Wedding at Cardwell Ranch
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B. J. Daniels
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16.7K
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The highly anticipated continuation of the Cardwell Ranch Collection, read by more than 2 MILLION! Jackson Cardwell won't stop until she is safe. In Montana for his brother's nuptials, Jackson Cardwell isn't looking to be anybody's hero. But the Texas single father knows a beautiful lady in distress when he meets her. Someone's hell-bent on making Allie Taylor think she's losing her mind. Jackson's determined to unmask the perp…and guard the widowed wedding planner and her little girl with his life. Allie has no idea who wants to harm her and take her daughter away. The truth is even more shocking. For Allie's past has stalked her to Cardwell Ranch. And not even the sexy cowboy who awakens irresistible passion may be able to save her from a killer with a chilling agenda.
Chapter One
Allison Taylor brushed back a lock of her hair and willed herself not to scream.
“Is something wrong?” her brother-in-law asked from the kitchen doorway, startling her and making her jump.
She dropped the heavy covered pot she’d taken from the pantry a little too hard onto the counter. The lid shifted, but not enough that she could see inside.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Drew Taylor said with a laugh as he lounged against the kitchen door frame. “I was cravin’ some of your famous chili, but I think maybe we should go out.”
“I just need a minute. If you could see to Natalie...”
“She’s still asleep. I just checked.” Drew studied her for a long moment. Like his brother, he had russet-brown hair and dark brown eyes and classic good looks. His mother had assured both of her sons that they were wonderful. Fortunately Drew had taken it with a grain of salt—unlike his brother Nick.
“Are you okay, Allie? I’ve been so worried about you since Nick...”
“I’m fine.” She didn’t want to talk about her presumed-dead husband. She really just wanted her brother-in-law to go into the other room and leave her alone for a moment.
Drew had been a godsend. She didn’t know what she would have done without him, she thought as she pulled a band from her jeans pocket and secured her long, blond hair in a single tail at the back of her head.
When she’d mentioned how nice his brother was to Nick shortly after they married, he’d scoffed.
“Just be glad he likes you. He’s about the only one in my family,” he had added with a laugh.
“Why don’t you let me help you with that,” Drew said now as he took a step toward her. He frowned as his gaze went to the pot and the pile of ingredients she’d already stacked up on the counter. The chili pot was the last thing she’d brought into the kitchen from the porch of the small cabin. “You kept the pot?”
So his mother had told him about the incident.
He must think I’m losing my mind just like his mother and sister do.
The worst part was she feared they were right.
Allie looked down at the heavy cast-iron pot with its equally heavy cast-iron lid. Her hand trembled as she reached for the handle. The memory of the last time she’d lifted that lid—and what she’d found inside—sent a shudder through her.
The covered cast-iron casserole pot, enameled white inside and the color of fresh blood on the outside, had been a wedding present from her in-laws.
“She does know how to cook, doesn’t she?” her mother-in-law, Mildred, had asked all those years ago as if Allie hadn’t been standing there. Mildred was a twig-thin woman who took pride in these things: her petite, slim, fifty-eight-year-old body, her sons and her standing in the community. Her daughter, Sarah, was just the opposite of her mother, overweight and dumpy by comparison. And Mildred was always making that comparison to anyone who would listen, including Sarah.
Mildred was on her fourth husband and lived in one of the more modest mansions at Big Sky. Of her two sons, Nick had been the baby—and clearly her favorite.
Nick had laughed that day when his mother had asked if his new wife could cook. “She makes pretty good chili, I’ll give her that,” he told Mildred. “But that’s not why I married her.” He’d given Allie a side hug, grinning like a fool and making her blush to the roots of her hair.
Nick had liked to say he had the prettiest wife in town. “Just make sure you stay that way,” he’d always add. “You start looking like my sister and you can pack your bags.”
The red, cast-iron, covered pot she was now reaching for had become her chili pot.
“Allie, I thought you’d thrown that pot away!” Drew reached to stop her, knocking the lid off in the effort. It clattered to the counter.
Allie lunged back, her arm going up protectively to shield her face. But this time the pot was empty. No half-dead squirrel inside it.
“I’m throwing this pot in the trash,” Drew announced. “If just the sight of it upsets you—”
“No, your mother will have a fit.”
“Let her.” He swept pot and lid off the counter and carried it out to the garbage can.
