Gun-Shy Bride (6 page)

Her mother’s life was straight out of a country-and-western song. If there had been another woman in Trace Winchester’s life, McCall shuddered to think how far her mother might have gone to make sure no woman took her man.

Red finished his beer in a hurry, realizing he’d messed up. “I’m sorry, but I have an appointment and really need to get going.”

“Why
haven’t
you asked my mother out before now?”

He looked startled by the question.

“Trace has been gone for twenty-seven years,” she said.

Red smiled ruefully. “Gone, but not forgotten.” He shook his head. “Couldn’t compete, not with her expecting him to come back at any moment.”

McCall realized that Red had been competing with a ghost, even if he hadn’t known Trace was dead.

“You’d be good for Ruby,” she said.

He smiled at that. “Another strike against me. But thanks for saying so.”

A
S
M
C
C
ALL CAME OUT
of the bar, blinking at the bright sunlight, she found Luke Crawford leaning against his pickup, obviously waiting for her.

“McCall,” he said with a tip of his hat.

She realized at once that he’d gotten wind of her digging into Trace’s old arrests for poaching and other hunting violations.

Not that she wasn’t surprised to see him.

Was it always going to be like this? Her heart taking off just at the sight of him? Looking for him every time
she came into town, afraid he would just appear as he had now and catch her off guard?

He’d been gone for the past ten years—since they’d both graduated from high school. The ten years apart hadn’t changed how she felt. All the hurt, humiliation and heartbreak were still there at just the sight of him.

“Been waitin’ long?” she asked.

“Kind of early to be drinking,” Luke joked.

She knew she must smell like the bar, a combination of old cigarette smoke and stale beer. Even with Montana bars going nonsmoking it would take years for the odor to go away inside some establishments.

“You haven’t been waiting out here because you’re worried about my drinking habits,” she said, realizing someone in the state Fish and Game Department had to have tipped him off.

“This is awkward,” he said. “I heard that you’re looking into a few old poaching cases involving your father.”

She bristled. While all law enforcement in this part of Montana helped each other when there was trouble, this was none of his business. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“If you’re targeting my uncle for some reason it is.”

Well, it was finally out in the open.

“Why? Do you think he has something to hide?”

Luke shook his head as if disgusted. She saw his jaw muscle tighten and realized he was trying to control his temper.

“Look,” he said finally, “the trouble with our families was a long time ago—”

“My father disappeared twenty-seven years ago—the day after your uncle ticketed him.”

Luke blinked. “You’re blaming Buzz for your father skipping town? Buzz was just doing his job.”

“Was he? I think Buzz Crawford’s reputation speaks for itself.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She sighed. “Come on, Luke. You wouldn’t have been out here waiting for me if you weren’t worried that your uncle is guilty of something. You know Buzz. That’s why you’re concerned. That’s why my checking on some of his old arrests has you waiting outside a bar for me.”

“Buzz took his job seriously. There is nothing wrong with that.”

She met his gaze. His eyes were a warm deep brown, his thick hair dark, much like her own. Like her, he had some Native American ancestry in his blood.

McCall remembered one time when a substitute grade school teacher had broken up a fight between Luke and another boy.

“All right, you little Apache, knock it off,” the teacher had said, grabbing Luke by the scruff of his neck.

“I’m Chippewa,” he’d said indignantly as she returned him to his seat.

McCall had remembered the pride in his voice and felt guilty because she had never taken pride in her own ancestry. But how could she with a father like Trace Winchester, the man everyone believed had deserted his pregnant wife and unborn child? Not to mention her grandmother, who denied McCall’s very existence.

“Look, I’ve always hated the hostility between our families,” Luke said now. “I don’t want to see it stirred up all over again.”

She would have liked to have told him that this had
nothing to do with whatever problems there’d been between the two of them—or their families, but she wasn’t sure of that.

“I know my uncle can be difficult, but he took me in and raised me when my parents died. I owe him. If he’s in some kind of trouble…”

“It’s sheriff’s department business.” The second time she’d lied today, but certainly not likely to be a record the way things were going. She started to step past him.

He grabbed her arm. His fingers on her flesh were like a branding iron. She flinched and he immediately let go.

“Sorry,” he said, holding up his hand as if in surrender.

She said nothing, still stunned that Luke’s touch could have that effect on her after all these years.

He took a step back, looking as shaken as she felt. Was it possible she wasn’t the only one who’d felt it?

P
EPPER
W
INCHESTER HADN’T
been able to rest since McCall’s visit. She hated the way she felt, her fear making her weak. She hated feeling weak, and worse, no longer in control.

“You should drink this,” Enid said, appearing with a tray. On it was a glass of juice. “It will make you feel better.”

