Rancher's Covert Christmas

by Beth Cornelison

  Zane held his phone up and squinted at the screen. “Even if you can get a text out to Dad, it’d help. We need a replacement trailer, ambulance...” He glared at Roy. “And police.”

  Erin huffed a sigh. “All right, the worst of the crisis is past. Mind telling us what precipitated this disaster? Why do you keep looking at Roy like he’s the devil’s own son?”

  “Because I deserve it,” Roy mumbled darkly. His face was pinched with pain, but Erin sensed that physical discomfort wasn’t the main source of his agony.

  Josh, who’d been trying to get better reception on his phone from atop a rock a few yards away snapped his attention toward the foreman. “What?”

  A dawning realization settled over her like a cold morning fog, seconds before Zane groused, “Meet our saboteur. Roy has been the one vandalizing the ranch all this time.”

  Josh scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous! Roy wouldn’t—”

  “He’s right.” Roy’s voice was barely audible, and yet his confession was like a scream in a sacred place. “I betrayed your family. I deserve whatever happens to me.”

  The weight of the revelation juttered through Erin’s body, leaving her gut swirling. She gaped at Roy in disbelief...but a sad recognition of the truth whispered through her, as well. She liked Roy, had admired his loyalty to the family. If she was this stunned, how must Zane and Josh feel?

  She divided a look between the brothers. Zane was still grim-mouthed and tense. A shadow lurked behind his injury-and-pain-induced paleness. He’d had longer to grapple with the news, but Josh looked poleaxed.

  She could see the subtle shift in Josh’s expression as he sorted through the ramifications. His thoughts likely were reeling through the similar questions and scenarios that hers were.

  “The zip line... Did you—?” Josh rasped, his eyes growing hot with fury.

  Roy’s throat worked as he swallowed. He briefly met Josh’s gaze, then looked away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I...didn’t mean for it to fall. It was only supposed to force you to delay opening. I thought someone would find it before—”

  Josh charged at Roy with a feral growl. “You son of a bitch!” He grabbed the front of Roy’s coat and snarled in his face, “Kate could have died! She almost did! You prick. I should—”

  Erin rushed to Josh’s side and grabbed his arms. “Josh, stop! He’s injured.”

  “I’ll kill him!” Josh roared, his face flushed and his body shaking.

  Roy hung his head, and his shoulders jerked as he sobbed. “Do it. I deserve...”

  Beneath her hands, Josh jerked taut. Drew a strangled sounding breath. “Helen...”

  A chill rippled through Erin, remembering how the young woman’s body had looked in death. She angled her head toward the foreman. “Roy, d-did you kill Helen?”

  He refused to meet her eyes as his uninjured arm lifted to wipe tears from his face. “It was an accident,” he croaked. “She caught me...draining the brake fluid. She was going to talk. I only wanted to—”

  Josh bit out a curse and staggered back, his face distorted with disgust and betrayal. He seemed unable to breathe, and Zane seized his brother’s wrist. “Josh?”

  His twin turned bleak eyes on Zane, his expression shifting again as some new realization hit him. “Zane, what do we tell Dad? This... This will kill him! And Mom... Oh, geez.” He drew a ragged breath. “And Brady...”

  Roy’s head snapped up then, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “Brady.”

  Erin tasted a sour dread at the back of her throat. “Does Brady know?”

  Roy shook his head vehemently. “No. H-he had nothing to do with...any of it.”

  Josh panted a few shallow, agitated breaths, then snarled, “For the love of God, Roy! Why? Have we not been good to you?” He jerked his hat off and shoved a hand through his hair. His face crumbled in anguish. “Do you hate us that much? We...we considered you family! You—”

  The distant wail of a siren filtered through the winter air over the mooing of cattle and rumble of car engines as travelers tried to stay warm while waiting out the blockade of the highway.

  Erin saw the shudder that raced through Roy, but he said nothing else to Josh.

