Unforgiven. B.J. Daniels
Carson took a long gulp of his drink and pushed himself off the edge of the bar to walk around the room. WT tried to still the anger roiling inside him. He knew Carson was upset about being summoned home. Just as he’d been upset about being sent away eleven years ago.
He watched his son take in the den he’d had built so it looked out over the ranch with a view that ran from the mountains to the river. WT joined him at the bank of windows.
The valley was aglow with golden afternoon light. WT loved the way his land swept down from the base of the mountains in a pale swatch of rich pasture, hay and alfalfa fields to the river. Much of the land had dried to the color of corn silk. It was broken only by rocky outcroppings, hilly slopes of pine and the rust hues of the foliage along the creeks that snaked through the property.
It was an awe-inspiring sight that he feared was wasted on his son.
Carson finally spoke. “Even if everything turns out the way you think it will, I don’t understand why I have to learn the business. Destry’s doing a great job running the ranch, isn’t she?”
“She has only been filling in until you returned.”
“Does she know that?” his son asked, his tone rimmed with sarcasm.
WT took a swallow of his drink, giving himself time to rope in his anger. “I want you to run the ranch.”
“What about my sister? She isn’t some horse you can put out to pasture.”
WT let out a curse. “She needs to find a man and get married before it’s too late for her.”
He thought of the times she’d come home from a branding or calving filthy dirty as if she thought she was one of the ranch hands.
“It’s unseemly for a woman to be working with ranch hands,” he said, repeating what he’d told Destry more times than he cared to recall. Like her mother had been, she wasn’t one to take advice. Especially from him. “She needs to start acting respectable.”
“Maybe you haven’t heard, but women can vote now.”
“Biggest mistake this country ever made,” he said, only half joking. He thought of Lila and the trouble he’d had with her. Women were too headstrong and independent. He still believed a woman’s place was in the home and said as much to his son.
Carson didn’t seem to be listening. He stood staring down into his drink. WT wondered what he hoped to find there. Carson had always been moody as a boy. His mother’s doing when he was young, WT thought with a curse. Why couldn’t Carson have been more like Destry?
That thought made his stomach churn. People said Destry was too much like him. They had no idea.
When Carson looked up at him again, his expression was both angry and guilty. “You take this ranch away from my sister and you’ll kill her. Hasn’t she lost enough because of me?”
“You talking about that no-count rodeo cowboy Rylan West?”
“She loved him and would have married him if—”
“She’s not marrying him any more than you’re marrying that whor—”
“Careful, that’s my fiancée.”
WT looked at him hard, then laughed. “You’re not fooling me with this halfhearted protest about not wanting to take the ranch away from your sister any more than you are with this ridiculous engagement. You have no intention of marrying that woman.”
“Don’t I?”
“Well, let me put it to you this way. You marry that woman and I’ll leave this whole place and every dime I have to some goddamned charity.”
Carson cocked his head at him and smiled. “Now who’s bluffing?”
WT smiled back. “The difference is I can afford to call your bluff. I suspect you don’t have that luxury.” He narrowed his gaze, feeling his ire rise even higher. “You have no choice if you want my help with the sheriff. You’ll stay here and take over the ranch. Or you can go it alone without another dime from me. There is no third option and, from what I’ve heard, you might be in need of a damned good lawyer soon. I hope I’ve made myself clear,” he said as his cook and housekeeper, Margaret, rang the dinner bell.
“Perfectly,” Carson said and drained his glass.
* * *
NETTIE BENTON AT THE Beartooth General Store was the first person to see Carson Grant driving by in that fancy red sports car.
It wasn’t blind luck that she’d been standing at the front window of the store when Carson drove past. The once natural redhead, now dyed Sunset Sienna to cover the gray, spent most of her days watching the world pass by her window at a snail’s pace. It was why, as the storeowner, she often knew more of what was going on than anyone else in these parts.
“Bob,” she called to her husband. No answer. “Must have already gone home,” she muttered to herself. The two of them lived behind the store on the side of the mountain. Bob didn’t spend much time in the store his parents had turned over to them when they’d gotten married thirty years ago. He didn’t have to.
“Nettie loves minding the store—and everyone’s business,” he was fond of saying.
Nettie hurriedly grabbed the phone and began calling everyone she knew to tell them about Carson Grant.
“Nettie?” Bob called from the office in the back. “What’s all the commotion out there?”
Not only was Bob getting hard of hearing—at least hard of hearing her—he wouldn’t appreciate her news. Though he might have enjoyed seeing the bleached blonde with Carson.
“It’s Carson Grant,” she said as she stepped to the office doorway.
Bob didn’t look up from the bills he’d been sorting through. “What about him?” he asked distractedly.
“He’s back in Beartooth.”
Her husband’s head jerked up in surprise. “What?”
“I saw him drive past not thirty minutes ago.” She’d recognized Carson right off, even though it had been years since she’d laid eyes on him.
“Why would he come back now?” Bob asked, clearly upset. But then most of the county would be upset, as well.
“I would imagine it has something to do with the rumor circulating about new evidence in Ginny West’s murder.”
“What new evidence?”
“I heard it was some kind of fancy hair clip one of the kids found over at the old theater. Now they’re speculating that she might have actually been killed there and not out on the road.” She frowned. “Are you all right?”
Bob was holding his stomach as if something he ate hadn’t agreed with him. “You give me indigestion,” he said angrily as he shoved the bills away and pushed himself to his feet. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t making all of this up.”
“It was Carson Grant, sure as I’m standing here.”
“What I want to know is why he wasn’t arrested years ago?” Bob demanded. “Everyone knows he killed that poor girl. If your sheriff can’t figure that out, then there’s something wrong with him.”
Her sheriff? “Well, I, for one, am not convinced Carson did it,” she said as he pushed past her and headed for the back door and home.
“The fact that you’re the only one who believes that should tell you something, Nettie.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond as he slammed out the back door.
Surprised, since that was the most passion she’d seen in her husband in years, maybe ever, she wandered back to the front store window to entertain herself until she was forced to wait on a customer, should