Winchester Christmas Wedding (7 page)

As Lizzy turned on the light, she saw the stack of framed photographs sitting on the desk in her room. She hadn't really had a chance to go through them.

Now, still restless and needing to think of anything but her assignment and TD Waters, she moved to the
desk and, turning on the light, began to go through the old photographs, slowly this time.

Tears welled in her eyes as she touched her father's face in one of the photographs. He looked so handsome, so happy. His Western hat was pushed back; he was smiling at the camera from atop of a large black horse.

Hunt was beside him on one side and another man sat to his left, both also on horseback.

Lizzy squinted at the photograph of the other man. He looked almost…familiar. She adjusted the lamp, dusting off the glass in the frame.

Her heart began to beat harder. For a moment she couldn't catch her breath. The man in the photograph next to her father… No, it couldn't be. He was much younger, had more hair, looked so different, and yet there was no doubt.

It was Roger Collins, the director of the agency.

How was that possible? Her father had known Collins?

Turning the frame over, she worked the photograph out. The date and the names of the people in the photo were written on the back.

There was no getting around it. Roger Collins had been on the ranch back when he was still an agent like herself. Roger Collins had known her father. She checked the date again. She'd been eleven that summer, too young to remember him since a lot of people came and went at the ranch, and she and Anne had been too busy to notice or care.

But Roger should have remembered her and her father.

Lizzy had to sit down. She was trembling all over. Wouldn't her boss have mentioned that he'd been to the McCormick Ranch, that he'd known her father, when he'd recruited her?

He'd recruited her after her father had died. Had her father known he was going to do that? Her father must have known what Roger Collins did for a living. Was it possible the two had planned her future?

Or had Collins purposely waited until her father was gone?

Lizzy shook off the rush of suspicions. She was jumping to conclusions based on nothing more than an old photograph. So what if the two had known each other? That didn't prove anything.

Still she couldn't help the unsettling feeling she got when she looked at the photo. She remembered one of the last times she and her dad had talked. It had been right before her college graduation. He'd offered to send her to Europe, said he'd even meet her over there.

But by then Roger had already recruited her.

Now, as she sat holding the photograph, she knew it hadn't been a coincidence that she'd been given this particular assignment—Collins had known about her connection to the McCormick Ranch for years.

 

TD
INSPECTED THE PLAIN
white envelope before carefully opening it. He told himself it could be a note from Lizzy Calder—and the real reason she'd stopped by.

But it didn't look like a love letter.

It wasn't.

He read what was typed on the single sheet of paper:

TD stared at the note, his mind racing. The person who'd called him had purposely led him to Montana and the Winchester Ranch and he'd come like a dog on a leash. He stared at the note. Was it possible Lizzy Calder had something to do with this?

Glancing around the cabin, he didn't see anything amiss. He knew he was being paranoid. Lizzy couldn't have been the one who called him from the Winchester Ranch. She didn't have access to a phone here on the ranch. At least he didn't think she did.

No, she'd just come over tonight to apologize. Or maybe she'd had more on her mind, but had chickened out at the last minute or was just toying with him.

He shook his head. She wasn't the type to chicken out. He'd seen the way she rode a horse. That woman wasn't afraid of anything. Nor did he get the feeling she'd been toying with him. When she wanted something, he suspected she went after it and didn't let anything get in her way.

The more likely suspect was Worth Winchester.

But TD couldn't shake the feeling that Lizzy had
ridden over for more than an apology. He hoped to hell she wasn't involved. He liked her and it had been a long time since he'd really liked a woman he found that attractive. This one he didn't just want to get into bed. But that would definitely be a place to start, he thought, smiling to himself as he read the note again.

What the hell was the Whitehorse Sewing Circle? And what did that have to do with his past, if anything?

Someone was pulling his strings. TD couldn't wait to find out who and cut the cord permanently.

