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  McCall saw Luke step outside the room to take a call. She caught his expression before the door closed and realized he was as worried as she was about what was happening at the Chisholm ranch.

  “What?” she asked when he came back in.

  “Halley, she called in. She’s all right.”

  “And Laura?” McCall asked, her voice breaking as another contraction gripped her.

  He shook his head. “They’ll get her.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Zane sprinted toward the cistern, firing the pistol toward the trees as he ran. The air filled with the reports of shots, his and Laura’s. He still couldn’t tell where she was firing from and right now it didn’t matter. As long as he reached the drain and could get it open…

  He was ready to dive over the side of the hill to open the drain at the base of the cistern, when he felt the searing heat of a bullet. His left leg collapsed under him and he rolled, still firing. Fortunately, his momentum took him over the edge of the hill.

  Rolling down the slope, he came to a stop at the bottom of the well house next to the drain. He knew he was hit; his leg felt on fire, but he was able to crawl over to the drain valve.

  He didn’t have much time. In order to open the drain he would have to use both hands. And even then he feared it wouldn’t be enough. The valve wouldn’t have been opened in years. His fear was that he wouldn’t be strong enough without some sort of tool.

  Blood soaked into the thigh of his jeans. He quickly laid down his pistol and grabbed the valve handle with both hands. It didn’t budge. With a curse, he pulled himself up and put all his weight into it. The handle turned a few inches.

  He heard the sound of footfalls on loose gravel. Laura was coming. Any moment, she would be down the hill and around the cistern.

  Zane put everything he had into turning the handle.

  * * *

  LAURA KNEW SHE’D HIT HIM. She’d seen him go down. He’d been heading to the backside of the cistern where the drain was located. He’d managed to stop the flow of water into the tank. She couldn’t hear the women. They would have to be swimming by now. The creek water was cold. They couldn’t last long.

  By now Courtney would have drowned. That thought gave her a moment’s pause as she came off the hillside. Two to go—if she could stop Zane.

  Laura smiled to herself. This would be over soon. She had just reached the road when she saw the dust and heard the roar of a vehicle engine. Company. Even from this distance she could make out a sheriff’s department patrol SUV. McCall.

  “Make my day,” she said under her breath. This day was just getting better.

  She could hear Zane trying to open the old drain. Good luck with that, she thought as the patrol car zoomed up the road. Laura crouched down in front of her pickup to wait. There was time. Even if Zane got the drain open, it would take a while for the water to drain enough to get the door open.

  * * *

  THE HANDLE TURNED. Zane heard a clunk, the sound of the lock released. He fell back, pulling the drain lid open. Water began to gush out. Inside the cistern, he heard the faint sound of women’s voices. He couldn’t make out the words but there were at least two women in there, still alive.

  The water was rushing out quickly. If they could just stay afloat a little longer…

  Picking up his gun, he knew he couldn’t stay here. He would be a sitting duck. Actually, he was surprised Laura hadn’t already found him. She would know where he’d been headed. So where was she?

  He listened. That’s when he heard the sound of a vehicle coming. But there was another noise as well. He looked up and saw a small plane headed in this direction.

  * * *

  DEPUTY HALLEY ROBINSON SLOWED as the well house came into view. Two pickups. The one Mrs. Crowley had been driving. The other must be Zane’s.

  She didn’t see anyone as she pulled up behind Zane’s truck. She cut her engine and opened the door, pulling her weapon as she did. Staying behind the driver’s side door, she peered around the edge. She could hear water running.

  “Zane!” she called. “Zane?”

  He appeared at the lower edge of the cistern. She could see that his left leg was soaked with blood. He leaned against the stone structure, a gun in his hand, and motioned for her to stay back.

  “Mrs. Crowley is Laura. She’s got a gun!” he called.

  Halley took in what she could see of the area. No sign of the housekeeper. Or anyone else.

  She listened and heard running water. Closer, crickets chirped in the tall grass. The sun beat down. Nothing moved.

