Winchester Christmas Wedding (11 page)

Pearl sighed. “The problem isn't remembering. It's forgetting. Nor do I like the responsibility of deciding who to tell and who not to tell when someone like you comes to me.”

“Look, I'm not even sure I was one of your babies.”

“Oh, you were. Whoever told you about us must have also told you that our mission is to find homes for babies
with couples who desperately want a child, and, often because of their circumstances, are unable to go through regular channels. That means we have placed a lot of babies with older couples, couples who don't meet the financial requirements of other agencies.”

Like his parents? Or the people he thought had been his parents.

“We try very hard to screen the couples, but every once in a while…” She met his gaze and he saw the bad news coming. “We placed you with a couple who'd been recommended to us, the Clarksons.”

He felt his heart stop. Beside him, Lizzy tried hard not to show her surprise, but failed.

TD realized he'd come here expecting this woman to turn him away. To tell him that he'd been given some wrong information.

“How did you—”

“That placement turned out to be a mistake,” Pearl said. “Those are the hardest ones to live with.”

“The Clarksons were murdered.”

She nodded and he felt Lizzy's gaze shift to him. He didn't dare look at her for fear he would see pity in her eyes. He couldn't bear that right now and realized he shouldn't have brought her along. He'd just been so sure this was a wild-goose chase.

“Do you know why?” he asked.

Pearl shook her head. “Don't you? Aren't you now involved in the same line of work?”

So he was right. They'd been with the agency and it had gotten them murdered. That explained how Roger Collins had come into his life.

“This person who recommended the Clarksons,” TD asked, “was it Roger Collins?”

Pearl's expression confirmed his suspicions even though she said, “We're not allowed to give out that information.”

“But you do know who my birth parents are and you are going to tell me,” he said, his throat dry as cotton.

Pearl Cavanaugh pulled back in surprise. “Don't you already know?”

“If I knew, then why would I come to you?” he asked, then apologized for his brusqueness.

“It is understandable. You're upset. Am I to understand that you didn't know until now that you were adopted?”

He nodded.

Pearl seemed more than a little surprised. “I'm sorry. I just assumed when I heard you were back and staying at Winchester Ranch that your mother had told you everything.”

He felt a chill even in the hot, small cramped room. “My mother?”

“You really didn't know that you're a Winchester?”

He stared at the woman, switching back to his original assumption that the stroke had fried her brain. Getting to his feet, he said, “This was a mistake. Obviously your memory isn't as good as you thought.”

Pearl merely smiled, though it seemed sad. “I wish I could tell you who your birth parents are. All I know is that you were born on the Winchester Ranch and one look at you confirms what I suspected when I first saw you as a baby. You're a Winchester. Normally we require
that the name of the mother and father of each baby be given to us, but you were a special case.”

“How was that?” he asked, telling himself the woman was nuts but he would play along since he'd come this far.

“The person who brought you to us was known to us and swore the mother wanted to give you up because of a hardship.”

“And this woman who brought me to you?” he asked, fear making his throat tight.

“Her name is Etta Mae. She's Enid Hoagland's sister. She's a midwife.”

 

L
IZZY COULD FEEL
TD'
S SHOCK
and disbelief. But the woman was right; he looked enough like the Winchesters to be one.

As they left, Lizzy could tell that TD was upset. She realized he'd come here thinking Pearl Cavanaugh would tell him something different. Something much different.

“There's someplace I need to go,” he said as he slid behind the wheel of the pickup. “Do you mind a little side trip?”

She shook her head as she buckled up. He didn't say anything as he started the engine and pulled away. For a brief moment, she saw a face framed in the dusty front window of the community center. Then Pearl Cavanaugh was gone and they were driving south again, deeper into the badlands.

What surprised her was that he seemed to know where he was going.

She tried to piece together what she'd heard in the
small room at the back of the community center. TD was a Winchester? Or at least had been born on the ranch? Clearly, he hadn't know that.

So who was his mother?

Lizzy was still shocked to hear that his adoptive parents had been murdered. He'd apparently known that, though. Murdered, Pearl had said, because they were in the same business as TD? So Pearl knew that he worked for the agency.

And why had she acted as if she'd been expecting Lizzy, as well? She knew news traveled like the wind across the prairie in these small towns. Still, it bothered her, given that both she and Waters had a tie to this area—and to Roger Collins.

She glanced over at him, wanting to reach out to him. His head must be spinning the same way hers was. He'd apparently not even known he was adopted. He said he'd come to Montana because someone had been trying to extort money from him for information about his past. Someone at the Winchester Ranch?

He slowed and she looked up as he turned down a road that was little more than a rough trail—it cut through rolling, snow-covered prairie studded with sagebrush.

