Undercover Christmas Read online

  “Tell me about Burton’s,” she said as they sat down to wait.

  He shrugged. “There isn’t much to tell.”

  “I doubt that. You own Burton’s. You’re a carpenter. Why do I think there’s more to it than that?”

  “I never lied to you, Marni,” he said seriously. “I am a carpenter, although I don’t do much of the work myself anymore. I own Burton’s. Actually six.”

  “Six Burton’s? Why did you name them Burton’s?”

  “It was my mother’s name. Charlotte Burton. It was my name for fourteen years.” He glanced away. “I started the stores because of her, I’d like to think our lives might have been different if there’d been a Burton’s in the neighbor-hoods we lived in when I was a kid. If there’d been someplace my mother could have found hope.”

  Marni reached over and took his hand and squeezed it, tears in her eyes. “And you’re a carpenter?”

  “I buy old houses and fix them up and—”

  “Give them away,” she said, getting the picture.

  Chase laughed as he met her gaze, seemingly pleased that she understood. “Jabe insisted I acknowledge him as my father. He forced his name on me and his money, dumping large sums into my account on my birthdays. I took his name. I refused to spend his money. I was working on a house for an elderly couple in the neighborhood, and I realized how many more houses I would be able to repair with Jabe’s money. How many more Burton’s I could open. When I told him what I was doing with his money, he almost had a coronary.”

  “But he kept giving you money each birthday?”

  “Yeah, he did. Maybe he had a heart, after all.” Chase stopped talking and looked away.

  “You loved him,” she said. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I hated him, too,” Chase said.

  A nurse came down the hall toward them. “Excuse me,” she said. “Your friend asked if you both would mind coming to the birthing room. I think she could use some reassurance.”

  They found Raine in pain, but more scared than anything else, Marni thought.

  “The contractions, they’re getting so close together,” Raine cried as Marni took her hand.

  “That’s good,” Marni said. “That means it’s almost over. I’ll help you breathe through them.”

  Chase had gone to the other side of the bed. He pressed a cool cloth to Raine’s forehead and Marni was struck with a vision of him tending his sick mother. The man who came up with Burton’s, a little hope for the neighborhood. Marni felt such a rush of love for him.

  An hour later, Raine delivered a tiny baby girl. Marni saw the infant come into the world. It captured her heart with its bright eyes, head of dark straight hair and tiny button of a nose.

  But it was Chase’s reaction that touched her the most. He stared at the infant for a long moment, then looked up at Marni, eyes misty. A surprise, from a man who never wanted a baby of his own.

  THEY WERE in Raine’s room, when Chase heard his name called over the paging system. He picked up the phone, surprised to hear the sheriffs voice on the other end of the line. “I thought you might be at the hospital visiting your brother,” the sheriff said.without preamble. “We’ve picked up Monte Decker.”

  Chase let out a sigh of relief and smiled over at Marni. She looked questioningly at him. “The sheriffs got your Santa mugger,” he mouthed to Marni. “Did he tell you who he’s working for?” Chase asked the sheriff.

  “No, he says he’s not talking until he gets a lawyer. But after we arrested him, we got a warrant and searched his apartment in Willow Creek.”

  Chase felt his heart pick up a beat

  “We found a photograph, probably the one you told us about that was missing from Marni McCumber’s residence. She’s an identical twin, right?”

  “Monte had the photo,” Chase said, trying to figure out what that meant, other than the fact that Decker had been the one who broke into Marni’s house. “What about his accomplice, the person who attacked Marni?”

  “We don’t have anything yet, but when Monte made his one phone call, he called Calloway Ranch.”

  BY THE TIME they left Raine in her private room, Marni was glad to see that the young woman seemed confident that her decision to give up the baby was the right one.

  “I just want my little girl to have a good home with two loving parents,” she said. “Thank you for being here with me.

  Marni left, thinking about that adorable baby girl in the nursery. She wondered if Chase was also thinking about the birth. It had been the first she’d ever witnessed and recalling it still moved her to tears, the miracle of it.

