Winchester Christmas Wedding

by B. J Daniels

  “And here I thought you were so brave and courageous,” she said as she smiled over at him.

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” he asked, sounding serious. “Women scare the hell out of me. Especially ones like you.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said and popped open her door, warmed by the look in his dark eyes.

  “If things go badly in here, I’ll be hiding behind you,” he joked as they walked to the door.

  MCCALL COULDN’T BELIEVE what she was hearing. Her aunt and two uncles had started out fighting and accusing each other of being murderers.

  At first McCall had wondered if the three of them hadn’t done it together, but she quickly chucked that idea when she realized that the way they got along, they would have sold each other out a long time ago.

  “Wait a minute,” she heard Brand say. “Let me see if I have this right. You both swear you had nothing to do with Trace’s murder.”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you all along,” Virginia snapped. “And you haven’t believed me. I might have said I wish Trace had never been born once in front of Sandy when I was angry but do you really think I would have had a part in killing my own brother?”

  “She’s right,” Worth said. “We might have resented him, but I don’t think any of us would stoop to murder. What would have been the point? Trace was married to Ruby, who was expecting his kid. He’d moved off the ranch and, let’s face it, he and Mother weren’t getting along that great. So what was our motive for getting rid of him? The way it looked to me, he was already gone.”

  “Worth has a good point,” Virginia agreed. “But Mother is positive that one of us was on that ridge and that there was a witness.”

  “Janie McCormick says she was that witness,” Brand said.

  McCall shifted her position, suddenly chilled and aware that her pants were getting soaked from lying against the snowy ground.

  She heard a gasp, probably from Virginia, then a silence between the three that spoke volumes.

  “Janie has demanded that I pay her twenty-five thousand dollars or she will go to Mother and say she saw me on the ridge that day,” Brand said.

  “She came to me with the same thing,” Virginia cried.

  “Me, too,” Worth said. “I’ve been trying to raise the money even though I wasn’t on this ridge and had nothing to do with Trace’s murder. But let’s face it, if Janie told Mother it was me, what are the chances she would believe me?”

  Virginia let out a bitter laugh. “I paid the bitch for the very same reason.”

  “I told her I couldn’t raise that kind of money if my life depended on it,” Brand said, “but I just found out that she went to my boys and they were ready to pay her—not that they believed I had anything to do with their uncle’s murder. Like us, they feared I wouldn’t be believed.”

  “That conniving bitch,” Worth said. “Why would she lie?”

  “Because she saw a way to make some money,” Brand said. “Mother’s been asking everyone about who was in the room that day and what they saw. It’s not exactly a secret that she has suspected one of us. Janie decided to cash in on it knowing that with our relationships with each other and Mother, we would rather pay than try to defend ourselves.”

  “But if one of us wasn’t involved…why would someone think we were?” Virginia asked.

  “Because Trace was killed within sight of the ranch,” McCall said as she climbed up over the ridge, startling the three of them. “It comes down to why Sandy Sheridan would lure Trace here to kill him. Clearly she wanted someone at the Winchester Ranch to see it.”

  AS TD OPENED THE DOOR of the community center for Lizzy, he was glad he’d brought her along. He hadn’t let himself think about what he might learn here today. Now, though, he realized he might have been better off not knowing and just leaving this alone.

  Maybe that was what Roger Collins had been trying to tell him. Was it possible that was all Roger was trying to do—protect him? And that explained all the secrecy? But if that was true, then he really had to find out the truth because someone on the Winchester Ranch knew who he really was.

  He’d been scared plenty of times in his life, but nothing like this as the door opened on a gust of wind. A half-dozen heads turned as he and Lizzy stepped in. The women were all sitting around a quilting frame. They had stopped working, needles suspended in the air, as they looked expectantly at the pair of them.

  An elderly woman with a cane rose unsteadily from her chair and motioned for the rest of them to resume sewing. They did, and TD thought of what Enid had said about the leader of the group having almost as much power as Pepper Winchester.

  “May I help you?” she asked, her voice sounding odd, and he remembered too what Enid had said about the woman having suffered a stroke. One half of her face sagged a little and affected her speech.

  “Are you Pearl Cavanaugh?”

  “Why don’t we step through here.” She motioned to the back of the building and didn’t wait for a response.

  TD and Lizzy followed her. As they did, TD cast a sideways glance at the quilters. They appeared not to show any interest, but he suspected they would be trying to hear every word that was said.

  Pearl Cavanaugh closed the door firmly behind them, then led them through yet another door, closing it, as well.

  “Even the walls have ears,” she said with a lopsided smile.

  “Do you know why I’m here?” TD asked, feeling a little confused.

  “Actually, I’ve been expecting you,” the woman said as she motioned for them to have a seat.

  Enid had made him swear he wouldn’t mention her name, so he doubted she had called Pearl to tell her he was coming. Then who had?

  Pearl’s gaze went to Lizzy.

  “This is a friend of mine, Lizzy Calder.”

  “Yes,” the woman said, nodding in a way that made him think she had been expecting Lizzy, as well.

