Deadly Christmas Pretense. Dana Mentink
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The whole situation made no sense.
She had to get away from whoever it was long enough to make the meeting with Tammy and sort out the details. If it was the person her sister feared, he must have caught her trail as she’d blown into town. Further, if he believed the woman driving the green Corvette was Tammy, that meant her sister was still safe, in hiding maybe, waiting for Maggie to arrive for their rendezvous. But if Tammy was fine, why had there been no answer to Maggie’s follow-up texts and calls?
The car behind her was large. Black. So close now that the headlights blazed in her rearview mirror. The road was slick from a December frost. Dark. Was that a train whistle? Quickly she rolled down the window as the tires struggled to grip the icy road.
“Don’t they believe in streetlights here in Driftwood?” she mumbled, pressing harder on the accelerator. She knew every spark plug and bolt in the car, having given it a complete tune-up a month ago after she’d paid the outstanding loan and gotten it out of repossession for her sister.
Per Tammy’s instructions, she’d picked it up that very morning from a garage ten miles outside of Sand Dune. There was a formidable dent in the front driver’s side and the mechanic said it had been towed in to have the front axle replaced. Clearly, Tammy had been in an accident. Maggie jerked a look in the rearview. Had it been caused by the person currently glued to her bumper? Whoever it was swerved and accelerated. Maggie stomped on the gas. Her pursuer inched closer.
Teeth clenched, she gunned the engine, but it was all she could do to keep the car from lurching off into the split rail fence that now hemmed in both sides of the road. The black vehicle crept over onto the opposite lane until it was level with her driver’s door, forcing her within inches of the fence. She could see only a hint of the driver, not enough to decide if it was male or female or to notice any other identifying characteristics.
Whatever they wanted, they weren’t going to get it or anything else from Maggie until she knew without question that her sister was safe.
Tam Tam, I got your back, like always. Tam Tam and Mags, twin sisters and besties for the thirty-two years since they’d arrived together on the planet. That would never change.
The two cars flew almost side by side. The other fender tapped hers and the Vette shuddered and bucked, but she kept it on the road. Panic bit at her. Again came the sound of the train whistle. The speed disoriented her. Was it coming from beyond? Beside? She wanted to slow, but her pursuer had fallen back now, tucking in behind her.
Maggie wasn’t a reckless speedster and this all felt like some kind of nightmare. Knuckles white, she held on to the steering wheel and floored it, pulling several car lengths ahead.
Was this man actually trying to kill her?
No, she thought. He’s trying to kill your sister.
Teeth gritted, Maggie fought the steering wheel and the monstrous fear rising inside her.
Liam Pike dismounted his horse, banged his cowboy hat against his thigh to dislodge the dust and rammed a hand through his thatch of unruly auburn hair. His hip throbbed, courtesy of a 1,200-pound heifer who had taken offense at his notion to move her and the herd to the upper pasture on the Roughwater Ranch.
Now that he was in his midthirties, these little injuries seemed to hang on longer, adding to the collection of pains he’d accumulated in his time as a Green Beret. At least he’d finally managed to wrangle the feisty animal just after sunset, in spite of constant interference from a mutt named Jingles. An early Christmas gift from his sister, Helen, Jingles was rapidly turning out to be a four-legged disaster.
Resting his boot on the lower rail of the fence, Liam surveyed the road that bisected the rich pastureland on one side and the vast Pacific coast on the other. Phone pressed to his good ear, barn jacket shielding him from the California winter, he just barely picked out the distant whistle of the steam train. It eased his mind to know that he could still hear it, at least for the time being. “Little sis, I love you,” he said when Helen picked up the phone, “but we gotta talk about this dog.” His North Carolina accent was thick, thicker when he was tired and thickest of all when he wanted it to be.
“Isn’t he great?” Helen gushed. “The shelter said he’d been there for almost three months and no one wanted him. Can you believe that? They called him Goofy, but Jingles is much better, don’t you think, in light of the season?”
“Well, now...”
“He has natural herding instinct, doesn’t he? I know he’s got Australian shepherd in him.”
Liam tried to lasso the conversation back to the point. “Yeah, but that’s part of the problem. The critter won’t leave me alone. I can’t even take a shower without him wanting to join in.”
“Excellent. He’s devoted to you. You’re bonding.”
“I don’t—”
“Can you call me later, Liam? I need to see to an issue.”
An issue...
There was something in her tone...something underlying the jovial teasing that made him think it wasn’t a routine situation at the Roughwater Lodge she managed. Prickles danced across the back of his neck. Was something wrong with his baby sister? It was not that long ago, while he was still deployed, that her best friend had been murdered on the Lodge property. Her scars ran deep and raw after the senseless tragedy. His protective instincts buzzed. “What’s—?”
“Stop worrying. It’s nothing I can’t handle, big brother. Go play with your dog.” She hung up.
He stared at his phone. Since his father train-wrecked their lives when Liam was a kid, it had been his number one job to care for Helen. Neither his past service as a Green Beret nor his current duties as a cowboy on the sprawling Roughwater Ranch diverted him from tending to her, whether or not she welcomed his assistance.
He heard only a dull hum in his left ear, courtesy of the otosclerosis that had wrecked his hearing and forced him out of military service. He could still get along with a hearing aid in the other, and he prayed every night that God would preserve that sliver of precious auditory function. He jammed the phone into his pocket.
The distant sound of the nine o’clock train whispered again through the December night and he thought with a pang of Tammy, the woman with whom he’d broken up eight months before. He remembered when they’d first started dating, he’d taken her for a ride on that historic steam train and she’d gone pink-cheeked with joy. Dark-haired, boisterous, impulsive Tammy.
Loneliness churned his stomach.
He felt rather than heard the movement behind him. Whirling around, hand on the rifle secured to his saddle, he found Jingles, tongue lolling, one ear up and one down, staring at him with that look of unadulterated adoration that made Liam squirm.
He gaped. “What are you doin’ here? I put you out with the respectable herding dogs behind the bunkhouse. Haven’t you caused enough trouble for one day?”
Jingles wagged his crooked tail, staring unblinkingly with those inscrutable amber eyes.
Liam folded his arms. “You busted out and followed me, didn’tcha? This has got to stop, dog.”
The dog sat, front feet turned outward in that odd pigeon-toed way of his, tail scuffing the grass. “Jingles—” Liam broke off abruptly as he heard the roar of an engine. The vibrations under his feet told him more than his ears. The car was coming too fast along the winding road.
He unlatched the gate and stepped through to get a closer look, Jingles glued to his boot heels.
The car came around the bend, a sleek green bullet. Everything twisted up inside him. He knew that car, a sweet 1972 Chevy Corvette that made his mouth water. Further, he knew the driver, the woman who’d left him and the little town of