Christmas With A Stranger_Forbidden

by Catherine Spencer

  “Car’s all ready to roll, Miss Simms.” Charlie, the mechanic, swung open the outside door, poked his head inside and waved cheerfully.

  A stolen snowmobile, since recovered close to Sentinel Pass, a truck stop.... Halfway to the door Jessica stopped, a thrill of horror trembling over her.

  She cast a frantic glance around the room. The truckers continued to watch the screen. Linda emptied dirty ashtrays into a container. And the man with the tinted glasses and low-slung hat—the man with the disturbingly narrow, pinched mouth?

  He had disappeared silently into the night. And so had the rough map showing the Kincaid ranch, which Jessica had left next to her coffee mug.

  Except for a solitary light burning in Clancy’s quarters, they’d left the house and stables in darkness. That way, it was easier to see anyone approaching the house.

  The weather continued to cooperate, flooding the countryside with moonlight. Morgan sat at his bedroom window, unwillingly recalling the night before. Her laughter as he’d pulled her onto the ice, the slenderness of her as they’d danced, the naked desire that had clawed at him until he’d found surcease in her embrace....

  He blinked fiercely, willing the images, the ache, to disappear. He was too savvy by far to have been blindsided by love, surely? And yet how else did he define the emotions tearing at him now, when all his energy and attention should be directed on the showdown fast approaching?

  “Tell me again what they said when they phoned, Morgan.” From his post on the other side of the window, Clancy flexed his arthritic leg.

  “That they’d got through to us as soon as the lines were repaired.”

  “I know that, you damn fool! What else?”

  “That they’d found a folder in his cell, collating information from every publication you care to name that ever ran a news item on me or my doings. Photographs, gossip, fact, fiction—you name it, he’d hoarded it.”

  “Any mention of the ranch?”

  “Nothing specific as to its exact location, but enough clues for a man as smart as Parrish to latch onto.”

  “You sure he’ll come lookin’ for you here, Morgan?”

  “Sure?” Morgan sighed. “As sure as gut instinct and circumstantial evidence can be. He’s headed this way, Clancy. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “You did the right thing, then, getting Jessica out of here as quick as you did.”

  The ache intensified, spearing him straight through the heart at the memory of her standing alone in the Stedman’s parking lot, dumped yet again by someone she’d thought she could trust. “Pity it’s the only right thing I did where she was concerned.”

  They lapsed into silence again, each buried in his own thoughts. The minutes ticked by heavily, a time bomb playing a waiting game.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” Clancy said, never taking his eyes from the slim curve of the road as it disappeared beyond the windbreak. “You could call in the law.”

  “I am the law,” Morgan said.

  “Reinforcements, then.” Clancy stroked the oiled stock of the rifle slung across his knees.

  “No. He’s out there, watching, waiting. He’d just stay hidden till they were gone. I might as well settle this once and for all.”

  “Never figured you for a man with a death wish, Morgan.”

  “I don’t plan to die.”

  “Got something special to live for, have you?”

  Morgan felt Clancy’s gaze slew sideways and bore into him. “Haven’t you?” he said evenly.

  “Nothing like Jessica Simms. Reckon you’ve—”

  “He’s coming.” Morgan’s whisper cut into the night as cleanly as a knife blade. “I saw the flash of lights from a car or something as it came around the last bend beyond the pines.”

  Clancy leaned forward, his gaze raking the inky shadow of trees on snow. “You sure? Don’t seem likely he’d announce his arrival like that, Morgan.”

  “I’m sure.” Silently, Morgan stepped to the corner of the room and lifted the shotgun from its resting place by the wall. “He’s here, Clancy.”

  “Son of a gun!” Clancy exhaled sharply. “Someone’s here all right, driving right up to the front door bold as brass, so it can’t be Parrish.”

  Swinging back to the window, Morgan cursed as a familiar maroon sedan slid to a stop at the foot of the steps. “That’s Jessica’s car.”

  “God Almighty,” Clancy whispered in horror. “You’re right, Morgan. And she ain’t come alone.”

