CHAPTER FIVE
Maggie had so many bad feelings about going to the McCall ranch, but none of those could override the fact that Jake had no choice in the matter. He couldn’t risk Tanner coming after Sunny. He needed to be there at home with his daughter in case there was an attack.
And that meant Maggie would be there, too.
She’d taken as many precautions as she could. She had made a call to her boss, Gene, to try to convince him that she was all right. And that she’d be back in a day or two. That was an outright lie. She couldn’t go back to Coopersville, and within seconds of telling Gene that lie, Maggie had ended the call, disassembled her phone and tossed the parts out the window.
Now, she kept watch out the side mirror as Jake snaked the truck over the familiar farm roads that led to the ranch. Maggie recognized every part of the scenery, since she’d been born and raised in Mustang Ridge. She also had no trouble recalling from memory all the details of the McCall ranch.
Or the threat that Chet had made the day she left.
Something about killing her and the horse she rode in on if she ever returned. Maggie didn’t think that colorful threat was all bluff, either, but maybe Chet could put his hatred aside long enough for her to get this test done.
Jake finished his call to Royce, the fourth on their nearly three hour drive from Coopersville, and he slipped the phone into his pocket. “Dr. Grange will come out to the ranch to do the bone marrow test on you,” he relayed to her.
Maggie silently groaned. “Tanner can buy off the doctor.” But the same was true for just about anyone.
Jake made a weary sound of agreement. “Royce told Doc Grange that he needed to check on Sunny. He doesn’t know you’ll be at the ranch.”
Well, that was a start, but Grange would soon know that it was a lie. Somehow she had to convince him to keep her return a secret. After convincing the doctor, she’d have to get in touch with Tanner and remind him of their agreement. An agreement that had been broken because she was back in Mustang Ridge.
But maybe she could keep that from him.
Jake took the final turn onto one of the ranch trails. Winter was hardly the best time to be sloshing through the icy dirt paths, but this was one more step in keeping her arrival a secret. They passed the outbuildings. Barns.
Including the barn of the infamous kiss.
She glanced at Jake, but he was looking everywhere but there, which only seemed to call more attention to it.
Maggie spotted several ranch hands, all armed, and there was another in the backyard where Jake finally brought the truck to a stop. He’d barely had time to kill the engine when the door opened and his sister, Nell, stepped out. Once, Maggie and she had been friends. Judging from Nell’s troubled eyes, Maggie wasn’t expecting that friendship to resume.
It was understandable.
Nell had been friends with Anna. In fact, they weren’t just in-laws; they’d worked together at the county clerk’s office in town.
“Is she a match?” Nell asked the moment Jake opened the door.
“We’ll soon find out. That’s why the doc is on the way.” He motioned for Maggie to come across the seat on his side. Probably so she wouldn’t be out in the open any longer than necessary, and he quickly ushered her inside.
Nell held the door open for them and studied Maggie’s uniform and then her muddy shoes. “I’m guessing you had a rough morning, too.”
Maggie nodded. It’d been nearly three years of rough mornings.
The kitchen was toasty warm and smelled liked Christmas cookies. Leave it to Nell to bake cookies when all hell was breaking loose, but then that’s what Maggie had always admired about her cool-under-pressure former friend.
Nothing had changed much in the time she’d been gone. The place looked exactly as it had when Anna and she had started visiting as teenagers. In those days, they’d both had crushes on Jake.
Something that would be a good idea to forget.
Like the house, Nell hadn’t changed much, either, though Maggie thought she was looking more and more like her late mother. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d seen Mrs. McCall wear that very apron. The cross necklace and the engagement ring, too, though Nell was wearing the ring on her right hand instead of her left.
“I’m sorry about your mother’s death,” Maggie told her. Breast cancer, Jake had told her when she’d asked on the drive over.
Nell nodded. “It was a tough loss for Jake, Royce and me.” She didn’t add her father to that list, and Maggie knew why. Even though they stayed married, Nell’s parents had had a rocky relationship.
