Hard Rain. B.J. Daniels

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Sarah...” Buckmaster said, but was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone.

      * * *

      SARAH JOHNSON HAMILTON tried the number again. The wind had come up outside. She watched a dust devil whip across the yard of the old farmhouse. Closer, she studied her reflection in the glass. On the surface, she looked like a shy, fiftysomething, blonde, blue-eyed, ingenuous woman. Not like a woman who had dark secrets.

      The phone at the other end rang a fourth time and then went to voice mail.

      As grit pelted the front window, she stepped back and disconnected. She didn’t leave a message this time. Russell hadn’t called her back after her other messages. She doubted he would now.

      Sarah knew she shouldn’t be calling Russell, especially after she’d broken their engagement. If Buck knew, he would have a fit and make more of it than it was.

      She just needed to hear Russell’s voice and know that he was all right. But, if she was honest with herself, that wasn’t the only reason. After fainting at her daughter Bo’s wedding, she’d been running scared. Maybe there was more wrong with her than the neurologist said. Or maybe he was right, and it was all in her head.

      She couldn’t remember why she’d fainted but when she’d opened her eyes, her daughter Kat had been leaning over her. “What?” Sarah had said at her daughter’s angry expression.

      “She’s all right,” Kat said as she’d helped her mother to her chair. “Everyone just move back and give her some air. You, too, Dad.”

      It wasn’t until they’d all stepped back that Kat had said, “Who was he? The man you saw standing outside the reception who made you turn ghost white and faint?”

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sarah had said. “I don’t remember seeing—”

      “That’s right. You don’t remember anything,” Kat had said sarcastically.

      She had gritted her teeth, reminding herself that Kat had always been the impossible child, but also one of the smartest. Kat had seen something. “What did this man look like?” she’d asked.

      “Handsome even after all these years. He looked like your former lover from The Prophecy, Joe Landon. Ring any bells? No, that’s right, you didn’t recognize anyone in the photo I showed you. Not even the image of the alleged former Sarah Johnson. Or should I call her Red?”

      She hadn’t recognized any of the people in the photograph—even the redheaded woman who held a slight resemblance to herself—let alone the handsome man standing next to the woman.

      “Kat,” she’d said impatiently. “I wasn’t a member of some anarchist group.”

      “Keep telling yourself that, Sarah. But you just saw one of the men and fainted. Try to explain that away.”

      She’d been shaken throughout the rest of the wedding festivities and had had to hide it from her husband and her other five daughters. As far as she could tell, Kat hadn’t told her sisters about her suspicions. No one believed her that she couldn’t remember the twenty-two years she’d been gone—let alone something Kat believed she’d done in college.

      Wasn’t that why she desperately needed to talk to Russell? He had always been able to calm her down. Mostly, she needed someone that she could trust to talk to. But could she still trust Russell after breaking his heart?

      “I’m worried about Russell.” In retrospect she shouldn’t have voiced that worry to Buck the last time he was home from his presidential campaign. He was still jealous of the man who’d found her the day she returned to Beartooth. Not only had Russell rescued her, but he’d taken her in, made sure she had everything she’d needed, and offered her kindness and, months later, love and marriage.

      Buck, who’d remarried in her twenty-two-year absence, was jealous even though she’d recently broken off her engagement to Russell.

      “I heard he’s on a cruise, probably visiting some tropical island and you are the last person on his mind,” her former husband had snapped. Because she was believed dead those years, their marriage had been declared null and void. Otherwise, Buck would have been a bigamist when he’d remarried.

      She’d had six daughters with Buck so she should have expected this reaction. Still, she had a bad feeling that Russell might be in trouble. She needed someone to talk to and Buck was gone so much of the time...

      “It’s just that Russell took it really hard when I gave him back his ring,” she’d said, hoping to make him understand. “He was...angry. Which isn’t like him.” Nor was it like him to go on a cruise. He was Montana born and bred. If he’d left the state, then he was even more upset with her than she’d originally thought. So why did she suspect he hadn’t left?

      “I’m afraid of what he might do,” she’d said, trying to get her husband to see that she was truly worried and possibly for a good reason. “Maybe you could say something to the sheriff. Russell has a daughter here. I can’t imagine him leaving her and his grandchildren, even for a short time. You don’t know how kind Russell is, how caring and forgiving.”

      “He’s a saint,” Buck had said impatiently. “Can we please not talk about him? He’s gone. You’re with me now.”

      Not exactly, she thought as she pocketed her phone now and glanced out the window again. She was on Hamilton Ranch again but not living at the main house as Buck’s wife. Instead, she lived in a ranch house that had come with one of his land purchases. She couldn’t even see the main house from where she lived, and she certainly couldn’t move back in. Not with Buck’s wife’s only months in her grave. The media would have had a field day if they knew about her and Buck.

      Not to mention how much more suspicious it would make the sheriff up in Silver Bow County. He already suspected Buck had something to do with Angelina’s car accident.

      Distractedly, she watched the gale sway the tall pines next to the house. Beyond them, a wide swatch of expansive land ran for miles before colliding with the unforgiving Crazy Mountains. All of it Hamilton Ranch.

      It had been hers and her husband Buck’s twenty-three years ago. The ranch was larger now. Buck didn’t understand the word enough. He had to conquer, to control, to lead, she thought, thinking of his success at ranching and politics. Now he was hurtling toward the White House like a minuteman missile—that was, if nothing detonated his campaign before he reached his goal.

      She’d nearly done that when she’d returned after letting everyone believe she was dead for all those years. It only made more copy for the gossip columns that she couldn’t recall any of it, including why she had evidently driven her car into the Yellowstone River in the middle of winter in an attempted suicide several months after the twins were born.

      When her body wasn’t found, she was ruled legally dead. Somehow, she had survived, though she’d had no idea how or where she had gone after that. The last thing she remembered was giving birth to Harper and Cassidy, who were now out of grad school. She’d missed all six of her girls’ lives. She’d missed years with Buck. Worse, in her absence, he’d replaced her.

      Some days, it all seemed too much. Her daughters didn’t know her and didn’t seem to want to get to know her. She’d come back to find her husband remarried. He’d been the only man she’d ever loved—at least СКАЧАТЬ