Hard Rain (21 page)

His mouth found hers again, teasing her with his tongue until she melted against him, her longing making her weak. “Brody,” she pleaded.

He drew back to look at her and what she saw in his eyes made her heart beat even harder. Swinging her up into his arms, he carried her to the bed. She pulled him down with her, the two of them instantly getting tangled in the bed clothing.

“I don’t want to rush this,” he whispered against her temple.

“Brody,” she pleaded again. “Don’t rush it the second time.”

He laughed, but she could hear the emotion in it. He wanted her as desperately as she wanted him right now.

Rolling her to her back, he leaned over her. She arched against him, her fingers digging into his back as he filled her. The waves of release came one after another, leaving her spent and feeling as if things were finally right in the world.

Later lying in his arms, the sunrise outside their window, she cuddled against Brody’s bare chest and heard Bo and Jace in the kitchen making breakfast. “I suppose...”

“Yeah, I guess we better get up.”

She could tell he didn’t want to let go of her any more than she wanted him to. She had started to pull away when he caught her and drew her back.

“Harper, I still don’t have anything.”

“You have
me
,” she said, and smiled.

He laughed. “Do I?”

“You know you do.”

“Then we’ll get through this together. Whatever I have to do.”

She looked up into his handsome face and smiled. “My hero.”

He laughed at that and gave her a gentle push away from him. “You keep looking at me like that and...”

CHAPTER TWENTY

M
AGGIE
CLOSED
HER
EYES
and turned her face up to the hot summer sun. Next to her the clear cold water of the lake lapped gently at the shore as several ducks took flight.

“You’re going to get more freckles.”

She opened one eye, then closed it again with a groan. “What are you doing here?” She’d seen Sarah Hamilton around, but they’d never actually met. The fact that she was here didn’t bode well. She thought of all the stories JD had told her about his wife’s claims regarding the woman and sat up, opening her eyes.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Sarah said as she stood next to the rock where Maggie sat. “He isn’t coming today.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pulled her knees up, aware that she was wearing only her undergarments and her pregnancy was starting to show. She pulled her shirt on. As she looked at the woman, she felt a shiver even though the sun was burning hot against her skin. Sarah glanced toward the lake, but Maggie knew her attention was on her. “For whatever reason you rode all the way up here, you wasted your time.”

“You have to leave JD alone.”

Maggie climbed off the large flat boulder and stepped into her jeans. “My life is none of your business.”

“He’s married,” Sarah said, looking and sounding bored.

“So are you. So why worry so much about your father-in-law’s future?”

“He’s planning to run for president. You aren’t in those plans.”

Had JD really made the decision to run? Maggie knew that Sarah was behind the whole thing. She played up to him, telling him how much the country needed a man like him. Was Sarah really after JD, and her marriage to his son was just a ruse?

Sarah smiled, seeing her surprise. “I guess he didn’t tell you he’s decided to run,” she said stepping to her. “It’s over, Maggie. He sent me to tell you.”

“You’re the last person he would send,” she said as she finished dressing. “He is starting to wonder if Grace just might be telling the truth about you. I wouldn’t get too comfortable in that big house your husband is building for you.”

Sarah looked down at the diamonds on her left-hand ring finger. “Buck is devoted to me. I’m not going anywhere. You, on the other hand, need to leave. Not just Hamilton Ranch property, but the state.” She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and brought out a thick white envelope.

Maggie shook her head, telling herself this wasn’t JD’s doing.

“He wanted you to have this.” She held out the envelope. “It’s enough for you to start over somewhere far from Montana.”

She didn’t reach for the envelope. Instead, she took a step back, still shaking her head. She knew that JD wasn’t comfortable with the way things had been escalating between them, but he wouldn’t end it like this.

“It’s more money than you’ll probably ever see,” Sarah was saying. “JD wants to be president. He can’t take you to the White House with him even if he wasn’t married. This is your chance, Maggie. Be smart for once. Take the money and leave. If you don’t...”

Maggie met the woman’s blue gaze and felt another shiver move through her. Had this woman pushed Grace down the stairs just as she’d claimed? It was definitely a possibility given the look in Sarah’s eyes. But if true, then this woman hadn’t just fooled her husband but her father-in-law, as well.

“Why do you care so much about whether or not JD is elected president?” Maggie demanded.

