Rugged Defender Read online

  Murder in Montana?

  Investigative reporter Chloe Clementine can’t forget the kiss she shared with cowboy Justin Calhoun as a teenager. Home for the holidays after a too-long absence, she hears Justin’s brother was murdered five years ago. Even more shocking is the fact that his father believes Justin killed him. Chloe knows he’s innocent, and, with the cowboy’s help, she will do whatever it takes to discover the truth.

  Whitehorse, Montana: The Clementine Sisters

  “Why didn’t you keep in touch? Or maybe even come back in the summer?”

  Chloe shook her head, hating to admit the truth for fear of just how silly this all was. One kiss. She’d lived off it all these years because it had been so perfect. At least in her memory. “I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Afraid it wasn’t anything. That maybe I misread the kiss, that...” She shrugged again as she looked into his handsome face. This cowboy had been in her dreams for years, and now here he was in the flesh. Could real life live up to the fantasy Justin Calhoun? She thought it just might.

  “Do you even remember the kiss?”

  He held her gaze. “What do you think?”

  She swallowed again and had to look away. “We were so young.”

  “You think that makes a difference?”

  “I don’t know.” She turned back to him. “What do you think?”

  “That we might have to test it.”

  RUGGED DEFENDER

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  B.J. Daniels

  B.J. Daniels is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. She wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. She lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and three springer spaniels. When not writing, she quilts, boats and plays tennis. Contact her at bjdaniels.com, on Facebook or on Twitter, @bjdanielsauthor.

  Books by B.J. Daniels

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Whitehorse, Montana: The Clementine Sisters

  Hard Rustler

  Rogue Gunslinger

  Rugged Defender

  The Montana Cahills

  Cowboy’s Redemption

  Whitehorse, Montana: The McGraw Kidnapping

  Dark Horse

  Dead Ringer

  Rough Rider

  HQN Books

  The Montana Cahills

  Renegade’s Pride

  Outlaw’s Honor

  Hero’s Return

  Rancher’s Dream

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  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Justin Calhoun—The son of a wealthy rancher returns to Whitehorse to find out if he was right about one magical winter kiss years ago—and to solve a murder.

  Chloe Clementine—The investigative reporter can’t resist a mystery—especially when it involves a man she’s never forgotten after one magical winter kiss years ago.

  Bert Calhoun—He lost his favorite son. But what is killing him is that he believes his only other son was the murderer.

  Drew Calhoun—His death was ruled accidental, but no one believes that, especially his father. The problem is that a lot of people wanted Drew dead.

  Nicole “Niki” Kent—She knew both Calhoun men. One she loved. The other she hated. And she was there the night Drew died.

  Pete Ferris—The insurance man had reason to want Drew Calhoun dead after Drew befriended Pete’s wife.

  Monte Decker—The banker had been cheated by Drew in a poker game, but did he hate Drew enough to kill him?

  Patsy Carter Simpson—She knew Drew as well as anyone. It’s why she broke up with him and married someone else.

  Blaine Simpson—The big cowboy just wanted Drew to leave his wife alone.

  Thad Zimmerman—The Calhoun ranch manager had his own reasons for wanting the youngest son to stay gone.

  CJ Hanson—He wanted his best friend’s killer to pay. But then again, he was a bully who wanted everyone to pay.

  Emily Ferris—Pete’s wife might have been the only person in town who saw another side to Drew Calhoun. Or she might have killed him.

  This book is for Lu Besel, one of the most gracious women I know. I want to be you when I grow up.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Girl Who Wouldn't Stay Dead by Cassie Miles

  Chapter One

  It all began with a kiss. At least that’s the way Chloe Clementine remembered it. A winter kiss, which is nothing like a summer one. The cold, icy air around you. Puffs of white breaths intermingling. Warm lips touching, tingling as they meet for the very first time.

  Chloe thought that kiss would be the last thing she remembered before she died of old age. It was the kiss—and the cowboy who’d kissed her—that she’d been dreaming about when her phone rang. Being in Whitehorse had brought it all back after all these years.

  She groaned, wanting to keep sleeping so she could stay in that cherished memory longer. Her phone rang again. She swore that if it was one of her sisters calling this early...

  “What?” she demanded into the phone without bothering to see who was calling. She’d been so sure that it would be her youngest sister, Annabelle, the morning person.

  “Hello?” The voice was male and familiar. For just a moment she thought she’d conjured up the cowboy from the kiss. “It’s Justin.”

  Justin? She sat straight up in bed. Thoughts zipped past at a hundred miles an hour. How had he gotten her cell phone number? Why was he calling? Was he in Whitehorse?

  “Justin,” she said, her voice sounding croaky from sleep. She cleared her throat. “I thought it was Annabelle calling. What’s up?” She glanced at the clock. What’s up at seven forty-five in the morning?