“I went ahead and sent Betsy home,” Nell told Jake. She put on the oven mitt and took out another baking sheet of cookies from the oven. “I didn’t figure it’d be a good idea if she was here, what with possible trouble brewing.”
“You’re right.” Jake glanced at Maggie. “Betsy Becker, the nurse who’s been taking care of Sunny.”
Oh, that Betsy. Maggie remembered the kindly woman, and Nell had been right to get her away from this. The fewer people, the better.
“You have a security system?” Maggie asked, looking at the windows and then the door.
Jake nodded. “And the ranch hands are watching both roads.”
Maybe that would be enough. Maybe. But the Tanners had a long reach when it came to settling a score.
Nell turned to her brother. “Why would Tanner try to come after us now? And why are those marshals waiting at your office to arrest you?”
That last part snagged Maggie’s attention. “What marshals?”
“The ones who arrived several hours ago,” Nell clarified.
“You knew about this?” Maggie asked him, but there was no answer required. She could tell from his expression that he knew. The marshals obviously hadn’t had any trouble tracing the hacking job back to Jake.
“Well?” Nell pressed.
Jake shrugged. “It’s a long story.”
“Shorten it,” Nell insisted, staring at Maggie now.
Since the cat was out of the proverbial bag, Maggie didn’t see a reason to keep it secret. “Jake hacked into the classified database to find me.”
“Mercy,” Nell mumbled. “Is that why the ranch hands are all armed—to keep the marshals away?”
“No. Royce is supposed to keep the marshals away.” Jake tipped his head to Maggie for her to finish.
“I made a deal with Tanner so he’d leave all of you alone. He might believe I broke that deal.” She lifted her shoulder. “Technically, I did.”
“What did Tanner threaten to do if you broke the deal?” Nell asked.
“To hurt one or more of you.” She had to pause. “I have evidence against his son, so that might be enough to tie Tanner’s hands.” Another pause. “Unless he thinks he can have the evidence negated in some way.”
Or maybe Tanner would let his temper get the best of him and lash out despite the consequences.
“The idea is to get Maggie out of here fast and back into WITSEC,” Jake explained. “Then, I can deal with the marshals.”
Nell practically slammed the cookies onto the counter. “And you’ll be off to jail.”
Jake nodded. “I did what I had to do.”
Tears sprang to Nell’s eyes. “I know.” And she repeated it as she gave his arm a gentle squeeze.
“I had no choice but to bring her here,” Maggie heard Jake say.
Maggie’s attention shifted to the doorway where she spotted Chet approaching them. Definitely no warm fuzzies from him. He gave her a withering look, cursed and walked away.
“I can go as soon as the test is done,” Maggie assured Jake and Nell. She cleared her throat. “But I’d like to see Sunny first.”
Maggie braced herself for a resounding no from both of them, but they exchanged glances. There was some sibling telepathy going on between them, because Nell lifted her left eyebrow. Waited. Jake waited, too, and then finally echoed the profanity his father had just used.
“Wash your hands,” Jake ordered. “Scrub them clean and take one of the masks.” He pointed to a dispenser box of surgical masks on the windowsill next to the clay pots of fresh herbs.
For fear he would change his mind, Maggie didn’t waste any time. She shucked off her coat, which Nell took, and Maggie hurried to the sink. Jake did as well, and they both reached for the bottle of antibacterial soap. His hand brushed against hers, causing him to jerk back, but they kept scrubbing until Maggie was certain she couldn’t get any cleaner.
“This way,” Jake growled. He took two masks and handed her one. “Keep it short, and don’t you dare say a word about Anna. I’ll be the one to explain it.”
Maggie nodded and gave Nell a silent thanks for urging this, and she followed Jake out of the kitchen, through the great room and to the doorway of the guest suite. Now, here was a room that had changed. It was crammed with Christmas decorations and toys. The bed was the only part of the original furniture that remained, and Sunny was there, in the center of that bed.
Maggie’s heart went to her knees.
Oh, God.
