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 as far as she could recall—and to return to find Angelina Broadwater Hamilton living in her house... The media had tried to paint a love triangle between the three of them.
But neither her astonishing return from the dead nor Angelina’s death in a car accident four months ago had derailed Buck’s propulsion toward the presidency. Instead, the polls had him rising even higher seemingly because of it.
Where Sarah fit into it, though, was still to be decided.
“It’s too early for us to announce that we’re getting back together,” Buck had said. “But I have my staff ready to put a spin on our reunion as soon as it is time.” Jerrod Williston was his campaign manager. She’d never met him, but she knew from what Buck had said that he didn’t approve.
“I’ll keep after Jerrod,” Buck had told her. “He always comes down on the cautious side in these things. But it won’t be long, I promise,” he’d said as he’d taken her in his arms. “We will be together as husband and wife in the White House.”
Sarah had tried to see herself there with him and couldn’t, and that frightened her. Sometimes, like now, alone in the middle of the huge ranch Buck had built, she thought she should have married Russell. He had promised her a “normal” life. Isn’t that what she’d always wanted?
Outside, she saw with growing concern that a storm was rolling in. Dark clouds shrouded the Crazies, as the locals called the massive mountain range. The wind wailed, making the tree limbs lash the house. She shuddered at the thought of another thunderstorm like the one from a few nights before.
She’d always hated storms—just like her daughter Bo had when she was young. Russell knew how she hated the thunder and lightning, the unrelenting rain. He would never have left her alone with a storm coming in. Not that Buck could have come to her even if he’d been in town. He was at some caucus or other and not expected back for days.
Her phone rang. She hurriedly pulled it out, hoping it was Russell. She needed to hear his voice, to know he was all right, to be assured that he had forgiven her for hurting him. Forgiven Buck for drawing her back.
Russell was determined that the reason she’d tried to kill herself all those years ago was because of something unforgivable that Buck had done, something she’d pushed into the dark recesses of her memory, unable to face it. Or worse, Russell had a crazy theory that Buck had somehow had her brain purposely “wiped” so she couldn’t remember.
Russell’s hatred of Buck scared her. Her fear was that she’d changed the loving, caring man and that now he might do something crazy in an ill-conceived attempt to save her from Buck.
She glanced at the phone, saw who was calling and felt a rush of guilty disappointment that she quickly smothered. It was her daughter Harper calling. The only one of her six daughters who had reached out to her.
* * *
SHERIFF FRANK CURRY shoved back his Stetson and gazed up the hillside. He was a big strong man, even now that he was in his midsixties, with a gunfighter mustache that was more gray than blond anymore.
Earlier, he’d been having lunch with his wife, Lynette, on a picnic table outside the Beartooth General Store when he’d gotten the call.
“One of these days we’re going to get through a meal without being interrupted,” he’d said as he’d tossed his half-eaten sandwich into the small brown bag.
“And you would be bored to tears and driving me crazy,” Lynette had said. She’d said it jokingly, but there was underlying worry in her expression.
He’d been threatening retirement but hadn’t been able to quit just yet. There was one case—not even an official one—that he couldn’t leave until he saw it through to the end. But after that...
The return of Sarah Johnson Hamilton from the grave