Atonement. B.J. Daniels
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“It was popular during the Civil War, a Henry .44-caliber rimfire, lever-action, breech-loading rifle.”
He glanced over at her. “You know a lot about rifles, do you?”
She laughed and shook her head. “Only because Ethan seemed so interested in this particular one. Are you thinking one of them was what Ethan helped steal from Halbrook Truman? But why, if Ethan was in on taking the rifle, would he be looking for it online?”
“I was just thinking about that. If an antique rifle was what they took, my guess is that someone else has it. Maybe Luke double-crossed him and he’s thinking Luke will try to sell it online. But we don’t even know if there is any connection between Halbrook and this rifle. That model definitely isn’t rare.”
“No, it isn’t,” she agreed. “I checked. Nine hundred of them were manufactured between the summer and October of 1862. By 1864, production had peaked to 290 a month. By the time production ended in 1866, approximately fourteen thousand had been manufactured.”
He laughed. “You do your homework.”
“The thing is, though, one in excellent condition can bring in a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Not peanuts, and yet not enough to kill someone over—especially if you were already rich.”
Dillon nodded. “Except that Halbrook Truman is angry and wants his property back. We don’t know that this rifle Ethan was looking for has anything to do with him or what was taken from him. Or that Halbrook had anything to do with why Ethan has pretended to be dead for a year. But it does make me wonder.”
The town of Wisdom appeared again on the horizon.
“I was thinking we’d stop at that café we saw in town and have something to eat.” He looked over at her. “You need to take care of yourself and my niece.”
She smiled, touched by his concern. “I’m not upset about what he said about Ethan.”
“Still, I’m sorry my brother—”
“You aren’t your brother’s keeper.”
He laughed and pushed back his hat to rub his forehead with his free hand as he drove. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I always tried to protect him.” He shook his head.
“Protect him?” She saw Dillon swallow.
“Our dad. He had this idea that you had to break the spirit of a wild horse—or a wild boy. I stepped between them enough times to take the brunt of it, but—”
“You were a boy yourself.”
Dillon looked away. “Ethan was always...too...tender. I think that’s why the old man went after him instead of me. Ethan felt things too strongly. It made him seem—well, at least in our father’s eyes—weak. The old man thought he could toughen him up. Instead...”
“Ethan’s a man now, capable of making his own choices in life,” she said firmly. “Just because he might have gotten a raw deal as a kid, he doesn’t get to spend his life blaming his behavior on that.”
Dillon glanced over at her, no doubt surprised by the fierceness of her words. “Was your childhood—”
“Fine. It was just fine.” His sudden compassion made her want to bite back her heated response. She looked away and was grateful he didn’t push the subject.
The café was small and rustic, like a lot of cafés she’d seen off the beaten path in Montana. Over lunch they talked about the magnificent country outside the café window. It was spectacular, especially in contrast to the desert of Southern California. As Tessa listened to Dillon talk, she could hear his love for this state. That love warmed her. She’d always longed for a place with deep roots but had never had it. Ethan had told her once that he’d left home at eighteen and professed he preferred to be rootless. So unlike his twin, who had planted obvious roots here.
After lunch, Dillon talked for a few moments with the elderly woman who had waited on them. Tessa stepped outside, needing to feel the sunshine on her face. The air smelled of pine and water. She breathed it in.
She’d lied to Dillon—and to herself. Hearing even more bad news about Ethan had upset her. She wondered which of the cowboys had “stolen” Halbrook Truman’s no-doubt-young fiancée.
“What did you find out?” she asked as they walked to the patrol pickup.
“Halbrook was engaged to, and I quote, ‘a woman young enough to be his granddaughter.’ The waitress estimated Ashley Rene Clarkson’s age as mid-twenties. ‘A pretty little gold digger’ was how she described her. Not that she had much good to say about Halbrook. Seems he isn’t the most popular man around the county, so when Ashley took off with some of the hired hands... Well, no one was very sympathetic.”
A pretty young woman in her mid-twenties. Tessa, who was now over thirty, didn’t want to think about it. But she had to ask, “So you’re thinking that if we find Ashley, we might find Ethan?”
He glanced at her as they climbed into his patrol pickup. “It’s a lead.” She nodded and he busied himself by starting the pickup.
“So how do we find her?” Tessa asked.
“I’ll run all their names when I get back to the office and we’ll see what comes up.”
“You don’t sound as if you hold much hope in finding them.”
He sighed. “The best place to hide when you’re like my brother and his cohorts is on a ranch outside town, where you get room and board and wages that are often off the books.”
“No paper trail,” she said. “But isn’t that the first place Halbrook Truman would look for him?”
* * *
AFTER MEETING THE rancher, Dillon could tell Tessa was as worried as he was about his brother. They drove toward Big Timber, the beautiful spring day now lost on them. He could see her stewing over on her side of the pickup—the same thing he’d been doing for miles.
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