Covert Christmas

by Marilyn Pappao

  At the very tip of the seven-foot-tall tree sat an unusual angel decoration. The feminine form had red hair instead of the typical blond, and small white fairy wings instead of the usual overpowering gauzy attachments. Cam turned back to Pat, who’d followed them into the room.

  “New tree decorations?” he asked. “I don’t remember that angel. Didn’t you always place a star at the top of your tree?”

  Pat nodded and looked down at Chloe, who was busy gazing at the angel. “I found a box of old family decorations in the attic a few days ago. Things I hadn’t thought of in years. That angel belonged to Amanda. She always loved it as a girl. And I thought…”

  “See, Daddy. Mommy sent me an angel. Nana says so, too.”

  Pat turned to Cam as questions jumped in her eyes. “What is she talking about?”

  Cam ignored Pat for the moment and knelt on one knee to speak to his daughter. “We’ll talk about this more after Christmas, young lady. But right now I have to go back up the mountain.”

  “But Daddy…”

  “No, Chloe. Not now. I want you to be a good girl for Nana. Don’t get your hopes up about finding an angel. Angels aren’t for real and you know it.”

  “But Daddy…” She reached her arms out to him.

  Cam stood and backed up a step. “Run upstairs and see if you can find your granddad while I say goodbye to your grandmother.”

  “Yes, Daddy. I love you.” She stuck out her lip.

  “Enjoy your birthday and Christmas, Chloe.”

  “Okay. Bye, Daddy.” She hung her head, looking just like he had earlier, and marched toward the stairs.

  “I’ll be up in minute, Chloe.” Pat turned to him with tears in her eyes when the girl was out of earshot. “What was that all about?”

  “The angel? Chloe swears her mother came to her in a dream to tell her she was sending an angel to be her new mommy. Now Chloe is even seeing living angels. Said she saw her angel in the woods on the way down here today.”

  “The child is lonely, Cam. Of course she’s dreaming of guardian angels and a new mommy. I’m surprised she hasn’t already come up with an imaginary friend or two.

  “And what was that look you gave her when all she wanted was a hug from her daddy?” Pat added.

  Cam spun around and headed for the door. “I don’t have time for this right now. You tell her that angels don’t exist. Maybe she’ll believe you.”

  As he strode toward the foyer, he kept talking over his shoulder. “Tell Bob I said thanks for keeping her over the holiday and for making her birthday special. The three of you enjoy the party and have a terrific Christmas. I’ll call Chloe on her birthday and then see you in a week.”

  He couldn’t get out the door fast enough.

  Tara slipped and fell in the snow for the fourth time. She was soaked and freezing after two hours of stumbling through the thick mountain woods in the snow. Her jacket was torn and she had brambles in her hair. But at least she’d apparently given the hitman the slip.

  She figured he might still be out there somewhere looking for her, but for now she had a bigger problem. She hadn’t thought she could get too lost by going uphill. Cam’s family owned the entire top of this mountain. She just had to keep climbing and eventually she’d run into their house and hobby farm. Right?

  But nothing was working out for her today. First of all, she’d discovered her cell phone service wasn’t available. She couldn’t call for help. And then about a half hour ago she had run smack into a barbed-wire fence. The only thing left for her to do was follow the fence line until she ran into a road or driveway.

  Not crazy about moving out in the open instead of sneaking through the woods, Tara hoped this fence belonged to Cam. She’d finally remembered the entryway to his property as being a long, narrow road that wound down through a deep canyon with steep cliffs on either side. All in all, as tired as she was at this point, traveling up his cleared drive instead of trying to climb those cliffs seemed like a much better idea.

  If…she could just avoid the hitman while she was doing it. And if she could stay on her feet in these rocky woods while she followed the fence. Which was looking more and more doubtful as the snow piled up and taking each breath felt as though her lungs were being ripped apart from the inside out.

