Hitched!

by B. J Daniels

  Jack just would have liked to be more prepared.

  He felt Josey behind him, heard the small sound she made and knew this was indeed her stepbrother, RJ Evans, the man who’d framed her, hurt her and planned to kill her.

  In the diffused light from the flashlight in his hand, Jack saw that RJ was tall and blond, with eerie blue eyes. He looked strong and solid and armed. Jack had to believe that RJ wouldn’t want to kill them here in this room, that he would get an opportunity to save Josey. It couldn’t end like this. He would do anything to save Josey.

  “I said drop the gun. Now!”

  Jack dropped the gun to the floor at his feet.

  RJ smiled. “Hey, Josey. Shocked to see me? I thought you might be surprised that you hadn’t killed me.” He sounded angry, his words slurring a little as if he might be drunk or on drugs. “Could you have hidden someplace more hard to get to?” His gaze shifted to Jack. “And you must be the guy with the Cadillac convertible. Nice ride. I think I’ll take it when I leave here.”

  Behind him, Jack felt something hard and cold suddenly pushed against his back. The crowbar. Josey slipped it into the waistband of his jeans.

  “Now kick the gun over here,” RJ ordered.

  JOSEY KNEW how this would end. She knew what RJ was capable of, his cruelty unmatched. He would make them both pay, Jack for helping her and putting RJ to all this trouble, and Josey—

  She couldn’t think about that or the fear would paralyze her. This had to end here. The last time she’d shot at RJ it had been to stop him from killing both her and Celeste. She’d sworn then that she would never fire another gun, especially at another person.

  RJ stepped forward before Jack could kick the gun over to him in a swift movement that caught both her and Jack by surprise. He caught Jack in the side of the head with the butt of his weapon.

  Jack started to go down and Josey saw her chance. She dropped to the floor, snatched up the gun Jack had dropped and fired blindly at RJ. The gunshots exploded in the small room, deafening her, as she saw RJ stumble backward toward the doorway. His flashlight clattered to the floor and went out, pitching the room in blackness.

  The air had filled with five shots. Josey knew she’d had only four in the gun she was holding. That meant RJ had gotten a round off. Her heart leaped into her throat at the thought that Jack might have been hit. If the blow to the head from the butt of the gun hadn’t killed him, then the shot could have.

  “Jack?” For a moment, the silence was deafening. Then a chill skittered over her skin as she heard RJ chuckle. He knew there had only been six shots in the pistol. He knew she was no longer armed.

  She could hear him feeling around in the dark for something. His gun? Had he lost it? Then her heart began to pound wildly as she heard him crawling toward her. “Jack?” No answer.

  She was filled with agony and terror that Jack was dead. Her plan had backfired. Somehow Jack had gotten in the line of fire.

  She scuttled backward from her sitting position on the floor until she hit the rock wall. Her fingers felt rocks and dried mortar. She felt around frantically for a rock small enough that she could use as a weapon, but found nothing.

  Remembering the hole Jack had made in the wall, she felt around for it, thinking that if she could get through it—

  As she tried to scramble to her feet, disoriented by the blackness, RJ’s hand closed like a vise around her ankle. She screamed, grabbing a handful of dried mortar from the floor and throwing it where she thought his face should be.

  He let out a scream of his own, clawing at her now with both hands as she tried to fight him off. But RJ had always been too strong for her.

  MCCALL HAD JUST STEPPED through the doorway and had started down the hall when she heard the five shots. She snapped on her flashlight. With her weapon drawn, she hurried down the hall.

  She couldn’t tell where the shots had come from. The sound had echoed through the wing. So she was forced to stop at each door, before moving forward again.

  Behind her she heard a door open and spun around to see her grandmother standing in it, wide-eyed. Damn the stubborn woman. Hiding behind her was Enid.

  McCall couldn’t take the time to argue with them. She waved for them to stay back, knowing the effort was useless, as she moved forward down the hallway.

