Loe raamatut: «Clandestine Christmas»

Chapter One

Chase sat back in his chair at the Lucky Lady Saloon in Fool’s Fortune, Colorado, letting the three-hundred-dollar-a-bottle whiskey and the lilting sound of Sadie Lovely’s voice wash over him.

Today marked the anniversary of his obligation to his grandfather’s will. In order to inherit all of what his grandfather left him, he had to agree to live at the Lucky Lady Ranch for two entire years without leaving for more than one month out of each year.

Finally, he was free to choose wherever he wanted to go, whatever he wanted to do and whomever he wanted to do it with.

But he wasn’t really. In the past two weeks, he’d gone from anticipating leaving the ranch to his overseer to promising to stay until things settled down with Sadie.

Fifteen years older than him, she was a friend from his former playboy life, really an acquaintance who’d saved him from being mugged by thugs and drowning in a gutter when he’d been too drunk and stupid to help himself.

Tough as nails, with a heart of gold, Sadie had held off the thugs with a .40-caliber pistol she kept strapped to her thigh beneath her evening dress. She’d dragged him into her home, sobered him up and asked for nothing in return.

He’d offered her his friendship, and even got to know her grandson, Jake, a cute little boy with curious green eyes. He wasn’t sure what had happened to cause Jake’s mother to crash her car, hadn’t asked and Sadie hadn’t volunteered the information. It was clear she was raising the boy to the best of her ability.

When she’d come to him two weeks ago, scared and in need of his help, he’d opened his doors to her, set her up with a job at one of the businesses he’d inherited from his grandfather and helped her move her and her grandson into his big empty house on the Lucky Lady Ranch until she could get set up in a place of her own.

Sadie ended her song and descended from the stage to sit in the chair opposite Chase. In her late forties, she was still an attractive woman, with smooth curves and a sultry smile. “I’m glad you came.”

Chase sat forward, the mild buzz from the alcohol clearing as he leaned forward. “I came as soon as I got your message. I must say I’m surprised you agreed to perform tonight.”

She shrugged. “I never know when a threat is real or just a threat. All I know is that I can’t live my life like this. I have to work to support my grandson. Speaking of which.” She bit her lip, the lines around her eyes more pronounced than usual. “I want to make sure you’re still good for my backup should anything happen to me where Jake’s concerned.”

“I’m his godfather now. I’d do anything for the kid.”

She reached across the table and touched his arm. “Even raise him as your own?” Sadie held his gaze.

Chase’s chest tightened. “That won’t be an issue. He’s got you.”

“I’m serious. I have a bad feeling.”

“We moved you from Leadville to give you a new start. Hopefully, whoever burned down your house won’t follow you here. You should be okay.”

She smiled. “I have a limited number of skills. Changing my name and hair color hardly constitutes going incognito when all I’m qualified to do is sing and...”

Chase covered her hand. “Look, Sadie, you’re done with that other life. You don’t have to go back to entertaining men. You have a good job here, where all you have to do is sing for a living.” Though he subsidized her earnings, he wasn’t telling her. He owed her his life.

She nodded. “Thanks to you. I’m just afraid my past is catching up to me.”

“Why? What has you scared?”

“I had another empty message on my voice mail. On my new cell phone.” She bit her bottom lip.

“It was a computer-generated sales call gone bad.” Chase shook his head. “What else do you have?”

“I feel like someone is following me. Watching me.” She turned her head and stared out at the practically empty barroom. “Especially today. Every time I turned around I saw nothing, yet I can swear someone is there. Waiting. Watching.”

“Sweetheart, after having a stalker following you around for the past few weeks, you have a right to feel paranoid.”

She pulled her hand away from his. “It’s more than that. When I left my dressing room earlier, I locked the door behind me. I went back because I forgot my throat spray. The door was open. I know I locked it.”

“Perhaps the janitor?”

“He doesn’t come on until after midnight.”

Chase’s anger simmered just beneath the surface. Sadie was his friend and he hated seeing her so distraught. “I placed a call to a man I know of who provides specialized, undercover bodyguards. I asked specifically for a woman to blend in with you and the saloon.”

Tears welled in Sadie’s eyes. “A bodyguard?” Then she shook her head. “I can’t pay you back. Not yet.”

“No need. I don’t like the idea of you and Jake in danger. At least you’ll be safe at the ranch until you find a place of your own. And hopefully, we’ll discover who’s stalking you and nail the jerk before you move back to town into your own place.”

