Page 17 of River Legacy (Powder River #5)

W endell felt his blood run cold. There was no mistake, he was being followed. He sped up, took the next right down a side street, then took the next left. The driver of the vehicle stayed right with him. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do.

His first instinct in the old days would have been to stop and storm back there and demand to know what was going on.

But times had changed, he’d changed. He wasn’t that cocky young man who had nothing to lose.

He was Wendell Forester, a billionaire with a daughter and a whole hell of a lot to lose.

He had no idea where to find the police department or he might have headed there. Instead, he tried to stay where there was traffic and plenty of people. The last thing he needed was to get caught on a dead-end street away from everything.

His cell phone rang. He hoped it wasn’t that fool Claude. It wasn’t. All he saw was the name Stafford, and he quickly picked up, terrified that whoever was behind him wasn’t working alone and that someone had his daughter.

Why had he insisted she meet him in Billings? He’d never thought he might put her in danger because he felt safe away from Dallas, away from the death threats. Yet one had been slipped under his door. Now he feared that whoever had threatened him had taken his daughter to get back at him.

He answered the call.

“Wendell Forester, right?” said a male voice on the line. “This is CJ Stafford. We spoke almost a year ago about my ranch.”

CJ Stafford? How could he possibly forget? He’d never heard of the Stafford Ranch before that phone call. He wound his way through the city, the car still behind him. Right now all he could think about was Victoria. “Are you calling from the ranch?”

“Yes, why?” CJ said, sounding a little annoyed.

“Did you happen to see my daughter? Is that why you’re calling me now?”

“Victoria? Yes, I ran into her going into my sister’s bedroom. She told me that she is Ryder’s fiancée.”

“Is she all right?” He hated how his voice sounded, winded, weak, afraid. Too many strange things had been happening. Was CJ calling to say that he had her? That he was holding her for ransom?

“She’s fine,” CJ said impatiently. “I didn’t call you to talk about your daughter. I called about the ranch. Are you still interested in buying it?”

He glanced back at the car behind him, trying to make sense of what was happening. This didn’t have anything to do with Victoria? She was safe at the ranch. Now CJ Stafford was offering him the property? “Your brother says the land isn’t for sale.”

“That could change. Just tell me if you’re still interested in buying it.”

That could change? “Yes, but let me call you back at a better time. I’m in the middle of something right now.

” He disconnected, saw a yellow light ahead and pressed down on the gas.

He knew he would get there before the light turned red.

As he roared through the intersection, cars from the other direction were already pulling out.

Wendell just missed them as he sped through the light. Behind him, the car following him was forced to stop. He quickly hung a left, then a right, then another left. He looked behind him again.

He’d lost the tail.

But he was shaken. He wasn’t sure who was after him, but someone was.

After the call from CJ Stafford, he was more anxious than before to get to Powder Crossing and the Stafford Ranch.

He needed to make sure that Victoria was all right.

He’d love nothing better if she was engaged to Ryder Stafford, but he had his doubts, which was why he was interested in seeing what CJ Stafford was offering.

With a little luck, he would get the ranch. At least he would get something he’d come to Montana for.

Then he and his daughter would get on his private jet and go home, leaving Claude to take a commercial flight in coach.

V ictoria took her time getting ready. She’d found a little blue number and a pair of knee-high boots in the back of the Tilly’s closet. She’d wrangled her coppery hair into a clip and found some mascara in one of Tilly’s drawers. She didn’t need blush: the sun had put a glow in her cheeks.

Looking in the mirror, she liked what she saw and hoped Ryder did too.

She looked so... alive. She couldn’t help but wonder what her friends would have thought about this look.

It was so different from how she would have looked on a date in Dallas or New York or Paris.

That world seemed so far away, she thought, listening to the sound of the breeze in the cottonwoods along the river.

A date. That was what this was, wasn’t it?

She smiled to herself, excited about tonight, actually more excited than she’d been about a night out in a very long time.

This was such a different world. She had no idea what they would do if the town was as small as Ryder had told her, but she couldn’t wait to find out.

It isn’t the Wild West that has you so excited. It’s the cowboy.

She grinned at herself in the mirror. Nothing wrong with enjoying Ryder while she was here, right? Yet she felt she was playing with fire. This wasn’t her life. It was one weekend in Montana. She warned herself to be careful.

Victoria glanced at the clock beside the bed and hurried downstairs.

As she reached the bottom step, she saw Ryder and stopped.

He stood staring at her as if he’d never seen her before.

This was so different from when he’d seen her at the airport.

This look warmed her toes up and made her tingle in all the right places.

But it was the shocking current that arced between them that told her she was in dangerous territory.

She struck a pose and then laughed, wondering if he’d felt it too as he moved toward her, took her waist in his big suntanned hands and lifted her down from the last step to the floor.

“Aren’t you that woman I saw driving a feed truck earlier?” he said jokingly, but she could tell that he liked this woman too. Her heart beat a little faster as he helped her put on the only jacket she’d found in Tilly’s closet, a denim one. “You look great.”

She smiled, feeling buoyant as she let him escort her out to his pickup.

She told herself not to get too excited about tonight—or the town of Powder Crossing.

But she couldn’t help it. There was something in the air that made her feel more alive than she’d ever felt.

She glanced over at Ryder. He was so handsome, so sure of himself, and he’d dressed up like it was a real date.

He wore the Stetson he’d had in Billings, a green Western shirt that complemented his eyes, and new jeans—just like the boots.

