Книга - The Man From Oklahoma

The Man From Oklahoma
Darlene Graham


She'd always trusted her instincts…but could she really trust her heart?Nathan Biddle's pregnant wife disappeared three years ago. Now her body has been discovered, and Nathan is the prime suspect.Reporter Jamie Evans is covering the story. The more she learns about Nathan, the more she knows this handsome Osage man is innocent.As Jamie and Nathan work together to reveal old lies and betrayals, they discover unexpected truths about themselves…and each other.In the style of It Happened in Texas–Darlene Graham's very successful first Superromance novel–comes another involving, suspenseful page-turner. Wonderful characters, action, excitement–and this time it all happens in Oklahoma!







“Get off my land.”

The voice—deep and powerful—came from above them. Jamie squinted up the rocky cliff on the other side of the road. The man staring down at her didn’t look anything like the sleek, power-suited young oil-and-gas executive in the old news clippings. The man up on that cliff looked…rough…wild…and very angry.

Jamie shaded her eyes with a shaky hand. “Hello, Mr. Biddle, I’m—”

“I have my detectives, Ms. Evans. I know all about you.”

“Of course you do.” How much did he know?

“Isn’t the story of my wife’s disappearance too old for you media types?”

Jamie’s uneasiness intensified. He wasn’t reacting like a man in shock, a man who’d just been given terrible news. But surely the authorities had contacted him. Suddenly Jamie, who could spew out snappy lines for the camera without preparation, was having trouble finding words.

“Mr. Biddle, a source informed me an hour ago that…that your wife’s…her remains were found this morning. I’m…I’m sorry.”

For one moment Nathan Biddle sat so still atop his horse that he looked like a statue. He didn’t seem to be breathing. Then he turned the horse and headed back the way he’d come.

Jamie, despite her gift for glibness, could only stare at him soundlessly.


Dear Reader,

Trust your instincts. We’ve all heard that expression, but for Jamie Evans and Nathan Biddle it’s an especially tall order. They have every reason to mistrust each other. Early in my research, I became enthralled with this idea of trust. I had traveled to the heart of the Osage Hills and heard tales of ancient betrayals that haunted me for days.

Shortly after that trip, I was delighted when Oklahoma’s gracious First Lady, Cathy Keating, invited me to join her for lunch at the governor’s mansion. Mrs. Keating, herself a published author, loves books—those by Oklahomans in particular. She had obtained a copy of my Superromance novel, The Pull of the Moon, set in Tulsa, and she wanted to visit about the writing life. We talked about the great synergy of culture and history that makes Oklahoma unique—real cowboys, proud Indians, wild outlaws, wealthy oil barons. When I told Cathy that I was working on a story set on a ranch in the Osage Hills near the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, her eyes lit up.

For the next hour we bubbled with conversation about the deep forested canyons, the endless lakes and lush rolling hills of northeastern Oklahoma. Cathy fired up my imagination with lore about the historic town of Pawhuska and the Osage tribe, who became the wealthiest people per capita in the United States during the early oil boom days.

It is against this backdrop that Jamie Evans and Nathan Biddle not only learn to trust their instincts and believe in each other…they learn what it means to fall deeply in love.

I always enjoy hearing from my readers. Visit my Web site at http://www.superauthors.com or write to me at P.O. Box 720224, Norman, OK 73070.

Darlene Graham


The Man from Oklahoma

Darlene Graham






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To my beloved brothers, Ron and Rick.

You two have known me since the days of the dugout in the pasture and “The Claw.”

Amazingly, you still believe in me.




CONTENTS


PROLOGUE (#u447fdd34-6f29-5306-9559-fdae2c4f2ea2)

CHAPTER ONE (#ufc46b5f8-d63c-5dd8-aa44-2024972c4d39)

CHAPTER TWO (#u4613c222-89ed-5b8b-9b37-7b0c4f4c374a)

CHAPTER THREE (#u60b6e8ce-6e27-5599-a0fe-ae60b6a66cf5)

CHAPTER FOUR (#ue768cbc2-6f47-52b3-bec3-f5892c0fab64)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)




PROLOGUE


AT ELEVEN-THIRTY on an ordinary Wednesday morning, right smack in the middle of his workweek, Susie Biddle called her husband Nathan’s office, and after making sure he wasn’t on the speakerphone or some such thing, informed him in a teasing voice that she was wearing “that little black thing,” and would he, perhaps, be interested in running home for lunch?

Nathan, after picking up the chair he’d tipped over, beat a path past his secretary’s desk and told her in a false-sounding too-loud voice that his wife had taken ill suddenly, and that he had to rush home immediately to tend to her. Cancel this afternoon’s meeting.

On his way out—sans coat, tie or briefcase—a couple of the secretaries in the outer office cast knowing smiles at each other, as if they suspected his real mission. Had Susie discussed their infertility troubles with these women? The thought might have bothered him under other circumstances, but, Nathan asked himself, considering the current state of their marriage, did he care? No, he most certainly did not.

Susie opened the door of their fine old Tulsa home before he even got the key in the lock. Sure enough, there she stood, with a come-hither look on her face and one hand planted saucily on her hip, wearing only that little black thing.

Man.

Nathan Biddle hadn’t seen the little black thing—or a willing wife—in quite a long time.

“Well?” was all she said.

With one big hand at her tiny waist and the other grasping the back of her slender neck, Nathan pulled Susie against his body while he danced her backward, toward privacy, all the while giving her a lusty kiss.

“You crazy woman,” he growled when they got to the door of the master suite. Then he kissed her again. Fiercely. Joyously. For at last the clouds of discontent that had enveloped her these past months seemed to have parted.

“Not crazy,” Susie said, laughing as his hungry mouth made its way down her slender neck. “Just fertile.”

But Nathan—who had never in their entire ten-year marriage received a call that tantalizing from Susie, fertile or not—was way beyond caring about Susie’s endless obsession with calendars and basal thermometers and fertility charts. Right now all he wanted was Susie.

She smelled like pure heaven and her skin felt as soft as rose petals. Her answering kisses told him that this was going to be easy, so easy. He didn’t feel even a glimmer of the anxiety about pregnancy that had disabled their sex life in recent months.

In fact, on that Wednesday afternoon, Nathan Biddle didn’t feel anything at all except Susie. Only Susie.




CHAPTER ONE


Oh, most beautiful of women,

You will wear the white of happiness.

My soul will slide into your soul.

I could never be lonely when I am with you.

—from an ancient Native American song to attract affection

Three years later

“IN THE VALLEY behind me, you can see the Hart Ranch, home of Tulsa philanthropist, Nathan Biddle. Biddle, known for his many efforts on behalf of disadvantaged children, has been living as a recluse in his childhood home here in these Osage Hills for three years, ever since his wife, oil heiress Susan Claremont Biddle, disappeared. But early this morning, authorities—Dammit!” Jamie Evans lowered her hand mike and tossed a hank of honey-blond hair out of her eyes. “The wind up here is absolutely ridiculous! Sorry, Dave. We’ll have to reshoot.”

Jamie sighed as she tottered across the gravel road on high heels toward the Channel Six van, wondering why she’d spent so much energy convincing her news director they needed this footage. All this work, all this setup, for ten seconds of film that would be obsolete by eleven o’clock tonight. But her instincts told her that this time she was on to something big. There was more to this story than a missing oil heiress whose remains had finally been found. As if that wasn’t enough. But the strange way Nathan Biddle had kept himself hidden in these hills, completely cut off from his former life only an hour away in Tulsa…

“You know, maybe we should forget about shooting from this plateau.” The lanky young cameraman tugged at his earring and made a disgruntled face at the forbidding isolated terrain below. “Aren’t we trespassing?”

Jamie glanced over her shoulder. Why was Dave so edgy? The ink was barely dry on his degree, but Dave Reardon was normally as aggressive as the most seasoned photojournalist. “Trespassing? On a ranch this big? Come on,” she chided, “look at that view—the meanders of the river and everything. You can see the entire ranching complex.” She fanned an arm toward the buildings below: a two-story native-sandstone house with a plantation-style porch stretching across its front; two long modern steel horse barns; and an old-fashioned gambrel-roofed barn, complete with a charming hay door tucked under the peak. Hart Ranch was a venerable old establishment, dating back to territorial days.

“That’s one fantastic visual.” She turned and made a face at her reflection in the side mirror of the Channel Six van. “Everybody wants to know what Biddle’s ranch looks like—especially now. I’m telling you, this’ll make a terrific teaser.” She yanked the door open, grabbing a brush and a can of hairspray off the front seat.

“None of the other stations have time to get out here and back to Tulsa before the newscast. They’ll all run the same old head shot of our ugly DA, preening and posturing about solving this heinous crime.”

She made a couple of determined chops at her thick hair, then stopped. “Wonder if I can show a close-up of the mysterious Mr. Biddle’s face at ten o’clock? By then they might have the dental records matched, maybe even know the cause of death, and I’ll have my second source confirmed, et cetera, et cetera.”

