Under Threat

by B. J Daniels

  “Please, have a seat,” the attorney said, going behind his desk and sitting down. “What can I do for the two of you?”

  “We’re inquiring about a woman named Muriel Steele,” Mary said. “We thought you might have known her twenty-seven years ago.”

  Jason leaned back in his chair and looked from Mary to Chase and back. “Muriel. Has it been that long ago?” He shook his head. “Yes, I knew her.” He frowned. “Why are you asking?”

  “I’m her son,” Chase said.

  Jason’s gaze swung back to him. “I thought there was something about you that was familiar when we shook hands. Maybe it’s the eyes. Your mother had the most lovely blue eyes.”

  As Chase started to rise, Mary put a hand on his thigh to keep him in his chair. “Chase is looking for his father.”

  “His father?” He glanced at Mary and back to Chase.

  “When my mother left Big Sky, she was pregnant with me, but I suspect you already know that,” Chase said through clenched teeth.

  The attorney looked alarmed. “I had no idea. Wait a minute. You think I was the one who...” He held up his hands. “I knew your mother, but I was already married by then. Linda was pregnant with our daughter Becky.” He was shaking his head.

  “My mother left a diary,” Chase said.

  Jason went still. “If she said it was me...” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I’m not your father.”

  “She didn’t name her married lover,” Chase said. “Just his initials. J.M. Quite a coincidence you knew her and you have the exact initials.”

  A strange look crossed the man’s face. “I’m sorry. Like I said, you have the wrong man.”

  “Then you wouldn’t mind submitting to a DNA test,” Mary said.

  “I’m a lawyer. No good can come of submitting to a DNA test, not with the legal system like it is. No offense to your father the marshal, ma’am,” he added quickly.

  “So you’re saying no?” Chase asked as he got to his feet.

  Jason sighed. “I want to help you, all right? If it comes to that, I’d get a DNA test. I assume there are others you’re talking to?”

  “Actually, a friend of yours,” Mary said. “Jonathan Mason.”

  Jason groaned. He looked as if he wanted to say more, but changed his mind. “My heart goes out to you. But maybe there was a reason your mother never told you who your father was.”

  “Other than she wanted to protect him?” Chase demanded.

  Jason sighed again. “I wish I could help you. I really do. But after all this time...”

  “You think I should let it go?” Chase leaned toward the man threateningly.

  Jason held up his hands. “I can see your frustration.”

  “It’s not frustration. It’s anger. The man knocked up my mother, broke her heart and her spirit, and let her raise me alone. She was only seventeen when she became pregnant, had no education and no way to support herself but menial jobs. So, I’m furious with this man who fathered me.”

  “Then why find him? What good will it do?” the lawyer asked.

  Chase leaned back some. “Because I want to look him in the eye and tell him what I think of him.”

  Mary rose and so did the attorney. “We’ll probably be back about that DNA test,” she said.

  Jason nodded, but he didn’t look happy about it. His gaze went to Chase and softened. “I cared about your mother, but I wasn’t her lover.”

  “I guess we’ll see,” Chase said as they left.

  * * *

  “It’s him,” Chase said as they left the attorney’s office. His heart was pounding. He thought about what the man had said. “It’s him, I’m telling you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He admitted knowing her. You saw the way he looked at me. He knew the moment he shook my hand. He practically admitted it.”

  “But he didn’t admit it,” Mary pointed out.

  “He’s a lawyer. He’s too smart to admit anything.”

  “He admitted that he knew her, that he cared about her. Chase, I think he’s telling the truth.”

  He stopped walking to sigh deeply. Taking off his Stetson, he raked a hand through his hair and tried to calm down. “I don’t know why I’m putting myself through this. I’m twenty-eight years old. He’s right. What do I hope to get out of this?”

  “A father.”

  He let out a bark of a laugh. “That ship has sailed. I don’t need a father.”

  “We all need family.”

  He shook his head. “When I find him, I want to tell him off—not bond with him. Hell, I want to punch him in his face.”

  At a sound behind them, they turned to see Jason hurrying toward his car.

  “I think we should follow him,” Mary said as they watched him speed away.

  Chase nodded, his gaze and attention on the attorney. “I think you’re right. He certainly took off fast enough right after we talked to him. Let’s go.”

  They climbed into his pickup, turned around in the middle of the street and followed at a distance. “Where do you think he’s going?”

  “Good question. Maybe home to talk to his wife.”

  Mary shook her head. “He doesn’t live in this direction.”

  “What if he is going to warn Jonathan Mason?”

  “Maybe. But only if Jonathan is up at the mountain resort.” Chase drove up the road toward Lone Peak.

  “Maybe he’s going to lunch,” he suggested.

  “Maybe.” After a few miles, the lawyer turned into the Alpine Bar parking lot.

  Jason parked, leaped out and went inside.

  “He could have called someone to meet him,” Chase said.

  She nodded. “Let’s give him a minute and go inside.”

  Chase pulled into the lot next to the attorney’s car. It was early so there were only three cars out front. During ski season, the place would have been packed. “Recognize any of the rigs?”

  She shook her head.

