Sage Creek Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Teaser chapter

  “Jill is an amazing talent with an ability to draw you in and create a world that not only seems absolutely real but makes you hate to see the story end. Sage Creek will make you laugh, cry, and sigh with contentment as you read the last page.”

  —Catherine Anderson, New York Times bestselling author

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF JILL GREGORY

  “Jill Gregory gifts us with a perfect romantic suspense story complete with complex and vivid characters, family intrigue, a fast-paced plot, and unexpected twists and turns.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Gallops out of the starting gate . . . Gregory expertly weaves the various plot threads together, creating a tight, well-balanced story that packs an emotional punch.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A transfixing blend of fiery romance and spine-tingling suspense.”

  —Booklist

  “For tales of romance and adventure that keep you reading into the night, look no further than Jill Gregory.”

  —Nora Roberts

  “A first-rate romance. Gregory . . . writes the stuff that romance readers yearn for. If you haven’t yet read her, you’re missing out on a great treat.”

  —Oakland Press

  “Riveting . . . The ultimate seductive read . . . Unforgettable.”

  —Gayle Lynds

  “A page-turner extraordinaire.”

  —Douglas Preston

  “Stirring and imaginative. A tense, intelligent, and surprising thrill. Drum tight in execution, fueled by imagination, the plot is as sharp as a broken shard of glass.”

  —Steve Berry

  “With her usual style and gift for characterization, the always great Gregory gives readers a tale of intense emotion spiced with the thrill of danger.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “The excitement is palpable. The story is priceless.”

  —M. J. Rose

  “Convincing characters and a rapidly moving plot . . . Enjoyable.”

  —Library Journal

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  SAGE CREEK

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / October 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Jill Gregory.

  Excerpt on pages 287–296 by Jill Gregory copyright © by Jill Gregory.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-54479-2

  BERKLEY SENSATION®

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my wonderful sister Peggy

  and my dear friend Debbie,

  with love and appreciation.

  Chapter One

  LONESOME WAY, MONTANA

  A charcoal and rose dusk streaked above the Crazy Mountains as Sophie McPhee turned her Blazer onto the private gravel drive that would lead her home.

  The drive was called Daisy Lane, and the rambling two-story timber house looming a half mile in the distance was the Good Luck ranch house built by her mother’s grandfather more than ninety years ago.

  Three generations of her mother’s family had called it home, and it had been her home the first eighteen years of her life. Sophie wondered with quiet desperation as darkness stole over Lonesome Way if it truly could be her home again.

  Would this house or this town feel like home, after all this time, after everything that had happened? Would any place ever again feel like home?

  She swallowed, hoping it would. But the emptiness inside her seemed as if it would never go away, never allow her to feel anything but loss and anger ever again.

  Back in San Francisco, friends had told her she wouldn’t always feel this way, that things would get better. The platitudes sounded nice and Sophie knew they were well-meaning, but they bounced off her like drops of cold water hitting a sizzling skillet.

  Her throat tightened as she neared the head of Daisy Lane and the Blazer’s headlights caught the gleam of the big white house and the familiar landmarks of the now empty Good Luck barns and sheds and paddocks. The same-old, same-old words of encouragement weren’t doing a thing right now to help her fight the fist of pain squeezing her heart.

  She didn’t have any idea what—if anything—ever would.

  All she’d been able to think to do was to leave her old life with all its tears and mistakes behind, and to start over.

  And here in her hometown of Lonesome Way was the only place where she’d imagined having the strength to try.

  As the flaming rose sun slipped behind the mountains, and darkness swallowed the foothills, a tiny flicker of hope mad
e Sophie catch her breath. The sage-scented air, the vast miles of rugged rolling land, were familiar. Comforting.

  Home.

  On that thought, the kitchen window suddenly glowed with a bright, cheerful light. Her mother was expecting her. Sophie had called from the road. Next on was the living room lamp, gleaming with welcome. And then the porch light sprang to life, illuminating the old white wooden swing and her mother’s carefully planted rosebushes.