Dave was studying the landscape through the camera lens. “Dream on,” he muttered. “Nobody’s caught him on film for at least two years.” He lowered the camera. “Unless you’re gonna pull a Jamie and go banging on his front door or something.”

“I might.” Banging on the door was exactly what she would do in most cases. But this wasn’t like most cases. She knew the Biddles’ story too well. This man would undoubtedly be in shock, in pain.

“I’ve got to think that one through.” She gave her hair one last swipe and started spraying. “Man! How on earth can a place be this windy and still be so warm in the middle of October?”

Her panty hose were sticking to her legs like plastic wrap, and her cream-colored linen suit couldn’t be more wrinkled if she’d slept in it. She’d probably look like holy hell on camera. But, hey, that’s life. Jamie had been working on this story ever since she transferred to Tulsa from Kansas City, and she wasn’t about to blow an opportunity like this—a one-of-a-kind six-o’clock teaser about the biggest breaking story in ages.

Her only regret was that she hadn’t come out to the ranch to sneak this footage before now. But who would have imagined the body would be found way out here in Osage County? It sure paid to have sources in the DA’s office. Still not satisfied with her hair repairs, she gave up and glanced back at Dave.

“Who would actually choose to live out in the middle of this godforsaken prairie?” She tossed the hairspray back onto the front seat.

Dave shrugged. “A guy whose family has owned the place since before the Land Run, I guess.” He went back to studying the view through the lens.

Dave had done his homework, too. They were a great team, charging around the state scooping the competition on stories that were visually startling and chock-full of eyewitness accounts and pithy little sound bites. They were so good that Dave’s footage and Jamie’s voice-over had once been picked up by the network news.

Only four years out of journalism school, pretty as a peach and smart as a whip, Jamie Evans was the undisputed princess of Channel Six, the one who garnered all the awards. The one the viewer focus groups liked most. The one people phoned the station to gush about.

And call it luck or call it instinct, but Jamie Evans was also the reporter who managed to be in the right place at the right time.

“Hey!” Dave cried. “I think I spotted our man!”

“Get a shot! Get a close-up!” Jamie ran across the road as fast as she dared in the heels.

Dave was already filming.

“Zoom in on his face,” Jamie urged. She tiptoed at Dave’s side but couldn’t see much without the magnification of the camera lens. “It’s got to be Biddle. He lives out here all alone.” She peered down at the ranch house, the outbuildings and the corrals below as the thrill of the chase coursed through her. “Try to get a good clean close-up.” Her heart pounded when she spotted a big man in a cowboy hat emerging from the barn with a horse on a lead.

“Uh-oh.” The skinny photographer jerked back from the lens. “He spotted us, too.” He frowned as he refocused. “Man! That dude looks mean.”

“Lemme look.”

Dave held the camera steady while Jamie scanned the scene below.

“Where the hell is he?”

Dave adjusted the camera upward and the man came into focus. Jamie almost stumbled off her high heels at the sight of him.

He was mounting a big muscular paint, and as Jamie watched his movements, her throat went dry. He was long-legged, broad-shouldered, wearing tight jeans, a faded chambray shirt and a beatup black cowboy hat.

He pulled the horse’s head around and took off at a hard gallop toward a dirt road that disappeared into a stand of blackjacks. Jamie figured—feared—that the road led to this plateau.

And when he got here, he would run them off. Great.

“Dave, he’s coming. You have the red light disabled?”

“Always,” Dave said. He was already taking the camera off the tripod.

“Okay. Whatever he says, whatever he does, keep that camera rolling. Aimed at him.”

Dave made a face that said duh. “You really think I should film this guy?” he said, “I was thinking it’d be better to get a good clean close-up of these rocks.”

Jamie ignored him and chewed a nail, thinking. “And don’t be obvious about it.”

“Huh?” Dave’s sarcasm was replaced by genuine confusion. Normally the photographer rolled the camera openly while Jamie let fly a barrage of questions.

“We’re out here all alone,” Jamie explained.

Dave winced and tugged on his earring. “So I noticed.”

Shoving her misbehaving hair firmly behind one ear, Jamie took a deep breath and walked with Dave to the edge of the plateau where they stood in plain sight, looking like a couple of stranded motorists. Jamie checked behind her, down the sloping gravel road. “You’re sure he saw us?” she asked after a few uncomfortable minutes had passed with no sign of the rider.

“Yeah. Look, the wind’s picking up and the sun’s getting low. Wanna try to finish shooting the teaser?”

Jamie sighed. “Why not? At least we’ll look like we know what we’re doing.” She stood in her former spot, faced the camera and started to talk. “This is Jamie Evans, and behind me you see the Hart Ranch complex, home of Tulsa oil tycoon Nathan Hart Biddle—”

“Get off my land.” The voice—deep, powerful and sure—had come from above them. Jamie squinted up the wall of a rocky cliff on the other side of the road. With the sun behind him he stood out clearly, a striking silhouette among the black shapes of low cedars. The curves of his hat, the ragged tail of his hair blowing in the wind, the profile of the paint, all blended into a haunting image that made Jamie shudder.

The steely-eyed raven-haired man looking down at her seemed eerily familiar. Jamie chalked up the sensation to the fact that she had been studying archival news photos of the Biddles for the past couple of years. His face had surely been burned into her subconscious by now. But the Nathan Biddle staring down at her didn’t look anything like the sleek power-suited young oil-and-gas executive in those old news photos. The man up on that cliff looked…rough…wild, more like the aged sepia photographs she’d found of his Osage great-grandfather, Chief Black Wing.

She shaded her eyes with a shaky hand. “Hello. I’m Jamie Ev—”

“I know who you are. Isn’t this story getting a bit shopworn for your kind?”

Her kind? Well, she’d resent reporters, too, if she’d gone through what this man had. The media had insisted on going for the dramatic tear-jerker angle, focusing on the Biddles’ high-profile marriage—God, that must have been awful for him. Jamie began to feel sorry for the man.

“Could we talk to you, Mr. Biddle?”

“No. You are trespassing. Now leave.”

Jamie’s uneasiness intensified. He wasn’t acting like a man in shock, a man who’d just been given terrible news. But surely the authorities had already contacted him.

“Mr. Biddle, you really don’t know why we’re out here this afternoon?” She shot Dave a look and saw that the tape was rolling, though he had the camera braced casually under one arm.

The horse nickered in the answering silence. Then Biddle turned the animal and disappeared into the sun’s rays.

“What now?” Dave whispered.

“Just keep rolling.”

In no time horse and rider appeared around the base of the cliff. Man and animal seemed to move as one unit as they maneuvered expertly around leafless saplings and belly-high bluestem grass. In the saddle, Nathan Biddle looked relaxed, but his intense dark eyes remained fixed warily on Jamie as he rode toward her. Nobody said a word, so that as he reined the horse in, the squeak of leather and the crunch of gravel seemed magnified.

He stayed in the saddle, high above them. “Turn it off,” he said to Dave without looking at him. Dave made elaborate motions as if doing so.

“Talk,” Biddle said to Jamie while he gave her a once-over that made her want to run and crouch behind a limestone boulder. The close proximity of the massive horse didn’t help. Jamie had always been scared of horses.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Biddle,” she started, “we didn’t mean to disturb you. I work for Channel Six, as you know, and we’ve been following your story for some time—”

“I have my detectives, Ms. Evans. I know all about you.”

“Of course you do.” So how much do you know?

“Get to the point.”

Jamie swallowed and started again. “We’re shooting a teaser—I’m planning to do a package on the ten-o’clock news and—”

“A package? Why?”

It didn’t surprise her that he knew the terminology for a feature-length TV news story. “Why?” Jamie’s throat went dry.

His dark eyes narrowed at her hesitation. “The story of my wife’s disappearance is old, Ms. Evans. It’s…dead.”

“Well, uh, that’s just it. Something’s happened, I’m afraid. The authorities haven’t contacted you?”

“About what?”

“I don’t know how to tell you this.”

Biddle didn’t move.

“I don’t have any details, but…” Jamie, who could spew out lines for a snappy stand-up shot with no preparation, was having trouble finding words.

“What is this about?” Biddle demanded.

“Mr. Biddle, a source informed me about an hour ago that…that your wife’s…her remains were found this morning. By hunters. I’m…I’m sorry.” Jamie’s voice grew weak and the last word had come out almost soundless.

For one moment Nathan Biddle sat so still atop the paint that he looked like a statue. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. Then he closed his eyes, swallowed and drew in a tortured breath. “Where?” he said through tightened lips.

“On a sandbar, a small island, out in the Arkansas River,” Jamie answered softly.

Biddle did not turn his head, but his eyes moved to the camera. “Use any of that—” he angled the hat subtly toward Dave “—and I will sue your asses off.”

Dave slid his fingers around and pressed the off button on the camera, this time for real.

Biddle turned the paint, heading back the way he had come. This time the squeak of leather and the crunch of gravel made an eerie counterpoint to the fading light and gusting evening air. He didn’t look back as he galloped across the road, up the embankment and around the rocky base of the cliff.