  “There must be some confusion.” What he was thinking was that the stroke had taken this woman’s mind with it—no matter how sharp Enid said Pearl Cavanaugh used to be.

  “You came here to find out if you were one of the children we placed,” Pearl said.

  TD realized that others must come here for the same reason. “I assume you keep records of the babies you place?”

  She gave him that lopsided smile again. “Not in the sense you mean. That would be foolish, given the way we do our adoptions, don’t you think?”

  “How can you keep track?”

  She didn’t answer, merely kept smiling.

  “Are you telling me you can remember which baby went where?”

  Pearl sighed. “The problem isn’t remembering. It’s forgetting. Nor do I like the responsibility of deciding who to tell and who not to tell when someone like you comes to me.”

  “Look, I’m not even sure I was one of your babies.”

  “Oh, you were. Whoever told you about us must have also told you that our mission is to find homes for babies with couples who desperately want a child, and, often because of their circumstances, are unable to go through regular channels. That means we have placed a lot of babies with older couples, couples who don’t meet the financial requirements of other agencies.”

  Like his parents? Or the people he thought had been his parents.

  “We try very hard to screen the couples, but every once in a while…” She met his gaze and he saw the bad news coming. “We placed you with a couple who’d been recommended to us, the Clarksons.”

  He felt his heart stop. Beside him, Lizzy tried hard not to show her surprise, but failed.

  TD realized he’d come here expecting this woman to turn him away. To tell him that he’d been given some wrong information.

  “How did you—”

  “That placement turned out to be a mistake,” Pearl said. “Those are the hardest ones to live with.”

  “The Clarksons were murdered.”

  She nodded and he felt Lizzy’s gaze shift to him. He didn’
t dare look at her for fear he would see pity in her eyes. He couldn’t bear that right now and realized he shouldn’t have brought her along. He’d just been so sure this was a wild-goose chase.

  “Do you know why?” he asked.

  Pearl shook her head. “Don’t you? Aren’t you now involved in the same line of work?”

  So he was right. They’d been with the agency and it had gotten them murdered. That explained how Roger Collins had come into his life.

  “This person who recommended the Clarksons,” TD asked, “was it Roger Collins?”

  Pearl’s expression confirmed his suspicions even though she said, “We’re not allowed to give out that information.”

  “But you do know who my birth parents are and you are going to tell me,” he said, his throat dry as cotton.

  Pearl Cavanaugh pulled back in surprise. “Don’t you already know?”

  “If I knew, then why would I come to you?” he asked, then apologized for his brusqueness.

  “It is understandable. You’re upset. Am I to understand that you didn’t know until now that you were adopted?”

  He nodded.

  Pearl seemed more than a little surprised. “I’m sorry. I just assumed when I heard you were back and staying at Winchester Ranch that your mother had told you everything.”

  He felt a chill even in the hot, small cramped room. “My mother?”

  “You really didn’t know that you’re a Winchester?”

  He stared at the woman, switching back to his original assumption that the stroke had fried her brain. Getting to his feet, he said, “This was a mistake. Obviously your memory isn’t as good as you thought.”

  Pearl merely smiled, though it seemed sad. “I wish I could tell you who your birth parents are. All I know is that you were born on the Winchester Ranch and one look at you confirms what I suspected when I first saw you as a baby. You’re a Winchester. Normally we require that the name of the mother and father of each baby be given to us, but you were a special case.”

  “How was that?” he asked, telling himself the woman was nuts but he would play along since he’d come this far.

  “The person who brought you to us was known to us and swore the mother wanted to give you up because of a hardship.”

  “And this woman who brought me to you?” he asked, fear making his throat tight.

  “Her name is Etta Mae. She’s Enid Hoagland’s sister. She’s a midwife.”

  LIZZY COULD FEEL TD’S SHOCK and disbelief. But the woman was right; he looked enough like the Winchesters to be one.

  As they left, Lizzy could tell that TD was upset. She realized he’d come here thinking Pearl Cavanaugh would tell him something different. Something much different.

  “There’s someplace I need to go,” he said as he slid behind the wheel of the pickup. “Do you mind a little side trip?”

  She shook her head as she buckled up. He didn’t say anything as he started the engine and pulled away. For a brief moment, she saw a face framed in the dusty front window of the community center. Then Pearl Cavanaugh was gone and they were driving south again, deeper into the badlands.

  What surprised her was that he seemed to know where he was going.

  She tried to piece together what she’d heard in the small room at the back of the community center. TD was a Winchester? Or at least had been born on the ranch? Clearly, he hadn’t know that.

  So who was his mother?

  Lizzy was still shocked to hear that his adoptive parents had been murdered. He’d apparently known that, though. Murdered, Pearl had said, because they were in the same business as TD? So Pearl knew that he worked for the agency.

  And why had she acted as if she’d been expecting Lizzy, as well? She knew news traveled like the wind across the prairie in these small towns. Still, it bothered her, given that both she and Waters had a tie to this area—and to Roger Collins.

  She glanced over at him, wanting to reach out to him. His head must be spinning the same way hers was. He’d apparently not even known he was adopted. He said he’d come to Montana because someone had been trying to extort money from him for information about his past. Someone at the Winchester Ranch?