  She brought the car to a halt at the foot of the steps. It had been easy to find the house, once she’d made the turn from the main highway. Morgan’s tire tracks were plain to see in the bright white moonlight and all she’d had to do was follow them.

  “That’s right, dear.” The pleasant, cultured voice filled her with terror. “Slide out of the car slowly and remember I’m right behind you. Morgan will be so surprised to see us, don’t you think?”

  He was mad. She had realized it from the moment his voice had floated from the back seat, just as she’d headed back along the highway to warn Morgan and Clancy. “How kind of you, my dear,” he’d crooned, “to chauffeur me the last few miles of my long journey.”

  As if the realization that she had an escaped felon for a passenger hadn’t been fright enough, he’d kept the cold tip of a gun pressed to the back of her neck throughout the journey and spent the entire time it had taken her to drive the distance to the Kincaid ranch spewing out in silky tones his venom for Morgan, and for her.

  “Slut,” he’d said, as pleasantly as any other person might have said “Have a lovely day”. “You slept with him, didn’t you? I could see it in your eyes, back there in that disgusting greasy spoon of a diner where we met, when that pathetic fool of a waitress mentioned his name. You had that look about you, of a woman scorned.”

  Now, as she stepped out of the car, she searched for a way to distract him just long enough to escape into the house. “What are you going to do next?” she asked, clinging to the door frame as her feet slithered on the packed snow.

  “Why, we’re going to pay a little visit to your lover,” he said, his breath drifting revoltingly over her face as he sidled up next to her and took her other arm. “Oh, look, he’s come to welcome us! Isn’t that sociable of him?”

  A sudden blaze of light accompanied his words. Morgan stood silhouetted in the open front door of the house, a large gun held loosely in his hands. “Let her go, Parrish,” he said coldly. “You’ve got no quarrel with her.”

  “Put the shotgun away, dear boy,” Parrish cooed, jabbing the nasty little revolver to her temple, “or I’ll be obliged to shoot your little whore.”

  Carefully, Morgan laid his firearm on the floor of the veranda and started slowly down the steps.

  “Stay away,” Parrish warned, his voice rising dangerously. “Come any closer and she’ll die, Kincaid, just like the other one did.”

  “You don’t want to kill her,” Morgan replied calmly, continuing his descent. “You’ll never be a free man again, if you do.”

  “I’m already free,” Parrish said, raising his arm and pointing the revolver straight at Morgan’s chest.

  “Not for long,” Morgan assured him, reaching the last step.

  “For as long as it takes,” the madman squealed, his grip on Jessica’s arm slackening as his voice ran manically out of control.

  It was at best a slender chance, but it was the only one to present itself. Desperately, she flung herself forward, catching him off guard and swinging the front door of her car toward him with all her strength. He saw it coming and let her go as he tried to fend it off and at the same time retain his footing on the treacherous ice.

  Simultaneously, Morgan leaped the remaining distance between them, landing half on top of Jessica, with enough impact to knock the breath out of her, and half on top of Parrish.

  She was aware of a scuffle, of grunts of pain. Of bodies rolling in the snow and the glint of cold metal in moonlight as Par
rish swung his revolver in the air. She saw Morgan lunging after it, saw Parrish’s insane grin as he aimed straight for Morgan’s head.

  She heard the sickening impact of a bullet hitting flesh, and her own scream of agonized fear as both men slumped to the frozen ground.

  “Morgan!” she wept, crawling forward on her hands and knees, beside herself at the pool of blood staining the snow where he lay beneath Parrish.

  “Stay where you are, woman, till I’m sure I’ve disabled the critter.”

  The words came to her from a distance, fogged by an overwhelming sense of misery unequalled by anything she’d experienced at Stuart or her aunt’s hands.

  Slowly she looked up to discover Clancy’s familiar scowl hovering above her, and thought it was the second most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. The first was Morgan, heaving Parrish aside and retrieving the revolver which had slid half under her car.

  “Wonder where he got this little beauty?” he remarked, as casually as though he played Russian roulette with his life every other day of the week.

