Winchester Christmas Wedding (6 page)

“Is he still alive?”

She nodded. “Pepper hasn't seen him for twenty-seven years. As far as I know, he's still married to Joanna. I heard she wouldn't give him a divorce, but they haven't lived together for years.” He listened as she
told how Joanna McCormick had ended up in prison for murder.

“There seems to be a lot of violence out here in the West,” he said.

“You have no idea,” Enid said. “No idea at all.”

“I guess I was lucky the owner is in prison and the woman I ran across didn't try to shoot me.”

“If she was a McCormick, you damned sure were lucky,” Enid said. “That bad blood has spilled over onto the young ones. I wouldn't turn my back on either of them.” She mugged a face. “They're both spoiled to high heaven. Anne isn't so bad, but her younger sister, Janie, was spawned by the devil.” Enid crossed herself.

“Fortunately neither were McCormicks, I guess. The woman I ran across said her name was Lizzy Calder. Even heard of her?”

Enid frowned. “Calder. A Will Calder used to be the ranch manager over there, but he's been dead for some time. Wait, he had a daughter. A pretty little redheaded girl.” Now beautiful, he thought. “I think she was friends with Anne McCormick. She over there, too?”

“Apparently.”

“How'd you meet her?”

“She was out riding.”

“Probably riding on Winchester land. All three of those girls always used to sneak over here. Thought nobody knew. Well, I knew all right. Come over here flirting with Pepper's grandsons. If she'd have caught them…” Enid wagged her head as if she didn't even want to imagine what would have happened.

“Why would Pepper have anything against the girls
if she was the one who had the affair with this Joanna McCormick's husband?” he had to ask.

“It goes back a lot further than that.” Enid clamped her lips together as if that was all she could say.

A secret, he thought.

“I'm going to give you some good advice. Stay clear of the McCormicks and that Calder woman, just do your job and don't ask any questions. And don't go mentioning this to any of the family,” Enid said as she thrust a huge bowl of salad at him. “Virginia's probably starving. Take this out, then you'd better get on the steaks pronto.”

Taking the salad, he stepped through the door into the dining room and saw that the family was gathered around the long table.

Virginia made a point of glancing at her watch before picking up her wineglass. She started to take a drink, but seemed to change her mind.

He served the salad, taking note of the Winchesters sitting around the table. Pepper sat at the head of the table, her son Brand on her right, her daughter, Virginia, on her left and Worth sitting as if on his own next to his brother. The rest of the chairs were empty.

It was easy to tell the brothers apart. From what Enid had said, he found himself thinking of Worth as the big, bitter one. Brand was the handsome one, the only decent one of the bunch, according to Enid. Virginia was simply, in Enid's terms, the bitch.

Just as he had finished serving the salad, a young woman appeared in the doorway, apologizing for being late. Even if she hadn't been wearing her sheriff's uni
form, he would have known she had to be Pepper's granddaughter. They looked that much alike.

Sheriff McCall Winchester took a place at the table. He felt her gaze as he served her salad. Her interest in him made him a little nervous as he quickly filled her bowl and excused himself.

Back in the kitchen, he put down the bowl.

“They ate all of it?”

“The sheriff just arrived. I served her the last of it.”

She studied him suspiciously. “The sheriff a problem for you?”

“Why would it be?”

“You tell me,” she persisted. “I saw the way you looked as you hightailed it back in here. You wanted for something?”

He laughed. “The law is definitely not looking for me.” But he knew there were others who definitely were. In fact, he was beginning to wonder what was taking them so long.

Lizzy showered and changed, her stomach growling. She decided to sneak downstairs and see what she could find to eat. After her run-in with Janie, she'd lost her appetite and she'd felt dirty after rummaging in the basement for the photographs.

But now she was hungry and it was too early to turn in. As she started down the stairs, she heard an odd sound. The living room was dark, only faint light bled through the sheer curtains at the windows from the snowy landscape outside.

At the bottom of the stairs, she finally realized what she was hearing. In a corner of the living room she could make out a figure curled in one of the wicker chairs, crying.

“Anne?” She moved to her friend and put an arm around her. “Oh, Anne.”

“Don't pretend you're my friend,” Anne snapped, shrugging off Lizzy's arm. “Where were you when my life fell apart?”

Probably in some foreign country working undercover.
“I didn't know—”

“Exactly, you didn't know. Your mother and father
adored each other. That's all I ever heard growing up. Everyone could see that it ripped your dad's heart out when your mother died.”

Was she supposed to apologize because her parents loved each other?

“How do you think that made my mother feel?” Anne demanded, her face flushed with her fury. “You think my mother ran my father off?” She let out a hard laugh.

“He left her.”

“I'm so sorry,” Lizzy said, pulling up a chair next to Anne.

“Hunt was even worse. He didn't just have an affair with Pepper Winchester. He was in love with her, had been since he was seventeen, mother told me. Apparently he'd come to Montana looking for Pepper.”

“So how did he end up married to your mother?” Lizzy asked.

Anne shot her a look. “You think she tricked him into marrying her?”

