Undercover Christmas

by BJ Daniels

Marni watched her sister primp and felt tears rush her eyes. Her twin had a special beauty that Marni knew was only partially due to the pregnancy. “You look great.”

  “Really?” El asked.

  “Really. Are you ready?” Marni wished she were ready for this.

  Elise nodded enthusiastically, a hundred-watt smile on her face. Marni moved aside to let Chase enter the room.

  MARNI HEARD CHASE step into the doorway. She didn’t turn around to look at him. Instead, she watched her sister’s face. The smile faded. Elise frowned and seemed to be trying to see past Chase out into the empty hallway.

  “What’s going on?” El asked. “I thought you said you brought Chase?”

  “I did.” Marni spun around, thinking he must not be behind her. “This is Chase. Chase Calloway.”

  Elise shook her head. “Not the Chase Calloway I know.”

  Thank God, Marni thought as she faced her twin.

  “This is not Chase,” El repeated.

  Marni turned to look at him again. He smiled, letting out a relieved sigh as he raked his fingers through his hair. Marni didn’t even mind his I-told-you-so look. Her heart thundered in her ears. Chase hadn’t fathered Elise’s baby. Just as he’d said. Just as Marni had prayed. She felt such a wave of relief she had to sit down on the edge of Elise’s bed.

  “What’s going on here?” Elise asked, looking confused.

  “It’s a long story,” Marni said. “The good news is that you aren’t carrying Chase Calloway’s baby.”

  “Then whose baby am I carrying?” El cried. “Are you sure you went to the Calloway Ranch in the Horseshoe Hills?”

  “El, I went to the right ranch. I met the whole family. Believe me, this is Chase Calloway. You’re sure he isn’t the man who fathered your child?” she asked again.

  “Did he tell you he fathered my child?” she asked, shooting him a look.

  “Well, no, as a matter of fact he said—Never mind.” Marni looked up at Chase. “You’re just sure this isn’t the man you met last summer?”

  “Positive,” El said, giving her twin a questioning look. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  Marni laughed, and smiled at Chase. Elise and the baby were safe. “El isn’t carrying your baby.”

  “I know,” he said, sounding as relieved as she felt

  “But there is a resemblance,” she heard El say behind her. Marni swung around to look at her sister.

  “A resemblance?” Chase asked, stepping closer.

  “Oh yeah, there’s definitely a resemblance,” El said, taking a closer look. “You look enough like him to be his brother.”

  Marni felt her heart leap into her throat.

  “Why don’t you describe your Chase Calloway for us,” he suggested as he pulled up a chair beside Elise’s bed.

  El leaned back against the pillows, her gaze on him. “This is very strange.”

  If only she knew how strange, Marni thought.

  “Tell me about the guy,” Chase encouraged. “He definitely used the name Chase Calloway, right?”

  El nodded. “It isn’t a name you’re apt to forget.”

  Chase smiled at that. “What exactly did he look like?”

  “Handsome,” Elise said with a smile. “Like you but different.” She studied Chase for a moment. “His eyes weren’t quite as pale blue. His hair was neater.”

  Marni suppressed a smile. Chase’s hair was its usual rumpled mess. But she realized that she loved it that way. It made her want to run her fingers through it. She shook off such thoughts, suddenly picking up on El’s last words.

  “And his hair wasn’t quite as dark,” Elise said.

  She had just described both Dayton and Hayes. “Did he have a mustache?” Marni asked.

  Elise nodded and laughed. “A cute little one that curled over his lip like a caterpillar.” Leave it to Elise to forget that highly significant little detail.

  Dayton. Marni’s gaze met Chase’s.

  He shook his head. “Both of my brothers had mustaches last summer.”

  “You think the man was one of your brothers?” Elise asked. “Why would he lie about his name?”

  “Both brothers are…married,” Marni said.

  El let out a small cry and buried her face in her hands. “I can’t believe this. We were so perfect together. He said he loved me. That he wanted a life with me. He wanted my baby.”