She smiled. “In the meantime, I need to know that you’ll be there for Jake, if anything happens to me. You’re the only one he trusts besides me and the Quaids.” She leaned closer to him. “Chase?”

“Yes, Sadie?”

“If anything should happen to me, I want you to have this.” She pressed something cold and hard into his palm and curled his fingers around it.

“What is it?” He could tell by the shape, it was a key, but to what?

“It’s the key to my safe-deposit box at the First Colorado Bank in Denver. You, me and my attorney are the only ones who have access to the box. He has authority to turn it over to the police should you and I disappear.”

“Which you aren’t, and I’m not,” he assured her.

Sadie took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I haven’t told you everything about me. The safe-deposit box has information in it that would explain a lot. I can’t say that I’ve lived a perfect life. Far from it. Basically, it’s a compilation of my secrets and Melissa’s, Jake’s mother.”

Chase snorted. “As if I would be the one to judge.”

Sadie gave him one of her gentle smiles. “You’ve changed in the past two years, Chase.” Her forehead crinkled. “I’m glad you’re not drinking as heavily, but I think you’ve lost some of your fire.”

It was his turn to smile at her. “The last time you gave me advice, I slowed down. Are you telling me I slowed down too much?”

“You did the right thing. You were on a suicidal path. Your grandfather’s will was just the ticket to get you back on track, not me.”

“I wouldn’t have come back to Fool’s Fortune if it hadn’t been for you.”

Her mouth twisted. “Sure you would have, if for nothing else but to spit on your grandfather’s grave for the way he disinherited your mother.”

“My parents might still be here if he hadn’t been so hard on my mother.”

Sadie clucked her tongue. “You don’t know that.”

“Well, they wouldn’t have been living in New York City. My mother never liked living anywhere else but Colorado.”

“That’s the past. As a wise man once said to me, you have to let go of your past to live in the present or you will have no future.”

Chase sat across the table from Sadie, the woman who, despite her former trade, reminded him of the mother he’d lost six years ago. He pocketed the key, determined to guard Sadie’s secrets. “Thanks, Sadie. Rest assured. I’ll take care of Jake if anything happens to you.”

She nodded. “That’s all I ask.”

“Now let me take you home.”

“I drove my car here. I can drive it home.” She pushed to her feet, a tired smile curving her lips. “I should be okay.”

Chase shook his head. “I won’t take no for an answer.” He, too, rose from his seat. “Besides, I’d like the company on the drive back to the ranch.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind that Jake and I are staying with you at the ranch?”

“The house is too big for just me and the Quaids.” With a smile, Chase added, “Jake should be sound asleep by now. Knowing Frances, she’s plied him with homemade cookies and read him several books by now. Probably let him stay up late, despite his nine o’clock bedtime.”

Sadie’s lips twisted. “I’d be angry at her, but she’s so good with Jake and he adores her. The poor boy needs a mother.”

“He’s got you.”

“And I love him with all my heart. Too bad Melissa didn’t live to watch him grow into a man. Hard to believe she’s been dead almost six months.”

“Still hurts, doesn’t it?” Chase slipped an arm around the older woman and hugged her to him as they walked to the little room behind the stage where Sadie had left her faux fur jacket hanging on a coat rack.

Sadie stopped in front of the coat rack and waited for Chase to gather her coat and hold it out to her. As she slipped her arms into the sleeves, she said, “A mother should never have to bury her own child.”

Jake let his hands rest on Sadie’s shoulders for just a moment. “You never told me what happened to Melissa.”

“She ran her car over the side of a cliff. The police ruled it an accident, but the people who knew her said she’d been acting funny, almost paranoid.”

Jake shrugged into his coat, his eyes narrowing. “Do you think she committed suicide?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her. But then, she exacerbated her problems by continuing to put herself front and center of trouble.” Sadie’s shoulders sagged, making her appear every bit of her forty-something years. “I should have spent more time with her when she was a teen.”

“If she was like every other teen, she wouldn’t have wanted you around.”

“You don’t have any kids scattered across the country, do you?” Sadie pinned him with her stare. “You were the wild one for a while there.”

“No, I was sure to protect the women I’d been with...and any child that might have resulted, from getting a father he couldn’t count on.” Fishing his keys from his pocket he held the door for Sadie.

She touched his cheek as she stepped through the door. “You would make a good father.”