  A crystal wind chime tinkled sweetly, swinging in the night breeze, and there were the wide porch steps where she’d perched on countless summer afternoons as a girl, playing jacks with Lissie and Mia.

  A rush of emotion filled her as she switched off the ignition and climbed down from the Blazer on tired feet. Even as she grabbed her purse, the front door of the house swung open and her mother appeared in the doorway. Not quite as tall as Sophie, she was thin and angular, wearing a loose blue cotton top and jeans, her feet bare in the summer night.

  Diana McPhee hurried out onto the porch. Her chinlength fair hair was peppered with gray, her eyes reflected a mixture of eagerness and concern. Sophie was struck by the fact that nearing sixty, her mother was still a strikingly pretty woman.

  “Sophie! Thank heavens. I was starting to get worried.”

  As Sophie moved toward her, her throat ached with unshed tears.

  “I’ve been holding dinner. Guess you must’ve hit some major traffic on—”

  Then her mother saw her face and broke off. Sophie knew how she must look—pale, sad, tired, with the tears that were always close shimmering in her green eyes. She was so sick of the tears. She blinked them back and forced a smile.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mom. There was construction, and at one point, believe it or not, I was so distracted that I took the wrong turn and had to backtrack.”

  “Well, now, that happens. You have a lot on your mind.” Her mother’s arms went around her, hugging very gently as if she were afraid Sophie would crack in pieces. But her voice was brisk and bracing as she touched her daughter’s toffee-colored hair, tumbling in soft curls around a beautiful face with wide cheekbones a model would covet, a generous mouth, and dimples when she smiled. But Sophie was definitely not smiling now.

  “You’re here, Sophie, that’s all that matters.” Her voice was overly cheerful. “Leave your bags, we’ll get them later. Let’s go inside. I’ve fixed your favorite—meatloaf and biscuits, garlic mashed potatoes, and a big salad—oh, Sophie . . . honey, what’s the matter?”

  Sophie’s feet had frozen on the threshold of the ranch house. Behind her flowed the night, full of stars and a crescent of moon, the buzz of insects, the lone cry of a hawk. The cool night wind rustled delicately through the ponderosa pines. And ahead of her loomed her past, the house of her childhood and teen years, warm and faded yet so familiar it was startling.

  She felt herself teetering between two worlds.

  She couldn’t move, could only stare past the entry into the rectangular living room, with its big chintz-covered sofa and matching love seat, warm maple end tables, and the black walnut TV stand centered along the far blue wall. She took in the massive stone fireplace, the bookshelves, and her father’s favorite tan leather chair in the corner beside the reading lamp.

  How many times had she torn through this door, or downstairs from her room, to see his long legs stretched across that chair, his feet propped on the footrest, his hooded eyes intent as he watched a football game or devoured the newest Tom Clancy novel—or slanted a stern glance at her as she hovered uncertainly in the doorway, just as she was doing now?

  Her father’s granite voice seemed to scratch the air around her, blasting his opinion of all the ways she fell short of his expectations.

  You forgot your spelling list at school. How do you expect to pass the test? That’s just plain irresponsible, Sophie. You’re eight years old. I expect more from you than that.

  How much time have you wasted talking to Lissie Tanner on that phone? You weren’t raised to spend half your day jabbering about nonsense.

  All your daydreaming is nothing but foolishness. Stop living in the clouds, Sophie. There’s plenty of work around here that needs to be done.

  Worst of all, that F in Geometry during her junior year.

  Damned laziness. You wouldn’t know hard work if it kicked you in the butt. Why don’t you use your God-given brain, girl?

  She’d never been able to please Hoot McPhee. But then, no one had. Not even her mother, though, somehow, for most of the years they’d been married, she’d put up with him—Sophie didn’t know how. And finally, when he stepped way over the line, even her mother couldn’t look the other way anymore.

  Hoot had perhaps been hardest on her brother, Wes, who’d responded to the never-ending reprimands by leaving for Missoula and the University of Montana at the age of eighteen, and never looking back.