  “He probably does want your baby,” Chase said.

  “My God,” Marni breathed as the full impact hit her. Elise was pregnant with either Dayton’s or Hayes’s baby. The first grandchild. And since Jabe didn’t change his will—“Oh, Chase.”

  He nodded. “This definitely complicates things.”

  “Do you have photographs of your brothers?” El asked.

  Chase shook his head. “But we can get them. Meanwhile, is there anything else you can tell us about the man?”

  Heavy tears coursed down El’s face. She shook her head, no.

  MARY MARGARET knocked on the open door, took one look at Elise and narrowed a glare at Chase. “What’s she crying about?” she demanded.

  Marni jumped to Chase’s defense, making her mother raise an eyebrow. “Chase isn’t the Chase who—” She waved a hand through the air.

  Her mother, who’d perfected this form of communication, understood immediately. “Then who in all the saints is?”

  “That’s what we intend to find out,” Chase said, getting to his feet.

  “Not until after dinner,” her mother announced. “I’ll bring you a tray,” she told Marni before she could protest “You can eat with your sister. Chase—That really is your name, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied quickly.

  “Chase will eat with me in the kitchen,” she ordered. “We have some things to talk about.”

  THE KITCHEN SMELLED of pot roast and fresh homemade bread. Chase tried not to breathe too deeply. It was a smell he knew better than to become accustomed to. And yet he found himself breathing it in the way a drowning man fights for oxygen.

  “You’re in love with my daughter?” Mary Margaret asked, catching him completely off guard as she set a plate for him at the kitchen table.

  “I’ve never seen Elise before today,” he said quickly.

  She gave him an impatient look. “I’m referring to my other daughter, Marni.”

  He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

  “What have you done to her?”

  He almost choked. “Nothing. She—”

  “She what?” the woman asked, eyeing him intently.

  Marni had tried to make him fall for her, that’s what. A confirmed bachelor. Worse than that, a man who had no desire to get involved”, let alone married. And a man who’d never wanted children. Still didn’t. He’d been quite happy. Damned happy. Well, happy enough. Until she came along. “She turned my life upside down,” he said truthfully.

  Mary Margaret made a disgusted face. “She’s in love with you.”

  “What?”

  “Surely you can see that?”

  Chase glanced through the open kitchen door back toward the sewing room. It had never dawned on him that Marni might really be in love with him. Sure, she’d pretended she was, but that was when she was pretending to be Elise. And sure, there was some chemical attraction—“I’m not real sure she even likes me.”

  Mary Margaret shook her head as she began to fill his plate with pot roast, potatoes, carrots, onions and gravy. “These vegetables are from my garden.”

  He stared down at the food. The woman was mustaken about Marni’s feelings. Not that he wanted even to think that it might be true; he was having a hard enough time trying to sort out his own feelings.

  “You’d best tell me what kind of trouble my El is in,” Mary Margaret said, changing the subject so fast she gave him whiplash.

  He started to avoid the truth but she stopped him with a shake of her head. “Don’t even bother,” she said, then handed him a piece of wa
rm homemade bread, which she’d already lathered with butter. “As I’ve always told my children, lying to me is a very bad idea.”

  He nodded, feeling like one of those children and wishing he didn’t like the idea so much. He started with his father changing his will and ended with Elise’s statement that the man she fell in love with could be his brother, the resemblance was that strong.

  Mary Margaret crossed herself, then said, “You’ll take care of Marni.”

  It wasn’t a question, but he answered it anyway. “Yes. If she’ll let me.”

  Marni’s mother smiled at that. “There is nothing wrong with a headstrong woman.”

  “If you say so.”

  “One more thing. Promise me my daughter will be home for Christmas.”

  He started to tell her he couldn’t promise that but she cut him off.

  “You bring her home for Christmas,” she ordered.

