Twice in a Lifetime Read online

  “This is Special Agent Russell Taggart,” Jake bit out. “He’s with the FBI. He and Miss Quinn seem to think I’ve been passing stolen money.”

  “What?”

  Shock, surprise and disbelief chased across the others’ faces.

  “Not stolen,” Taggart corrected. “At this point, it’s still classified as missing.”

  There was an almost imperceptible ripple of movement among the Hendersons. Shoulders squared. Jaws tightened. When Rachel caught Reece’s hard look, she could have sworn she heard a door slam.

  Suddenly, she was an outsider. Not just an outsider. An enemy, or at least a threat.

  Reece wasn’t the only one who put her on the other side of the threshold. Marsh shot her a narrow-eyed glance as he wrapped the mantle of his own law enforcement background around his brother like a shield.

  “You carrying some identification on you, Taggart?”

  The cold demand raised spots of color in the FBI operative’s cheeks. Once more, he dug in his pocket for his ID case.

  Marsh took his time examining his credentials. Far more time than Jake had. The DEA agent was making a statement, Rachel realized. Letting Taggart know that he wasn’t impressed or intimidated. That message became crystal clear when he held on to the leather case instead of tossing it back to Taggart.

  “You don’t mind if I verify you’re who you say you are?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Let’s go inside and I’ll make a few calls.”

  Rachel didn’t quite understand how the power had shifted so subtly or so swiftly, but shift it had. The Hendersons filed into the house, leaving her and Russ to follow on their own.

  Feeling more wretched by the moment, she delayed Taggart with a hand on his arm. “What’s going on? Why did you show up without any warning and cut the ground out from under my feet?”

  “You’re the one who insisted on confronting Henderson directly, remember?”

  “Not in front of his entire family and a half dozen of his ranch hands!”

  “It’s done.”

  Taggart shrugged off her hand and headed for the front steps. Furious that he’d set her up like this, Rachel swooped around him and planted herself square in his path.

  “Not so fast, Russ. I’m telling you here and now that you’d better not make unilateral decisions like this one. Not if you want my cooperation now or any time in the immediate future. Now give! What changed? Why are you here?”

  Obviously annoyed at being taken to task, the agent shoved a hand through his buzz cut fair hair. “I ran out of options, okay? None of the queries or background checks I ran on Henderson and his family turned up any connection to the bill. Neither did my network of external resources.”

  “So you decided it was time to go directly to the source,” Rachel finished, still tight with anger. “I’ll say it one more time, Russ. No more decisions on your own if you want my help.”

  Anger flashed in his dark eyes. He controlled it with a visible effort.

  “I’ll consult with you on any decisions that involve you. Now can we get in there and hear what Henderson has to say about the damned bill?”

  “I got it from Grizzly.”

  Pointedly, Jake ignored the woman across the living room from him as he answered Taggart’s question.

  She stood with her arms folded across her chest. Her hair was still windblown and wild from the drive home, her lips bare of any hint of color. The knowledge that he’d kissed it away only an hour ago put a kink in Jake’s gut that refused to go away.

  He’d deal later with his stupidity in mistaking a hard case of the hots for something else entirely, he told himself grimly. Right now Russell Taggart demanded his full attention.

  The agent moved in short, jerky paces between the bookcase and the fireplace, obviously feeling too restless or too unwelcome to sit. Jake supposed he couldn’t blame the man. With seven hostile Hendersons occupying strategic positions around the living room, the FBI operative probably felt he needed to remain a moving target.

  “Grizzly?” Taggart repeated. “Are we talking a man or a bear here?”

  “A man.”

  The clipped response tightened his mouth. He shot Jake a hard look and got one back in return. Marsh’s verification of the agent’s credentials hadn’t tempered Jake’s instinctive dislike. He didn’t appreciate being played for a fool any more than the next man.

  Still, from the sparse details Taggart had shared before plunging into his questions, it appeared the bill Jake had passed at the fair could have some connection to a downed aircraft. He felt a reluctant obligation to provide whatever information he could.

