Undercover Christmas Read online

  And what if the desire she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes had been real? What if he’d wanted her as badly as she’d wanted him? What if he wanted her now—at all costs?

  He swung her legs up and spun her around and back, until she lay lengthwise on the table in front of him. Panicked that he might not be bluffing after all, she struggled to get up, but he bent over her face, his breath tickling her cheek as his lips skimmed across her skin in search of her mouth.

  She turned her head away from his kiss, and realized that if he was just trying to scare her, he was doing a good job of it. “Chase, let me up. I don’t find this in the least bit humorous.”

  “Humorous?” He laughed softly as he trailed kisses down her throat to the V of her maternity blouse. “Honey, I’m not trying to be humorous.”

  With a shock, she felt him unbutton the top button on her maternity blouse and realized where his mouth was headed next. Oh no. “Chase, pleas—”

  His kiss cut her off before she got any further. Last night his lips had taken, demanding nothing in return. This kiss staked claim to her, demanding every ounce of her, warning her of his intentions in a way his words never could have done. This kiss brooked no argument and her traitorous body acquiesced without even a whimper.

  She closed her eyes. Tasting him. Savoring him. Letting his lips transmit alien, wonderful, tantalizing sensations to the rest of her body. Amazed to feel her breasts tingle, nipples harden to taut peaks, her aching center long for his touch, for his mouth, for his—Her eyes flew open and she let out a cry of pure agony.

  Chase jerked back, his heart a thunder in his ears He stared at her as he tried to catch his breath. She lay, breathing hard, her eyes wide, her body trembling slightly. He saw that he’d freed the first two buttons on her blouse, laying bare the fair freckled skin above her full breasts.

  He stepped back, realizing how close he’d come to taking her right there on the table. The realization frightened him more than he wanted to admit. She filled him with a need so powerful—

  She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the table as she pulled down her skirt and then quickly buttoned her shirt, smoothing it over her swollen belly, tears in her eyes.

  He felt like a teenager, as embarrassed by what he’d done as she looked. The words I’m sorry came to his lips but he wouldn’t let himself say them. The effect this woman had on him scared the hell out of him. He called on the anger, reminding himself that the child she carried was some other man’s. He let the wave of jealousy that followed that thought fuel his anger.

  “I wondered just how far you would go with this charade of yours,” he said, grabbing his crutches as he backed toward the door. “Now I know.”

  It wasn’t until he’d gone out the back door, felt the snow against his face and taken a deep breath of the cold winter air that he let his defenses down. His chest hurt with an ache so foreign to him—He tried not to remember the look of hurt on her face or the way her gaze clutched at his heart. My God, he was falling for this woman. It wasn’t possible. Not in just twenty-four hours. Then he felt a jolt so strong it made him stumble. What if she’s telling the truth, what if this happened last summer and that baby she’s carrying really is yours?

  HEMADE HIS ESCAPE to the barn amazingly fast considering his disability, Marni thought. She stood, leaning against the dining-room table, too shaky to leave the room, too embarrassed. Her pounding heart filled with guilt. Tears of shame stung her eyes.

  Chase’s first kiss had been unavoidable. The almost kiss in the barn was foolhardy at best. This…She glanced back at the table, the dishes and food pushed aside, and closed her eyes, trying to block out the sensation of his lips, his hands on her skin.

  She opened her eyes at the sound of someone entering the room and lifted her head high, ready to put on a strong front for the family members she knew must have been waiting outside the door, listening to each sordid sound.

  “What has my son done now?” Jabe demanded.

  Obviously seeing how distraught she was, Jabe ordered her hot chocolate with marshmallows and led her into the library, even giving her his chair in front of the fire.

  “I wish I could explain Chase to you,” he said after adding more logs to the fire. He took the chair beside her and handed her a large mug of hot chocolate from the tray Hilda had brought in.

  She took a sip, still fighting tears. She rarely cried. She’d always seen it as a weakness, one she didn’t have the time or energy for. But right now—

  “He seems so cold, so distant and unfeeling,” she said. “And other times—Has he always been like that?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Jabe seemed to hesitate. “I never knew my son until he was fourteen. I didn’t even know he existed before then.”