When he came back into the room, he looked at her and shook his head. “Allie, you’ve got to pull it together. Maybe you should go back to the doctor and see if there is something else he can give you. You’re strung like a piano wire.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need a doctor.” She just needed for whatever was happening to her to stop.
His gaze moved past her, his expression going from a concerned frown to a smile. “Hey, girl,” he said as his five-year-old niece came into the kitchen. He stepped past Allie to swing Nat into his arms. “I came over to check on the two of you. Mama was going to cook us some dinner but I think we should go out to eat. What do you say?”
Allie started to argue that she couldn’t let Drew do any more for them and she sure couldn’t afford to go out to eat, but stopped as her daughter said, “Are you sick, Mama?” Her precious daughter looked to her with concern. Allie saw the worry in Nat’s angelic face. She’d seen it too much lately. It was bad enough that Natalie had recently lost her father. Now more than ever she needed her mother to be sane.
“I’m fine, sweetie. It’s too hot for chili, anyway. So let’s go out, why not?” Allie said, relieved and thankful for Drew. Not just for coming by to check on them, but for throwing out the pot. She hadn’t because her mother-in-law was upset enough and the Taylors were the only family she had, especially now.
“Just let me freshen up and change,” she said as Drew took Nat to look for her shoes.
In the bathroom, Allie locked the door, turned on the shower and stripped off her clothes. She was still sweating from fear, her heart beating hard against her chest.
“You found a what in the chili pot?” her mother-in-law had asked in disbelief when Allie had called her—a huge mistake in retrospect. But at the time, she’d hoped her mother-in-law would understand why she couldn’t keep the pot. Why she didn’t want it in her house.
“I found a squirrel in that cast-iron pot you gave me. When I picked up the lid—”
“No way would a squirrel get into your cabin, let alone climb under a heavy lid like that. Why would it? You must have imagined it. Are you still on those drugs the doctor gave you after my Nicky died?”
Allie’s husband had always been “my Nicky” to his mother while Mildred had insisted Allie call her “Mother Taylor.”
“No, Mother Taylor, I told you.” Allie’s own mother had died when she was nineteen. Her father had moved, remarried and started a new family. They’d lost touch. “I quit taking the pills a long time ago.”
“I think it’s those pills,” Mildred had said as if Allie hadn’t spoken. “You said they had you seeing things that weren’t there.”
“The squirrel was there. I had to take it out back and—”
“If I were you, I’d talk to your doctor. Why do you need the pills, anyway? It isn’t like you’re still grieving over my Nicky. Charlotte Reynolds told me she saw you having lunch the other day, you and Natalie, and you were laughing.”
Allie had closed her eyes, remembering the lunch in question. “I am trying to make things more normal for Nat.”
“Well, it looks bad, you having a good time while your poor husband is barely cold in his grave.”
She wanted to mention that Nick wasn’t in his grave, but knew better than to bring that up. “It’s been eight months.”
“Like you have to tell me that!” Mildred sniffed and blew her nose. She’d cried constantly over the death of her favorite son and couldn’t understand why Allie wasn’t still doing the same.
“We all grieve in our own way and I have a young daughter to raise,” Allie had said more times than she wanted to recall.
The phone call had ended with Mildred crying and talking about what a wonderful man her Nicky had been. A lie at best. He’d been a lousy husband and an even worse father, but now that he was dead, he would always be the wonderful man Mildred remembered.
After that, she’d learned her lesson. She kept the other crazy things that had been happening to herself. If Mildred knew, she would have her in a straitjacket. And little Nat...? She couldn’t bear to think about Mildred having anything to do with raising her daughter.
“So,” Drew said as she and Nat sat across from him in a booth at a local café later that evening. “Did I hear you’ve gone back to work?”
It was impossible to keep anything a secret in this canyon, Allie thought. She had hoped to keep it from the Taylor family as long as possible.
“Dana Savage called me about doing a Western wedding up at her ranch for her cousin Tag and his soon-to-be wife, Lily.” She didn’t mention that she’d accepted the job several months ago. Or how badly she needed the money. With the investigation into Nick’s presumed death still unresolved, the insurance company was holding off paying her. Not that it would last long if she didn’t get back to work.
Her mother-in-law kept mentioning “that big insurance check my Nicky left you,” but the insurance money would barely cover a couple years of Natalie’s college, if that. And Allie hoped to invest it for that very use.
