by B. J Daniels
Worth merely glared at her. “If you want to play games, I will take a certified check for one-fifth of the market value of this ranch.” He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper. “This is my share of what what I estimate it’s worth.” He tossed the scrap of paper on the end table. “I’ll need that check now.”
She glanced at the scrap of paper and the amount written on it. So like Worth to settle for less, she thought. “I’d like to have my own appraisal done, if you don’t mind,” she said, stalling.
Worth looked panicked and she wondered just what kind of trouble he was in. Something serious.
“I should be able to give it to you after McCall’s wedding.”
He started to argue, but she held up her hand.
“Otherwise, you can take your blackmail and—”
“Fine,” he snapped, looking defeated, before storming out.
Leaning on her cane, Pepper got up and tossed the scrap of paper into the fire. She watched it burn, thinking that her children continued to surprise her.
And she them, she thought, although they didn’t know it yet.
TD WATERS FELT AS IF he’d been driving for hours on the narrow, snowy road into wild remote country. Since leaving Whitehorse, Montana, he hadn’t seen another vehicle.
The land was familiar, wide-open, snow-covered prairie that ran as far as the eye could see. He’d passed only a few farmhouses, cattle dark against the winter landscape, and then nothing but sagebrush and rocky outcroppings studded with a few stunted junipers.
He couldn’t help but think of the remote farmhouse where he’d grown up—not that far from the Winchester Ranch. The problem with this part of the Missouri Breaks badlands was the lack of roads. The farmhouse where he’d spent his first eight years of life was on the other side of a deep ravine closer to what was known as Old Town Whitehorse.
He hadn’t thought of his childhood in years—at least the first eight years of it—and didn’t want to now. With his mother homeschooling him and the nearest house miles away, his only friend had been his dog. But he’d enjoyed the country and he liked to think that those hours spent exploring and being alone with his thoughts had made him strong, independent and capable of taking care of himself.
It crossed his mind that he was taking one hell of a chance coming back here. If anything Roger Collins had told him was true, then his life could be in danger—just as his late-night caller had warned him. Coming back here could also be a suicide mission if he started digging into the past—and Collins was determined to stop him.
He also questioned his impulsive decision to just appear on the doorstep of the Winchester Ranch. But it was the only lead he had. If his caller’s plan had been to lure him to Montana and the Winchester Ranch, it had worked like a charm.
TD knew that he probably wasn’t thinking clearly. He was still recovering from his gunshot wound—and Ace’s death. Maybe worse was that nagging suspicion that Ace wasn’t the only one who was supposed to die that day and that he could no longer trust his boss—the man who had allegedly saved him almost twenty years ago.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been lied to about who he was and how he’d ended up working for Roger Collins. The whole mess made him angry and feeling the need to butt some heads. His late-night caller would do for a start.
TD didn’t like being jerked around. He would find out who was behind it—or die trying.
With relief, he saw that he’d finally reached the turn-off to the ranch. He swung the pickup under a large log arch that read Winchester Ranch and started down an even narrower snowy road.
Suddenly TD caught movement coming at him fast from the right. He hit the brakes. Snow filled the air, then he saw the flash of horseflesh—and the woman straddling the horse. She appeared for only an instant, a vision on a huge, powerful chestnut mare. Her long auburn hair blew back in a wave from under the Western hat. Her face was flushed, her light-colored eyes wide with what he’d taken for both surprise and excitement as her horse came down in the middle of the road and bounded up in one smooth, graceful leap to the opposite side of the narrow road.
As his pickup slid to a stop, his heart in his throat, she disappeared over a rise as if he’d only imagined her.
“What the hell?” he cursed as he gripped the wheel. That had been way too close for comfort. The fool woman could have been killed.
He waited, expecting her to come back and apologize for scaring the hell out of him. But she didn’t return.
After a moment, he got the pickup going again, replaying the scene in his memory, seeing the woman and horse flying through the air. She damned sure could ride!
He recalled her face, her expression, and felt a chill. That split-second when their gazes had locked, he’d originally taken her look as shock. It had been shock all right. She had recognized him.
Driving up the road, he knew whatever else he came here to accomplish, he had to find that woman.
Chapter Three
Sheriff McCall Winchester felt herself getting more anxious as Christmas and her wedding date approached. It was going to be tense enough just putting her grandmother and mother together.
While they seemed to have called a truce, there was a lot of history there, all of it bad. McCall could only hope for the best when it came to throwing Pepper and Ruby together.
But when she added the rest of the family to the mix, it felt like a powder keg. All it would take was one spark to set the whole thing off. She knew anything could happen—and probably would.
When the sheriff’s department dispatcher called back to her office to say that Cyrus Winchester would like to see her, she said to send him back. She hoped there wasn’t a problem, but with her family there usually was.
McCall suspected wedding bells would be ringing soon for Cyrus and Kate Landon, the owner of Secondhand Kate’s, the used furnishings emporium in town.
Her cousin Cyrus had left Whitehorse just long enough to make arrangements to sell his share of the private investigating business he used to run with his twin brother, Cordell, in Denver.
