Wedding at Cardwell Ranch. B.J. Daniels

      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