  “What does it matter?” she shrieked, reaction setting in and sending the tears streaming down her face. “That lunatic almost killed you! For pity’s sake, Morgan, he almost killed both of us! Why didn’t you tell me what’s been going on? Or didn’t it strike you as being any of my business?”

  “I did my level best not to make it your business, Jessica.” He poked at Parrish with his foot, at which the injured man let out a howl of pain. “You got him right in the shoulder, Clancy. Just enough to put him out of action till I get him locked up again.”

  “Intended to,” Clancy said with pride. “Not that I had much choice, seeing as how you were about to get yourself blown to kingdom come. Hell, boy, if I can shoot a rat’s ass at a hundred yards, I can nail scum like Parrish exactly where it’ll do the most good. Don’t reckon he’ll be giving anyone too much grief for the next little while.”

  “You got through to the police?”

  “RCMP are on their way. Stop your sniveling long enough, woman, and you’ll hear the sirens,” he added severely to Jessica, who leaned against the hood of her car, openly sobbing.

  “What the hell,” Morgan said softly, pulling her into the shelter of his arms. “You’re in shock, sweetheart. Let’s get you inside and away from this mess.”

  He led her up the steps and into the living room and seated her tenderly on the couch. Dazed, she stared around her, at the unlit Christmas tree, at the dying embers in the hearth, at the table she’d set for three...how long ago?

  Morgan brought her a glass half-filled with brandy. “Here,” he said. “Drink this.”

  She looked up through a sparkle of tears—at the shimmering crystal in his hand, at his long, lean body that had come so close to being torn apart by violence.

  What if she hadn’t heard the news report? What if she’d gone on her way, full of bitterness and wishing that the misery he’d doled out to her would come back to haunt him threefold, then found out when it was too late that the man she’d fallen in love with had sent her away so that he could play hero in a drama guaranteed to have no happy ending? What if he’d been killed and left her to cope with the guilt of knowing she’d come close to hating him for the way he’d hustled her out of his home and his life?

  How dared he? The tears rolled down her face afresh, hot streams of them, fueled by anger. “How could you do this to me?” she sobbed, dashing the glass from his hand. “How could you have lied to me, over and over again?”

  He slumped beside her on the couch. “To protect you,” he said bleakly.

  “Protect me from what? From falling in love with you?” Her voice rose in anguish. “Is that why you slept with me, Morgan? To protect me? Well, excuse me for not appreciating the gesture!”

  “Honey,” he said, trying to draw her into his arms. “Sweetheart—”

  “Don’t touch me!” She scooted to the far end of the couch, her body racked by violent shivers. “I was just a diversion, something to keep you amused until the real action began, wasn’t I?”

  “No,” he protested, refusing to keep his distance. “Jessica, honey, if I’d realized when I met you what sort of trouble was waiting, I’d never have brought you here. By the time I knew the score, it was too late—there was no place else I could send you. I thought, as long as the roads were impassable, you’d be as safe here as anywhere.”

  He lifted his hands to touch her, then let them drop helplessly when she flinched away from him. “I knew that Parrish couldn’t get very far as long as the snow kept up, and that the police would be looking for him, but I never expected that we’d...that you and I would—”

  “What?” she spat. “Climb between the sheets? Roll in the hay? Screw?”

  Sweet heaven, where had socially correct, morally upright Miss Simms gone, and who was this shrew screaming obscenities at the man who’d just saved her life?

  “It wasn’t like that, Jessica,” he said, “and I’m sorry if I handled myself in such a way that that’s the impression I gave you. I know all about society’s misfits and the ills they confer. I’m expert at unraveling other people’s truths from the web of deceit behind which they camouflage them, but I guess I don’t know squat about showing a woman I love her.”

  “No, you don’t,” she sobbed, stoking her anger with a fury born of heartache and delayed fear. “I should have let that madman blow your brains out....”

  “Yes, sweetheart,” Morgan said soothingly, circling his arms around her despite her best efforts to elude him.