Pepper knew there would be something in the juice that would make all this go away for a while. She and Enid had never talked about the drugs the housekeeper had been slipping her over the past twenty-seven years.

At first Pepper had been grateful, wanting to escape from her thoughts, her memories, the things she’d said and done, especially in regard to her son Trace.

She took the glass from the tray and turned back to
the window where she’d been standing when Enid had sneaked up on her.

She’d never questioned why Enid drugged her. No doubt to make less work for herself and her husband, Alfred. Whatever Enid put into her juice had always knocked her out for at least twenty-four hours, sometimes more.

It would have been so easy to down the juice and let herself surrender to that peaceful nothingness state.

“I’ll drink it after I have a little something to eat,” Pepper said. “Perhaps a sandwich. Have we any turkey?”

“I’ve got some ham.” Enid didn’t sound happy about having to go back to the kitchen to make a sandwich and bring it all the way back up. “You should have eaten the breakfast I made you.”

That was another problem with the drugs Enid gave her. They had allowed the power to shift from boss to employee over the years. Enid acted as if this were her house.

Turning to face her housekeeper, Pepper considered the elderly woman standing before her. Her first instinct was to fire her and her worthless husband. But she couldn’t bear the thought of having to hire strangers and she couldn’t go without help.

“Why don’t I come down to the kitchen for the sandwich,” Pepper said. “It will save you the extra trip.”

Enid studied her for a moment, looking a little uneasy. “Whatever you want. I’m just here to make sure you’re taken care of.”

Yes, Pepper thought, wondering at how Enid had taken care of her and what she and her husband might have planned in the future. She realized she might not be safe. Especially if Enid thought for a moment that
Pepper might ever reconcile with her children and grandchildren.

While there was no chance of that, McCall’s visit might have the housekeeper and husband worried. Pepper saw now that she would have to be very careful from now on.

Later she would pretend to drink the juice but surreptitiously pour it down the drain. While her hired help thought she was asleep perhaps she would do some sneaking around of her own.

Determined to put Luke Crawford out of her mind, McCall concentrated on what Red had hinted at—that her father had a girlfriend. If anyone would have known, it was the woman her mother had worked with twenty-seven years ago.

Patty Mason had been slinging hash as long as Ruby Bates Winchester. The two had worked together from the time they were teenagers until about the time McCall was born.

Patty had gone to work at the Hi-Line Café and it was there that McCall found her after the lunch crowd had cleared out. Patty was the opposite of Ruby. While Ruby was skin and bone, Patty was round and plump with bulbous cheeks.

She smiled as McCall came in and took a seat at one of the empty booths. “Just coffee, please, and if you have a minute, join me.”

Patty glanced around the empty café and laughed before pouring two cups and bringing them to the table. She squeezed into the booth, kicked off her shoes, put her feet up on the seat and leaned back against the wall.

“This is the first second I’ve had to put my aching dogs up all day,” Patty said, wiggling her toes. “So how you doin’, girl? How’s your mama? I never see her anymore. Hell, probably cuz we both work all the time.”

“Ruby’s good.” As good as Ruby ever got, McCall thought.

“She seeing anyone?” Patty was on her third marriage, this time to an elderly rancher. They had a place to the north of town on the road to Canada.

“Red Harper.” This came as no surprise, McCall saw, since Patty would have already heard through the Whitehorse grapevine. McCall was the only one out of the loop apparently.

“You know I always thought she and Red would end up together,” Patty said with a chuckle. “Sure has taken him long enough though, huh.”

McCall’s thought exactly. “I was hoping you could help me with something,” she said, getting right to the point. “Were you working with Ruby the morning Trace disappeared?”

Patty slid her feet from the booth seat and sat up, blinking. “My goodness, girl, that was so long ago.”

“Ruby said she was working the early shift.”

“That’s right. You know I
do
remember. It was a crazy day. We got in a busload of Canadians down here for a whist tournament.” She frowned. “Wow, how many years ago was that now?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“My memory is better than I thought.” Patty grinned. “I remember because your mama came in late. I really had my hands full. I knew she was sick, being pregnant with you and all, but I was so mad at her.”

“Did she say why she was late?” McCall asked.

“She was all rattled, you know how she gets. It was plain as her face that she and Trace had had another fight. I wondered if she’d been to bed at all the night before, everything considered, you know?”

McCall didn’t know. “Such as?”

“Well…” Patty looked uncomfortable. “The way she looked. She’d been crying and that old pickup she drove…It was covered in mud. I asked her where the devil she’d been since your mama wasn’t one for driving much, especially on these roads around here when they’re wet.”

McCall thought of the road into the ridge south of town. “And what did she say?”

