B.J. Daniels - High-Calibre Christmas

“It isn’t always about a man,” she said defensively.

“With you it is. You’re going to make a fool of yourself.”

“No. It isn’t like that.”

“So, what is it like?” her sister asked snidely.

Ava wasn’t sure.

Evie heard her hesitate. “Where are you? I’m coming there.”

“No. I need to be on my own for a while.”

“John wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

She hated it when Evie brought up John. She missed him so much. “I’m not alone. I have to go. Please, just stay away.”

John hadn’t liked it when Evie had shown up shortly after they’d gotten married. She was always there, butting in, causing trouble.

“She’s my sister. What do you want me to do?” Ava used to plead with him.

“I can’t deal with you and your sister.” He would storm off, and she would plead with Evie to give her some space.

But would Evie listen?

“Ava?” Evie had that patient tone that meant she wasn’t going to give up. “Tell me where you are. You know I’ll find you. Why make it more difficult for me and put me in a foul mood when I see you?”

She sighed, knowing it was true. She could never get away from Evie. It had always been that way.

“I’m in Whitehorse, Montana, but I don’t want you to come here.” Evie wouldn’t like what she was doing. “Please, Evie.”

She hung up and remembered the quart of orange juice she’d seen Jace Dennison had in his grocery basket. She could almost taste it as she found the refrigerated aisle and bought herself a quart of juice just like his.

VIRGINIA WINCHESTER HAD always thought that her life would have been so different if her baby had lived.

But in reality she wasn’t all that convinced things would have turned out for the better.

The father of her baby hadn’t jumped at marrying her when she’d told him she was pregnant. She’d been convinced he would, though, once the baby was born and he saw his precious son.

Jordan McCormick never even saw the baby before the son they’d conceived had died. Nor had he attended the funeral.

At the time, Virginia had blamed his mother for keeping him away. Now she wondered if he’d known what his mother had done and that the baby Virginia had buried wasn’t his. Wasn’t it possible he’d known all along that Marie Dennison was raising his child?

That would mean that Joanna McCormick had told her son that she’d paid someone to switch the babies.

Virginia felt a surge of anger and frustration at the thought. Maybe everyone had known but her. Now there was no way of knowing. Jordon had died in a ranching accident not long after that, and his mother was in prison, not talking after a plea bargain that got her life instead of the death sentence.

Jordan, Virginia now realized, would have never married her. His mother wouldn’t have allowed it—just as her own mother had told her.

And even if he’d gotten up the gumption to stand up to his mother and do right by Virginia, she knew Joanna would never have allowed her son to stay on the ranch, let alone live there with Virginia and the baby.

Just as Virginia’s own mother would never have allowed her and Jordan on the Winchester ranch. Joanna McCormick and Pepper Winchester hated each other. Virginia knew only what she’d heard through the county grapevine, but apparently her mother had been in love with Joanna’s husband, Hunt McCormick.

Nothing had come of it, but still all that bad blood had spilled over onto their children.

Jordan had never been strong enough to stand up to his mother. Virginia wasn’t any better with her own mother. So what would have happened to her and her son?

Any way she looked at it, Virginia knew she would have ended up raising their son alone. She had barely been able to take care of herself when her mother had thrown all of them off the ranch three years later.

She had seen how her brothers had struggled without money or a place to live after growing up being taken care of on the Winchester ranch. They’d been forced to get jobs just as Virginia had. At least she hadn’t had a baby to support and care for, as well.

Her mother had asked her why she’d come back here. It wasn’t out of love for her mother. She hadn’t known why she’d come back.

Pepper was convinced it was for the Winchester money, but then her mother always thought the worst of her children. Except for her youngest son, Trace.

Virginia had never known what it was like to love a child so much that you could turn your back on everything and everyone else, including your other children.

Or love a child so much that when you lost him you would lock yourself away for twenty-seven years as her mother had done.

Virginia had never known that kind of love. Not for the child she thought she’d lost or for the man she’d thought she loved enough to have a child with him.

But like her mother, she’d let the past keep her isolated in other ways from the world.

And now to find out that her child hadn’t died. That her son was alive and well and in town ….

She had to see him, she thought as she dressed for the funerals of Marie and Audie Dennison. She knew no one in town would expect her to attend. She didn’t know Marie or her brother.

But she wanted to see her son.

THE WEATHER CHANGED THE night before the funeral. Jace woke to dull skies and a wind that whipped the bare branches on the cottonwoods outside the guest bedroom.

He’d grown up in this house, knew every creak and groan, but now it felt too quiet. Not that he believed in ghosts, but he now had the strange feeling that he wasn’t alone here.

That kind of thinking made him all too aware that he wasn’t himself. He’d actually thought Ava Carris had followed him to Whitehorse.

He showered and went downstairs to put on the coffee. From the refrigerator he took out the quart of orange juice he’d bought at the store, unscrewed the cap and took a long drink. As he put it back in the fridge, he saw a pickup coming up the road.

He didn’t recognize it, but then why should he? He’d been gone so long no one drove the same rigs they had. To his surprise, Kayley Mitchell climbed out and walked toward the house.

Glancing down, he realized that he was wearing only jeans, his chest and feet bare. He thought about making a run upstairs to get a shirt, but she was already at the door. What did she want? He swore. He was about to find out.

Moving toward the door in anticipation of her knock, he heard her put something down, then turn and go back down the steps. He started to open the door, but she was already sliding behind the wheel of her truck.

He stared after her as she drove off, wondering why she hadn’t bothered to knock. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to see him. Jace was thankful for that. It would have been awkward, to say the least.

Still, it seemed odd, and he waited until her pickup turned onto the highway at the end of the drive and disappeared before he opened the door to see what she’d left.

A note was taped to the foil covering the casserole dish lying just outside the door.

This used to be your favorite. I hope it still is. Kayley

One whiff of the casserole brought with it a wave of memories that threatened to drown him. Kayley used to make this all the time for him back when they were engaged. She’d gotten the recipe from his mother. Marie, he corrected with a scowl as he brought the dish inside and closed the front door.

It wasn’t long before more people began to arrive with food. Fortunately, he’d gotten dressed after Kayley left. He’d forgotten how the community came together when there was a death.

“A lot of people loved your mother,” a neighbor told him when she dropped off chicken and dumpings and a pan of brownies.