Lost Christmas Memories

by Dana Mentink

This time it had cost him his heart.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Her grandfather mercifully had not pushed her to talk, though she knew he had overheard it all.

  I will hang around Tracy forever if it means I can prove Bryce Larraby guilty.

  It felt as if she’d been stomach punched.

  You’re so clueless, Tracy, letting yourself fall in love with a man who was using you the whole time.

  After a long, sleepless night, she let herself outside and fed, groomed and spent time with Buttons and Ducky, their playful antics lightening her mood until the hurt crept in again.

  She considered her life that had cartwheeled anew when she’d realized she’d fallen in love with a man who was using her. Frost clung to the tall grasses, sparkling on the roofs of the ramshackle cabins she’d planned to turn into a family camp. Would she be able to stay on her property? So close to the Thorn family? Even thinking of Keegan carved an aching path inside that her furry buddies could not dispel.

  She finally went in and found her grandfather overcooking some eggs until they were beyond salvageable.

  She tried to eat them anyway, picked at the rubbery whites until he sat beside her at the table and cleared his throat. “You know I’ve never been so good at the touchy-feely stuff.”

  She smiled and forced down a lump in her throat. “You don’t have to say anything, Grandpa. You were right. I should have listened. He was just using me to get back at his father.”

  He patted her hand. “Aw, I think maybe you were a little bit right, too. I figure Keegan’s a good man, but he’s got too many burdens to give you what you deserve.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  “And you deserve the best man this world can muster up, Honeybunch.”

  Now her tears fell because he sounded so much like her father that it almost wrecked her. “I’m glad I have you, Grandpa,” she whispered.

  “You got an old, cranky codger and I got a sweet, beautiful, bighearted lady, so I’m thinking I got the best out of that deal.”

  Nestling up next to him, she let the tears flow in earnest, comforted by the feel of his scratchy flannel shirt. When there were no more tears left in her, she cleaned up the dishes while her grandfather took Cyclone outside.

  “Gonna scope out which trees we can take down.”

  “But you’re not actually going to tackle that until your ankle’s better, right?”

  “Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna chop nothing today, but it don’t hurt to start planning. We got a camp to build, don’t we?”

  She swallowed past the lump of pain in her throat and offered him a smile. “Yes, we do, just the two of us.”

  He nodded and walked outside.

  She sank onto the sofa and checked her phone. There were three texts from Keegan.

  Tracy, I’m sorry.

  Please forgive me.

  I have to talk to you.

  There would be no talking. She would likely be able to forgive him someday. The passing of time had a way of blunting resentment, dulling it into something less sharp. It only worked if you didn’t keep sharpening the edges of those resentments, cutting and honing over the years until the burdens sliced away at the tender connections inside.

  Keegan’s anger at Bryce was deadly sharp. She prayed that on some future day, with some other woman, he could finally share his burden. But it wouldn’t be with her.

  She deleted the texts, closed her eyes and willed herself to focus on the quiet, unobtrusive life she’d meant to live before she’d met the rebellious Keegan Thorn. A buzz from her phone broke her concentration. This time the text was not from Keegan.

  I have to meet you.

  Who is this? she typed back.

  Regina

  She started. Regina? She wondered at first how the woman had gotten her cell phone number, but it would not have been much of a task. All of the auction documents listed her number, since her phone was her primary means of contact with clients.

  I have to talk to you, to meet you.

  What about?

  I know the truth about what happened to Nan.

  Tracy’s mouth went dry.

  I’m sorry, but how do I know this is Regina texting me?

  She waited for a moment. Then a picture appeared on her phone. It was a selfie of Regina, her face pale and grave. The next photo was a screen shot of the time and date.

  Tracy forced a calming breath.

  Tell me what you know.

  I have to say it in person. I’ll meet you at the old barn in Copper Creek tonight at seven.

  No. I’m not going to do that.

  Please. Bring whoever you want, Keegan, his brothers, I don’t care. Just no cops. I’m scared. Leaving tonight right after I talk to you. If you want to know what happened to Nan, it’s your only chance.

  Tell me now, Tracy tried again. Who killed Nan? Where is her body?

  There were no further texts.

  Tracy stared at the phone clutched in her ice-cold fingers. The whole thing had trap written all over it, but the lure was so enticing she could not resist thinking it through. If she did not meet Regina, she might never know what had happened to Nan. The rest of her life would be spent with an eye over her shoulder, wondering if the killer was watching, waiting for her memories to return. Unless, of course, the killer was Regina herself.

  She walked to the window. Buttons and Ducky cropped grass, tails swishing. Across the pasture she saw Grandpa gazing up at the trees, Cyclone close by, pawing at the tall bushes.

  The dream of their campground was all she had left, and what stood between her and realizing it was the truth, buried somewhere deep in her memory.

  Tracy knew what she had to do.

  She would meet Regina.

  But she wouldn’t do it alone.

  And she’d make certain Keegan wasn’t aware of her plan. Whatever they’d had was over.

  Time to let go of Keegan Thorn, Tracy.

  * * *

  Keegan worked Outlaw again in the western pasture, and the horse responded brilliantly as ever, but Keegan’s heart wasn’t in it. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to participate in the Friday competition anymore. All he could think about was Tracy and his colossal stupidity.

