by B. J Daniels
He stared at her in shock. “Are you trying to tell me that this Whitehorse Sewing Circle does—”
“Under-the-radar adoptions. Don’t act like you didn’t know that.”
He couldn’t hide his relief. He’d been thinking something entirely different. Adoptions. Under-the-radar adoptions. If he really was adopted, then the adoption hadn’t been legal. This was starting to make more sense.
“I’m just having trouble imaging a group called the Whitehorse Sewing Circle involved in—”
She laughed. “I know it’s hard to believe a bunch of old-lady quilters are running an illegal adoption ring. That’s probably how they’ve been able to get away with it for years. Remember, you didn’t hear any of this from me.”
“You have my word. Where would I find this sewing circle?”
PEPPER WINCHESTER SAT AT the head of the long wooden table and studied her sons and daughter as they finished their breakfast. It had been another uncomfortable meal. She wondered how many more of them she could stand.
Fortunately Christmas and the wedding were only two days away. Unfortunately she was no closer to finding out which of her wonderful children was a killer. Maybe the person at this table hadn’t struck the blow that killed her son Trace, but he or she had still been part of it.
She looked around the table. Which one of you helped get my precious Trace killed? She’d thought that once she had them back at the ranch, she would just be able to look into their faces and see the truth.
How naive she’d been. Had she thought one of them would break down and confess? It was laughable now.
No, whoever it was intended to take their crime to the grave with him. Or her, she thought, eyeing her daughter before shifting her gaze to Brand, then Worth. Brand had always been the quiet, easygoing one. Still waters ran deep, she thought, though she couldn’t imagine him doing such a thing.
Worth she could easily imagine getting involved in murdering his younger brother. Virginia…she definitely had it in her. Actually, all three of them did, she thought, remembering that they had her blood running through their veins. Her blood and Call Winchester’s.
Against her better judgment, Pepper was considering giving Worth at least enough money that she didn’t have to worry about him doing anything crazy and spoiling McCall’s wedding. It went against the grain. She didn’t like being blackmailed. Nor was it the first time. She thought of Enid.
Enid Hoagland had her over a barrel, so to speak. And for years Pepper had been thinking about putting the miserable wretch out of her misery.
As each of her offspring excused themselves and left, Pepper started to leave as well, but stopped when TD Waters came in to clear the table.
“I’m sorry,” he said seeing her still sitting there. “I can come back.”
“No,” she said quickly. “I’d like a moment of your time.” She looked past him to see that Enid had come into the dining room. “Alone, if you don’t mind, Enid.”
AS PEPPER MOTIONED FOR him to sit down, TD didn’t like the feel of this, but pulled out a chair and joined her.
Enid scowled, shooting TD a suspicious glance before leaving and letting the kitchen door slam.
In the quiet that followed, the matriarch merely studied him. “You’re not from Whitehorse.” It wasn’t a question, but he answered anyway.
“No, ma’am.”
“How is it you ended up in my kitchen?” she asked pointedly when he didn’t elaborate.
He’d known this was probably coming. He’d seen her watching him closely, a little too closely. “I just kind of stumbled onto the job,” he said truthfully.
“Are you a cook?”
“I like to cook.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is it just me or are you being purposely evasive?”
He scratched the back of his neck and considered telling her he’d come here to look for a blackmailer-extortionist.
“I’m a federal agent when I’m not cooking.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“I was wounded, had some time to kill and ended up in Montana.”
“Wounded?”
“My last assignment didn’t go like I thought it would,” he said, the words like sand in his mouth. “Another agent was killed. I took a slug but survived.”
“I see.”
He thought she really might have seen how a state of mind like that had landed him in her kitchen.
“Well, I wanted to tell you how much we all have enjoyed your cooking,” she said and reached for her cane as she pushed back her chair to stand.
He rose as well, seeing that he was being dismissed. “Thank you.”
“What did she want?” Enid demanded the moment he stepped into the kitchen.
He suspected she’d had her ear to the door and had heard most if not all of what had been said. “She wanted to know what I was doing here.” He shrugged.
“And what did you tell her?”
He repeated what he’d told Pepper and Enid grunted, clearly unimpressed that he was a government agent, preferring to believe this was about his pregnant girlfriend.
“Like it is any of her business,” the cook said, making him want to laugh. Enid was much nosier than her employer.
LIZZY RODE BACK TO THE McCormick Ranch, wondering if there was a chance Waters had been telling the truth about why he was in Montana. He’d said it was extortion. Clearly Janie had been blackmailing Worth Winchester.
If the two were connected, then why hadn’t Waters admitted it?
He likes playing games, she thought. Did he not realize that he was considered a rogue agent and that his little trip to Montana had put him in danger from his own organization?
She remembered the call she’d gotten from Roger Collins giving her the assignment. He’d been perfectly clear: agent TD Waters was to be considered armed and dangerous. He had left against orders. He was considered a rogue agent and because he was highly classified, extreme measures might be needed.
