A Dark Lure (3 page)

CHAPTER 2

Thursday. Four days to Thanksgiving
.

Olivia spurred her horse into a gallop up the ridge, hair streaming behind her, wind drawing tears from her eyes. She should have brought gloves—her fingers were frozen. But she adored the sensation of the chill autumn air against bare skin. Ace, her German shepherd, lagged far behind, guided by the sound of Spirit’s thudding hooves. Cresting the ridge, she reined in her mare just in time.

The sky to the west was streaked with violent shades of fuchsia and saffron, and the army of black spruce marching across the spine of the west esker was backlit by the setting sun. It looked as though the trees themselves were afire. As she watched the shimmering ball of fire sink slowly into the horizon, the wind shifted suddenly and temperatures dropped. Coyotes began yipping, their chorus of cries echoing into the distant Marble mountains. The sun disappeared, and the world turned tones of pearlescent gray. The coyotes fell suddenly silent. A chill rippled over her skin, and the fine hairs on her arms rose.

It never ceased to hold her wonder, this nightly show, this clockwork ritual of light shifting into dark and the response of the wild. This big, open sky. The miles upon miles of endless forests and the smooth, glacier-formed hills of this high interior plateau. This place, this ranch was where she had finally found a sense of peace. Of home.

To her mind this ridge afforded the best vantage point of Broken Bar Ranch at sunset. From here, golden fields rolled all the way down to the turquoise lake. Cattle usually grazed these lands, but the last of the herd had been recently sold, as had most of the horses—a stark reminder of the change that was upon this place.

She could count three small fishing boats still on the water. They were heading slowly back toward the campsite on the west shore as the water turned pewter. The Marble range to the south was dusted with the first skiffs of snow, and the aspen leaves had turned gold. Thanksgiving weekend was upon them. This would be the last weekend that fly fishers—the diehards who didn’t mind the freezing temperatures at night—would try to eke a few more hours of angling from the year. Winter was creeping down from those mountains fast, quietly closing an icy fist around the wilderness. Within weeks, days even, the forests would be white and frozen, and Broken Bar would be closed to guests, cut off from the world.

If it were her place, she would open the ranch for winter stays, offering sleigh rides, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling along the miles upon miles of wilderness trails. There would be ice skating and hockey games on the lake. Big bonfires at night. She’d provide a cowboy country-style Christmas dinner complete with a ranch-raised turkey dinner, vegetables harvested from the kitchen gardens, and a nightly roaring fire in the giant hearth. She’d lace sparkling white lights around the big blue spruce that stood sentinel in front of the old lodge house. Broken Bar was picture-perfect for it. Olivia felt a small pang in her chest, a poignant longing for Christmases and Thanksgivings past, the warmth of large family gatherings. A life she once had. But she was no longer that person, could never be. And there was no way she was going to be a victim about it.

Not anymore.

The victim role had near killed her. She was a different person now.

Yet this time of year, this tremulous window between fall and winter, was always a bit of a struggle. The scents of autumn, the sounds of geese migrating, the first shots of the fall hunt cracking through the hills still got to her, filled her with unspecified dread, whisperings of unforgotten fear. She also felt, at this time of year, the sharp chasm of loss. A mother’s loss of her child. And questions would fill her.

Where are you now, my baby girl? Are you happy? Safe?

Her mood shifted, and her attention turned toward the smoke curling up from the rock chimney of the big old lodge house in the distance. Dr. Halliday’s black SUV was still parked outside.

The ranch belonged to Old Man Myron McDonough. It had been in his family since the mid-1800s, since his ancestors had homesteaded this Cariboo land. The way Adele Carrick, his longtime housekeeper, told it, Broken Bar had been a thriving cattle and guest ranch business up until the accident twenty-three years ago that had taken Myron’s wife, Grace, and their youngest son, Jimmie. From that point Myron had begun to draw into himself, growing harder, gruffer, coarser, wilder, and the ranch business had started a long slide into disrepair. His two older kids had left, and no longer returned to visit.

