Forsaken. B.J. Daniels
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Danger runs high and passions burn hot in Montana’s wild country
Big-city detective Bentley Jamison is a long way from home in the Beartooth wilderness when one of local rancher Maddie Conner’s ranch hands goes missing. Towering mountains and a small, tight community are as unfamiliar to Jamison as herding sheep, but he’s never shied away from a challenge. As the new deputy sheriff, he’s sworn to protect every inch of this rough terrain—starting with unraveling a mystery that has left Maddie a wide-open target.
Maddie’s as beautiful—and untamable—as the land around them. Like Jamison, she won’t back down from danger. But desire that flares hotter than their tempers only raises the stakes when a fierce storm traps them in the high mountains. Caught in a killer’s sights, Jamison and Maddie must trust one another, because now survival…and love…are all that matter.
Dear Reader,
When I worked as a features writer for the newspaper, I did a story about a sheepherder and his “tender” who’d spent three months back in the Beartooths—only them and a huge band of sheep.
It was the tender, a young man whose job it was to keep camp, that gave me the idea for Forsaken. The teen was so glad to be out of the mountains and told harrowing stories about his summer that included grizzly bears, storms and rough dangerous terrain.
What would it take to send a young man like that racing out of those mountains in absolute terror? And what about the widowed sheep rancher who must go into the remote area to check on not only her sheep—but her sheepherder? That was when my story was born.
I hope you enjoy the trip back into the Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains.
B.J. Daniels
Forsaken
B.J. Daniels
This book is dedicated to the Western ranchers, sheepherders and tenders who used to trail sheep to summer pastures in the “Beartooths.”
In 2003, after three months and 150 miles, the last band of sheep made the round trip for summer range in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth mountains, ending an era that dates back to the late 19th century.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
THE HORSE STUMBLED under him as he plunged down the steep mountainside, but he spurred on the mare. Around him, the dark pines swayed and sighed in the wind as he crashed down through them, his only thought to reach the ranch alive.
Terror quilled the hair on the back of his neck, but he didn’t dare turn around. Fighting to stay in the saddle, he raced along the creek before charging into the fast-running stream. The clear water showered up in an icy wave that soaked him to the skin and stole his breath.
His horse bolted up the other side, forcing him to cling to the saddle horn to stay on his mount. A pine bough caught him in the face, a sharp twig scraping across his cheek and cutting into his flesh.
Behind him, he heard a familiar sound over the roar of his pulse and the howling wind and the thundering hooves of his horse echoing through the timber. Behind him was that unearthly silence that had chased him out of the Beartooth Mountains.
Even as he rode the horse harder, he knew he’d never be able to outrun it—or the smell of death lingering on his skin.
* * *
DEPUTY SHERIFF BENTLEY JAMISON was the only one in the office when the call came in.
“That you, Frank?” a grating elderly male voice asked when the dispatcher put the call through.
“Sheriff Frank Curry is out of the office. This is Deputy Sheriff Bentley Jamison. What can I do for you?”
“Bentley Jamison? Never heard of you.”
Jamison must have said the next words a dozen times a day since he’d recently joined the force. “I’m new.”
“Huh,” the man said with a chuckle. “Bet you ain’t from around here, either.”
That was a bet the man would win. At least he hadn’t asked what most people did on meeting the new deputy. “What the devil are you doing way out here?”
“What can I do for you?” Jamison asked.
“Well, this is Fuzz Carpenter. You don’t know me, but I just run across a kid comin’ out of the Beartooths. He was a-ridin’ hell-bent for leather like the devil was chasin’ him. Had blood all over him. I flagged him down to try to find out what was wrong, but he wasn’t makin’ an ounce of sense. All I could get out of him was that he worked for the Diamond C sheep ranch. That’s ’bout all I can tell ya, exceptin’