She wouldn't have put it past Joanna, especially if she'd known that Hunt was in love with Pepper Winchester. Lizzy had a feeling that the problems between the two families went way back.

“Supposedly Hunt didn't know Pepper had married Call Winchester and was only a ranch away when he married my mother,” Anne said. “He told my mother that Pepper was the love of his life. I think he was planning to have both this ranch and Pepper. Now do you understand?”

Lizzy felt her heart go out to Hunt—and Joanna. She tried to find something to say in the silence that
stretched out between them. Something that wouldn't destroy their relationship.

Unfortunately, she'd seen the way Joanna had treated Hunt before they'd separated for good. She had undermined him, embarrassed him, embarrassed them all by being so mean and vindictive.

“I guess I wonder, knowing that, why didn't your mother just let him go? Anne, she was the one who wouldn't give him a divorce. Why hold on to a man who doesn't want you?”

Anne started to argue, but slumped back into the chair. “I don't know why.”

“She didn't want him to be with Pepper,” Lizzy said quietly.

Her friend looked up, anger flashed in her eyes but quickly died. “I don't like thinking of her being that hateful. I know she was cold and hard to get close to…”

“Hunt was always a good father to you girls,” Lizzy said. “He wasn't a mean man. Your mother was hurt. That's understandable. But Anne, all that happened so long ago. It's time to let go of it. All these hateful feelings will only eat you up inside. Your mother could have found happiness with someone else, but she preferred to punish Hunt. Don't let the past ruin your future.”

Tears welled in Anne's eyes. “I know you're right, but…”

Lizzy reached for her. Anne made a halfhearted attempt to push her away, then crumbled in her arms.

“I'm just so confused,” Anne cried. “I don't want to sell the ranch but Janie does and I just feel too tired and depressed to fight her.”

She rubbed her friend's back and tried to soothe her as Anne began to cry again. “Maybe if you give it more time…”

“What's going on?”

Lizzy looked back to see Janie at the edge of the room. Suddenly the room was flooded with light as Janie snapped on the lights.

Anne pulled away, hurriedly drying her eyes as she got to her feet. “I'm just overly tired. I'll see you in the morning.”

“Stay out of our business,” Janie said after Anne's bedroom door closed upstairs. “Don't go putting ideas in Anne's head.” She gave Lizzy a hard glare before turning away without another word.

 

“I
T'S PRETTY TENSE IN THERE,”
TD whispered to Enid as the dining-room door closed behind him.

Enid gave him a knowing look from the kitchen table, where she was sitting with her feet up. “I told you I wouldn't be surprised if there was a murder before this was over.”

“Don't they want the sheriff to marry this game-warden fiancé of hers?” He'd picked up a lot of information about this family thanks to Enid. Too bad he wasn't any closer to finding out who had called him from here.

“She can marry anyone she wants and her grandmother would be pleased as punch.” Enid shook her head. “It isn't about the wedding.”

“I don't understand then, but you aren't serious about someone getting murdered,” TD said.

She let out a bark of a laugh. “You saw that in there. The old gal is up to her tricks.”

“I saw Mrs. Winchester watching all of them.”

“She's watching them all right. She believes one of them was in on the murder of her youngest son, Trace, twenty-seven years ago. Killed right over there on that ridge,” Enid said, pointing out the window.

He saw the ridge in the distance. A deep ravine separated the ranch from the murder site. “Why would one of his own siblings—”

“Because he was the youngest, the favorite. Pepper loved him the best and the others hated him and her for it. Still do.”

“Do you think she's right? That one of them was in on it?”

“I wouldn't be the least bit surprised and when Pepper figures out which one it was….” She let the rest of her thought hang in the air.

What was Pepper capable of doing if and when she found out? He glanced toward the dining room and wondered if it wasn't more likely that one of them would do in their mother. He'd seen the size of the ranch. There was money here, and where there was money, there was powerful motive.

Same could be true, though, for getting rid of the favorite younger brother.

“What would make her think that one of them was involved?” he asked out of curiosity.

“Pepper became suspicious after she found five party hats—and a small pair of binoculars—in a third-floor room that her husband used to punish the kids. He'd lock them in there. All except Trace. She wasn't having her youngest put in that room. Another reason the others hated him.”

“Five party hats?”

“The day of the murder was Trace Winchester's birthday. Pepper was throwing him a big party. That's why the family was here—Brand's two boys, Cyrus and Cordell, and Jack, who turned out to be Angus Winchester's son with the nanny.”

“But you said there were five—”

“Had to be those McCormick girls,” Enid said with disgust. “I wonder if Pepper's figured it out. Oh, she is going to be hotter than a pistol when she does.”

The McCormick girls. He glanced toward the window and the far ridge across the ravine where Enid said Trace Winchester had been murdered.

What a tangled web the Winchester family was turning out to be.

After he helped Enid finish up in the kitchen, he walked down to his cabin near the barn. The night was cold, but not as cold as he thought it should have been in this part of Montana so close to Christmas.

He slowed. Ahead, the horses moved restlessly in the corral. One whinnied and was answered by another at the dark edge of the corral.