Lizzy woke early after a restless night. The first thing she saw was the photograph of her father and Roger Collins. She quickly got out of bed and buried it deep in one of her suitcases.

She didn't know what it meant—if anything. She hadn't talked to her boss since her call yesterday saying Waters was in Montana at the Winchester Ranch, but that hadn't come as a surprise to Roger Collins. He had told her he'd suspected that was where Waters was headed when he'd sent her to Montana.

He just hadn't told her why he'd suspected it or why Waters was on the ranch. She tried not to worry about either, but she couldn't help being even more curious about what had made Waters go rogue. He didn't seem like a man on the run. Far from it.

She thought about watching him come across the yard in the starlight last night, the cold December night exhilarating—just as sneaking over to see him had been. She remembered the way he'd pushed back his Western hat, the lazy way he'd leaned against the corner of the cabin as he'd looked at her with his dark, hooded eyes.

Lizzy felt a tremor at the memory. Her heart had taken off at a gallop with the sudden knowledge that he'd thought she'd come there last night to seduce him. It could have been a hot summer night the way her body had warmed under his black gaze. Had she gone inside the cabin with him, he would have been the one to seduce her.

She shook herself from the thought. Not that she would have fallen for it. But the point was, Waters definitely wasn't acting like a man running from his past or the agency. If he'd gone rogue, he certainly wasn't worried about anyone coming after him.

Unless he somehow knew Collins had sent her and wasn't in the least bit worried about her taking him in—or out, for that matter.

Lizzy headed for the shower, telling herself that TD Waters didn't know who he was dealing with. She definitely was not a woman who could easily be seduced. But as she stripped off her clothing and stepped under the spray, she felt her skin tingle at even the thought of being seduced by TD Waters.

Angry with herself, Lizzy showered quickly. Why was she feeling unsure about everything? It was that blasted photograph of Roger Collins. She just wished she could get the photograph of her boss on the McCormick Ranch astride a horse next to her father out her mind. It didn't mean anything. So why couldn't she free herself of the thought that nothing was as she once thought it?

She was letting the photo change her feelings about her boss—and her job. More to the point, this assignment. She was questioning everything. It was none of
her business what Waters had come here for. He'd lulled her into thinking he was just this charming cowboy who was safe and innocent even though she knew better.

She reminded herself that she was a good agent on her way up. Roger Collins had done her a favor getting her in the agency. He was counting on her to come through.

So she'd do the job she'd been sent to do—no matter what Roger Collins asked her to do. No matter how much charm Waters turned on. No matter how many doubts she had about this assignment—or her boss.

After her shower, Lizzy felt a little better. It was still early in the morning, too early. She wondered what she was doing up at this hour. She'd just finished dressing when she saw someone ride past outside. Stepping to the window, she watched Janie ride out, headed toward the northwest.

Her worry now turned into a hard knot of fear. Janie had never been an early riser. Nor had she ever liked to ride. Lizzy doubted that had changed.

So where was she going so early in the morning and on horseback?

Before she could talk herself out of it, Lizzy headed for the stables. She had a bad feeling and couldn't bear the thought of Anne being hurt any more than she had been already. As she watched Janie disappear over the hill, Lizzy knew where she was headed. The Winchester Ranch. The question was why?

 

TD
HEARD SOMEONE OUTSIDE
his cabin just before the sun came up. He stepped to the window, but it was too dark to see anything. Was it the person who'd left him the note? No. That person had gotten him to the
ranch and was now feeding him clues. The first had been Winchester Ranch. The second was Whitehorse Sewing Circle. He still wondered what that was and what it could possibly have to do with him.

But what bothered him the most was if the person wanted fifty thousand, then why give him any clues at all?

He shook his head. Whatever. All he cared about was getting the answers, and since he had no intention of giving the person a dime…

Right now he needed to find out what was going on outside. Dressing quickly, he started out of the cabin as someone took off on a horse. He didn't get a good look, but his instincts told him to follow the rider. TD pulled on his holster and pistol and headed for the corral.

