Christmas Rescue at Mustang Ridge

by Delores Fossen

  Flop two, over hard. Smeared raft on the side.

  Or in nondiner lingo: fried eggs and buttered toast.

  The lingo was all mixed up in her head now. Mixed up with things like Herman’s butt pinch and the squirrel-brown uniform she wore five days a week. Sometimes six. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t good. But Maggie didn’t fight it.

  She hadn’t fought it or anything else in a long time.

  “Top off my coffee, darlin’,” Herman drawled, and added a wink. Flirting with her.

  Didn’t the man realize he was old enough to be her father? Her boss, Gene Dayton, sure did. Gene was busy frying more eggs and sausages on the grill, but even through the haze of griddle smoke and grease splattering, Gene still managed to give Herman a look that could have frozen the hottest part of Hades.

  Later, Gene would lecture her about letting men like Herman run roughshod over her.

  And he’d actually use the word roughshod.

  She’d nod, pretend to agree. Pretend that it mattered. Because it was easier than explaining why she wasn’t looking for a fight. Not with Herman. Not with Gene.

  Especially not with herself.

  She reached across the tiled counter for the coffeepot. The tile was a dingy yellow now with even dingier hairline cracks running through it. Still, it was clean. Maggie should know since she’d been the one to clean it. It was the part of her job she liked best.

  The only part, she amended.

  The bell jingled over the door as she was topping off Herman’s coffee. Maggie looked at the wall clock, not the glass door. Ten twenty-three. The bell ringer would be Ted Halvert, owner of the town’s newspaper, the Coopersville Crier.

  Ted was a few minutes early, but he was the only customer Maggie was expecting this time of day. For most people, it was already too late for breakfast, too early for lunch, and the Tip Top didn’t have enough ambience for people to drop by for just coffee or conversation.

  “Got your table ready, Ted.” Maggie leaned back over the counter to set down the coffeepot, turned to give Ted the smile he would expect.

  The smile froze on her face.

  And the pot slammed on the dingy tile that she’d just cleaned.

  The sound of the breaking glass registered in Maggie’s mind, but something else took over. Another set of lingo. A different set of rules.

  She reached for a gun that she no longer wore.

  Her riffling hand slid right across the shoulder holster that wasn’t there, either.

  “Megan?” Gene called out. “You okay?”

  It was her name now. Megan Greer. Her “relocation” name that had become second nature like cleaning and fake smiles, but Maggie couldn’t process it or Gene’s question.

  Her breath stalled in her lungs. The blood rushed to her head. And everything she’d put behind her, everything she’d tried to choke down in a deep dark place, all of it came crashing back.

  Because of Sheriff Jake McCall.

  It was him all right. All six feet, three inches of him. Standing there in the tinsel-decorated doorway of the Tip Top, glaring at her from the brim of a black Stetson. Beneath his buckskin shearling coat, Maggie saw the shoulder holster.

  A real one.

  And Jake’s hand was on the butt of that real Colt .45.

  “Are you here to finish things?” Maggie whispered. Not much sound in her voice, and everything inside her began to fall apart.

  Unlike Jake.

  He stood there, unmoving and unruffled, those Winchester-blue eyes drilling holes in her. Now, here was a man who could ride roughshod over her.

  And she would deserve it.

  “Megan?” Gene called out again.

  Everyone had their eyes trained on Jake and her, and even though Maggie’s eyes were on Jake, she knew Herman was already putting his hand on the little Smith & Wesson he carried in the slide holster in the back of his jeans.

  And he’d draw it.

  Gene, too.

  Even though Jake looked, smelled and acted like a cowboy cop, his mute reaction, the outlaw stubble and narrowed bloodshot eyes would alarm everyone. It wouldn’t be long before Gene pulled the Saturday night special he kept by the cash register. He didn’t know how to use it, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying to protect her.

  Maggie had to do something to defuse the situation, or soon bullets might start flying.

  “I’m okay,” Maggie gutted out. She forced a smile. God, that was hard because her jaw muscles had frozen. “This is an old friend.”

