Hard Rain. B.J. Daniels

his father had told him, Maggie had been Flannigan’s pride and joy. This news would break the old man’s heart—as if Maggie hadn’t done that when she was alive.

      He hurried to his pickup. What would happen now? He hated to think. But he needed to talk to his dad and uncle. It wouldn’t be long before the news was all over the county. He needed to know what they were going to do about getting Maggie justice.

      His uncle and dad had started the ranch, but their hearts had always been in the blacksmithing part of the operation. When he turned twenty-one he’d taken over the ranching and farming. They’d both been at the age where they were happy to hand over the reins. He had tried to make their lives easier, since both of them had worked hard their whole lives.

      Now as he drove down the road toward his uncle’s place, he wished there was a way to spare them what was coming. Turning into his uncle’s place, he passed the sheriff and drove a little faster, worried.

      As he pulled up in front of his uncle’s house, he spotted his father sitting on the porch alone. “What’s going on?” Brody asked as he joined him. His uncle was nowhere in sight. Brody felt his heart lodge in his throat as he saw his father’s expression. “Is he all right?”

      “The sheriff was here,” Finn McTavish said. While only in his midsixties, he looked older suddenly, his face drawn and haggard. “He told your uncle that the body was Maggie’s and that it was now a murder investigation.”

      “Where is he now?” Brody asked, thinking he shouldn’t be alone.

      “Inside the house.”

      He started in that direction but his father stopped him.

      “Leave him be. He’ll come out when he’s ready,” Finn said.

      “The sheriff... So it’s Maggie, just as I’d feared.” He’d grown up wanting to believe that the beautiful cousin he’d never known had run away to make a better life for herself. He’d actually looked for her in late-night movies since from the photographs he’d seen of her, she was so striking that she could have been an actress or a model. She could have been a lot of things.

      A wave of nausea washed over him. He’d heard stories about his cousin since he was a boy. In fact, his first fistfight in grade school had been over what Billy Loring said his father had said about her. At that time, he’d never seen more than photos of her that his uncle kept on the mantel, but she was family and family was worth defending even if Billy Loring was older, bigger and stronger.

      “When Harper and I found her horse... The rain had washed the wooden box down the hillside. She was buried on Hamilton Ranch, just yards from our land,” Brody said, and turned as the screen door was flung open and his uncle stepped out. Flannigan McTavish looked as if all the air had been knocked out of him.

      “Uncle Flan—”

      “I don’t want to hear another word about my Maggie.” His uncle’s green eyes flashed with anger. “Nor do I ever want to hear you’ve been with that Hamilton girl.”

      With that, he descended the porch steps and walked across the yard toward the shop.

      “Let him go,” his father said. “You heard him. He needs to grieve in his own way.”

      Growing up, neither his father nor his uncle had liked to talk about Maggie, but when pushed, his father had told him that Flannigan had doted on his only daughter and “that was part of the problem.”

      “Nor does he want to hear about Harper, it seems,” Brody said, realizing that he’d known this would be the case. “Don’t you think I heard the rumors growing up about Maggie and JD Hamilton? But even if it’s true and JD killed her, it’s no reason to hold it against the rest of the Hamiltons.”

      His father looked toward the shop. Flannigan had stopped and turned to look back at them. Brody saw the two men exchange a glance.

      “Or is there another reason the two of you don’t want me with Harper?” he asked.