  She hadn’t gone far when the hallway light switched on. She swore. Her grandmother or Enid had just alerted whoever had fired those shots that they were no longer alone.

  IN THE SUDDEN LIGHT, Josey saw that at least some of the four shots she’d fired had hit their mark. RJ had left a wide smear of blood on the floor as he’d crawled after her. He had pulled himself up into a sitting position and managed to get hold of her wrist, twisting it until she was sure he was going to break it, then pulled her facedown in front of him.

  But when the lights had come on, her gaze had gone instantly to where she’d heard Jack fall. He lay just feet away. His eyes were closed and she could see that his shirt was soaked with blood. She stared at his chest, praying to see the rise and fall of his breath.

  Please, God, let him be alive.

  RJ let go of her wrist to grab a handful of her hair. He jerked her head up and slapped her almost senseless. “I’m talking to you, bitch. Look at me when I talk to you. I want you to be gazing into my eyes when I rip your heart out.”

  He’d already ripped her heart out if he’d killed Jack. She had fought RJ until he’d gotten her down on the floor. His face was scratched where she’d made contact, his eyes red and running tears, his cheeks gritty with mortar. He kept blinking and swearing as he tried to clear them.

  But it was the way the front of his shirt blossomed with blood that gave her hope. “You’re in no shape to rip my heart out,” she said, meeting his gaze. She would fight this bastard to the death. “You’re going to bleed to death on this dirty floor.”

  He laughed, a gurgling sound coming from his throat, that even gave him pause. A new cruelty came into his eyes. He wasn’t going to die alone, the look said. He let go of her long enough to pull the knife from the sheath strapped to his leg.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Josey caught movement. She wanted to cry in relief. She wanted to look in Jack’s direction to make sure she hadn’t just imagined it. But she did neither. She kept her gaze locked with RJ’s, afraid of what he would do if he knew that Jack was alive.

  Josey didn’t move, didn’t breathe, as RJ put the knife to her throat.

  JACK CAME TO SLOWLY. The blow to his head had knocked him senseless. He lay perfectly still, listening to RJ threatening Josey. It was all he could do not to leap up and attack the man.

  But first he had to be sure that RJ wasn’t still holding a gun on her.

  He moved his head as quietly as he could until he could see RJ sitting, leaning against the stack of rocks Jack had removed from the wall. He was turned slightly, so he wasn’t facing Jack, but he didn’t have his back to him, either.

  Jack saw that RJ’s shirt was soaked with blood. There was a wide trail of blood on the floor where it appeared RJ had crawled over to Josey. He now had hold of Josey’s hair and was holding her in front of him at an odd angle.

  The last thing Jack remembered was the sound of gunfire. At first he’d thought RJ had unloaded his weapon on Josey. But now he could see Josey’s gun lying within her reach. He could only assume it was empty or RJ would have taken it from her. She didn’t appear to be wounded, but Jack couldn’t know that for sure until he got a better look at her.

  Shifting just a little, he felt the crowbar at his back and eased it out behind him. He knew he would get only one chance if RJ was still armed. He would have to make it count.

  “You know, RJ, you might have pulled it off,” Josey was saying. Jack realized she was stalling, giving him time. “The way you set me up when you killed your father, that was brilliant.”

  “Thanks.” RJ sounded touched that she thought so. “I hated that mean old son of a bitch. I don’t know why I didn�
�t kill him sooner.”

  Jack heard something in RJ’s voice and the way he was trying to catch his breath. He was bleeding badly and Jack suspected Josey had nicked a lung.

  “Where you went wrong was taking Celeste along with you.”

  “Tell me,” RJ agreed, struggling with each breath.

  Josey had to have heard it, as well. She would be thinking that if she kept him talking…

  Slowly, methodically, trying not to make a sound, Jack worked his way to a crouch. RJ’s threats covered most any noise Jack had made.

  “She was only after your money,” Josey said. “I think you’re better off without her.”