  “I know it’s early but I got your message.”

  Now she really was confused. “My message?” She had danced with his best friend at the Christmas Dance recently, but she hadn’t sent Justin a message.

  “That you needed to see me? That it was urgent?”

  She had no idea what he was talking about. Had her sister Annabelle done this? She couldn’t imagine her sister Tessa Jane “TJ” doing such a thing. But since her sisters had fallen in love they hadn’t been themselves.

  “I’m sorry, but I didn’t send you a message. You’re sure it was from me?”

  “The person calling just told me that you were in trouble and needed my help. There was loud music in the background as if whoever it was might have called me from a bar.”

  He didn’t think she’d drunk-dialed him, did he? “Sorry, but it wasn’t me
.” She was more sorry than he knew. “And I can’t imagine who would have called you on my behalf.” Like the devil, she couldn’t. It had to be her sister Annabelle.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that you aren’t in trouble and urgently need my help,” he said, not sounding like that at all.

  She closed her eyes, now wishing she’d made something up. What was she thinking? She didn’t need to improvise. She was in trouble, though nothing urgent exactly. At least for the moment. And since she hadn’t told anyone about what was going on with her...

  “Are you in Whitehorse?” she asked.

  “No. I haven’t been back for years.” There was regret in his voice that made her think he hadn’t left because he wanted to. Odd.

  “Me either. I came home to be with my sisters for the holidays. I appreciate you calling though. It’s nice to know that if I was in trouble, you’d...” He hadn’t exactly said that he’d come running. “Call. It’s good to hear your voice.”

  “Yours too. It’s been a long time.”

  Too long. She wondered if he ever thought of her—and their kiss. Her sisters referred to Justin T. Calhoun as her high school boyfriend. But in truth, they’d barely gotten together before she’d had to leave for college. There’d just been that snowy-day kiss. He’d gone on to reportedly get engaged to Nicole “Nici” Kent, break up, and then get married to and divorced from Margie Taylor while Chloe had been busy getting her journalism degree and working her way up from one newspaper to another larger one.

  While she’d dated some, none of the men she’d met stood up to what she called The Kiss Test. None of them had come close to Justin’s winter kiss.

  “So how long are you staying in Whitehorse?” he asked, dragging her from her thoughts.

  “Until the first.” The truth was, her plans after that were rather up in the air. Not even her sisters knew the real story. “Maybe longer.”

  “So you’ll be there for the New Year’s Eve Masquerade Dance.”

  It was only days away. Annabelle had been trying to talk her into going but Chloe had been adamant that she wasn’t. Her sisters had dragged her to the Christmas Dance and that was bad enough. Nothing could change her mind... Except Justin.

  She hedged. “I haven’t made up my mind yet about going. Are you thinking about it?” she asked hopefully.

  He laughed. “You and I never got a chance to dance.”

  They’d never gotten a chance to do a lot of things. “No,” she said. “You dance?”

  He chuckled. “You’d have to be the judge of that. Maybe I’ll see you there. It’s been nice talking with you, Chloe. You take care.” And he was gone.

  “Maybe I’ll see you there”? Not, “I’ll see you there”? Not, “let’s make it a date and I’ll come back to Whitehorse”? But still her heart was a hammer in her chest. Just the thought of seeing Justin again...

  She told herself that it had been years. He might have changed. The chemistry might not even be there anymore. How could she even be sure it had been there to start with? It had been just one kiss.

  The doorbell rang, followed by the front door opening and excited voices. Moments later, she heard noisy chatter on the stairs. Chloe wanted to put her head back under the covers.

  “I bet she’s not even up yet,” she heard TJ say.

  “Well, we’d better wake her up otherwise we’re going to be late.”

  Chloe didn’t like the sound of this. Before she could move, her sisters burst into her bedroom.

  “Get up, sleepyhead,” Annabelle said. “We have a surprise for you.”

  She didn’t like surprises and said as much. Also she suspected she’d already gotten one of her sisters’ surprises this morning.

  “Annabelle volunteered us to work at the local soup kitchen today just like we did as kids,” TJ told her. It had been one of their grandmother’s pet projects. When their parents were killed in a car wreck, the three of them had moved to Whitehorse, Montana, to live with the grandmother they’d never met. Grandma Frannie was gone now, but she’d left Annabelle her house a few months ago, which their sister had readied for them for the holidays.

  “It will make you a better person,” TJ said, sounding enough like their grandmother that Chloe had to laugh.

  “Fine. Let me get dressed.” She watched her sisters start to leave. “Justin just called me.”

  They both froze before turning to face her. “Seriously?” Annabelle said, clearly trying to keep her face straight. “What did he say?”

