Page 24 of Dead Man's Hand

He listened as the PI told him what had happened when he’d reached the motel room. The news didn’t come as a surprise. He’d already figured that Grandville’s men had found her. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll live,” Crawford said. “But apparently she left you a note.”

He listened as Crawford read:“‘I saw them looking for me in town. I barely got away. I have no choice. I’m going to meet Luca up at Charley Diamond’s cabin in the mountains north of Lonesome.

Thank you for trying to help me, but I know things didn’t go well up in Butte or you would have been back by now. Luca and I are going to head for Alaska. It’s only a matter of time before Grandville comes looking for us if we stay here.’”

Keira, no, DJ thought. She was making a huge mistake. He had to stop her, or she’d be running the rest of her life. “Any chance she left directions to the cabin?”

Silence, then Crawford said, “She did.” What he didn’t say, but DJ heard, were the words “almost as if she was hoping you’d go to the cabin to try to stop her.” The PI continued reading.“‘I’d love to see you before we leave. In case you forgot where Charley’s cabin is, here’s the directions. If we miss each other, thank you again for everything.’”

“DJ, you have to wonder why she’d leave you the directions to the cabin,” Crawford said. “Are you sure you can trust her?”

He felt anger boil up inside him. “She’s been like a little sister to me from the time she was just a toddler,” he snapped. “Just give me the directions.”

Again there was that slight hesitation before the PI read the directions.

“Thanks. Send me a bill,” DJ said, hating that Crawford was thinking the same thing he was. If he went to Charley’s old cabin outside of Lonesome, he could be walking into a trap—a trap set by someone he loved and thought he could trust with his life.

“You already know it isn’t money I want,” Crawford said. “Saturday at the only white church in Lonesome. Four o’clock.”

He disconnected. He could feel Sadie’s gaze on him and see the recrimination in her expression. The PI had done him a favor, gotten his head bashed in, and this was the way DJ repaid it. Of course she’d heard the entire conversation in the confines of the SUV. He could see that she agreed with the PI. Going up to the cabin was a mistake, maybe the last one he’d ever make.

But when she spoke, it was only to say, “So we’re going up into the mountains to your uncle’s cabin to meet her.”

“Notwe. Just me. I should never have gotten you involved in this. I’m putting you on the next plane to Florida.”

“You know that isn’t going to happen. I’m going with you because clearly you’re determined to see her. You don’t believe that she would turn on you and you could be right.”

He held her gaze, but words stuck in his throat. He probably wasn’t right; that’s what hurt. Keira had betrayed him. He knew it and yet he refused to believe it until he heard it from her. And by then, it would be too late.

“I have to know,” DJ said, fearing that the bond he and Keira had was never as strong as he’d thought. It was something he didn’t want to think about right now. “I also have to try to save her if I can. Grandville will never let her go now.”

SADIEFELTHERheart break for him. He and Keira weren’t really brother and sister, but it didn’t matter to DJ if they were blood or not. Some bonds were even stronger.

She could understand his loyalty and love for this girl he’d taken under his wing from an early age. Two children thrown together under strange if not terrifying circumstances. She thought of her own childhood. She’d been alone in an adult world that she knew wasn’t normal. Her parents dead after their small private plane had crashed. If it hadn’t been for her godfather, who knows what would have happened to her.

Ezra Montclair had taken her in, raised her, taught her the business as if she were the heir to his kingdom. She’d been all alone in that adult world. She would have loved to have another child to be there with her, let alone to watch her back. She’d learned to navigate through the many men who came to see her godfather. She’d learned to be invisible, to listen and learn, to not be a child.

“I envy the relationship you had with her,” Sadie said at last. “I would have loved a big brother watching over me like you have Keira.”

He said nothing, looking sick for fear he was wrong about her. Worse, that Keira had lied about the debt owed to the Grandvilles knowing he would come back to Montana to help her. If she’d deceived him, she had to know what Titus Grandville would do to DJ. She couldn’t be that naive.

“I needed her as much as she needed me,” he said. “She gave me a purpose.”

Like paying off Uncle Charley’s debt, she thought. Now that debt was paid. Keira in need had become his new purpose. But what after that? she wondered, realizing how driven DJ had been. First it had been just the fight to survive in the world he’d found himself in. Later, it was repaying even a dead Charley for giving him a home, an occupation, a way to survive once he was on his own.

She realized that she and DJ weren’t all that different. Both Charley and her godfather had taught them well. They were survivors.

Chapter Twelve

DJ made his decision. “I need you to go back to Florida.” She started to speak, but he stopped her. “Sadie, I’m begging you. I’ll take you to the airport so you can catch a flight home. It has to be this way.Please.”

She shook her head, raising a hand and cutting him off. “I’m not letting you do this alone. You’re wounded and you need me. We’re partners, remember?”

He shook his head. “That’s over. Your godfather and I are square. You and I are square, aren’t we?” He held her gaze and saw something so soft and vulnerable that he had to look away. They were so much more than that, he thought as his heart lifted, then fell. Hadn’t he wanted desperately to be with this woman—and not just as business partners. Now that they had a chance to be together... “You know I might be walking into a trap that could get me killed.”

“Get us killed,” she corrected. “But we stand a better chance together, always have. We check out the cabin. If it looks like a setup...” She drew his gaze back to her. “We walk away. Together. One last game. If we realize we can’t win it, we throw in our cards and fold. There is no shame in walking away when the odds are against you.”

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