Lost Christmas Memories

by Dana Mentink

  His mom refilled Tracy’s mug when her coffee went cold and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “They’re not exactly private eyes,” she said. “But they are determined as dogs on a scent when they’re trying to help a friend. I’ll go get some clean sheets on the bed for you.”

  The lamplight teased out gold flecks in Tracy’s hair, along with a gleam of moisture in her eyes.

  “You have an amazing family,” she whispered to Keegan.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Amazing they took me in, my biological roots are so twisted. I was a loud-mouthed, thrill-seeking kid who nearly ate them out of house and home. Dunno why they decided to love me.” He’d been trying for a joke. She did not smile.

  “Maybe because you let them,” she said. The comment came out almost absently as she looked into the dancing flames in the fireplace.

  He straightened, getting to his feet and pacing a bit, pretending to examine something outside the window as her words ricocheted inside. The Thorns loved him, and he loved them. But when Keegan stood still long enough, it occurred to him that he did not allow anyone else to do so. The women he dated, the people he met. No big deal, anyway, was it? He had a houseful of brothers and soon-to-be sisters-in-law. They filled up the places in his heart left empty by his pathetic excuse for a father and those he had lost—his mother, and Barrett’s first wife, Bree, who had been closer than a sister to him.

  “I’m hungry,” he said to Tracy. “Can I get you anything?”

  She shot him a wondering look. “But we just ate.”

  “Didn’t have dessert. Mama baked a gingerbread cake, which she hid, but I know where she put it.”

  “No, you don’t,” his mother said as she returned. “I found an even better hiding spot.”

  “Good thing for me, you’re only four feet and change, so I never have to look in the high places.” He loved her grin that meant she enjoyed the game as much as he did. He pressed a kiss to her temple. When they’d first adopted him after being his unofficial guardians for years, he’d been so angry he could not accept love from anyone, so her cooking had been the bridge between them. Everything she made was done with love, and he could taste it in each bite. He hugged her, gathering close the small woman with the biggest heart in the world.

  “Okay,” Owen said suddenly. “I found Nan Ridley’s office phone number. My call went straight to voice mail. I asked her to return the call as soon as she could.”

  Tom glanced up from his laptop. “She’s got a blog, too, called Horsing Around, but she hasn’t posted anything to it since earlier this week.”

  “Earlier this week,” Tracy echoed.

  “Tuesday,” he said, “to be exact.”

  Keegan followed the thought. He’d found Tracy at the train station Wednesday night. Perhaps there had been no more blog posts from Nan because she was no longer alive.

  The knock at the door made Tracy jump. Keegan opened it to find John, in civilian clothes. He preferred seeing his half brother in uniform—it reinforced that they were completely different. Seeing him in jeans and a windbreaker reminded Keegan that their biological link could not be wished away. John shared his dark hair, the strong chin, lanky build and big hands, and Keegan didn’t enjoy the reminder of their biological link.

  John took off his baseball cap and sat in the chair Evie offered as she bustled back in with another cup of coffee. He took it with a grateful nod and a “Thank you, ma’am” before he turned his attention to Tracy.

  She sucked in a breath. “Did you find out anything, Chief?”

  “There’s simply no way to tell if the bales were knocked over or fell of their own accord.” Keegan started to interrupt, but John held up a palm. “My officers and I have interviewed everybody on site, and we got nothing.”

  Keegan restrained a sarcastic remark. “You need to investigate a woman, a veterinarian named Nan Ridley.”

  “Why, may I ask?” John’s voice was tight.

  Tracy explained. “She was the staff veterinarian for the Yuletide Silver Spurs Horse Show. I made arrangements via email to meet her and Ella Cahill. I...I think she was the woman I saw being murdered.”

  John’s eyes narrowed a fraction after Ella showed him the email from Tracy.

  “I might have more info, if I could figure out where my phone went.”