“I don’t know why you think that. My father was never home. He and my mother never settled for long.”

Sadie smiled. “I know because I can see what a good man you are.”

Chase led the way out the back door and around the side of the building onto Main Street. The wind had picked up, sending a chilling blast from the snowcapped peaks surrounding them down to the streets. Bowing his shoulders, Chase did his best to block the wind from Sadie as they crossed Main Street, their feet making sharp clicking sounds on the icy pavement.

“When are you going to find yourself a woman to share your life with?” Sadie asked.

“Again, my parents weren’t the best advertisement for marriage. I’m not the least in a hurry to find a woman to settle down with. I like my solitude and I’m beginning to like the seclusion of the Lucky Lady Ranch.”

At the middle of the street headlights shined in Chase’s eyes. He lifted his hand to block the brilliant glare blinding him. “We’d better hurry.” Chase gripped Sadie’s arm and guided her toward the other side of the street.

Before they reached the sidewalk, tires squealed and the vehicle sped up, aiming directly for them.

“Run!” Chase shouted, shoving Sadie toward the sidewalk, then he turned to face the oncoming vehicle.

* * *

KATHERINE RIVERS BLINKED tired eyes as she entered the outskirts of Fool’s Fortune, the quaint Colorado town in the middle of the Rockies. It was well past eleven o’clock, Texas time, and she’d been on the road since four that morning.

All she wanted was to get to the Lucky Lady Saloon, find a bed to crawl into and save the introductions to her new assignment, Chase Marsden, until after she’d had a decent night’s sleep. She wasn’t even due in until tomorrow. Surely a good night’s sleep would boost her spirits and set her on the right path with this new job and her first CCI assignment.

The streets, cheerfully decorated in bright Christmas lights, were pretty much deserted with the occasional car passing. Small town life would suit her fine after the insanity of Houston traffic and crime.

Her GPS indicated she was two blocks from the saloon on Main Street. She could see the neon lights of a building ahead and presumed it was her destination. Two shadowy figures emerged from the entrance and started across the street. Good. Maybe the place would be empty and she wouldn’t have to speak to anyone but the desk clerk.

Her back ached and the scar on her belly twinged at the enforced inactivity of driving across Texas and New Mexico all day. She needed to move, to perform the stretching exercises the physical therapist had armed her with after her surgery.

She snorted. A broken-down Texas Ranger, medically retired after a shoot-out gone wrong. Some bodyguard she’d be.

Faced with finding a job sitting behind a desk, Kate had been more than happy to accept Hank Derringer’s offer of employment in his supersecret organization, Covert Cowboys, Inc. Although, being female, she wasn’t sure how that worked. Technically, she was a cowgirl, born and raised in the panhandle of Texas on a four-thousand-acre ranch.

She knew her way around horses, cattle and a barnyard. The fourth daughter of a rancher, she had never felt she was a disappointment to her father, who would probably have preferred sons to carry on the Rivers name.

Her father treated her like any other ranch hand, only with a whole lot of love and care. She could ride as well or better than any man on the ranch and she’d done her share of roping, branding and castrating steers. Her sisters had preferred to work in the house, but knew how to ride and feed the animals.

Her father boasted she was as good or better than any son he might have had and he wouldn’t have changed a thing. When she left the ranch to join the Texas Rangers, Kate Rivers wasn’t afraid of anything.

All that had changed in one night, one fateful shoot-out.

Resisting the urge to floor her accelerator and finish this trip, Kate pushed away thoughts of that night eight months ago and maintained her speed, her goal in sight.

A dark SUV darted out in front of her from a side street.

Kate slammed her foot on the brake pedal and skidded to a halt.

The SUV’s tires spun, screeching against the pavement, and then it sped toward the saloon.

Kate fired off a round of curses and hit the accelerator, her adrenaline pumping, angry at the idiot’s disregard for other traffic on the road.

As quickly as her heart leaped, it came to an abrupt halt when she noticed the two people who’d left the saloon running toward the other side of the street.

The SUV driver seemed to head straight for them, increasing his speed instead of slowing to allow them to make it to the other side.

No.

Kate punched the gas pedal, a gasp lodged in her throat as she watched the scene unfold, unable to stop it.

One figure pushed the other toward the sidewalk and then turned to face the oncoming vehicle.