  “Have I thanked you for doing this for me? I really do appreciate it.”

  She smiled over at him. “You have thanked me. I’m glad to help, you know that. But Chase—”

  “I know. Try not to lose my temper.”

  “I don’t want to have to bail you out of jail,” she said, still smiling.

  “But you would, wouldn’t you?” He reached out and stroked her cheek, his gaze locking with hers. “I’ve never loved you more than I do right now, Mary Cardwell Savage.” He drew back his hand. “Marry me when this is all over.”

  She laughed and shook her head.

  “I’m serious. What is it going to take to make you realize that you’re crazy about me? I want to make you Mrs. Chase Steele. We can have the big wedding I know your mother wants. But I was thinking—”

  “You’re stalling. Come on, let’s go in,” she said, and they climbed out. He caught up with her and, taking her arm, pulled her around to face him.

  “For the record? I was serious about asking you to marry me. Soon.” As he pushed open the door, country music from the jukebox spilled out. Chase heard a familiar song, and wished he and Mary were there to dance—not track down his no-count biological father.

  He spotted Jason at the bar talking to the bartender, a gray-haired man with wire-rimmed glasses. As the door closed behind them, a man came through the back door. He caught a glimpse of a residence through the doorway and a ramp before the door closed.

  The man motioned to Jason to join him at one of the tables in the back.

  “Do you recognize him?” he asked Mary.

  “It’s Jim Harris,” Mary said, and grabbed Chase’s arm to stop him. “What if the initials J.M. were short for Jim? Jim Harris owns this bar. He and his wife live in a house behind it.”

  Chase stared at the man the attorney had joined
. Blond, blue-eyed, midfifties. The scary part was that as he watched the man, he saw himself in Jim Harris’s expression, in the line of his nose, the way he stroked his jaw as he listened.

  Chase didn’t know that he’d stopped in the middle of the room and was still staring until the man looked up. Their gazes met across the expanse of the bar.

  Jim Harris froze.

  Chapter 17

  Chase felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He couldn’t breathe, had no idea how he’d gotten out of the bar. He found himself standing outside, bent over, gasping for breath, Mary at his side.

  The bar door opened behind him. Sucking in as much air as he could, he straightened and turned. He was a good two inches taller than his father, but the similarities were all too apparent. He stared at the man who was staring just as intensely back at him.

  “I didn’t know,” Jim said, his voice breaking. “I had no idea.”

  “You didn’t know my mother was pregnant? Or you didn’t know you had a son?” Chase demanded, surprised he could speak.

  “Neither.” The man suddenly dropped to the front steps of the bar and put his head in his hands. “When Jason told me...” He lifted his head. “I didn’t believe him until I saw you.”

  “How was it you didn’t know?” Mary asked. For a moment, Chase had forgotten she was there.

  “She never told me...” Jim moaned.

  “You weren’t at all curious why she left?” Chase said, his voice breaking. His strength was coming back. So was his anger.

  “I knew why Muriel left,” the man said, meeting his gaze. “I separated from my wife when I met your mother. We fell in love. I was in the process of filing for divorce to marry Muriel when...” His voice broke and he looked away. “My wife was in a car accident. She almost died.”

  “And you decided not to leave her,” Chase said, nodding as if he could feel his mother’s pain. She’d been young and foolish, fallen for a man who was taken only to realize all his promises had come to nothing—and she was pregnant with his child. So she hadn’t told him. What would have been the point since by then she knew he was staying with his wife?

  The door behind Jim opened. Chase heard a creak and looked up to see a woman in a wheelchair framed in the doorway. The woman had graying hair that hung limp around her face. She stared at him for a long moment before she wheeled back and let the door close behind her. He looked at his father, who was looking at him.

  “She’s been in a wheelchair since the accident,” Jim said quietly as he got to his feet. “I blamed myself since she had her accident after an argument we had over the bar. The bar,” he said with disgust. “We both wanted the divorce. That wasn’t the problem. It was the bar. I wanted to keep it. She wanted it sold, and half the money. If only I’d let her have it...” His voice dropped off. “I wanted to be with your mother. Muriel was the love of my life. If I’d known she was pregnant...”

  “But she didn’t tell you after she heard about your wife’s accident,” Chase said more to himself than his father.

  Jim nodded. “If I’d known where your mother had gone...” He didn’t finish because it was clear he didn’t know what he would have done.

  Chase thought of how close his father had been in the years from fifteen on that he’d lived and worked on the Cardwell Ranch. All that time, his father had been not that far away. But there was no reason for their paths to cross. His father’s bar was up on the mountain at the resort and Chase had lived down in the canyon.

  He looked at his father and could see that the man had paid the price for all these years, just as his mother had. Jim Harris stood for a moment, his hands hanging at his sides, a broken man. “I’m sorry you didn’t find a better father than me.” With that he turned and went back inside.

  Chase felt Mary touch his arm. “I can drive,” she said, and took his pickup keys from his hand.

  * * *

  Hours later, she and Chase lay curled up in her apartment bed, his strong arms around her. They’d stayed up and talked until nearly daylight, and finally exhausted had climbed into her bed.

