.

inside her. She’d never understand her brother. Flint was the black sheep of the family. The one who had followed every rule from the time he was young, while the rest of them disliked rules and seldom followed them, especially when the Cahill clan banded together.

      True, it had always been Flint who bailed them out of trouble before their parents got wind of what they’d been up to. But he’d also had to lecture them at length, which never went over well.

      “Flint’s worried about you,” she said now to her father. “So am I.”

      Ely shook his head. “No reason to worry.”

      He sounded so unconvincing that she shot him a glance, surprised how old he looked. She often didn’t see him for weeks or sometimes months at a time. He would disappear into the mountains. Then she’d get a call that he’d been arrested and she always took it upon herself to get him out of jail.

      “What happened last night?” she asked as she’d done so many times before.

      He was quiet for long enough that she thought he either hadn’t heard her or wasn’t going to answer. “In the mountains I can hold the memories at bay. But once I come down...” He cleared his throat and looked over at her. “I swear on your mother’s grave that I saw ’em last night. They was in the same pasture as where I was took. I feared they’d come back for me. They was almost on me when I smelled whatever gas they use to knock people out. When I come to, I was lying in the pasture and they was gone.” He shuddered. “I don’t think they took me this time, though.”

      Lillie didn’t know what to say. She’d first heard about her father’s abduction by aliens in the school yard from Ronnie Eckert. He’d taunted her until she’d slugged him and bloodied his nose. “Take it back!” she had yelled at him. “Take it back or I’ll hit you again.”

      A teacher had broken them up. Lillie had run home fast as the wind to tell her mother what had happened before the school called home. One look at her mother’s face and she’d known it hadn’t just been Ronnie making up stories.

      “Your father claims he was abducted by aliens near the missile silo on our ranch,” she’d said. “It’s old news.”

      “But is it true?” she’d demanded.

      “Your father believes it was.”

      Of course, Lillie had questioned him, both fascinated and horrified by the idea that it might actually have happened. Often she had lain in the tall grass at night and stared up at the stars wondering if there were other beings out there.

      His story about his abduction was a little disappointing, though. Men in white space suits, their faces obscured by their helmets, had grabbed him. He’d thought they communicated telepathically, but he also remembered them talking to each other. He’d seen their lips moving but hadn’t been able to hear them because of their huge helmets and the swishing sound of the breathing systems.

      “What did they do to you?” she’d asked, holding her breath.

      “They conked me out with some kinda gas. I woke up in the pasture starin’ up at the stars. But I remember being in a small cramped place before that. I still taste somethin’ metallic when I think about it.”

      She’d known then why everyone in the county believed that Ely Cahill no longer had all his ducks, let alone had them in a row. He’d always been part mountain man, disappearing into the mountains in search of gold or wild animals he could kill for meat for his family, even though they raised beef.

      His father had been a rancher, but Ely had never taken to it and was glad when two of his sons had taken the place over. “Rather have a nice whitetail buck any day over a slab of beef,” he often said. “Lost my taste for beef after them aliens took me.”

      “He’s made our family a laughingstock,” her brother Tuck had said not long before he’d left for good. That had been right after high school. Tucker said Gilt Edge was just too small for him, gave him claustrophobia. But she’d always suspected something had happened to make him leave.

      Lillie forced those thoughts back into a dark corner along with others she kept locked up there as she parked in front of the Stagecoach Saloon.

      “Home sweet home,” she said as she admired the historic two-story rock building. She never tired of looking at it. It had been a stagecoach stop back in the 1800s when gold had been coming out of the mine at Gilt Edge. Each stone, like the old wooden floorboards inside, had a story, she thought with pride. If only this building could talk.

      With her twin brother, they’d restored it. The lower floor had been turned into a bar and café, while the upstairs had been remodeled into a home for herself. She’d furnished it with restored pieces she’d picked up at garage sales and junk shops and loved every one of them.

      She also had the best view in the county. From her living room window she could see three of the four mountain ranges surrounding the area. She loved this old building and the life she and Darby had built with it. But deep in her heart there was always that feeling of something missing. Someone. Even when she didn’t say his name or imagine his face, there was always that ache of something lost, something she feared she would never have again.

      “Come on, let’s see what we can cook up for you,” she said to her father.

      He smiled over at her. “Could use some breakfast now that you mention it.”

      She laughed. His appetite was legend. “What do you say to chicken fried venison steak, eggs, hash browns and biscuits and milk gravy?”

      “That’s my girl,” Ely said.

      But as she started to open her door, she saw something...someone move along the side of the building. Her brother Darby wasn’t here yet or his pickup would have been parked in the spot next to the big old pine tree. She’d gotten only a glimpse of what she thought was a man hiding in the trees.

      She handed the keys to the place to her father. “Here, you go on in and I’ll be right with you.” She waited for him to climb out before she reached under the pickup seat and pulled out the .45 pistol she kept wrapped in a piece of an old blanket.

      Slipping from behind the wheel, she unwrapped the gun, tucked it into the waist of her jeans and covered the weapon with the hem of her T-shirt.

      Her father had made it as far as the front door. He turned and looked back at her. “Everything all right, Lillie Girl?” he called.

      “Fine, Dad. Just need to check something.”

      He nodded, hesitating as if worried about her. Say what you will about Ely Cahill, he wasn’t as far gone as her brother wanted her to believe, she thought.

      “I’m fine. You make yourself at home. I’ll join you in a minute.”

      As he unlocked the front door of the bar and disappeared inside, she moved to the pine trees that flanked the stone building on three sides.

      Stepping to the edge of the building, she began to work her way carefully along the side, keeping to the shadows. Even as she did, she told herself she had imagined the broad shoulders, the slim hips, the glimpse of dark wavy hair under the Western straw hat as she had so many times over the years.

      She’d gone only a dozen yards when she saw him. She felt a tremor move through her. With shaking fingers, she reached under her T-shirt and pulled the gun to level it on the broad back of the man standing only feet away.

      “Don’t move!” she ordered, surprised that her voice sounded so unruffled when her heart had taken off like a wild horse in the wind at the sight of him.

      “You wouldn’t shoot a man in the back.”

      The deep resonance of his voice sent her pulse thundering in her ears. She’d heard that voice only in her dreams for the past nine years. The ache she felt was laced with hurt and anger, not to mention the hit her pride had taken.

      “In your case, I’ll make an exception,” she said, easing