  “Excuse me,” a woman called out as they passed the front desk. “Mr. Calloway?”

  “Yes?” Chase said, stepping over to the desk.

  “I thought I should let someone in the family know. Your brother, Hayes Calloway. I’m afraid he checked him-self out of the hospital a little while ago. Against his doctor’s orders.”

  “You’d better call the farm and warn your family,” Chase said as they headed out of the hospital.

  “You think that’s where he’s headed?” Marni asked in surprise. “But how—” She stopped, realizing that she’d foolishly told the whole family all about the farm at breakfast a few days ago. It would be fairly easy for any of them to find the McCumber farm. “Oh, Chase.”

  “Don’t worry, your brothers can handle it, not that I think Hayes is a risk. I’m sure he just wants to make sure for himself that Elise and the baby are all right. I’d do the same thing if I were him.”

  She looked at Chase. He would, she thought, more drawn to this man as each day passed, more in love with him.

  Chase was unlocking the pickup when Dayton drove up and rolled down his window.

  “Did you hear?” he cried.

  Was he referring to Hayes leaving the hospital or had something else happened? Marni wondered with dread. Something to do with Lilly.

  “Felicia had her baby.” Dayton pulled into the parking place next to theirs and got out with a bouquet of roses in one hand and cigars in the other.

  “Is the baby all right?” Marni asked. She thought about what Chase had said about Felicia’s determination to have the baby before Elise.

  “Oh, yeah,” Dayton said. “It’s a baby girl. Small, but doing fine, the doctor says.” He stared at Marni. “Don’t tell me you delivered yours, too?”

  “There was an accident,” Chase said solemnly. “She lost it”

  Marni watched Dayton’s expression, saw the relief and wondered if he’d been the person in the Nutcracker costume.

  “That’s too bad,” Dayton said as he shoved a cigar into Chase’s pocket and started toward the hospital.

  “Not exactly Mr. Sensitive, is he?” Chase commented.

  “I guess you can’t expect him to be brokenhearted under the circumstances,” Marni whispered back.

  “Hey,” Dayton called to them. “You’re coming up to see her, aren’t you? Candy Cane Calloway. What do you think of that for a name?”

  Marni doubted Dayton would want to know what she thought. “We should probably go see the baby,” she said to Chase, although she could tell by his expression that he wasn’t wild about the idea.

  “Candy Cane Calloway,” Dayton repeated as the three of them entered the hospital. “Great name for a kid who’s going to be loaded with dough.”

  When they reached the nursery, they looked through the window and saw that the Calloway baby’s bassinet was empty. “She must be with Felicia,” Dayton said, sounding a little worried.

  CHASE DIDN’T WANT to think about Felicia and Dayton as parents. It frightened him more than thinking of himself as one. And it was something he’d thought about since Marni McCumber had turned up on his doorstep claiming to be pregnant with his child. After witnessing Raine’s daughter’s birth, he couldn’t get it out of his head.

  When they walked into Felicia’s room, the nurse was handing Felicia her baby.

  “It isn�
�t going to spit up on me again, is it?” Felicia asked, awkwardly taking the baby.

  “Babies do that,” the nurse said.

  Chase watched Felicia accept the warm bottle from the nurse and poke it at the baby’s mouth. Any doubts he had about what kind of mother Felicia would make were quickly answered.

  The baby began to cry. “Here,” she said, calling after the nurse. “Do something with her.”

  “It’s your baby, Mrs. Calloway,” the nurse said and closed the door behind her.

  “We’re going to get a nanny,” Dayton said to no one in particular.

  “Dayton!” Felicia cried, holding the blanket-wrapped baby out to him.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said in horror.

  Marni stepped to Felicia’s bedside and took the wriggling, crying infant from her. She held the baby to her breast and rocked it gently, cooing softly. The infant hushed after a moment, something not lost on Chase.

  Chase watched, mesmerized by the sight. He felt a strong tug on his heartstrings; Marni looked so right with a baby in her arms.

