Covert Christmas (8 page)

He found a straighter patch of road so his SUV could be spotted before anyone rammed into it blind. Stopping as far off the road as possible, Cam put it in park but left the engine running and the heat blasting.

“Stay here, Chloe. I'm going back to check on the people in that wrecked car. I hope no one was badly injured. It'll be tough getting an ambulance up here in the storm.”

“Maybe you'll see my angel, Daddy. Help her too. She needs us.”

Cam swore under his breath. This angel business was all he needed today. “Just stay put, young lady.”

As he wrenched open his door and stepped out into the wind, Cam's right knee almost gave out on him, reminding him of why he was no longer a sheriff. Mostly healed after years of rehab, his shattered kneecap had nevertheless gone a long way toward ending his career in law enforcement. The recurring stiffness when the weather turned cold and wet was also a painful reminder of why he hated Christmas Eve.

Cam ignored the ache and carefully limped his way off the road and plowed through snow and brush into the trees. The closer he came to the car, the more his instincts were screaming at him that something was very wrong. Things were too still. Too quiet.

He hoped to hell no one had died in the wreck. What would he tell Chloe?

Calling out, he was forced to give up when the wind killed any sound. By the time he was five feet behind the car, he could see something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. On the car's trunk, both fenders and the shattered back window—bullet holes.

Hesitating, he checked his surroundings and looked back to the road. Chloe and the SUV seemed safe and sound where he'd left them. Nothing was stirring in the woods. This was the first time since he'd become disabled and gave up his job that Cam wished he still carried a weapon. He wondered what kind of tragedy he would find when he checked the driver's seat.

But things were quiet. Had this happened last night?

Dreading what he must do, Cam plowed around the car to the driver's side. He couldn't see a thing through the new snow clogging up the view to inside.

He tried the door and found it ajar, telling him that the driver had either gotten out of the car or someone had already found the wreck and opened the door from the outside. Either way, he wasn't surprised when he pulled on the door handle—and found the seat empty.

He also wasn't terribly surprised to find a small amount of
blood. On the steering wheel and inside on the door handle. Was it from the accident? Or from the bullets?

The blood looked fresh. He tore off his glove, reached around and laid his hand flat on the hood. Still warm. Considering the growing windchill, this car hadn't been sitting here for too long.

But where was the driver now?

Turning in a wide circle, Cam thought back to the speeding car he'd met on the road. He was absolutely positive there had only been one person in that car—the driver. And if an injured person was lying down in the backseat, and the driver had been speeding and hoping to make it to a hospital, they were crazy for going
up
the mountain road instead of back down to town.

That whole idea seemed too outrageous to contemplate seriously—even for lost tourists. But then why…?

Cam looked toward the woods, wishing he could take the time to do a thorough search for survivors. But the storm was getting worse by the minute and he needed to get Chloe off the mountain.

After tramping his way back to the SUV, he slipped into the driver's seat without letting in more than a handful of blowing snow. “You okay back there, Chloe?”

“Did you see my angel, Daddy? Was she all right?”

“No angels. In fact, I didn't see anyone.”

Chloe began to whimper and Cam gritted his teeth. “If what you thought you saw was really an angel, she can take care of herself. Maybe she flew up to heaven.”

“Do you think so?”

“I'm sure of it. Now you be a good girl and stay quiet while I call Sheriff Reiner to report the…uh…incident.” In the rearview mirror, he saw Chloe nod and then stare out the window and up at the sky.

Cam flipped open his cell, only to find it had no bars. The storm must be interfering with reception. Irritated, he stuck the phone on the seat beside him and put the SUV into gear.

It would take an hour to go the usual twenty-minute distance
down to Juniper in this weather. But he had no choice. He planned to stop every fifteen minutes and check the phone.

Cam tried to concentrate on his driving. But he couldn't stand the idea of someone possibly lying in the woods bleeding to death while he could do nothing about it.

