Gun-Shy Bride (12 page)

“Who is this?” She realized she’d stopped walking toward her cabin.

“Ask her about the black eye she was sporting the last time anyone saw Trace Winchester and who gave it to her.”

McCall flinched as if she’d been hit. “Are you saying my father hit her?”

A chuckle. “Only because she got in the way. He was trying to hit her
boyfriend
.” The line went dead.

McCall swore under her breath.
Black eye? Boy
friend?
She realized she was still carrying the gun Luke had pressed into her hand. Turning, she headed for her SUV.

With luck she could catch her mother before she went out on her date with Red Harper.

“I
S SOMETHING WRONG
?” Ruby repeated as McCall entered the trailer.

Everything was wrong and had been McCall’s whole life. She’d felt as if everyone around her had lied to her. Now she knew it was true.

“Why don’t you tell me about the black eye my father gave you,” she said as she stepped into the trailer.

Ruby froze. “What?”

“My father hit you.”

“No. It wasn’t—” She folded the dish towel she’d been using to dry the few items on her drain board and placed it carefully on the counter. “Where would you get—”

“Or was he trying to hit your
boyfriend?
” The one thing McCall had believed all these years was that Trace Winchester had been her mother’s true love. Now even that was in question.

Ruby chewed at her lower lip before reaching for her cigarettes. McCall beat her to them, tossing the pack aside.

“How about the truth for once?”

Her mother shook her head. “There were things I didn’t want to tell you. I wanted to spare you.”

Ruby turned to open the fridge. “You want a Diet Coke?” She must have seen McCall’s impatient expression, because she pulled only one out, popped the top and took a drink.

“Trace and I were having problems,” Ruby said
finally. “I told you about his mother cutting off his money, trying to rein him back in. He was torn. She wouldn’t relent. We were broke. I was pregnant and sick and not working as much….” She took another drink, her throat working.

McCall recalled what Patty had told her about the morning her mother showed up at the café late. She’d thought from the mud on the old pickup that Ruby had been out looking for Trace.

“You said the last time you saw him was the morning of opening day when he went antelope hunting,” McCall reminded her and saw her mother’s face flush under the weight of the lie.

Patty had said her mother came in late and it was plain as her face that she and Trace had had a fight. McCall had thought Patty meant: plain as the look on her face, but she must have been talking about Ruby’s black eye.

Her mother started to cry. “Trace used to put his hand on my stomach and just light up when he felt you move. It was his idea to name you McCall after his father, even if you were a girl.” She smiled through her tears. “He would have settled down once you were born. Would have been fine if—”

“The black eye, Mother.”

Ruby finished the soda, tossed the can in the recycle bin McCall had forced on her and motioned to one of the kitchen chairs. McCall had been leaning against the kitchen counter, blocking her mother’s path.

She moved now, allowing Ruby to sit down, but she could tell her mother was itching for a cigarette.

“I was fine when Trace was home, but when he wasn’t…” Ruby said, turning the ashtray in a circle
with her finger. “I did something terrible.” Her voice cracked like the ice on Nelson Reservoir in the spring. “I went out on Trace.”

“Went
out?
”

“It was just that one time. I swear. We regretted it right away.”

“We?”

Her mother kept turning the ashtray, refusing to look at her.

“When did this happen?”

“The night before opening day.”

McCall swore. “So you didn’t see him the next morning, did you? You don’t even know if he had his rifle or not.” She couldn’t believe this. She’d based all her assumptions about his killer on who had taken the rifle from Trace and when.

Ruby stopped spinning the ashtray. “Trace came home the night before opening day, caught us and took a punch at him. I got in the middle.”

McCall sighed. Would the saga of her parents never end? “No wonder you thought he’d left you. Who is the other man, Mother?”

Ruby looked away and McCall knew. A cold chill worked its way up her spine. “It was Red, wasn’t it?”

Her mother burst into tears.

Now it all made sense. Why Red hadn’t asked Ruby out all these years. It had been guilt. He and Ruby had both blamed themselves for Trace leaving.

“Even if he hadn’t gotten himself killed, he would have left me,” Ruby cried. “Now you know why. It was
my
fault.”

McCall stepped to her mother, squatting down to
hug her. Ruby shook with shuddering sobs, her tears hot against McCall’s cheek.