And now that Myron had taken ill, he was further scaling back what was left of the ranch and fishing business. Since his diagnosis last winter, the last of the cattle and almost all the horses had been sold. Guests no longer stayed inside the lodge. Only the cabins and campsites were rented, spring through fall. Horseback trail rides had stopped last season, the wranglers and grooms laid off, all but one who cared for the handful of remaining horses. The remainder of the staff had been trimmed down to a housekeeper, a chef and kitchen assistant, seasonal wait staff and bartender, part-time cleaners, a seasonal farmhand, the groom, and her. The office and fly shop manager had been let go last week with a promise that her job would open again next summer. But there was a question whether Myron would even be around next summer.

Wind gusted hair across Olivia’s face. She could almost taste the coming snow in the air this evening—a faint metallic tinge, and she felt a sense of things closing in.

She wanted to catch the doc before he left. She was about to whistle for Ace, who’d gone snuffling after some critter, when the rumbling noise of a large rig coming along the logging road carried across the lake. She squinted into the distance. A fine line of dirt was rising like spindrift above the trees on the opposite side of the water. It sounded like a diesel engine hauling a trailer. It was probably heading to the campsite.

She’d let whoever it was settle into the campsite, and if they didn’t come around to the office to check themselves in later tonight, she’d swing by first thing in the morning. She didn’t want to miss Halliday, and his SUV was pulling out from the lodge parking lot now.

Giving a sharp whistle for Ace, Olivia nudged Spirit into a trot down the ridge. By the time she reached the dirt road, Halliday’s vehicle was already nearing the cattle grid, a cloud of dirt boiling behind him. She spurred Spirit into a gallop to head him off at the arched entranceway, hooves thudding on the dry ground. Halliday’s vehicle slowed as he saw her. He came to stop under the arch with the big bleached bull moose antlers. Olivia reined her mare in. Spirit sidestepped, snorting into cool evening air.

The doc opened his door, got out.

“Liv.”

She jumped down from the saddle and led Spirit toward him.

“I’m glad I caught you,” she said, a little breathless. “How is he?”

The doc reached up and took Spirit’s bridle. He scratched the mare’s forehead, then he sighed, looked away. Wind gusted. For a moment he watched Ace sniffing about his vehicle tires, then met her eyes again. Olivia’s heart sank at what she saw there.

“I spoke with the oncologist this morning—the results of his CT scan came in. The cancer has spread rapidly. There are masses matting his lungs, along his spine, in his liver. He’s in a great deal of pain, Liv. He’s going to need round-the-clock palliative care. There are decisions that will need to be made.”

Her chest went tight. “How soon?”

“As soon as possible.” He hesitated. “Myron could take a turn for the worse any second now. Or it could take longer. Much will depend on how badly the old badger wants to hang in and battle the pain. His son and daughter should be informed, and we all know that Myron isn’t going to do that himself.”

“I don’t think he ever stopped blaming Cole for Grace and Jimmie’s deaths,” she said quietly.

The doc nodded. “I’ve known this family for years, and that accident changed everything. Myron’s bitterness toward his boy is part of who he is now. Lord knows there’s no love lost on Cole’s side, either. Still, if it were my father, I’d want to know. I’d want the choice of saying good-bye, of maybe making amends as best I could.” He hesitated. “Myron might take it better if it came from you—if you called them.”

“Me?”

“You’re his friend.”

“But you’re an older friend, Doc.”

“I’d do it, but I’d really prefer not to alienate him right now. I’m going to need his trust as we head into this next phase of his health management. You know what he can be like.”

Olivia exhaled, pressure crushing into her chest at the thought of losing Myron, of losing her place on this ranch. Her home. As the cold wind gusted she felt it again, that sense of a dark cold closing in. Things coming full circle.

Her mind strayed to the framed photographs hanging in Myron’s library. The fact they hung there at all showed he had some feeling for his remaining children.

“I don’t know his kids,” she said softly. “I’ve never spoken to them.”