“I’ve been doing some work at Cardwell Ranch. Nice people to work for. But are you sure you’re up to it?” Drew asked quietly, real concern in his tone. “Mother mentioned that she was worried about you. She said you were still taking the pills and they were making you see things?”
Of course Mildred told Drew and his sister, Sarah, everything. Allie tried not to show her irritation. She had no appetite, but she attempted to eat what she could. She didn’t want Drew mentioning to his mother, even accidentally, that she wasn’t eating much. Mildred would make it into her not taking care of herself.
“I’m fine. I’m not taking the pills. I told your mother—”
He held up his hand. “You don’t have to tell me about my mother. She hears only what she wants to hear. I’m on your side. I think going back to work might be the best thing for you. So what do you plan to do with Natalie? I don’t have to tell you what Mother is going to say.”
“Nat’s going with me,” Allie said emphatically. “Dana has children she can play with. As a matter of fact, Dana is going to teach Nat to ride a horse.”
Natalie grinned and clapped her small hands excitedly. She was the spitting image of Allie at that age: straight, pale blond hair cut in a bob, green eyes with a pert little nose and deep dimples. Allie got the blond hair from her Scandinavian mother and the green eyes from her Irish father.
There was no sign of the Taylor family in her daughter, something that had caused a lot of speculation from not only Nick, but his mother.
Nat quickly told her uncle that it would be a very gentle horse and Dana’s kids Hank and Mary were riding before they were even her age. “The twins are too young to ride yet,” she announced.
“Dana wouldn’t let Nat do it if she thought it wasn’t all right,” Allie added.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Drew said, but she could tell that he already knew what her mother-in-law was going to have to say about it. “Cardwell Ranch is where the wedding is going to be, I take it?”
“The wedding will be in a meadow on the ranch with the reception and a lot of other events in the large, old barn.”
“You know that we’ve been invited,” Drew said almost in warning.
The canyon was its own little community, with many of the older families—like Dana’s—that dated back to the eighteen hundreds before there was even a paved road through it. Mildred Taylor must be delighted to be invited to a wedding of a family that was like old canyon royalty. Mother Taylor might resent the Cardwell clan, say things behind their back, but she would never outright defy them since everyone loved Dana Cardwell Savage and had held great respect for her mother, Mary Justice.
“How are things with you?” Allie asked.
“Everything’s fine.” He smiled but she’d seen the lines around his eyes and had heard that his construction company was struggling without Nick.
He’d been so generous with her and Natalie that she feared he was giving away money he didn’t have.
She was just thankful when the meal was over and Drew dropped her and Nat off at the small cabin in the Gallatin Canyon where she’d lived with Nick until his disappearance. The canyon as it was known, ran from the mouth just south of Gallatin Gateway almost to West Yellowstone, fifty miles of winding road that trailed the river in a deep cut through the mountains.
The drive along the Gallatin River was breathtaking, a winding strip of highway that followed the blue-ribbon trout stream up over the Continental Divide. In the summer as it was now, the Gallatin ran crystal clear over tinted green boulders. Pine trees grew dark and thick along its edge and against the steep mountains. Aspens, their leaves bright green, grew among the pines.
Sheer rock cliffs overlooked the highway and river, with small areas of open land. The canyon had been mostly cattle and dude ranches, a few summer cabins and homes—that was until Big Sky resort and the small town that followed developed at the foot of Lone Mountain.
Luxury houses had sprouted up all around the resort, with Mother Taylor’s being one of them. Fortunately, some of the original cabins still remained and the majority of the canyon was National Forest so it would always remain undeveloped.
Allie’s was one of the older cabins. Because it was small and not in great shape, Nick had gotten a good deal on it. Being in construction, he’d promised to enlarge it and fix all the things wrong with it. That hadn’t happened.
After Drew left, Allie didn’t hurry inside the cabin. It was a nice summer night, the stars overhead glittering brightly and a cool breeze coming up from the river.
She had begun to hate the cabin—and her fear of what might be waiting for her inside it. Nick had been such a force of nature to deal with that his presence seemed to have soaked into the walls. Sometimes she swore she could hear his voice. Often she found items of his clothing lying around the house as if he was still there—even though she’d boxed up his things and taken them to the local charity shop months ago.