  “Grizzly’s real name is Isaac McCoy. He’s a distant cousin of our foreman. He got his nickname from the cub he took in and raised some years ago.”

  “And this Grizzly guy passed you the fifty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he say where he got it?”

  “No.”

  The two men locked eyes. Taggart did a silent ten count. “Would you get him in here so I can ask?”

  “No.”

  The agent’s face purpled. Jake allowed himself a brief stab of satisfaction before relenting.

  “He’s a recluse. An eccentric recluse.”

  Actually, all five Henderson brothers had privately agreed when they were growing up that Grizzly McCoy was crazy as a loon. The old man would scare the pants off them when he’d appear suddenly at the Bar-H in search of his cousin, one eye wide and unfocused, the other darting wildly from side to side. If he’d bathed any time in the past half century, he sure didn’t smell like it. His long, scraggly beard carried more fleas than a barn cat.

  He’d taken a bullet through the brain box in Korea, Shad had explained in his laconic way. Never was quite right after that.

  He had a way with wild creatures, though, and Shad feared he’d go completely off the deep end if locked away, like some veterans coordinator up in Colorado had recommended. Big John had offered him work at the Bar-H, but Isaac had preferred the isolation of the mountains. After Big John and Shad had fixed up an old, deserted line shack for him, the man had melted into the pine-shrouded canyons. As far as Jake knew, the cub he’d rescued and raised by hand was his only companion.

  “He lives in an abandoned Bar-H line shack up in the mountains. Every six months or so, he comes down to collect his pension checks, stock up on supplies and hand me the rent he insists on paying. Last time, he paid with three crisp, new fifty-dollar bills. I thought he got them at the bank when he cashed his checks.”

  “When was that?” Taggart asked sharply.

  “Two, three weeks ago.”

  “Do you have the other bills?”

  “They’re in the cash box in my office.”

  “May I see them?”

  With a curt nod, Jake left the room. He returned a few moments later with the notes. Taggart almost snatched them out of his hand. Fierce satisfaction flared in his dark eyes.

  “They’re from the same serial number sequence,” he told Rachel.

  Acutely aware that Jake had ignored her from the moment she’d walked into the room, she took the notes Taggart held out. The paper felt stiff and sticky, the way new bills always did. Slowly, she rubbed them between her fingers. She’d learned enough during her months on the task force to know paper money was produced using a method called intaglio printing. The paper was forced at high speeds through plates crafted by skilled artists, engravers and printers. Because the plates were three dimensional, one side of new bills always feels slightly raised, while the reverse feels a little indented.

  The difference was so slight most people never noticed it. Unless she’d known what to feel for, Rachel wouldn’t have noticed it, either. She rubbed the crisp new fifty between her fingers and blew out a long breath. Wherever this Grizzly McCoy had found these bills, they were the genuine article.

  Taggart had already reached the same conclusion. “We have to talk to Mr. McCoy. I’ll need direction
to this shack he’s living in.”

  “You can’t reach it by car.”

  “We’ll take a helo.”

  From his seat on the arm of the sofa, Sam snorted. “Good luck trying to land on the mountainside. There’s not a clear horizontal surface anywhere within twenty miles of the line shack. The only way to reach it is by horse.”

  “Or by all-terrain vehicle,” Jake added slowly.

  “Since when?” Sam wanted to know.

  “I had the men cut a path up to the shack last year.”

  Taggart brought his head around, speculation rife in his dark eyes. “Go up there often, do you, Mr. Henderson?”

  The question was so loaded that everyone in the room stiffened, including Rachel.

  Jake replied with careful precision. “The last time Grizzly was in town, he admitted the winters were getting to him more than they used to. Shad and I made him see a doctor, who confirmed the old man had an irregular heartbeat. I had the path cut because I was worried that he might take sick and we wouldn’t be able to get him down the mountain.”