Sarah merely smiled. “He’s gone to Washington to make the announcement. He told me to tell you that he doesn’t want you here when he comes back.”

Maggie fought the tears that threatened. She would rather die than cry in front of this woman. “He’s going to have to tell me that to my face.”

Sarah put the envelope full of money on the rock next to her. “Do you really want it to come to that?” She shook her head. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to stick around and have everyone talking about what a fool I was. Don’t make this any harder on yourself than it has to be.”

“I love him.” Her voice broke with emotion. “I don’t want to live without him.”

“He thought you might say that.” Sarah reached behind her and pulled out a container of pills. She put them beside the money. “These don’t make as much of a mess as a bullet. Your choice.” With that, she turned and walked away.

* * *

W
HILE
B
O
AND
Harper visited after breakfast, Brody went with Jace out to the barn to do chores. He filled his friend in on what had been going on.

“What am I going to do?” he asked when he finished telling Jace about his last encounter with his father and uncle.

“You’re asking the wrong man. Look what I’ve been through with one of the Hamilton Girls.”

“I’d say it turned out pretty good for you and Bo.”

Jace smiled. “But our families weren’t deathly opposed to us being together.”

“So you’re telling me—”

“Hell, Brody, you’ve been in love with that girl for as long as I can remember. If you truly love her, what choice do you have?”

Brody laughed. “No choice. I have to fight for her.”

Jace nodded as he finished feeding the horses.

“I’m just worried. If it turns out that JD Hamilton and Maggie...”

“That was thirty-five years ago. So what if they fell in love? They wouldn’t be the first man and woman involved in a forbidden relationship. We can’t control who we fall in love with even though we wish we could sometimes. I did my best to get over Bo, but ultimately she was all I wanted. Up on that mountain...”

“You must have been terrified you would lose her.”

“I was. But between the two of us, we survived the ordeal and look at us now.” Jace smiled. “You might as well be the first to hear. Bo’s pregnant. Twins.”

Brody laughed and slapped his friend on the back. “Congratulations. I’m glad you got your happy ending, even if I’m not so sure it can happen for Harper and me. My family is one thing, but her father...”

“Buck isn’t so bad. He’s actually a nice guy, fair. I doubt any man would be good enough for his daughters.”

Brody looked out toward the Crazies. “Let’s just hope Harper’s right and JD had nothing to do with Maggie’s death.”

* * *

A
FTER
ONLY
A
few hours’ sleep, the sheriff arrived at his office to hear that the DNA results were in. None of them matched Maggie’s fetus.

“I just saw the DNA results,” Frank said when the coroner answered his phone.

“Not what you expected, huh.”

“I’ll be right over,” Frank said, and hung up. All the way over to Charlie’s office, the sheriff told himself that the person who impregnated Maggie wasn’t necessarily her killer. Yet, if that person had been Senator JD Hamilton... But according to the tests, JD hadn’t fathered the baby.

He’d been so sure that one of those DNA samples was going to supply them with the answer. Everyone already believed JD was guilty. Would they believe the results? Not likely. Frank hated to think what impact it might have on Buck and his bid for the Republican nomination in June.

After parking, he got out and entered the coroner’s office to find Charlie sitting at his desk. “Help me understand this,” Frank said.

“None of the samples you brought me were a match.”

He let that sink in as he dropped into a chair across from Charlie. “But if I know anything about DNA, you wouldn’t get an
exact
match from Buckmaster since he is JD’s son, but some of the same markers should have been there, right?”

“Unless Buck isn’t JD’s son. Otherwise, JD was not the father of Maggie’s baby.”

Frank sat back with a curse. “I hadn’t considered that Buck might not be JD’s biological son.” He swore again. “I’m going to have to get a judge to let me exhume JD’s body.” He pulled off his hat and raked his hand through his hair. “At least I am going to try.”

“No other suspects?”

He let out a long breath. “One who refused to give me a DNA sample. I’ll talk to the judge about him when I ask for the exhumations of JD Hamilton and Ty Jenkins. Ty killed himself not long after Maggie was raped.”

Charlie jerked back in surprise at this news. “She was raped?”

Frank nodded. “Evidently, it was more than one offender involved, according to her doctor. There was bruising on her wrists and ankles where she’d been held down.”

“So any one of them could have fathered the baby, including JD Hamilton—if he really was having an affair with her,” Charlie said.

