Gun-Shy Bride

“The poachers are driving a pickup, probably a half ton or three-quarter-ton four-wheel drive.”

“Like half the residents in this county,” she said.

“Narrows it right down for me.” He smiled, hat in his hand, thinking that even as exhausted as McCall was she’d never looked more beautiful. He told himself to just get in his truck and get out of there before he said something he’d regret.

She smiled, a tired almost sad smile. “Well, I hope you catch ‘em.”

“Me, too.” He put on his hat, tipped it, and turned toward his pickup. As he slid behind the wheel, he saw that she’d gone inside her cabin. The lights glowed golden through the windows. He sat for a moment, wishing—

Mentally he gave himself a swift kick and started the truck, annoyed for going down that old trail of thought. From the beginning he and McCall hadn’t stood a chance, not with the bad blood between their families. He’d been a fool to think that they did.

But for a while, she’d made him believe they were destined to be together, star-crossed lovers who’d found a way. They’d been young and foolish. At least he had, he thought as he left.

He didn’t dare glance back, knowing he was wasting his time if he thought she cared a plugged nickel for him.

If he had looked back, though, he would have seen her standing in the deepening shadows of her deck, hugging herself against the cool of the night, watching him drive away.

Chapter Four

The next morning, McCall woke blurry-eyed to the sound of a vehicle driving up in her yard. She pulled on her robe and padded out to the living room as she heard someone coming across the deck, making a beeline for her front door.

It was too early for company. Had something happened?

She thought of Luke. Not him again, she hoped. Seeing him waiting for her last night had been the last straw after the day she’d had. She’d had a devil of a time getting to sleep last night and it was all Luke Crawford’s fault. What the hell was he doing back in Whitehorse, anyway?

Usually, she found peace in her cabin on the river. The place was small, but the view from her deck made up for it. She loved to sit and listen to the rustle of the cottonwood trees, watch the deer meander through the tall grass along the river’s edge and breathe in the sweet scents of the seasons.

Last night, though, after she’d watched Luke drive away, not even a beer and a hot bath had soothed what ailed her.

Now she realized she hadn’t locked the door last night. The knob turned, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father’s hunting license on the kitchen counter where she’d left it last night.

She quickly snatched up the license and, lifting the lid on an empty canister on the counter, dropped it inside.

She’d barely dropped the lid, when the door was flung open.

“What in the world?” she bellowed as her mother came busting in.

Her mother stopped in midstride, a cigarette dangling from one corner of her mouth. “Did I forget to knock?”

“Do you know what time it is?” McCall demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“I had to see you before I went to work,” her mother snapped back. “You might remember I work early.”

Before McCall could wonder what was so important that it had her mother here at the crack of dawn, Ruby enlightened her.

“I can’t believe you went out to the Winchesters'. What were you thinking?” her mother demanded. “Now that old woman is threatening to have you arrested? It’s all over town.”

McCall leaned against the kitchen counter. “Why is it that anything I do is always all over town within minutes?”

Ruby waved a hand through the air as if it was too obvious. “You’re a Winchester.”

McCall sighed. “Only by name.” A name she’d often regretted.

“You’re Trace Winchester’s daughter.”

As if that were something to celebrate, McCall thought, but was smart enough not to voice that senti-ment her mother, especially in the mood Ruby was in. No matter what Trace had done to her, Ruby would defend him to her death.

“As Trace Winchester’s daughter, I should have the right to visit my grandmother,” McCall said instead and motioned at her mother’s cigarette. She didn’t permit smoking in her cabin. Not after inhaling her mother’s secondhand smoke for years.

“Don’t you want to know how I found out?” Ruby asked, looking around for an ashtray.

“Not particularly.”

“That bitch Enid. She must have called everyone in town this morning, announcing that her boss was going to have you arrested.”

“I wasn’t arrested.” But she could be soon for interfering in a murder investigation. She tried not to think about that right now, though.

Ruby, not seeing an ashtray, opened the cabin door and started to flick the cigarette out, then apparently thought better of it.

“That old harpy,” she said, stepping outside and leaving the door open as she ground the cigarette into the dirt. “I thought she’d be dead by now. She’s got to be a hundred. Mean to the core.”

McCall poured yesterday’s coffee into two mugs, put them in the microwave and handed her mother a cup as she came back in. Taking the other cup, McCall curled up on one end of the couch.

The coffee tasted terrible, but it was hot and she needed the caffeine. Her mother sat down at the opposite end of the couch. She seemed to have calmed down a little.

“I just don’t understand why you would go out there after all these years?”

“Maybe I finally wanted to see my grandmother.”

Ruby eyed her. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“And?”

“And I saw her. End of story.”

“Did she even know who you were? Of course she did. One look at you and she’d see the Winchester in you.”

“You never told me I looked so much like her.” She hadn’t meant it to sound so accusatory.

Ruby shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. Her mother was so used to drinking bad coffee she didn’t even grimace. “So what did she say to you?”

“It was a short conversation before she showed me the door.”

Ruby toyed with the handle on her coffee mug. “Are you going to see her again?”

Was she worried McCall would be accepted by the Winchesters when Ruby hadn’t been? The idea would have been laughable if it hadn’t hurt so much.