, I figure they’ll take her into one of those little rooms and do an entire cavity search,” she said with a satisfied chuckle.
Colt was trying to make sense of this. Dee was really leaving tomorrow? Maybe she was just covering