Gun-Shy Bride

by B. J Daniels

  He held her like that, his breath ragged. She heard him swallow and finally opened her eyes to look up at him.

  “McCall,” he whispered as he swept her up into his arms and into the cabin, kicking the door closed behind them.

  As he lowered her to her feet, she slid down his body until he found her mouth. She caught her breath as he kissed her with a passion that had her toes curling in her boots.

  His fingers entwined in her long hair, and her pulse thundered under her skin as he deepened the kiss. She felt his hand on her cheek, then her throat. As he released her mouth, she threw back her head and felt his fingers, then his mouth leave a hot trail down her throat to the torn opening of her shirt.

  She gasped as she felt his hand cup her breast, the rough pad of his thumb rubbing her already pebble-hard nipple until she cried out, heat rushing to her center. He freed her breasts and covered them in turn with his mouth, dropping to his knees.

  Later she would remember unsnapping his Western shirt, running her palms over the hard muscles of his chest, working at the buttons on his jeans.

  She couldn’t remember shedding her clothing, only the feel of her naked flesh pressed against his as he carried her to the bedroom, saying something about this time doing it right—in a real bed.

  What she would never forget was the aching heat of desire, the need that consumed her every ragged breath. She cried out when his touch released her, and the longing started building again until she thought she couldn’t bear it.

  She remembered the welcome weight of him, the feeling of him filling her completely and that roller-coaster ride of desire and heart-pounding pleasure before the quaking release and that experience of ultimate fulfillment.

  As she lay spent beside him, his arm around her, she memorized the feel, the smell, the sound of him, wanting to keep all of it forever. Not admitting that inkling of fear that, like ten years ago, something would drive them apart—only this time forever.

  A LIGHT RAIN FELL FROM the low clouds. Mist snaked up the river, wrapping the bare branches of the cottonwoods in gray gauze.

  McCall stretched as she looked out on the tranquil scene. Strange how different it looked this morning. She realized that it wasn’t the familiar landscape that had changed, though; it was her.

  She felt new, like the spring leaves gracing the trees from her window—the only bright color along the river bottom.

  Lying on her side, she sensed rather than heard Luke approach. The air pressure around her seemed to change. She waited for his touch, aching with anticipation.

  His fingertips were warm across the cool flesh of her hip as he trailed them down the slope of her waist and up along her rib cage. She sucked in a breath as his finger brushed her breast. She took in the freshly showered scent of him. His hair would still be wet and dark against the warm brown of his skin.

  As he lay down on the bed, he encircled her with his arms and drew her back against him.

  She smiled, a soft chuckle escaping her throat as she realized he was wonderfully naked.

  “I missed you,” he whispered at her ear, his breath tickling her ear.

  “Hmm,” she said, leaning back against him.

  “You are so beautiful, McCall.”

  She closed her eyes. In Luke’s arms, she felt beautiful. Felt as if this was where she had always been meant to be. She’d never understood her mother’s elusive quest for true love until this moment.

  Lying in her lover’s arms, McCall understood what it meant to love with such passion that you felt you would die without this man. That you would do anything to be with him.

  Luke Crawford had ignited that kind of passion in her. For years he had stayed like a brand on her skin. She knew that no matter how this ended, she would always ache for only him. No other man would ever be able to satisfy this need.

  They had talked and made love late into the night, skirting around the issue of their families and the past, except for confessions that they’d never gotten over each other.

  Neither talked of the future, both of them no doubt fearful that this was too fragile. McCall was afraid of spoiling this moment if it was all they had. They had both let lies keep them apart all these years. Lies and fear that they were too young to know real love. Too young to be as serious as they’d been.

  Would they have made it together had Eugene not started the rumor? They would never know.

  McCall had told him why she hadn’t dated, how she’d been afraid after him that she would be like her mother, going from one man to another, looking for that feeling that only Luke could give her.

  “I never want to let you out of my arms,” he whispered next to her ear now. “It broke my heart that you thought I could hurt you that way.”

  She nodded, surprised at her tears.

  “Oh, McCall,” Luke said, turning her around to face him. He touched his thumb pad to her cheek to wipe away an errant tear before dropping his mouth to hers. She lost herself in him just as she knew she always would.

  Luke’s cell phone rang and he pulled back to check his phone. “It’s Buzz. I’m going to have to take this,” he said as he slid out of bed, pulled on his jeans and left the room.

  McCall lay in the bed staring up at the log ceiling. She’d heard Luke’s quick exclamation of breath before he’d left the room. Something told her he hadn’t overheard that Buzz had been arrested when he saved her from Eugene last night.

  When he came back into the room, she saw the change in him.

  “Buzz has been arrested,” he said, retrieving the rest of his clothing from where it had been dropped last night in a frenzy of passion. He looked up. “You already knew?”

  “Eugene told me. That’s why he was so angry. I thought you overheard. I’m sorry.”

  “I guess I came in late for that news,” Luke said, staring at her for a long moment. His anger had ebbed, but she could feel him pulling away. Buzz was family.

  McCall watched him finish dressing, already missing him and fearing he wouldn’t be back. They’d always loved each other, but ten years ago it hadn’t been enough. Was it now?

