Wyoming Winter--A Small-Town Christmas Romance

by Diana Palmer

He walked out, reluctantly. As he drove away, he saw Colie, holding Ludie, standing in the doorway. It was a poignant sight, the family he might have been part of. Now, his only thought was to protect them, to keep them safe.

  On the way home, he phoned Cody Banks.

  “I spoke with the police chief in Jackson Hole, who said Rod was mixed up in some bad company,” he said, after revisiting Rod’s excessive lifestyle. “If he comes back here, Colie says she won’t let him stay in the house. But the police chief seems to think he’s bringing his friend with him—the drug supplier.”

  “If he comes here looking for trouble, he’ll find some,” Cody said simply.

  “Colie and Ludie are going to be alone, except for her friend Lucy,” he replied. “I would have offered to stay, but it would start gossip all over again. I don’t want to hurt her reputation any more than I already have.”

  “Noble thought, but a man in the house would be more help than a dozen cell phones with 911 preprogrammed.”

  “I know that,” J.C. said abruptly.

  “Sorry.” There was a pause. “Don’t we know a man she might trust to stay with her?”

  “Ren might volunteer, if I asked him,” J.C. said after a minute. “Or even Willis. He could bring his wolf,” he added with faint humor.

  “Oh, I can see it now, a little girl who liked bologna sandwiches and a three-legged wolf hungry for meat...”

  “Stop that,” J.C. chuckled. “You know the wolf’s tame.”

  “No wild animal is ever tame, and you can quote me. Or have you forgotten my one experience with trying to raise a tame fox?”

  “Ouch,” J.C. replied, and tried not to laugh.

  “Damned thing almost took my thumb off, and I’d raised it from a kit,” he sighed. “I guess dogs are better, anyway. My Siberian husky is five years old now. My wife gave her to me for Christmas, the year before she died,” he added quietly.

  J.C. didn’t reply. He knew the story, as most local people did. Cody’s wife, a doctor at a hospital nearby, had died of a contagious illness some years back. He’d mourned her and never remarried.

  “I had a husky when I was a boy,” J.C. commented. “I’d take him on the toboggan with me and we’d go down the most dangerous hills I could find. He was a great pal.”

  “They usually are. Except that if you’re ever burgled, the husky will follow the thieves around to show them the best stuff and then help them carry it out to the getaway car,” he added, laughing. “A watchdog, he is not.”

  “True, that.”

  “Tell Colie that if she needs me, she can call anytime,” the sheriff added. “I don’t sleep much and I’d love a chance to put her brother where he belongs. Don’t tell her that last bit,” he added.

  “I won’t. But I feel the sentiment, just the same. He’s mixed up in dangerous company. It’s just a matter of time until he’s called to account for his crimes.”

  “Now you sound like a cop again,” Banks chuckled.

  “I guess I do. Thanks for the backup.”

  “No sweat. Is Colie staying long, or did she say?”

  “She’s got a job back in Texas,” J.C. replied heavily. “And she seems to be happy there.”

  “Too bad, about the husband.”

  It stung J.C. to think about the man who’d followed him in Colie’s life. “She said he loved the little girl.”

  “What did he look like?” Banks asked suddenly.

  “Her husband? I’m not sure.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just a sec...” There was a pause and some static. Banks came back on the line. “We’ve got a pileup on the interstate. I’m en route. Talk to you later.”

  “Sure.”

  He hung up. For the first time, he wondered what Colie’s husband looked like. He’d assumed that the child was his. Apparently, so had Reverend Thompson. But what did the man look like? Was he redheaded? Did he have light eyes? If he did, then all J.C.’s imaginings about the child might be completely wrong.

  He was surprised at how disappointing the thought was.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  COLIE CRIED IN Lucy’s arms. The other woman just rocked her, crooning soft words.

  “I’m so sorry, Colie,” she said gently. “So sorry. I know how much you loved your dad.”

  “He was hardly ever sick. He had the appendectomy, but other than that...” She choked back a sob and moved away to wipe her eyes. “I still can’t believe he and J.C. played chess together every week.”