“Said Trace borrowed her truck.” Patty mugged a face. “I knew that wasn’t true. He never drove anything but that pretty new black Chevy his mama bought him as a bribe to leave Ruby. He took a perverse satisfaction into getting that truck dirty and staying with Ruby just to show his mama he couldn’t be bought.”

McCall had wondered where Trace had gotten the pickup. Now she knew. Her dear grandmother.

“So where do you think Ruby had been in her pickup?”

Patty shook her head. “You could ask her.”

“She gets upset talking about Trace.”

“I suppose so. Well, just between you and me, I think she’d been out looking for Trace after a big, ol’ knockdown, drag-out fight,” Patty whispered, although there was no one to hear. “She was upset that whole day. I felt bad for her. One look at her and you knew something big had happened. I think your mama knew he wouldn’t be coming back.”

R
UBY CAME HOME LATE
smelling of grease and cigarette smoke. McCall had been waiting for her. Her mother looked tired and there were blue lines on her calves from spending so many years on her feet.

McCall felt sorry for her mother and guilty. How different Ruby’s life might have been if she hadn’t gotten pregnant. Just as things could have been different if Trace had lived.

Or things could have turned out just the way they had.

“Didn’t you work today?” her mother asked.

Had Ruby heard about her visit with Red Harper and thought McCall was checking up on her? “Nick had something come up and asked me to fill in for him.”

Ruby glanced over at her as she entered her trailer, and McCall saw worry in her mother’s eyes. All the questions about her father. The visit to her grandmother. Talking to Red about Trace. Now to find McCall waiting here for her. No wonder Ruby looked worried.

“I had a beer earlier with Red to talk to him about my father,” McCall said as they entered the trailer, figuring Red had already warned Ruby. “You didn’t tell me the two of you were going out.”

Her mother shrugged. “It’s just a date to a movie.” She turned to look at her daughter and for a moment McCall thought her mother might cry. “Am I why you don’t date?” Ruby asked, the question coming out of the blue.

She squirmed under her mother’s intense gaze. “There’s no one I want to go out with.”

“There hasn’t been anyone since that Crawford boy.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Not
that
busy.”

“Mom—”

“Fine. I know that boy broke your heart, but, McCall, it was years ago. You have to get back on the horse that bucked you off.”

McCall laughed. That was exactly what her mother had been doing since her husband left her. “And how has that worked out for you? Have any of these men you dated made you forget my father?”

This time there was no doubt about the tears in her mother’s eyes.

“I’m sorry. I—”

“No, you’re right,” Ruby said with a shake of her head. “I keep looking for what I had with Trace.” She smiled ruefully as she swiped at her tears. “What else can I do, baby? At least the man you’re in love with is still around and available. That should tell you something. If you weren’t so stubborn—”

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“Don’t I? I know what that boy did to you. He broke your heart. Just like your daddy broke mine.” Her mother turned away and said, “You want some coffee?”

“No, thanks,” McCall said as she watched her mother go into the kitchen to pour herself what was left of the coffee and reheat it in the microwave.

“Mom, I’m sorry, but I need to ask about my father.”

“Fine, let’s get this over with,” Ruby said as she leaned against the counter and blew on her coffee to cool it. “Then I mean it, McCall, I don’t want to hear any more about him, okay?”

McCall hated this, but she was afraid her mother might have found out about another woman and done something desperate, something she’d regretted all these years.

“All these years I’ve heard rumors, whispers behind
my back, about my father. Now I need to know the truth. Was there another woman?”

Ruby put down her coffee, angry now. “You heard Trace chased girls the way some dogs chase cars, right?”

“Is it true? Did he cheat on you?” McCall knew her mother. No way would Ruby have just taken that lying down, and after what Patty had told her, McCall didn’t like what she’d been thinking.

Ruby made another swipe at the tears that brimmed in her lashes. “There was talk. Your father swore there was nothing going on.”

“Going on with whom?”

Ruby shifted on her feet, wrapping her arms around herself again, her mouth pinched. “Geneva Cavanaugh. She’d dumped him to marry Russ Cherry before Trace and I got together. He took it hard. Then Russ got killed and Geneva disappeared, leaving behind her two babies.”

“My father didn’t run away with Geneva Cherry, Mom.” She could see that this had been her mother’s fear for the past twenty-seven years.

Ruby began to cry. “You don’t know that. They both disappeared about the same time.”

McCall thought about the single grave. Wouldn’t the killer have buried them together? Maybe not. The pickup was still missing, and who knew what was inside it?

“Someone would have been heard from them by now if they’d run away together,” she said, just for something to say.

Ruby shrugged.

“Was there anyone else?” McCall had to ask.

Her mother looked away. “Sandy.”

“Sandy?”