S
tanding in his mother-in-law's foyer with Stetson in hand, Cam shifted from one foot to the other, fighting to excuse himself and leave as soon as possible. “Jingle Bells” was playing through the sound system. Mistletoe over the door, decorated pine wreaths and the smell of gingerbread left little doubt about which season was being celebrated in this house.

Christmas was a bigger pain in the ass than ever. The whole thing gave him heartburn.

He wanted to be on his way back up the mountain before the storm got any worse. Along the route, he planned to check on what the sheriff had turned up at the car wreck scene.

“Daddy, come see!” Chloe had dashed into the great room the minute he'd pulled off her coat and handed it over to her grandmother. Now she was calling him to join her.

“I have to be going, Chloe.” Cam didn't move but looked helplessly over to Pat, Chloe's grandmother.

“I happen to agree with your daughter, son. You just got here. You haven't even taken off your coat yet. At least have a glass of eggnog.”

Cam stared down at his boots, which were dripping on the gleaming cherrywood floor. “I can't stay. I have to make sure the animals are okay and meet the sheriff on the mountain road before this storm socks us in.”

Pat tsked at him. “The sheriff can handle that wreck without your help. And your man Jim Tisdale would never walk away from those lambs and chickens and leave you unprepared to last a week. The animals will be fine for a few hours. You just want to be up there alone on your mountaintop to brood over Christmas.”

She put her hand on his arm, and lowered her voice. “Amanda's death was not your fault, Cam. She would've died giving birth to Chloe whether you were there with her or not. I miss her, too. Every day. But it's been four years. You can't go on living under a rock and blaming yourself for something you couldn't control. Your daughter needs you, and you need her.”

He did not want to talk about this. Not now.

“Let's revisit this discussion in the new year, Pat. I've been thinking about making different arrangements for Chloe and I'd like to run them by you then. But right now I really do have to go before the snow piles up too badly on the narrowest part of drive. Jim isn't there to plow.”

“Have you considered staying with…” Pat's words were interrupted by a three-foot-tall tornado.

“Come on, Daddy.” Chloe flew into the room, her blond curls swirling around her head, and grabbed his hand. “You really
need
to see this.”

She tugged frantically on his hand, and he had little choice but to stumble after her into the great room. “What is so important? I told you I can't stay.”

“Look!” She pointed at the Christmas tree, with all its festive twinkling lights and colorful decorations. “That's her.”

“What are you talking about? That's Nana's tree. You knew she was decorating a…”

“No, Daddy. Look at the angel. On the very top. That's my angel. The one I saw in the woods. It looks just like her.”

At the very tip of the seven-foot-tall tree sat an unusual angel decoration. The feminine form had red hair instead of the typical blond, and small white fairy wings instead of the usual overpowering gauzy attachments. Cam turned back to Pat, who'd followed them into the room.

“New tree decorations?” he asked. “I don't remember that angel. Didn't you always place a star at the top of your tree?”

Pat nodded and looked down at Chloe, who was busy gazing at the angel. “I found a box of old family decorations in the attic a few days ago. Things I hadn't thought of in years. That angel belonged to Amanda. She always loved it as a girl. And I thought…”

“See, Daddy. Mommy sent me an angel. Nana says so, too.”

Pat turned to Cam as questions jumped in her eyes. “What is she talking about?”

Cam ignored Pat for the moment and knelt on one knee to speak to his daughter. “We'll talk about this more after Christmas, young lady. But right now I have to go back up the mountain.”

“But Daddy…”

“No, Chloe. Not now. I want you to be a good girl for Nana. Don't get your hopes up about finding an angel. Angels aren't for real and you know it.”

“But Daddy…” She reached her arms out to him.

Cam stood and backed up a step. “Run upstairs and see if you can find your granddad while I say goodbye to your grandmother.”

“Yes, Daddy. I love you.” She stuck out her lip.

“Enjoy your birthday and Christmas, Chloe.”