  Marni stared at him in shock.

  “I don’t know how much my son has told you about his childhood.”

  As far as Marni knew, Chase hadn’t told Elise much of anything, especially about his childhood. “Not a lot.”

  He sighed as if he dreaded what he was about to say. “Chase’s mother was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Her name was Lottie, short for Charlotte. Lottie was my first, my last, my only true love.”

  Marni frowned to herself. Poor Vanessa. She’d be a fool not to know how Jabe felt and Vanessa was no fool. No wonder she came off as mean-spirited toward Chase.

  “Lottie was…to put it bluntly…from the wrong background. Her father worked for mine. So when she came to me and told me she was pregnant with my child—”

  “You sent her away.”

  “My father discharged hers and gave her money to have an abortion, at least that’s what he told me.” Jabe had the decency to look ashamed. “I was engaged to Vanessa by this time. We’d met at college and her family and mine were…compatible. I thought I would forget Lottie.”

  “What happened to her and Chase?”

  “They had some hard times.” He looked away, his face drawn. “Lottie wasn’t well. Chase took care of her the best he could until almost the end.”

  Chase took care of himself and his mother? He was only a child!

  Jabe looked into the fire. “Chase finally came to me for help. I realize now how hard that was for him. He was fourteen, proud even then and just as stubborn. He hated me for what he felt I’d done to his mother.”

  Marni felt sick to her stomach. She thought of Chase and that easy, loving gentleness he had with the horses.

  “I might as well tell you the rest, Chase probably will.”

  His words filled her with dread.

  “I wanted something of Lottie so badly that when Chase came to me, I made him a bargain. If he would acknowledge that he was my son, I would help his mother.”

  “How could you do such a thing?” Marni cried without thinking. Trying to buy his son. How hateful of him. How incredibly selfish. She could see why Chase had told Elise the things he had about Jabe. Chase had to hate his father. And yet he didn’t. He was here at the ranch now because he thought Jabe’s life was in danger.

  “I only wanted what was mine,” Jabe said defensively.

  And at any price. Just as he had now, changing his will in an attempt to get the grandchild he so desperately wanted.

  “Poor Chase,” she said, not wanting to think of the childhood he must have had. No wonder he didn’t want children of his own or marriage. “He must have needed your help desperately to agree to your terms.”

  “He’s never forgiven me no matter how hard I’ve tried to make it up to him.”

  Marni almost felt sorry for Jabe, for the anguish and regret she heard in his voice. Almost. “What happened to his mother?”

  “Chase thought my money and influence could save her. All I could do was to make her last months as painless as possible.”

  Marni felt tears rush to her eyes. She turned away. Oh, Chase. She tried to imagine him as a boy, caring for his mother, and finally at fourteen, coming for help to the father who’d abandoned them. How h
ard it must have been. And then to have his mother die anyway. He must have felt betrayed in so many ways.

  “You see why it’s important that Chase not make the same mistake I did,” Jabe said.

  Marni saw that Jabe Calloway’s motives were anything but selfless. He wanted a grandchild and he didn’t seem to care how he accomplished that, even if it meant buying one. Or helping her convince Chase that he was the father of Elise’s child.

  If only the storm would let up and she could take off this silly maternity form and go back to being Marni McCumber, the sensible, the confident, the woman in control of her life, and more important, the woman in control of her feelings.

  “Is there a chance that my baby’s in danger because of your will?”

  “There is nothing to worry about, I assure you.”

  Marni wished she shared his confidence. “Why is Chase so worried then?”

  “Chase is a worrier by nature.”

  “I can see that he might not be too trusting,” Marni said.

  “Especially with me?” Jabe said. “I’ll admit I’ve made some mistakes in my life. That’s why I want to try to right them with a grandchild. Is that so wrong?”