  “They were close,” Lucy said, to her surprise. “J.C. looked out for your father. He was always around, anytime he was needed. The reverend put him to work passing out donated groceries to poor families. He said J.C. was a natural at volunteer work.”

  “The things we don’t know,” Colie said sadly. She paused to peek into her old bedroom, where Ludie was taking a nap. She came back into the living room. “She’s tired out. She told me that my father was sick,” she added. “She said he was gone before we ever got to the airport and J.C. told me.”

  “A truly amazing gift,” Lucy said. Her eyebrows lifted. “J.C. met you at the airport?”

  “Yes. With a car seat in the back seat of his SUV for Ludie.” She smiled and shook her head. “The old J.C. would never have done such a thing.”

  “Or maybe he would have, and you just didn’t know.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “Your father said J.C. had a ball watching the videos of Ludie that you sent home.” She bit her lower lip at Colie’s expression. “Oops. Sorry. That just slipped out.”

  “It’s okay. I know J.C. suspects the truth. But I’ve never confessed it. Unless Daddy told him...”

  “If he had, I think we’d have all known,” Lucy said, grimacing. “I’m so sorry!”

  “I had no idea that he and my father were that close...”

  “What tangled webs we weave,” Lucy said quietly.

  “Indeed.”

  “Is your brother coming over for the funeral?”

  “Yes. But he’s not staying here,” Colie said curtly. “I won’t have him in the house. If he shows up with his friend, the only thing he’ll be interested in is how much he’s getting from the will and whether or not I’ve kept my mouth shut.”

  Lucy grimaced. “That’s why you stayed gone.”

  “Yes. I couldn’t even tell my father. I was afraid he’d say something to Rod and his friend would cause problems for Daddy. I agonized over it. I wanted to be here. But there were just too many reasons why I couldn’t come home.”

  “J.C. being at the top of the list.”

  Colie nodded as she led the way into the kitchen to make coffee. “I didn’t want to subject Daddy to any more malicious gossip. I caused him such heartache.” Tears threatened again. “If I could just go back and relive that part of my life...!”

  “And if you did, you wouldn’t have Ludie,” came the reply.

  Colie turned, glancing at her friend through red, wet eyes. “No. I guess I wouldn’t.”

  “You don’t think your brother would actually harm you?”

  Colie hesitated. She turned back to the coffeepot and pulled down a box of white coffee filters. “I don’t know,” she said after she’d filled the pot and started it going. “I really don’t. The big brother I loved was a different man when he got out of the military. He’s turned into someone I don’t know—into someone I’d rather not know.”

  “Drugs do that.”

  “It’s such a waste,” she said as she sat down heavily at the table. In the dining room, she could see the chessboard her father and J.C. had played on. She forced her eyes back to Lucy. “He was a good man. He was just weak. He’d do whatever anyone asked him to, whether it was bad or good. He was a follower.”

  “They usually
end badly,” Lucy replied. “We’ve both seen the results of that personality trait in clients who come through the law office.”

  “Yes. It’s just sad.”

  “I hope my son will have the guts to stand up for what’s right, not what the crowd wants,” Lucy said on a sigh. “He’s just a year old now, but we’re going to do our best with him.”

  “Me, too, with Ludie,” Colie agreed. She smiled. “You know...” She paused because the front door opened suddenly.

  Her brother, Rodney, walked in with his smarmy friend Barry, from Jackson Hole.

  “Sis,” Rodney said hesitantly when he spotted Lucy at the table with his sister. “I’m so sorry...!”

  Colie stood up. She was no longer the shy, helpless girl she’d once been. She pulled out a cell phone and showed it to her brother. “You can leave, or I can have Cody Banks escort you out.”

  “This is his home, too, now,” the drug lord said haughtily, wearing a suit that cost more than Colie would make in two years.

  “Not until the will is probated. You do know the law, I presume?” Colie added coldly, and she didn’t back down an inch.

  The man gave her a hot glare. Of course he knew the law. He’d been running from it most of his life.