“Okay. Bye, Daddy.” She hung her head, looking just like he had earlier, and marched toward the stairs.

“I'll be up in minute, Chloe.” Pat turned to him with tears in her eyes when the girl was out of earshot. “What was that all about?”

“The angel? Chloe swears her mother came to her in a dream to tell her she was sending an angel to be her new mommy. Now
Chloe is even seeing living angels. Said she saw
her
angel in the woods on the way down here today.”

“The child is lonely, Cam. Of course she's dreaming of guardian angels and a new mommy. I'm surprised she hasn't already come up with an imaginary friend or two.

“And what was that look you gave her when all she wanted was a hug from her daddy?” Pat added.

Cam spun around and headed for the door. “I don't have time for this right now.
You
tell her that angels don't exist. Maybe she'll believe you.”

As he strode toward the foyer, he kept talking over his shoulder. “Tell Bob I said thanks for keeping her over the holiday and for making her birthday special. The three of you enjoy the party and have a terrific Christmas. I'll call Chloe on her birthday and then see you in a week.”

He couldn't get out the door fast enough.

 

Tara slipped and fell in the snow for the fourth time. She was soaked and freezing after two hours of stumbling through the thick mountain woods in the snow. Her jacket was torn and she had brambles in her hair. But at least she'd apparently given the hitman the slip.

She figured he might still be out there somewhere looking for her, but for now she had a bigger problem. She hadn't thought she could get too lost by going uphill. Cam's family owned the entire top of this mountain. She just had to keep climbing and eventually she'd run into their house and hobby farm. Right?

But nothing was working out for her today. First of all, she'd discovered her cell phone service wasn't available. She couldn't call for help. And then about a half hour ago she had run smack into a barbed-wire fence. The only thing left for her to do was follow the fence line until she ran into a road or driveway.

Not crazy about moving out in the open instead of sneaking through the woods, Tara hoped this fence belonged to Cam. She'd finally remembered the entryway to his property as being a long, narrow road that wound down through a deep canyon
with steep cliffs on either side. All in all, as tired as she was at this point, traveling up his cleared drive instead of trying to climb those cliffs seemed like a much better idea.

If…she could just avoid the hitman while she was doing it. And if she could stay on her feet in these rocky woods while she followed the fence. Which was looking more and more doubtful as the snow piled up and taking each breath felt as though her lungs were being ripped apart from the inside out.

Her feet were half-numb and half burning with the cold. And the backpack straps were digging painfully into her shoulders under the jacket. But she was grateful she'd remembered to snatch it from the front seat as she fled the hitman. She'd taken off through the woods as fast as her scared feet would take her. After everything, it would be terrible to lose that thumb drive.

Oh, God, her fingers and toes were so cold.

Think of something else.

When she tried to blank her mind, the same images entered her thoughts that always came when she least wanted them.
Cam.
And a warm spring day the year she turned sixteen.

She'd been crying. The police had come to cart her father off to jail—yet again. And her mother was preparing to leave Juniper for a new job as a maid in a summer resort in another part of the state. Tara had felt her world crumbling around her.

To get her to stop crying, her best friend, Cam, had quickly promised that she could live with his grandfather in the house on the mountain. It was a big enough place, he'd said, and his grandfather, a recent widower, wouldn't mind. She could still go to high school in Juniper and be close to her few friends. She was so relieved that she'd kissed him for the first time.

That was it for her. She knew for sure then that she loved Cam Farrell and had felt it would last forever.

Cam looked terribly handsome that day, with the sunshine shooting rich, red highlights into his sandy-brown hair, and those green eyes of his flashing looks at her that made her squirm with emotions she couldn't name at age sixteen.

“I love you with every fiber of my being,” he'd said
dramatically as he held her in his arms. “You are my whole world. I'll never leave you, Tara. I swear it on my grandfather's life. As long as I'm alive, you will never feel alone again.”