  Halley never heard her. At the last minute, she sensed the woman behind her. She felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. As she started to swing around, she felt a viselike arm come around her neck. The barrel of a gun jabbed into her back. Her own weapon was wrenched out of her hand.

  In the SUV’s side mirror, Halley caught a glimpse of the woman she’d known as Mrs. Crowley. The scar was gone. So was the one white eye, the one dark eye. Two very blue eyes burned too brightly from a face that was surprisingly attractive.

  She’d always wondered about the first Mrs. Chisholm and what it would be like coming face-to-face with a monster. Now she knew.

  “Don’t think for a moment that I won’t kill you,” Laura said.

  Halley didn’t. She’d almost been killed by someone much tamer than this woman when she worked on the West Coast.

  “Zane!” Laura called. “I have Halley.” She jabbed the deputy hard in the back.

  Halley let out a cry.

  Zane appeared at the bottom edge of the cistern again.

  “I need you to throw down your gun,” Laura said. “Then I need you to toss me your truck keys. If you don’t, I will kill your future sister-in-law.”

  Zane hesitated only a moment. He tossed his gun away from him, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. He threw them up on the road just a few yards from them.

  Halley heard the airplane. It sounded as if it was going to land on them as it zoomed just over their heads.

  “Today is your lucky day,” Laura said, and gave Halley a shove that sent her over the edge of the road and rolling down the slope to the creek.

  A moment later, Halley heard a pickup engine fire. Gravel pelted the patrol SUV as Laura spun the tires on the truck and took off down the road.

  * * *

  DAKOTA HEARD THE SOUND of someone trying to open the door. The water had drained down until they could stand, but the cold creek water still pooled around their ankles. They were weak from the exertion of swimming. The cold water had zapped all their strength and all three of them were shivering convulsively. She worried that if they didn’t get out soon, they would die of hypothermia.

  When the door swung open, the first thing Dakota saw was Zane’s face in the bright sunlight that poured in.

  She stumbled to him, only then seeing the bandana tied around his thigh, the blood-soaked jeans and the lack of color in his handsome face. He grabbed her, holding her tightly against him as Halley wrapped a blanket around Emma and Courtney and helped them out into the sunshine.

  Dakota began to cry as she pulled back to look into Zane’s face. She’d feared that she would die in the cistern and never get to see him again. She’d known he’d come for her, prayed that he would be safe.

  “We have to get Zane to the hospital,” Halley was saying. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  As Courtney and Emma climbed into the patrol SUV, Halley helped Dakota get Zane into the back. Halley gave her a blanket from the back and Zane held her. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  Halley slid in behind the wheel and took off toward Whitehorse.

  “Laura?” Emma asked, her teeth chattering.

  “She got away,” Halley said.

  “I don’t think so,” Zane said as he motioned out the side window. In the distance they could see the pickup barreling down the road, a cloud of dust boiling up as it went.

  A small airplane wa
s coming from the other direction. It was headed right for the pickup.

  * * *

  LAURA SAW THE PLANE COMING directly at her. Hoyt. So this was how it would end, she thought, and sped up. She just hoped she got a good look at his face before she died—and he got a good look at hers.

  As the plane roared toward her, sun glinted off its windshield. She squinted, trying desperately to see the man behind the controls as she braced herself for impact.

  She’d been so sure he would kill himself before he’d let her get away that she hadn’t been paying attention to the road ahead.

  At the last minute, the pilot pulled up. The plane’s belly practically scraped the top of the pickup’s cab—he’d called it that close. It happened so fast. All she could see was the plane out the pickup windshield, then it was gone and she was staring not at the road ahead but open, rugged country.

  The road had turned and she hadn’t even noticed. She hit the brakes but the pickup was going too fast. It began to skid and hit the edge of the road hard, slamming her against the door.

  She fought to get control as the truck dropped down into the ditch. She could see the embankment coming up and braced herself as the pickup went airborne.

