CHRISTMAS AT THE CARDWELL RANCH

by B. J Daniels

  “They sent her to prison! Prison! They put her with common thieves and killers. My precious baby sister.” His throat worked, his last words coming out in a croak. Tears welled up in his eyes.

  Her mind tried to make sense of what he was saying, but she was so emotionally and physically wrung out... She jerked free of his hold and took a step back, banging into the edge of the kitchen counter.

  Looming over her, he glared at her as if she were the one who’d sent his sister to prison. “Do you know anything about prison, Lily? No, of course you wouldn’t know what a woman like my sister has to do to survive there.”

  Lily felt a chill run the length of her spine. The murder list. Her mind leapt from that thought to the most obvious one. “You didn’t come here after six months to try to get me back.”

  Gerald gave a laugh, but it came out sounding like a sob. “Finally.” He met her gaze, his challenging. “I did what I had to do to keep my sister safe. Just as I am going to do what I have to now.”

  Lily gripped the kitchen counter behind her. She was so exhausted she was having trouble understanding what he was talking about. “Gerald, it doesn’t matter anymore. They say the thumb drive was corrupted—”

  “I destroyed the information on the thumb drive when your boyfriend let me use it to decode the names,” he said with his usual arrogance. “The information is worthless. I also destroyed the paper copies you left at the motel. The one you left was worthless. The original is gone.”

  Her gaze went to her computer and he laughed.

  “While I was waiting for you, I put a virus in your computer that by now has destroyed everything—including the hard drive. I figured you might have used your brother’s computer at some point, so when I used it to give your boyfriend the names, I also made sure a virus will destroy all his data.”

  He was enjoying showing how superior he was to her and the rest of the world. She’d seen that trait in him but never quite like this. What scared her was the feeling that he’d come here to do more than gloat.

  A bubble of fear rose in her throat until she thought she would choke on it. “So you took care of everything.”

  “Not quite,” he said as he closed the narrow space between them. “There is only one more copy I need to destroy.” He tapped her temple. “I used to be so jealous of the way you could remember the most random things. You could remember entire lists of numbers and letters.” He smiled and nodded. “You do remember the original thumb drive lists, don’t you? I knew it. You’ve never been able to hide anything from me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tag left the truck at the bottom of the last hill and ran the rest of the way up the road to Lily’s house. He’d brought one of the guns from his father’s hidden stash, but he was praying he wasn’t going to have to use it.

  Maybe Gerald really had gotten on the flight to California. Maybe the fact that he had a sister in prison had nothing to do with anything that had been going on.

  Tag knew he was clutching at straws. There were two many coincidences. Gerald was up to his eyeballs in this. Worse, Tag had handed over the thumb drive to him. He’d trusted Gerald because he’d been so desperate to find Lily and get her out of this mess. He’d only gotten her in deeper.

  Unfortunately there would be no way to prove Gerald had corrupted the thumb drive. Even the fact that he’d given the feds the wrong names could be swept under the rug as a simple mistake.

  So why would Gerald do anything stupid right now when he could walk away free?

  Because Lily still had a copy of the information on her computer, Tag thought with a sinking heart.

  As he neared the house, he prayed he would find Lily alone, Gerald long gone.

  But when he climbed up onto the deck and moved to the front window, he saw Lily and Gerald in the kitchen. He didn’t need to hear what they were saying to each other. He could tell by their body language and their expressions that they were arguing.

  His stomach roiled at the sight. Lily was backed up against the kitchen counter. Gerald was looming over her.

  Tag tried the door, not surprised to find it locked. He was afraid to knock. He needed the element of surprise, and even with it he feared what would happen next.

  He picked up a large flowerpot from the deck and, stepping back, hurled it through the window. Glass rained down in a shower onto the deck as the huge window shattered.

  Pulling his gun, Tag quickly jumped through the opening into Lily’s living room.