  Josh sent his brother a devastated look as if begging his twin to tell him it was all a sick joke. Instead, Zane said, “He was being blackmailed. He killed a woman years ago in a drunk driving hit-and-run. Someone saw, and that someone is using Roy to hurt us.”

  Erin stepped forward, vaguely aware of the ambulance creeping along the shoulder of the highway toward them. “A blackmailer? Who?”

  Zane pressed his mouth in a line of frustration and shook his head. “He refuses to say.”

  Erin glanced over her shoulder to Roy, who hung his head and clutched his arm to his chest, the image of defeat. Roy wouldn’t tell Zane who’d blackmailed him, but perhaps she had enough sway, the right arguments or persuasion, to get the name. Before the cops took him away, she knew she had to try.

  * * *

  Erin sat in Zane’s exam room at the hospital as he relayed the story of Roy’s confession to his mother. Melissa sat beside her, and judging from the woman’s pale complexion, bereft eyes and shaking limbs, his mother was equally, if not more, shell-shocked.

  “No,” Melissa murmured, shaking her head slightly. “That can’t be right. Roy would never... I can’t... Oh, Zane, no!”

  Zane rubbed a hand gingerly over his taped ribs. Two were cracked, others bruised, and he had a concussion along with multiple tiny cuts, scrapes and contusions from the accident. He refused to be admitted for observation, contending he’d have multiple nurses hovering over him at the ranch.

  That much was true. Erin could imagine Melissa wouldn’t let her firstborn son out of her sight for days. Erin was of the same inclination, though she wasn’t sure Zane would be interested in her company.

  “I know it’s hard to take in, but he admitted all of it. Even before the ambulance arrived, he’d told the first officer on the scene most of what he’d done. I think...he was relieved to have purged his conscience, even though it means...”

  “He’ll...go to prison,” Melissa finished quietly. She lowered her face to her hands and wept. Erin scooted her chair closer to put an arm around the grieving woman.

  “You said someone put him up to it, that he was blackmailed. Did he say who that someone was?” Melissa asked, meeting Zane’s gaze.

  “No,” Erin answered. “I tried to cajole a name from him, but no luck. He’s still protecting the person’s identity.”

  “He thinks the asshole—sorry, Mom—the cretin could come after his family.”

  Melissa’s back stiffened. “Brady and Piper? Connor!” Her breathing grew shallow and quick. “Oh, no!”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Zane said, his tone low and comforting. “We’re not going to let anything happen to them. Forewarned is forearmed.”

  As if summoned by mention of him, Brady stepped into the exam room, and from under the rim of his black cowboy hat, he sent Zane and Melissa a stunned and apologetic look. “So I, uh, saw Dad.”

  Zane’s mother rose on unsteady legs and embraced Brady. “Oh, darling boy, I’m so sorry.”

  Brady squeezed his eyes closed as he clutched Melissa. “No. I should be apologizing to you. I should have known. I should have—” His voice broke and, with it, the barbed-wire tension in the room. Erin felt tears rush past her sinuses, and Zane turned away, rubbing his eyes, while Brady openly wept.

  Melissa, for all her grief and hurt, gathered herself first. “How is he, your father? What did the doctors say about his x-rays?”

  Brady stepped back, swiping his face and clearing his throat before he answered. “Fractured hip. Broken ulna. He’s getting his arm in a cast now.” Brady scoffed, and his face contorted with misery. “Under police guard.”

  The room fell silent for a moment.
Erin surveyed the grim faces, knowing each of them was grappling with the staggering revelations and complications of the accident.

  “No one blames you, Brady,” Zane said at last. “So don’t blame yourself.”

  Brady nodded, but he removed his hat and swatted it against his legs. “I just feel like I should have—”

  Melissa gripped his arms and shook him gently. “Stop.” She pinned an all-business look on Brady that Erin had seen so often on Zane’s face, it took her breath away. “Your father made his choices, son.”

  Brady twitched, and emotion flooded his face when Melissa used the familial moniker.

