Hitched!

“It’s a bit farther,” Jack said. “The ranch isn’t far from a paved highway—as the crow flies. But the only way to get there is this road, I’m afraid.”

Josey felt a prickle of fear skitter over her skin. But come on, what man would buy you clothes just to take you out in the middle of nowhere and kill you? She shuddered, thinking she knew a man exactly like that.

“You thought I was kidding about the Winchester Ranch being remote?” Jack asked with a laugh.

When he had told her about where they would be spending the week, she had thought it perfect. But now she doubted there was even a ranch at the end of this road. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been played for a fool, but it could be the last. Josey had a bad feeling that she’d used up any luck she’d ever had a long time ago.

She shifted in her seat and drew the backpack closer, considering what she was going to do if this turned out to be another trap. Jack didn’t look like a deranged madman who was driving all this way to torture and kill her. But then RJ hadn’t looked like a deranged madman, either, had he?

She stared at the road ahead as Jack drove deeper into the wild, uninhabited country. Occasionally she would see a wheat field, but no sign of a house or another person.

As the convertible came over a rise in the road, Jack touched his brakes, even though all she could see was more of the same wild landscape. He turned onto an even less used road, the land suddenly dropping precariously.

“Are you sure you’re on the right road?” Her hand went to her backpack, heart hammering in her chest as she eased open the drawstring and closed her hand around the gun handle, realizing she had only four shots left.

“I’m beginning to wonder about that myself. I asked for directions back at a gas station in town before I picked you up, so I’m pretty sure I’m on the right road.” The car bumped down the uneven track, then turned sharply to the right. “There it is.” He sounded as relieved as she felt.

Josey looked up in surprise to see a cluster of log buildings at the base of the rugged hills behind it. A little farther down the road Jack turned under a huge weathered wooden arch, with the words Winchester Ranch carved in it.

Her relief was almost palpable. Josey released her hold on the pistol, trying to still her thundering heart as the Cadillac bumped down the narrow dirt road toward the ranch buildings.

She frowned, noting suddenly how the grass had grown between the two tracks in the road, as if it hadn’t had much use. As they grew closer, she saw that the cluster of log buildings looked old and … deserted.

Josey reminded herself that the grandmother had been a recluse for the past twenty-seven years. At least that was what Jack had said. So she probably hadn’t had a lot of company or use on the road.

After what she’d been through, Josey thought she could handle anything. But she suddenly feared that wasn’t true. She didn’t feel strong enough yet to be tested again. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take before she broke.

As they rounded a bend in the road, her pulse quickened. This place was huge and creepy-looking. Sun glinted off a line of bleached white antlers piled in the middle of a rock garden. She noticed other heads of dead animals, the bones picked clean and hanging on the wood fence under a row of huge cottonwoods. As she looked at the house, she thought of the “big bad wolf” fairy tale and wondered if a kindly grandmother—or something a lot more dangerous—was waiting inside.

Jack parked in front and killed the engine. A breathless silence seemed to fill the air. Nothing moved. A horse whinnied from a log barn in the distance, startling Josey. Closer a bug buzzed, sounding like a rattlesnake. She felt jumpy and wondered if she’d lost her mind going along with this.

“Are you all right?” he asked. He looked worried.

She nodded, realizing she was here now and had little choice but to go through with it. But this ranch certainly wasn’t what she’d expected. Not this huge, eerie-looking place, that was for sure.

“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Jack said, as if reading her mind.

The house was a massive, sprawling log structure with wings running off from the main section and two stories on all but one wing that had an odd third story added toward the back. The place reminded her of a smaller version of Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone Park.

At one time, the building must have been amazing. But it had seen better days and now just looked dark and deserted, the grimy windows like blind eyes staring blankly out at them.

“Don’t look so scared,” Jack said under his breath. “My grandmother isn’t that bad. Really.” He made it sound like a joke, but his words only unnerved her further.

As the front door opened, an elderly woman with long, plaited salt-and-pepper hair filled the doorway. Her braid hung over one shoulder of the black caftan she wore, her face in shadow.