  That was hard, too. And it lit a bad angry fire in Jake’s eyes. Because they weren’t friends any longer. And there was little chance of her ever making it happen again.

  Especially since he’d likely snapped and come here to kill her.

  She’d had nightmares about it, of course, but hadn’t thought it would actually come down to it. Jake wasn’t the sort to take the law into his own hands. He definitely wasn’t a killer, but after what’d happened to Anna—her sister—Maggie wasn’t sure what sort of man he was these days.

  Maggie peeled off her apron, hoping no one noticed that her hands were shaking like crazy, and she grabbed her coat from the wooden peg on the back wall. She tossed the apron on the hook, missed but didn’t pick it up. Too many steps to process and there were more important steps now.

  “I’m going on my break,” she called out to Gene, and didn’t wait for him to challenge that. “Let’s take this outside,” Maggie added in a whisper meant only for Jake’s ears.

  Since she wasn’t sure Jake would go for her suggestion, she risked hooking her arm through his. He wasn’t shaking like her, but he was cold, making her wonder how long he’d stood out there watching her.

  Plotting and planning what he wanted to do to her.

  The question was—would Maggie let him do those things?

  Possibly.

  Jake wasn’t the only wounded soul who was sick and tired of dealing with the aftermath of what had once been a life.

  A blast of icy air slammed into her when she opened the door, and the silver-colored bells on the tacky plastic holly wreath jangled and jumped. Maggie said a quick prayer that Jake would budge, and she cursed herself for not having prayed sooner. Because it worked.

  Jake budged.

  And he walked out into the bitter cold with her.

  “This way,” he growled, and he took the lead, heading toward the parking lot. No snow, but the steely clouds overhead looked threatening.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled. They passed Ted, who was heading into the diner for his usual late breakfast. “There are a lot of good people inside. I didn’t want them hurt.”

  “My fight’s not with them,” Jake mumbled back.

  Maggie would have had to be deaf or unconscious not to react to that. Or to Jake himself. Her former brother-in-law was a formidable man and had a way of taking over a room just by stepping into it. Tall, dark and intimidating.

  Once, she’d been crazy in love with him.

  Well, maybe not in love exactly.

  In lust with him for sure, as every Mustang Ridge female over the age of thirteen had been. Her sister had once said that Jake could stop a man’s heart in midbeat. Or send a woman’s heart racing.

  Maggie had experienced both at one time or another.

  She remembered their one and only kiss. She could still taste him, could still feel his rough cowboy hands and mouth on her.

  Something Jake had warned her to forget.

  Right.

  She hadn’t had much luck with that.

  And he’d dismissed the kiss and the body contact against the barn wall as part of the grief of recently losing his wife. Maggie had dismissed it, too. Then, they’d learned Anna’s death was Maggie’s fault, in part anyway, and the dismissing turned to rage for Jake.

  The rage was still there.

  She could feel it as strongly as she could feel the kiss that she was supposed to forget.

  “How’d you find me?” she asked.

&
nbsp; His arm tensed, and he slung off her grip as if she’d scalded him. Or maybe he just remembered how much it disgusted him to touch her.

  Or answer her.

  Because Jake ignored her question.

  He reached in his pocket and used his keypad to unlock the doors of a dark blue F-150 truck. He put her in first, practically shoving her into the passenger’s seat. Jake didn’t even glance at her as he walked in front of the truck so he could climb behind the wheel. He probably figured she wasn’t going to run, especially since she’d coaxed him out of the diner.

  “You’re going to shoot me in your truck?” she asked, glancing at the pristine exterior. “It’d be a heck of a mess to clean up.”

  She was pleased and surprised that it sounded smart-mouthed. Better than letting him know she was so scared that she was about to lose her breakfast.

  Something else that’d need cleaning.

  The image of that hit Maggie the wrong way, and a short burst of air left her mouth. Definitely not a laugh. All nerves. And then the stupid tears came, burning her eyes and forcing her to choke them back.