The more Tara saw Cam, the more she was sure that she wanted to be with him forever, even though it seemed impossible with their backgrounds. She loved everything about him. He was warm and giving and thoughtful. And he'd treated her with respect. At first she'd secretly wondered if what she felt was simply gratitude. But as the next year of school flew by and they became closer—and more intimate—she found out exactly how real her love for Cam could be.

Thoughts of him filled her mind morning, noon and night. He even occupied her dreams. She spent all her downtime building future castles in the air with him as the center of her life.

They would have children with spectacular green eyes. And a cozy, permanent home to call their own. Even grandchildren some day.

Maybe that was the biggest reason why, when it all came crashing down around her, she had felt so devastated. He hadn't believed she was telling the truth. She remembered the fury and the hurt like it had only happened moments ago. He'd chosen his parents' version of things over hers—despite her pleading with him to believe and trust in her. She had not taken money from the Farrells for school.

In her most secret moments, she had always harbored the hope that time would bring him back to her eventually. That he would show up some day and apologize. She couldn't quite accept that he'd meant what he said.

“I believe you're lying.” He'd said those words with huge unshed tears in his tender eyes. “You're ripping my heart out. I never want to see you again.”

She hadn't stopped crying for two years afterward. But the flame of hope had burned on anyway. Until she'd read about his parents' death, and saw the news article mentioning his pregnant wife.

It had been a reality check. A reminder of who she was.

But she would never stop loving him. She knew that for sure, because she had tried many times since then. She'd even become engaged once in the hopes that someone else's love could wash away the love she still felt for Cam. It hadn't worked. Her love for Cam was apparently so deep in her that she'd hurt another good man whose only fault had been trying to make her happy.

Sighing and shaking her head, Tara looked up suddenly and realized she couldn't see the fence anymore. She couldn't see much of anything past ten feet in any direction. The snow was coming down by the bucketful. Was she at the driveway?

She took a couple of steps that felt as though she were going up the mountain and turned in a circle. She'd expected to hit something hard under her feet when she reached the driveway. She had even wondered if there might have been a new gate put in some time over the ten years since she'd last been here. But now she couldn't see or feel anything.

Good Lord. Could she be lost in a whiteout? Would she freeze to death out here on Cam's mountain before the blizzard stopped?

As tough as Tara had made herself over the last few years, she still felt the tears threatening to make matters even worse.
Oh, Cam, I really need you.

All of a sudden, out of the snowy darkness, a light hit her face. As she squinted to see what was happening, another light appeared through the snowflakes and she realized they were a car's headlights.

Oh, no. The hitman had found her after all.

Hide.
Without looking, she jumped as far as she could to the side and away from the lights—and landed all wrong. Her ankle screamed in pain and she found herself lying flat in a ditch filled with cold, wet snow. But she knew there could be no stopping or she would end up dead. Crawling on her hands and knees, she tried to scramble away. But her hand landed on thin air, and she felt herself falling, tumbling.

Down and down she went. And then there was nothing in her world at all but the cold and darkness.

 

Cam couldn't believe his eyes. There was a woman walking on his driveway in this blizzard. At least he thought it was a woman. When he'd first spotted her and put on his brakes, he could've sworn he was seeing Chloe's angel.

But the more he considered it, the more he decided what he'd been seeing was a very real redheaded woman in a silver-hooded parka with a tan backpack strapped to her shoulders. Staring out the window, he found he couldn't even see her anymore. She'd disappeared into the snow-filled ditch beside the road, and now blowing snow was covering her trail. But here, just inside his gate, he knew that ditch led to a dangerous four-foot drop.

Had she hurt herself? What the heck was a woman doing out in this kind of weather? Damn.

Ramming his SUV into park but leaving it on with the heater blasting, Cam leaned heavily against the door and opened it to the gale-force winds. This might be the stupidest move he'd made in a long time, but he couldn't simply drive away without finding out if the woman was hurt.