  Chase had found his father. Not the man he’d thought he was going to find. Not a man he’d wanted to punch. A man who looked like him. A man who’d made mistakes, especially when it came to love.

  Mary had told him what she knew about Jim and his wife, Cheryl. They’d gotten married young when Cheryl had been pregnant, but she’d lost the baby and couldn’t have another. It had been a rocky marriage.

  “Jim said they were separated when he met your mother, but they must have kept it quiet. She wandered down in Meadow Village and he lived up on the mountain behind the bar.” She’d called her mother to ask her what she knew and Jim and Cheryl.

  Dana had said she remembered that Cheryl had been staying with a sister down in Gateway near Bozeman when she’d had her accident.

  “So no one knew about my mother and Jim,” Chase had said.

  “Apparently not. I guess they hadn’t wanted it to be an issue in the divorce, especially since the bar was already one.”

  When it got late and they’d talked the subject nearly to death, she’d suggested they go to bed.

  “Mary, I—”

  “Not to make love. Sleep. I don’t want you leaving after what you’ve been through. Also, it won’t be long before morning. We both need sleep and you have to leave for you carpentry job tomorrow.”

  Now as they lay in bed, Chase said, “I don’t want to be like him, a coward, a man who never followed his heart.”

  “You’re not like him.”

  He made a groaning sound. “I have been. Out of fear. I should have stayed in Montana and fought for you. Instead, I left. I was miserable the whole time. I missed you and Montana so much. I didn’t think I was good enough for you. I’m still not sure I am.”

  She touched her finger to his lips. “That’s ridiculous and all behind us.”

  “Is it? Because I still feel like you don’t trust me,” Chase whispered in the dark room as he pulled her closer. “What is it going to take to make you trust me again?”

  * * *

  Lucy lay in bed listening to the noises coming from upstairs. She hadn’t been able to sleep since she’d heard Mary come in with Chase. They’d gone right upstairs. She had heard them moving around and the low murmur of voices, but she hadn’t been able to tell what was going on until minutes ago when they’d gone into the bedroom. It was right over her own.

  Not that she could hear what they were doing. The building was solid enough that she’d had to strain to hear anything at all. But she’d heard enough to know that they were still in the bedroom. Both of them. She knew exactly what they were doing, and it was driving her mad.

  Getting up, she went into the living room, got herself a stiff drink and sprawled on the couch. She had hoped that Mary wouldn’t fall for him again. What was wrong with the woman? How could she trust a man like that? Lucy fumed and consumed another couple of shots until she’d fallen asleep on the couch only to be awakened by movement upstairs later in the morning.

  She sat up and listened. Chase’s boots on the stairs. Mary’s steps right behind him. Lucy listened to them descend the stairs as she fought the urge to charge out into the hall and attack them both with her bare hands. Mary was a fool.

  She cracked her door open to listen and heard them talking about Chase leaving the area for a carpenter job he was taking. Leaving? She tiptoed to the top of the stairs, keeping to the shadows. They had stopped on the main floor landing.

  “I don’t like leaving you,” he said. “But I’ll be back every weekend. This job will only last about six weeks, and then my boss said we have work around Big Sky so I’ll see you every night. That’s if you want to see me.”

  Lucy couldn’t hear what Mary said, but she could hear the rustle of clothing. Had Mary stepped into his arms? Were they kissing? She felt her blo
od boil.

  “You’ll be careful?” Chase said.

  “Please, don’t start that again.”

  Lucy heard the tension in her voice and moved down a few steps so she could hear better.

  “I’m sorry, but there is still something about Lucy that bothers me,” Chase said. “Doesn’t it seem strange that three people have died since she came to town?”

  “You can’t believe that she had anything to do with that.”

  “Lucy just walks into the job at the coffee shop after the last new hire gets run down on the road? Then she moves into the same apartment Christy Shores was going to rent before she was murdered? A coincidence?”

  “Big Sky is a small place, so not that much of a coincidence since I live across the street from the coffee shop and had an apartment for rent.”

  “And didn’t you tell me that Dillon was going to ask Lucy out?”

  She rolled her eyes. “And that was reason enough to kill him? She said he hadn’t and she wouldn’t have gone out with him if he had.”

  Chase shrugged. “It’s...creepy.”

  “What’s creepy is that she reminds you of an old girlfriend.”

  “Fiona wasn’t my girlfriend. But Lucy definitely reminds me of her. Fiona went after what she wanted at all costs and the consequences be damned.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about this.”

  “I just want you to be careful, that’s all. Don’t put so much trust in her. Promise?”

  “I promise. I don’t want to argue with you right before you leave me.”

  Lucy could hear the two of them smooching again.

  “I’ll be back Friday night. I’d love to take you to dinner.”

  “I’d love that.”

  Lucy pressed herself against the wall as the door opened and light raced up the stairs toward her. She stayed where she was and tried to catch her breath. Chase suspected she was Fiona. So far he hadn’t convinced Mary. Nor had the marshal gotten her prints off the cup and found out she was Fiona Barkley. The deputy had done his job. She almost felt bad about killing him.