LITMIR.BIZ

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       Chapter One

      No matter what exotic parts of the world he visited, Brant Western hadn’t forgotten how the cold of a February evening in Idaho could clutch at his lungs with icy claws that refused to let go.

      In the past hour, the light snow flurries of the afternoon had turned vicious, intense. The active storm front forecasters had been warning about since he arrived for his mid-tour leave two days earlier had finally started its relentless march across this tiny corner of eastern Idaho toward Wyoming.

      Icy flakes spit against his unprotected face with all the force of an Al Asad sandstorm. Somehow they found their way to every exposed surface, even sliding beneath the collar of his heavy shearling-lined ranch coat.

      This was the sort of Idaho night made for hunkering down by the fire with a good book and a cup of hot cocoa.

      The picture had undeniable appeal, one of the many images of home that had sustained him through fierce firefights and long campaigns and endless nights under Afghan and Iraqi stars.

      After, he reminded himself. When the few cattle at the Western Sky had been fed and all the horses were safe and snug in the barn, then he could settle in front of the fire with the thriller he’d picked up in the airport.

      “Come on,Tag.We’re almost done, then we cans go home.”

      His horse, a sturdy buckskin gelding, whinnied as if he completely understood every word and continued plodding along the faint outline of a road still visible under the quickly falling snow.

      Brant supposed this was a crazy journey. The hundred head of cows and their calves weren’t even his cattle but belonged to a neighbor of the Western Sky who leased the land while Brant was deployed.

      Carson McRaven took good care of his stock. Brant wouldn’t have agreed to the lease if he didn’t. But since the cattle were currently residing on his property, he felt responsibility toward them.

      Sometimes that sense of obligation could be a genuine pain in the butt, he acknowledged as he and Tag finished making sure the warmers in the water troughs were functioning and turned back toward the house.

      They hadn’t gone more than a dozen yards when he saw headlights slicing weakly through the fusillade of snow, heading toward the ranch far too quickly for these wintry conditions.

      He squinted in the murky twilight. Who did he know who would be stupid or crazy enough to venture out in this kind of weather?

      Easton was the logical choice but he had just talked to her on the phone a half hour earlier, before he had set out on this fool’s errand to check the ranch, and she had assured him that after the wedding they had both attended the night before, she was going to bed early with a lingering headache.

      He worried about her. He couldn’t deny that. Easton hadn’t been the same since her aunt, his foster mother, had died of cancer several months earlier. Even longer, really. She hadn’t been the sweet, funny girl he’d known and loved most of his life maybe since around the time Guff Winder had died.

      Maybe Easton wasn’t acting like herself, but he was pretty sure she had the good sense to hunker down at Winder Ranch during a storm like this. If she did venture out, he was pretty sure she was smart enough to slow down when conditions demanded it, especially since he and his foster brothers had drilled that into her head when they taught her to drive.

      So if that driver wasn’t Easton, who was barreling toward his ranch on the cusp of a ferocious winter storm?

      Somebody lost, no doubt. Sometimes these remote canyon roads were difficult to negotiate and the snow could obscure landmarks and address markings. With a sigh, he spurred Tag toward the road to point the wayward traveler in the right direction.

      He was just wishing for a decent pair of optics so he could get a better look at who it might be, when the vehicle suddenly went into a slide. He saw it coming as the driver took a curve too fast and he pushed Tag faster, praying he was wrong. But an instant later the driver overcorrected and as Brant held his breath, the vehicle spun out on the icy road.

      It was almost like some grisly slow-motion movie, watching it careen over the edge of the road, heading straight for Cold Creek, at the bottom of a maybe five-foot drop.

      The vehicle disappeared from view and Brant smacked the reins and dug his heels into the horse’s sides, racing as fast as he dared toward the slide-out.

      When he reached the creek’s edge, he could barely make out in the gathering darkness that the vehicle wasn’t quite submerged in the creek but it was a close thing. The SUV had landed on a large granite boulder in the middle of the creek bed, the front end crumpled and the rear wheels still on the bank.

      Though

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