  “You cannot be responsible for decisions he made, or the reasons he made them. Do you hear me?”

  Brady bobbed his head, thumbed moisture from his eye. Then, drawing a deep breath, asked, “Have you heard from Michael or Josh?”

  Erin lifted a corner of her mouth in a brief smile, recognizing the change of subject as a deflective and protective technique. Too much heavy emotion for one day. She could imagine the alpha cowboys were on overload trying to sort through the mess.

  “Josh checked in about twenty minutes ago.” Zane shifted on the exam room bed, wincing as he moved. “They got the herd—what was left of it—to the auction house just before they closed for the day.”

  Brady nodded. “Good.”

  “They expect to be back around ten tonight,” Erin added.

  “How much... How much money was lost because of the smaller herd?”

  Zane shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll sort that out another day.”

  Brady blew out a weary sigh. “I, um...should get back to my Dad. He...” Without finishing the thought, he started for the door.

  “Brady?” Melissa called. “Have you spoken to Piper? Is she coming to the hospital?”

  “I have. And...no. We thought it best she stay home with Connor until...things can be explained to him.”

  Melissa’s throat worked as she swallowed, and she blinked rapidly as tears leaked from her eyes. “That’s probably for the best.” When Brady turned back toward the door she added, “Brady?”

  He held his cowboy hat between his hands, his chin lowered to his chest.

  “Brady, we love you. All of us do. That hasn’t changed,” Melissa said with a mix of tenderness and steel. “You—and Roy—are family. We’ll get through this. Together. We’ll figure it out, honey.”

  Without looking back, he rasped, “Thank you,” and strode quickly down the hall.

  * * *

  “I’m going to get some coffee at the cafeteria,” Erin said, rising stiffly from the chair where she’d been sitting the last two hours. The emergency room was apparently hopping, and they were still waiting for the results of Zane’s CT scan, checking for internal injuries, before the doctor would sign discharge papers. “Can I get anyone anything?”

  “No,” Zane grunted.

  “Yes. Please. Black coffee,” Melissa said, trying to hand her money. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  Erin waved away the cash and paused by Zane’s bedside long enough to lay her hand on his. “Are you sure I can’t bring you something? Water? A snack?”

  His gaze shifted to their hands, and his mouth firming, he pulled his hand away. “I’m sure.”

  Erin’s heart sank. If she’d thought the accident had changed anything about where she stood with Zane, his withdrawal now cured her of those delusions. She swallowed hard, choking back the tears that knotted her throat.

  She spotted the police officer parked on a chair outside Roy’s exam room, and her heart lurched. Maybe she was expecting too much from Zane to sort through his feelings for her while he dealt with his family’s crisis.

  She wished he’d let her in though. If only he’d allow her to help him navigate this dark time in his life.

  You lost that privilege when you hurt him.

  She hurried to the cafeteria and returned with the two coffees to find the doctor in Zane’s exam room, signing papers.

  “So go slow in the next couple weeks,” the doctor was saying, “Use those prescriptions only as needed, and be sure to get plenty of rest.”

  With that, they were free to go, and she and Melissa escorted Zane to Melissa’s car and back to the ranch.

  * * *

  The next couple of days were beyond miserable for the McCalls as they dealt with the shortfall of income, attended Helen’s funeral and answered endless questions from the sheriff’s department with regard to Roy’s crimes. Kate even offered to delay her and Josh’s wedding, scheduled for the next weekend, but the family voted unanimously to go ahead with the nuptials, needing the happy occasion to dispel some of the gloom.

  For her part, Erin drove in to Zoe’s diner on the third evening after the accident, knowing no one would be in the mood to prepare dinner. She decided buying the family take-out was the least she could do for them under the circumstances.

  She hadn’t been inside the diner two minutes before Walt Anderson, the former rancher she’d interview at the Feed and Seed, approached her. She greeted him and could immediately tell something was on his mind. “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Anderson?”