  The truck plummeted over the embankment and nose-dived into the ground at the bottom. Her head snapped back hard. She saw stars, then darkness before the pickup came to a stop half-buried in dirt and sagebrush not two miles from the Chisholm ranch house she’d once called home.

  When she opened her eyes, Hoyt was beside the pickup, staring at her through what was left of the shattered side window. He had a gun in his hand.

  “You can’t kill me,” she said, sneering at him.

  He raised the gun as she fumbled for her own weapon. Hadn’t she always known this was the way it had to end?

  She pulled out her gun, but never got to aim before he fired.

  * * *

  “WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE your daughter?” The nurse brought the blanket-wrapped bundle over to her and put the infant into her arms.

  McCall stared down at her daughter and felt tears rush to her eyes. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Just like her mother,” Luke said as he leaned over to look at his daughter.

  All McCall could do was stare at the infant in awe. “We did this?”

  Luke laughed. “Yes, honey, we did.”

  “I wondered how I would feel when I held my baby.” She looked up at her husband. “There are no words.”

  “You’re going to be a great mother. You know that now, don’t you?”

  McCall nodded, too choked up to speak. She didn’t know if she would be great, but she did know she would give it everything she had. And, unlike her mother, she had Luke.

  “They said I have a great-granddaughter,” Pepper Winchester said as she stuck her head in the doorway.

  McCall smiled at her grandmother and turned the bundle in her arms so Pepper could see her. Pepper’s eyes filled at the sight of the infant. She reached for McCall’s hand and squeezed it.

  McCall fought her own tears at the sight of the grandmother she’d never known until recently crying over this new life. Strange the twists and turns life takes, she thought. Her daughter would know her great-grandmother. She would have more family than McCall would ever have been able to imagine. Dozens of cousins, loads of people who loved her.

  As if on cue, her own mother came into the room. Ruby stopped a few feet away and seemed to be waiting for an invitation.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Pepper snapped at the daughter-in-law she’d denied for twenty-seven years. “Come see your grandbaby.”

  Ruby smiled and came over to the bed. Her eyes widened. “It’s a girl?”

  McCall nodded.

  “Have you chosen a name?” Pepper asked.

  “Tracey, after my father,” McCall said, and heard Pepper let out a sob. “Tracey Winchester Crawford.” Pepper covered her mouth with her hand for a moment, tears spilling from her eyes, as if fighting to keep from bawling.

  Her husband and the man Pepper had loved since she was sixteen came up behind her and put an arm around her. She turned to press her face into his broad chest. Hunt smiled at McCall over his wife’s shoulder and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  “Is that all right with you?” McCall asked her mother.

  Ruby nodded. “I know your father would have liked that.”

  Epilogue

  Zane woke in the hospital room to find Dakota asleep in the chair next to his bed and Dr. Carrey standing nearby, writing something in his chart.

  “She refused to leave here,” Doc said of Dakota, keeping his voice down. “I got her into the only dry clothes we had.”

  Dakota was dressed in hospital scrubs. She couldn’t have looked cuter.

  “The bullet didn’t hit any bone so I think it should heal nicely,” Doc was saying. “You just won’t be running any footraces for a while.”

  “Are Emma and Courtney all right?” he asked. He’d been surprised to see Courtney come out of the cistern, surprised and thankful. All charges against him would be dropped now.

  “They’re fine. Both were treated and released. You do have another visitor, though. He’s been waiting for you to wake up.”

  Doc left. A moment later, Hoyt came in. He glanced at the sleeping Dakota and smiled. “How are you, son?”

  “Doc says I’m going to be fine. Emma and Courtney are all right, too, he said.”

  His father nodded.

  “Did Laura…”

  “She’s dead.”

  Zane studied his father’s face. “I’m sorry.”

  Hoyt let out a sound like a cross between a laugh and a sob. “I’m not. I’m just sorry she put my family through so much.”