  “Uh-huh,” RJ agreed. “You aren’t going to suggest that I hook up with you, are you?” His laugh sounded as if he was underwater. “A woman who shot me not once, but twice?”

  It wasn’t until Jack was ready, the crowbar in his hand, that he saw a glint of metal and realized what RJ was holding to Josey’s neck.

  MCCALL HEARD VOICES and followed the low rumble down the hallway, then stopped just outside the room. She heard a man’s voice, threatening to kill someone. Not her cousin Jack’s voice. RJ’s? She could only assume so.

  Then she heard a woman’s voice, scared, but in control. Josey Vanderliner? Where was Jack? Hadn’t her grandmother said something about Josey going after Jack?

  Leading with the weapon, McCall swept it across the room, taking in the scene and making a decision in that split second.

  She’d heard everything said within the room and knew that RJ had some kind of weapon in his possession and planned to kill Josey. He sounded bad, but she knew that some men, especially those that took certain drugs, didn’t die easily.

  When she saw the knife RJ was holding to Josey’s throat and her cousin Jack armed with a crowbar and ready to risk his life for this woman he called his wife, McCall didn’t hesitate. She pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was chaos after that. Jack lunged forward even as RJ fell away from Josey, the shot to his head killing him instantly. Jack lunged, knocking the knife away from Josey’s throat with the crowbar in the same instant McCall fired.

  McCall heard her grandmother and Enid behind her. Heard the gasps. Jack was cradling Josey in his arms. Past them, McCall saw the hole in the rock wall and what appeared to be a mummified body lying in what was left of an old canvas tarp.

  “It’s Call Winchester,” Enid cried. “Just like Alfred said.”

  McCall rounded up everyone and got them all back to the house, but not before she’d seen the expression on her grandmother’s face as she looked at the mummified body behind the wall.

  “I’m going to need statements from all of you,” McCall announced after going to her patrol car and calling for backup, an ambulance and a coroner. “Starting with you. I assume you are Josey Vanderliner?” Josey nodded.

  “The rest of you just sit here quietly.”

  She took Josey down the hall to the first room McCall had ever seen in this house just a month ago. It had taken a while, but her grandmother had accepted her as a Winchester.

  Now, though, McCall was wondering if that was such a good thing, as she turned on the small tape recorder she’d retrieved from the patrol SUV.

  “Tell me what happened here tonight,” she said to Josey, and listened to the horrific story the young woman told, beginning with the murder of Ray Allan Evans Sr. in Palm City, California, and finishing with RJ holding a knife to her throat.

  “I heard him confess to the murder of his father,” McCall said, when Josey finished.

  “Jack didn’t know anything.”

  McCall smiled, thinking that her cousin was a Winchester. He knew something was up with this woman he’d picked up on the road. He’d helped her disguise her looks and given her a place to hide out. But she kept those thoughts to herself, secretly admiring Jack. There would be no charges of harboring a criminal since Josey Vanderliner had been a victim herself.

  After that, McCall talked to Jack. “You knew there was a body behind that rock wall?”

  “I thought it might just be a rumor.”

  She nodded. “Do you believe Enid that her husband, Alfred, killed Call Winchester?”

  Jack grinned. Even though he was blond and blue-eyed, McCall saw the Winchester shining through. “I would have no idea.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “The old gal got to you, too.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack said.

  Enid repeated the same story she’d told on the way to the house, swearing that Alfred had killed Call and that the only reason she’d kept silent all these years was that Alfred had threatened to kill her, as well.

  McCall didn’t believe a word of it.

  Her grandmother looked pale by the time she came into the room. She sat down heavily, still holding her cane, appearing a little dazed.

  “You must have wondered what happened to your husband,” McCall said to her grandmother.

  Pepper looked up, her eyes misting over. “I loved your grandfather. But it was a relief not to ever have to see him again because I did love him, and being around him hurt so badly, loving and hating him at the same time.”

