One Hot Forty-Five. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ look as if he should have been from the Old West.

      Maybe even more surprising, he looked at home in his worn Western attire. This was no urban cowboy, and the clothing only made him more appealing, accentuating his broad shoulders and slim hips. Even the way he moved was different. Tall and lanky, Lantry had walked into the jail with a slow, graceful gait in the work-worn cowboy boots and Wrangler jeans that hugged those long legs.

      He had been nothing like that ultraexpensive lawyer she’d seen stalking across the commons of his office high-rise with a crowd of reporters after him.

      No, for a moment in the jail, she’d been fooled into thinking she was wrong about the cutthroat divorce lawyer turned cowboy—until he opened his mouth.

      Only then did she know she had the right man.

      She kept her attention on the road—what she could see of it—and the blizzard raging outside the pickup, wishing there was another way.

      VIOLET EVANS ALWAYS KNEW SHE’D come home one day. She’d thought about nothing but Whitehorse since she’d been locked up.

      True, she had planned to come home vindicated. Or at least have everyone believe she was cured. But that hadn’t happened.

      In the passenger seat of the stolen SUV, Roberta began to snore loudly.

      Violet knew everyone in four counties was looking for her. She’d become famous. Or infamous. Either way, she liked the idea of her name on everyone’s lips. They’d all be locking their doors tonight.

      She smiled at the thought, imagining the people who’d wronged her over the years. They would be terrified until she was caught. Once, they’d just made fun of her. But now they would have new respect for her.

      Still, it bothered her that they all thought something was wrong with her. No wonder they’d been quick to send her away to a mental hospital after that unfortunate incident with her mother. How different things would have been if they had believed her when she’d tried to explain why she’d tried to kill her mother that day.

      She shoved away the disturbing images from the past. But one thought lingered. If Arlene loved her … If she’d saved her from her awful grandmother … If she’d tried to help her with the scary thoughts in her head …

      A mother is supposed to save you. Arlene Evans had failed to save her oldest daughter, so what right did Arlene have to get married and be happy?

      “No right at all,” Violet’s dead grandmother said from the backseat. “Her idea of saving you had been to marry you off.”

      Violet thought of the humiliation and embarrassment when no man had wanted her—and worse, the disappointment she’d seen in her mother’s face.

      “If Arlene hadn’t tricked my son Floyd into marrying her and had you three kids—”

      “Can you just shut up?” Violet said, wishing she could cover her ears. She’d heard this from her grandmother since she was a girl. Grandmother always causing trouble, stirring things up between them, then standing back and saying, “See? See what I mean about this family?”

      Roberta stirred in the passenger seat. “What’s going on?” She glanced in the backseat, then at Violet, frowning. “You aren’t talking to your dead grandmother again, right?”

      “I was talking to myself. I need you to run a little errand for me,” Violet told her as she parked near Packys, a convenience store on the edge of town.

      She had skirted Whitehorse, which wasn’t difficult since the town was only ten blocks square and she knew all the back roads.

      The first thing she needed to do, though, was find out everything she could about her mother’s upcoming Christmas wedding. It wasn’t like she’d gotten an invitation.

      “You’re going to run in and get me the local newspaper and the shopper—those are the area bibles when it comes to what’s going on,” Violet told her.

      Roberta groaned and complained, but finally got out and went in. She was wearing a pair of blue overalls and a flannel shirt and looked enough like a local that she shouldn’t have any trouble, Violet figured.

      Getting a change of clothing had been easy since Violet knew which residents would be gone this time of year and which ones locked their doors. They’d tossed out the Santa costumes after tossing out Dede Chamberlain.

      It had amused Roberta to dump Dede on the main street of Whitehorse wearing the Santa suit.

      When Roberta returned from inside the convenience store with the newspaper and free shopper, Violet drove down the street the few blocks past town. She pulled over in front of Promises bookstore, gift shop and antique store—closed now—and took the papers from Roberta.

      Snapping on the dome light, she scanned for what she knew had to be there. Whitehorse, Montana, was so small that weddings, baby and wedding showers, and birthday parties were advertised in the paper and open to everyone. Her grandmother had already said that Arlene would invite the whole town to show off the fact that she’d caught another man.

      To her dismay, Violet didn’t find anything about the wedding and was about to give up when she saw the wedding shower announcement.

      There was no address as to where the shower was being held, since it was unnecessary. Instead all that was listed was the name of the person who was hosting the get-together. Pearl Cavanaugh. If you didn’t know where the Cavanaughs lived, then you had no business at the shower.

      “What the hell?” Violet said, thinking she must have read it wrong. “Pearl Cavanaugh is throwing a shower this afternoon for my mother? This has to be a misprint.”

      “I thought you said nobody in town liked your mother.”

      Violet shot Roberta a look that shut her up. Maybe it was a pity shower. Still, it seemed odd. Violet couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that everything had changed since she’d been gone.

      She read it again and noticed something she hadn’t seen before. It said in case of bad weather, the shower would be held at the Tin Cup, the restaurant out of town on the golf course.

      Violet had heard about the winter-storm warning on the radio. She couldn’t imagine worse weather.

      Her thoughts returned to her mother and the shower. It was amazing enough that her mother had found another man when Violet hadn’t even found one. And he was a man with money, from what she’d heard. She consoled herself with the assurance that Hank Monroe couldn’t be much of a man.

      “So, are we going to your mother’s shower?” Roberta asked, reading over her shoulder.

      “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But first there’s somewhere we have to go.”

      ARLENE TOUCHED THE WEDDING dress hanging from her closet door.

      She felt like Cinderella about to go to the ball. She closed the closet door as the phone rang. All morning she’d feared that Pearl would cancel the shower. After all, with this storm coming in … “Hello?”

      “Hi, beautiful.”

      She melted at the sound of Hank’s voice. СКАЧАТЬ