  John drew a plastic bag from his pocket. “It’s here. We retrieved it from the office at the horse center.” He handed her a duffel bag. “Your clothes and Smith & Wesson.”

  Tracy leaped to her feet. “My phone must have fallen out when I ran. That proves I was there.”

  John’s expression didn’t change. “I’m sorry, but it only proves your phone was there. It was on the counter, as if someone left it there for the lost and found.”

  “But my messages. Maybe there’re more from Nan.”

  John handed it to her and she used Owen’s cord to plug it in. The faint glow as the phone powered on reflected the hope on her face. She tapped away at the screen. “Here, here’s the email from Nan, confirming our meeting for tomorrow.” Keegan watched as her face clouded in disbelief. “Wait. There’s a follow-up.” She read from the screen. “‘I’m sorry I’m unable to make our meeting. I’ve been offered another opportunity, so I am headed to Phoenix for a couple of months. I am sure the new vet at the Mother Lode will be able to help you.’”

  The room went dead quiet.

  Tracy groaned and closed her eyes. “But I was so sure what I saw.”

  “Someone could be sending the emails using Nan’s phone,” Jack said.

  John cleared his throat. “I’ll corroborate, check with her office and at the Mother Lode.”

  Keegan paced around the small room. “What about the shooting? Bullets? Anything?”

  “We’ve looked at all of it, but nothing points back to the horse center.”

  “Well, what other reason would there be for someone to shoot at the Jeep and nearly kill us?”

  John stood and put down his coffee, squaring up with Keegan. “You got into a little scrap the day of the crash, I hear. Neglected to mention it to me, didn’t you?”

  “A scrap?” Keegan stared until a memory jolted him. “Oh, you mean the guy at the gas station? Sonny B? I forgot all about that. He has a beef with me and tried to rough me up a little.”

  Evie clutched the towel she was holding. “Oh, Keegan. Not that gang again?”

  He offered his mom a smile, though he was seething at John, who he was sure was enjoying upsetting his mother. “No big deal, Mama. Just some bad blood left over from when I considered patching into the Aces.” He explained for Tracy. “I considered joining up with their gang. Fortunately, I came to my senses before it was too late.”

  “More like we rescued you from your own lunacy,” Owen said.

  He laughed. “True. In any case, I got into plenty of trouble during my probationary phase. Sonny B was with a rival gang of ours, the East Siders, and he tried to teach me his rules. I’m not a good rule follower.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Jack muttered.

  John half smiled. “Funny how these things come back to plague us, huh? Sins of the past?”

  Keegan faced him. “Sonny B came at me, threw the first punch. I defended myself. I left. He left. That was it. Just a small scuffle, not my first and probably not my last.”

  John’s lip quirked. “Are you sure he didn’t follow you to the train station? Decide to take out you and your girl all in one? Nice revenge move that would get him some cred with his East Siders buddies, wouldn’t it?”

  Keegan’s muscles went wire taut. “That’s ridiculous.”

  He shrugged. “My job is to chase down all the possibilities, even if they sound ridiculous to you.”

  The breath turned hot in Keegan’s lungs, burning him from the inside out. “You can’t run this investigation, John. You’re too anxious to
pin it on me.”

  “You’re right, for once. I would love to pin something on you.”

  They stood face-to-face, hands fisted, Owen and Jack stepping closer to intervene.

  “Gentlemen,” his father said, voice low and hard. “I will not have any violence in this house. Am I clear?”

  Neither Keegan nor John backed down. Finally, after an endless moment, John shifted his gaze to Tom. “I’m handling the shooting investigation and helping the Copper Creek cops with the rest, since it’s not my jurisdiction.”

  “Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?” Keegan muttered.

  John looked at Tracy. “Keep me apprised of your living situation and contacts, et cetera. I’ll have follow-up questions after I talk to Nan Ridley. I’ll have the cops talk to the people at the horse center about her employment.”

  “Dad will be able to tell them.” Keegan felt the slam of his heartbeat against his ribs. “He knows every detail of what goes on at his place.”