  Gerald had turned in surprise at the sound of the breaking glass. His eyes widened at the gun in Tag’s hands.

  “Get away from him!” Tag yelled as he strode toward them, the gun aimed at Gerald’s chest.

  Lily seemed nailed to the floor. Her eyes widened in alarm, her mouth opened as if to scream, but nothing came out.

  In that instant, Gerald took advantage of her inability to move and grabbed her, locking his arm around her throat as he backed the two of them against the kitchen counter.

  “That’s far enough,” Gerald said as Tag advanced. “Come any closer and I’ll break her neck.”

  Tag stopped at the edge of the dining room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lily’s laptop still open on the table, but the papers she’d been doing her decoding on were gone and there was the faint smell of smoke from the fireplace in the room.

  “Drop your gun. Slowly,” Gerald ordered.

  Tag could see the painful hold Gerald had on Lily and knew he couldn’t get a shot off without risking her life. Gerald was using her like a shield. Tag slowly lowered his gun, but didn’t drop it.

  “What’s going on, Gerald?” he asked as he carefully bent down and placed his weapon on the floor, never taking his eyes off Lily’s.

  “Now kick the gun over here.”

  Tag did as he was told. The gun skittered across the floor. Gerald slowly reached down, dragging Lily with him, and picked up the gun with his free hand, never releasing his hold on her.

  “You really should have gone back to Texas and left Lily alone.”

  * * *

  LILY HAD FELT too tired to fight Gerald earlier. Now things had changed. She found a reserved strength she hadn’t known she possessed. Gerald had the gun pointed at Tag. For the second time in two days, she was faced with a life-or-death situation after more than thirty-two years of an ordered, overly structured life. The only time she’d felt she wasn’t in control was when she came up here to the Canyon to work for her brother.

  Until this.

  “Let him go,” Lily said hoarsely from the choke hold on her throat. “This is between you and me.”

  Gerald’s laugh held no humor. “That might have been the case yesterday when I pleaded with you to come back to me. Maybe we could have worked something out then....”

  “You sold out your own fiancée,” Tag said as he took a step toward the dining room, forcing Gerald to turn a little in order to keep her in front of him.

  “Ex-fiancée,” Gerald snapped, and motioned the gun at him. “Didn’t she mention that to you? I’m surprised. I thought the two of you...”

  “That’s what I planned to tell you,” Lily said. She shifted so she was closer to the kitchen counter. Her hand snaked behind her as she sought out the drawer where she’d dropped the gun earlier. “I was hoping it wasn’t too late for us, Gerald. I wanted the life you offered where I knew who I was.” There was a ring of truth to her words since that was exactly what she’d been thinking on her way home.

  Tag’s gaze widened a little, his expression saddening.

  “It’s not too late, Gerald,” she continued as she eased the drawer open. “As you said, there’s no proof you’ve done anything wrong. You’ve destroyed everything, all that you need to worry about anyway. If you kill this man, then that all changes.”

  She
eased the drawer open, feeling Gerald loosen the hold on her a little. Her fingers curled around the handle of the gun.

  “You had second thoughts?” Gerald said quietly next to her ear.

  She nodded. His hold loosened even a little more. She could breathe, and for a moment that was all she did. Then she slowly lifted out the gun, holding it at her side out of his range of sight. “I was going to come back to you.”

  As if he felt the truth in her words, his surprise moved through his body. He seemed to slump against her.

  “I don’t understand,” he whispered.

  Tag was looking at her as if he didn’t understand, either.

  “I wanted safe,” she said.

  “Safe?” Gerald repeated, and let out a hoarse laugh, the irony not lost on him.

  Tag’s gaze went to her side. He gave a small shake of his head at the sight of the gun clutched in her hand.

  “Nothing has changed,” Gerald said, his tone almost pleading. “We can get past this. Our lives can be exactly like we planned. Even better after this.”

