Page 1 of Dark Side of the River

CHAPTER ONE

OAKLEYSTAFFORDSPURREDher horse as she came bursting out of the ravine headed for the safety of the river bottom. Behind her she could hear the thunder of hooves, pounding as hard as her own blood. Only one rider, but he apparently was determined to catch her, to stop her. She knew that on horseback she could outrun him. That single rider, a cowboy who’d fallen in behind her as she came out of the ravine, wasn’t who she was worried about.

The real trouble was in the sky behind her. The sound of a small-plane engine growing closer made her heart race. They were coming after her, determined to stop her at all costs. She was outnumbered and they had all the advantages. She could no longer hear the horse and rider behind her, but the sound of the plane’s engine was getting louder. It was flying low, coming up fast behind her.

If it was the Piper Cub she’d seen earlier, one of the men had been shooting at coyotes from the open window behind the pilot. She knew she would make a much bigger target than a coyote. She was now easy prey.

The dirt ahead of her was suddenly pocked as a bullet struck it. Dust rose next to her horse, making it shy to the right. Ahead she could see the cover of the thick cottonwoods that lined each side of the Powder River. Once under that dark canopy, at the least the pilot and his passenger wouldn’t have a clear shot at her. If they were the ones who’d just fired on her.

But the cowboy on the horse behind her was also armed—and maybe even more dangerous. She’d seen him as she’d come racing out of the ravine, getting only a glimpse before she’d heard him shoot. Her only chance was to make it past the trees and the river to the county road...

Spurring her horse, she leaned forward, urging the mare to go faster, desperate to reach the grove of cottonwoods. She heard the plane pull up and begin to circle, drowning out the sound of hooves behind her. But she knew he was still back there, determined to stop her.

She couldn’t let him or the others catch her. They would kill her. She knew too much.

COOPERMCKENNARESTEDhis arm out the open pickup window as he drove down the familiar county road. After being away this long, he was in no hurry to reach home. The late-June heat blew in along with grasshoppers that flew around the cab. Ahead, huge cottonwoods crowded both sides of the dirt road, making a shaded dark green tunnel. The sun pierced the green leaves to throw shadows across his path as he drove beneath them, the air in here cooler.

Overhead, puffy white clouds floated in a sea of deep blue above the treetops. He caught only glimpses of the river that began in Wyoming and traveled more than one hundred and fifty miles to empty into the Yellowstone.

Many claimed that the Powder River was a mile wide, an inch deep and ran uphill. The running joke was that it was too thick to drink and too thin to plow. Captain Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition had named it Redstone River. But the Native Americans called it Powder River because the black shores reminded them of gunpowder, and that had stuck.

The river, the lifeblood of those who lived here, passed right through the heart of the McKenna Ranch. Just the sight of it felt like home. This was where he’d left his heart. After two years of being away, he’d shaken off the dust of the places he’d been, this country calling him home like a migrating bird after a long winter. He’d felt an ache for the familiar, yearning for the rocky bluffs, the spring green of the grasslands and, of course, the river that ran through it.

He’d passed the ranch sign five miles back and still had another ten miles to go to reach the ranch house. The McKenna Ranch stretched as far as the eye could see, the county road cutting through the heart of it. His eyes were on the road ahead, but his thoughts were as dark as the shadows lurking in the trees.

The deep ache in his chest wasn’t just for the land or for what he’d lost here. This place had broken his heart. Yet here he was, coming back. He smiled ruefully, knowing what kind of homecoming it could be. He was the middle son of Holden McKenna, a threat to his older brother, Treyton, the self-proclaimed rightful heir of the ranching empire the Holdens had built.

Cooper was the black sheep, the rebel cowboy everyone believed was a killer. The worst part was, he thought they might be right.

With a start, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye an instant before the horse and rider came flying out of the cottonwoods. The rider tumbled from the horse, going down hard in the middle of the road in front of the pickup.

Standing on the brake, Cooper was terrified he wouldn’t get stopped quickly enough on the narrow dirt road. As the pickup shuddered to a stop, he let out the breath he’d been holding before throwing the truck into Park and jumping out.

Rounding the front of the pickup, he was relieved to see that he hadn’t hit the rider, who was lying on the ground just inches from his bumper, back to him. The horse, wild-eyed and spooked, had run up the road and stopped to look back.

He spotted the brand.Stafford Ranch?What the hell was the rider doing on McKenna property with the bad blood between the families?

“That was a nasty spill you took,” he said as the rider groaned. He knelt down, not adding that it had been a dumb-ass thing to do, riding out of the woods like that onto the county road. Picking up the fallen cowboy’s hat, he asked, “You all right?”

He’d seen his share of cowboys hit the dirt, thrown from their horses for all kinds of reasons. He’d certainly had his share of unexpected dismounts. Cowboys usually just dusted themselves off, limped off to retrieve their horses and were on their way again.

Another groan. This one had hit the ground pretty hard and wasn’t getting up. Cooper hoped he wasn’t too badly injured. As he leaned over the cowboy, shock rocketed through him as he saw the rider’s face.

Oakley Stafford?He swore under his breath. He’d just assumed it was a cowboy who’d come busting out of the trees riding way too fast. He’d known Oakley and her older sister, Tilly, all of his life—even though their families had been feuding for years.

So what the hell had she been doing riding a horse like that—let alone trespassing on the McKenna Ranch? There was no need for trespassing signs. Everyone knew the last place you wanted to get caught was on the McKenna or Stafford ranches without written permission.

As far back as Cooper could remember, there had been a war going on between their two families. The only thing worse than finding a Stafford on the ranch was for a McKenna to be caught on Stafford land—the equally large ranch that bordered theirs.

Oakley let out another groan of pain and rolled toward him. He’d been sure that she’d taken worse falls from a horse, so he hadn’t been too concerned that her injuries were serious—until he saw that she was bleeding.

“Easy, take it easy,” he said as he tried to see where the blood was coming from without moving her too much. “How badly are you hurt?”

Her eyelids fluttered. “Buttercup,” she managed to whisper as she grimaced in pain.

He assumed that must be her horse. “Buttercup’s fine,” he assured her. “Where are you injured?”

“No.” She tried to get up, letting out a cry before falling back in obvious agony. He realized she was hurt much worse than he’d originally thought. He couldn’t tell where the blood was coming from, but it had soaked into the front side of her shirt on through to her denim jacket. All he could think was that she must have hit something in the road when she’d fallen.

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