“He married you. He wouldn’t have if he hadn’t loved you,” McCall whispered. It didn’t matter if it was true or not. Not anymore. The truth was that Trace had never left Ruby. Never left either of them.

The sobs slowed. Ruby sniffed, wiped her tears.

McCall sat down across from her, feeling closer to her mother than she had in years. Ruby had cheated. It wasn’t the first time a woman had done such a thing nor would it be the last. There were worse sins. Like murder.

McCall didn’t stop her mother this time when she reached for her cigarettes.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Ruby said after taking a long drag and blowing the smoke out the side of her mouth, waving her hand as if that would save her daughter from the secondhand smoke.

It was hard to tell exactly what her mother was sorry for. Tricking Trace. Getting pregnant. Marrying Trace. Cheating on him. Or believing for years that her infidelity was the reason he was gone.

Whatever Ruby was sorry for, she’d paid for it the past twenty-seven years.

McCall drove home, wanting nothing more than to sleep for twenty-four hours. The cold night air did nothing to chase away her fatigue. The river bottom was quiet, the low clouds of the spring sky overhead a deep ebony.

Rounding the corner of the deck, she was almost to the door when something moved in the darkness. McCall froze as a dark shape came across the deck at her.

As Eugene Crawford stepped from the shadows, McCall knew he’d been waiting for her.

Her stomach tightened as she reached for her weapon only to realize she wasn’t wearing it and she’d left the gun Luke had given her in the truck.

As she reached in her pocket for her cell phone, Eugene stepped in front of her, blocking her path with one big, heavy arm and slapping her cell out of her hand. It skittered across the deck and disappeared over the side.

“You bitch.” Anger contorted his ruddy, thick features. “Because of you my uncle was arrested for murder.”

The sheriff had arrested Buzz for her father’s murder? Grant was so cautious he wouldn’t have done that without sufficient evidence. He must have found something in Trace’s pickup.

“I know you framed my old man,” Eugene said, shoving her back against the wall of the house.

She could smell alcohol on his breath and warned herself to be careful of this dangerous man. Eugene outweighed her by a hundred pounds and had a mean streak that she’d seen all through grade school. In high
school he’d asked her out, and when she’d turned him down, he’d done everything he could to make her life miserable behind Luke’s back.

McCall had known that arresting him the other night at the bar would come back to haunt her. Here he was spoiling for a fight again, only he planned to win this one.

She tried to remain calm, not easy when they both knew that they were all alone out here. Even if she screamed no one would hear her, and Eugene was too big to fight.

“I’m sorry, Eugene, but I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm.

“
Right
. You wouldn’t know anything about him getting arrested and hauled off to jail for murdering the man your mother claimed fathered you.”

McCall held her ground although it was hard with Eugene Crawford this close and reeking of alcohol, sweat and anger, but she knew that any show of fear would feed his need to hurt someone. And tonight that someone was her.

“If the sheriff arrested Buzz, then he must have his reasons,” she said, and started to move past him.

He stopped her, slapping one large beefy palm onto the wall next to her, trapping her. He leaned in. “You always did have a mouth on you.”

McCall feared how this was going to end. “You might want to consider that you are threatening an officer of the law, Eugene. Do you really need that kind of trouble?”

“After the trouble I’m already in?” He laughed, a harsh, spittle-filled laugh. “You ain’t no deputy. That’s right, word’s out about you.” He let his gaze slide down her body. “That’s why you aren’t wearing your gun.”

“I’m only suspended. Technically—”

“Let me tell you what you can do with your
technicalities
,” Eugene grabbed a handful of her hair in his fist, making her eyes water with the pain. “I got news for you—you were always a tramp just like your mother.”

“Easy, those are fighting words,” she said on a painful breath and clenched her right hand into a fist as she remembered the satisfaction she’d felt when she’d slugged this bully back in grade school for words along that same line.

Eugene sneered at her, egging her on. He wanted her to hit him so he could take some of his meanness out on her.

“This must have been a red-letter week for you,” he said. “Locked up
two
Crawfords. Bet you’d like to see Luke behind bars, too, wouldn’t you.”

“Eugene, I have nothing against any of the Crawfords.”

“You mean against
Luke
. Oh, that’s right. He used to be the man of your dreams. But I took care of that. You remember in high school?” Eugene asked. “That night down by the river?”

She felt her stomach drop. The night she and Luke had made love.