  He considered straightening her out on a few things, but decided she’d find out soon enough. Even if her daughter was in love with him, which was ludicrous. He wasn’t bringing her home for Christmas. This house, this Mc-Cumber lifestyle, was a trap, one he fought to resist. Just the way he fought the idea that he might be falling in love with Marni McCumber.

  “Eat,” Mary Margaret said. “You’re going to need your strength.”

  “ARE YOU GOING to tell me?” Elise said.

  Marni looked up at her twin. “Tell you what?”

  “About Chase.”

  “Yours or mine?” Mine? Where had that come from. “The one I brought here?” she quickly amended.

  Marni watched El nod and pick at her food, no doubt knowing Mother would eventually make her eat.

  “It’s complicated,” Marni said, not sure what El was getting at.

  El made an impatient noise. “Do you think Mother is settling for that line?”

  Marni would bet Mary Margaret was forcing every detail out of Chase at this very moment.

  She looked at her twin, knowing she had to be honest with her. “It’s not good news, El.” She told her about Jabe’s will and the fortune he’d left the firstborn grandchild. “There’s a very good chance you’re carrying that child. Because of the large amount of money involved, Chase is worried that—”

  “You’re saying I might be in danger?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Marni admitted. Reluctantly, she told her twin about her mishap in the attic, Hayes’s accident in the barn and the fire that had destroyed her car. She finished with Jabe’s death and Chase’s suspicion that his father didn’t kill himself.

  Elise took it better than Marni had expected.

  “But you don’t have anything to worry about here at the farm,” Marni reassured her. “No one could get past Mother, let alone our brothers.”

  Elise actually smiled at that, then sobered. “You and Chase are going to try to find my baby’s father, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know about Chase,” Marni said, “but I am.”

  “That means you have to keep pretending to be me, huh?”

  El was no fool. “Yes.”

  “Oh, Marni,” she said, pulling her sister into a hug. “I wish I’d never gotten you into this.”

  El wiped at her tears and straightened, that McCumber determination back. “I know he loves me. I wish he hadn’t lied to me, but I can understand now why he did.”

  Marni didn’t want to believe love could be that blind. It scared her. “You just worry about junior here.”

  For the first time, Marni laid her hand on her twin’s stomach, surprised at how hard it felt. The baby moved and Marni smiled, thrilled to feel the life inside her sister.

  “I know it’s silly to still make Christmas wishes,” El said, placing her hand over Marni’s.

  Marni smiled, remembering the December nights as girls when they’d stared up at the stars, silently making Christmas wishes on the brightest star overhead. “I don’t think it’s silly to wish. After all, Christmas is a time of miracles, right?”

  El nodded, tears in her eyes.

  And Marni promised herself that with or without Chase’s help, she’d find the father of her twin’s baby and try to give El the happy ending she so desperately wished for. Marni just worried it would take nothing short of a Christmas miracle to make it happen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  December 22

  “Thank you,” Marni said as they drove down the driveway the next morning. Chase could see the farmhouse in the rearview mirror and Mary Margaret standing on the porch, her hands knotted in her apron. He didn’t have to see her face to know she was worried. So was he.

  “For what?” he asked, wondering what Marni could possibly have to thank him for. He’d been cold and abrupt with her most of the morning, dreading going back to Boze-man, hating that she was determined to use herself as bait to draw out the killer, and worse yet, angry with himself because he wasn’t about to let her do it alone. Not that he was being chivalrous. Even if she hadn’t been in trouble, he wasn’t ready to part company. Not yet.

  “For taking time to bring me up here.”

  “I had to prove that I wasn’t Elise’s lover,” he said. “This seemed the fastest way to do it.”

  Marni nodded. “I should have believed you. I wanted to.”

  He waved that away. “It should be easy to find out which of my half brothers is. Then hopefully by now the sheriff will have the autopsy back and know that Jabe didn’t kill himself, there will be an investigation and—” And what? Did he really believe one of his brothers was a murderer? Someone in that family was, he reminded himself. The same person who’d made attempts on Marni’s life?