Jamie, with her gift for glibness, could only stare at his back as he rode away, unable to think of a thing to say. But what could one possibly say to a man who had just been told that after three long years, his wife’s remains had been found in this wild lonely country?

“I promise,” she finally murmured, “I won’t use the footage.” But Dave was the only one who heard her.




CHAPTER TWO


ALONE. THE WORD took on a new and terrible meaning as Nathan Biddle stared out at the spectacular sunset he had seen so many times from this broad window. He braced his palms wide on the sill, suddenly remembering the day his grandfather Biddle had installed the majestic expanse of glass in the western wall of the enormous Hart Ranch house.

“Nathan, my boy,” the old man had said, “your grandmother’s people came from those hills out there. The Osage, a fierce and proud nation. And filthy rich, too!” Gramps had slapped him on the back as if it was a great joke.

For so long—months after Susie had disappeared—Nathan had waited for a ransom note that never came. Maybe someone was after the Osage oil money, he and his lawyers had reasoned. Such atrocities, in the name of greed, had been visited upon the wealthy Osage people before. Nathan hoped that maybe someone would demand the millions that he would gladly pay, and then Susie and their unborn child would be magically restored to him.

But now these Osage Hills, beloved resting place, of his ancestors, had become Susie’s resting place, as well. She had been out there all this time. All this time while he had been searching the world for her, she had been right out there on an island in a river…alone.

He had sensed from the first, of course, that Susie would never come back. Had felt it in his body.

Hunters, the reporter woman had said. He hadn’t even turned on the TV. And wouldn’t. He did not want to see what the jackals were saying about Susie, about him, about the one who had done this. That was for the city people in Tulsa to look at, to eat with their nightly meal, digesting someone else’s pain like so much junk food. Tears stung his eyes.

The clouds gathered in radiant silence as the liquid orange Oklahoma sun touched down on the rim of the rolling hills. Nathan focused his burning eyes there, at that convergence of light on the far horizon.

He tried not to think of the last time he had seen Susie, but her voice reverberated in his mind, anyway: “Nathan, I’m pregnant!” Those words would echo in him forever, like his own heartbeat. They had been the words he’d desperately wanted to hear, though he’d never admitted it, not to her, not even to himself.

Their battle against infertility, the child they were finally going to have, none of it seemed real now. It seemed as if the only thing that remained from his former life was this land where he had grown up, these endless hills.

He put his forehead to the glass and fought the rage, the tears, the self-pity. When his mind cooled and he raised his head, the clouds seemed brighter than any he had ever seen. The strange sight caused a sudden unease to pass over him. He looked around the room, cast in an amber glow, and the furniture—his grandfather’s furniture—looked the same as it always had, yet not the same at all.

Grief, he knew by now, could have strange and unpredictable effects on a man’s mind. He turned his head slowly, looking back at the clouds, and they had altered again. Before his eyes they suddenly took shape above the setting sun as first one, then many faces formed. As he stared, this wall of faces stirred in him an unbidden anger, then sadness and finally a strange resolve. It seemed as if this vision had been trying to form for the past three years. He shook his head and blinked, then rubbed his eyes. When he looked again, the faces had vanished. Only ordinary clouds remained, following the sun to bed.

He turned from the window and the room looked ordinary again, too. Like the same old place where the same evening sun had shone in the same way ever since he was a small boy.

He stumbled to the wide leather couch facing the fireplace and sprawled on his back, suddenly stricken with a blinding headache.

Which was where his cousin Robert found him.

“Nathan!” Robert yelled as he crashed through the front door, then halted abruptly when he caught sight of the figure on the couch with one arm flung over his eyes.

“Nathan,” Robert repeated more quietly, and Nathan heard his cousin’s boots clomp heavily as he crossed the hardwood floor. Nathan sensed Robert standing over him. “Are you all right? I came here as soon as I heard the television reports.”

Nathan lowered his arm.

Six and a half feet tall, thick-necked and thick-middled, with a tail of unkempt jet-black hair trailing down his back, Robert Hart looked like nothing so much as a sorrowful young bull, peering down at Nathan. He removed his well-worn baseball cap and held it in both hands. “They said they found her…her bones out there.” Robert inclined his head toward the massive window.

Nathan sat up. “Damn the media—reporting it before I’ve been officially notified.”

“So how’d you know?”

“Long story. A reporter.” He braced his elbows on his knees and pressed steepled fingers to his lips. “What are the news reports saying?”

Robert sat down next to him. “They said they made a provisional identification,” he answered quietly, “by her jewelry.”

Nathan nodded. “The Claremont ring. I can imagine what Wanda and Fred are feeling.”

Thinking about Susie’s mother and father tore at Nathan’s heart. He didn’t mention his own parents, although he suspected that Robert was picturing them now. Nathan wondered if his cousin was grateful, as he himself was, that Clare and Drew Biddle were not alive to witness this sorrow. Despite Robert’s hokey Indian ways, Nathan was suddenly thankful to have this particular man at his side for the ordeal ahead. Robert was a guy you could count on. The cousins were men of one accord, though they lived in different worlds, believed in different things.

“Nathan, don’t you want to turn on the TV so you can see for yourself what they’re saying?” Robert offered.

No, he did not. But to satisfy Robert, he said, “Okay. Put it on Channel Six.” He was, in fact, curious to know if Jamie Evans had used the footage of him. It would feel good to have some petty reason to get righteously angry right now.

Robert got up and opened the doors of the massive armoire and pushed the buttons on a big-screen set. He returned with the remote and handed it to Nathan. A weatherman was talking, pointing at scrolling satellite images of clouds.

“Switch to another channel,” Robert suggested. “Maybe one of the other stations has something about it.”

“No. I want Channel Six.”

“Why Six?”

“Jamie Evans was out here today. She and her photographer. I told them not to use the tape they shot.”

“Jamie Evans? That little blond reporter? She was out here on the ranch?”

“If you’d get your head out of your Wordsworth and Shakespeare and step foot out of that rotting old cabin once in a while, you’d know these things, cousin. I spotted them up on the north plateau a little over an hour ago.”

“And coming up at ten o’clock,” the news anchor was talking again, “complete details on the discovery of the body of missing oil heiress Susan Claremont Biddle. Jamie Evans has more on this late-breaking story. Jamie?”

A stunning strong intelligent young face filled the screen. “Authorities aren’t telling us much right now, Nick, but apparently they have reason to believe the remains found by hunters this morning belong to Susan Claremont Biddle. Mrs. Biddle was the twenty-eight-year-old granddaughter of well-known Tulsa oilman Ross Claremont and the wife of Tulsa philanthropist Nathan Hart Biddle. Authorities are awaiting positive identification from dental records.”

The blond woman holding the mike had a creamy complexion and amber-green eyes that caught fire when the studio lights reflected in their depths, then narrowed with reined-in emotion as she spoke. Her perfect full mouth, set in a square jaw, moved with precision over every word. She had the ideal media face, Nathan thought with detachment, a classic movie-star face. Sincere. Appealing. Unforgettable.

“The remains were found by black-powder deer hunters who told authorities they thought they had stumbled on a deer scrape on a sandbar in the Arkansas River. But what they found was the victim’s shallow grave. The state medical examiner’s office has not released cause-of-death information, but we hope to have more details at ten, as well as a statement from Tulsa County District Attorney Trent Van Horn about the status of this shocking case.”

Nathan hit the mute button and they watched the attractive young reporter mouthing her sign off.

“She’s in the studio,” Nathan mumbled. “The footage I’m looking for was shot out here in the open. She said it was a teaser, so I guess we missed it. I’d like to know what she showed.”

“What’s the deal with her?”

“She’s an up-and-coming little reporter who’s been digging around ever since she came to town. She’s young, smart, ambitious. Hot after the sensational crime story that will boost her career.”

“Your private investigator can probably find out if she used that footage of you. Although I kinda wonder about old Frank. Goes by the book too much for a private dick, if you ask me. Why hasn’t he called?”

“He may not know they found her.” Nathan’s voice was emotionless. “The sheriff doesn’t notify the suspect’s private detective.”

Robert sat stone still for a moment before he slowly nodded. “Suspect. That occurred to me, too, when I was flying down the ridge on my bike. I didn’t see any cars around your house, and I thought, what if they haven’t contacted Nathan yet because…well…you know…”

“Because they think I killed her?”

Robert turned his head and let his sympathetic brown eyes speak for a moment before he said, “You are in danger, cousin, and you need powerful help.”

Nathan studied Robert’s serious expression and, despite his emotional turmoil, felt his face pulling into a crooked smile. “Robert, my man, don’t even think about that.”

“Just talk to him. Or come away with me for a few days. So we can plan, so we can think.”

“Talk to your crazy medicine man so he can blow on my face and make me invisible or something?”

“Mr. Elliott has the power to help you. I’m not asking you to go up there and stay forever. Just long enough to prepare yourself. If you went into hiding for a while, we might even have a half a chance of finding the real killer.”

“Be sensible, Robert.”