  Wes had gone on to law school at the University of Texas, taking out student loans and working two jobs all the while so that he never had to ask his father for a dime above basic tuition. And he hadn’t called home or come home more than three or four times in the years after his high school graduation. He hadn’t returned to Lonesome Way for Hoot’s funeral either.

  Hoot McPhee had been gone five years. But for a dizzying instant as Sophie stared into the living room, she could have sworn she sensed her tall, formidable father in that chair.

  “It’s the first time I’ve been back . . . since the funeral,” she murmured as her mother came up behind her. “For an instant, I could almost see him sitting there—”

  Sophie drew a breath and told herself to stop acting crazy. She walked into the living room, her flats clicking across the hardwood floor, and touched her hand to the back of the tan chair.

  “Sorry, Mom. I know if he were here, you wouldn’t be.” After her mother had divorced him, Sophie’s father had spent the last few years of his life living alone—or with one or another of a succession of women—in a cabin on Bear Claw Road. “I probably wouldn’t be here either,” she added with a rueful smile. “I’m just being stupid. Emotional, as he would say.”

  “No, you’re not, not in the least. I don’t wonder it seems strange to you to come in here and not see him. But a lot of things are different on the ranch now, Sophie. I’ve sold all the livestock and leased most of the grazing land. It’s not the same as when your father was here, running cattle, running everything.” Her mother’s gaze held hers. “All the years you lived at home, he was here—we both were, together. So you’ve barely been in this house without him here—of course it feels odd to walk in and not see him.”

  Sophie studied her mother. She didn’t look the least bit upset. Which was a wonder. Sophie couldn’t imagine how her mother could talk about Hoot so calmly, almost dispassionately, as if he hadn’t been discovered having an affair with the mayor’s wife, Lorelei Hardin, during Sophie’s junior year of college—and who knew how many other women he’d cheated with before that?

  Sophie was still reeling from finding out about her own husband’s infidelity. When would it stop, that icepick-to-the-heart pain? After a year—or two—a decade?

  It’s only been a few months, she told herself. You won’t always feel this rage, this pain. This blinding sense of betrayal. Mom survived. She’s a normal, rational human being. You’ll become one again too.

  But she knew she’d never trust any man again. Sophie couldn’t ever see that happening. No way.

  And she would be careful not to share her heart again, much less give it away. To anyone. The pain was too intense. The risk too great. She understood that now.

  “You know, Mom,” she said quietly. “It’s because of Hoot that I tried so hard to make things work with Ned. I always dreaded the possibility of a second generation of divorce in the family. I needed someone different from Hoot, someone who’d hold to his vows. Who’d encourage me and laugh with me and not tear down the people he was supposed to love. I thought I found him. So I kept trying for
so long even after . . .”

  Even after Ned became so distant, burying himself in his work. Putting Sophie and their life together on the back burner.

  Somewhere along the line, Ned had let go of her and their marriage, and committed himself instead to his drug of choice—his own ambition.

  In the end he’d had much more in common with Hoot McPhee than Sophie could have dreamed the day she walked down the aisle in swirls of white silk, seed pearls, and taffeta, making promises to love, honor, and cherish.

  But she didn’t know that—not until the day she found out about Cassandra Reynard.

  “I really thought we’d last. Forever.” She turned away from her father’s chair. “Which just goes to show how much I know.”

  “There’s no sense in blaming yourself. None at all.” Taking her hand, her mother determinedly led her into the kitchen, lips pursed and concern sharpening her gaze. “Not one bit of this is your fault. I know Ned told you it is, but he’s full of it. Don’t let him screw with you any more than he already has. Divorce isn’t a family curse, passed on from one generation to another. It just happens. And he cheated, not you. You gave him countless chances to keep your marriage together. A damn sight too many, if you ask me.”

  Sophie had to grin as she carried the wooden salad bowl brimming with greens and tomatoes and peppers to the square table. Her even-keeled mom rarely got so worked up. Obviously, Ned was high up on her shit list.

  “Good to know you have my back, Mom.”