  Lily had to bite her tongue. Did he really think they could pick up where they’d left off? All forgiven and forgotten?

  He was crazier than she’d thought.

  In the distance, she heard sirens and realized how badly this could go if she didn’t move quickly. “Tag, you should go,” she said.

  Gerald shook his head and tightened his hold on her. “Lily. We can’t let him just walk away. Not now.”

  “We have to, Gerald. It’s the only way.”

  But even as she said it, she felt Gerald tense the arm holding the gun. He leveled it at Tag’s heart. “I’m sorry, Lily, but I think it’s too late for us.”

  * * *

  TAG KNEW WHEN he came through the door that Gerald was dangerous. The man had come too far and knew there was no turning back. Gerald Humphrey had crossed a line that a man like him couldn’t come back from.

  For just an instant, Tag felt sorry for him. He could understand wanting to protect someone you loved.

  He looked down the barrel of the gun Gerald had pointed at him, saw the man steady it and knew all the talking was done.

  At the same time, Tag saw Lily make the decision. “No!” he yelled as he dived to the side. The first gunshot was followed only an instant later by a second.

  The scream that filled the air made the hair rise on the back of his neck. He hit the floor and rolled, coming up to find Gerald Humphrey on the floor holding the thigh of his right leg and writhing in pain.

  Lily stood over him, the gun still in her hand, her face as white as the snow outside. Gerald had gotten off one shot before dropping his weapon and grabbing his wounded leg.

  Tag quickly stepped to him to kick his gun away before reaching to take the pistol from Lily. She had a death grip on the gun. He eased it from her fingers.

  She gave him a barely perceptible nod.

  He smiled as he cupped a hand behind her neck and drew her to him, wrapping her in his arms. She hugged him tightly as he breathed the words into the soft, sweet scent of her hair. “You saved my life.”

  On the floor, Gerald began to curse. “Are the two of you just going to let me lie here and bleed to death? Call a doctor!”

  In the distance, Tag could hear the sirens. He pulled out his cell phone, hit 911 and asked for an ambulance as flashing lights flickered across the fallen snow outside the window. Tag watched his father and Deputy Marshal Jake Thorton come racing up to the house, weapons drawn, and pulled Lily closer.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Christmas Eve it began to snow and became one of those winter nights when the flakes are as large as goose feathers. They drifted down in a wall of white so thick they obliterated everything out the window at Cardwell Ranch.

  “Merry Christmas,” Tag said as he came up behind Lily.

  She leaned back into him and watched the falling snow to the sound of Christmas music and children’s laughter. In the kitchen, Stacy and the kids were finishing up baking gingerbread men. Dana had been relegated to sitting at the kitchen table and helping ice the cookies. The smell of ginger wafted through the old ranch house, mingling with the even sweeter scent of evergreen.

  Lily could hear her brother in the kitchen. He’d volunteered to help with the cookie decorating, as well. She’d never seen Ace with kids before. He was a natural.

  “I always dreamed of a Christmas like this,” Lily said, turning in Tag’s arms to look up into his face. “I would come home from boarding school to find the house was already decorated by some designer my mother had hired. We always had a white-flocked tree with different-colored lights on it depending on what was in that year. Everything was very...tasteful.”

  “Compared to an amazing tree like this one?” Tag joked, nodding toward Dana’s “orphan” tree.

  Lily laughed. The tree wasn’t what most would consider a Christmas tree, but she loved that it was decorated with ornaments the children had made. Her mother would never have allowed a tree like that in her house.

  How different her life and Ace’s would have been if her mother had adopted an orphan tree and let her children decorate it. Would Lily have ever agreed to marry a man like Gerald Humphrey?

  She thought of Gerald. He’d confessed to everything but refused to name names to protect himself in prison—as well as his sister. Lily had been able to supply the letters from the original thumb drive from memory. After they were decoded, the FBI had the names and was now rounding up the former inmates who had done the killings. For the time being at least, the co-op murder group had been shut down.