  “You had to have seen this coming,” she said, a plea in her voice. “The pickup was in the Crawford stock pond. Buzz had access and he knew no one would be around that place. Grant wouldn’t have arrested Buzz without sufficient evidence.”

  “Your father’s rifle was found in Buzz’s lake house,” Luke said. “What fool would keep the weapon on his premises?”

  An arrogant fool. A man who thought he was above the law. A man like Buzz Crawford. Or from what she’d learned about him, a man like Trace Winchester. Is that why Buzz had hated her father so much? Because he reminded him of himself?

  “You can’t even be sure your father had that rifle with him when he died,” Luke said. “You told me that Buzz couldn’t remember if he’d taken it.”

  Her mother had lied about seeing Trace the opening morning of antelope season. Had she lied about seeing the rifle the last time she saw Trace?

  Buzz had caught Trace poaching the day before. Maybe he had taken the rifle after all—and just not turned it in to evidence. Maybe her father had already been in the ground by the opening of antelope season.

  “It all comes down to my father’s rifle,” she said quickly. “If Buzz confiscated it, then he probably wrote it down in his logbook the day before the opening of antelope season.”

  “Do you really believe that if he’d killed your father and kept the rifle, he would have written it down?” Luke demanded.

  “Buzz is arrogant enough he might have. But at least you will know if he was in the area of the ridge that day.”

  “Anyone could have put that rifle in Buzz’s lake house. Everyone knew he never locked his front door.”

  Another example of Buzz’s arrogance. He was daring someone to steal from him.

  “Not anyone could have put the rifle in his house,” she argued. “Only the person who took it from my father. Come on, Luke,” she said, needing him on
her side. “You’re afraid your uncle is guilty and worried what he’ll do now that it’s all coming out.”

  His gaze softened. “I’m just trying to make sense out of all this.” He stepped over to the bed. She felt her heart break at the thought that even now their families could come between them.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, he drew her to him, holding her tight. “I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ll call you later?” He brushed a kiss over her lips, then his gaze met hers and held it and she saw the longing, the regret, the same fears she was feeling, before he turned and left.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Luke was allowed to go back to Buzz’s cell rather than speak to him via the phones through the thick plastic partition.

  He knew that it was because he was a game warden with the same training as any other law enforcement officer, but also because a lot of people still looked up to Buzz and his legacy.

  Whitehorse was a small town where some loyalties never died. Just as grudges and slights never did.

  “It’s about damned time,” Buzz said through the bars as Luke walked down the short hall to his cell. “I’ve been here all night. The sheriff was waiting for me the moment Eugene and I got back from Billings. I’ve been trying to call you for hours.”

  Luke had turned off his phone when he was with McCall and had forgotten to turn it back on until this morning. “You could have called Eugene.”

  “Don’t get smart with me,” his uncle snapped.

  Right, this was about bailing him out, and Eugene wouldn’t be able to raise the money.

  “Why would the sheriff arrest you?” he asked, remembering what McCall had said about sufficient evidence.

  “That bastard sheriff thinks I killed Trace Winchester.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  Buzz slashed a hand through the air in frustration. “McCall Winchester framed me. Why the hell do you think?”

  Luke stared at his uncle, remembering back in high school when Buzz had found out that Luke was dating McCall Winchester. Eugene, no doubt, had told him. Eugene had probably been spying on him the whole time.

  Buzz had gone ballistic. “I won’t have you dating Ruby Winchester’s daughter.” It still made no sense, this hatred of the Winchester’s over some land decades ago. Even back then, Luke had felt as if this animosity was more personal.

  “How could she frame you?” Luke asked with a sigh.

  “It was her father’s rifle. One day she asks me what happened to the rifle, as if I can remember that long ago, and the next the sheriff shows up at my door with a search warrant and, big surprise, finds Trace Winchester’s rifle hidden in my house. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.”

  The only way Buzz could have had the rifle was if he took it from Trace Winchester. Either confiscated it when he wrote him up for poaching. Or took it when he killed him on that ridge.

  Buzz was a lot of things, but Luke refused to believe his uncle was a killer.

  “How would McCall have gotten the rifle?” Luke asked.

  “From her mother—the person who killed Trace Winchester,” Buzz said with such venom that Luke was taken aback. “She’s behind all this, just getting her daughter to do her dirty work.”

  Luke could see that his uncle needed him to believe this. There was only one thing Luke was certain of: McCall hadn’t put the rifle in Buzz’s house.

  “I know that look,” Buzz said with a curse. “That woman’s turned your head around. You’ve always had a weakness for the little chippie.”

  “Don’t call her that.”

  “I just told you that she and her mother framed me and you’re defending her?”

  “And I’m telling you I don’t believe it. If you locked your house—”

  His uncle swore. “Just get me out of here.”

  “When’s the bail hearing?” he asked, knowing what it would take to get his uncle out on a murder charge. Luke would have to put up his property, that’s if the judge allowed bail at all.

  “The hearing’s this morning. Make sure I don’t spend another night in jail, you hear? You owe me that.”