TD told himself there wasn't anyone waiting on the dark side of the bunkhouse. Still, he stood listening. He knew it would be hard to start carrying a concealed weapon in the kitchen, but he also knew it wouldn't be long before Roger Collins sent someone to take care of him.

He didn't want to be unarmed when that happened. Like tonight.

The horses settled down, and all was quiet again. He took a moment to stare up at the magnificent canopy of
stars sparkling in the deep blue of the night sky overhead. Wow, he'd forgotten how incredible a Montana night sky could be away from the lights of town.

“It's amazing, isn't it?” asked a voice from the deep shadows beside his cabin, startling him.

He'd been so sure his first instinct had been wrong. Fortunately, he recognized the voice at once and smiled to himself as he stepped over to the side of the building.

Lizzy stood in the deep shadows leaning against the log wall, clearly waiting for him. Even though she was in shadow, starlight reflected off the snow, and he could see that his first impression of her hadn't been exaggerated. The woman was a beauty, one of those women who turned a man's head.

TD knew she was the last thing he needed right now and yet he couldn't hide his pleasure at seeing her again. He noted that her horse was tied up behind the corral. That was why the horses had been restless just moments earlier. But somehow she had calmed them all down. She seemed to have that effect on horses, but just the opposite effect on him.

This woman stirred up something powerful in him. Few women had ever done that. None had intrigued him the way this one did.

“What a pleasant surprise,” he said. “I wasn't sure when I would see you again.” There had been no doubt in his mind, though, that he was going to see her again soon, and he suspected she knew that.

“I came to apologize. Earlier—”

“There's no need. You were just protecting me
from being shot for trespassing. I appreciated your concern.”

She smiled at that. “You also rescued my hat.” She touched the brim. “Since it's my favorite, thank you again.”

TD knew she'd come over here for something other than to apologize or to thank him. “It was the least I could do. It isn't every day a woman takes you for the ride of your life.”

She looked uneasy.

“Aren't you afraid you'll get caught over here?” he asked, glancing back toward the lodge. Lights blazed in the main windows but no sound moved on the night breeze.

“I've been sneaking over here since I was a girl.”

He laughed softly. “You still like the thrill that you might get caught.”

“You're on to me.”

He eyed her, suspecting he was nowhere near understanding this woman. “Would you like to come in?” he asked, motioning toward the door of the cabin. “It's a bit austere but it's warm inside.”

She shook her head as she pushed herself off the wall. “I need to get back, but thanks.”

“You sure you'll be all right riding back alone? If you need company…”

She flashed him a grin. “I like riding alone. With the snow on the ground and the stars out, it's almost as bright as daylight.”

He wanted to ask her why she'd really come over as she untied her mount and swung up into the saddle. But
whatever little game they were playing, he was more than happy to play along.

“Good night, Mr. Waters.” She tipped her hat and rode off.

He watched her go, his smile fading. He felt a chill that could have been the night air or the uneasy feeling that settled in him as she disappeared over the rise. Whatever was bothering him, it was more than Lizzy Calder's unexpected visit.

He started to open his cabin door when he saw a dark figure standing under the overhang at the front of the main lodge. How long had Worth Winchester been there? His head was turned toward the horizon—the same one Lizzy Calder had just dropped over. Even from this distance, TD could see the anger in the man's stance before Worth stepped back inside the lodge.

Would he report what he'd seen to his mother?

This feud between the McCormicks and Winchesters was more than bad blood, TD thought as he slipped inside his dark cabin and closed the door against the December night.

It wasn't until he turned on a light that he saw the envelope that had been pushed under his door.

 

W
HEN
L
IZZY RETURNED
, it was late. The night had gotten colder, not that she'd noticed. Being around Waters had her plenty heated. She could feel her cheeks still flaming. It was the way he looked at her. She swore it was as if he could see her not just naked—but exposed clear to her soul.

She put her horse away and tried to put away thoughts of Waters with the mare. She was reminded of the late-
night rides she and Anne used to go on and sneaking back into the house so they didn't get caught.

Fortunately, there was no one downstairs when she came into the house this time. Before her ride, she'd made herself a sandwich but had been too restless to eat it in the kitchen. She had wandered down to the barn, eating her sandwich and worrying about Anne.

She'd realized that what she should have been worrying about was her next move with rogue agent TD Waters. That was when she'd decided to pay him a little visit.

Surprising him had been a good idea, she thought now. He hadn't expected to see her. She liked that she'd put such a confident man a little off balance. She guessed it was something TD Waters wasn't used to.

She smiled to herself as she tiptoed upstairs and slipped into the guest room, remembering the way his dark eyes had shone when he saw her—and his even bigger surprise when she didn't take him up on his invitation to come inside his cabin.

With his reputation, she liked being the woman who'd turned him down. Not that she didn't understand how a woman could find herself under his spell. The man wasn't just drop-dead gorgeous; he had the powerful magnetism of a man who knew exactly who he was and what he wanted out of life. No woman alive could resist that—and TD Waters knew it.