  Her feet were half-numb and half burning with the cold. And the backpack straps were digging painfully into her shoulders under the jacket. But she was grateful she’d remembered to snatch it from the front seat as she fled the hitman. She’d taken off through the woods as fast as her scared feet would take her. After everything, it would be terrible to lose that thumb drive.

  Oh, God, her fingers and toes were so cold.

  Think of something else.

  When she tried to blank her mind, the same images entered her thoughts that always came when she least wanted them. Cam. And a warm spring day the year she turned sixteen.

  She’d been crying. The police had come to cart her father off to jail—yet again. And her mother was preparing to leave Juniper for a new job as a maid in a summer resort in another part of the state. Tara had felt her world crumbling around her.

  To get her to stop crying, her best friend, Cam, had quickly promised that she could live with his grandfather in the house on the mountain. It was a big enough place, he’d said, and his grandfather, a recent widower, wouldn’t mind. She could still go to high school in Juniper and be close to her few friends. She was so relieved that she’d kissed him for the first time.

  That was it for her. She knew for sure then that she loved Cam Farrell and had felt it would last forever.

  Cam looked terribly handsome that day, with the sunshine shooting rich, red highlights into his sandy-brown hair, and those green eyes of his flashing looks at her that made her squirm with emotions she couldn’t name at age sixteen.

  “I love you with every fiber of my being,” he’d said dramatically as he held her in his arms. “You are my whole world. I’ll never leave you, Tara. I swear it on my grandfather’s life. As long as I’m alive, you will never feel alone again.”

  The more Tara saw Cam, the more she was sure that she wanted to be with him forever, even though it seemed impossible with their backgrounds. She loved everything about him. He was warm and giving and thoughtful. And he’d treated her with respect. At first she’d secretly wondered if what she felt was simply gratitude. But as the next year of school flew by and they became closer—and more intimate—she found out exactly how real her love for Cam could be.

  Thoughts of him filled her mind morning, noon and night. He even occupied her dreams. She spent all her downtime building future castles in the air with him as the center of her life.

  They would have children with spectacular green eyes. And a cozy, permanent home to call their own. Even grandchildren some day.

  Maybe that was the biggest reason why, when it all came crashing down around her, she had felt so devastated. He hadn’t believed she was telling the truth. She remembered the fury and the hurt like it had only happened moments ago. He’d chosen his parents’ version of things over hers—despite her pleading with him to believe and trust in her. She had not taken money from the Farrells for school.

  In her most secret moments, she had always harbored the hope that time would bring him back to her eventually. That he would show up some day and apologize. She couldn’t quite accept that he’d meant what he said.

  “I believe you’re lying.” He’d said those words with huge unshed tears in his tender eyes. “You’re ripping my heart out. I never want to see you again.”

  She hadn’t stopped crying for two years afterward. But the flame of hope had burned on anyway. Until she’d read about his parents’ death, and saw the news article mentioning his pregnant wife.

  It had been a reality check. A reminder of who she was.

  But she would never stop loving him. She knew that for sure, because she had tried many times since then. She’d even become engaged once in the hopes that someone
else’s love could wash away the love she still felt for Cam. It hadn’t worked. Her love for Cam was apparently so deep in her that she’d hurt another good man whose only fault had been trying to make her happy.

  Sighing and shaking her head, Tara looked up suddenly and realized she couldn’t see the fence anymore. She couldn’t see much of anything past ten feet in any direction. The snow was coming down by the bucketful. Was she at the driveway?

  She took a couple of steps that felt as though she were going up the mountain and turned in a circle. She’d expected to hit something hard under her feet when she reached the driveway. She had even wondered if there might have been a new gate put in some time over the ten years since she’d last been here. But now she couldn’t see or feel anything.

  Good Lord. Could she be lost in a whiteout? Would she freeze to death out here on Cam’s mountain before the blizzard stopped?

  As tough as Tara had made herself over the last few years, she still felt the tears threatening to make matters even worse. Oh, Cam, I really need you.

