Wild Horses. B.J. Daniels

EPILOGUE

       Extract

       Copyright

       PROLOGUE

      January 27

      LIFE CHANGED IN an instant. Olivia Hamilton knew that only too well. One minute her mother had been alive. The next gone.

      Tonight, one minute Montana’s night sky had been clear, the next she found herself in the middle of a blizzard—fighting to stay on a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere. Livie had driven in her fair share of winter storms, but this one was getting worse by the moment. She couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead of her through the driving snow. Add to that, she didn’t know the road or even exactly where she was.

      All she knew for sure was that she was stopping at the next small town she came to and getting a motel for the night. She’d call home to let her family know where she was. As for calling Cooper Barnett...

      Just the thought of her fiancé made her grit her teeth. If the man wasn’t so damned stubborn they would have been married by now and she wouldn’t have taken off after their latest fight and ended up on this road alone in the middle of Montana in the winter with the temperature dropping and—

      The highway disappeared so quickly that she didn’t have time to react. Through the windshield all she saw was blowing snow as the SUV suddenly jerked to the right. The tires caught in the deep snow along the edge of the highway. In a heartbeat, the SUV plunged into the ditch. Snow washed over the hood and windshield. Her head slammed into the side window an instant before the airbag exploded in her face. Then everything stopped.

      Livie sat for a moment, too stunned to move. She was still gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles white. It had all happened so quickly that she hadn’t had time to panic. Now, though, she began to shake, tears burning her eyes as she realized the desperate situation she’d put herself in. She could feel freezing cold air coming in around the cracks in the door. She hadn’t seen a house or a light in miles.

      Pulling out her cell phone, she hoped she could get a tow truck this time of the night. But she quickly realized that, like a lot of areas of Montana, there was no cell service.

      At the sound of the engine still running, she told herself that her situation was dire enough without carbon monoxide poisoning. With the SUVs tailpipe deep in the snow, it wouldn’t take long before she was overcome. She quickly killed the motor.

      A deathly silence fell over the car as she considered what to do. The car was buried in snow in the ditch miles from anywhere. She’d always been told to stay with her vehicle, but she could feel the temperature dropping and she’d foolishly left in such a hurry that she hadn’t taken her usual precautions. She’d brought no sleeping bag or water or anything to eat and right now she had no idea how long it would be before anyone found her.

      Cooper had begged her not to travel because the forecast called for a storm. But she’d been too angry with him to listen. She’d thrown her engagement ring at him and stormed out. All she’d thought about was distancing herself from him until she could cool down. She had a friend who lived in northwest Montana and, right then, going to see her seemed like a great idea. Let Cooper have a few days with her gone and see how he liked that.

      When she’d left, the weather had been fine and she’d thought she could beat the storm. But when the skies darkened and flakes started to fall she’d taken a shortcut across the state. Except it wasn’t long before she couldn’t see the highway. She’d thought about turning around, but it was as bad behind her as it was ahead so she’d kept going. For the past twenty miles or so, she hadn’t even seen another car on the highway. For all she knew the road had now closed to all but emergency traffic.

      She felt something run down the side of her face. Turning on the interior light, she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw that she was bleeding from a cut over her left eye where she’d smacked her head on the side window.

      But it was what else she saw in the mirror that sent her pulse hammering.

      A single set of headlights appeared in a blur out of the storm.

      She tried to open her car door. If she could get out and flag the person down... Her door wouldn’t open, though, because of the snow packed around it.

      Knowing that the driver of this car might be her only chance at survival tonight, she shoved as hard as she could. But the door wouldn’t budge.

      The lights were growing closer.

      What if the driver didn’t see her? What if...

      What appeared to be a large dark SUV slowed, and the headlights washed over her. The SUV’s flashers came on as the driver pulled to the edge of the highway directly behind the spot where she’d gone off.

      She saw a man climb out and she began to cry with relief. Life could change in an instant, she thought again as she watched the man heading toward her through the storm. He appeared to be large, nice looking, wearing a cowboy hat and dressed in formal Western attire as if he’d been to a party somewhere.

      Olivia “Livie” Hamilton had no reason not to believe the man had stopped to save her.

       CHAPTER ONE

      May 1

      Three months later

      SENATOR BUCKMASTER HAMILTON stood on the second-floor outdoor balcony of the sprawling Hamilton Ranch house and surveyed the engagement party going on below him. Tiny white lights twinkled in the treetops as candles glowed on the cloth-covered tables around the provisional outdoor ballroom. A sea of Stetsons bobbed as a country music band played. The sound of clinking crystal glasses mingled with the hum of cheerful voices. It was a beautiful spring evening.

      It should have been a perfect night since the party was to celebrate the first of his six daughters’ engagements. All he’d ever wanted was for his daughters to be happy. That Olivia was the first to marry didn’t surprise him. He’d seen the way she’d looked at the wrangler the first day he’d come to work on the ranch. Cooper Barnett wouldn’t have been his choice for her, but what did he know about love other than it was blind?

      He raised his own glass in a silent salute. No matter what happened after tonight, he couldn’t have been more proud of his daughters, or as they were known around Beartooth, Montana, the Hamilton girls.

      God knew he’d spoiled them after their mother died. In the twenty-two years since, he’d been overprotective, he’d be the first to admit it. There were stories that he’d met their dates on the front porch with a shotgun. He smiled. Although untrue, it had taken courageous young men to even dare to ask his girls out.

      It was his fault, no doubt, that all six had grown into headstrong, hard-to-please women. Buckmaster sighed, although he truthfully saw nothing wrong with that. His girls had grown up with the run of one of the largest ranches in their part of the state. They had wanted for nothing, he’d seen to that.

      Except for the mother they’d lost.

      He took another drink to wash down the bitterness.

      “One of our girls is getting married, Sarah,” he whispered into the warm spring night. “You missed it all. Now you won’t even be there to see Olivia get married.” He let out a curse, furious with Sarah for leaving him. Even more furious with himself because he still ached for her after all these years, as if he’d lost a limb.

      He didn’t want to think about her. Not tonight. Focusing on the party instead, he surveyed the growing crowd and spotted his oldest daughter, Ainsley, gathered with four of her sisters near the bar. She’d been ten at the