  “Yes,” Chase said from behind them. Neither of them had heard him come in. He stood leaning on his crutches, his face twisted in anger. “Because you try to buy what you want. You’ve tried to buy me from the first day I met you. You tried again when you changed your will. If I’d come into the family business, you wouldn’t have put a price tag on your first grandchild.”

  “So I wanted you to be a part of the family business more than I even wanted a grandchild,” Jabe bellowed. “Is that so heinous?”

  “Could you leave Jabe and me alone?” he said to Marni without looking at her.

  Glad to escape the tension she felt in the room, she left without a word, closing the door behind her. She wanted to be as far away from Jabe Calloway as she could get and wished Elise wasn’t carrying Chase’s child for more reasons than she wanted to think about.

  As she started for the stairs, she realized that she’d lost one of her earrings. The thought of having Hilda find it in the middle of the dining-room table sent her scurrying in to look for it. She found the small silver loop on the floor where it must have fallen and quickly replaced it in her ear. As she was coming out of the dining room, she saw Lilly emerge from under the stairs and heard the soft whisper of the secret passage door closing. Lilly saw her and touched her lips in a mock plea for secrecy and silence, then lifted the glass in her hand in a salute before she headed up the stairs. Marni watched her in concern but she seemed steady enough.

  After a few moments, Marni walked over to the spot where the door had opened in the paneling and felt along the wall for a few minutes but no secret doorway opened at her fingertips. If she hadn’t seen Lilly appear, she wouldn’t have believed the passage existed. Nothing about the wall gave any indication there was a paneled doorway hidden in it.

  And where did the passageway go? She remembered Lilly’s face peering out of the tiny window below the third-story eave. Is that where she’d come from? Why all the secrecy? Surely Lilly didn’t think she was successfully hid” ing her drinking problem from anyone.

  As Marni turned, she collided with Felicia.

  “Did you lose something?” Felicia asked, one dark eye-brow shooting up with interest.

  She had that same know-it-all look on her face as her husband. Smug. Self-satisfied. What she didn’t look was pregnant. The irony of it made Marni smile.

  “I was just admiring the beautiful wood,” Marni said.

  “You like it?” Felicia asked in surprise. She wrinkled her perfect little nose. “It’s a little too dark for my tastes.”

  “It’s like the house, it reflects Jabe and his position,” Marni said.

  “Really?” Felicia’s interest in the pretentious house seemed to wane. “When exactly is your baby due?” she asked, her gaze dropping to Marni’s protruding stomach.

  “Valentine’s Day,” Marni said.

  Felicia looked as if she might want to throw up again. “I heard that you’ve befriended my sister-in-law.”

  The change of subject was so abrupt it took Marni a moment to realize Felicia was referring to Lilly. News definitely traveled fast in this house. But Marni did wonder how Felicia had found out. She doubted Chase had mentioned it to Felicia, a woman Marni figured he wished was still in one of those deep, dark holes of forgotten memory.

  “Lilly was upset,” Marni said. “I just tried to comfort her.”

  “Lilly is always upset,” Felicia said disagreeably. “Upset, drunk and—” She looked up, her eyes darkening. “Dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” Marni repeated.

  Felicia nodded conspiratorially. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Lilly has never been well, and since the baby…died.”

  “How did it die?” she asked, reminded of Lilly’s claim that Vanessa had killed it.

  Felicia did a poor job of pretending discomfort. “It says crib death on the poor little thing’s death certificate,” she whispered. ‘The baby had somehow suffocated.”

  When Marni didn’t question her about the “somehow,” Felicia added, “The truth is, Vanessa found Lilly leaning over the crib with a pillow in her hands and the baby dead. She murdered her own daughter and now she wanders this place crazier than a loon, clinging to that damned stuffed doll and crying.”

  Marni shuddered at the picture Felicia painted of Lilly.

  “That’s why I wanted to warn you,” she said earnestly. “If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from her. She could be a threat to you.” Felicia let her gaze drop and Marni’s hand went protectively to Sam.