“Hi, coz,” Cyrus said as he came through the door. Like all the Winchesters, he had the dark eyes and hair that made the whole bunch of them stand out—not to mention the fact that they often ended up the topic of gossip in Whitehorse.
“Cyrus.” McCall saw his expression and had a bad feeling that, just as she’d feared, this wasn’t a social call.
“I thought I’d stop by and see how the wedding plans were going.”
She nodded, wishing she didn’t know the Winchesters so well. “Sure you did. What’s really on your mind?”
He laughed. “I forget sometimes we share the same genes. I thought you should know that the McCormick girls were back in town.”
Anne and Janie McCormick. “I figured they’d come back to the ranch. Someone needs to run it now that their mother is in prison.”
“Sell it, from what I’ve heard.”
“I would have thought Hunt might come back and take the ranch over,” McCall said. She’d heard rumors about her grandmother and Hunt McCormick. She’d always wondered if that had started the ill will between the families.
“From what I heard, Hunt is giving up his share of the ranch,” Cyrus said. “What bothers me is the timing with your wedding and our grandmother still convinced that someone in the family conspired to have your father murdered.”
McCall nodded. She had suspected for some time that it was the reason Pepper Winchester had invited her family back to the ranch over the past few months. She was looking for a killer.
“I’m not sure you know just how much our grandmother idolized her youngest son, Trace,” Cyrus was saying.
She’d heard. “To the exclusion of her other children.”
“Afraid so. There are some deep scars there.”
“And some deep resentments. Is that what you’re trying to tell me? You agree with her that one of them was a coconspirator in my father’s death?”
<
br /> Trace Winchester had been murdered before McCall was born, but his body hadn’t been found until recently. Their grandmother, Pepper, had believed Trace Winchester had run away. She’d become a recluse for twenty-seven years, until recently, when she’d learned what had really happened.
Since the discovery of Trace’s remains, one murderer had been caught. Unfortunately that killer had sworn a member of the Winchester Family had been involved. The problem was that the killer had died before giving McCall a name—and wasn’t necessarily reliable when it came to the truth.
“It does seem odd that my father was killed within sight of the ranch,” McCall said.
Cyrus laughed. “Don’t try to con a con man. That high ridge is directly across a deep ravine from Winchester Ranch. Neither of us thinks that was a coincidence that Trace was killed there.” He seemed to hesitate. “You know Grandmother believes one of her grandchildren saw the murder.”
McCall said nothing.
“She found some party hats in that horrible third-floor room that Call Winchester had used to punish his children in,” Cyrus continued. “The party hats were for Trace’s birthday—the one he never made it to. There were five hats in that room—and a pair of binoculars.”
McCall nodded, seeing why her grandmother had her suspicions. “Five hats?” And only three grandchildren at the ranch that day.
“I was in the room with Cordell and Jack, the nanny’s son, who we now know is one of us.”
That took care of her cousins. “Who else was in the room that day?” She already had a bad feeling what he was going to say.
“The two McCormick girls. They used to sneak over all the time. If Pepper had caught them on the ranch… You know how much she hated Joanna McCormick and vice versa.”
McCall figured the bad blood between the family was why the girls had sneaked over all the time. Winchester Ranch would be off limits, so of course they would go there. And if they got caught? She hated to think of what her grandmother might have done to them—not to mention what Enid, the meanest housekeeper alive, would have done.
“You’re saying you think one of them saw the murder?” she asked.
“All I know is that I didn’t see anything and neither did Cordell, and Jack never had the binoculars.”
“But the girls looked through them,” she guessed. Her pulse was thundering in her ears. “Why wouldn’t they have come forward or at least said something to someone?”
He shrugged. “They were very young. Maybe they didn’t realize what they’d seen, especially that little one.”
Janie. McCall remembered seeing her and her sister around town when they were kids. Joanna would cross the street with the girls to avoid any of the Winchesters. The McCormick girls hadn’t gone to school in Whitehorse, so McCall hadn’t had any contact with them. Then their mother had sent them to boarding school back east.
“There’s a chance no one saw anything,” McCall said.
“Also that the killer was lying about a member of the family being involved.” She couldn’t help thinking of that night when she’d faced Sandy Sheridan. Sandy had taunted that someone in the family had pushed her into killing Trace Winchester. Was it true, though? Or had Sandy just wanted to cause more trouble for McCall’s family?
She hadn’t known then and she certainly didn’t know now. But if it was true, then McCall had to know—and not just because she was the sheriff.
Cyrus got to his feet. “I thought you’d want to know what was going on. You picked a hell of a time to get married out at the ranch.”
Didn’t she though, McCall thought as she got to her feet. “Thanks for giving me a heads-up. I guess I’ll drive out to the McCormick Ranch and see how Anne and Janie are doing.”
Her cousin raised a brow. “Be careful. Given the way they feel about the Winchesters, I’d watch my back if I were you.”
TD DROVE OVER A HILL and below him he got his first look at the Winchester Ranch lodge. He slowed the pickup, still shaken from his near collision with the woman on the horse—and the certainty that she’d recognized him.