  When he shut the gate behind him and returned to the house, he glanced over at the barn, which was almost ready for Jack’s and Owen’s weddings. The big doors were slid open. The bows tacked to the benches he and his brothers had crafted were made of something called tulle, his mother had informed him. They fluttered in the cold wind as Ella worked, fastening sprigs of holly handed to her by her sister, Betsy, from the basket on her lap.

  A double wedding in a matter of days, he mused. It had been a long time coming. Love hadn’t been easy for any of his brothers to find, yet find it they had.

  And Keegan had, too. That realization had hit him like a hammer blow between the eyes there on Tracy’s doorstep. He’d known he’d admired Tracy, enjoyed her, respected and marveled at her, but he had not realized he loved her, not until the moment he’d buried a knife in her heart and his. He’d been so stupid, so blind; he’d let his past get in the way of his present, just like his brother Jack had said. Pain riveted him to the spot, left him hollow-eyed and staring.

  Ella looked up from her work. “Hey, Keeg,” she said. “We’re going to see the new baby in a few minutes. Want to come?”

  “I’ll be along in a while,” he said, forcing some cheer into his voice. “I hear she’s a big one.”

  “Nine pounds, with an awesome head of hair.”

  He smiled. “Barrett must be over the moon. Everybody over at the hospital?”

  “Just your folks right now.”

  “Where are Owen and Jack?”

  Ella frowned. “Good question. They got a phone call from John, I think. Went on some mysterious
mission.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know, but they took the horses.” A flicker of concern crossed her face. “And their rifles. They said something about a mountain lion in the area, but I’m not sure that was the complete truth. Owen sometimes dispenses information on what he feels is a need-to-know basis if he thinks I’ll worry.”

  “Thanks, Ella. See you later.”

  Hurriedly, he unsaddled Outlaw, rubbed him down and set him loose, before he dialed Jack. No answer, so he tried Owen. Nothing. No reply to texts, either.

  Now his blood was ticking faster as he put in a call to John and got his voice mail. He took the truck to town and pulled in at Sunrise Café. No sign of his half brother inside, or any of his cops, so Keegan headed on foot up a block to the police station.

  “Chief Larraby isn’t here,” the receptionist told him.

  “Where is he?”

  Her forehead creased. “Somewhere else,” she answered crisply.

  He wasn’t going to get anything more from her. Striding toward the exit, he passed an officer sipping coffee from a chipped mug. The cop’s radio squawked. Keegan did not hear the message, but he heard the cop’s reply.

  “Old barn. Got it. I’ll watch your six, but stay back on the logging road until your signal. En route.”

  The officer dumped his coffee with a sigh and hustled out the front door.

  Old barn. Logging road.

  Keegan knew where it was and his nerves knotted. Furthermore, he knew the easiest way to access the barn if you didn’t want to be seen was on horseback, which was what he’d suspected Owen and Jack had done.

  John, Owen, Jack. They’d only be working together for one reason.

  Tracy.

  He sprinted out of the police station and ran back to the café. He’d grabbed the truck’s door handle before he noticed the flat tire. And then the other. All four, slashed and useless. Had to be courtesy of Sonny B. Keegan slammed a fist against the door.

  He had to get to the barn. His gut told him Tracy was there, and no matter how much backup John had arranged, she was walking into a deadly situation.

  A battered truck approached and idled at the curb, engine coughing and sputtering.

  Tracy’s grandpa jutted his chin at him. “More trouble, I see. Follows you everywhere.”

  “I’ve got to get to the old barn in Copper Creek.”

  Stew lifted an eyebrow. “Tracy arranged some sort of meet-up, didn’t she? I gathered as much, but she wouldn’t tell me the particulars. Overheard her talking to the cop on the phone.”

  Keegan grabbed the door. “Mr. Wilson, I need to get to her. She’s walking into a trap.”

  “Cops are there.”

  “Cops have to follow rules. I don’t. I’m a troublemaker, just like you said, and this isn’t a ‘by the book’ scenario.”

  He glared. “She don’t want your help, after what you said. It cut her to the bone.”

  Keegan let out a long, slow breath. “I don’t deserve her, but I can’t let her get hurt.” He held his breath while the man scrutinized him.

  “You know I don’t like you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I’d give you the what for if I was a few years younger.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  One moment ticked into two. Keegan was ready to explode when Stew Wilson stabbed a finger to the passenger seat. “Get in.”

  Keegan raced to the door and leaped in.

  “Don’t think this means I am doing you any favors. Only reason I’m taking you is I want my granddaughter safe.”

  “I understand, sir,” Keegan said, wishing he could take the wheel and floor the accelerator. Instead he shut his mouth, strapped in and prayed it was not too late to save the woman he’d loved and lost.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Tracy knew Owen and Jack were somewhere in the dense foliage outside the decrepit barn. It comforted her, as well as the fact that John was stationed farther away, watching through binoculars, listening through the earpiece via the device taped to her stomach. Even so, her body felt rubbery, chilled, as she approached the barn.