  The two men waged a silent battle of wills. Taggart was the first to blink. “Do I need to arrange for an ATV?”

  “We have four we use here at the ranch. Be here at eight tomorrow morning and I’ll take you up.”

  “Tomorrow? What’s wrong with right now?”

  “It’ll be dark in a few hours. You ever try to maneuver a four-wheeler up a mountainside at night?”

  “All right, I get your point.” Frustration at the delay razored through Taggart’s voice. “I’ll be here at eight.”

  “Shad will go with us.”

  Rachel jumped in before any of the other Hendersons could co-opt the fourth vehicle. “So will I.”

  “The hell you will,” Jake retorted, leveling a look in her direction at last. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

  With a cool lift of her brow, Rachel returned his stare. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s eight hours up there and back.”

  “So?”

  “If you think you ache after the little time you spent on a horse this afternoon, imagine what you’ll feel like after eight hours on an ATV.”

  “I’ll take along an extra supply of liniment.”

  A sudden flush stained his cheeks. For a wild moment, Rachel thought the provocative remark might penetrate the wall that had sprung up between them. Her hope crashed when Jake shrugged and turned away.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Russ Taggart tried a more placating approach. “I really don’t need you for this phase of the investigation, Rachel. I can take it from here.”

  “I’ve got as much a stake in the investigation at this point as you do. I’m going.”

  Rachel drove away from the Bar-H fifteen minutes later. Long, sharp shadows slanted across the gravel road. The air carried the same chill it had during her drive out to the ranch what now seemed like a lifetime ago.

  The Hendersons, she reflected with a last look in the rearview mirror, had acknowledged her arrival this morning with a good deal more friendliness than her departure this evening. None of them had offered to show her out. Jake hadn’t even glanced her way.

  Well, she couldn’t blame anyone but herself for the frost in their manner. She’d gone along with Russ’s scheme against her better judgment and wormed her way into their midst under false pretenses.

  Okay, not totally false. She’d had her own reasons for wanting to get closer to Jake, and most of them revolved around the hunger that had tugged at her with long, relentless fingers.

  The hunger was still there, low in her belly, wounded but not dead by any means. Like a slumbering beast that could stir to full, fierce wakefulness at a single prod. For that reason, and that reason only, Rachel was going to make the drive back out to the Bar-H tomorrow morning, drive up into the mountains, and plant her butt on the seat of an ATV.

  She only hoped the seat was padded.

  Her aunt echoed the same sentiments when Rachel announced the projected expedition. Setting aside the gory thriller she’d almost finished, Alice studied the niece sprawled on the couch.

  “You’re in for a hard ride, girl. You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “No.”

  Her salt-and-pepper curls bouncing, the older woman shook her head. “I still don’t understand what this is all about. Why do you have to talk to Shad’s cousin?”

  “We’re hoping he may have some information related to the crash last year.”

  That was all Rachel could tell her. From necessity, Taggart had related a few sparse details to the Hendersons. In the process, he’d repeatedly stressed the need for containment. The last thing he wanted was for word of the missing millions to leak and a horde of modern-day prospectors to invade the area.

  “Well, I think you traipsing up into the mountains like that is a damn fool idea,” Alice said bluntly. “If you weren’t going with Jake Henderson, I’d worry myself sick about you. And speaking of Jake…”

  She cocked her head, her eyes shrewd. “You two seem to be getting along pretty good.”

  They’d been getting along much better before Taggart showed up this afternoon, her niece thought ruefully.

  “He’s a good man. Better, I’m guessing, than the one you came out here to get away from for a while.”

  A prick of conscience pushed Rachel to her feet. She needed to call Dale and she needed to do it tonight. Despite the mess she’d made of things this afternoon, one salient fact had emerged with crystal clarity. Jake Henderson made her feel more alive, more of a woman than she’d ever imagined it was possible to feel.

  She’d never be able to settle for anything less now.