  The only thing he was reasonably sure of was that Elise would be safe with her large family looking after her. He’d met her four brothers, all large and mild-mannered but very protective. Especially of their sisters. He’d come away knowing they wouldn’t let any man hurt their sister. Either sister.

  Not that he personally had anything to worry about. True, he seemed to have feelings for Marni, but these feelings had come on too quickly, too strongly. He didn’t trust them. So he promised himself he was going to take some time to try to make sense out of them before he did anything…rash.

  “As soon as they find the murderer, it will be over,” he finished. “Meanwhile, your sister’s safe.”

  “At least it’s not a concern of yours anymore,” Marni said.

  He looked over at her. Did she really expect him to walk away now? What kind of man did the woman think he was, anyway? Certainly not the kind a woman like her would fall in love with. Not that he believed she had.

  “You can just drop me off at my place.”

  “So you can wait for the killer to come for you?” he demanded. Did she really think he could distance himself from all this just because he wasn’t the father of her twin’s baby? True, distance was his specialty. And he had been a jackass all morning.

  “This isn’t your problem,” she said, that chin of hers going airborne.

  It was all he could do not to stop the pickup and kiss some sense into her. Great idea. “It’s my family. It’s my problem. And anyway, I can’t let you do this alone.” He felt her gaze on him. “We’re in this together whether you like it or not. You’re carrying my baby…At least the world thinks you are. So it only makes sense that you stay at my place.” He groaned inwardly at the mere thought.

  He’d lain in the narrow twin bed in one of the boys’ rooms last night feeling more at home than he ever had anywhere before. Thinking about what Mary Margaret had said about Marni being in love with him. Thinking about the kisses they’d shared, the touches, the looks. Was it possible?

  This morning Mary Margaret had taken one glance at him and laughed happily. “You look like you slept with the angels.”

  He couldn’t remember a night when he’d slept more soundly. Nor a breakfast he’d enjoyed more. Noisy, disorganized, utter chaos. He’d sat listening to all the chatter, wishing he and Marni never had to leave the
farm. Telling himself that it was because she was safe here and wouldn’t be once they went back to Bozeman. But in his heart, he knew it was so much more, more than he wanted to admit. He’d liked the idea that Marni might be, if nothing more, attracted to him. And he’d liked feeling a part of this noisy, boisterous family temporarily.

  That’s why he had to get out of there. It made him forget how painful loving could be. And for a while he’d forgotten the promise he’d made himself beside his mother’s deathbed. He’d seen what his mother’s love for Jabe Calloway had brought her, and what his love for his mother had cost him. He’d promised himself he’d never know that kind of pain again because he’d never let himself love anyone that much.

  And he’d looked down the table at Marni. Her smile had seized his heart in a death grip and his mood had gone sour. This woman had the ability to do more than just break his heart.

  “We’re going to do this together,” he said. “It’s settled. So don’t even bother to argue.” To his amazement, she didn’t.

  “You think it’s Dayton?” she asked later as they neared the first Bozeman exit.

  “Sounds like Dayton. He’s had his share of affairs.”

  “I hate to think he’s the man El fell in love with,” she said.

  “Women fall in love with the wrong man sometimes,” he said, thinking of his mother, thinking of Marni, if she was indeed falling for him.

  “If it is Dayton, then he has two women pregnant,” she said. “Covering his bets, you think?”

  He wished he knew. “What I don’t understand is why when you showed up at the ranch, one of my brothers didn’t react more…strongly. Why didn’t one of them say something to you? The real father of the baby must have been shocked when he saw you there.”

  “Both seemed surprised,” Marni said. “But everyone in your family was surprised. You know,” she said thoughtfully. “That night after dinner, Hayes was waiting in the alcove on the stairs for either his mother or me. If he hadn’t been there—”

  He glanced over at her. “What?”

  “Oh, Vanessa dropped her scarf on the stairs and I stepped on it and—”

  “You almost fell down the stairs?” he demanded.