“After Geneva, Trace was dating Sandy Thompson. That’s when he and I got together.”

“Sandy
Thompson
Sheridan?” The sheriff’s wife? Her boss’s wife? McCall stared at her mother. “You
stole
Trace from her?”

“I didn’t
steal
him. You can’t steal men like candy from a grocery store. I was in love with Trace. I’d always
loved
him.”

“So all was fair in love and war,” McCall quipped. Her mother never ceased to amaze her. This explained a lot, she realized. The cold shoulder Sandy had always given her.

Grant and Sandy had gotten married right after high school and gone away to college together. Grant became a lawyer, Sandy a homemaker. When they’d returned to Whitehorse, Grant became county attorney. Sandy had gotten involved in social activities.

McCall closed her eyes, seeing things too clearly. “You
seduced
him.”

“Haven’t you ever wanted anything more than life itself?”

McCall hated that Luke Crawford instantly came to mind.

“That was how I felt about your father. I would have done anything to be with him.”

“Even get pregnant.” McCall opened her eyes. Hadn’t she long suspected this was the case?

Her mother’s face fell. “Yes. Now you know the truth. I got pregnant to take him away from Sandy and force him to marry
me
.”

So Pepper Winchester had been right.

Ruby was crying again. “I thought…” She stepped over to a chair and dropped into it, pulling her knees up to wrap her skinny arms around them, holding on as if for dear life. “I thought once we were a family, once you were born…” Her voice trailed off. She sniffed and McCall handed her a tissue from the box by the couch. “I guess I got what I deserved. The bad karma came back and bit me in the ass.”

“You didn’t deserve what you got,” McCall said, fearing the killer might not agree. “Let me understand this. Trace and Sandy didn’t break up until it came out about your pregnancy? How did Sandy take this news?”

Her mother mugged a face. “Sandy said Trace and I ruined her life but she seems to have survived just fine, lives in that big house up on the hill, married to the sheriff. Married him right after Trace broke up with her.”

McCall frowned, unnerved by the timing. How hurt and angry had Sandy been? Hurt and angry enough to take it out on Trace?

“Mom, isn’t it possible Sandy loved my father as much as you did?”

Ruby scoffed at that. “Trace was the love of my life. You haven’t seen me marry anyone else, have you? It sure didn’t take Sandy long to get over Trace, did it?”

Maybe that was because Trace was dead to her. Dead and buried.

Another thought struck McCall, one that sent a chill through her. Sandy had obviously married Grant on the rebound. He had to have realized that. Which brought up the question: how had Sheriff Grant Sheridan felt about Trace Winchester?

L
UKE PARKED IN THE SHADOWS
of the towering cottonwoods. As he got out, the breeze carried the scent of the new leaves that had just started coming out on the trees. They fluttered, making a sound like a whisper.

In the distance, a hawk let out a cry, and the forest paralleling the river fell silent. Twilight had settled into the cottonwoods. Through the thick bare branches, he could see the colors of the sunset deepening against the darkening sky.

It was early for poachers, but he’d noticed that this poaching ring seemed to be hitting at different times.

The quiet in the river bottom lulled him, his thoughts sneaking up on him as he walked along a fishing trail. There were times that he was at his most vulnerable, like now, and his thoughts turned to McCall.

She hadn’t changed much from the girl he’d fallen in love with. If anything she was more beautiful. And headstrong and independent and prickly as a porcupine. She’d done just fine for herself without any help from anyone.

What was crazy was that he believed in his heart that they belonged together. If it wasn’t for what had happened back when they were seniors in high school—

The sound of the rifle shot made him jump. The soft boom carried along the river bottom sending a flock of ducks rising up in a spray of water nearby.

He froze, listening, anticipating a second shot, hoping he would be able to determine which direction it had come from. The second shot came seconds later, followed by a quick third, then silence.

Luke took off running through the trees to where
he’d parked his pickup. From his estimation, the shots had come from a quarter mile downriver.

At his pickup, he jumped behind the wheel and took off down the road, knowing they would hear him coming.

By now at least one of them should be up to his elbows in blood from gutting out the deer they’d shot. They would hear his pickup engine and have to decide whether to load up the deer or just make a run for it.

Either way, he would have them if their tire treads matched the plaster casts he’d made of their last three kills.

The poachers were getting more brazen, killing one deer after another even though they must know he was tracking them. That kind of boldness often ended badly.

As he raced along the narrow windy dirt road that ran parallel to the river, Luke wished he’d taken the time to pull on his bulletproof vest. The men he was chasing would be armed.

As he came around a bend, he saw a pickup come barreling out of one of the many fishing access roads in a cloud of dust. All he was able to tell about the truck was that it was dark colored and an older model.