What had TD Waters done prior to coming to Montana that had led the agency to believe he’d gone rogue? She needed more information and yet she knew it wouldn’t be coming from Roger Collins. Her job was to report on Waters’s activities and to stand by for further orders.
Lizzy had always done as she was ordered. Because she looked harmless, she’d been an asset to the agency on those jobs that required finesse, her boss had told her.
“They don’t see you coming,” Collins had once joked.
“You’re like a stealth bomber.”
Had TD Waters seen her coming? There was no doubt that he was suspicious of her. She had to wonder what his idea of “joining forces” entailed. She could only imagine after that kiss.
But if she hoped to get the information her boss wanted, then she had to get closer to Waters—no matter how dangerous he was.
As she topped the hill, the barn and stables below her, Lizzy spotted Janie. She was coming out of one of the outbuildings at the back of the property. Reining in, Lizzy waited until Janie passed through the barn and headed for the house before she rode down to the outbuilding.
As she slid off her horse, she noticed that the door to the outbuilding was padlocked. Her suspicions rose as she tried to look into the dirty windows and saw that they had been covered with cardboard from the inside. What had Janie been doing in there?
And what was it she didn’t want anyone to see?
The padlock would be fairly easy to pick with the right tools. Lizzy looked over her shoulder and realized she could see the second floor of the main house past the barn—and therefore could be seen, as well. Anne or Janie could be watching her right now. She’d have to come back tonight after everyone was asleep.
Stepping away from the outbuilding, she swung back up onto her horse. As she rode toward the stable, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.
Chapter Eight
As TD helped make more pies for dinner, he was anxious to track down the Whitehorse Sewing Circle. He could
only assume the reason he’d been given that second clue was because he’d been one of the babies the circle had adopted out.
So why hadn’t he received a quilt if every baby got one, he wondered? Or had his “parents” gotten rid of it so they never had to explain where it came from?
He knew he was mulling all this because it beat thinking about his run-in this morning with Lizzy Calder—and that kiss. How had he expected her to react?
Maybe a little more friendly.
Come on, Waters, she isn’t like the other women you’ve run across.
No, she wasn’t, was she? That’s what made her so interesting, and probably why he was going through hell trying to keep her out of his thoughts.
What worried him was the feeling that she knew a lot more about all this than she was letting on. That, coupled with the fact that he was certain she’d recognized him the first time they’d seen each other, had him concerned. Was it just a coincidence that they both ended up here at the same time?
He realized he knew nothing about her. Where was she from? What did she do for a living? Was she from Montana?
After he got the pies in the oven, he wandered down past the living room. He’d seen a computer in a small room near the parlor. The house was deathly silent. He noticed that one of the ranch pickups was gone and wondered who’d left.
Seeing no one around, he slipped into the small room and closed the door quietly behind him. It didn’t take long to call up a private information site that required him to use his password. He knew it would alert Roger Collins, but he had no doubt that Collins already knew where he was—that Collins knew a whole lot more than he did.
TD typed in the name Lizzy Calder. Nothing.
He realized his mistake and typed in Elizabeth Calder. Again nothing.
That couldn’t be right. He went to a general site and typed in the name. A dozen Elizabeth Calders came up. He began clicking on each. Most were the wrong age. Only one fit. He found a high-school photo. Bingo.
She’d gone to a fancy boarding school. That surprised him.
College, another expensive and prestigious school. She’d earned her degree in business management. Seriously? And now she worked as a consultant?
So why was he having such a hard time believing that? Maybe because his own background read something as bogus along the same lines? Or because it didn’t quite fit the woman he’d first seen riding that chestnut mare as if the devil himself were chasing her?
PEPPER HAD ALWAYS BEEN good at sizing people up. She’d had a lot of experience as a young girl working with her father as they traveled with the carnival. In fact, she’d been so good, her father had sent her out in the crowd from the time she was little to bring back the suckers to his carny booth.
She had sized up TD Waters from the first time she’d seen him and was glad that she hadn’t been wrong about him. It worried her a little that he was a government agent, especially with Worth staying here.
Her son Worth had sworn the trouble he was in had nothing to do with drugs. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t lied. He’d also sworn he wasn’t in trouble and any fool could see that he was.
As if she had conjured him up from her thoughts, Worth suddenly appeared in the hallway ahead of Pepper.
“I was just looking for you,” Pepper said, taking him by surprise because clearly it had been the other way around. “Why don’t we step into the parlor?”
He moved aside to let her lead the way. She could almost feel his relief. He’d been about to confront her. She’d seen his expression and she’d known it would have gotten ugly.
“I have been thinking about your request,” she said the moment he’d closed the door. She hadn’t bothered to sit down because she knew this wasn’t going to take long.
“I called for an appraisal on the ranch but I can’t get one until after the holidays,” she said.
“I need—”
“Money before that.” She nodded and reached into her pocket and pulled out her checkbook.
He sighed and slumped into a chair. She thought for a moment he might cry, his relief was so evident.
Pepper moved to the small desk in the corner and took out a pen. She took her time writing the check. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that her son had his head in his hands. She thought for a moment that he was weeping.