“Fool!” Kate yelled inside the confines of her truck cab. She slammed her hand onto the horn. “Get out of the way!” she screamed.

The SUV swerved at the last minute, ran up onto the sidewalk, clipped the man in the side and hit the other figure head-on.

“Oh my God!” Kate’s stomach lurched.

Thrown by the impact, the figure landed hard on the concrete and rolled to a stop against the front of a brick hardware store.

The SUV bumped back onto the pavement and sped away, disappearing out the other end of town.

Heart rampaging inside her chest, Kate skidded to a halt, grabbed her cell phone and jumped down from her truck.

Dialing 9-1-1, she ran toward the two people on the ground, reliving a nightmare she’d hoped never to experience again.

A dispatcher answered on the first ring.

“We have a hit-and-run on Main Street in front of the Lucky Lady Saloon. Two people down, send an ambulance ASAP!” Kate barked into the phone. Without waiting for a response, she shoved the phone into her pocket and bent to check the first person she came to in the middle of the street.

A ruggedly handsome young man pushed to a sitting position. “Don’t waste your time on me, for God’s sake, check Sadie,” he said, his voice raspy.

Altering her direction, she pushed on, leaping up onto the sidewalk.

An older woman, possibly in her forties, wearing a long faux-fur coat, lay tragically still at an odd angle against the side of a building.

Kate dropped to her knees, swallowing hard on the lump lodged in her throat, her eyes blurring. The last time she’d hurried toward a body, it had been her partner’s.

For a moment, she froze, paralyzed by her memories. She’d thought the nightmares would have stopped by now. But she was awake and she was seeing Mac’s face, his eyes open, his expression slack in death.

Kate closed her eyes for a second and forced herself back to the present and the woman lying in front of her. When she opened her eyes, she reached out and touched her fingers to the base of the victim’s throat. For a long moment, she felt nothing, and her heart sank into the pit of her damaged belly.

Then a slight pulse bumped against her fingertips and a hand reached up to grasp her wrist.

Kate flinched and would have pulled back, but the woman’s eyes opened and she stared up at her. “Jake.”

The man who’d been hit stumbled to his hands and knees and crawled to Kate’s side. “Sadie?” He knelt beside her and took her other hand. “I’m sorry. I should have seen that coming.”

Sadie gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. “Not...your...fault.” Her fingers tightened on Kate’s hand. “Jake.”

“He’ll be okay,” the stranger stroked the older woman’s hand. “I’ll make sure he’s safe while you’re getting better.”

Sadie shook her head, closing her eyes. “Take care of Jake. He needs a family...to love him.” The last words came out in a rush on nothing but air. Kate had to lean down to hear. The words made a sob rise up in her throat, which she choked back, determined to be strong.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

Kate felt again for the pulse in the woman’s throat, praying for even the slightest tap against her fingertips. “Sadie, hang in there. The ambulance is on its way.”

The woman’s grip on her wrist slackened and her hand fell to the hard, cold concrete.

“Damn it!” Kate eased the woman flat on her back and ripped open the fur coat. Trying to remember all the times she’d trained on CPR, she laced her fingers together, and pressed the heel of her palm against Sadie’s chest, chanting in her head with each compression.

You will live. You will live.

The man kneeling beside her checked Sadie’s pulse and shook his head. “Let me take over.”

“No,” Kate snarled, continuing the compressions as the blaring sirens grew closer.

A sheriff’s SUV arrived first, the deputy leaping out of the driver’s seat. “What happened?” he said as he dropped to the ground beside Kate.

Kate jerked her head to the injured man. “You tell him.” She continued applying compressions, refusing to give up. She’d be damned if someone else died on her shift. Not on her first day on the job.

The next vehicle to arrive was the ambulance.

A sliver of relief washed over Kate, but she wouldn’t give up on the compressions until the EMTs were out of the vehicle, with their equipment and ready to take over.

“We’ve got it,” a uniformed man bagged Sadie and another nudged her arm.

Kate couldn’t stop, afraid that if she did, Sadie wouldn’t live.

“Ma’am, you need to let us take over.” The EMT took her hands and forcibly removed them from Sadie.

More hands locked on her shoulders and dragged her to her feet. “Let them do their jobs,” a man said near her ear, his breath warm on her chilled cheek.

Kate stood on wobbly legs. Her back ached and her arms felt like limp noodles. She couldn’t take her focus off Sadie, afraid that if she did, the woman would die.