As he turned down the path, she saw something lying in the snow just off the road. An old mailbox. The lettering had faded until she could barely make out the name.
Clarkson.
She felt a chill and hugged herself as she looked ahead, half-afraid of what might be waiting for them at the end of the road.

The pickup lurched over the bumps and dips in the road until they came over a rise and she saw what was
left of a house. A lone chimney stood against the skyline, blackened as if the house had burned down.

Lizzy shot TD a look. Is that how the Clarksons had been murdered? Where had TD been at the time? And where had he gone after that?

He stopped the pickup, cut the engine and climbed out. Lizzy didn't move. She sat in the pickup, watching him return to what she knew had once been his home. The home where the people he'd believed to be his parents had been killed. She couldn't imagine what might be going through his mind.

All she could think about was the photograph TD had brought with him of the boy and his dog. She realized that this was where the picture had been taken.

 

A
COLD WIND STUNG HIS FACE
as TD walked along the edge of the old foundation. Clouds began to crowd the horizon, as dark as his mood. A part of him registered what was happening. The temperature was dropping. A storm was coming in.

If they didn't get back soon, they could get caught in it. In this part of the country, at this time of year, they could get stranded in a blizzard.

But while the storm clouds crowded the horizon, his story here filled his thoughts, forcing out any concern over a snowstorm. He found himself reliving the past, picturing the house as it had been before that day it was devoured in flames.

He'd hoped coming here would help him make sense of everything. They'd been in the same business he was in, Pearl Cavanaugh had said. Roger Collins would have known that. So why had Collins tried to keep him from
learning about his past? What could there be in it that his boss didn't want him to find out?

He stood in the cold December wind, watching a storm roll across the wild prairie toward him, and realized that whatever answers there were, they weren't here on this sad plot of land.

The answers, if Pearl Cavanaugh was to be believed, were back at Winchester Ranch—or with the one person this always came back to: Agent Director Roger Collins.

He figured he had a better chance at getting at the truth at the ranch.

Lizzy was waiting for him in the pickup. He climbed in and sat for a moment before he reached for the ignition. Her hand covered his, stopping him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

“I wouldn't know where to begin. Until a couple of days ago I believed that the Clarksons were my parents. They were older, true, they didn't look much like me and they weren't great parents. It's funny, looking back I realize I didn't know them very well.”

“How old were you when they died?”

“Eight. I grew up here,” he said nodding toward what was left of the house. “I used to spend hours down in the Missouri Breaks, just me and my dog.” He glanced toward the south and the broken land that eroded into more rugged badlands as it fell to the river bottom.

He looked over at her. “I don't know what to make of any of this. I'm not sure I believe…” He cut himself off with a laugh. “You think it's true?”

“That you're a Winchester?” she asked, studying his face. She smiled. “You could definitely pass for one.”

“I feel like someone is jerking me around. How could Pearl not know who gave birth to me that night?”

“My guess is that they don't ask a lot of questions, as long as they believe the person who brought you to them,” Lizzy said.

“Yeah,” he said, thinking of the Winchesters' devoted housekeeper and cook, Enid. How convenient that her sister was a midwife.

Enid held the phone, her hand shaking so hard she could hardly keep it against her ear. She couldn't believe this was happening. It wasn't possible.

Pearl Cavanaugh's angry voice came through the line, clear as a bell. “You sent that boy here.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” She was trying to understand why Pearl was so angry. The Whitehorse Sewing Circle was always interested in unwanted babies that needed a good home. Those old crones thought it was their “calling” and there were always plenty of couples who desperately wanted a baby. The only thing Enid couldn't understand is why the old crones didn't charge. They could have made a fortune over the years.

“You foolish old woman,” Pearl snapped. “He didn't even know he was a Winchester.”

That caught Enid's attention.
“What?”

“He came here thinking he was the son of the Clarksons. I just assumed he knew the truth. Why else would he be staying at Winchester Ranch?”

Enid stood still as a statue except for her heart threat
ening to beat its way out of her chest as she realized what Pearl was talking about.

“TD Waters?”

“You should know better than anyone who he is. It was your sister who brought him to me that night.”

She was a stupid old fool. Of course she'd noticed how much TD resembled the Winchesters. But not every dark-haired, dark-eyed, good-looking man was a Winchester. No, just this one, she thought as she suddenly had to sit down.

TD Waters had seemed too good to be true. She thought back to that day when he'd showed up at the ranch. He'd said there'd been a mistake.

“I would imagine he's on his way back there,” Pearl was saying. “I suggest you tell him the truth or I will. Maybe you'd better prepare his mother.” She slammed down the phone.

Enid winced and, still trembling, hung up. She tried to calm down but couldn't. Pearl was right. TD would be back soon. She had to move fast.

She reached for the phone book. It only took a few minutes to find out that the person the employment agency in town had sent out had never made it. No surprise either to learn that the agency had never heard of TD Waters.