  “Except he’d never have been able to find them....”

  “No, darling. Hush now and let me hold you.”

  “Police have arrived and want to talk to you, Morgan,” Clancy said from the doorway. “Shall I bring ’em in here?”

  “No,” Morgan said, releasing her and standing up. “I’ll see them in the office.”

  The chill left behind where his arms had been cut her to the bone. “Woman,” Clancy declared wrathfully, throwing a handful of kindling into the fireplace and stirring the embers to life, “we could all use a fresh pot of coffee. And if you really want to make yourself useful you could make more tarts.”

  “I am not your kitchen lackey,” she retorted, umbrage reviving something of her usual starch.

  He grinned at her over his shoulder. “But you’re Morgan’s woman, ain’t you?”

  “No,” she said. “I most certainly am not.”

  He grinned for the second time in a minute, an unheard-of occurrence in Jessica’s limited experience. “Try tellin’ him that,” he advised.

  She was a fool to let his words warm her the way she did, an even bigger fool to let her hopes rise from the ashes of her earlier despair. But then, she’d suspected as much, practically from the moment she’d first set eyes on Morgan Kincaid.

  “I’ll make coffee,” she finally agreed, “but you can forget the tarts.”

  “What the hey?” Clancy snickered. “At least it’s a start.”

  It was the better part of two hours before the police completed their business and Gabriel Parrish had been shipped by ambulance to recover from his wounds in the nearest maximum security penitentiary.

  Not long after that, Clancy pulled his usual disappearing act, leering evilly over his shoulder as he left.

  “It’s his way of saying he approves of our being a couple,” Morgan said wryly. “He’s quite the romantic under that crusty exterior.”

  “What Clancy does or doesn’t approve of is immaterial,” Jessica said sadly. “We are not a couple, Morgan. Couples don’t offer protection as an excuse for deceit, they trust each other to cope with the truth.”

  Spreading his arms wide, leaning both hands on the mantelpiece, he stared at the fire. “And what if the truth divides them, Jessica? Then what?”

  “Then they were doomed from the outset. Lies don’t strengthen a relationship, Morgan, no matter how well intentioned they might be. They undermine it and eventually they destroy it
.”

  His shoulders sagged at that and it took all the resolve she could muster not to go to him and wrap her arms around him and tell him that none of it mattered as long as they were together.

  She hated the fact that her body and heart held such sway and tried to pretend differently, but the awareness, the sheer physical longing, never let up. It growled and paced within her, gnawing away at her defenses no matter how diligently she tried to subdue it.

  “I lied to you,” he said eventually, his voice weighted with regret, “for your own good. To keep you safe, to leave you free of fear.”

  “The blow you dealt me in doing so far exceeds anything Parrish could have done to hurt me,” she replied.

  He spun around, his face blazing with sudden anger. “You say that now but if I’d told you I was falling in love with you and wanted a future with you how long would it have been before you’d decided I wasn’t worth the risk?”

  “Never,” she said. “Because love involves risk. It means trust and acceptance and passion all bound together by truth. No games, no artifice, no promises that can’t be kept, just the pledge that tomorrow or next week or fifty years from now the feelings will still be there—stronger, surer, no matter what.”

  “There was a time, when I was first married, when I’d have agreed with you but the rot set in anyway, so subtly that I never knew for sure just when it started.”

  “There must have been signs, Morgan. Marriages don’t fall apart overnight.”

  “Oh, there were signs, all right. My work became the other woman, at least in my ex-wife’s eyes. She resented my involvement with what she called ‘the seamy underside of the law’. Suddenly, what she’d once perceived as respectable and even honorable became a lifestyle liability, a threat to her peace of mind. And who’s to say she wasn’t right?”

  An explosive sigh burst from him, seeming to tear its way free. “You say you want the truth, Jessica? Well, here’s the truth of my life when I’m not kicking back up here and breathing the clean country air: I put criminals away. If I’m ever appointed to the Bench—and there are rumors I might be—they’d probably call me the hanging judge because I do not believe anyone should break the law with impunity.”