  “I came out here to take care of you,” she reminded her aunt with a wry grin. “And I’m not doing a very good job of it. Are you sure you’ll be okay if I go with Jake tomorrow? I’ll leave my cell phone with you and make sure Mrs. Hardwick from next door comes over to check up on you.”

  “I’m sure, I’m sure. You just watch yourself, girl. Anything can happen up there in the mountains.”

  Chapter 8

  Rachel lay staring at the ceiling for a long time after her call to Dale Masters. To her chagrin, he’d accepted her decision to break things off between them with surprising aplomb. Evidently he’d used her absence to do some serious thinking, too. As he informed her in his own inimitable way, he’d concluded that her doubts and skittishness did not a healthy relationship make.

  Okay, she could handle that. After all, she’d reached exactly the same conclusion. With only a twinge of regret she put the immediate past behind her, dragged the covers up to her chin, and concentrated on the immediate future.

  She still hadn’t fully recovered from the double whammy of Jake’s fury at her deception coming so hard on the heels of those dizzying, sensual moments in Three Rock Canyon. She had no idea how—or if—she could regain the ground she’d lost with him after the fiasco with Russ Taggart, but she intended to give it her best shot. Even if it meant jouncing along on a four-wheeled minitractor for most of the day tomorrow.

  She owed Henderson an apology, she decided after much tossing and turning, but once it was delivered she didn’t intend to play the penitent. She’d ignored her instincts and gone along with Russ’s need for subterfuge and secrecy. Yet as distasteful as her actions were to both Jake and Rachel herself, they were appropriate given the circumstances.

  More or less.

  Sighing, she shimmied down and dragged the covers over her head. She’d sort it out with Jake tomorrow.

  Tomorrow came long before Rachel either expected or wanted it to. When the alarm clock dragged her from sleep at six-thirty, she grunted, lifted her head to check the time, and hit the snooze alarm. After a second and third buzz, she crawled out of bed.

  She hadn’t exaggerated when she’d told Jake mornings weren’t her favorite time of day. If she’d had any pull at all with Dale’s boss, she would have urged the senator to sponsor a bill starti
ng the work-day at noon. Trying to keep as quiet as possible, Rachel made her way down the creaky stairs and tiptoed past her aunt’s bedroom to start the coffee. With one cup downed and one cup in hand, she felt human enough to tackle the challenge of getting dressed.

  This time, she’d dress appropriately for the early morning chill. An oatmeal-colored turtleneck sweater in thin, fine wool provided a layer of warmth under her buttery soft suede jacket. Thick socks padded her hiking boots. Although she would have preferred wool slacks to jeans, she suspected the tough denim would do a better job at protecting her legs from underbrush.

  She brought Alice a cup of coffee and, at her aunt’s suggestion, detoured to the garage before she left for a pair of work gloves. Shivering in the dim light of the new day, she backed her convertible down the drive.

  When the sports car bumped over the cattle guard and pulled into the Bar-H yard a half hour later, Taggart was waiting for her, as was Shad.

  And Jake.

  With the collar of the blue flannel shirt he wore under his sheepskin vest turned up and his black felt cowboy hat pulled down low, he looked big and tough and distinctly unfriendly.

  “You’re late.”

  “Not by my watch.”

  Her breezy reply snapped his brows together. He stared at her for several unfathomable seconds, then spun on one boot heel and strode off.

  Rachel swallowed a sigh. In the growing light of the new morning, with the mountains throwing jagged shadows across the valley and her breath pearling on the frosty air, she had to admit the idea of apologizing had seemed easier last night than it did right now.

  “We’re takin’ two trucks,” Shad informed her in a voice noticeably lacking its former warmth. He jerked his chin toward the pickups. Each sported two ATVs lashed side by side in the truck beds. “You can ride with me.”

  “She’s riding with me.”

  Jake reappeared and tossed what looked like a folded blanket into the truck bed.

  “Ms. Quinn and I have a few matters to discuss.”