The man who’d been hit by the SUV, slipped an arm around her waist. “Lean against me. The medical techs will take good care of Sadie.”

“I have a pulse,” said the EMT forcing air into Sadie’s lungs.

“Thank God.” The one providing the chest compressions eased off. “Let’s get her loaded into the ambulance.”

They eased Sadie onto a backboard, braced her neck and got her onto a gurney.

The man Kate had been leaning on left her side to follow the procession to the ambulance.

Kate wrapped her arms around her middle, for the first time since she’d leaped out of her truck aware of the biting cold and her lack of a warm jacket. She shivered, but didn’t make a move toward her truck, her attention glued to the woman being carried away.

As the EMTs approached the open end of the ambulance, the woman gasped, sucking in a deep breath. “Chase!”

“I’m here, Sadie.” Her companion ran to her side and clasped her hand.

Opening her eyes for only a moment, Sadie said, “Where’s Jake?”

“At the ranch. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him,” the man named Chase said. “You concentrate on getting better. Jake loves his grandma.”

Kate stood to the side, her focus on the woman, heart hurting for her, and the grandson that stood a good chance of losing his grandmother.

When the doors closed on the ambulance, the sheriff’s deputy touched Chase’s arm. “You should ride with her to the emergency room and have the doctors check you over, too.”

“I can’t.” The man shook off the deputy’s concern. “I have to get back to the ranch.”

“Do you want someone to drive you there?” the EMT asked.

“No. I can get there myself.” He turned to face Kate, his face pale and haggard for such a young and vibrant man. “Thank you for doing what you did for Sadie.”

Her body trembling from the cold, Kate forced a casual shrug, ruined by the full-body tremor that shook her to the core. “I’d have done it for anyone.”

“That’s good to know. If you hadn’t come along when you did, no telling what the driver of that SUV might have done next.” He held out his hand. “Anyway. Thank you for saving Sadie. She’s a good friend.”

When Kate clasped the man’s hand an electrical charge zipped up her arms and into her chest. “I’m just glad I decided to push on, rather than stopping back in Albuquerque.”

“Where are you headed?”

She nodded toward the Lucky Lady Saloon, stomping her feet to keep warm. “I’m hoping to find a room at the Lucky Lady tonight. I have a reservation for tomorrow night, but, like I said, I decided to drive through instead of stopping.”

The man’s brows dipped. “Are you here on vacation?”

She glanced around at the Christmas lights and decorations on the buildings and streetlamps. “Though it’s a pretty little town, from what I can see in the dark, I’m here on business.”

“Meeting anyone I might know?”

She shrugged, not sure she wanted to share information with him. Kate figured she’d better jump into her role, the sooner the better. “I’m auditioning for a singing position on the stage at the Lucky Lady Saloon.” Her hand still warmly clasped in his could feel the instant tightening of his fingers.

“Auditioning for who?”

Never having sung on stage in her life, she figured, performers had to be personable and outgoing to attract a crowd. She forced a friendly smile when she’d rather be on her way to her room, a warm blanket and a recharging night of sleep. “I’m meeting with the owner, a Mr. Marsden. Do you know him?”

“I do.” The man’s hand squeezed hers once and he let go, his face grim, his lips pressed tightly together. “What’s your name?”

“Kate Rivers,” she answered.

“Is your talent agent Hank Derringer?”

She nodded, her brows furrowing. How many people in Fool’s Fortune knew she was coming and that Hank Derringer had sent her? Immediately on guard, she sized up the man in front of her. He was tall, darkly handsome, with a face that could have been on the silver screen. “As a matter of fact, Hank is my agent.” Or rather, she was Hank’s secret agent. “Your name is Chase. It wouldn’t be—”

“Chase Marsden.” The man’s lip curled upward on one side, his blue eyes dancing with the reflection of the streetlights. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Rivers.”

“Oh, dear.” Her heart fluttered and butterfly wings beat against the insides of her belly. She glanced around as the sheriff’s deputy jotted notes on an electronic pad. Kate lowered her voice. “I guess you needed...a singer more than I realized.”

“I wasn’t the one I was hiring you for. I wanted you to provide backup to Sadie. She’s the star.”

Kate’s eyes widened. “Sadie, the woman on her way to the hospital as we speak?”

He nodded.

“I take it the situation has gotten a lot more dangerous than you’d originally let on.” She glanced around. “Looks as though I’m a day late.”