  Rod flushed, looking from one to the other. “Sis, I’ve got no place else to stay,” he began in a plaintive tone.

  “Hock your new Jaguar and get a motel room,” was Colie’s reply.

  The flush became redder. “It’s just a demo model,” he protested. He stuck his hands in his pocket and gave his friend a very nervous look. Some sort of signal passed between them. “Look, we need to talk.”

  “Not now,” she said flatly. “I have a funeral to arrange, and my daughter is asleep.”

  “Oh. You brought the little girl?” Rodney seemed disconcerted. He darted another nervous glance at his companion. “I thought she’d stay with your husband in Texas...”

  “My husband is dead.”

  “Oh.” He shifted restlessly. “Oh, I see. I’m sorry.”

  “He had cancer, Rod. He was ready to let go.”

  He grimaced. “You’ve had a hard time, I guess,” he conceded.

  “A hard time,” Lucy scoffed. Her eyes glared at him. “Like you’d know what a hard time was, Rodney Thompson!”

  He averted his eyes.

  “Let’s go,” the friend told Rodney, glaring at the women. “We can come back later and talk to your sister. When she’s alone,” he added in a low, faintly threatening tone.

  “J.C. knows I’m here,” she told Rodney, watching his reaction. “In fact, he met me at the airport. It was very different, the way that went this time, since you weren’t there to fill his head full of lies,” she emphasized.

  “Don’t get too cocky,” the friend said shortly. “J.C. Calhoun is no threat, whatever you may think.”

  “Cody Banks will be,” she shot back. “And I promise you, he’ll know the minute you walk out that door.” She indicated the cell phone.

  “Sis...” Rodney began worriedly.

  His friend took him by the arm and propelled him outside, slamming the door behind him.

  “You call Cody right now,” Lucy told her best friend. “That man made threats.”

  “He certainly did.”

  She called the sheriff and told him what had just happened.

  “If I had a man I could send over, I would,” the sheriff replied tersely. “You call if you need me. Dispatch can find me, wherever I am. Does J.C. know Rodney’s back?”

  “Not yet,” she said.

  “I’ll call and tell him,” the sheriff told her. “He and your father were close. He’ll help us keep an eye on things.”

  She felt a twinge of worry. “Don’t...don’t tell him,” she asked softly. “I’ll call him and let him know. Okay?”

  He chuckled. “Okay.” He hesitated. “They said your husband had cancer.”

  “Multiple myeloma,” Colie confessed. “It was hard to watch.” She hesitated. “J.C. played chess with Daddy every week,” she added on a laugh. “Talk about shock!”

  “People change, Colie,” he told her gently. “You might not believe it’s possible, but I work in law enforcement. I see those changes every day, in some people that the whole world gave up on.”

  She smiled. “I guess you’d know.”

  “I certainly would. Sorry about your husband. But life goes on. I thought I’d die when my wife did. I kept on. I’m still keeping on. It does get easier. And you have a beautiful little girl to remember him by.”

  It had almost the tone of a question. “I certainly do,” she said. “He was very proud of Ludie.”

  “Ludie,” he said softly. “She was named for your mother, wasn’t she? Her name was Louise, but everybody called her Ludie.”

  “She was. I miss my mother. But it’s kind of comforting to know that Daddy’s with her now,” she added. She was choking up. “It’s hard to talk about it.”

  “Get some rest,” he said quietly. “And if you need me, you call. You tell J.C., too. Okay?”

  “Okay, Sheriff. And thanks.”

  She hung up. She turned to Lucy. “He was going to tell J.C. But you heard what that man said. If I tell J.C., if I involve him and they know it, he could wind up dead.”

  “Honey, you could wind up dead,” Lucy emphasized. “J.C. trains policemen. He was a policeman, for heaven’s sake. He’s used to dealing with violent people. You’ve got a real situation here. You can’t handle it alone!”

  Still, Colie hesitated. Surely her own brother wouldn’t harm her. He wouldn’t let that slinky man harm her, either.