  “That someone had called him from a bar telling him I was in trouble and that it was urgent. The person apparently gave him my cell phone number.” She looked from one sister to the next and back. “I know it was you, Annabelle.”

  Her sister laughed. “Wrong.”

  “It was Annabelle’s idea,” TJ said quickly. “But I made the call. Too much wine. I’m sorry. Guess you should have come to the bar with us the other night.”

  She wanted to scold them both but could only shake her head.

  “So how did the call go?” Annabelle asked, looking excited.

  “He said he might see me at the Masquerade Dance.”

  “Really? That’s great!” Annabelle exchanged a high five with TJ. “I told you it would work.”

  “It didn’t work. It’s not like he promised to come back to Whitehorse or attend the dance. He said maybe.” She could see that this didn’t dampen either of her sisters’ spirits or their belief that their call was successful.

  “Oh, I hope he comes,” Annabelle said. “It’s so sad. I’m sure his friend Cooper told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “Justin’s older brother, Drew. He was killed. Justin found him.”

  Drew had already been out of high school by the time Chloe was a freshman, so she’d never really known him. “That’s horrible,” Chloe said and saw from her sister’s expression that there was more. “What?”

  “It happened five years ago. Drew’s death was ruled an accident but...” She looked at TJ.

  “But what?” Chloe asked.

  “Justin was under suspicion,” Annabelle said. Since returning home to Whitehorse, her youngest sister had gotten caught up on all the local gossip thanks to a bunch of nosy elderly neighbors. “No one who knew him thought he’d been involved, but his father...well, I guess he still blames Justin.”

  Chloe couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Poor Justin. I had no idea. So much tragedy. Why would his father blame him?”

  Annabelle shrugged. “Apparently Bert Calhoun idolized his oldest son. Justin and Drew were often at odds. That day Drew and Justin had an argument. That’s all I know except that Justin left town and hasn’t come back. We’d better get going or we’re going to be late.”

  TJ had picked up a newspaper that Chloe had left on a table by the bedroom door, before saying, “I’m surprised you were able to get so much time off from the paper. So you’re staying until after the New Year, right?”

  “I thought we were going to be late?” Chloe said. “Let me get showered and dressed.” She shooed them out, but she could tell that TJ wasn’t going to let the subject drop. At some point, Chloe knew she would have to tell them the truth.

  * * *

  JUSTIN T. CALHOUN leaned back, his boots resting on the large pine stump he used for a footstool, and thought about the phone call. Just hearing Chloe’s voice had brought back the few sweet memories he had of Whitehorse. After everything that had happened, was it any wonder he’d been glad to leave it all behind?

  But jumping feetfirst into a marriage to Margie Taylor had been a mistake, he thought as he looked out at the flat, white landscape of North Dakota. He could admit now that he’d been trying to put everything behind him. He’d worked her family ranch during their very short marriage. It hadn’t taken Margie long to realize that his heart wasn’t in it. Not i
n her or ranching her family’s place. They’d parted as friends and he’d gone to work for another rancher near the Montana–North Dakota border. He hadn’t even considered going home.

  And yet the moment he’d heard Chloe Clementine was in trouble, he’d been ready to jump on his trusty steed and ride off to save her. He hadn’t been that man in years and yet, instantly, he’d wanted to be. Because as much as he tried to fool himself, he had unfinished business in Whitehorse.

  He stretched out his long denim-clad legs and looked around the small cabin he’d called home for months. It kept the snow out, but that was about all he could say about it. He didn’t mind living modestly. Or at least he never had.

  Talking to Chloe had left him restless. It reminded him that once, a long time ago, he’d had dreams. It also made him think about what he’d given up all those years ago. Is this what it took to get him to finally face the past? He thought about their kiss on that winter night, just the two of them with ice crystals floating around them.

  “You damn fool,” he said to himself and yet he couldn’t help smiling. He’d always wanted to go to the New Year’s Eve Masquerade Dance in Whitehorse. The idea of showing up and surprising Chloe... Just the thought of seeing her again...

  At the sound of a truck approaching, he cursed and stood. He had someone else’s cattle to feed, someone else’s fence to mend. He shoved his worn Stetson down on his head, aware that he needed a haircut. A shave wouldn’t hurt either. But what was the point of even thinking about making a change—let alone trying to go back to what could have been? Chloe didn’t need him. So why had he said that he might show up at the party?

  Worse, why was he thinking it was time to make things right?

  * * *

  AT THE EDGE of town, the wind whipped the new snow, swirling it around the empty cemetery. The huge old pine trees creaked and swayed. His tracks filled behind him as Bert Calhoun made his way to the granite tombstone.

  He hated this trek through the cemetery each year. He knew he should come more often, but it was too painful. He felt old, forgotten, his heart as bleak as the winter landscape around him.