“Nathan, you be sensible. Van Horn hasn’t believed your story from the start. If he doesn’t get a conviction, he could lose the election next spring, and you’re the only suspect he’s got. Is that what you want? To go to prison, to die, for something you didn’t do? How does that help Susie? If we seek guidance from the shaman—”

“I’ll fight this battle my own way. I don’t need some old Indian guy singing chants and rattling turtle shells.” Nathan shifted and reached for the portable phone on the marble table in front of them. “I’d better call Frank.” His private detective was going to be less than thrilled to learn that his missing-person case had turned into a murder investigation. Frank was a sharp old dog, but he was about ready to retire. He wouldn’t like taking on something this complicated.

Robert threw up his hands, then stood. “Let me call him. But first let me get you some water. You look like hammered buffalo dung.”

“Bring some aspirin, too,” Nathan said. “I’ve got a killer headache. But don’t blow on ’em,” he added without looking up at his cousin.

Robert glanced back and said, “Humph,” before he disappeared behind the stairs, down the long hallway toward the kitchen.

Nathan eased his pounding head back onto the couch and stared up at the high cedar-beamed ceiling. For three years he’d been living with this nightmare. Would it never end? He thought about what lay ahead and the dark crossbeams above him blurred. But a steel-hard resolve quickly cleared his vision. He no longer cared about the ambitions of political phonies in Tulsa, about society’s judgment, their courts, their reporters. He no longer cared about anything at all except finding Susie’s murderer.

All along his gut had told him that Susie would never be found alive. And now he would probably be charged with her murder. A sensational suspect for a sensational crime.

JAMIE COULDN’T SHAKE OFF the haunting image of Nathan Biddle’s face when she’d told him about his wife. As soon as the news crew cleared out after the six-o’clock broadcast, she grabbed the sleeve of Dave’s faded flannel shirt. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Ah, man!” Dave whined and bounced backward on one sneaker. “Give me a break, lady. Just because you live, eat and breathe this crap doesn’t mean I have to. I have a life, you know.”

“I need you more than the boys at the Apocalypse Club. Come back to the archives and help me locate an old video of Nathan Biddle. The one on the horse.”

“You mean the stuff I shot at that fancy golf tournament for children’s medical research?”

“Correct.”

“I know exactly where that one is.” Dave bit at the challenge. “Follow me.” He set off with long lanky strides down the narrow corridor that led toward the editing bay.

The room, no bigger than a closet, was arranged like a command module: two Beta tape decks canted on the desk, two monitors angled inward on the shelf above. Dave took the chair without asking and popped in the tape he’d retrieved. Jamie hovered behind him.

He didn’t take long to locate the footage of Nathan Biddle sitting atop a horse in a white cowboy hat and western-style tuxedo, looking like the man who had everything.

“This what you want?” Dave asked as he toggled doorknob-size dials back and forth, cutting and moving footage to the blank tape in the other Beta deck. “I remembered exactly when I shot this, because how many people would think of using a horse, instead of a golf cart?” A close-up shot of Biddle resting his five iron across the saddle horn zoomed forward on the screen. Dave twisted the knobs again. “This kind of work will be a lot easier to do when we get the new AVID system,” he said. “We’ll be able to do enhancements, pull out nat sound, do perfect lay-downs, everything.”

More interested in her subject than the technology Dave adored, Jamie commented softly, “Biddle would pull any stunt to get publicity for his charities.”

“Man, his looks sure have changed.” Dave brought the face on the screen into sharper focus. “Doesn’t even look like the same dude.”

“Okay. You can go play now.”

Dave got up and gave Jamie the chair, but then he hovered at Jamie’s shoulder and studied the viewer as she froze a frame showing a young woman smiling in the background.

“Biddle’s wife,” Dave said, and Jamie nodded.

“Film often catches things you miss in real time.”

They watched while the pale-skinned brunette beauty glanced over her shoulder at someone in the crowd. When she turned back toward the camera, she looked pensive, biting her perfect lower lip.

After a gravid silence, Dave said. “God, she’s pretty. You think he did it?”

Jamie sank back in her chair, hypnotized by the image before her. Susan Biddle had indeed been a pretty woman. “Go get me everything else we’ve got, okay?”

“Jamie, come on. You’ve seen it all a dozen times.”

“Well, I want to see it again, okay? Now go.”

Dave bounded away.

Jamie transferred the segment with the wife onto the new tape, then loaded a different cartridge into the first tape deck. This was tonight’s video. The one she didn’t use. She fast-forwarded past the parts of herself in a fright wig and came to Biddle’s face. Just like in the golf segment, he looked down from high up in a saddle. But Dave was right. He did look different. It wasn’t just the ranch clothes and the fact that he’d let his hair grow out. His Native American blood seemed to stand out now. In the lines of his face she could see shadows of the Osage warrior depicted in the famous George Catlin painting. The same high forehead, wide mouth, prominent nose. But mostly it was his deep-set eyes that seemed changed, transformed, revealed. Handsome and energetic in the older video, they looked darker now, more still. The quiet bottomless eyes of a man who had suffered too much. Even so, something about his face radiated such strength, such compassion, such integrity that Jamie’s instincts told her this was a man who could never murder anyone, much less his wife.

Again she watched the reaction that Dave had surreptitiously captured. The shocked realization that passed over the whole man when she told him Susan Biddle’s remains had been found. Nobody could fake that. Could they?

She froze the frame and her stomach tightened as she relived that first encounter. It had been so long since she’d been genuinely attracted to a man that she’d just about given up. Her big sister, Valerie, oh-so-happily married and busy making babies with a nice ordinary mechanical engineer in Kansas City, claimed Jamie had some kind of complex about bad boys. Valerie would never let Jamie forget her disastrous post-high-school fling with a motorcycle-riding wild guy named Ethan.

Could she help it, Jamie had argued the last time they’d talked about men, if she couldn’t imagine kissing ninety-nine percent of the nice guys she met, much less being married to one of them? But when she imagined kissing Nathan Biddle—as, unfortunately, she had—her insides thrummed. Maybe her sister had a point. Maybe she liked her men…complicated.

“You are going to end up all alone with a closet full of fancy suits,” Valerie had teased when Jamie passed her dateless twenty-fifth birthday.

So within a year Jamie had rekindled the thing with Donald, her tame college boyfriend. Stable, convenient and deadly dull, Donald was still living in Kansas City, practicing routine law. Living in Tulsa while Donald lived in KC hadn’t bothered her, because their relationship had always been long-distance. That should have been her first clue. But within six months they were going through the motions of being an engaged couple, and Donald suddenly became not-so-convenient. He started insisting that Jamie give up her career now that they were ready to “settle down” in Kansas City. Jamie came to the conclusion that going it alone was better than living a life she’d hate with a man she felt lukewarm about.

Even though she’d been relieved when she broke it off, extracting herself from that longstanding relationship had caused Donald, her family and herself considerable anguish. The next guy, she decided, was going to have to be well worth risking that kind of entanglement. He was going to have to absolutely knock her socks off.

But who would have guessed that the guy who would knock her socks off would turn out to be a reclusive murder suspect? She looked at the face on the screen, and suddenly that face, which she had seen in all kinds of poses, looked completely new to her. Studying old footage and photos of Nathan Biddle hadn’t been the same as meeting him in person.

“Somebody out there to see you.” Dave burst through the door, and Jamie jumped. He stood balancing a stack of older tapes and frowned at the handsome face on the screen. “He’s a different kinda guy, isn’t he?”

She hit the fast-forward button. “Who’s out there?”

“You ain’t gonna believe this. The DA.”

“Trent Van Horn? Here?”

“Yep.”

WHEN SHE SPOTTED Van Horn standing in the dimly lit reception area, Jamie’s first thought was, My, don’t we look pretty tonight. Apparently he was on his way to a “do,” dressed in a formal tux, with a red cummerbund to boot. His patent-leather shoes mirrored the low after-hours lighting, his longish hair shone silver where it was slicked back from his temples, and his pungent aftershave permeated the air. No one else was about. Even the receptionist had taken off for the day. Good. Maybe she could get Mr. Van Horn to speak candidly for a change.

“Trent. How are you?” Jamie put out her hand first.

“I’m fine, Jamie.” He gave her the standard handclasp. “I called and they told me you were still working at the station. I apologize for dropping by unannounced, but when I got your message, I figured you’d want a statement for the ten-o’clock broadcast.”

Jamie didn’t bother to respond to his self-serving apology. If Trent Van Horn wanted to stop by the station unannounced, he did it, no excuses needed. Jamie knew he wanted his face on the ten-o’clock news in the worst way. Shortly after taking this job in Tulsa, Jamie had figured out that Van Horn considered the media a handy extension of his campaign machine. Opportunistic didn’t even come close to describing the man. But normally she would be the one summoned to Trent’s door, like a serf before a landlord. So something deeper was at work tonight.

“What can I do for you?” Jamie wanted Van Horn to believe, always, that she was accommodating him.

“You were out at the Hart Ranch today?”

Uh-oh.

“Yeah. We went out there to shoot a teaser—from a distance—right after the body was found.”

“And?”

Jamie weighed the situation. Subpoena me if you want to know. “And nothing. Has the medical examiner told us the cause of death yet?”