  “You’re thinking Rod won’t hurt you,” Lucy said, reading her friend’s expression very well from long acquaintance, nodding when Colie started. “But his companion would. And Rod’s not forceful. He’ll go belly-up at the first sign of trouble. You never knew what happened to him overseas, did you?” she added suddenly.

  “What? To Rod?” Colie asked.

  “Yes. To Rod.” Lucy’s teeth clenched. “Nobody had the heart to tell your father, or you, in case you told him. But Rod’s squad went up against an insurgent group. And he threw down his rifle and ran away and hid. Two members of his squad were killed. He was permitted to take a dishonorable discharge before his tour of duty was up, in lieu of a court-martial, because his commanding officer knew your father and went to bat for him.”

  “Dear God!” Colie exclaimed, horrified. “He never said a word about it!”

  “No wonder.” She sighed. “J.C. knows. He didn’t throw Rod under the bus, like some other ex-military people did. He’s loyal to a fault. But once Rod got mixed up in the drug trade, J.C. had nothing more to do with him.”

  Colie sat down, hard. “The shocks just keep coming,” she said.

  Lucy made more coffee and served it before she sat down, too. “You have to keep your doors locked and your cell phone handy. Why don’t I call J.C. and let him come over and spend the night...?”

  “And start gossip all over again?” Colie interrupted with a sad smile. “If it was just me, I might do it. But I have a little girl who’ll suffer for my indiscretions. Besides, there’s Daddy’s congregation.” She fought tears and swallowed down the pincushion in her throat. “I’ll manage. I can call Sheriff Banks if anything happens. Rod doesn’t have a key to the door. The only reason he was able to get in a few minutes ago was that it’s not locked.”

  “Put on the chain latches, too. I wouldn’t put it past either one of them to pick a lock,” Lucy advised.

  “Rod wants people to think he came because of Daddy, but he’s really here with his friend because my employers have a client whose friend is turning state’s evidence in a huge drug distribution case that has ties to Jackson Hole,” she replied. “If he does, the fed
s will have a field day invoking the RICO statutes and many drug lords—presumably including Rod’s friend—will be running for the border, penniless.”

  “How does that involve you?”

  Colie stared at her friend. She couldn’t admit that she’d actually seen Rod take possession of a suitcase full of narcotics from the very friend who’d accompanied him today—that the reason she’d had to leave Catelow in the first place was to protect her father, to prove that she wasn’t going to tell anyone what she’d seen. It was the only way she could keep her father alive and protect herself and the baby she was carrying.

  “I can’t tell you,” she said gently. “I won’t put you in the crosshairs, too. Just believe me when I say there’s a real threat. Tomorrow, I’m going to call my bosses in Texas and ask for help. They have a top-notch investigator. If I ask, they’ll send him up here. He’s a former Green Beret.”

  “Then you do that. First thing in the morning,” Lucy said firmly.

  Colie hugged her. “Thank you for being my friend.”

  Lucy smiled against her shoulder. “Remember that old saying? When the going gets tough, the tough get going?”

  “That’s me,” Colie sighed, drawing back. “Tough.” And she smiled.

  * * *

  IT WAS A long night. Ludie, who usually babbled at bath time and bedtime, was oddly silent. She kept looking at her mother in a troubled way. So young, but she was far wiser than her years.

  “Bad man,” Ludie said just before she went to sleep. “Bad man, Mommy. He hurts people.”

  “He won’t hurt us. We’re going to have help,” Colie assured her with a smile and a tender kiss.

  “I want my daddy,” Ludie said, her gray eyes brimming with tears.

  Colie grimaced, leaning over to brush the red-gold curls away from tearstained little cheeks. “Ludie, your daddy is dead,” she began.

  “Not my real daddy,” the child said in a soft voice. “I want my real daddy.”

  Colie just sat there, searching for words.

  “He came with us. He carried me in the house.”

  Colie knew the blood was draining out of her cheeks. J.C. The child was telling her that J.C. was Ludie’s daddy. She couldn’t know! It wasn’t possible. Colie had been so very careful not to say anything about J.C. or her past with him around the child, who was precocious to a fault.