  All of a sudden, out of the snowy darkness, a light hit her face. As she squinted to see what was happening, another light appeared through the snowflakes and she realized they were a car’s headlights.

  Oh, no. The hitman had found her after all.

  Hide. Without looking, she jumped as far as she could to the side and away from the lights—and landed all wrong. Her ankle screamed in pain and she found herself lying flat in a ditch filled with cold, wet snow. But she knew there could be no stopping or she would end up dead. Crawling on her hands and knees, she tried to scramble away. But her hand landed on thin air, and she felt herself falling, tumbling.

  Down and down she went. And then there was nothing in her world at all but the cold and darkness.

  Cam couldn’t believe his eyes. There was a woman walking on his driveway in this blizzard. At least he thought it was a woman. When he’d first spotted her and put on his brakes, he could’ve sworn he was seeing Chloe’s angel.

  But the more he considered it, the more he decided what he’d been seeing was a very real redheaded woman in a silver-hooded parka with a tan backpack strapped to her shoulders. Staring out the window, he found he couldn’t even see her anymore. She’d disappeared into the snow-filled ditch beside the road, and now blowing snow was covering her trail. But here, just inside his gate, he knew that ditch led to a dangerous four-foot drop.

  Had she hurt herself? What the heck was a woman doing out in this kind of weather? Damn.

  Ramming his SUV into park but leaving it on with the heater blasting, Cam leaned heavily against the door and opened it to the gale-force winds. This might be the stupidest move he’d made in a long time, but he couldn’t simply drive away without finding out if the woman was hurt.

  She was probably crazy as a loon. But that was no reason to leave her out here to die in the elements. Hell. He’d left the sheriff still searching back down the road so he could make it to the top of the mountain while it was feasible.

  There went his quiet evening in isolation.

  He pulled his Stetson lower and flipped up the collar on his cowhide coat, fighting his way over to the side of the road. But he couldn’t see to the bottom of the ditch through the damned heavy snowfall.

  Double hell.

  He had no choice but to climb down into the deepest part of the ditch and see if he could spot her. Cam carefully eased along the part of the ditch that sloped the least, hoping his bum knee would hold him up as he tested each step for stability. The wind was blowing hard enough to cover this section of ditch with more than a foot of drifting snow within five minutes, so he pushed himself harder.

  Needing to find her and get back on the road before his driveway became impassable, Cam had almost given up when he spotted something shiny under a thin blanket of new snow.

  The woman was lying facedown, apparently unconscious. Was she drunk? Just what he needed. Triple hell.

  He bent and pulled her into his arms, then turned and immediately started back up the bank toward his waiting SUV. Featherlight, even with the oversize backpack, she wasn’t difficult to carry. But still Cam was careful to watch every step with his bad knee.

  Hitting level ground in front of the SUV, he started around to the passenger door as fast as he dared on the slick surface. When the woman groaned and stirred in his arms, he was afraid she might bolt and take them both down.

  “Easy does it,” he murmured. “You’ll be safe.”

  “Cam?”

  The sound of his name on her lips drew his attention to her face. With one glance, shock jolted down his spine and he faltered midstep. He stared into the face he had sworn never to see again—but nevertheless saw nearly every night in his dreams.

  The moment he gazed at the familiar face, his heart slammed against his rib cage and the blood drained from his head. The skin on her cheeks was turning a sickly blue. She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t seem to focus.

  Light-headed, he stumbled against the door. “Tara?”

  “Cam, help me,” she cried weakly.

  Regardless of how he felt about her, he had no choice.

  “Almost there.” He recovered his equilibrium and managed to force open the passenger door.

  As he placed her limp body into the seat and buckled her in, he noticed a gash on her head and a lot of blood splatter on her parka. It was possible her injuries had been caused by her tumble into the ditch. But it was also possible she had been one of the people from the abandoned car that he knew the sheriff was still searching for in the woods.