The rider crested the ridge in the semidarkness of the coming dawn behind the Winchester lodge. The morning was cold as TD swung up into the saddle and rode in the direction he'd seen the early-morning rider heading. Fortunately, the rider was leaving tracks in the crusty snow and would be easy to trail.

Enid had said no one rode the horses anymore. And to leave this early, TD was betting something was up.

He slowed as he neared the top of the ridge where he'd last seen the rider. The sun rimmed the badlands to the east, showering the fallen snow in gold crystals. It was a blinding sight and he was awed by it. He hadn't realized that he'd missed Montana, missed all this wide open space, missed a simpler life. The last really did come as a surprise.

Rolling prairie stretched as far as the eye could see. It was deceiving, appearing perfectly flat when in fact
the land was filled with narrow coulees and deep ravines chocked with stunted juniper and sage and jagged rock outcroppings.

What wild remote country. A person could get lost here and never be found, TD thought, afraid that was exactly what had happened this morning. There was no sign of the rider. Worse, there were no tracks up here on this rocky ridge where the snow had blown off.

He'd lost whomever he'd been following. Or had he? he thought as he heard the soft whinny of a horse in the distance.

 

L
IZZY SADDLED UP AND
rode out the way she'd seen Janie headed. The day was cold, the winter sun weak as it came up in a clear and cloudless sky.

Janie had too much of a head start for Lizzy to see her as she rode through the cold winter morning. As the sun rose, she followed the trail of fresh tracks Janie's horse had made in the snow. Lizzy's dad had taught her how to track when she was a girl. She'd learned the tracks of all the animals in the area and could easily tell the difference between a deer and an elk, a coyote and an antelope—or even the horses.

Janie seemed to be riding toward the back side of the ranch, circling through a more remote area. As Lizzy rode along, she kept her eye on the horizon, even though she didn't think Janie would be worried about being followed.

It was easy to lose herself in the beautiful winter day and the feel of the powerful horse beneath her. She loved this and realized how much she'd missed this kind of freedom.

It surprised her that Anne wasn't interested in the ranch or horseback riding anymore. Anne had loved it so much. She reminded herself that her memories of the ranch were completely different from Anne's and Janie's.

At the top of a hill, Lizzy stopped to scan the horizon. Still no sign of Janie but her horse's tracks led down a narrow ravine through a stand of junipers. Spurring her horse, she dropped down into the ravine.

She hadn't gone far when she spotted Janie's horse tied to a scrub pine a dozen yards ahead. Pulling up short, Lizzy slid from her horse next to a large juniper out of sight of Janie's horse. Tying her reins to a limb of the juniper, she crept closer, staying down behind an outcropping of rock.

Peering over the rock, she saw Janie with her back to her. She appeared to be waiting for something. For someone?

The thought was barely out before Lizzy saw a man approaching, leading a horse. He came from the direction of the ranch lodge. For just an instant, she thought it might be TD Waters and was relieved to see it wasn't.

This man was large, dark-headed and somber-faced.

“I told you I would contact you when I had the money,” the man said, biting off each word. “Twenty-five thousand dollars is a lot of money to raise on such short notice.”

Janie's laugh had a knife's edge to it. “But the alternative is so much worse, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Winchester?”

He shook his big head like an angry bull. “I don't
like being blackmailed. You don't want to force me to do something you'll regret.”

Janie laughed again. “It's you who is about to force me to do something you'll regret. What would happen if I went to your mother?”

He took a menacing step toward her but she stood her ground.

“Touch a hair on my head and the letter I've left in case of my death goes to your mother. We both know where that would leave you, now don't we?” Janie demanded angrily. “I want the money by tomorrow. No more excuses, Worth.” Worth Winchester?

Lizzy ducked down, but Janie didn't look in her direction as she stalked over to her horse. For an instant, she feared that Janie would ride back the way she'd come and see not only Lizzy—but also her horse.