  “You couldn’t hate me any more than I hate myself,” Maggie said, and she swiped away a tear.

  Now, she got him looking at her. Jake turned those lethal cop’s eyes on her. “Don’t bet on that.”

  The answer was actually a relief. Old lingo kicked in. Old training, too. If she could get him talking, maybe she could...what?

  Talk him out of this?

  Calm him down?

  Make him see it was a mistake to come here?

  Maggie wasn’t sure that was the fair thing to do. Or if she could do it at all. Once upon a time she’d thought she could do anything.

  She’d been stupid.

  And now that stupidity was catching up with her. She could only shrug at that and concede that she was due. For two years, eight months and six days, she’d been living on borrowed time and mercy.

  Maggie looked at him. Looked outside. Waited. And felt the goose bumps riffle over her entire body. Sweet heaven. Her coat wasn’t thick enough, but she pulled the sides together, hunched her shoulders.

  “How’s Sunny?” she risked asking.

  And she braced herself for him to reach for his gun. Right before his father, Chet, had run her out of Mustang Ridge, Jake warned her never to say his daughter’s name. That was a McCall thing. If you crossed them—Jake’s siblings or Chet—your name was mud.

  Hers was something lower than mud.

  Of course, Jake didn’t answer her. He wouldn’t give her that much, and if their situations had been reversed, Maggie probably wouldn’t have, either.

  “So, what? We just sit here mute as monkeys and freeze to death?” she asked. Her voice was quivering now, and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep up this act of someone who wasn’t about to go nuts. “At least it wouldn’t require much cleanup.”

  That deepened his scowl. “I figured you’d be working as a cop.”

  “No.” And that’s all Maggie could manage for several seconds. “I gave up my badge and went with another career choice.”

  He looked at the peeling painted sign on the side of the building. “Waitress at the Tip Top Diner.”

  Ah, two could go in the smart-mouthed direction.

  “Fewer things to screw up at a diner,” she settled for saying.

  Jake’s forehead bunched up, and he nodded. Just nodded.

  It hit her then. Maybe he wasn’t there to kill her after all. Maybe he’d come to warn her, though she couldn’t think of a good reason why he’d be the one to do that.

  “Has my identity been compromised?” She couldn’t get the question out fast enough, and Maggie fired glances all around. The next question, however, didn’t come easily. “Does Tanner know where I am?”

  Bruce Tanner. The man who’d hired someone to gun down her sister to get back at Maggie for conducting an investigation into his multiple wrongdoings. He was in jail on death row now, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find a way to kill her.

  Get in line.

  A lot of people wanted her dead.

  “Tanner doesn’t know,” Jake said. “At least I don’t think he does.” With his hands bracketed on the steering wheel, Jake turned his head and nailed his gaze to hers. “I’m here to take you back to Mustang Ridge.”

  Maggie had anticipated Jake saying a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them. “Wh-what?”

  “Mustang Ridge,” Jake said as if that clarified everything. He started the engine and probably would have driven away if Maggie hadn’t latched on to his wrist.

  “You can’t take me back there, Jake. It’s too dangerous.”

  He looked at her as if she’d spouted a third eye. “You thought I’d come here to kill you, remember?”

  “Yeah, but in hot blood. As in the emotion had taken over so that you weren’t thinking straight. Taking me back to the one place where someone will see me and tell Tanner is premeditation—”

  “I don’t want to harm you.” Jake cursed. “I don’t want to harm you today,” he quickly amended.

  She wasn’t sure she believed that, and Jake had good reason to want to do her harm. If Maggie could go back to three years ago, she would have never started that investigation into Bruce Tanner, the rancher who was as corrupt as he was rich and powerful. But Maggie had been eager for justice. Equally eager to make a name for herself in the Amarillo P.D. She’d wanted to bring Tanner down.

  And she had succeeded in part.

  Maggie had found the evidence necessary to arrest him for money laundering through real estate deals, and in retaliation, Tanner had hired someone to shoot and kill Anna in what was supposed to look like a foiled robbery attempt at a store where she’d been shopping.

