Undercover Christmas. B.J. Daniels

Copyright

Prologue

       November 3

      A biting cold wind stole down Main Street, sending the last of the shoppers scurrying. Chase pulled his coat around him and stepped to the curb in front of the old Bozeman Hotel to check again. It wasn’t like his father to be late. But then Jabe Calloway had been doing a lot of unlikely things in the past few weeks.

      Lights flickered off as downtown stores closed for the night. The traffic dwindled, exhausts cloudy and white as the vehicles passed. From the dark sky, snow sifted, covering the town in an icy layer of frost.

      Worry stole Chase’s thoughts the way the cold stole his body heat. He stomped his feet and rubbed his gloved hands together trying to stay warm. No, it wasn’t like Jabe Calloway to be late nor to call his oldest son and ask him to meet him on a street corner.

      The memory of something Chase thought he’d heard in his father’s voice suddenly chilled him more than the weather. He hadn’t been able to put a name to it. Probably because it was a word he’d never associated with his father. Fear. Chase glanced at his watch. Almost an hour late. Jabe had been explicit about the time. Nine sharp. Jabe had some papers he needed to sign at the family attorney’s office and he wanted Chase to go with him. But at this late hour? No, Jabe Calloway wasn’t himself lately. Either something was terribly wrong or—

      Chase turned at the sound of hurried footsteps slapping the snow-coated concrete. Jabe Calloway halted beneath the streetlamp across the intersection ten yards away and glanced upward as if waiting for the traffic light to change. He wore a gray Stetson hat on his salt-and-pepper hair, and a dark plaid shirt, jeans and boots beneath the long stockman duster that flapped open in the wind. At sixty-five, Jabe still stood six feet four and looked as solid as the lamppost next to him.

      And yet for one ridiculous moment, Chase thought he saw his father stagger. Thought he saw frailty in those broad shoulders. And vulnerability.

      The light changed. Jabe seemed to hesitate. Worried, Chase stepped off the curb and headed toward his father. He could feel Jabe’s pale blue gaze. Eyes the same color as his own. Eyes always filled with a stubborn determination that brooked no interference.

      Jabe nodded once and started across the street, all that usual arrogance and authority in his step. Chase almost laughed. Had he really thought Jabe Calloway might be in trouble? That this immovable rock of a man might need help?

      The truck appeared out of nowhere. Headlights sliced through the snowfall as its engine revved and bore down on the tall cowboy in the street. Chase dived, hurling his father to the gutter as the truck’s grill connected with Chase’s left leg, the pavement with Chase’s head. The lights went out. The truck kept going.

       Chapter One

       December 20

      Marni pounded on the motel-room door, panicked by the hysterical phone call that had sent her racing across town on icy winter roads just days before Christmas.

      “This’d better be good, Elise,” she muttered as she waited impatiently for her sister to answer the door. This was so like Elise. After a five-month absence, a frantic phone call from a motel. And what was Elise doing staying at a motel anyway? She always stayed with Marni between adventures. So what had happened this time?

      Only one answer presented itself, flashing on like one of the Christmas lights strung along the motel’s eaves. It had to be man trouble, Marni thought with a groan. That was the only thing that rattled her sister’s legendary composure.

      Marni pounded on the door again, trying not to think about how many times she’d had to rescue her sister. Elise had a natural ability for getting into trouble but no talent for getting herself out. She also had a knack for the dramatic. Marni rolled her eyes. Of course Elise did. She was in the theater. It didn’t matter that she designed sets rather than performed onstage; Elise loved the drama. All Marni could hope was that things weren’t half as bad as her sister had made them out to be on the phone.

      On the other side of the door, she could hear Elise fumbling with the lock.

      The door opened a crack and El’s tear-streaked face peeked around the edge. “Hi,” she said with an apologetic smile.

      Marni looked into the mirror image of her own face and felt instant relief that Elise appeared to be all right. Her twin sister had made it sound like the end of the world, as if this time she was in serious trouble. So serious that Marni had abandoned her employees at the boutique to come charging over here at two in the afternoon on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, to save her twin who appeared not to need saving at all, just a shoulder to cry on.

      Elise opened the door a little wider and Marni pushed her way in, feeling a lecture coming as surely as her next breath.

      “El, this better not be another one of your—” The word stunts never left her lips. Speechless, Marni stared at her twin.

      Elise stood, pigeon-toed and timid, wearing a flannel nightgown and a pair of bunny slippers. She gave Marni another apologetic smile, her eyes filling with tears as she looked down at the source of Marni’s speechlessness—her swollen belly.

      “You’re…pregnant?” Marni cried. “You’re pregnant?” Frantically she tried to remember the last time she’d seen her twin. Summer. El had stopped by the boutique, slim and excited about the new man in her life. Admittedly, Marni hadn’t been paying a lot of attention. A new man in Elise’s life wasn’t exactly earth-shattering news. Now, if it had been Marni with a new man—any man—that would have been news.

      “You’re pregnant,” Marni repeated. She replayed what she could remember of Elise’s phone call five months ago. Something about a theater tour in London. Marni had suspected the “tour” was also a romantic rendezvous but it had never crossed her mind that El might be—“Pregnant!”

      Elise nodded. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks and Marni could see the dam about to break. She rushed to her sister, hugged her tightly, then took her hands in hers.

      No wedding band. At least Elise hadn’t eloped and forgotten to tell her. She’d just gotten pregnant and failed to mention it.

      “A baby”, Marni said brightly as she led Elise over to the bed. They sat on the edge. A zillion questions buzzed around in Marni’s head. “How did this happen?”

      A stupid question. And obviously the wrong one. Elise burst into a flood of tears. Marni grabbed a box of tissues from the night table—where already used ones were piled high—and handed several to her twin.

      The story came out between sobs, sniffles and nose-blowing. Elise had met a man last summer, fallen head over heels in love and found herself pregnant—and him long gone. “His name is Chase Calloway.”

      Sounded like a made-up name, if Marni had ever heard one. “Where did you meet him?”

      “Remember that fender bender I had last June in Boze-man? It was his truck I ran into.” El smiled at the memory. “He bought me dinner because I was upset. He was so sweet and thoughtful.”

      Marni just bet he was.

      “He was in town for a few days so we spent them together.”

      “In town?”

      “He travels a lot, just like me.”

      Marni just bet he did. “How few days?”

      “Four. And don’t tell me someone can’t fall in love in four days.”

      Heaven forbid Marni would even suggest such a thing. Elise could fall in love in four seconds.