  She smiled as she peeked into the blanket. Then let out a cry. Chase rushed to her side to see what was wrong.

  “Is something wrong with my baby?” Felicia demanded.

  Marni stood staring down at the baby, her eyes wide. “This baby—”

  Chase looked down at the infant in her arms and swore. Marni hadn’t been the only person pretending to be pregnant His gaze flicked up to settle on Dayton.

  “What’s wrong?” Dayton demanded.

  “This isn’t your baby,” Chase said.

  “Of course it is.”

  Chase shook his head. “You’d do anything for money, wouldn’t you, Dayton? Even buy a baby and try to pass it off as your own.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” Dayton cried, sounding tougher than he looked. “You have no right to—”

  “I have every right,” Chase said, advancing on his half brother. “I was there when this baby came into the world.”

  “What’s going on in here?” the nurse demanded from the doorway.

  “Could you take the baby back to the nursery?” Chase asked.

  “Oh, Dayton,” Felicia wailed. “I told you this wasn’t going to work.”

  The nurse took a moment to assess the situation, then lifted the baby from Marni’s arms. Chase saw how hard it was for Marni to give her up and wanted to bury his fist in Dayton’s face.

  “You’re a liar, Dayton,” Chase said through gritted teeth the moment the nurse left with the baby. “You just proved that. I’ve thought from the beginning that you killed Jabe. I didn’t understand why. But I do now.”

  “You’re wrong,” Dayton said, holding up his hands. “I didn’t kill the old man. All I did was adopt a baby. There’s no law against that.”

  “You don’t think trying to pass off this baby as your own to collect the inheritance is illegal?” Chase asked. “You knew Raine would deliver before Elise, you knew she was small and so was her baby. You figured you could pass off the infant as premature because of that. And it might have worked, if we hadn’t been at that particular baby’s birth.”

  “All right, maybe I was wrong but—”

  “You had motive and opportunity to kill Jabe. You couldn’t let him change his will back because you already had this baby scam going.” But because of that, Chase realized Dayton had no reason to want Marni dead. He knew Raine would give birth first

  “I tried to talk him out of leaving his money to the first kid,” Dayton cried. “He wouldn’t listen. He was so determined to have a grandchild, preferably yours. And then when this—” he waved a hand in Marni’s direction “—woman showed up seven months pregnant—What choice did I have? Let you get the money? But I didn’t kill Father. I couldn’t kill Father.”

  Dayton looked at Marni then Chase. “So what’s the big deal? Neither of us wins. You don’t have a baby and neither do I. That means half of the old man’s riches gets divided equally among the three of us, right? With half to Mother.”

  Chase wasn’t about to tell Dayton that a Calloway baby would be born soon. Let him be surprised when Elise and Hayes’s baby inherited the money. By then, Chase had hoped Dayton would be behind bars for the murder of Jabe Calloway. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “Oh, Chase,” Marni cried the moment they left Felicia’s room. She threw herself into his arms. He held her tightly.

  “Don’t worry, the baby will be fine,” Chase said. “We’ll find someone else to adopt her. The baby is a little jaundiced, so she has to stay in the nursery for a few days anyway. By the time she’s ready to leave, we’ll have adoptive parents for her.”

  Marni nodded into his shoulder. “Just the thought of Dayton and Felicia—”

  “I know. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked once they were in the pickup and headed down Highland Boulevard toward town.

  “To lunch,” he said, smiling over at her, hoping food would make them both feel better. “A late lunch, or an early dinner,” he said, surprised to find it was late afternoon. “My stomach’s growling,” he lied. He just wanted out of the hospital and to be alone with Marni. But not back at the apartment. Not yet, anyway. “The sheriff can wait. We’ll stop on the way and call the farm and warn them about Hayes.”

  She looked worried. “Everything’s going to be all right now,” he assured her, praying that was true.