She hadn’t expected the emotion to slam into her like this. Or the tears. She blinked them back, but she doubted she could keep them at bay for long. Anna’s little baby wasn’t so little anymore. A proper little girl dressed in a frilly pink gown and with those dark brown curls haloing around her face.
She looked sick and weak, but when she saw Maggie in the doorway, Sunny smiled. It was more than a smile. Her face lit up brighter than the lights on the nearby Christmas tree.
“Are you my mommy?” Sunny asked. She lifted a weak hand to the picture on the nightstand next to her. It was a shot of Anna holding Sunny when she was a baby. “Did the angels bring you back?”
Because her legs didn’t feel any steadier than her stomach, Maggie held on to the door frame. “No,” she managed to say. She looked at Jake, shook her head. She had no idea how to answer that. She certainly hadn’t anticipated that Sunny would think she was Anna.
“It’s not Mommy.” Jake’s voice was shakier than Maggie’s. “Royce said you were upset earlier,” he continued, changing the subject. He put on his mask, moved Maggie aside and went to his daughter. He kissed her forehead and sank down on the bed next to her.
Sunny nodded. “’Cause you weren’t here to give me a morning kiss. Or read to me. And I saw Grandpa with his gun. I didn’t like that.” She pulled him down for a hug. “Where were you, Daddy?”
Even though Sunny was clearly upset, each word seemed precious to Maggie. Like a gift she’d never thought she could have. Before seeing Sunny, she’d already made up her mind to do whatever it took to help her, but now Maggie was even more determined.
“I had to do some things,” Jake assured the little girl, “but I’m here now. And I brought your aunt Maggie to meet you.”
Sunny looked at Maggie, and the smile returned though her head did ease back down onto the pillow. “My aunt Maggie? Like Aunt Nell?”
Jake nodded. “Except Nell is my sister, and Maggie is your mommy’s sister. That’s why they look alike.”
Sunny frowned. “So, the angels didn’t bring Mommy back for Christmas?”
“No.” Jake swallowed hard. “Remember, we talked about this? Mommy can’t come back. She has to live with the angels.”
Sunny looked over her dad’s shoulder at Maggie. “So maybe the angels sent me Aunt Maggie instead?”
“Maybe,” Jake answered.
Sunny managed another weak smile and motioned toward the book next to the picture on the nightstand. “Then, maybe Aunt Maggie can read to me.” She looked at her dad perhaps for approval and must have seen the surprise, or maybe even the disgust for Maggie, in his eyes. “Just this one day,” Sunny added. “Daddy, you can read to me tomorrow.”
When Sunny continued to glance at the book, Maggie put on the mask, went closer and picked it up. She wasn’t sure what Jake was going to do and was more than a little surprised when he moved off the edge of the bed to make room for her. He’d no sooner done that when his phone buzzed.
“I have to take this call,” he said, looking down at the screen. Then, he shot Maggie a warning glance. “Remember what I said.”
Yes, no mention of Anna. Maggie had no intentions of violating that rule. She waited until Jake had stepped out before she sat on the bed next to Sunny. She opened the first page of the book about baby animals, but Sunny put her hand over Maggie’s.
“It’s okay,” she whispered like a secret. “I know how to read it myself. Some of the words anyway.”
“Then you must be very smart,” Maggie answered.
Sunny gave a shrug that reminded Maggie so much of Jake. In fact, her niece was more McCall than Gallagher.
“You know I’m sick?” Sunny asked.
Maggie nodded, and she tried to push back the tears again. “But you’ll get better.”
Another shrug, and Sunny looked up at her with those big blue-gray eyes that were a genetic copy of Jake’s. “Did the angels send you ’cause I’m sick?”
“I wanted to see you,” Maggie settled for saying. Best not to mention the bone marrow test since she might not even be a match. That broke Maggie’s heart just to think of the possibility.
“Daddy said Mommy lives with the angels. They take care of Mommy now.”
Maggie didn’t trust her voice and just nodded.