  Yes, eventually Maggie and her fellow officers had managed to pin the murder on Tanner and had put him on death row, but it hadn’t brought back her sister. It hadn’t eased Jake’s hatred of her.

  And it hadn’t eased her hatred of herself.

  “If you’re not taking me to Tanner,” she asked, “then where are you taking me?”

  “To the hospital for some tests. After that, I’ll let you go.”

  The hospital? “But I’m not sick.”

  Maggie stopped. What the heck would make Jake McCall come all this way to take her to Mustang Ridge for some tests?

  There was only one thing.

  Sunny.

  She reached across the seat and gripped on to his jacket, wadding up the fabric in her fists. “What’s wrong? What happened to my niece?”

  Maggie would have added more questions, but the sound of the sirens stopped her cold. It wasn’t a sound she heard often in Coopersville.

  The sirens didn’t stop Jake, however. He threw the truck into gear.

  “Put your seat belt on,” Jake growled.

  And that was the only warning Maggie got before Jake gunned the engine, and the truck barreled out of the parking lot.

  Chapter Three

  Jake tried not to react to the sirens wailing behind him. And he reminded himself that the local cops probably wouldn’t be after him yet.

  Probably.

  But even if they were, he still had to get Maggie out of there.

  “You’ve lost your mind,” Maggie concluded.

  She put on her seat belt as he’d ordered, though Jake wasn’t sure how she managed it with her hands shaking that hard. She was chewing on her bottom lip, too, and there wasn’t much color in her face.

  He hadn’t wanted to scare her.

  Okay, maybe he had.

  Fear was better than other things she could have chosen to do.

  Like fight back.

  Maggie had once been an Amarillo city cop with a good aim and a kick-butt attitude, and Jake had been surprised when she hadn’t pulled a gun on him and tried to defend herself. But no. She’d confused things even more by going with him and poking fun at the fact that this could have been her last few moments on earth.

  S
he pushed her dark blond hair from her face, looked over her shoulder and no doubt saw the Coopersville police cruiser behind them. Not close.

  And it wasn’t exactly following them.

  The cruiser pulled into the parking lot of the diner, and Jake kept going. He had to get out of there before the local sheriff realized that Maggie was gone.

  “Are you planning to let me in on what’s going on?” Maggie asked.

  Not really. But he needed her cooperation and that meant he had to tell her at least some of the truth. It was a gamble, but Jake was feeling a little better about his chances since Maggie had already asked about Sunny. Maybe that meant she hadn’t written off her niece.

  Maybe that also meant she’d help with Jake’s plan.

  “Should I be screaming and trying to flag down Sheriff Myers?” she pushed.

  Oh, yeah. She probably should, but Jake kept that to himself. “I hacked into the Justice Department database to find you.”

  “What?” She made a sound of pure outrage. “Why would you do something stupid like that? You know what could happen to me.”

  She stopped.

  “Oh, I get it.” Maggie huffed. “This is some kind of death by proxy thing. You lead one of Tanner’s goons to me so he can kill me. Yeah, you’ll lose your badge for hacking into the database. Maybe even spend some time in jail or on probation. But you’ll have your McCall justice, and I’ll be dead.”

  None of that was true. But he was glad Chet hadn’t thought of it. Jake didn’t think even his father would stoop that low, but with Chet, you never knew.

  Jake turned onto a back road before he continued. “Sunny’s sick.”

  Maggie froze and studied him a moment. “What’s wrong with her?” Her voice was tentative. As if she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  Jake had practiced this part so it would sound sterile. “Aplastic anemia. Her bone marrow isn’t producing enough new cells to keep her alive.”

  “Oh, God.” And Maggie repeated it until it strung together like one syllable.

  Jake gave her some time to try to absorb that. He wished her luck with it. He’d had several months now and was still trying to absorb it. It didn’t make sense that his baby girl would have to fight for her life this way.