  Luke looked at the man who’d raised him, reminded himself of the sacrifices Buzz had made over the years and bit back a reply he knew he would regret.

  “Just a minute,” Buzz said as Luke started to leave. “The other day on the phone on my way to Billings…Why were you asking about my old pickup?”

  “Someone’s been using it for poaching deer along the Milk.”

  Buzz swore, but it didn’t have his usual intensity. Nor did he seem as shocked and angry by the news as Luke had thought he would be.

  He felt dread settle deeper in his gut. “Is there anything you want to tell me before I see about getting you out of here?”

  “Are you asking me if I’m poaching deer or if I killed Trace Winchester?” Buzz demanded, then slammed his palms against the bars, before turning his back to Luke. “Just get me out of here.”

  MCCALL SHOWERED AND DRESSED after Luke left, feeling bereft and edgy. She thought of their lovemaking and ached to be back in his arms. She’d once thought she couldn’t live without him. She’d been seventeen then. The ten years apart had been hell.

  But this was worse. Last night proved how they felt about each other. They were in love, had been for years. They’d come together again in the most intimate of ways, the passion blinding, the aching need to be together almost more than either of them could stand. Nothing should have been able to drive them apart.

  But it had.

  She’d seen how torn Luke had been between his loyalty to the uncle who’d raised him and the woman he loved. Before, his cousin had come between them. Now it was his uncle.

  Whatever the old feud between the two families, it was still going strong. Why couldn’t Luke see that his uncle was guilty? Because he was too close to it.

  Or was she the one who was too close to see the truth?

  McCall shook her head. All the evidence pointed to Buzz. He was the one who’d caught Trace poaching, and yet as much as he’d harassed her father, Buzz had sworn he hadn’t taken the rifle. A red flag.

  Then finding the pickup in the Crawford stock pond. Buzz would have known that the place was vacant, no one around for miles to see him get rid of the truck and hike back to the ridge. The walk back to his own vehicle wouldn’t have been that tough for a man who walked hundreds of miles a year as a game warden.

  Finding the rifle at his house was just the icing on the cake. The only other evidence that could put the nail in Buzz Crawford’s coffin was the pages from his daily log for the days in question.

  Would the sheriff have thought to check them?

  She couldn’t depend on Luke to help her now, she realized. When it came to loyalties, blood was always thicker than water. Luke would stand by his uncle.

  When her cell phone rang, McCall hoped it was Luke. It wasn’t. Nor was it her mother, who would have been her second guess. Ruby would be furious that McCall hadn’t called to give her the news before everyone else in town heard about Buzz’s arrest.

  To McCall’s surprise, it was her grandmother.

  “I need to see you,” Pepper Winchester said. “Can you come out here now?”

  “Only if you promise not to call the sheriff this time.”

  A slight hesitation, then, “I apologize for that. I would appreciate it if you would drive out to the ranch. It’s important or I wouldn’t ask. I will have Enid make us lunch.”

  “You sure she won’t try to poison me?” McCall asked, only half joking.

  “We could make her taste it, if you like.” Pepper sounded serious.

  She tried not to take this invitation for more than it was. Her mother was right: she would be a fool to think that anything had changed with her grandmother. Pepper wanted something from her. The only question was what?

  But going out to her grandmother’s for lunch was better than sitting around hoping Luke would come back.

  “Okay. I�
��ll see you soon.”

  McCall couldn’t help being anxious though as she drove out to the Winchester Ranch. Another spring thunderstorm had blown in and she had to shift into four-wheel drive to get down the muddy road.

  She worried about ending up in a ditch again, only this time no Luke to save her since she hadn’t thought to tell anyone where she’d gone.

  Just the thought of Luke made her want to cry. She felt strung too tight and knew she couldn’t trust her emotions.

  She was tired, drained emotionally, physically and mentally. Of course she would feel this way after finding out that her father had been murdered.

  That was what made her feel vulnerable and scared. Not falling for Luke all over again. She hated feeling this way. Why had she opened herself up to this again?

  She knew that since finding her father’s grave and realizing he’d been murdered, it hadn’t really sunk in. She’d put the pieces together, found the pickup, and everything had quickly—too quickly—fallen into place after that because of the rifle. Because Buzz didn’t have the sense to dump it.

  Criminals were notoriously stupid. It was why so many of them got caught. Why crime didn’t pay.

  She realized what was bothering her. She didn’t know why Buzz had killed her father. Blackmail? Blackmailers tended to get killed for obvious reasons—death being the only way to keep the bloodsucking leeches off you permanently.

  What had Buzz done that Trace Winchester had found out about?

  Or maybe it hadn’t been blackmail. Maybe Buzz had just lost his temper with Trace. Clearly, from all the tickets he’d written Trace, he had it in for him. So who knew what had happened on that ridge.

  As McCall pulled up in front of the Winchester Ranch lodge, the old blue heeler came out to growl and a curtain moved behind a window at the end of one wing.

  McCall got out and, again keeping an eye on the dog, went to the door and knocked.

  This time it was her grandmother who answered. Her long thick hair was freshly plaited. She wore black just as she had on the first visit, but she’d added a beautiful gold link necklace.