Trent shook his head, apparently letting her evasion go.

“Can you give me a quick interview? Verify a few facts for me?” It would sure be helpful to make Van Horn her second source on this story.

Van Horn shrugged. “Of course. If it will help.”

She stepped up to the reception desk and reached over the counter for the phone. She buzzed the editing bay. “Dave. Studio One’s open, isn’t it? Mr. Van Horn has kindly agreed to give us a sound bite for our ten-o’clock package.”

It turned out to be a very disappointing piece of tape. Jamie had Dave shoot it as a stand-up, trying to create a feeling of immediacy, but the DA, as pompous and long-winded as ever, revealed absolutely nothing. When Van Horn got through talking at Jamie, she and Dave took the footage to the back and tried to make something interesting out of it.

“Another Trent Van Horn commercial.” Jamie sighed.

“From what he says, I gather it’s not his case, exactly,” Dave observed.

“Not exactly. The body was found over in Osage County. But, of course, Van Horn is maintaining that Susie Biddle was moved there after she was killed here in Tulsa.”

“Of course?”

“He wants to prosecute this on his turf, Dave. This is high-profile stuff. Susan Claremont Biddle was connected to half the big-oil-money families in northeastern Oklahoma.”

“Oh. So does he have a suspect?”

“If he does, he’s not saying, but my guess is it’ll be the husband.”

“Our big wild-looking dude, huh?”

Jamie nodded.

Dave whistled softly. “Heavy. At least we got that great footage of him out on the ranch today. You saving that for ten? Gonna weave it into this package or something?”

“No. We’re not using it.”

“Not—!” Dave’s head jutted forward on his skinny neck. “Lady, that’s some of the coolest footage I’ve ever shot. He looks like some kind of throwback brave, up on that horse with his eyes going all furious and misty and everything, and you aren’t even gonna use it?”

“Look, Dave, if you wanna work at the pound, you gotta gas a few puppies. I know it’s great footage. But I have my reasons for burying it.”

“Man! I bust my rear night and day to make you look good, and that ain’t easy, sister, keeping that hair out of the backlighting and keeping those chewed-up stubs off camera.” He pointed at her ragged nails. “And this is the thanks I get—you’re killing some of the greatest emotive footage I’ve shot since I started in this business. I zoomed right in on his eyes at just the right instant. Man!”

Jamie ignored Dave’s rant while the images on the screen flickered on. Her eyes were seeing Van Horn, but it was Nathan Biddle’s face that haunted her. Again she saw him in that moment of breathless silence after she told him about his wife. And Jamie, who could read a face as plainly as printed words on a page, knew what she had seen. For one instant his deep-set black eyes had blazed under the shadow of the cowboy hat as he fixed them on some point distant in time and space. Then tears pooled and were blinked back. She had noted the bitter set of his mouth. The painful swallow. It was great footage. The proverbial picture worth a thousand words. “Nathan Hart Biddle,” she whispered.

Dave sighed in resignation. “So how come you think he did it?”

Jamie turned from the computer. If Dave’s youthful naiveté hadn’t been so clearly visible in the oblique lighting from the screen, she might have popped him one on the back of his dense head.

“That’s just it, Dave. I don’t think he did it.”




CHAPTER THREE


BRAD ALEXANDER waited with his headlights doused. Only after he saw his boss’s black Ford Taurus swing around the corner of Frankfort and Third, did he ease his BMW out of the alley and into the Channel Six parking lot. He killed the Beemer’s engine and punched in a number on his cell phone. “We need to talk. I’m in your parking lot…Trent just left?” he said as if he didn’t know. “Oh. He gave you an interview? Great. I’ll be right in.”

Inside, the place was nearly dark, battened down for the nightshift. Peppy commercial music from a back room told him someone was working, feeding the beast, as they said in this business. “Ms. Evans?” he called out.

“Here.” Her voice came from down a long dimly lit hallway. Someone was standing behind her. That skinny kid—the cameraman who seemed perennially glued to her side. He had shaggy hair and wore an earring, was probably a fag.

As Brad watched her silhouette walking toward him—tight straight skirt, mile-long legs—he noted again what a fine piece of woman Jamie Evans was. Too bad they weren’t getting to know each other under better circumstances.

“I wouldn’t normally come to the station,” he started, “but I can’t believe what I just heard. One of the detectives said the Osage County Sheriff spotted your Channel Six vehicle out on the Hart Ranch today.”

“Shot a teaser,” Jamie shrugged. “It’s not illegal.”

“It was stupid as hell, Ms. Evans.” He leaned sarcastically on the Ms. as if it was an insult. “If I’m going to feed you tips that give you the advantage on this story, I expect you to show a little discretion.”

“Discretion?”

“Biddle. If he spotted you, you alerted him.”

“Alerted?”

“You know what I’m talking about.” Brad’s eyes narrowed on her. “You talked to him, didn’t you? You realize you may have given Biddle time to hide important evidence. What did he say, what did he do, when you told him poor Susie’s remains had been found?”

“What did he do?”

“Ms. Evans,” he ground her name out through clenched teeth. “Echoing the question is an old lawyer’s trick. Do you want to keep using me as a source on this story or not?”

As soon as he said it, Brad wished his mouth had an “undo” button. He felt his nostrils flare as he fought to rein in his temper, reminding himself that he was the one who needed Jamie Evans.

“Do you want me to keep using you?” When it came to the DA’s office, sometimes Jamie wondered who was using whom. She wasn’t about to admit she’d talked to Biddle. Alexander’s eyes had flashed with such fury just now that she thought he might actually strike her.

“Thanks to your little teaser, Ms. Evans, we’ll have to hustle to get a search warrant out there, maybe even tonight.”

“A search warrant?” Jamie’s pulse shifted into high gear. “For what?”

“I’m not inclined to tell you.” Brad’s voice was petulant.

“Now, Brad.” She tried for a conciliatory tone. Even if Brad Alexander did grate on her nerves, big time, how often did a neophyte reporter connect with a powerful source like this? The First Assistant District Attorney. She didn’t exactly understand why he was coming to her, and she even wondered if Brad the Brat, as she and Dave liked to call him behind his back, had the hots for her or something. She scrubbed that very revolting thought. But Brad definitely had some kind of hidden agenda. “Look. I’m sorry I went out there. But the M.E. was my official source on that one, and you should have told me Biddle was a suspect. Now, what are we looking for?”

“Did you get video of Biddle?”

“Nothing useful,” Jamie said. She knew what was coming next. Segments of news video had ended up in courtrooms before. “What are we looking for?” she pressed.

“Probable cause.”

Employing that we bit worked every time. Brad seemed suddenly cooperative now that Jamie had something he wanted.

He went on, “The cops have circumstantial evidence, motive—”

“Motive?”

“Yes. The Biddle marriage was strained. If they split up, she would have taken him for half of everything—the ranch, the mansion, the oil royalties.”

Jamie frowned. Nothing in her investigation had indicated marital problems. How had the police—and Brad—gotten this kind of information? She made a mental note to find out.

Brad was still talking, checking his list off on his fingers, “We have opportunity, witnesses, everything but modus operandi, which, in a crime of passion, wouldn’t apply. Now we need some physical clues. A knife, specifically. The autopsy showed a significant marring, a scrape on the clavicle, which would indicate a slashing or hacking wound.”

Jamie could feel Dave cringing beside her, but she pressed on while Alexander was in the mood to talk. “A cut across the collarbone. Was that the cause of death?”

“Probably not. The M.E. thinks it was a fall—she had a broken neck. But the wound would have been significant, too, possibly from a large hunting knife.”

Dave made a shocked little noise, then said, “There would have been a lot of blood. You know, bloody residue wherever…the, uh, injury took place…” His voice trailed off.

“So then, out at the ranch,” Jamie asked, “they’re probably going to do that test you told me about once? The one where the black light turns old bloodstains blue? Whaddaya call it?”

Suddenly Brad looked worried, and a warning blip crossed Jamie’s radar. “Yes. Luminol,” he said absently. “They’ll spray the walls, the furniture, maybe even rip up the carpet.”

Jamie waited for him to go on, but he didn’t, so she scrambled for more questions, anything to keep him talking. “So they’ll test those surfaces for blood residue, for DNA evidence?”

“Yes, DNA,” Alexander said, clearly distracted now.

“What about the Biddle mansion here in Tulsa?” Jamie pumped him. “Are the cops going to spray there, too?”

“Of course.”

Jamie’s source was drying up right before her eyes. He checked his watch. She quickly said, “And what about that neighbor who overheard them having a loud argument the night Susan Biddle disappeared?”

Brad seemed surprised that she knew about that, and the question brought him back into focus. “Old Mrs. Petree has passed on unfortunately.”

“But you guys still have her deposition?”

“Yes.”

“Now what?” Jamie pressed.

“Van Horn will get the Osage County Sheriff to go out and search the Hart Ranch immediately. We can get a search warrant for the Tulsa home from a judge here first thing tomorrow.” Brad’s eyebrows shot up and he checked his watch again. “Listen. I’ve got to go.”