  “We’re Chisholms. We’re pretty resilient.”

  His father smiled. “Yes,” he said. “We are. Well, I best get home. Emma’s got the rest of the family building on to the dining room. She says the current one isn’t going to be able to hold all of us.” He glanced toward Dakota, who was starting to stir. “I suppose she’s right about that.”

  * * *

  DAKOTA OPENED HER EYES to see Zane grinning at her. She was reminded of the boy she’d known, that cocky rodeo cowboy who used to grin at her just like that.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he said as he reached for her hand.

  She took it and let him pull her out of the chair and into his arms. “Easy, you’re injured.”

  “Doc was just here. I’m fine and as soon as I get out of here…” His grin widened.

  She shook her head, wanting to pinch herself. Hadn’t this been her girlhood dream? She thought about the diary Courtney had taken, no longer caring if it came to light. She’d been afraid of her feelings for Zane, afraid that he could never feel the way she did for him.

  Wasn’t that what had made Laura so crazy? She’d believed that her love was greater than Hoyt’s and it had driven her insane. If she wasn’t half-crazy before that.

  “There’s something I need to ask you,” Zane said, suddenly serious. “This isn’t the way I planned it. All the way, racing up to the well house, I had this romantic plan how I was going to ask you to marry me.” He shook his head. “But when I woke up to find you asleep in that chair next to my bed…”

  “Your sanity came back?” she joked.

  His gaze locked with hers. “I realized anywhere is the perfect place and I can’t wait another moment. Dakota, marry me. I know this might feel sudden, but we’ve known each other since we were kids and—”

  “Yes,” she said, leaning down to kiss him.

  He laughed and pulled her down for another kiss.

  “Easy, cowboy.”

  “I love you, Dakota. I’ve always loved you from the first time I saw you try to ride a sheep. You must have been five at the time. I’d never seen a little girl with so much grit.” He laughed. “I was so impressed when that sheep stopped and you did a face-plant in the dirt, and got up and didn’t even cry as you dusted yoursel
f off and walked away.”

  “I went behind the rodeo stands and cried. Mostly I was mad at myself for not staying on longer.” She touched his cheek. “I’ve always loved you. As a matter of fact, I kept a diary and in it I said that someday I was going to marry you.”

  “And now you are,” he said, and started to kiss her again but was interrupted by a sound at the door.

  They both turned to find Courtney standing there.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to say goodbye and how sorry I am for everything,” her sister said.

  “Where are you going?” Dakota asked.

  “Back to Great Falls. My mother…” Her voice broke. “My real mother, Camilla, wants me to come stay with her awhile until I figure out what I want to do with my life.”

  “I’m going to walk Courtney out,” Dakota said. Zane squeezed her hand.

  “Again, I’m sorry, Zane.”

  He nodded. “Put it behind you, Courtney. We have.”

  Dakota walked her out. “How are you getting home?”

  “I’m taking the bus.” Courtney looked away. “Do you think things like this happen for a reason? I mean, that they can completely change your life?”

  “I do.”

  Her sister raised her gaze. “Sometime, I’d like to know more about my father.”

  Dakota nodded. “We’re sisters, Courtney. The same blood runs through our veins. When you’re ready, come back. I’ve always wanted a sister.” She stepped up to Courtney and hugged her. Her sister hugged her tight. “Be happy.”

  “You, too,” Courtney said. “You and Zane belong together. Send me a wedding invitation,” she said with a grin.

  “I won’t need to. You’re going to be standing right next to me as my maid of honor.”

  * * *

  EMMA LOOKED AROUND the large dining room table. Glad I talked Hoyt into adding on, she thought with a smile as she took in her family.

  A little more than a year ago, she’d come here as a new bride to find she had six rambunctious and wild stepsons all in need of a woman to tame them. To think she’d thought she was the one to find them the perfect mates.

  “What are you smiling about?” her father asked. Alonso had finally decided he’d better fly up from California and see how his daughter was doing.