Epilogue
“I’d like to make a toast.” Everyone turned their attention to Hoyt Chisholm at the head of the table. “We’ve had one interesting year so far and it isn’t even half over.” He raised his glass. “Here’s hoping the next six months aren’t half as eventful.”
Everyone said, “Hear, hear,” and raised their glasses.
Emma smiled across the table at her soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Halley. The deputy had eyes only for her fiancé, Colton, though. She was smiling up at him as they touched glasses.
Next to them Dawson and Jinx were also smiling at each other. Dawson hadn’t let her out of his sight after everything that had happened to them. Emma shivered at even the thought of the two of them underwater with killers in the quarry in Wyoming. She gave a silent thanks to God that they had survived, and that the men who had been trying to kill them had perished—only because she didn’t want Jinx and Dawson to have to go through a lengthy trial.
Emma liked Jinx. She was a good strong woman, capable and smart. She’d had the good sense to get Lyndel Thompson’s confession on a digital recorder, which she and Dawson had given to the sheriff in Wyoming. The rustlers had been rounded up and were facing serious charges in connection with Jinx’s father’s murder.
Across the table, Tanner and Billie Rae were sharing a private toast of their own. Emma loved the way Billie Rae seemed to radiate with happiness when she was with Tanner. He’d said he’d fallen in love with her at first sight. Emma loved nothing better than a happy ending.
“It’s been a good year so far, too,” Emma added after everyone had taken a drink of their champagne. She’d thought that the night had called for prime rib from one of their beef and champagne and all the trimmings. “We have a lot of celebrate, including those who have joined us tonight.”
She lifted her glass to Colton and Halley, then Jinx and Dawson, then Tanner and Billie Rae, turning to smile down the long table at Sheriff McCall Crawford and her husband, Luke. The sheriff was glowing and Emma wondered if it was possible…
She turned back to her own husband. As she touched his glass, her eyes locked with his. A silent look of love and relief passed between them.
“To even happier times,” she said, followed by applause.
“Now can we please eat?” Marshall joked.
Emma loved the sound of laughter around the table as her gaze took in her other stepsons. Zane had gone clear to California looking for her. Her father had said how lucky she was to have such wonderful stepsons. Didn’t she know it.
Next to him, Logan seemed lost in thought. Of the six, he puzzled her. She knew he loved the ranch, but as they said, he definitely heard a different drummer, with his long hair and his love of his motorcycle over horses. Emma knew he was also a puzzle to his father, but she had great hopes for him.
She’d seen a change in Marshall after everything that had happened and wondered what had caused it. He was now in the process of remodeling the farmhouse where he lived. It was part of the Chisholm Cattle Company, the most isolated of the places.
When she’d first married into the family only months ago, she’d been determined to bring the family together and she’d had this crazy idea of finding each of her stepsons the perfect mate.
She chuckled at her naïveté. Three of them had found mates in the least likely places. Emma had tried to help things along with Colton and even a little with Tanner, but she’d had nothing to do with getting Dawson and Jinx together.
Not that she had given up matchmaking. No, she thought as she looked at the three stepsons who were still single. She was making no promises. Now that her own life had settled down, the cattle all rounded up, Hoyt cleared of any criminal charges and Aggie soon to be headed for the state mental hospital, Emma thought she might see what she could do to help Cupid along for Marshall, Zane and Logan. Look how happy the other three were! she thought.
“SHE SHOULDN’T GIVE YOU any trouble,” the deputy said as Aggie Wells was loaded into the back of the state mental hospital van. “Doc gave her something to calm her down.”
The driver glanced back at the woman in his rearview mirror, but made a point of not making eye contact.
“You must be new,” the deputy said.
“Just started yesterday,” the driver said. “Needed a job and this was all I could find.”
“I guess there are worse jobs,” the deputy agreed. “At least it’s not the middle of winter where you have to fight icy roads and blowing and drifting snow a lot of the times. Good luck,” he said as he started to close the van door.
“Thanks. I hope I don’t need it.” As he pulled away, he saw the deputy go back inside the sheriff’s department.
He didn’t look at the woman again until they were out of Whitehorse and headed across the open prairie. It was twilight, the sun somewhere behind the Little Rockies and the Bear Paw Mountains.
The driver checked his side mirror first. No cars behind him and none ahead as far as he could see. This really was an isolated part of the state—even during tourist season in the summer.
He finally glanced back at his passenger. “How are you doing, Aggie?”
She looked up, her gaze meeting his. “Okay, now that you’re here.”
He hadn’t had a choice when he’d gotten her message. He owed her and had told her a long time ago that if she ever needed him… Years ago she’d proved that his wife had been systematically selling off the jewelry he gave her and replacing it with fakes, which she then paid her boyfriend to steal so she could collect on the insurance money.
He’d gotten rid of the boyfriend, kept the wife and gone into business with her. They had a nice life and he didn’t have any more trouble with his wife after she’d seen what he’d done to her boyfriend.
Aggie Wells? Well, he was indebted to her in a big way.
“Did you have trouble getting the van?” she asked.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”