Sunny motioned toward the angel ornaments on the tree. “They take care of me, too.” Her voice was weak, and her eyelids drifted down for a moment. “I get tired a lot.”
Since there was no answer to that, Maggie settled for pushing away a curl that had dropped down onto Sunny’s cheek. Like the words Sunny had spoken, that simple touch was precious, too.
“Know what I want for Christmas?” Sunny asked. “I want you to live with me and be my mommy.”
Maggie nearly choked on the quick breath she sucked in, and her reaction didn’t improve when she heard the sound behind her. Maggie looked over her shoulder and saw Jake standing in the doorway. He’d obviously finished his call. He’d also heard what his daughter had just said.
“I need to speak to your aunt,” he told Sunny. Because his mask was off, Maggie could see that his jaw was tight again. Teeth semiclenched, too.
Despite the glare Jake shot her, Maggie kissed Sunny’s forehead. “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”
Maggie put the book back on the nightstand before she joined Jake outside the room. He shut the door and looked down at her as if waiting for an explanation.
“I didn’t bring up Anna.” Maggie pulled off her mask. “And that last part she said—that was all Sunny’s idea. I had nothing to do with it.”
His glare stayed in place for several seconds before he muttered some profanity. “I didn’t hear what she said. Why don’t you tell me?”
Oh. She’d thought from his sour expression that he’d been reacting to Sunny’s mommy wish, but maybe the mood hadn’t been for anything specifically said, just for the fact that Maggie was there.
“Thank you for letting me see her,” Maggie told him.
She braced herself for some kind of verbal blast, because she figured Jake was kicking himself for allowing the little visit. Chet was certainly adding to that mental kicking because he was standing in the great room with yet another McCall glare aimed at her.
However, he wasn’t alone.
Maggie recognized the man next to Jake’s father. It was Dr. Gavin Grange, and after studying his body language, she wondered if at least part of Chet’s glare wasn’t meant for the doctor and not just her.
“Dr. Grange will do the blood test now,” Jake informed her.
She volleyed glances among the three. “Is there a problem I don’t know about?”
“The doc’s just worried about his own hide,” Chet snarled.
Dr. Grange didn’t confirm that. Not with words anyway. But he came closer, set his medical bag on the table in the entry and extracted a syringe with a needle.
Maggie held out her arm for the doctor to wipe the spot with an antiseptic pad. She winced a little when he shoved the needle into her vein, and he drew not one but two vials of blood. He put the blood vials in his medical bag.
“How soon before we know the results?” she asked.
“I’ll ask the lab to expedite it.”
“Stay on them,” Chet piped in. “I want those results today.”
That caused the doctor to scowl, and he gathered his things before he turned to Jake. “I can’t make it happen that soon. Usually, an expedited test still has a twenty-four-hour turnaround, and the hospital lab is closing early today because tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.”
Maggie groaned softly. The holidays would slow things to a crawl, and the weather wouldn’t help, either. It was ironic, because normally a white Christmas would have been a perfect way to celebrate, but it would only be perfect if they could get those test results and learn that she was a match.
“If you could speed that up, I’d appreciate it,” Jake told him.
The doctor nodded. “If Maggie’s a match, I won’t be able to do the marrow harvesting. You’ll have to take her to Amarillo for that so you might want to go ahead and make arrangements in case you get lucky with the match.”
Maggie wondered if that’s because it was beyond his medical expertise or if it was because he didn’t want to be involved further in this.
“Call me the second you have the results,” Jake insisted at the same moment Chet told the doctor, “You can see yourself out.”
The doctor did just that. He headed for the door and didn’t look back.
“What’s wrong with him?” Maggie asked.
“You,” Chet quickly provided. “And me. He didn’t want to get involved because of what happened with Anna, but I convinced him otherwise.”
“How?” And Maggie was afraid to hear the answer.
“I reminded him of how many people in this town I could bad-mouth him to,” Chet explained. “Then, I told him he’d be damn sorry if he didn’t keep all of this secret. If it leaks out that you’re here in Mustang Ridge, I’m putting the blame on him.”