As the pickup rolled down the hill toward the Winchester lodge, he realized he had no idea what he was getting into. Was the redhead riding the horse from this ranch? He didn’t think so, given the direction she’d gone after their close call. But maybe, he thought, as he noticed a half-dozen horses milling in a corral down by the barn.
The ranch buildings were nestled against the hillside, looking like something out of an old Western movie. At the heart of the scene was a sprawling log lodge with several wings and floors, including a third floor at the far back on what appeared to be an older wing.
The place instantly captivated him. His curiosity increased as he pulled up in the yard and an old woman opened the front door of the lodge and motioned for him to hurry up.
“It’s about time,” she snapped as he opened his pickup door to get out. She was broomstick thin, a wiry, withered old crone with dark, beady eyes and a turned-down mouth.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, realizing this had to be the same person he’d spoken to when he’d called the ranch that night. Same impatience, same gravelly old voice.
“You’re staying in the bunkhouse,” she said, pointing to a building down by the barn. “You can park over there. But get a move on. I can’t do everything myself and I need the supplies put in the pantry.”
“I think there might be a mistake,” he said.
“There’s no mistake. You were hired to do whatever I say and I’m saying get a move on.” She turned on her skinny legs and disappeared back into the lodge, slamming the door behind her.
He stared after her for a moment, considering this turn of events, then slid back behind the wheel of his pickup and drove down by the barn to the small cabin bunkhouse.
He parked the truck, looking around for a moment before going in. The bunkhouse was clean, cold and apparently vacant. Dropping his bag on one of the bottom twin beds, he turned up the heater on the wall, then glanced out toward the corral and the horses.
None matched the big chestnut mare with the blaze of white that the redhead had been riding, but then she wouldn’t have returned yet—if this is where she’d come from. He didn’t think she would be that hard to find. There couldn’t be many close ranches out here, could there?
As he walked back up to the lodge, he wondered how long he could get away with this obvious case of mistaken identity. Maybe long enough to find out who had called him from here. But one thing was certain, he wasn’t leaving Montana until he got what he came for, and now he also had a woman to track down.
LIZZY WAS STILL SHAKING from her close call. She’d galloped off a safe distance, then stopped to listen, half afraid he would come after her on foot.
TD Waters. She’d only gotten a startling glimpse of the cowboy behind the wheel. But it had been plenty to recognize Agent TD Waters from the photo and dossier she’d been given.
Well, at least now she knew that her information had been correct. He’d come to Montana to the Winchester Ranch. All she’d been told was that he’d received a phone call from here before taking off against orders.
TD Waters was now considered a rogue agent.
Her heart was still pounding. The first time back on a horse in years and she hadn’t been paying attention, unaware she’d already reached the Winchester Ranch road. It was no wonder she’d lost track of where she was with everything in the landscape blanketed in white. Not that that was an excuse.
She definitely had to be more careful. Especially dealing with an agent like TD Waters. Lizzy knew she was shaken from more than her close call. She’d heard stories about Waters. Everyone had, but few had met the man. She’d known from his dossier that he was young, just a few years older than herself, and famous for completing nearly impossible assignments.
How could someone with such a reputation for bravery and dedication to his country go rogue?
She circled her horse back toward the Winchester Ranch, w
ondering what he was doing here. She’d been warned that he was dangerous and had seen something in his photograph that had given her pause.
But his photo was nothing like seeing him in the flesh. Even in that brief instant that their eyes had locked, she’d felt the intensity of his dark gaze and felt a shudder at the realization of just how dangerous this man could be.
Lizzy shivered now at the memory as she came to a small rise. When she’d been given the assignment, she hadn’t been privy to why Agent TD Waters was in Montana or why he was going to the Winchester Ranch. Her assignment had been to observe, report and wait for further instructions.
She watched from a distance as he spoke for a few moments with a woman at the front door of the lodge, then drove down and parked in front of a small cabin near the barn. He carried in two large bags, one long enough at least to hold an assault rifle. She had no doubt he would be armed.
As he came back out, he headed for the main lodge again, but the same woman he’d spoken to before appeared at another door and motioned him in. Lizzy frowned. The woman was wearing an apron.
Lizzy found herself even more curious about the rogue agent. What a coincidence that he’d come to a ranch so close to where she’d spent all those summers.
Coincidence always made Agent Lizzy Calder suspicious—and on her guard. She quickly realized she was going to have to get a lot closer to the lodge—and TD Waters—if she hoped to find out what he was doing here.
In fact, now seemed like the perfect time to see what TD Waters had in those two bags he’d carried into the cabin.
TD HAD ALMOST REACHED the lodge when a door had opened off one of the wings. He’d caught a whiff of bread baking before the old woman he’d met earlier had waved him into the ranch kitchen.
“You can start by unloading all of the food into the pantry,” she’d ordered. Now a door swung open behind her and another woman appeared.
He guessed this second woman was in her fifties, tall, dark-eyed, with shoulder-length black hair. She was dressed in flannel pants and a sweater.