  It was almost sunset and the waning light left the interior in purple shadow. The place smelled of damp hay, rotting wood and an old aroma of livestock. Rusted equipment lay in piles, along with broken crates and mounds of pine needles that had drifted in through holes in the roof.

  Tracy licked her dry lips. “Regina? Are you here?”

  A scraping noise made her breath catch as Regina stepped out from behind an overturned tractor. Her hands clutched a roll of papers, her mouth screwed up tight. There might have been a trace of tears on her face, but Tracy could not be sure in the poor light.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “Don’t trust me?”

  “No,” Tracy said.

  “I’m not the one you should look out for.” She blew out a breath and Tracy braced herself for whatever she might hear.

  “It was Mitch,” Regina said, eyes glittering. “He killed Nan. I suspected for a while, but I didn’t want to admit it. Now I know.”

  Tracy’s hands were tight fists. “How? How do you know?”

  She stared at her feet. “He was supposed to marry me.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” She knew what heartbreak felt like, too, but it was not the time to commiserate.

  “I began to have suspicions that Mitch was seeing someone else. I talked to Bryce about it. He told me I was being silly, but I think all along he knew Mitch was not being honest. I...I couldn’t shake the feeling, so I snooped in Mitch’s papers, the ones he keeps in the locked file cabinet in his garage. I found this.” She thrust a photo at Tracy. She could barely make out a woman, attractive, older than Regina.

  “Look at the earrings.”

  Tracy peered close. “They’re the same ones you have.”

  “Yeah, they belong to her, Marsha Arnold. His wife.” The words fell like stones. “They aren’t divorced like he told me. He’s been lying, and even had the nerve to give me her earrings.” Her tone was pure acid. “I hate him, and I hate myself for being so dumb.”

  “Oh, Regina,” Tracy said. “He’s a two-timing jerk, for sure, but that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  “This does.” She thrust a roll of papers at Tracy. “I found these, too. I think he meant to burn them but he hadn’t done it yet, or maybe he kept them out of pride, to show how he’d taught Nan a lesson.”

  Tracy unrolled the papers. “Animal blood tests?”

  “Yeah. Mitch has been giving his bulls steroids.”

  Tracy gaped. “To make them meaner?”

  “Bigger, meaner, whatever he can do to make them champions. Nan found out. I think she confronted him with the blood tests. He killed her and shoved her body in the crate. Also, I don’t know how, but I think he let loose the bulls when you got close to finding her body, or had someone else do it.” She shook her head. “I didn’t see any of it, but I know he killed Nan.”

  A wave of nausea swept over Tracy. “No, you didn’t see it,” she whispered, “but I did.”

  Images flickered in bursts of light across her mind. The half-concealed figure, the dark eyes, the white teeth. The blurry memory resolved itself into one terrifying image...the face of Mitch Arnold.

  Tracy gulped air. “I ran and he followed. He tried to shoot me.”

  She nodded. “He keeps a gun in his truck at all times.”

  “He was at the café. He tried to kill me there, too, with chemicals. He knocked over the hay when I was seeing Flight.” She shot a look at Regina. “I thought it was you.”

  Regina’s lip trembled. “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a killer. As soon as Mitch knows I came to you, he’ll be after me, too. I have to go.”

  “No,” Tra
cy said, grabbing her wrist. “The police will need your testimony.”

  “I’m done. I’m leaving.”

  “Please...” Tracy said.

  Something clanked above their heads. She had a split second to see Mitch rising from the hayloft. With a sickening lurch, she realized he’d gotten there ahead of them, waiting to see what kind of evidence Regina had against him. Before she could react, he lobbed a metallic canister, which tumbled down, trailing a thick plume of smoke.

  * * *

  Keegan was out and running up the trail before the truck had come to a complete stop. Smoke drifted against the darkening sky. A fire? John stepped from behind his car, half concealed in the bushes. Keegan made to go around him when John’s partner grabbed Keegan and pinned his arms behind his back. Keegan fought hard, but the cop held fast.

  “She’s in trouble!” he shouted. “Let me help.”

  “We have cops moving in. Likely a smoke bomb. Looks like Mitch got here first.”

  “Tracy...”

  “You’re staying here. I’ll report when I can.”

  “Let me go with you.”

  “Not a chance.”

  And why should John give Keegan what he wanted when Keegan had maligned him at every turn? He hadn’t thought John credited anything Tracy said, but now he realized he’d been wrong, dead wrong, about many things.

  He heaved out a breath and marshaled his thoughts, readying himself to say what he thought would never pass from his own lips. “Please, John. You’re right—I wanted so bad to punish Bryce and maybe you, too, that I was a jerk. I used Tracy and I didn’t see the truth about Mitch because I was so busy looking elsewhere.” His breath caught. “And I blamed you for things that I shouldn’t have.” Panic pricked his insides. “Tracy can’t pay for my idiocy. Please, John, I know I don’t deserve your consideration, but I’m asking anyway. Please let me help you find her.”

  John looked at Keegan, expression unreadable.

  “I didn’t see it, either, about Mitch,” John said. He nodded to the other cop to let Keegan go.

  For the first time in his life, Keegan would partner with his half brother instead of battle him.