Enid hung up, her thoughts at war. What was she going to do? Get rid of TD Waters before anyone else found out. Short of killing him, she wasn't sure how to do that. Firing him now so close to the wedding would make Pepper suspicious, even if Enid could get him to leave without ruining everything. Maybe she could make a deal with him.

How had he found out? He must have known something to show up here. He'd played along because he'd been looking for answers the whole time. What had she told him? Too much. He'd tricked her. She'd thought he'd knocked up some woman. He'd played her for a fool. Not that she wasn't a fool.

And now Pearl had let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. From what Pearl had said, he hadn't known anything before he talked to her. Why else would he ask Enid about the Whitehorse Sewing Circle? He'd come here fishing and had just hooked on to the big one: he was a Winchester.

What would he do now? She hated to think.

One clear thought worked its way to the surface. Someone had talked.

Enid thought back to the night the baby had been born here at the ranch. She'd called her sister, Etta Mae, and begged for her help, since Enid knew nothing about delivering a baby. A mistake, she saw now. No one else knew what had happened to the baby after it was born. No one but her sister.

Why would her sister have told anyone? Enid had sworn her sister to secrecy with the threat of death. The answer made Enid groan. Money. She recalled the last time Etta Mae had called. They'd argued about money. She'd known Etta Mae was thinking of selling the information to the highest bidder she could find and selling out her sister at the same time.

Enid tried not to panic. But she couldn't get that last conversation with her sister out of her mind. She must have already sold the information before she called!

“Haven't you got your money from that old sow yet?”
Etta Mae had demanded when she'd called. To look at Etta May you'd think that petite, cute, sweet-looking woman was an angel—not the devil herself.

“What's it to you?” Enid had snapped.

“Things haven't been going so good for me. I was thinking you might want to help me out.”

“Like things have been going that great for me?”

“Why don't you get some money from your boss? She owes you for all those years you've put in there and all the secrets you've kept for her. Hell, she owes me, now that I think about it. I've kept the Winchesters' secrets all these years. I'd think she would appreciate that.”

“As if that thought just came to you,” Enid had said with disgust. “If that's the only reason you called me, I've got to get back to work. I suggest you do the same thing. Do I have to warn you what will happen if you open your big mouth? And don't call me for money again.”

Enid had hung up, furious with Etta Mae. She'd realized then that her sister wouldn't keep her mouth shut. That meant someone had to keep it shut for her.

But she hadn't acted quickly enough. Etta Mae had talked to someone. Someone here at the ranch?

Enid picked up the phone again and dialed her sister's number. She had to cover her tracks.

 

“A
LL
I
KNOW ABOUT MYSELF
is what I've been told, and I can't even be sure that is true,” TD said as he drove away.

Lizzy knew that feeling. She couldn't help thinking of the photograph of her father and Roger Collins
at the McCormick Ranch. “You have no idea why the Clarksons were killed?”

“None, except that when I was taken away from here, I was told that I was also in danger.”

She looked over at him in alarm. “And you still came back here?”

“Had to know the truth,” he said with a chuckle. “It's my fatal flaw.”

Lizzy doubted TD Waters had any flaws. Her heart went out to him as she saw him glance in the rearview mirror, still looking for answers. He'd been lied to, that much was certain. And now she was lying to him, as well.

She thought about her own childhood. Had she been lied to also?

“What will you do now?” she asked as they drove east, past Old Town Whitehorse and into open country again.

“Go back to the ranch and try to get some answers.” He glanced over at her. “What about you?”

She shook her head. What was she going to do? She needed to use her satellite phone and call her boss. She'd put off talking to Roger Collins after finding the photograph. Unfortunately, time hadn't changed the uneasy feeling that had settled in her the moment she'd seen Collins on the horse next to her father.

Lizzy felt TD's intense gaze on her. “What?”

“I was just thinking about the first time I saw you. I would have sworn you recognized me even in that split-second when our eyes met.” He frowned. “Did you think I was one of the Winchesters?”

She had trouble lying to him. “It was such a close
call and happened so fast…but maybe that's why you thought I recognized you.” She reminded herself that lying came with the job and this was an assignment. But she was having a hard time seeing him as a rogue agent.

Just the thought that she could be ordered to take TD in at any time felt like a noose around her neck that drew tighter the more she learned about him. She'd seen how vulnerable he'd been back there and had been forced to fight the urge to reach out to him—and confide her own fear about their boss.

“I suppose that was it,” he said, not sounding convinced. “I was just hoping since you spent time around here in the summers that you might know something about me.”

“I'm sorry.” And she was. She could see how hard this was on him. They had a few too many things in common: a connection to Montana, a connection to this area in particular and the big one, a connection to Roger Collins. That worried her. All the old questions about why she'd been sent here and why Collins considered Waters a rogue agent nagged at her again.