Fortunately, Janie rode off toward the east and the rising sun.

Staying hidden, Lizzy didn't dare move as she heard Worth Winchester swing up into his saddle, the leather groaning under his weight. She listened to the jingle of his reins as the sound died off in the distance and started to turn to retrieve her own horse when she heard a faint, unmistakable sound behind her. It was then that she realized she'd made a mistake. She should have brought her gun.

 

L
IZZY
C
ALDER SWUNG
around looking ready for a fight.

TD quickly held up both hands in surrender, unable
to keep from smiling. “Easy,” he said, enjoying the spirit he saw in her.

She opened her mouth as if to say something but quickly closed it. He'd surprised her and now watched as she seemed to be trying to come up with an explanation for what she'd been doing other than the obvious.

“Don't like being caught spying?” he asked, not about to let her off easy.

“I wasn't spying.”

He grinned. “Sure looked that way to me.”

She brushed angrily at the snow she'd gotten on her jeans while hiding behind the rocks. “Which begs the question, what are you doing here? Spying on me? Or are you going to try to convince me you just happened along?”

“Nope. I'm just as guilty as you.”

“I followed my friend because I was worried about her.”

“As you should be, since apparently she's a blackmailer.”

Lizzy seemed surprised that he'd also heard the conversation. “That doesn't explain why you were spying on
me.
”

He grinned. “I was just enjoying the view. You have no idea how interesting it was.”

She stopped brushing snow from the back of her jeans as she realized he was talking about her derriere. “You should be ashamed.”

“Really? 'Cause I'm not.”

“You are incorrigible.”

“I've been told that.” He sobered. “Seriously, your friend is in trouble. Blackmail is a nasty business. It
could get her hurt. So do you have any idea what that was about?”

“None.” A lie. The woman just couldn't seem to help herself. She had no idea how easy she was to read. Like before when he'd seen recognition in those beautiful gray eyes and she'd denied it.

“Your friend's blackmailing Worth Winchester and you can't even imagine why?”

She squirmed under this gaze. “I might have my suspicions, but I'm sure you wouldn't be in the least bit interested.”

“I might surprise you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What is it you said you do for the Winchesters?”

“I help cook.”

She laughed. “Sure you do.”

“I'm a hell of a cook, I'll have you know. If you'd ever had one of my pies, you'd be madly in love with me. Wouldn't be able to help yourself.”

She actually blushed. He was even more intrigued with this woman. Not that he wasn't aware that she might not be quite as sweet and innocent as he'd first suspected.

“I really need to get back to the ranch before I'm missed.”

“Hold on a second,” he said. “What's your interest in Worth Winchester? Hell, what's your interest in all the Winchesters? And don't bother to lie. You aren't very good at it. Why else have you been sneaking over here for years?” He grinned. “And why sneak over here last night pretending you came to see me?”

“I did come to see you,” she blurted, then clamped her lips shut as she straightened her shoulders, eyeing
him. “You thought I had an ulterior motive when I came by to apologize to you?”

“It crossed my mind.” Somewhere nearby a horse whinnied. His horse answered and he saw Lizzy's eyes widen a little.

“You followed Worth up here,” she said.

“Curiosity.”

“I guess you never heard what it did to the cat.”

He laughed. Damn, but he liked this woman. “I think we should join forces.”

“Is this about your pie-baking again?”

TD cocked his head at her, still smiling. “Something is going on with the Winchesters and the McCormicks. I think since we both have a stake in this, we should try to find out what it is.”

“I'm sorry, what was your stake in this again?”

“I like these people,” he said simply. “I don't want to see them hurt.”

He could see she wasn't moved by that. Or she was doing a great job of hiding it. He figured he had nothing to lose by confiding in her, especially when he could use her help. Clearly the bad blood between the Winchesters and McCormicks was playing a part in all this.