  By now his family would have heard that Marni was no longer pregnant, he told himself. That should make her safe. He shoved away that little voice in his head that argued the killer was still at large and as long as he was, neither Marni nor Elise were safe.

  “Lunch,” he said. They’d have lunch, then he’d figure out what to do about the news the sheriff had given him.

  “Lunch, huh?” she said, smiling back at him. “Let me guess? A can of soup, crackers and another ball game?”

  “All right, I admit I was trying to keep you at a distance.”

  She laughed. “Do you think I didn’t know that? Too bad I like canned soup and ball games on TV, huh?”

  His look caressed her face. “I admit it didn’t work.”

  She shook her head, no it didn’t. “Are you sorry?”

  His gaze turned so serious it scared her. “Only if I end up hurting you.”

  She heard the pain in his voice. “You won’t,” she said, sliding over to snuggle against him. “About that lunch, what exactly did you have in mind?”

  He watched her, often surprised by what he saw. A freshness, a wholesomeness and yet a passionate, interesting, compassionate woman. Marni McCumber saw the good in everybody. What did she see in him? he wondered. What if she was wrong about him?

  “No soup, no ball game, no crackers,” he said, heading out of town.

  She laughed when he pulled up in front of Guadalupe’s Mexican restaurant And seemed pleased when he asked for a back booth with candleight, and ordered them both chile rellenos and kissed her the moment the waiter left the table.

  “Mmm,” Marni said. “What did you have in mind for dessert?”

  “We need to talk,” Chase said seriously.

  The waiter returned and put a bowl of salsa and chips in front of them and two tall beers. Marni took a sip of beer.

  “Everything’s happened so fast,” he said, knowing how lame that sounded. “Marni, I don’t know how I feel about some…things.”

  “About me, isn’t that what you mean?” she asked quietly.

  “No, I know how I feel about you, dammit. I’m just having a hard time seeing myself married.”

  “Who said anything about marriage?” she asked, a catch in her voice.

  He wanted to laugh. “Marni, you’re the marrying kind.” She started to interrupt, probably to argue that she wasn’t, but he stopped her. “I’m not sure about marriage, let alone kids. And don’t tell me you don’t want babies. I saw how you were with Raine’s baby girl.”

  Marni touched her cheek to brush
away a tear. “Pretending to be pregnant with your baby made me realize that I do want a baby.” She looked into his eyes. “I want your baby, Chase. But I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Marni. I’m not sure I can give you that Ever.”

  The waiter brought their food and Chase mentally kicked himself for killing both of their appetites. His timing was amazing but he’d felt he needed to be truthful with her. He cared too much about her not to be.

  He changed the subject, telling her what the sheriff had told him about the photo and Monte Decker’s phone call.

  “Someone at that house hired him,” Chase said. He added, “Monte and Lilly were friends when he worked for Calloway Ranch. Maybe even lovers. Lilly knew about Elise and Hayes. Hayes said himself she was furious. When you add in her drinking problem—”

  “What if Lilly doesn’t drink as much as everyone thinks she does?” Marni asked. “What if she’s just pretending to be unstable?”

  He found himself staring at her in disbelief. “Why would Lilly do that?”

  “She said something to me about being safe as long as they didn’t know she knew what was going on.”

  “That shows how stable she is,” he said.

  “Look how she was at the funeral.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Don’t you think it’s amazing,” Marni said, “that she was capable of driving all the way from the ranch if she was as drunk as she seemed? I just feel like there’s more going on with her than we know.”

  “There is,” he said, trying to keep his voice down. “She knows about Elise and Hayes and she thinks you’re Elise. Isn’t that enough?”

  “She knew about Elise and Hayes when I was at the ranch and she thought I was Elise,” Marni said. “Remember the day she gave me the baby booties? She said then that she should hate me but that I wasn’t the one to blame.”

  He raked his hand through his hair. “Marni, for all we know she had just tried to kill you in the attic. She came back to see if she’d succeeded and must have heard the two of us talking by the toppled armoire. So she snatched the booties and gave them to you to sucker you in.”