Just the thought of what might be waiting for her inside the cabin this time made her shudder as she opened the door and stepped in, Nat at her side.
She hadn’t heard Nick’s voice since she’d quit taking the drugs. Until last night. When she’d come into the living room, half-asleep, she’d found his favorite shirt lying on the floor by the couch. She’d actually thought she smelled his aftershave even though she’d thrown the bottle away.
The cabin looked just as she’d left it. Letting out a sigh of relief, she put Nat to bed and tried to convince herself she hadn’t heard Nick’s voice last night. Even the shirt that she’d remembered picking up and thinking it felt warm and smelled of Nick before she’d dropped it over the back of the couch was gone this morning, proving the whole incident had been nothing but a bad dream.
“Good night, sweetheart,” she said and kissed her daughter’s forehead.
“Night,” Nat said sleepily and closed her eyes.
Allie felt as if her heart was going to burst when she looked at her precious daughter. She couldn’t let Mildred get her hands on Nat. But if the woman thought for a moment that Allie was incapable of raising her daughter...
She quickly turned out the light and tiptoed out of the room. For a moment, she stood in the small living area. Nick’s shirt wasn’t over the back of the couch so that was a relief.
So many times she had stood here and wished her life could be different. Nick had been so sweet while they were dating. She’d really thought she’d met her Prince Charming—until after the wedding and she met the real Nick Taylor.
She sighed, remembering her decision soon after the wedding to leave him and have the marriage annulled, but then she’d realized she was pregnant. Had she really been so naive as to think a baby would change Nick into the man she’d thought she’d married?
Shaking her head now, she looked around the cabin, remembering all the ideas she had to fix the place up and make it a home. Nick had hated them all and they had ended up doing nothing to the cabin.
Well, she could do what she wanted now, couldn’t she? But she knew, even if she had the money, she didn’t have the heart for it. She would never be able to exorcize Nick’s ghost from this house. What she really wanted was to sell the cabin and move. She promised herself she would—once everything with Nick’s death was settled.
Stepping into her bedroom, she was startled to see a pile of her clothes on her bed. Had she taken them out of the closet earlier when she’d changed to go to dinner? Her heart began to pound. She’d been upset earlier but she wouldn’t have just thrown her clothes on the bed like that.
Then how had they gotten there? She’d locked the cabin when she’d left.
Panicked, she raced through the house to see if anything was missing or if any of the doors or windows had been broken into. Everything was just as she’d left it—except for the clothes on her bed.
Reluctantly, she walked back into her bedroom half-afraid the clothes wouldn’t still be on the bed. Another hallucination?
The clothes were there. Unfortunately, that didn’t come as a complete relief. Tonight at dinner, she’d worn capris, a blouse and sandals since it was June in Montana. Why would she have pulled out what appeared to be almost everything she owned from the closet? No, she realized, not everything. These were only the clothes that Nick had bought her.
Tears blurred her eyes as she started to pick up one of the dresses. Like the others, she hated this dress because it reminded her of the times he’d made her wear it and how the night had ended. It was very low cut in the front. She’d felt cheap in it and told him so but he’d only laughed.
“When you’ve got it, flaunt it,” he’d said. “That’s what I say.”
Why hadn’t she gotten rid of these clothes? For the same reason she hadn’t thrown out the chili pot after the squirrel incident. She hadn’t wanted to upset her mother-in-law. Placating Mother Taylor had begun right after Allie had married her son. It was just so much easier than arguing with the woman.
“Nick said you don’t like the dresses he buys you,” Mildred had said disapprovingly one day when she’d stopped by the cabin and asked Allie why she wasn’t wearing the new dress. “There is nothing wrong with looking nice for your husband.”
“The dresses he buys me are just more revealing than I feel comfortable with.”
Her mother-in-law had mugged a face. “You’d better loosen up and give my son what he wants or he’ll find someone who will.”
Now as she reached for the dress on the top of the pile, she told herself she would throw them out, Mother Taylor be damned.
But the moment she touched the dress, she let out a cry of surprise and panic. The fabric had jagged cuts down the front. She stared in horror as she saw other deep, angry-looking slices in the fabric. Who had done this?
Her heart in her throat, she picked up another of the dresses Nick had made her wear. Her sewing scissors clattered to the bedroom floor. She stared down at the scissors in horror, then at the pile of destroyed clothing. All of the dresses Nick had bought her had been ruined.