So there, Claude, she thought. The man just hadn’t been putting on the dog in Billings. He’d come there to confront her father, not impress him. She liked that, she realized.

“So how was your first day on the ranch?” he asked.

She heard it in his voice. He wanted her to like the place, and she did. “I loved every second of it. That horseback ride was amazing.”

He chuckled. “After you tricked me into thinking you didn’t know the front end of a horse from the back.”

She grinned over at him. “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. But I wasn’t joking about never having driven a vehicle before.”

He laughed. “Oh, after a few minutes with you behind the wheel, you had me convinced—and Brand too. We about lost him off the back more times than I want to remember.”

Victoria smiled at the memory of finally getting the hang of it. “I loved meeting your sisters. I’m sure Oakley made your childhood fun.”

“Ha! You have no idea. She’s a spitfire, always has been.”

“I almost forgot. I met your brother CJ earlier.”

“What?” Ryder shot her a surprised—and worried—look. “Where?”

“Upstairs. I was just going into Tilly’s room when he came down the hall.”

Ryder let out a curse under his breath.

When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “He wasn’t supposed to be on the ranch.”

“He was very curious about me. When I told him who I was, he recognized the name. Apparently, he had called my father about selling the ranch months ago.”

Ryder hit the brakes so hard and so fast that if she hadn’t had her seat belt on, she might have gone through the windshield. “Sorry,” he said quickly as he pulled to the side of the road. “Are you okay?” She nodded. “CJ told you he had contacted your father about the ranch?”

She nodded. She’d known he wasn’t going to like hearing it, but she hadn’t expected him to take it as badly as this.

“That explains how your father came into our lives. It was all CJ’s doing.” He cursed, then apologized as he got the pickup going again. “No wonder your father has been so persistent.”

“But when you were in Billings you made it clear to him that the ranch wasn’t for sale, right?”

He glanced over at her. “Have you forgotten that we’re talking about your father?”

“Sorry, you’re right. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” She really was sorry. She didn’t want it to ruin their night. Honestly, sometimes she just needed to keep her mouth shut and wait for a better time. She just hadn’t expected Ryder to take it so hard.

“No,” he apologized. “I’m glad you told me about seeing him and about him contacting your father before he was locked up. I wondered how your father even knew about the Stafford Ranch.”

“I’m sure that after talking to your brother, my father researched the ranch, the area, talked to a local geologist—”

“That’s if my brother hadn’t already told him about the methane gas on the property.”

She reached over and touched his thigh. “I’m sorry. But if my father hadn’t been trying to buy your ranch and hook me up with Claude, we would never have met.”

He chuckled. “A silver lining, huh? For that I am grateful.” She sure hoped he felt that way.

She hated that she might have made things worse.

He’d saved her from what was going to be a very ugly weekend with her father and Claude.

He was right, though. She could have handled them both, but she feared what it would have done to her relationship with her father.

When Ryder looked over at her, she saw that he was enjoying her being here. It filled her with a strange kind of joy. She realized how much she’d wanted him to like her, because she really liked him. She thought about how patient he’d been with her driving lessons. Ryder Stafford was a good man.

“It’s just that my brother worries me,” he said.

“CJ was always our mother’s favorite. He could do no wrong.

We all knew that he thought of the ranch as his own.

I’m sure my mother thought that he would run the ranch one day, as the oldest. He certainly tried to run all of us off so he could have it to himself sooner.

But I never thought he’d actually try to sell it. ”

“I saw on our horseback ride how much the ranch means to you.”

“There are some things in life that don’t have a price tag on them,” he said as she spotted the lights of a town ahead.

She wished what Ryder had said was true but feared that wouldn’t stop her father. She told herself that there was no way CJ could get his hands on the ranch and no way Ryder was ever going to sell it. But what worried her was what her father planned to do about that.

“Is that Powder Crossing?” she asked, hoping to lighten the mood that had filled the cab of the pickup.

The last thing she had wanted to do was spoil their night together since it was all they had.

But she’d known that Ryder needed to know about CJ and what she’d learned.

After meeting CJ, she’d realized that her father wasn’t the only one wanting to take the ranch away from him.

Ryder reached over and squeezed her hand. “Tonight is about having fun. Welcome to Powder Crossing.”

She saw at once how small the town was. It almost looked like a Western movie set. A line of pickups was parked in front of the apparently only bar in town. A couple more were parked in front of the hotel and the café. The general store looked closed.

“Is this as lively as town gets?” she asked as he parked in a spot near the café. She could hear country music coming from the bar across the street.

“Saturday night in Powder Crossing,” he said with a grin. “You are in for a treat.” His cell phone rang. He checked it and declined the call. It rang again a few seconds later. He frowned.

“Take the call if you need to, it,” Victoria suggested.

He shook his head and hit Decline. He was about to shut off his phone when it rang yet again. With a sigh, he said, “This time it’s Brand. I’d better take it. What’s up?”

She watched him listen for a few seconds before he said, “We’re on our way.” Disconnecting, he said, “Tilly just had a baby girl.”

“That’s wonderful.” Victoria couldn’t believe how excited she was for Tilly. She had looked so miserable earlier.

“Mind if we make a quick stop by the hospital before dinner?”

“Not at all.” She broke into a smile. “I’m so excited for her. A baby girl.” She felt goose bumps, happy for Tilly, but also for the whole Stafford and McKenna family. That old ache for family felt like a punch in the gut. Ryder had no idea how lucky he was.