“Yep. Just as any one of them could have killed her. According to the doctor, the man who brought Maggie to her that night was none other than Senator JD Hamilton.”

“How did that happen?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. But it makes sense that he wasn’t involved in the rape.”

“But it also makes it look as if he was involved with Maggie.”

“Doesn’t it.” Frank put his hat back on. “I best get over and talk to the judge.”

“You don’t have much probable cause.”

“No. I suspect I might get turned down flat and then I’ll have to go to Buckmaster and try to sell him on the idea of the exhumation clearing his father.”

“Good luck with that.”

* * *

“T
HERE
’
S
SOME
THINGS
I need to take care of,” Brody said as they left Bo and Jace’s house. “I can drop you off at your house first.”

Harper wanted to ask him what things, but she figured it had something to do with his family and the ranch. Brody had always been told the ranch would one day be his. He’d spent years working it, believing that. Now he wasn’t sure what his future held. She could tell he was worried and her assuring him that everything would be fine wasn’t going to make him feel better.

At the house, she was relieved to see several of the staffs cars parked in front. Brody hadn’t wanted to leave her until he searched the house, but she promised him she would be fine in broad daylight with staff around.

When she entered the house, the first thing she found was a note from her father.

Sorry to tell you this way, but your mother is going to be moving in. She didn’t want to move in until she talked to you, though. I have to get back to DC for a few days, but will return as soon as possible. Please make her feel at home.

Love, Dad

Harper read it twice. “Mother is moving in?” she said aloud to herself.

“She’s down at the stables.”

Looking up, she saw the housekeeper and felt a flush of embarrassment. She’d thought she was alone in the room.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you weren’t talking to me?” the woman asked.

Harper laughed. “It’s fine. That would have been my next question.” She realized that one of the cars out front was her mother’s. She hadn’t recognized it because her mother was the last person she expected to see here.

What had changed that her mother was now moving in?

As she walked down to the stables, she admitted she was floored by this sudden turnaround. The last time she’d talked to her father, her mother wasn’t moving in until after the primaries—at the earliest.

Also surprising was her mother being at the stables.

Frowning, she looked up to see a rider headed toward the Crazies.
Her mother?
“Excuse me,” she said to one of the wranglers by the barn. “Was that my mother who just left on a horse?”

“Sarah, right?”

“Right. Did she say where she was going?”

The wrangler shook his head. “Sorry.”

Harper looked after her, more than a little confused. She’d heard her whole life that her mother was terrified of horses after being bucked off.

A cold dread settled in her stomach. Why would her mother lie about being afraid of horses? The woman riding the horse in the distance appeared to know perfectly well what she was doing—and where she was going.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said to the wrangler. “You don’t happen to know how to get to Mirror Lake, do you?”

He shook his head. “But I do have a map of the Crazy Mountains in my pickup. My brother camps up in the mountains all the time. He left it in my truck.”

By the time the wrangler returned, Harper had her horse saddled and was ready to go. She knew a lot of the area from growing up here, but she had never been to Mirror Lake.

However, one glance at the map and she had a pretty good idea where her mother was headed—and how to beat her there.

* * *

F
RANK
HAD
FEARED
it would be an uphill battle to get the warrants he needed, and that’s why he went to Judge Roy Nash.

“Sounds to me like you’re using a shotgun approach when you need a rifle,” the elderly judge said, eyeing him across the table.

Just because everyone in the county thought JD Hamilton was guilty, it didn’t make it true. “I can’t convict a man based on rumors,” Frank said. “Also, I have reason to believe there is more to the story. Maggie was raped by two or more men five months before she was murdered.”

“Five months,” the judge repeated.

“It is possible one of these men was the father of her baby—and her killer.”

Judge Nash nodded thoughtfully. “Sometimes it takes a shotgun when you’re not sure what you’re hunting for,” he agreed. “I guess we see who puts up the biggest fight.”

“There are too many variables not to go straight to the source.”

“The source being the father of the next president of the United States.”

“He still has to win,” Frank said, and the judge laughed.

“Also, I want to exhume Ty Jenkins’s body. He killed himself not long after the rape.”

“Covering all your bets.”

“Yes, I am, Judge. One of the suspects was murdered last night.” He quickly filled him in. “I think the killer is still alive and might kill again unless I stop him. I need to know whose baby Maggie was carrying.”