Big Sky Standoff - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,29

on?”

“Videos and all that paraphernalia. No. Maybe that’s the way it’s done nowadays, but I don’t want a bunch of your people on my land, and I know for a fact you can’t force them on me.”

Jacklyn glanced back at the truck. She couldn’t see Dillon’s face through the sunlight glinting off the windshield, but she knew he hadn’t missed a thing.

Then she followed Shade Waters into the barn, determined to do her job despite him.

DILLON WATCHED MORGAN give him a backward glance before she followed Nate Waters into the house. She’d stared in his direction, as if she’d been expecting to see him.

Unlike him, who hadn’t been prepared to see her again ever. As the front door closed, he sat without moving, bombarded by memories of the two of them.

Morgan. There’d been a time when she’d made him think about buying another ranch and settling down. But even Morgan couldn’t still the quiet rage inside him. Not that Morgan had wanted him to be anything but a rustler. She liked the drama. She’d never wanted him to quit rustling.

She was hooked on the danger, never knowing when he would sneak into town and into her bed, never knowing if her house would be raided by the sheriff’s men.

And since Morgan had no way of knowing about Dillon’s inheritance, she’d just assumed he would never have enough money to keep her in the way she wanted to live, so she’d never even mentioned marriage. And he’d never told her different.

He wondered idly if she was serious about Nate Waters. Or if she was only serious about his money. Morgan would like the power that came with the Waters name, as well.

As Jacklyn disappeared into the barn with the rancher, Dillon fought the turmoil he felt inside. Seeing Morgan had brought back the past in a blinding flash. All his good intentions not to let what had happened drag him back into trouble again seemed to fly out the window. He felt the full power of the old bitterness, the resentment, the injustice that burned like hot oil inside him.

Worse, while he’d always suspected that he’d been set up four years ago, that someone close to him had betrayed him, he hadn’t wanted to believe it.

In prison, he’d told himself it didn’t matter. That all of that was behind him.

But as he thought about the look Morgan had given him before going back into the house, the image now branded on his mind, he knew it did matter—would always matter. He’d been kidding himself if he thought he could forgive and forget—at least not until he found out who had betrayed him.

And Morgan was as good as any place to start.

JACKLYN SHOULD HAVE SAVED her breath. Shade Waters was impossible. She’d tried to talk to him, but he seemed distracted as he looked in on one of the horses. She saw him frown and touch the horse’s side, apparently surprised to find that it was damp, as if recently ridden.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, noting that he seemed upset.

He shook his head irritably. “I told you. I don’t have time for this. Shouldn’t you be out looking for the rustlers instead of driving me crazy?” he snapped, then sighed, looking his age for a moment. “I just got a call a few minutes before you got here. Tom Robinson’s condition is worse.”

Her heart dropped, and instantly she felt guilty, because she’d been praying he would regain consciousness. She’d been counting on Tom being able to identify at least one of the rustlers.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, a little surprised how hard Waters was taking the news, given that he would now probably get the Robinson ranch, just as Dillon had said. Was Tom’s worsened condition really what had Waters upset?

The rancher didn’t seem to hear her as he began to wipe down the horse. Jacklyn wondered where Pete Barclay was.

She let herself out of the barn, knowing she wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that Dillon Savage might be right. Maybe there was more going on than she’d thought.

As she started toward her pickup, what she saw stopped her dead. The truck was empty. Dillon Savage was gone.

Chapter Eight

Jacklyn couldn’t believe her eyes. No. For just an instant there, she’d believed Dillon, believed she’d been wrong about him, believed he really was trying to help her catch the rustlers.

What a fool she was!

“Excuse me,” she said as she spotted a man trimming