  Cam didn’t like the idea of either one. There would be no possibility of taking her to the hospital tonight. No vehicles could make it up or down this mountain, at least until the snow stopped falling and the plows came out. And what if someone had been shooting at her? Where was that someone now?

  As he made his way around the front of the SUV again, he found himself wishing this was only a bad dream. His life had suddenly gone from depressing and annoying to disturbed and conflicted all in the space of two or three ill-considered moves. He should’ve kept driving. He’d be almost home by now. But no matter what else he was or had become, he knew such a thing was not in him.

  Climbing into the driver’s seat and carefully releasing the brake, Cam tried to control his swirling thoughts. As a youth he had been so dead sure that life was his for the taking. Nothing bad could ever touch the beloved only son of the great William “Wild Bill” Farrell.

  He’d had it all. A beautiful and loving girlfriend. The best grades in his class. A rich United States senator for a father. He was the golden boy who never stepped into dark places. His life had spread out before him like a juicy watermelon ripe for the eating.

  As high as he was then, Cam never considered how far he might fall.

  The SUV’s tires suddenly slid against another patch of ice and all Cam could think of was that he couldn’t lose control and put the SUV into a drift. As hard as it was snowing, it wouldn’t be long before nothing but a snowplow would make it through to the house.

  Hanging on to the steering wheel with both hands, he took a quick glance over at Tara, still slumped in the seat. Now that he’d made the mistake of picking her up, he was determined to see her live through this.

  That is, before he packed her up and sent out of his life again—for good.

  Chapter 3

  “Take it easy, Tara. You’re safe.”

  Cam kicked the front door closed behind him with his bad leg and pushed through to the great room, still carrying Tara in his arms. She was incoherent and he worried she was going into shock. After removing her backpack and laying her out on the long leather couch in front of the fireplace, he pulled a wool throw off a chair and gently covered her. Kneeling before the hearth, he prepared to light the kindling.

  He’d already decided that Tara wasn’t seriously injured. One of the gashes on her cheek might need a stitch or two, but the others were all superficial and would respond
to a careful cleansing and some antiseptic.

  But, dammit, just how long would it be before he could be rid of her again?

  He still needed to check her toes and fingers for frostbite. Cam hoped to hell that wouldn’t be a problem. He knew how to treat frostbite. You couldn’t live all your life in the Colorado Rockies without learning. But he also knew the pain involved was severe.

  “Where are we? Your house? Are all the doors locked?” Tara was still on the couch, but she was attempting to focus her eyes and fighting to sit up.

  “Stay still. Don’t move yet.” He checked on her over his shoulder as he made sure the kindling had ignited.

  Tara groaned, but she also quit struggling to sit up and fell back against the leather. “Check the doors, Cam.”

  “All the doors and windows are secure. The house is wired for security. Relax while you warm up.”

  Her eyes were open again. “I’ll be fine.”

  Cam carefully began pulling off her boots. Frostbite was the biggest potential danger. Her socks were dry, but she winced as he gently removed them. Another good sign.

  “Your feet and hands are going to hurt while they warm up,” he told her. “But they look good. You might have a little frostnip, but I doubt anything will blister. We need to get hot liquid down you and your cuts should be treated.

  “I swear you’re safe,” he added, more to keep her quiet than anything else.

  “But I have to tell you…”

  “Hold those thoughts.” He slipped a pillow under her feet and hurried into the kitchen to put on the kettle and retrieve the first aid kit.

  By the time he returned with the kit and a steaming mug of hot herbal tea, Tara was sitting up. Her feet were still elevated on the couch and she was in the process of pulling off her gloves.

  “Was I ever glad to see you,” she said when she looked up. “I thought I was dead for sure. Where’s my backpack?”

  He nodded to the pack, sitting on the floor beside the hearth and handed her the mug. “Here. Drink this down before you do anything else.”