Undercover Christmas. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ studied her sister. While they were identical twins, Elise had always been the picky eater and the skinnier one; Marni had what she liked to think of as the more well-fed, “rounded” look. Now that Elise was pregnant, grudgingly, Marni had to admit that her sister was right. They did look more alike than ever. Except for El’s protruding stomach.

      “Chase will break down when he sees the woman he loves that he thinks is me, pregnant, especially seven months along,” Elise said with such confidence, Marni found herself almost believing it. Almost. And she couldn’t see even an old ogre as awful as this Jabe Calloway sounded turning away a very pregnant woman. Especially right before Christmas.

      All Marni needed was a chance to talk to Chase Calloway and decide for herself if he was avoiding Elise on his own—or because of his dictatorial father.

      “El, what if I talk to Chase and he doesn’t want a relationship with you or the baby?” she asked gingerly.

      “If Chase truly doesn’t love me and doesn’t want me or the baby, I’ll accept it,” Elise said with a dignity her bunny slippers belied. “But I know how he feels about kids. He said finding a woman to share his life with and having children was all he’d ever dreamed of.”

      Marni turned away to roll her eyes. Geez, couldn’t El tell a come-on when she heard one? “Okay. I’ll go up there and talk to him. I’ll give him one last chance.”

      Elise nodded. “You’ll see. He loves me.” She patted her round belly. “And our baby.”

      “I’ll go on one condition,” Marni said. “That you go to Mom’s—at least temporarily.” She expected an argument.

      But El readily agreed. Marni stared at her sister. Until that moment, she’d had no idea how much Chase Calloway meant to her twin. Marni cursed the man’s black heart.

      * * *

      MARNI COULDN’T BELIEVE what she’d volunteered for as she took Dry Creek Road out of town headed for the Horseshoe Hills north of Bozeman. She wound through the snowy foothills that lay in the shadows of the Bridger mountain range. Farmhouses became fewer and farther between, and the road narrowed as she left civilization behind.

      Occasionally she’d catch her reflection in the rearview mirror, and do a startled double take at the woman who looked back at her. Elise had insisted on putting a russet rinse on Marni’s normally dark-blond, curly, shoulder-length hair. Marni had drawn the line at chopping it off to look like El’s short wedge.

      “He’ll just have to think I let my hair grow,” she told her twin. “El, are you sure there’s no chance that this guy really doesn’t remember you?”

      El laughed. “Not after the four days we spent together.” Her eyes sparkled. “It was…magical.”

      Magical. Marni suspected that wasn’t the way Chase Calloway would describe it, especially now that Elise was pregnant

      “Here, let’s do something with your makeup,” El had said. “Then we’ll call my friend at the costume shop and get you a maternity form.”

      Elise had filled her in on how she and Chase had met, where they’d gone and what they’d done, just in case she needed those details to get past Jabe Calloway to Chase. Marni only hoped she could keep it all straight. The last thing she wanted was to get caught in this whopper of a lie.

      The deejay on the radio cut into Marni’s nervous thoughts with more disturbing news. A winter-storm warning. Great, exactly what she needed. “White Christmas” began to play on the radio. How appropriate. Well, it was too late now, she thought, looking at the darkening sky. All she could hope was that she’d get finished with Chase Calloway before the storm hit. And that he’d have some reasonable explanation for his disappearing act, just as El believed.

      But common sense told Marni that Chase’s father wasn’t keeping him away from Elise; he was just using the old man as an excuse. Even if Jabe Calloway had forbidden his son to acknowledge El and the baby, and Chase had conformed to his father’s wishes, what kind of man did that make Chase?

      No, Marni decided as she headed up the canyon, there was nothing about Chase Calloway she was going to like. She dropped down a hill through the snowy pines into Maudlow, an old railroad town with an abandoned clapboard hotel and gas station-grocery. Signs over the ancient fuel pumps outside listed gasoline at thirty-seven cents a gallon.

      Marni hung a left at Maudlow, driving past the old schoolhouse on the hill up Sixteenmile Creek, and felt her first real trepidation.

      The canyon narrowed in a thick fringe of snowcapped pine trees, rocky cliffs and creek bottom. She followed the winding frozen waters of the creek farther up the dead-end road and into the darkness of the approaching storm. She could feel the temperature plummeting outside her four-wheel-drive wagon and realized she hadn’t seen another vehicle on the road since the Poison Hollow turnoff.

      She cranked up the heater and rubbed her cold fingers as she looked anxiously to the snowy road ahead. A Montana native, she knew how quickly the weather could change. Especially in December. But it wasn’t the cold or the storm that worried her. It was not knowing what lay ahead in this isolated part of the country.

      She’d convinced herself that she’d missed the turnoff, when she saw the sign. Calloway Ranch. She shifted down, amazed at how cumbersome the maternity form was. How did pregnant women drive? She felt like a hippo out of water.

      She turned up the road, feeling even more isolation as she crossed the creek on the narrow one-lane bridge and drove into another narrow dark canyon.

      To her surprise the canyon opened up and in the middle of the small valley sat a huge, Gothic-looking house. It towered three stories. Nothing about it looked hospitable. No Christmas lights stretched across the eaves. Nor did any blink at the windows. Under the grayness of the approaching storm, the place looked dismal and downright sinister. Not that she’d expected a warm reception.

      Marni pulled her car in front of it and cut the engine. She sat for a moment, rehearsing. She was Elise Mc-Cumber. She checked herself in the mirror. Nice eye shadow, El. She was seven months pregnant. She patted the maternity form. “How ya doin’, ‘Sam’?”

      Then she shook her head in disbelief that she was doing such a fool thing and opened the car door.

      It didn’t look as if anyone was home. No dogs ran out to greet or bite her. What few vehicles were parked along the side of the house were snow-covered. What kind of ranch was this? Didn’t El say they raised horses?

      An uneasiness raised goose bumps on her skin. She looked up. A face peered out at her from a tiny window under the eave above the third floor. Then the face was gone. But the uneasy feeling remained.

      “Well, someone’s home,” Marni muttered. “And the family now knows I’m here.” She took a deep breath and mounted the steps.

      An older woman answered the door with a dish towel in her free hand. “Yes?” she inquired, giving Marni a disdainful once-over.

      “I’m Ma—Elise McCumber,” Marni said. “I’m here to see Chase Calloway.”

      “And what may I say this is in regard to?” she asked, even more cool and reserved than before. Unless Marni missed her guess, this was the same woman she’d spoken with on the phone earlier.

      “It’s СКАЧАТЬ