She knew she should pity him but all she felt was disgust. He was weak and she couldn’t abide weakness. Even as a young girl, she’d learned that she had to be tough, she couldn’t give in to weakness. Her life traveling the country with her father hadn’t been easy, far from it. She’d been made to do things she abhorred, pulling in naive young men by using her looks so her father could fleece them at his carnival booth. She had watched them lose their hard-earned money and felt sick to her stomach that she’d had a hand in it.
“It’s their choice,” her father used to say when she’d argue that she didn’t want to do it anymore. “You didn’t hold a gun on them. They might as well learn early on that letting a pretty girl turn their heads is going to cost them. This is how we put food on our table. You don’t like it, when you’re old enough, you can leave. Until then, get back to work.”
As Pepper finished writing out the check, she closed her checkbook, put it back in her pocket and replaced the pen before she got to her feet.
“Mother, I…” He couldn’t seem to find the words.
She held out the check.
He took it, looked at the amount, his gaze darting back up to hers. “It’s only for ten thousand,” he said, sounding both shocked and angry.
“I’m sure that will hold you over until the appraisal comes in,” she said even though she’d anticipated just the opposite.
“I told you that I needed fifty thousand,” he said, visibly shaking.
She simply looked at him for a moment, wondering if she was to blame for all of his shortcomings. But she couldn’t imagine that she’d had that much of an influence on any of her children. She’d always thought of them as being Call’s. Except for Trace. He had been hers.
She held her hand out for the check. “If you don’t want it…”
He quickly folded the check and put it in his shirt pocket but the look he gave her was like a poisonous dart. Good thing she was immune to her children’s hatred or it would have killed her by now.
As he turned to storm out, she thought about warning him that there was a government agent in their midst, but she held her tongue.
She was disgusted with herself for giving him even ten thousand dollars. But she had to make sure that he did nothing to ruin McCall’s wedding. If he thought she was calling an appraiser, then he wouldn’t want to blow his chance to get what he considered his fair share of the ranch.
If the trouble he was in could just hold off until after the wedding.
“What did he want?” Virginia asked, coming into the room Worth had just deserted.
Pepper gave her an impatient look.
“He wants money, doesn’t he?”
“Don’t you all?” She regretted the words at her daughter’s hurt expression. “I’m sorry.”
Virginia looked surprised, then smiled. “I think that is the first time you’ve said that and really meant it. Did you ever consider that some of us just want your love, your respect?”
“What do you have planned today?” Pepper asked, wanting to change the subject. She’d never understood her daughter. Virginia was too needy, too clingy and always had been. Pepper could blame herself for the way her daughter had turned out, but there was nothing she could do about it now. While they’d grown closer over the past few months, she knew that nothing could fill that gaping hole in Virginia that her daughter had spent years trying to fill through affairs with rich men and alcohol.
“I have to go into town. For my sanity,” Virginia said, clearly disappointed in her mother. That, too, was nothing new.
Pepper had never asked what Virginia did in town, whether it was business or frivolity and boredom th
at took her into Whitehorse so often lately.
She didn’t ask now. She’d abandoned her adult children, forcing them to fend for themselves or perish. Her son Angus had perished, killing himself with alcohol. Brand had survived, raising his two sons on the road, but apparently never finding love. Virginia and Worth, well, who knew about their personal lives. They were both mysteries, ones she didn’t feel up to solving.
“Enjoy yourself,” was all she said as she headed for the kitchen. Right now she was much more curious about what TD Waters was up to.
But when she reached the kitchen, Enid told her that TD had left to run an errand and wouldn’t be back until supper.
An errand? “Did he say—”
“Wasn’t none of my business,” Enid said pointedly. “Ain’t none of yours either.”
“Aren’t you afraid that one day you will push me too far?” Pepper asked.
“Nope. No mystery at all why I’m not. Shouldn’t be to you either.”
Enid amazed her sometimes. Pepper remembered the first time she’d come to the ranch as a newlywed. She’d inherited Enid and her husband, Alfred Hoagland. Enid had been younger than herself. Alfred older than both of them.
Even back then Enid had been sure of herself. She’d been hired by Call’s parents and had acted as if it would take dynamite to get her off Winchester Ranch. You’d have thought she was a Winchester the way she bossed everyone, including Pepper.
Over the years, Enid had become as much a fixture as the log lodge itself. She’d always been there, always listening, always butting her nose into everyone’s business.
Pepper regretted that she’d let Call talk her into letting Enid stay. And after Call disappeared, it had been too late. Enid knew too much about the family, too much about Pepper herself. Enid wasn’t going anywhere.
She thought now about the days after she’d lost Trace, twenty-seven years ago. At one point, Enid had drugged her, keeping her in a foggy state that she hadn’t minded—in fact, she had welcomed the oblivion.
That was until her only granddaughter, McCall, had come into her life and she’d found out that Trace hadn’t run off as everyone had said—but had been murdered. Suddenly she’d had a purpose for living. She’d stopped drinking the tea Enid brought her. She’d stopped eating any food she hadn’t seen prepared. And Enid had gotten the hint.