“Wait,” Jamie said as he backed up. “Will they search the whole ranch? And when will they do this search?”

“Tonight, if possible.”

“You’ll tell me when they go?”

“Yeah, sure. Yes,” he repeated more emphatically, then stopped in his tracks, seeming suddenly intent on that idea. “In fact, I’ll page you. You’re thinking of covering it?”

“Absolutely.” Jamie shot Dave a look, and Dave arched an eyebrow as he tugged on his earring. “Maybe we can even get the chopper,” he muttered.

As Brad watched their exchange, he felt less tense, more in control. The reporter and her skinny shadow would be on that ranch like stink on shit, and a little media ruckus would prove a very useful distraction. He’d make sure Van Horn let him organize the search warrants so he could stall to allow himself enough time. Now if only the tall grasses were very dry and the winds were blowing just right…

THE CUT-CUT-CUT of the Skyranger Six chopper blades always made Jamie jumpy. Somehow, the monotonous beating seemed to intensify her motion sickness. The tiny helicopter rocked in the wind like an empty soda can on a string. She glanced back at Dave, all cozy in the rear seat, surrounded by his equipment, chewing a wad of gum, happy as a clam. The pilot was grinning from behind his aviator sunglasses. Jamie hated them both because they never got airsick.

“Not far!” the pilot hollered over the noise. “Sorry for the bumpy ride!” He pointed. “Over there’s the tallgrass prairie. Largest expanse of native tall grass remaining on this continent.”

Jamie and Dave exchanged smirks. They had nicknamed this pilot Encyclopedia Jones because of his tendency to spout arcane facts.

The sun was just coming up at their backs, casting the rolling Osage Hills in a cool lavender light. To their right, the endless Tallgrass Prairie Preserve reflected the soft peachy hues of dawn. Rising clouds in the distance promised a thunderstorm later in the day. Despite her nausea, Jamie loved this part of her job—these rare moments when she got to see the natural world from the vantage point of the helicopter window. Pure magic.

“I didn’t think old Phil was going to go for this, did you?” Dave bellowed from the back seat.

“Yeah. He’s pretty stingy with this bird,” the pilot agreed.

“I guess nothing else newsworthy is going on at dark-thirty,” Jamie joked. It had been a late night, convincing Phil Hooks that the helicopter was the only way to get out to the Hart Ranch in time to catch the search and possible arrest of Nathan Hart Biddle.

Soon she recognized the river and the landscape of Hart Ranch ahead, then made out the barns and outbuildings—and the three sheriff’s cruisers parked in an open triangle in front of the ranch house.

“They’re here,” she called over her shoulder to Dave. “Start shooting.”

“I’m way ahead of you.” He’d already begun.

The pilot angled the chopper to give the photographer an unobstructed view, and Jamie felt her stomach twist. She clutched her barf bag close. Then she saw something that distracted her. “Does that look like smoke?” She leaned toward the pilot and pointed.

In the distance a hazy column rose from the rolling hills, wavering in the dawn light. The pilot glanced once, didn’t seem to see. Dave was filming the cruisers and ranch house, now directly below them. Jamie looked down. No activity was visible. Jamie wondered if they’d pulled Nathan Biddle out of bed, wondered if he’d figured out the awful truth by now.

She glanced toward the sunrise again, and this time she was certain she saw smoke. “Go that way!” she commanded over the noise.

“Boss didn’t authorize a bunch of running around, lady. This thing eats fuel, you know.”

“That could be a fire!”

“So? Out here on the tallgrass prairie they set fires all the time to burn off that pesky Japanese grass.”

“A controlled burn? With the wind gusting like this? Besides, it’s over by part of the Hart Ranch. Isn’t that the plateau where we filmed yesterday?” She directed this question to Dave, but didn’t wait for the answer. “That’s near that old cabin. It can’t be more than a couple of miles. Fly over and check it out. I’ll take responsibility for the fuel.”

The pilot made a sour face and practically turned the chopper on its side, making Jamie’s sweet roll and coffee lurch up dangerously. He flew at full speed toward the smoke on the horizon. Jamie pointed as they passed over the roof of the old cabin, barely visible through a thicket of dry-leafed blackjacks. As they got closer to the column—large and definitely smoke—the fire itself became visible. Flames made eerie Z’s on the gray hillsides, and the pilot immediately changed his tune.

“That’s a big one, all right,” he said. “We’d better not fly any closer.”

“Holy shit!” Dave exclaimed while filming.

“That’s no controlled burn.” Jamie was already digging out her cell phone. “I’m calling it in.”

She made a hasty call to alert the station first, then she punched 911, wondering if the cruisers on the ground a mile behind them would be called into the act. She told the dispatcher who she was, that she was looking at a massive grass fire, clearly out of control, headed directly for the Hart Ranch complex. The dispatcher took careful coordinates of their location, with the pilot shouting out landmarks over the chopper noise.

Just as she’d figured, Jamie was ordered to stay on the line while the dispatcher contacted units from the nearby town of Pawhuska. She covered the mouthpiece and shot a look of disgust back at Dave. “I have to hold.” She studied the fire. “It’s definitely moving southwest,” she muttered toward the window.

Suddenly she turned her head and shouted to the pilot, “Head back to the ranch! We’ve got to warn them.”

The pilot did another sickening turn and flew full throttle toward the ranch house. They landed near the cruisers in a cyclone of dust, and immediately the sheriff came marching out of the ranch house, looking angry, waving them away.

Jamie jumped from the door while the blades were still rotating. With the cell phone pressed to her ear, she held up her free hand in placation. “Prairie fire!” she yelled. “Out of control! A mile or two northeast!”

The big man cupped his hands and shouted, “Did you call it in?” as they ran toward each other.

“Yes!” Jamie’s throat was so dry she no longer felt any nausea. “Pawhuska’s sending units. I’m on hold with the 911 dispatcher.”

“I’ll take over!” the sheriff said. “Give it to me!”

Jamie handed him the phone.

“You with Channel Six?” he asked as he held the phone to his ear, waiting.

“Yes.” Jamie paused to catch her breath as Dave and the pilot jumped out and rushed toward them. Dave filmed as they stood in a cluster, telling the sheriff as much as they could about the fire. “We may need you to go back up and call in the exact parameters of the fire,” the sheriff said. The pilot nodded.

Nathan Biddle emerged from the ranch house with the two deputies on either side of him. At the sight of him, Jamie’s pulse—already racing—quickened even more. The sheriff called out the situation before they’d gotten halfway across the yard. Biddle stopped and turned, hollered something urgent to one of the deputies. An argument ensued. Jamie could only catch the words high-strung thoroughbred over the chopper’s noise.

Biddle finally made a cutting motion with his arm, then turned and ran in the direction of the barns. The deputies trotted over to the group. One faced the sheriff and said, “The man’s got a high-dollar stud horse he wants to save and six brood mares. He says he can swim them all across the river.”

“Wouldn’t take no for an answer,” the other deputy put in.

“Nathan ain’t going nowhere,” the sheriff said dryly. “Let him move his horses. We got bigger problems now, anyways, boys. The Tulsa DA can waste his own time trying to find some old hunting knife that ain’t here.”

Jamie wanted to ply the sheriff with questions, but he was shouting, “Yeah, Sheriff Bates here,” into the cell phone.

“Okay,” he said next. Then, “I’ve got the Channel Six Skyranger helicopter out here. They volunteered to go up and provide aerial support. Pawhuska will take fire-ground command. Until we know more, go ahead and have Blackpool’s units go east on Highway Twenty.” He stopped and spoke to the pilot. “You can get close enough to provide air guidance, can’t you?”

The pilot nodded, and Jamie said, “I’m going back up with you. We’ll do a phoner. Dave can feed back video.”

A deputy passed a cell phone to the sheriff, and Jamie took hers back. She and Dave followed the pilot to the chopper. As they lifted off, Jamie looked down toward the barns. She saw Nathan Biddle, now wearing a tan cowboy hat and a dark leather jacket, mount his paint while he held three other horses on long leads. She watched him galloping toward the river for as long as she could before they all disappeared under the dense canopy of blackjacks.

In the wind and shifting smoke, it was all the trio in the helicopter could do to keep their bearings and identify roads and landmarks. They made a wide circle, spotted two other dwellings in the immediate path of the fire, and called in the locations of these. By the time they circled back, firefighters from six towns had arrived with twenty units to battle the blaze. The wildfire was suddenly the day’s big media event.

“The fire is eating up everything in sight,” Jamie reported, while Dave fed digital pictures back to the station.

Jamie was so caught up in the moment that she completely forgot about Biddle until she spotted him again, this time riding at a hard gallop toward the old cabin up on the plateau. The horse he rode now was black, huge and powerful. Its pounding hooves created an enormous ribbon of dust in the dry morning air. The fire, snaking around the base of a hill, was making its way up to the plateau like a hot orange army on the march.

“Where’s he going?” she shouted back to Dave as she poked her finger at the glass, indicating Nathan passing below them.