They reached the spot where she'd left her car and TD pulled over. “Earlier, you said I should warn the Winchesters. What is it you think the McCormicks might do?”

She struggled with her loyalty to Anne even in spite of her friend's betrayal. But after what had happened earlier with Anne and Janie….

“That's just it. I don't know. What I do know is that they're angry at the Winchesters and blame them for what happened to their mother. We know Janie is
blackmailing Worth Winchester…” It wasn't just that, she realized. “I also saw Janie coming out of an old shed on the ranch. When I went to check it out, I saw that she'd padlocked the door and covered the windows.”

“I don't like the sound of that,” he said. “Some of these old sheds have explosives in them. Ranches have always used dynamite and blasting caps to take out stumps.”

She nodded, not surprised he was voicing her very concerns.

“Being a blackmailer is one thing, but is there a chance Janie might be violent?” he asked.

Lizzy looked away for a moment. “I once saw her beat a horse that had thrown her. If her stepfather hadn't pulled her off that horse…” She shuddered and told him how Janie had threatened her. “I can't go back there, but I can't leave. I'm afraid Anne's in trouble.”

“I need to see what's in that shed,” TD said.

“It's too visible from the house during the daylight.”

“Then we'll have to go tonight. I need you to show me where that shed is. You'll have to come stay with me.”

She felt her eyes widen in alarm. She shook her head even as her brain was telling her this might work out perfectly. Roger Collins would be delighted she'd gotten this close to his rogue agent. “That wouldn't be a good—”

“There are four bunk beds in that cabin where I'm staying. You can take your choice.” He held up his hands.

“You have my word I won't do anything you don't want me to.”

That was exactly what she feared. “Bunk beds?”

He grinned. “Four. You take your pick.”

How could she say no? Like him, she felt she had to find out what was in that shed. She also still had a job to do—even if it was becoming almost impossible to see TD Waters as one of the bad guys.

 

“H
ELLO?”

The voice on the other end of the line was female, but not Etta Mae's.

“Who is this?” Edna demanded even though she knew.

“Charlotte.”

Etta Mae's roommate. “Where is my sister?”

“Dead.”

“What? She died?”

“Got hit by a car. Actually, a bystander said it was a dark-colored pickup.”

“When was this?”

“Four days ago. The police asked about next of kin, but Etta Mae had scratched your name out of her address book. I couldn't even read the phone number she had for you and I couldn't remember your name, and knowing how she felt about you, I knew she wouldn't want me to even tell the police she had a sister.”

Enid bit back a nasty retort. “You say she was hit by a dark-colored pickup. Did the witness get a license plate or any other information?”

“Not according to the police. Did break the headlight, though, so they're looking for a dark-colored big pickup with the left headlight broken out—or recently replaced.”

“Charlotte, you are just a wealth of information,” Enid said sarcastically.

“I should tell you, she didn't leave you anything. Etta Mae left me her apartment and everything in it. She said it would be over her dead body before she'd let you have any of it.”

Probably Charlotte had whatever money her sister had gotten for selling the information about the baby born twenty-seven years ago.

Enid hung up and went to the window. So the police knew that her sister had been run down by a dark-colored pickup four days ago. Enid studied the dark-colored ranch pickup parked outside the window, the one she'd borrowed four days ago. It was dirty enough she didn't think anyone would notice that the left headlight had been replaced.

 

M
C
C
ALL WAS STILL SHAKEN
by what she'd overheard on the ridge earlier today. She hated that her first thought had been that all three of them had been in on it.

She felt bad about that now, but since the time she was old enough to understand, she'd heard stories about the Winchesters—especially her grandmother, Pepper. And now that she'd met her grandmother, she still thought Pepper pretty much capable of anything, including murder, and as they say, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.

She reminded herself that her own genes were those of the Winchesters, not to mention Ruby. Had she not become a sheriff, she hated to think what she might have become, and said as much to her fiancé when he met her for dinner in town.

Luke laughed as he reached across the table to take her hand. “There is no one like you, McCall.”

“I'm not sure that's a compliment.”

“You know damned well it is.” He was smiling at her and she wanted to pinch herself. How had she gotten so lucky? “I can't wait to marry you.”

“Well, you don't have to wait long. I wanted to ask you…” He looked uneasy. “Do you want to spend the night before the wedding—”

“
Please.
You aren't going to suggest we spend it apart? Not after being inseparable for months, are you?”

He grinned. “I just thought maybe you—”

“Wanted to become conventional just because I was getting married?” She laughed and reached over to cup his strong jaw with her free hand. “I'm not going to change on you, Luke, just because we're getting married. I want to wake up every morning lying next to you.”

He rose to come around to her chair. He pulled her up into his arms and kissed her in the packed restaurant. She melted into his arms and his kiss to the sound of applause.