  He slowed and she looked up as he turned down a road that was little more than a rough trail—it cut through rolling, snow-covered prairie studded with sagebrush.

  As he turned down the path, she saw something lying in the snow just off the road. An old mailbox. The lettering had faded until she could barely make out the name. Clarkson. She felt a chill and hugged herself as she looked ahead, half-afraid of what might be waiting for them at the end of the road.

  The pickup lurched over the bumps and dips in the road until they came over a rise and she saw what was left of a house. A lone chimney stood against the skyline, blackened as if the house had burned down.

  Lizzy shot TD a look. Is that how the Clarksons had been murdered? Where had TD been at the time? And where had he gone after that?

  He stopped the pickup, cut the engine and climbed out. Lizzy didn’t move. She sat in the pickup, watching him return to what she knew had once been his home. The home where the people he’d believed to be his parents had been killed. She couldn’t imagine what might be going through his mind.

  All she could think about was the photograph TD had brought with him of the boy and his dog. She realized that this was where the picture had been taken.

  A COLD WIND STUNG HIS FACE as TD walked along the edge of the old foundation. Clouds began to crowd the horizon, as dark as his mood. A part of him registered what was happening. The temperature was dropping. A storm was coming in.

  If they didn’t get back soon, they could get caught in it. In this part of the country, at this time of year, they could get stranded in a blizzard.

  But while the storm clouds crowded the horizon, his story here filled his thoughts, forcing out any concern over a snowstorm. He found himself reliving the past, picturing the house as it had been before that day it was devoured in flames.

  He’d hoped coming here would help him make sense of everything. They’d been in the same business he was in, Pearl Cavanaugh had said. Roger Collins would have known that. So why had Collins tried to keep him from learning about his past? What could there be in it that his boss didn’t want him to find out?

  He stood in the cold December wind, watching a storm roll across the wild prairie toward him, and realized that whatever answers there were, they weren’t here on this sad plot of land.

  The answers, if Pearl Cavanaugh was to be believed, were back at Winchester Ranch—or with the one person this always came back to: Agent Director Roger Collins.

  He figured he had a better chance at getting at the truth at the ranch.

  Lizzy was waiting for him in the pickup. He climbed in and sat for a moment before he reached for the ignition. Her hand covered his, stopping him.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin. Until a couple of days ago I believed that the Clarksons were my parents. They were older, true, they didn’t look much like me and they weren’t great parents. It’s funny, looking back I realize I didn’t know them very well.”

  “How old were you when they died?”

  “Eight. I grew up here,” he said nodding toward what was left of the house. “I used to spend hours down in the Missouri Breaks, just me and my dog.” He glanced toward the south and the broken land that eroded into more rugged badlands as it fell to the river bottom.

  He looked over at her. “I don’t know what to make of any of this. I’m not sure I believe…” He cut himself off with a laugh. “You think it’s true?”

  “That you’re a Winchester?” she asked, studying his face. She smiled. “You could definitely pass for one.”

  “I feel like someone is jerking me around. How could Pearl not know who gave birth to me that night?”

  “My guess is that they don’t ask a lot of questions, as long as they believe the person who b
rought you to them,” Lizzy said.

  “Yeah,” he said, thinking of the Winchesters’ devoted housekeeper and cook, Enid. How convenient that her sister was a midwife.

  Chapter Ten

  Enid held the phone, her hand shaking so hard she could hardly keep it against her ear. She couldn’t believe this was happening. It wasn’t possible.

  Pearl Cavanaugh’s angry voice came through the line, clear as a bell. “You sent that boy here.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was trying to understand why Pearl was so angry. The Whitehorse Sewing Circle was always interested in unwanted babies that needed a good home. Those old crones thought it was their “calling” and there were always plenty of couples who desperately wanted a baby. The only thing Enid couldn’t understand is why the old crones didn’t charge. They could have made a fortune over the years.

  “You foolish old woman,” Pearl snapped. “He didn’t even know he was a Winchester.”

  That caught Enid’s attention. “What?”

  “He came here thinking he was the son of the Clarksons. I just assumed he knew the truth. Why else would he be staying at Winchester Ranch?”

  Enid stood still as a statue except for her heart threatening to beat its way out of her chest as she realized what Pearl was talking about.

  “TD Waters?”

  “You should know better than anyone who he is. It was your sister who brought him to me that night.”

  She was a stupid old fool. Of course she’d noticed how much TD resembled the Winchesters. But not every dark-haired, dark-eyed, good-looking man was a Winchester. No, just this one, she thought as she suddenly had to sit down.

  TD Waters had seemed too good to be true. She thought back to that day when he’d showed up at the ranch. He’d said there’d been a mistake.

  “I would imagine he’s on his way back there,” Pearl was saying. “I suggest you tell him the truth or I will. Maybe you’d better prepare his mother.” She slammed down the phone.

  Enid winced and, still trembling, hung up. She tried to calm down but couldn’t. Pearl was right. TD would be back soon. She had to move fast.