  Having obviously accomplished what she’d set out to, Felicia turned and strolled away. Marni watched her go, unable to throw off the image of Lilly standing over her daughter’s crib, a pillow in her hands. Nor could she forget the sound of the baby crying coming up through the heat vent, when there was no baby in the house.

  Chapter Eight

  Marni hurried up the stairs to her room, wanting to avoid further contact with Chase’s family for a few hours. She tried not to think about what Felicia had told her. It was obvious Lilly needed help, if for nothing more than her drinking problem. So why wasn’t someone in this family seeing that she got it?

  Marni felt uneasy and almost…afraid as she closed her bedroom door behind her and locked it. Afraid not of Dayton, Felicia or even Lilly, but something less tangible, a feeling of misfortune that seemed to permeate this dark, joyless house.

  She checked to make sure the adjoining-room door was locked, as well, feeling silly and strangely paranoid. She couldn’t remember ever being afraid before. Not even of the dark.

  Part of it is the storm, she told herself as she went to the window to stare out. From the gray of the sky, huge snow-flakes continued to fall, spiraling down to form a suffocating blanket of white.

  She felt trapped. In this house. In her own dark thoughts. She couldn’t stop thinking about Lilly and her infant daughter. Nor about Chase and his mother.

  She knew so little about Chase. Elise knew even less. Why hadn’t Elise known he had a different mother from Hayes’s and Dayton’s? That he’d been a bastard. That he hadn’t even known his father until he was fourteen. That he didn’t work for Calloway Ranches. What did he do for a living? And why hadn’t he mentioned any of this to El?

  Had he purposely kept things from her or had the two never talked about anything…important? But according to El, they had talked about marriage and children. And El thought he worked for Calloway Ranches. Was it just because he’d been driving one of the ranch trucks? Or had he led her to believe he worked for his father?

  Marni couldn’t shake the sense that something was desperately wrong here. Or maybe she was just feeling how wrong it was to pretend to be Elise, especially considering her own reaction to Chase.

  Unable to call her twin until the phone lines were restored, Ma
rni busied herself building a fire in the fireplace, hoping the physical activity would stop her thoughts of Chase and his family. But when she had the fire going, she couldn’t stand still long enough to enjoy its warmth. Instead, she paced the room, worrying about Elise and the baby and what she was going to tell her twin when she could finally call. Marni stopped pacing at a sound in the hallway.

  She listened. There it was again. A fumbling, stumbling sound outside her bedroom door. Lilly?

  As Marni went to unlock the door, she expected to find Lilly weaving outside.

  But when Marni opened the door, the hallway was empty. She stood for a moment, listening, then looked toward the stairs. The thought of Lilly trying to maneuver the steps in an inebriated state sent Marni hurrying to the top of the stairway. She glanced down over the railing.

  Silence filled the house. “Not a creature was stirring,” Marni whispered.

  Wrong. She caught a movement at the base of the stairs, then saw a flash of pale pink.

  Marni groaned, remembering Lilly’s earlier drinking. She could be much worse by now. Someone needed to see that she was all right. With another groan, Marni hurried after the woman, ignoring that little voice in her head that told her to mind her own business.

  As Marni reached the first floor and turned the corner toward the dining room, she saw to her surprise that the secret panel beneath the stairs stood open. She halted for a moment, looking into the narrow darkness. Lilly wasn’t her responsibility. Maybe she should heed Felicia’s warning about Lilly and go back upstairs.

  With a sigh, Marni stepped closer. When are you going to stop being such a sucker for anyone in trouble? “Lilly?” she whispered as she stuck her head into the opening. There was just enough room inside for the narrow stairway. She could heard the soft pad of footfalls on the steps disappearing up into the darkness.

  Why had Lilly left the door open? Was she so inebriated she forgot to close it? Or had she known Marni would follow her?

  Marni felt a chill as she took one tentative step into the passageway. Don’t do this. This is stupid. This is scary. This is crazy. But she couldn’t shake off the feeling that Lilly Calloway was in trouble. That’s why Lilly had come to her bedroom door. That’s why she’d left the hidden panel open. For some reason, Lilly wanted her to follow.