  “Well, I hate to be nosy, but...word’s spread in town about the accident with the McCalls’ trailer on the way to auction. Folks are sayin’ Roy Summers has been arrested, too.”

  “Oh.” She drew a deep breath, remiss to delve into the gory details. “The grapevine in Boyd Valley is certainly healthy and quick.”

  Walt’s eyes widened. “Then it’s true?”

  She hesitated, but finally bobbed a nod. “Who told you?”

  “Well, a couple ladies were discussing it at the store earlier. Millie Taylor heard it at Helen’s funeral. And Sarah Hinchcliff heard from her husband about the road being closed because of the accident. The rest was just tidbits that came in the Feed and Seed over the last couple days.”

  Zoe stepped up to the register, ready to take Erin’s order, and shamelessly eavesdropping. “What can I get for you, sugar?”

  Erin placed her order, deflected a few of the more probing questions from patrons, and hurried back to the car with a large box of hot food ten minutes later.

  Zane opened the back door when she knocked and eyed the bags of food as she arranged them on the countertop in the kitchen. Zeke and Sadie, smelling the food, appeared at her feet, meowing loudly.

  “The small-town rumor mill is in high gear,” she told Zane as she shucked her gloves and unpacked the food. “They already know about Roy and the accident.”

  Zane let a groan rumble from his throat and pushed Zeke back onto the floor when the cat jumped on the counter to go after the fried chicken. “Swell.”

  She pulled out her phone and texted Josh and Michael, letting them know dinner had arrived. Returning her gaze to Zane, who winced as he reached in the cabinet to get plates down, she mused over implications of the rumor mill’s activity. “Do you think Roy’s blackmailer will have heard about his arrest?”

  Zane cut a sharp look at her. “I hadn’t considered that. But...could be.”

  She gnawed her bottom lip. “What do you think he’ll do?”

  He stilled, gave her a strange look, then grumbled, “Why ask me? You’re the PI.”

  His sour tone cut her, but she excused it, given the rough time he’d had the last couple of days. Despite his surly mood, she pursued the line of thought. “Do you think he’s left town? Gone to ground? He has to be worried about what Roy is telling the police.”

  Pausing with a furrow denting his brow, Zane grunted softly and nodded. “Yeah.”

  Erin took a plate and selected a piece of chicken. “I’m worried that he’ll do something intended to warn Roy to keep quiet.”

  Zane grunted. “I’ve considered that, too.”

  “I mean, suppose Roy gets released on bond and this black
mailer comes after him? Or after Brady or Connor or—”

  When his expression darkened, she snapped her mouth closed. She didn’t need ESP to know what he was thinking. His concern for the Double M and his family was clearly etched in the lines that bracketed his mouth and eyes.

  “The thing is...” She licked fried chicken grease from her fingers, and Zane’s gaze zeroed in on her mouth. Her heartbeat stumbled, and she cleared a sudden tightness from her throat before finishing, “I’m not a cop. I have a certain amount of self-defense training and what I feel are pretty good observation skills, but...maybe you all should hire a security guard or—”

  Zane’s derisive snort interrupted her. “And pay him with what? Magic beans?”

  She opened her mouth and closed it again. She had no answer.

  “Speaking of...how much do we owe you for dinner?” He withdrew his wallet and opened it.

  She waved him off. “Nothing. Please. My treat.”

  Her answer clearly didn’t sit well with him—male pride?—but he jammed his wallet back in his pocket. “Do you really think that with my dad, Josh, Brady and myself—” he said, his tone skeptical “—and Dave for that matter, all on the premises, all skilled with rifles and handguns, all with a vested interest in protecting our family and property, that we need to pay someone to come guard us?”

  She lifted a hand in surrender. “Just trying to consider all the angles and possibilities.”

  Zeke jumped on the counter again, sniffing the chicken. She twitched a small smile for the feline’s bold persistence as she nudged him away from the family’s dinner and scratched his head as she lifted him to the floor. “Silly kitty.”