Allie shook her head as she dropped the dress in her hand and took a step back from the bed. Banging into the closed closet doors, she fought to breathe, her heart hammering in her chest. Who did this? Who would do this? She remembered her brother-in-law calling from out in the hall earlier, asking what was taking her so long before they’d gone to dinner. But that was because she’d taken a shower to get the smell of her own fear off her. It wasn’t because she was in here cutting up the clothes her dead husband had made her wear.
Tears welled in her eyes, making the room blur. She shoved that bitter thought away and wiped at her tears. She wouldn’t have done this. She couldn’t have.
Suddenly, she turned and stared at the closed closet door with mounting fear. Slowly, she reached for the knob, her hand trembling. As the closet door came open, she froze. Her eyes widened in new alarm.
A half dozen new outfits hung in the otherwise nearly empty closet, the price tags still on them. As if sleepwalking, Allie reached for one of the tags and stared in shock at the price. Hurriedly, she checked the others. She couldn’t afford any of them. So where had they come from?
Not only that, the clothes were what she would call “classic,” the type of clothes she’d worn when she’d met Nick. The kind of clothes she’d pleaded with him to let her wear.
“I want other men to look at you and wish they were me,” Nick had said, getting angry.
But when she and Nick went out and she wore the clothes and other men did look, Nick had blamed her.
“You must have given him the eye,” Nick would say as they argued on the way home. “Probably flipped your hair like an invitation. Who knows what you do while I’m at work all day.”
“I take care of your daughter and your house.”
Nick hadn’t let her work after they’d gotten married, even though he knew how much she loved her wedding planning business. “Women who work get too uppity. They think they don’t need a man. No wife of mine is going to work.”
Allie had only the clothes he bought her. She’d purchased little since his death because the money had been so tight. Nick had wanted to know about every cent she’d spent, so she hadn’t been able to save any money, either. Nick paid the bills and gave her a grocery allowance. He said he’d buy her whatever she needed.
Now she stared at the beautiful clothes hanging in her closet. Beautiful blouses and tops. Amazing skirts and pants and dresses. Clothes Nick would have taken out in the yard and burned. But Nick was gone.
Or was he? He still hadn’t been declared legally dead. That thought scared her more than she wanted to admit. What if he suddenly turned up at her door one night?
Was that what was making her crazy? Maybe she had done this. She had yearned for clothing like this and hated the clothes Nick had bought her, so had she subconsciously...
Allie stumbled away from the closet, bumped into the corner of the bed and sat down hard on the floor next to it. Her hand shook as she covered her mouth to keep from screaming. Had she shoplifted these clothes? She couldn’t have purchased them. Just as she couldn’t have cut up the dresses and not remembered. There had to be another explanation. Someone was playing a horrible trick on her.
But even as she pondered it, more rational thoughts came on its heels. Did she really believe that someone had come into the cabin and done this? Who in their right mind would believe that?
Pushing herself up, she crawled over to where she’d dropped her purse as she tried to remember even the last time she’d written a check. Her checkbook wasn’t in her purse. She frowned and realized she must have left it in the desk when she’d paid bills.
Getting up she walked on wobbly legs to the desk in the corner, opened the drawer and took out her checkbook. Her fingers shook with such a tremor that she could barely read what was written in it.
But there it was. A check for more than eight hundred dollars! The handwriting was scrawled, but she knew it had to be hers. She saw the date of the check. Yesterday?
She had dropped Nat off for a playdate and then gone into Bozeman... Could she account for the entire afternoon? Her heart pounded as she tried to remember everything she’d done and when she might have bought these clothes. She’d been wandering around in a daze since Nick’s death. She couldn’t account for every minute of yesterday, but what did that matter? The proof was staring her in the face.
Allie shoved the checkbook into the drawer and tried to pull herself together. She had to think about her daughter.
“You’re fine,” she whispered to herself. “Once you get back to work...” She couldn’t have been more thankful that she had the Cardwell Ranch wedding. More than the money, she needed to do what she loved—planning weddings—and get her mind off everything else.
Once she was out of this house she’d shared with Nick... Yes, then she would be fine. She wouldn’t be so...forgetful. What woman wouldn’t feel she was losing her mind, considering what she’d been going through?