  “That is the most beautiful Christmas tree I have ever seen,” she said, feeling tears sting her eyes as she turned to look at him. They’d been through so much together in such a short time and yet she felt as if she had always known him.

  Tag cocked an eyebrow at her, then smiled and pulled her in for a kiss.

  “You’re only supposed to kiss under the misseytoe,” said a small voice behind them. Lily turned to find Dana’s daughter, Mary, pointing at the mistletoe hanging near the door. “That’s where Mommy and Daddy kiss.”

  Mary’s older brother, Hank, came into the room in time to make a grimacing face. “They are always kissing. Gross.”

  Tag and Lily laughed. A moment later Ace came into the room carrying a tray of gingerbread men. The twins, Angus and Brick, now fourteen months old and their cousin, Ella, now almost two, came toddling into the room following the cookies. They had icing smeared across their faces. They were followed by their aunt Stacy with a washcloth.

  “I decorated those,” Ace said with obvious pride as he pointed to the perfectly decorated cookies.

  “I did those,” Mary said, pointing to some cookies that were unrecognizable under all the different colors of icing.

  “I can’t tell the difference.” Lily grinned at her brother.

  Hud and Dana joined them, Dana in the wheelchair her husband had insisted she stay in until she was stronger. She was plenty strong, Lily thought. She recalled her own moments over the past few days when she’d been stronger than she’d ever believed she could be. So much had changed, she thought, glancing over at Tag. Or maybe she’d just changed. She would never admit it to her brother, but she had been afraid to live life. She’d thought she’d wanted safe and sedate, just as she and Ace had been raised.

  But Tag had changed all that. No matter what happened in the future, she knew she could never go back to being the woman who’d been willing to settle for what Gerald Humphrey had offered her.

  * * *

  AT THE SOUND of sleigh bells, everyone in the room went quiet. Christmas music played faintly from the kitchen as heavy boots stomped across the porch. An instant later the door flew open and a Santa Claus suspiciously resembling Tag’s father filled the doorway. />
  Mary and Hank let out cheers and ran to him. Santa was followed into the house by Angus dragging a huge bag loaded with gifts. Tag looked at Lily and saw the delight in her face. He wished he could see that look on her face always.

  Jordan and his very pregnant wife, Deputy Marshal Liza Cardwell, arrived moments later with presents. Not long after that, Dana’s brother, Clay, landed by helicopter out by the barn in a shower of snow. He came in signing Christmas carols and got them all singing around the fireplace and the orphan tree.

  As Tag felt Harlan’s aka Santa’s arm drop over his shoulders, a lump formed in his throat. He’d wanted a Montana Christmas, and he couldn’t have asked for a more perfect one than this.

  He wished this night would never end, he thought as he watched his family opening presents around the tree. But the holidays were almost over and Texas and the rest of his family and their business loomed large on the horizon.

  * * *

  LILY WOKE JUST as the sun was peeking over the mountains. She hadn’t wanted to open her eyes. Lying under the down comforter, she was warm and cozy, still feeling the effects of her lovemaking with Tag not that many hours ago.

  It had been the best Christmas Eve of her life and she thought it funny she could think that, given that she’d almost been killed in the days before. Last night, Tag had been so gentle. She shivered at the thought. He’d brought her back to her house after midnight, swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bed.

  He’d kissed her so gently, so sweetly. She’d thought she’d only imagined the passion from their first lovemaking. But then the kisses had become more amorous. She’d felt heat race through her veins, making her skin sensitive to the touch. He’d peeled away her clothing, kissing each patch of skin he revealed, finding places on her body to caress as if memorizing every inch of her.

  She’d reciprocated, loving the feel of his skin and the way he shuddered with delight as she moved over him. They kissed and touched until, both naked and barely able to contain themselves, they’d finally coupled. Locked in each other’s arms, they’d let their passion run wild like the storm outside.