  McCall was surprised at her grandmother’s honesty. “What did you think happened to him?”

  “You know this country. I thought eventually we’d find his body. I also thought he might have just taken off, put this life behind him. Your grandfather, well, he’d had other lives before I met him. I never knew where he got his money or how. But I did know that he liked the idea of reinventing himself. But to see him behind that wall…” Her voice broke. “Will the coroner be able to tell how he died?”

  The question made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. “Probably not,” McCall said slowly.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t wall him up like that. Call was afraid of small spaces.” She shuddered and wiped her eyes.

  As McCall shut off the tape recorder, she didn’t know if she believed her grandmother or not, but she wanted to.

  JACK SANK DOWN into the bubbles, the water as warm and soothing as the feel of Josey’s body tucked in front of him in the big clawfoot tub.

  He pressed his face against hers, breathing in her scent, thanking God that she was all right.

  They hadn’t said much since McCall had allowed them to come upstairs and clean up. Their clothing would be taken as evidence, but since the acting sheriff had witnessed what had happened and had heard RJ confess to his father’s murder, they had both been cleared.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” Jack said.

  Josey cupped his face in her hands, her gaze taking him in as if memorizing every feature. “You aren’t the only one. I was so worried that if the blow to the head didn’t kill you then the one shot RJ got off did.” There were tears in her eyes.

  “You realize I’m not going to let you go.”

  She smiled almost ruefully. “Jack, we’re virtually strangers.”

  “After what we’ve been through?” he scoffed, as he pulled her to him. “And we could have years to get to know each other better if you would say you’ll really be my wife. I know this isn’t much of a proposal—”

  She touched her fingers to his lips. “This is the second best proposal I’ve ever had. The first was a few days ago on the highway.”

  He kissed her fingers, then removed them from his lips. “Well? Willing to take a chance with me?”

  “One question. What is the Galaxy Corporation?” She looked chagrined. “I checked the registration in your car after you kept sneaking off in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s a business I started that puts kids together with ranches. Oftentimes the kids are from the inner city or have been in trouble. I twist the arms of rich landowners, people who own large amounts of land but spend only a week or two actually at the ranch, to let the kids come work the place. Most ranch managers are fine with it as long as the kids
are supervised. You can’t believe what hard work and fresh air does for these kids.”

  She heard the love in his words for both ranching and kids. She should have known the Galaxy Corporation was something like that. “Did I mention how much I love you?”

  “No.” But his grin said he liked it. “I should tell you, though, I don’t make any money doing this. Fortunately, it turns out that my mother’s family had money. That helped get the corporation going so that now it is self-supporting.”

  Josey laughed. “I have a ton of money, more than I will ever spend. What?” she said, when she saw his expression.

  “I don’t like the idea of marrying someone who—”

  “Can expand your kids-on-ranches program?” she asked.

  He smiled at her. “Still—”

  “The answer is yes. If you still want to marry me.”

  He looked into her beautiful green eyes and felt his heart soar like a hawk. “I don’t want to spend another day away from you.”

  “You won’t have to. My mother is safe. McCall checked for me. I will want to move her closer to wherever I’m going to be, that’s all I need. Well, maybe not all I need.” Desire sparked in her gaze. “I need you, Jack Winchester.”

  They made love in the tub, slowly, lovingly, a celebration of life. It wasn’t until they were drying off that Jack broached the subject.

  “My grandmother has asked me if I’d like to come back to the ranch at some point. I told her I would have to talk to you. I think everything that has happened has changed her. Well, at least a little. I know you probably have nothing but bad memories here and there is more than a good chance that my grandmother had something to do with my grandfather being put behind that stone wall, you know.”

  “Jack, you love this place and I love you.”

  “But after everything that’s happened, not to mention the secrets that these walls have seen…”

  She stepped to him, wondering at how fate and maybe a whole lot of luck had brought Jack Winchester into her life. She wanted to pinch herself. “I will be happy wherever you are.”