“Liv,
someone
needs to do it.”

Deep in thought, under the glow of the kerosene lamp hanging from the barn rafters, Olivia groomed and watered Spirit and put her in her stall for the night. She then returned to her cabin, where she fed Ace. Beneath a steaming shower she gathered her thoughts before dressing warmly and going up to the lodge to talk to Myron. Ace followed, leaves crunching underfoot as they made their way along the narrow path that led from her cabin through a dense grove of trembling aspen, then up over the lawn toward the three-story log house.

The porch and interior lights spilled yellow and welcoming into the darkness. She climbed the wood stairs, scuffed her cowboy boots on the mat, and pushed open the great big wooden door.

As she entered the stone-tiled entrance hall, Adele bustled past with a laden tray. She started at the sight of Olivia and came to an abrupt halt at the base of the sweeping wood staircase.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, looking oddly flustered. “I
. . .
was just taking Mr. McDonough’s supper up. He’s taking it in the library tonight.”

“No one booked for the lodge dinner?” Olivia hung her jacket over one of the antler hooks near the door. A wrought-iron chandelier strung from the vaulted ceiling above cast a faceted light over the entrance hall. To her right lay the open-plan living room where guests were welcome to sit by the fire, watch TV, or use the computer station or pool table. A small bar in the living area opened at mealtimes. Beyond that were the dining area and kitchen.

“Not tonight,” said the housekeeper. “But we do have reservations for Friday and the rest of the weekend.”

While guests no longer stayed in the upstairs rooms, the lodge still opened for dining, depending on reservations from guests staying in the cabins or campsite. But from what Dr. Halliday was saying, the kitchen would probably not be reopening again next summer. This was likely the last weekend for the ranch guests ever. The thought was sobering.

“Here,” Olivia said, reaching out. “Let me take that up for you. I need to speak to him anyway.”

The housekeeper handed her the tray.

“How’s he doing?”

“Full of piss and vinegar, if that’s what you mean.”

It brought a smile to Olivia’s face. “Well, that’s a good sign. You might as well head on home. I’ll sit with him while he eats, then clean up the kitchen after.”

Adele regarded her for a moment, an unreadable look entering her eyes. She reached behind her back to untie her apron. “If that’s what you want, then. I’ll just finish up and be gone.”

Irascible as Adele could be, she was indispensable to this place, and to Old Man McDonough. Olivia wondered what the woman would do when he died.

She found the library door slightly ajar, and edged it open farther with the tray.

A fire had been lit and crackled in the hearth. Myron was in his wheelchair watching out the window, his back to the door. Ace made straight for the hearth.

“Hey, Old Man.”

He turned, and his craggy face crumpled into a grin beneath his shock of steel-gray hair. “Livia!” He rolled his wheelchair around.

He’d been a great, big, gruff mountain of a man before this disease had felled him. He still reminded Olivia of an old Sean Connery and Harrison Ford bundled into one. With a bushy pirate’s beard.

“Hungry?” She held up the tray.

He wheeled over to the hearth. “Bring it to the table by the fire. Pour a drink. Join me?”

“I think I might.”

She set the tray on a small table next to the fire and went to the buffet, where she poured a whisky for each of them. She placed the bottle on the table next to Myron where he could reach it, and seated herself in a big leather chair on the opposite side of the hearth. She sipped her scotch, watching him bring the soupspoon to his mouth. His tremors had worsened. Soup spilled. His complexion had taken on a sallow pallor, and beneath his whiskers his cheeks appeared sunken. His eyes were rheumy, the whites yellowing. A great big hollow filled her stomach.

“What’s eating you, Olivia?”

She cast a reflexive glance up to the large photographic study of Myron’s son hanging in pride of place above the river rock fireplace. Cole McDonough seemed to peer down at her with the same deep-set, moody, probing gray eyes as his father’s. Where Myron’s hair had grayed, Cole’s was still wild and dark, his skin deeply sun-browned.