Dave leaned forward. “To that cabin obviously.” He picked up his camera and twisted to get a good clean shot of the horse and rider.

“Turn around and land on that plateau by the cabin!” Jamie ordered the pilot.

“Ms. Evans, that fire is getting too close for comfort now—”

“Exactly! He wouldn’t be taking such a risk without a reason. Now land this thing!”

They circled and touched down just as Nathan Biddle threw himself from the saddle and raced full speed toward the cabin. Only then did Jamie see the old motorcycle parked under the sloping shed roof supported by two log poles. Someone was in there.

She jumped from the chopper and ran, feeling rather than seeing Dave on her heels. Up close, the cabin looked like something out of a movie about pioneers: chinked-log construction, a fat stone chimney that seemed larger than the little box of the cabin itself, drying gourds hanging on exterior walls.

“Wow!” Dave exclaimed as he filmed.

As they burst through the open door, Nathan Biddle, his jeans soaked to the skin, was standing with his back to them next to an enormous shirtless man with a long black ponytail, who was lifting a large wood-framed drawing off the rough-hewn wall. It was a yellowed charcoal sketch of a swan in profile, done in bold black lines.

Jamie sucked in her breath when she saw what Biddle held. An Osage war shield! The unmistakable white markings on stretched buckskin, the five eagle feathers hanging at the bottom, two others strategically placed at the top. Surely it was some kind of copy. No authentic Osage shield existed outside the protection of a museum these days.

Biddle turned from his task and squinted at her in horror. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“We landed outside,” she explained as if anyone within a mile couldn’t hear a helicopter landing. “That fire’s closer than you think and the road’s covered in smoke. I’ve got the chopper outside. We’ll lift you both out. Let’s go!”

The big man beside Biddle said, “I will get the bound volumes. You get grandfather’s Peyote fan and crucifix.” Biddle nodded and swung around with the shield, headed for a battered old dresser. The other man crossed to some crude bookshelves in the corner, seeming to dominate the room as he moved. “Do not film these objects,” he quietly commanded Dave as he passed near him.

Dave obediently lowered the camera. “Okeydoke,” he muttered under his breath, and gave Jamie a wild-eyed look as he angled the viewfinder upward and the tape heads continued to turn.

All over the cabin were other Osage artifacts. Blankets, beaded work, paintings. And shelves and shelves of books, stacks and stacks of papers, piled on a rickety drawing board shoved under the one grimy window. Surely they weren’t trying to save all this stuff.

“Mr. Biddle, I don’t know what you’re trying to do here—” she held out her hands imploringly as she stepped toward Nathan “—but we don’t have much time.” In fact, the smoke seemed to be getting thicker in the air that gusted into the open doorway.

Biddle stopped what he was doing, turned and stared out the door. “Robert,” he called to the big man who was unplugging a laptop computer, “you must go now. I’ll stay behind and gather his papers.”

“No,” Robert answered as he pulled several oversize leather-bound books off the shelves. “I’ll stay. You go. I have the Indian.”

“And how much gas have you got in that thing?” Biddle argued. When Robert didn’t answer, he said, “That’s what I thought. And what about Bear?”

Jamie realized that the Indian must be the ancient-looking motorcycle parked out front, but who was Bear? Her question was answered when a large butterscotch-colored dog lumbered in from the back porch area. He looked part chow chow or mastiff. He’d been drawn by the sound of his name, she supposed. “You don’t understand,” she pleaded. “This fire is huge. Take the dog if you want to, but please, we must go. Now.”

“Not until we get our grandfather’s things,” Biddle informed her as he kept working steadily.

“You’re risking your life—and ours—for some dusty old books and a fake Osage shield.”

Robert never stopped in his efforts, but Nathan turned to her, and the look in his eyes could have frozen water. “Nothing in this cabin is fake,” he said.

“I didn’t mean…” Jamie faltered. “Just hurry. Please.”

But when they got outside, the pilot had bad news. He climbed out of the chopper as Dave scrambled into the back seat. He eyed Robert and pulled Jamie aside. “That guy weighs three hundred pounds if he weighs an ounce,” he told her, “and this chopper’s only designed to lift three average-size adults, plus a little equipment—and no dogs.”

“What are you saying?” Jamie asked, but she knew. Through the chopper’s window, she saw Dave, staring straight ahead, protectively clutching the thirty-five-thousand-dollar camera issued to his care. Leaving the equipment—and the precious film—behind would only save them about twenty-five pounds, anyway.

“I can’t take everybody, especially…oversize personnel.” The pilot’s aviators reflected the orange-tinted plumes of smoke beyond the ridge. “The big guy stays.”

“The hell he does.” The voice behind them was Nathan Biddle’s.

Jamie hadn’t noticed that he’d walked up. “Mr. Biddle, I—”

“My cousin goes, and so do all my grandfather’s papers and effects. And so does the dog.”

Jamie and the pilot turned their heads to look at the large man Biddle had called his cousin. He’d pulled on a grimy T-shirt and stood silently, with the volumes tucked under his meaty arms like rescued children. The large dog cowered against his thigh.

“This bird will only hold so much weight,” the pilot insisted. “It’s either you two or—”

“Then I’ll stay,” Jamie jumped in.

“We both will,” Biddle turned to her, calm reassurance radiating from his dark eyes. “The horse can swim us across the river, if necessary.”

“The boss won’t like this. Me leaving his star reporter behind,” the pilot argued.

“I won’t let anything happen to Ms. Evans,” Biddle replied.

“I’ll drop these two and circle right back.” The pilot, clearly frustrated, clearly frightened, looked up at the smoky sky. “Let’s hope the wind doesn’t shift, and the smoke doesn’t get too dense, and my fuel doesn’t run out.”

Jamie placed a hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “You’d better get going.”

Biddle stepped over and grabbed the sleeve of Robert’s T-shirt. “Get in,” he said in answer to Robert’s pained expression. Then he gave his cousin a shove. Once Robert was seated, Biddle bent forward, lifting the picture and the shield, setting them gently onto his cousin’s lap. Then he lifted the old dog’s hindquarters until he got him tucked safely between his cousin’s large boots. “Take care of Bear—and our grandfather’s things.”

Robert, who had been mute until this point, turned his face toward Nathan, and Jamie saw that his dark eyes brimmed with meaning. “No, my brother. Not his things. I will take care of our grandfather.”

The pilot cranked up the rotors and as Jamie ran backward to get clear of the blades’ blast, she stumbled. Biddle was right beside her and she felt his strong hand grip her arm. He practically lifted her off her feet as he circled a muscular arm around her waist and hauled her back. Not only did his touch feel powerful, it felt…stunning.

He lowered her to her feet and she turned away from his face, pretending to cough at the dust, afraid that her expression would betray how profoundly that moment of contact had affected her. As she turned to watch the chopper lift off, she saw Dave in the back window, with his camera against his face. Naturally, he had filmed the entire embarrassing encounter.

She started to say something smart to ease the tension, but when she turned, she saw Nathan Biddle’s broad back and long legs striding away from her. He crossed through the smoky churned-up air and pulled the motorcycle backward out of its parking place. He started rolling it toward the narrow road that led down off the plateau.

“I thought you said it didn’t have any gas,” she said breathlessly as she trotted up beside him.

“It doesn’t. Robert runs around on fumes half the time.” He kept on rolling the machine at a good clip until they were out onto the road. “Don’t worry. The stallion won’t run out of gas.”

Jamie was completely confused. “Aren’t we gonna take the horse with us?” she asked.

“We’ll come back for him.” He mounted the motorcycle. “The cycle’s noise would’ve spooked the stallion,” he explained as he fired up the engine. “And he’ll be testy enough, with both of us riding him out of here and smoke everywhere. Get on.” He reached for her hand.

Jamie, suddenly wishing she’d worn a pantsuit that morning, gave him her hand and let him guide her onto the seat behind him. She fit her thighs around his hips, futilely tugging down on her slim short skirt. She gave up as he lurched away, realizing she had bigger things to worry about than modesty. Though he seemed awfully sure of himself, she was not sure she should trust this man with her life.

They roared down the road, veering off onto a path that careened steeply down to a deep creek. When they got to the bank, he said, “Okay,” and put out his hand for hers again, assisting her off the bike.

Jamie was totally confused now, but her confusion turned to utter shock when he dismounted and shoved the bike into the creek.

“What the…!” she cried as the water gurgled over the submerged vehicle. Was she in the hands of a crazy man?

“When the fire gets here, these dry cedars and blackjacks will go up like kindling, and so will that old cabin.” He grabbed her hand yet again and pulled her back up the path behind him. “That bike is a priceless antique, the progenitor of the modern Harley,” he explained as they climbed. “Robert would never forgive me if I didn’t save it.”

“Save it!” she exclaimed. “You just ran it into the creek!”

“Better than letting it burn to a crisp. He can restore water damage.” He stopped climbing and looked down at her. “What do you suggest? Loading it onto the horse?” He raised his eyes to the veil of smoke scuttling over the treetops. “The wind’s shifting. Come on.” He jerked her along behind him. “We’re not out of the woods yet. And as much as I hate reporters, I still don’t want to see you get charbroiled.”




