CHRISTMAS AT THE CARDWELL RANCH by B.J. Daniels

was murdered. Angus owns a snowmobile and he knows those old logging roads behind the ranch. You own snowmobiles yourself. I would imagine the two of you have been all over that country behind the ranch. Is it drugs? Is that the business you’re in that gets your cabin torn up and you beat up and in the hospital?”
    His father let out a sigh. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”
    “You lied to me. At the bar, I saw you watching the door. You were expecting Mia. You were shocked when I told you she was dead. That’s why you didn’t ask who was killed. Because you knew. ”
    “This conversation is over.” He reached for the buzzer to call the nurse.
    Tag stepped to the side of the bed and caught his father’s arm to stop him. “Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me I’ve got it all wrong.” He hated the pleading he heard in his voice.
    His father met his gaze. “You have it all wrong.”
    “Then you don’t mind if I keep digging into her death.”
    “Leave the investigating to the people who are trained for it. Please, son. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
    His father had already hurt him by not being in his life. But did he really believe Harlan Cardwell was...what? A drug dealer? Worse, a killer?
    He met his father’s steely gaze. “Then tell the truth.”
    “Stay out of this, Tag. It isn’t what you think.”
    “I hope you’re right—given what I’m thinking.”
    Harlan closed his eyes. “Tag, I need you to go back to Texas.” When he opened them again, Tag saw a deep sadness there. “This isn’t a good time for a visit. Please. Go home. Don’t wait until after Christmas. If you don’t—”
    The door opened and the doctor came into the room. Harlan looked away.
    “If I don’t leave... What are you trying to tell me?” Tag demanded of his father. “That if I continue digging in your life I’ll end up like that woman you don’t know?”
    “I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “Did I interrupt something?”
    “No. My son was just leaving,” Harlan said. “Please don’t tell your mother about this. I’ll call you in a few days in Texas.”
    “Don’t bother. I’ll see you before then,” Tag said, and left.
    * * *
    “Y OU HAVE TO tell him the truth,” Hud said after the doctor had left.
    Harlan looked up at him from the hospital bed. “You know I can’t do that.” He motioned to the pitcher of water on the bedside table, and the marshal poured him a glass.
    “He’s your son, ” Hud persisted. “He isn’t going to stop. That damned stubbornness seems to run in your family.”
    Harlan took a drink of water and handed back the empty glass. “I need you to persuade him to go back to Texas.”
    “I wouldn’t count on that happening. He seems to know that you stopped by the ranch earlier today.”
    “How would he know that?” Harlan shifted in the bed and grimaced in pain.
    Hud shook his head. “He knows and he’s suspicious as hell of both of us.”
    “Have you heard anything from Angus?”
    “Nothing yet.”
    “I tried to warn Mia....” Harlan looked away.
    “She knew what she was getting into.”
    “I warned her what could happen if she got too close to the truth.” Harlan turned back to him. “You didn’t find anything?”
    “Nothing. If she had it, then whoever killed her took it. Tag said she was drunk when he saw her at the bar.”
    “She had to be pretending to be drunk, maybe so she could leave early and not be stopped. Or maybe they got to her somehow.” Harlan gently touched his bruised and swelling jaw. “We still don’t know who was waiting for her outside the bar?”
    “All Tag could tell us was that it appeared to be a dark-colored pickup and the driver was wearing a cowboy hat. I could take him in to look at mug shots.”
    Harlan quickly shook his head, then groaned in regret for doing it. “I need my son kept out of this. Do whatever you have to to make that happen.”
    “I can’t very well arrest him without a reason to charge