“Showtime,” Jack said as he put his arm around Josey and drew her close. She fit against him, and for a moment Josey could almost pretend this wasn’t a charade, she was so relieved that at least part of Jack’s story had been true. An old woman lived here. Was this the grandmother?

Jack planted a kiss in her hair and whispered, “We’re newlyweds, remember.” There was a teasing glint in his blue gaze as he dropped his mouth to hers.

The kiss was brief, but unnervingly powerful. As Jack pulled back he frowned. “I can see why we eloped so quickly after meeting each other,” he said, his voice rough with a desire that fired his gaze. This handsome man was much more dangerous than she’d thought. In at least one way, she had definitely jumped from the skillet into the fire.

She gave Jack a playful shove as if she’d just seen the woman in the doorway and was embarrassed, then checked to make sure the scarf around her neck was in place before opening her door and stepping out, taking the backpack with her. Showtime, she thought, echoing Jack’s words.

No one would ever find her here, wherever she was. She had to pull this off. She was safe. That was all she had to think about right now, and as long as she was safe her mother would be, as well. One week. She could do this.

Jack was by her side in a flash, his arm around her, as they walked toward the house. An ugly old dog came out growling, but the elderly woman shooed him away with her cane.

Josey studied the woman in the doorway as she drew closer. Jack’s grandmother? She didn’t have his coloring. While he was blond and blue-eyed, she was dark from her hair to her eyes, a striking, statuesque woman with a face that could have been chiseled from marble, it was so cold.

“Hello, Grandmother,” Jack said, giving the woman a kiss on her cheek. “This is my wife—”

“Josey Winchester,” Josey said, stepping forward and extending her hand. The woman took it with obvious surprise—and irritation. Her hand was ice-cold, and her vapid touch sent a chill through Josey.

“I didn’t realize you were married, let alone that you’d be bringing a wife,” his grandmother said.

Jack hadn’t planned on bringing a wife. So why had he? Josey wondered. It certainly hadn’t ingratiated his grandmother to him. And as for money … was there any? This place didn’t suggest it.

“This is my grandmother, Pepper Winchester,” Jack said, an edge to his voice.

The elderly woman leaned on her cane, her gaze skimming over Josey before shifting back to Jack. “So, you’re my son Angus’s boy.”

Wouldn’t she know he was her son’s child? The woman must be senile, Josie thought. Or was there some reason to question his paternity?

“I remember the day your mother showed up at the door with you,” Pepper said. “What were you then?”

“Two,” Jack said, clearly uncomfortable.

His grandmother nodded. “Yes. I should have been suspicious when Angus involved himself in the hiring of the nanny,” Pepper said.

So Jack was the bastard grandson. That explained this less than warm reception.

Jack’s jaw muscle tensed, but his anger didn’t show in his handsome face. He put his arm around Josey’s waist and pulled her closer, as if he needed her as a buffer between him and his grandmother. Another reason he’d made her this phony marriage offer?

When he’d told her about his grandmother and this visit, Josey had pictured an elderly woman lying in bed hooked up to machines, about to take her final gasp.

This woman standing before them didn’t look anywhere near death’s door. Josey had speculated that this was about money. What else? But if she was right, then Jack had underestimated his grandmother. This woman looked like someone who planned to live forever and take whatever she had with her.

“Since I didn’t realize you had a wife,” Pepper Winchester was saying, “I’ll have to instruct my housekeeper to make up a different room for you.”

“Please don’t go to any trouble on my account,” Jack said.

The grandmother smiled at this, cutting her dark gaze to him, eyes narrowing.

Be careful, Josie thought. This woman is sharp.

JACK HESITATED at the door to the huge ranch lodge. This place had once been filled with happy memories for him, because he’d lived here oblivious to what was really going on. Ignorance had been bliss. He’d played with the other grandchildren, ridden horses, felt like a Winchester even before his mother had confessed that he was one and he realized so much of their lives had been lies.

“Coming, dear?” Josey called from the open front doorway.