“You thought he was the one who went to school the next day and bragged about bagging you,” Eugene said, grinning viciously.

Luke hadn’t lied. It had been Eugene. Luke had sworn he hadn’t said anything. But how could she have believed him? How could she when no one else had known about the two of them making love by the campfire.

At least that’s what she’d thought.

“You destroyed my reputation in high school just to
get back at me for not going out with you?” Her voice broke, trembling with rage. Eugene had destroyed more than her reputation. He’d destroyed what she and Luke had shared and every dream they had of being together, not to mention her broken heart.

McCall would have tried to take Eugene on, throwing everything she had at him, even though she knew she couldn’t win and would come out of the fight the worse for wear.

The only thing that stopped her was the dark figure that appeared at the edge of the deck.

“I followed the two of you,” Eugene was saying, “Saw you beside the campfire.” He let out a low whistle. “I said right then that I would have some of that one day,” he said, gripping her hair tighter, unaware that they were no longer alone. “Guess that day has arrived.” His free hand grabbed the neck of her shirt and ripped it downward.

“Get your hands off her!”

Eugene whirled at the sound of Luke’s voice behind him. The look of fear on his face was almost enough retribution. Almost.

“
You
were the one who started the rumor about McCall,” Luke said between clenched teeth, confirming that he’d heard. There was a cold fury in his voice.

Eugene must have heard it, too, because he released her and stepped back, raising both hands in surrender.

Why had Luke come back? Not that it mattered. She’d never been so glad to see him.

“Cousin,” Eugene said, sounding alarmed. “It isn’t what you think.”

“I
think
you were about to rape McCall, but I asked you
a question. Did you just say you were the one who started the rumor about me and McCall?” Luke demanded.

Trapped, Eugene went on the defensive, turning belligerent and confrontational. “You should be thanking me. I did you the biggest favor of your life and you didn’t even know it. You could have ended up with this slut if it hadn’t been for me.”

L
UKE FELT AS IF HE’D BEEN
sucker punched when he’d heard Eugene confess to what he’d done. “Do you have any idea what you did?” He took a step toward his cousin.

“Come on,” Eugene said, taking a step back. “If she slept with you, she slept with everyone else in high school. She wanted what I was going to give her tonight. She asked for it.”

Luke punched him, knocking Eugene down, and advanced ready to kick the hell out of him. He wanted to tear Eugene limb from limb. He’d never felt this kind of rage.

“What the—?” Eugene said, scrambling to his feet. “I was like a brother to you. She’s a
Winchester
. A friggin’ Winchester. I—”

Luke reached for Eugene, right hand balled into a fist and ready to strike again.

McCall grabbed his arm. “You don’t want to do this,” she said quietly.

“You’re wrong about that,” Luke said, breathing hard. “You heard him. His jealousy destroyed what we could have had. All these years…”

He started to pull free of her, half-afraid that once he started in on Eugene he might not be able to stop, and
knowing it wouldn’t change what had torn him and McCall apart.

“Eugene just started the rumors, Luke. I didn’t trust you enough to know you were telling me the truth. And once the lies started…”

Eugene was cowering at the edge of the deck.

Luke fought to control his temper and stepped back. “Get out of my sight, Eugene, or I swear…”

His cousin scrambled over the railing, dropping the few feet to the ground and was gone into the night.

It took a moment for Luke to calm down. When he turned to McCall, he saw there were tears in her eyes.

“I should have believed you,” she said.

He shook his head. “We thought we were alone. We were young, and what we had together that night scared us both.” He drew her into the shelter of his arms and she snuggled against him. “I couldn’t bear it though that you thought I would betray you. After that…” He was unable to put into words how miserable he’d been, how miserable he still was without her. “You should have let me kick his ass. If I hadn’t come back to your cabin when I did…”

“Luke, I’m okay.” She stepped back from his embrace as if she needed to get her equilibrium, to reassure herself that she was fine, that she could take care of herself.

Eugene had scared her, made her feel defenseless, and Luke knew that was a feeling McCall couldn’t bear.

But it wasn’t Eugene, he realized, who had her running scared. It was him. He’d hoped that the truth would change everything but now feared it hadn’t.

“Don’t push me away,” he said, but didn’t touch her.

She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “It was high school,” she said, confirming what he’d guessed had her so afraid.