  John didn’t answer. He nodded to Evie. “Thank you for the coffee. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  When John left, Keegan paced a few more circles around the family room as he tried to walk off the encounter with his half brother. “This is just a little too neat, isn’t it? Nan suddenly leaving town?”

  He shouldn’t have said it aloud. Tracy dropped her head. “I have a terrible feeling. I don’t want to be right, but I’m...I’m afraid she’s dead, no matter what the email said.”

  He went to her and touched her shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “The police...” she started.

  “We won’t get in their way, but we can do a little sleuthing on our own.” His brothers answered with a nod.

  “No, absolutely not,” Tracy said. “You have weddings to plan, and this isn’t your problem.” She got to her feet, a little unsteadily, appealing to his mother. “Mrs. Thorn, if I could take you up on that offer to spend the night, I would be very grateful. Tomorrow, I’ll go up to my property.” She left the rest unspoken. And take care of my problems by myself.

  “Of course—” Evie gestured “—follow me. I’ll show you to your room.”

  After they left, Keegan’s brothers stared at him.

  “You’re not gonna leave this to the police, are you?” Owen demanded.

  “Since when have I ever walked away from trouble?” He forced a grin, but for once the glib remark didn’t ring true in his heart.

  Trouble, he felt deep down, was speeding like an arrowhead, straight for Tracy Wilson.

  * * *

  Evie led Tracy to a small room with a bed and dresser crammed into the corner. The old wood floor showed scuff marks from years of cowboy boots walking across it, and the mirror atop the dresser was crowded with taped-on photos. While Evie rounded up towels and an extra blanket, Tracy perused the photos. They were striking black-and-whites, horse pictures mostly, some family shots, one of Keegan as a much younger boy being hoisted into the air by the three Thorn boys, all of them smiling.

  Two of the pictures stood out, also black-and-whites, one of a woman, who had to be his mother, clutching a very young Keegan to her side, lips parted and long hair thrown back as if she’d been caught in a laugh. Keegan was smiling, too, not in the joking, wisecracker way, but in the wide, innocent smile of a child who was loved and had not yet encountered a world full of trouble.

  Evie came close. “Keegan’s mother. She came to live with us when Keegan was ten, worked on the ranch. She passed from breast cancer when he was almost sixteen, and we adopted him.” Evie smiled. “She was a spunky lady with a heart of gold. Naive, too. She believed every word Bryce told her. Never suspected he was married.”

  Tracy examined the other picture. A different woman, lovely, shooting a look at the camera that was puzzled, innocent. “Who’s this?”

  Evie sighed. “Barrett’s first wife, Bree. She was like a sister to Keegan. She could tell him things that he wouldn’t hear from me.” Evie carefully detached the photo. On the back was a scripture jotted in smeared ink pen. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2.”

  “When things were particularly bad, he threw away all the other pictures of her, but he kept this one.”

  “Did they...? Did she and Barrett divorce?”

  “No. She was killed by a drunk driver.” Evie blew out a breath. “We are so thrilled that Barrett found Shelby, and excited about the baby, but none of us will ever forget Bree, especially Keegan.”

  Tracy was startled when Evie folded her into a hug. “Sleep well, Tracy. Give a shout if there’s anything you need. I’ll be praying for you.”

  Tracy thanked her and, as Evie closed the door, she was overwhelmed by an urge to phone her mother, to grab hold of some maternal warmth. But it would do no good. Her mother would make polite small talk, cold and impersonal, the wall that had sprung up between them the moment Tracy had decided to live with her father after his release from prison still firmly in place.

  How can you take his side, after everything I’ve done for you? He’s a criminal. He ruined this family.

  I love you both, but he needs me more now. He’s sick.

  She remembered the stricken look on her mother’s face, as if she’d slapped her.

  Make your choice, Tracy, but you’d better be sure you can accept the consequences. If you go live with him, I don’t want you at my home or near your sister. She’s too young, and I don’t want her around a criminal.

