McCall said quickly, taking out her notebook and pen.
“After twenty-seven years?” Pepper asked in disbelief. She seemed to shrink, all the starch coming out of her, all the spirit. “What’s the point?”
“When was the last time you saw your son?”
Pepper shook her head, her dark eyes dimming in the dull light. “I should think you would know that, since I gave that information to the sheriff at the time.”
McCall saw that this had been a mistake. What had she hoped to accomplish? She had wanted to see her grandmother. And now she had. The best thing she could do was to leave before Pepper Winchester got on the phone to the sheriff.
But she’d come too far. She couldn’t leave things like this. Nor had she gotten what she’d come for. “Is there anyone who might have wanted to harm him?”
Pepper raised her head slightly, her dark eyes locking with McCall’s. “Other than your mother?”
“Did your son have any enemies?”
“No.” Instantly, she corrected herself. “Buzz Crawford. He hated my family, Trace in particular.” Her voice broke as she said her son’s name.
Again the former game warden’s name had come up in relation to Trace.
“Was your son blackmailing Buzz Crawford?”
“What? Who would even say something like that? Your mother?” She raised her nose into the air. “My son didn’t have to resort to blackmail. He was a Winchester. He wasn’t going to serve any jail time. I would have seen to that.”
Her grandmother’s gaze flicked over her, anger and impatience firing those dark eyes, then she sighed deeply and started to walk away, signaling this conversation was over.
“Then why did you think he left town? Because you cut him off financially?” McCall asked, unable to hold back. “Or because you were demanding he divorce my mother and renounce the child she was carrying?”
Pepper Winchester spun back around, eyes narrowing dangerously. “You know nothing about my relationship with my youngest son. Nothing.” She held up her hand before McCall could say another word. “You should leave. Now.” With that her grandmother turned and disappeared through the door.
McCall closed her notebook and looked up to find Enid Hoagland framed in the doorway, a smug little smile on the horrid woman’s face.
“You are not to ever disturb Mrs. Winchester again,” Enid said as she walked McCall to the door and closed it firmly behind her.
Standing on the front step, McCall took a deep breath of the crisp spring air. Her heart seemed to struggle with each beat. What had she been thinking coming out here to see the grandmother who had denied her all these years? Still denied her.
Letting out the breath, McCall walked to her pickup, her eyes burning. She could feel someone watching her, the gaze boring into her back. Her grandmother? Or that awful Enid?
She slid behind the wheel, anxious to get away before she shed the tears now blurring her eyes. She wouldn’t give either old woman the satisfaction of seeing how much that had hurt.
PEPPER WINCHESTER STOOD at the window trembling with rage as she watched McCall drive away.
“You should have told me how much she resembles me,” she said, knowing Enid was behind her even though she hadn’t heard the woman approach. Trace used to say that Enid moved as silently as a ghost—or a cat burglar.
“What would have been the point?” Enid asked. “You didn’t have to see her. Now you’re upset and—”
Pepper spun around to face her ancient housekeeper the patrol pickup disappeared down the road. “Of course I’m upset. Why would she come here and ask about Trace?”
“Because she believes he was her father.”
Pepper scoffed at that, just as she had when Trace told her that he’d gotten that tramp Ruby Bates pregnant. But the proof had been standing in her house just moments before.
There was no denying that McCall was a Winchester—and her father’s daughter.
“You’re the one who let her in,” Enid complained. “I could have gotten rid of her.”
When Pepper had seen the sheriff’s department vehicle pull in, she’d thought it might be news about Trace and had been unable to smother that tiny ember of hope that caught fire inside her.
“She’ll be back, you know,” Enid warned in obvious disapproval. “She wants more than what she got this time.”
Yes, Pepper suspected McCall would be back. She’d seen herself and Trace in the young brazen woman.
“So,” Enid said with a sigh. “Can I get you anything?”
My son Trace. That was the only thing she wanted.
“I just want to be alone.” Pepper turned back to the window, looking down at the long curve of the road into the ranch.
All this time, she’d expected a call or a visit from the sheriff. Word from someone about her son. And after twenty-seven years to have his daughter show up at her door …
Why would McCall be investigating her father’s disappearance now? Or had that just been an excuse to come out to the ranch?
For weeks after Trace left, Pepper would stare at that road waiting for him to come down it. How many times had she imagined him driving up that road in his new black pickup, getting out, his jacket thrown over one shoulder, cowboy hat cocked back to expose his handsome face, his long jean-clad legs closing the distance as if he couldn’t wait to get home.
She’d been so sure he would contact her. Eventually he would call for money. He’d known she could make his hunting violation charge go away—just as she had the others.
For that reason, she’d never understood why he would run away. She’d blamed that tramp he’d foolishly married. Trace wasn’t ready for marriage, let alone a child. Especially one Pepper had been convinced would turn out to be someone else’s bastard. She’d despised Ruby for trapping her son and giving Trace no way out but to leave town.
But after weeks, then months had gone by with no word, Pepper feared she was the reason her son had left and never came back. The thought had turned her heart to stone.
She’d walled herself up here in the lodge unable to face life outside the ranch. Worse, she’d replayed her last argument with Trace over and over in her head.
McCall was right. She had threatened to cut him off without a cent if he didn’t divorce Ruby and denounce that bastard child she was carrying. Trace had pleaded with her to give Ruby a chance, swearing the baby was his.
Pepper sighed. Apparently, he’d been right about that at least, she thought now. She was still trembling from finally coming face-to-face with Trace’s daughter. McCall.
That bitch Ruby had named the girl after her grandfather, Call Winchester, just to throw it in Pepper’s face.
But there was no doubt. The girl definitely was of Winchester blood.
She frowned as she remembered something McCall had said. “Then why did you think he’d left town?”
McCall hadn’t come to the ranch out of simple curiosity. If that were true, she would have shown up sooner.
Pepper stepped to the phone. For years, she hadn’t spoken to another soul other than Enid and her housekeeper’s husband, Alfred—and fortunately neither of them had much to say.
Then McCall had shown up, she thought with a curse as she dialed the sheriff’s department.
LUKE SPENT A COUPLE OF HOURS looking around Whitehorse for the poachers’ pickup before he headed south. His jurisdiction included everything