Well, that explained Grange’s uneasy attitude. Still, in this case she was glad for the threat, especially if it would get them those test results any faster.
“What now?” Maggie asked Jake.
“We wait.”
Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing since she might have another opportunity to spend time with her niece, but this was far from normal.
Jake cracked Sunny’s door a little and looked in on her. Maggie did, too, but Sunny was sound asleep. Neither of them moved. They both stood there, staring in at her.
Maggie wanted to say so many things. How sorry she was that her sister wasn’t there to be with this precious child. She wanted to tell Jake that he’d done a good job raising her, that Sunny was smart, beautiful and a dozen other adjectives that he wouldn’t want to hear. Not from her. So, Maggie just held her peace and watched Sunny sleep.
“Thank you,” Jake whispered.
It took Maggie a moment to realize he was talking to her about the bone marrow test. “You don’t have to thank me. You risked a lot to get me back here.”
“You risked a lot more by coming.” He turned his head, stared at her. “I swear I’ll do everything within my power to get you out of this alive.”
That was nearly as powerful as Sunny’s smile and words. And even though she knew Jake would never forgive her, it eased the pain in her heart a little.
“And I’ll do everything within my power to stop you from being arrested,” Maggie promised. What exactly that would be, she didn’t know, but talking to the marshals was a start.
“We don’t need that kind of help from you,” Chet said. Obviously, he’d eavesdropped on their conversation.
“Tough.” Maggie glanced over her shoulder at him. “Because you’re going to get it anyway. You can hate me all you want. But Jake needs to be here with his daughter.”
Chet made a gruff, skeptical sound, and then his attention drifted lower. To the position of Jake’s and her bodies. They were literally side by side. Touching. And while Jake wasn’t giving her a loving look, he wasn’t bristling at her, either.
The man’s gaze snapped to Jake. “I don’t guess I have to remind you to think with your head and not with what’s behind your zipper.”
That got Jake bristling. His jaw muscles stirred again, and Maggie figured he’d step away from her. He didn’t.
“No,” Jake said to his father, “you don’t have to remind me.”
Maybe it was Jake’s chilly tone or the fact he hadn’t budged, but Chet said something under his breath, took his gun from the mantel over the fireplace and headed toward the door. “I’m doing a walk around the place.”
Maggie waited until he was out the door before she said anything else. “I don’t want to cause friction between your father and you.”
“You didn’t.” Now, he stepped away, and he went to the side windows by the front door and looked out. “There’s always friction between us.”
Maggie thought about that a moment. “Does Sunny get caught up in it?”
“No,” he quickly assured her. He didn’t have time to say more because the house phone rang.
Probably because he didn’t want the ringing sound to wake up Sunny, he hurried to the foyer table, but Maggie heard Nell answer it in the kitchen. A moment later, Nell appeared in the doorway, and she had a concerned look on her face.
“It’s Betsy on the phone,” Nell told them. “She says she has to talk to you right away. I didn’t tell her you were here in case the marshals are trying to use her to find you. I just told her I had to check a pot on the stove and put her on hold.”
Betsy Becker, Sunny’s nurse. Maggie hoped this wasn’t bad news.
“Betsy wouldn’t tell the marshals anything,” Jake assured his sister. He pressed the speaker call button on the phone on the foyer table. “Betsy,” he answered. “Is something wrong?”
“Could be. I got a bad feeling about this, Jake.”
“About what?” he pressed.
“I stopped by the hospital for supplies after I left the ranch, and I heard some talk that David Tanner was here. And not just here, but he was talking to Dr. Grange right before the doc left to go out to the ranch.”
Maggie groaned. She’d suspected something was wrong with the doctor, and now she knew what. God knows what David had said to the man and had perhaps threatened him.
One look at Jake, and Maggie knew he was thinking the same thing she was: Had the threat worked?
And had Dr. Grange just betrayed them?
“I have to get you out of here,” Jake said. “Fast.”