Ambush Before Sunrise: Bonus Story (Cardwell Ranch Book12; Montana Legacy

woman who wouldn’t take well to charity. She just needed some wranglers to get her cattle up to summer range, Dana had said.
While Brick had been dragging his feet, none of them was apt to turn down Dana Cardwell Savage. But what his brother and cousin didn’t know was that he would have come even if their mother hadn’t asked them. The moment he heard that JoRay “Jinx” McCallahan needed wranglers, he’d been on board.
“Once she can get her cattle up to summer range, things should get better for her,” their mother had said. News among ranch families traveled like wildfire, but Angus had the feeling Dana had heard from someone close to Jinx. “The trouble is her ex-husband. He’s got all the local ranchers riled up. She can’t get anyone to work for her other than Max, the ranch cook, and while he’s like family, he’s getting up in age.”
Angus had talked Brick into it. All it had taken was the promise that when the cattle were in their summer grazing area, they’d hightail it back to Montana.
Ella hadn’t needed any talking into it. “The woman just buried her father? She’s running the family ranch single-handedly and now the ex-husband is keeping her from getting her cattle to summer pasture? Of course we’ll go help.”
Dana hadn’t been so sure that her niece should go, but Ella wasn’t having any of that. She’d been riding with her cousins since college. She wasn’t sitting this one out. So the three of them had packed up and headed for a small community south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Angus had been looking forward to seeing Jinx again. He remembered her red hair and her temper and was intrigued to find out what had happened to that girl. That girl, he’d seen tonight, had grown into a beautiful woman. Her hair wasn’t quite as red, but her brown eyes still reminded him of warm honey. And those freckles... He smiled to himself. She didn’t try to hide them, any more than she tried to hide the fact that she was a woman you didn’t want to mess with.
For a moment earlier he’d thought that she had remembered him. But why would she? They’d just been kids, thrown together for a few hours because of their mothers.
He’d seen her looking at the scar on his chin. If anything could have jogged her memory, the scar should have, he thought as they entered the bunkhouse.
“It’s more than Jinx needing wranglers to get her cattle up to summer range,” Ella said quietly beside him.
He nodded, having felt it since they’d reached the ranch. Jinx had more trouble than a lack of hired help.
Back in the bunkhouse, he’d just tossed his bedroll onto the top bunk when he heard a revved engine growing louder as a vehicle approached the ranch.
“Stay here,” he said to Ella, signaling to his brother to stay with her.
He picked up his weapon from the bed, strapped it on and stepped out of the bunkhouse into the darkness to see the glow of headlights headed straight for them.
JINX PICKED UP the shotgun by the front door on her way out to the porch. The moment she’d heard the engine, she’d known it was T.D. and that he was going to be a problem. By now he would have had a snoot full of beer and have worked himself up. She didn’t need to see her ex-husband’s pickup come to a dust-boiling stop just short of the house to know that he was in one of his moods.
The driver’s-side door was flung open almost before he’d killed the engine. Drunk again, she thought with a silent curse. Tucker David “T.D.” Sharp stumbled out of the pickup, looking nothing like the handsome, charming cowboy who’d lassoed her heart and sweet-talked her all the way to the altar.
“You get out here, JoRay!” he yelled as he stumbled toward the house. “We need to talk.”
“I’m right here,” she said as she stepped from the dark shadows of the porch. She saw his eyes widen in surprise—first seeing her waiting for him and then when he spotted the shotgun in her hands. “You need to leave, T.D. I’ve already called the sheriff.”
He smirked at that. “Even if you did call him, it will take Harvey at least twenty minutes to get out here.”
“That’s what the loaded shotgun is for,” she said calmly, even though her heart was racing. Just seeing him in this state set her on alert. She knew firsthand what he was capable of when he got like this. He’d torn up the kitchen, breaking dishes and some of her mother’s collectibles during one of his tantrums.
“Come on, JoRay. I just want to talk to you,” he whined as he took another step closer. “Remember what it was like? You and me? You loved me. I still love you.” He took another step. “I deserve another chance. I swear I can change.”
“That’s close enough.” She raised the shotgun, pointing the business end of the barrel at the center of his chest.
He stopped, clearly not sure she wouldn’t use it on him. She saw his expression change. “You had no business kicking me off this ranch,” he said, his tone going from wheedling to angry in a heartbeat. He spat on the ground. “I got me a lawyer. Half this ranch is mine and I intend to take what’s mine. This ranch and you, if I want it. You’re still my wife. I can take it all.” He started toward her when a voice out of the darkness stopped him.
“Not tonight you aren’t.”
A wrangler stepped from the shadows into the ranch-yard light by the bunkhouse. She saw the faint gleam of the scar on his chin. She also saw that Angus was armed. He hadn’t pulled his gun, but it was in sight and T.D. saw it, too.
“Who the hell are you?” her almost-ex-husband demanded.
“The lady asked you to leave,” Angus said, his voice low, but forceful.
T.D. scoffed.