Redemption. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ note was right. The clock was ticking. With winter over, the ground finally thawed and the equipment ready, there was nothing stopping her.

      The thought made her laugh. Nothing stopping her? There were so many roadblocks thrown in her way.... She pulled into the fair’s parking lot and killed the engine, pushing away the thought of two more men after her who might be out there right now, watching her and waiting.

      She climbed out into the warm spring day, telling herself she could handle whatever was thrown at her. Or at least she hoped she could. She’d had a few curveballs thrown at her in her life, but nothing like this.

      The spring fair was everything she’d heard it was. There were barns filled with prize-winning cows, pigs, horses, sheep, rabbits and even chickens. Other buildings held homemade clothing and baked goods, some sporting blue ribbons.

      As she moved through the crowds—the men in their jeans, boots, fancy Western shirts and Stetson hats, the women just as duded out—she felt as if she must stand out like a sore thumb.

      This was a world apart from where she’d grown up. Everything about Montana, especially Beartooth, felt alien to her and had since she’d arrived. She did what she could to blend in, even wearing boots and boot-cut jeans, Western shirts with snaps instead of buttons, and spending most Sunday mornings on a hard pew at church with the rest of the community.

      She laughed at the regulars’ jokes and kidding each morning. She’d learned to drive a stick-shift four-wheel-drive pickup as well as run a café. Last fall, she’d cut firewood for the coming winter and, once the blizzards hit, she’d shoveled snow and stoked the apartment woodstove just to keep warm as if she was a local.

      Since moving to Beartooth, she’d done what she had to to survive.

      But now with time running out, she felt discouraged. It had taken longer than she’d thought it would to get the café up and running and to settle into this new, strange life. But she couldn’t afford to hire anyone to run the place for her.

      Then winter had set in too soon. She hadn’t gotten a feel of the land before the snow had started, the temperature dropping, the ground freezing, making finding what she’d come for impossible.

      All she’d been able to do was bide her time. Get the lay of the land, as her father would have said. She thought of Harvey Logan, the only father she’d known. He would have loved Montana. It was rich in history, with lots of stories of outlaws and gold miners, homesteaders and hard winters, along with buried treasure, strongboxes from robbed stages that were never found. Hidden miser’s gold, nuggets the size of her fist, turning up when foundations were dug for one of the many towns that had sprung up overnight.

      But what a hard life early settlers had faced. She thought of last winter and couldn’t imagine how anyone had survived a hundred years ago without modern conveniences. She’d wanted to throw in the towel more times than she could count on those days when winter blizzards had rattled the café windows and whirled snow into icy drifts as the temperature plummeted.

      She couldn’t help but question if all of this was worth it.

      At the thought, she drew on the granite-hard determination that had gotten her this far in life. She deserved to get what was coming to her—no matter what. One day it would all be worth it, she assured herself as she walked past tables of baked goods and handcrafts and women hawking their wares.

      The sun beat down on her. She could hear shrieks coming from the carnival rides as she passed a line of canvas tents offering everything from tamales to tractor parts. The smell of cotton candy and corn dogs permeated the air, making her feel a little nauseous.

      Kate started to turn back the way she’d come, having had enough. She knew she was still upset over the note and the sheriff’s visit. She was pushing her way through the crowd when she saw him.

      Jack French didn’t appear to have seen her, though. At least she hoped he hadn’t, as she quickly ducked into the nearest tent.

      The tent was small and dark inside. She froze just inside the door. The strong scent of incense filled her nostrils. She blinked, surprised to find an old woman staring at her with the darkest eyes she’d ever seen.

      The woman reached out her bejeweled hand.

      It took Kate a moment to realize what she’d stumbled into. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to come in here,” she said, turning back toward the canvas door she’d just stepped through.

      “There are no accidents,” the old woman said in a voice as grating as a rusty hinge but strangely captivating. “Don’t you want to know your future?”

      She turned back to the woman, shaking her head as she smiled. “I believe in making my own future.”

      “Then you have nothing to fear, do you?” The elderly woman beckoned with gnarled fingers.

      Kate knew that if she stepped back outside right now, there was a good chance of running into Jack, and it was cool in the tent. Even the scent of incense was better than that of fried food.

      What the heck? Humor the old woman, pay her a few dollars. By then the cowboy would be gone and she could sneak out of the fair and back to Beartooth.

      “Sit. Give me your hand.”

      Kate sat, taking in the dark velvet drapes that lined the small canvas tent. The old woman wore a caftan of equally dark jeweled colors. Her once dark hair was now splintered with lightning bolts of gray, but it was her dark eyes that held Kate’s attention.

      She gave the woman her hand, felt the icy-cold, thin skin as the gnarled hand closed around hers.

      Kate was instantly startled by the alarm that flashed in the woman’s black eyes. A rattled breath escaped the fortune-teller’s lips. Horror contorted her features.

      Kate tried to pull back her hand, but the woman’s grip was like a vise.

      “There is something dark. It’s all around you,” the seer said as if the words were being pried from her. “It’s like a curse that has followed you since birth. I see a man, several men—” Her voice broke as the clawlike fingers released hers so quickly Kate’s hand dropped to the small makeshift table. She felt the cool velvet of the table covering as she pushed away from the table and the crone’s distressed look.

      The old woman blinked, her eyes seeming to clear. She appeared upset to see Kate still there. Not half as upset as Kate, though.

      “You could have just told me I was going to meet a tall, dark stranger who would fall madly in love with me,” Kate snapped as she got to her feet. She hadn’t even wanted to come in here. She certainly didn’t need some dire fortune, let alone that accusing tone.

      The woman shook her head. “You have already met him. He is tall. Not so dark.”

      Kate thought of Jack French with his blond hair and pale blue eyes.

      “But the love affair is cursed because of the danger surrounding you.”

      “What kind of fortune-teller are you?” Kate demanded.

      “I can only speak what I see.”

      “If you think I’m paying for that lousy fortune—”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