CHAPTER FOUR


BY THE TIME they got back up on the plateau, Nathan didn’t need to point out the changed and dangerous direction of the wind. The forty-mile-an-hour gusts plastered Jamie’s hair over her face and made the smoke swirl thickly through the trees, up over the low roof of the tiny cabin.

Nathan looked toward the peach-colored sky, toward the roar and rush and snap of the monster fire. “The cedar trees at the edge of the tall grass have caught,” he said as he pulled Jamie into the cabin, “and cedars explode.” Inside he started grabbing things—a blanket, water bottles, flashlight, a box of snack cakes—from the mélange around them. He moved with amazing speed, as if he had radar, homing in on exactly what he wanted.

“Can I help?” Jamie asked as he snatched a small backpack off the floor.

“Look for his cell phone,” Nathan ordered as he stuffed the items into the bag.

The debris around her seemed to multiply as Jamie tossed aside clothes and papers, searching frantically. She cursed Robert for being such a slob. “I don’t see it!”

“Never mind.” He stepped into the kitchen area, yanked two dish towels off a rod and wet them under the faucet. “Tie this over your face.” He handed her one and put the other on himself. She placed the towel, which smelled of rancid cooking grease, over her nose and mouth. He reached around behind her head and tied it roughly. Then he grabbed her hand again and tugged her out the door.

The smoke outside was thick enough now to make Jamie’s eyes smart. Nathan dragged her toward the stallion, tethered to a low tree limb near the cabin. The horse, sensing danger, was prancing backward, whinnying and straining against the lead. Nathan kept repeating, “Whoa, boy,” as he approached, then he soothed the animal with expert hands. When the stallion stood quietly, he hooked the backpack over the saddle horn and mounted, fluidly, still murmuring calm intonations.

“Okay.” He looked down at Jamie. “Up you go.” He extended a strong broad hand.

She stared at the hand, then into the dark eyes squinting at her above the towel.

“Up I go?” she echoed, and swallowed.

He gave her a questioning frown, then leaned an elbow forward on his muscled thigh, bringing his eyes directly into line with hers. “Your pilot is never going to make it back here in time, Ms. Evans. I know that this animal is scary, but he happens to be our escape vehicle.” His uncannily accurate guess rattled her even more. The place where she stood at this moment was as close as Jamie had ever been to a horse. Her lifelong fear of the huge beasts stemmed from a frightening childhood incident at a rodeo. He eased his boot out of the stirrup.

“Now put your foot in there, grab here—” he twisted to demonstrate with a palm braced on the saddle pommel “—and give me your other hand.” He spread his palm downward again. Whoa, boy,” he murmured as the animal danced away from Jamie.

Jamie’s throat, already dry, stuck closed with fright, while unconsciously she stepped away from the horse, not toward it. As she fought to breathe, she sucked the towel tight against her open mouth. Though Nathan seemed to understand her fear, his reaction was less than sympathetic. “Look,” he said in a low, almost threatening, voice. “I’ve got control of him now, but don’t make me get down and lift you up here. I can’t guarantee what this stallion will do then. He’s not a saddle horse. He’s a stud. So do as I say. Now.”

Jamie blinked against the smoke and stepped forward. As soon as she did, the horse made a terrifying jerk and let out a frenzied whinny. Nathan used the reins and his voice to subdue the animal again. “Just step forward slowly,” he urged Jamie.

She did so on wobbly legs.

“Now put your foot in the stirrup. Slowly.”

The huge horse kept edging away. And it didn’t help that Jamie’s skirt was bunched practically to her waist. She struggled with all her might and tried not to think about the view Nathan Biddle might be getting—black bikinis beneath nude panty hose. As soon as she managed to get her foot in the stirrup, Nathan leaned down. With a hand hooked under her armpit, he hauled her up behind him. Somehow Jamie found herself straddling the saddle skirt. She wrapped her arms around him, clutching his waist.

“Keep your legs around his belly,” Nathan told her. “Don’t squeeze him back in the flanks. Kick him there, and he’ll buck us off for sure.”

That’s reassuring, Jamie thought as she nervously scooted her feet forward on the horse’s side.

“Just plant your feet on my calves,” he said dryly.

“Okay,” she squeaked.

“Here we go,” he said.

With her eyes squeezed shut and her cheek mashed into the smooth cool leather jacket, she felt the horse lurch forward.

Jamie registered little about that jolting ride off the plateau. Except for the sound of Nathan’s thudding heart and the feel of powerful muscle—both the animal’s and the man’s—she was aware of nothing.

She finally opened her eyes when she heard splashing water. She raised her head, coughing at the smoke, then felt cold water grazing her feet and found her voice. “Where are we?”

Nathan turned his head. “Hoshkahomi Creek. Unfortunately, not wide enough or deep enough to protect us. We’ll have to make it to Middle Bird Creek.”

Jamie looked around to get her bearings. Above the bare treetops, the morning sun was nothing but a weak spotlight now, shrouded in smoke.

They climbed the bank, hitting open ground, and the horse broke into a hard gallop. Jamie fumbled for a better hold, gripped Nathan’s belt buckle and clung to his middle for dear life.

It seemed forever before they stopped. She looked around at the cedars and naked sycamores that dotted the landscape. Then she leaned around Nathan’s wide back to look ahead of them. The horse stood on a rocky incline that veered toward the deep creek below. The trees on the opposite bank looked frighteningly far away. The rippling water looked too fast and deep for the horse, but as Nathan guided them down the embankment, she knew they were going to ride the stallion across.

“Where are we going?” Her voice was too loud, too anxious, and she realized she was clutching his shirtfront.

“There’s a narrow spot around the bend.” His voice reverberated through his back, making a comforting vibration against her breasts.

But the contact was also disquieting, and she attempted to ease back, creating some space between their bodies. “What will we do when we get there?”

“Cross.”

“Why don’t we hear any fire sirens?”

Silence. He was leaning around the horse’s neck to check the rocky ground ahead of them.

“Do you think the helicopter will look for us down here by the river?”

More silence.

“What will we do after we cross? Will we be safe then?”

“You sure ask a lot of questions.”

“I’m a reporter.”

The air was less smoky near the water, and she pulled the odious towel down and got a whiff of his hair, his neck, the leather jacket. He smelled like cut cedar and freshly laundered shirt—and something else purely virile and male. It was a smell that felt, at this precise moment, extremely safe. Jamie, who’d been so absorbed in her work, hadn’t been this physically close to a man in quite a while. She closed her eyes, resisting the heady intoxicating dangerous urge to collapse against him. The circumstances made her feel this way, she reasoned, not the man. This man wasn’t necessarily safe, she reminded herself. He might even be dangerous.

They came around a narrow meander in the river, and Nathan brought the horse to a stop on an alluvial wash. “This is the place,” he said as he turned the resisting animal to the river’s edge. He gave a gentle kick as he guided the stallion into the water. “Hold on tight,” he ordered.

Like I’m not already, Jamie thought. She clutched him so tightly that the hind bow of the saddle cut into her midriff.

Bird Creek in October was unpleasantly cold. Jamie couldn’t help but think of the damage to her expensive suede pumps and two-hundred-dollar silk suit. But when the horse skidded unevenly on the rocky bottom, she forgot about her ruined clothes. Nathan leaned with all his power to keep them steady. The cold water crept up and soon the horse was swimming.

When the water reached her thighs Jamie sucked in a shocked “Ahh!” and Nathan turned his head. His teeth flashed white in the first smile she’d seen from this man. “Better chilled than burned to a crisp.” But even as he said it, he pressed the warm undersides of his muscular arms over her hands. “Hang on,” he encouraged. “We’re almost there.”

Nathan and the horse handled the current masterfully, but when they bounded onto the opposite shore, the stallion turned mutinous. He tossed his head and reared, churning his forelegs high in the air as Jamie held on and again squeezed her eyes shut, plastered herself to Nathan’s back and pressed her cheek against his powerful shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Nathan asked, when he had the animal under control again.

Jamie nodded against his back. She imagined he could feel her trembling clear through the jacket.

They climbed the bank and she felt him twist the horse around. She opened her eyes to see fire snapping over the ridge in the distance.

“There goes Grandfather’s cabin,” Nathan commented sadly.

“I’m so sorry,” Jamie whispered. She didn’t even want to ask about the ranch buildings—or that grand old house. “Are your other horses here on this side of the river?” she hoped to distract him from his losses.

“Somewhere.” His answer was flat. “We can stop here for a minute.” She felt him kicking his boot free of the stirrup. “Down you go.”

Their legs bumped while she fumbled for the stirrup. Once in, she swung her other leg over the horse quickly, determined to demonstrate that she was as intrepid as he was. But her muscles were taxed and already stiffening with chills, and when she hit the ground, her legs felt weaker than water. She would have landed squarely on her behind if he hadn’t tightened his firm grip on her forearm.

“Easy,” he said as he dismounted.

Jamie nodded and found her way to an outcropping of rock and lowered herself shakily. Nathan tied the horse to a low branch.





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