  Tracy looked again at the Bible verse on the back of Bree’s picture. Bearing one another’s burdens sometimes came at a cost. The consequences of choosing to bear her father’s had been agonizing. She’d lost her mother and her sister.

  Keegan was certainly eager to bear her burdens—for a woman he’d only just met—but he was completely closed off to his own half brother. It was totally understandable, in Tracy’s book. Betrayal served up by strangers or even friends was so much easier to forgive than that doled out by kin. She could forgive him for it, unless, she thought with a flip of her stomach, he was using her situation to punish the family that had wronged him.

  Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow she would find another way to get up to her property. She squeezed her hands together, eyes shut tight, and once again asked the Lord to heal her fractured family.

  NINE

  Keegan awoke from a restless night. He’d tossed and turned until Jack growled out the suggestion that he go bunk on the living room sofa. He’d tried, with no better success, in spite of the pine-scented coziness and twinkling Christmas lights his mother insisted stay on all night long.

  Now, as the black sky turned to slate gray, he forked down flakes of hay into the bed of his truck and drove them to feed the north pasture horses. That was followed by a vigorous mucking out of the stalls and a text to Ella to have her reshoe Starlight, a placid gelding they were boarding while his owners were in Europe.

  As the sun broke through, gilding the distant hillside, he saddled Outlaw and took him into the western pasture, where they grazed a herd of cattle. Being with the big sorrel horse soothed him, steadied the thrumming of his pulse. Outlaw’s ears pricked as they neared the cattle and Keegan felt the same flicker of enthusiasm. He stroked his sleek neck. “Want to do your thing, Outlaw?”

  He led the horse into the pasture and the cows bunched nervously, eyeing Keegan and Outlaw. He guided Outlaw into the middle of the herd, cutting it in two, and then he chose his animal, a robust black bull calf. Their communication was spot-on, as it always was. Keegan needed only to guide, suggest with a slight pressure in his knees, a touch of his hand, and Outlaw went to work, edging back and forth, contorting in ways that defied the laws of nature for a two-thousand-pound animal, until the calf was neatly separated from the herd.

  “That a boy,” Keegan said, scrubbing his fingers along Outlaw’s neck. “That’s gonna ear
n you another championship at the Yuletide show.”

  When the calf had scampered back to his mother, Keegan let himself out the gate and secured it behind him, surprised to see Tracy watching him.

  She wore a pair of jeans rolled up at the ankles and a soft green sweatshirt he suspected had been borrowed from one of his soon-to-be sisters-in-law.

  “That’s a beautiful quarter horse.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  She laughed. “You both have the same cocky attitude.”

  “That’s a winning attitude, ma’am.”

  “Right. Well, winning is all about hard work, in my book.”

  “Mine, too.”

  Her smile dimmed. “Anyway, I came to tell you that if you can drop me in town, I’ll purchase some supplies and my grandpa will meet me there. There’s no need for you to drive me up to the mountains.”

  Disappointment licked his insides. Was that it? Tracy would sequester herself in the foothills and he’d have no more reason to be in her life? Why should it matter? He hadn’t even known her for a week. But for some reason it did matter, the thought of her leaving. It mattered very much, but he could think of no way to avoid it. Yet. He’d stall for time until he cobbled together a better plan.

  He held out a palm. “Want a ride back to the house?”

  She hesitated only a moment before she took his hand and he swung her up behind him. She held on to the saddle’s cantle and kept her legs far forward to avoid touching Outlaw’s flanks, a sensitive area on any horse.

  “You really do know your horses, don’t you?”

  She laughed, the sound small and silvery, the smell of her shampoo enticing. “Did you think I was lying?”

  “Nah, just figured maybe exaggerating a little.”

  “Horses are my life. That’s why my grandpa and I are starting up a family horse camp. Someday, when we can get all the details worked out.”

  By “details,” he suspected she meant the finances. “Great idea.”