Justice at Cardwell Ranch. B.J. Daniels

wondering what had made her think he was handsome just moments before or—even harder to believe, that he might have changed.

      Six years ago he’d been the number one suspect in a murder as well as a suspect in an attempted murder. Liza had been the deputy who’d taken his fingerprints.

      She wondered now what he was doing not only back in the canyon, but also on the ranch he and his siblings had fought so hard to take from their sister Dana.

      DANA SAVAGE LAY BACK ON THE examining table, nervously picking at a fingernail. “I can’t remember the last time I saw my feet,” she said with a groan.

      Dr. Pamela Burr laughed. “This might feel a little cold.”

      Dana tried not to flinch as the doctor applied clear jelly to her huge stomach. She closed her eyes and waited until she heard the heartbeats before she opened them again. “So everything is okay?”

      “Your babies appear to be doing fine. Don’t you want to look?”

      Dana didn’t look at the monitor. “You know Hud. He’s determined to be surprised. Just like the last two. So I don’t dare look.” She shot a glance at her husband. He stood next to her, his gaze on her, not the screen. He smiled, but she could see he was worried.

      The doctor shut off the machine. “As for the spotting …”

      Dana felt her heart drop as she saw the concern in Dr. Burr’s expression.

      “I’m going to have to insist on bed rest for these last weeks,” she said. “Let’s give these babies the best start we can by leaving them where they are for now.” She looked to Hud.

      “You can count on me,” he said. “It’s Dana you need to convince.”

      Dana sat up and laid her hands over her extended stomach. She felt the twins moving around in the cramped space. Poor babies. “Okay.”

      “You understand what bed rest means?” the doctor asked. “No ranch business, no getting up except to shower and use the bathroom. You’re going to need help with Hank and Mary.”

      That was putting it mildly when you had a four- and five-year-old who were wild as the canyon where they lived.

      “I’m sure Hud—”

      “You’ll need more than his help.” The doctor pressed a piece of paper into her hand. “These are several women you might call that I’ve used before.”

      Dana didn’t like the idea of bringing in a stranger to take care of Hud and the kids, but the babies kicked and she nodded.

      “Doc said I was going to have to watch you like a hawk,” Hud told her on the way home. Apparently while she was getting dressed, Dr. Burr had been bending his ear, down the hall in her office. “You always try to do too much. With the kids, the ranch, me—”

      “I’ll be good.”

      He gave her a disbelieving look.

      “Marshal, would you like a sworn affidavit?”

      He grinned over at her. “Actually, I’m thinking about handcuffing you to the bed. I reckon it will be the only way I can keep you down for a day let alone weeks.”

      Dana groaned as she realized how hard it was going to be to stay in bed. “What about Hank and Mary? They won’t understand why their mommy can’t be up and around, let alone outside with them and their animals.” Both of them had their own horses and loved to ride.

      “I’ve already put in for a leave. Liza can handle things. Anyway, it’s in between resort seasons so it’s quiet.”

      September through the middle of November was slow around Big Sky with the summer tourists gone and ski season still at least a month away.

      Dana knew October was probably a better time than any other for her husband to be off work. That wasn’t the problem. “Hud, I hate to see you have to babysit me and the kids.”

      “It’s not babysitting when it’s your wife and kids, Dana.”

      “You know what I mean. There are the kids and the ranch—”

      “Honey, you’ve been trying to do it all for too long.”

      She had been juggling a lot of balls for some time now, but Hud always helped on the weekends. Their ranch manager, Warren Fitzpatrick, was getting up in years so he had really slowed down. But Warren was a fixture around the ranch, one she couldn’t afford to replace. More than anything, she loved the hands-on part of ranching so she spent as much time as she could working the land.

      When she’d found out she was pregnant this time she’d been delighted, but a little worried how she was going to handle another child right now.

      Then the doctor had told her she was having twins. Twins? Seriously?

      “Are you all right?” Hud asked as he placed his hand over hers and squeezed.

      She smiled and nodded. “I’m always all right when I’m with you.”

      He gave her hand another squeeze before he went back to driving. “I’m taking you home. Then I’ll go by the shop and pick up the kids.” Her friend Hilde had the kids in Big Sky. “But I’d better not find out you were up and about while I was gone.”

      Dana shook her head and made a cross with her finger over her heart. She lay back and closed her eyes, praying as she had since the spotting had begun that the babies she was carrying would be all right. Mary and Hank were so excited about the prospect of two little brothers or sisters. She couldn’t disappoint them.

      She couldn’t disappoint anyone, especially her mother, she thought. While Mary Justice Cardwell had been gone six years now, she was as much a part of the ranch as the old, two-story house where Dana lived with Hud and the kids. Her mother had trusted her to keep Cardwell Ranch going. Against all odds she was doing her darnedest to keep that promise.

      So why did she feel so scared, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop?

       Chapter Two

      Jordan watched Deputy Liza Turner ride her horse out of the pines. The past six years had been good to her. She’d been pretty back then. Now there was a confidence as if she’d grown into the woman she was supposed to become. He recalled how self-assured and efficient she’d been at her job. She was also clearly at home on the back of a horse.

      The trees cast long shadows over the stark landscape. Wind whirled the dried leaves that now floated in the air like snowflakes.

      “Jordan Cardwell,” she said as she reined in her horse at the edge of the cemetery.

      He came out through the gate, stopping to look up at her. “Deputy.” She had one of those faces that was almost startling in its uniqueness. The green eyes wide, captivating and always filled with curiosity. He thought she was more interesting than he remembered. That, he realized, was probably because she was out of uniform.

      She wore jeans and a red-checked Western shirt that made her dark hair appear as rich as mahogany. She narrowed those green eyes at him. Curiosity and suspicion, he thought.

      “I’m surprised to see you here,” she said, a soft lilt to her voice. She had a small gap between her two front teeth, an imperfection, that he found charming.

      “I don’t know why you’d be surprised. My sister might have inherited the ranch but I’m still family.”

      She smiled at that and he figured she knew all about what had happened after his mother had died—and her new will had gone missing.

      “I didn’t think you’d ever come back to the ranch,” she said.

      He chuckled. “Neither did I. But people change.”

      “Do they?” She was studying him in a way that said she doubted he had. He didn’t need to read her expression