Had what they’d felt for each other back then been real? Or had they built it up in their minds, making more of it than it was? Was she that afraid to find out if those feelings for each other were still there?

“I came back here tonight because I can’t bear to let any more time go by,” Luke said. “For hell’s sake, stop pushing me away, McCall.”

M
C
C
ALL KNEW THAT IF SHE
let him walk away this time, it would be the last chance for them. “I don’t want you to go.”

He stared at her as if afraid to trust her words. Both of them were still afraid of being hurt again; she could see it in his eyes.

But neither could deny the electricity that arced between them, she thought. The air seemed to vibrate around them. She could almost hear the low hum in the cold night air. She didn’t dare touch him. Didn’t dare move.

She could see in his face the same battle that was going on inside him. Had that night they’d made love so long ago just been puppy love? Nothing more?

They would never know if she let him walk away now.

“Please,” she whispered and closed her eyes as he reached out and cupped the back of her neck with his large warm hand. A quiver shuddered through her as he tightened his fingers on her nape and slowly drew her to him.

Her heart seemed to stop, then take off. Heat rushed through her. Her breath came in a rush as he dragged
her against his firm, solid body. She could feel the pounding of his heart.

He held her like that, his breath ragged. She heard him swallow and finally opened her eyes to look up at him.

“McCall,” he whispered as he swept her up into his arms and into the cabin, kicking the door closed behind them.

As he lowered her to her feet, she slid down his body until he found her mouth. She caught her breath as he kissed her with a passion that had her toes curling in her boots.

His fingers entwined in her long hair, and her pulse thundered under her skin as he deepened the kiss. She felt his hand on her cheek, then her throat. As he released her mouth, she threw back her head and felt his fingers, then his mouth leave a hot trail down her throat to the torn opening of her shirt.

She gasped as she felt his hand cup her breast, the rough pad of his thumb rubbing her already pebble-hard nipple until she cried out, heat rushing to her center. He freed her breasts and covered them in turn with his mouth, dropping to his knees.

Later she would remember unsnapping his Western shirt, running her palms over the hard muscles of his chest, working at the buttons on his jeans.

She couldn’t remember shedding her clothing, only the feel of her naked flesh pressed against his as he carried her to the bedroom, saying something about this time doing it right—in a real bed.

What she would never forget was the aching heat of desire, the need that consumed her every ragged breath. She cried out when his touch released her, and the
longing started building again until she thought she couldn’t bear it.

She remembered the welcome weight of him, the feeling of him filling her completely and that roller-coaster ride of desire and heart-pounding pleasure before the quaking release and that experience of ultimate fulfillment.

As she lay spent beside him, his arm around her, she memorized the feel, the smell, the sound of him, wanting to keep all of it forever. Not admitting that inkling of fear that, like ten years ago, something would drive them apart—only this time forever.

A
LIGHT RAIN FELL FROM
the low clouds. Mist snaked up the river, wrapping the bare branches of the cottonwoods in gray gauze.

McCall stretched as she looked out on the tranquil scene. Strange how different it looked this morning. She realized that it wasn’t the familiar landscape that had changed, though; it was her.

She felt new, like the spring leaves gracing the trees from her window—the only bright color along the river bottom.

Lying on her side, she sensed rather than heard Luke approach. The air pressure around her seemed to change. She waited for his touch, aching with anticipation.

His fingertips were warm across the cool flesh of her hip as he trailed them down the slope of her waist and up along her rib cage. She sucked in a breath as his finger brushed her breast. She took in the freshly showered scent of him. His hair would still be wet and dark against the warm brown of his skin.

As he lay down on the bed, he encircled her with his arms and drew her back against him.

She smiled, a soft chuckle escaping her throat as she realized he was wonderfully naked.

“I missed you,” he whispered at her ear, his breath tickling her ear.

“Hmm,” she said, leaning back against him.

“You are so beautiful, McCall.”

She closed her eyes. In Luke’s arms, she
felt
beautiful. Felt as if this was where she had always been meant to be. She’d never understood her mother’s elusive quest for true love until this moment.

Lying in her lover’s arms, McCall understood what it meant to love with such passion that you felt you would die without this man. That you would do
anything
to be with him.

Luke Crawford had ignited that kind of passion in her. For years he had stayed like a brand on her skin. She knew that no matter how this ended, she would always ache for only him. No other man would ever be able to satisfy this need.