High-Caliber Christmas

He hadn’t gone far when he spotted the mailbox with Dennison on it and slowed to turn down the tree-lined narrow dirt road. The house was an old two-story farmhouse, white with blue shutters.

His treehouse was still in one of the largest old cottonwoods down by the creek. A tire swing hung from one of the larger branches. It moved restlessly in the breeze, reminding him of summer days spent daydreaming in it.

As he pulled in, nothing moved. He half expected his mother to appear in the front doorway. Marie, he thought with no small amount of resentment. She wasn’t the only thing missing. No dog. Jace figured a neighbor must have taken his uncle Audie’s collie. No Audie, either.

He sat for a moment, swamped with memories of a childhood free to wander in the fields and river bottom that ran for miles behind it. A childhood with the little girl who lived down the road.

“It hasn’t all been bad, has it?” Kayley had asked him that last day before he left twelve years ago.

“No,” he’d said. It hadn’t been bad at all. Just the ending.

Getting out, he grabbed the overnight bag he’d brought and walked toward the house where he’d grown up. He wasn’t surprised that the front door wasn’t locked or that the house was spotless. His mother had always kept it that way. He took his bag up to his room.

His mother had left it just as it had been. He stood for a moment in the doorway, before moving down the hall to the guest room.

As he dropped his bag on the double bed, he stepped to the window to look out. He could see his uncle’s house down the road. He would have to sell it, as well.

Back downstairs, he checked the fridge. One of the neighbors must have cleaned it out, just as they had probably been keeping the house up.

He stood for a moment in the empty house and listened, hearing nothing but his own breathing until he couldn’t take it anymore and headed for town. He’d go to the grocery store to stock up on just enough food to last him until he could get the hell out of here.

AVA HAD SPOTTED THE STACK of local newspapers in the office when she’d checked into the motel on the edge of town. They had been piled next to a fireplace, no doubt to be burned.

She’d gone back after she’d settled into the room and asked the girl at the motel desk if she could look at them. Methodically, Ava had gone through them, reading the articles. She was interested in Whitehorse, this town where Jace Dennison was from.

But she was also interested in anything about Kayley Mitchell.

The newspapers went back a good couple of months. Fortunately, they were only a few pages, so it didn’t take long to work her way through them.

She hadn’t gone far when she found a photograph of Miss Kayley Mitchell and her kindergarten class. The cowgirl was an elementary-school teacher? Could she look any sweeter standing there with an arm around two little girls in her class?

Ava wadded up the paper and sailed it across the room before continuing her search. She was shocked when she found the front-page story about two babies being switched at the hospital thirty years before—and how a recent murder tied in. Jace Dennison had been one of the switched babies!

The thought gave her chills. She kept reading, completely engrossed and even more convinced coming here had been destined. Jace needed her.

When she found the funeral notice for Marie and Audie Dennison in the most recent newspaper, she saw that the funeral was tomorrow. She was so glad she hadn’t missed it. She glanced toward her clothes hanging in the closet and smiled. How providential that she still had the black dress she’d worn to her husband’s funeral.

JACE WAS STANDING IN the grocery store checkout aisle when he saw her. “Ava?”

She jumped at the sound of her name, and he thought for a moment she might run out of the store.

He stepped out of line to block her exit just in case she thought about taking off again.

“Jace? Jace Dennison, right?” she said quickly, getting her composure back.

“I thought that was you,” he said, not buying for a moment that she didn’t quite remember his name.

She’d been looking down another aisle when he’d spotted her, as if searching for something. Or someone.

“I hadn’t realized we were headed for the same town in Montana,” he said.

“Small world, isn’t it.”

Not that small. “Are you here alone?” he asked, glancing down the same aisle she had been looking down even though he suspected he was the person she’d been looking for.

“Yes. That is, I’m in town visiting some friends.” She seemed flustered.

“Oh, who are you visiting? I know most everyone around here,” he said. It wasn’t quite true. He’d been gone so long that he hadn’t recognized anyone since he’d been in town. Except for Kayley. And McCall.

“My friends aren’t from Whitehorse,” she said. “They’re just passing through, so I decided to meet them up here. They love dinosaurs, and with the Leonardo museum nearby … We’re all staying at the same motel. I was just getting a few snacks for later.”

He saw that she had a small basket. In it were crackers and a wedge of cheese. He realized that there might be some truth to her story. It made more sense than what he’d been thinking, that was for sure.

“I personally am not that interested in fossils,” she said, smiling. “I’m sure you’ve been to the museum.”

“Yes.” He’d forgotten how small and delicate she was. A wisp of a woman. Certainly no threat. And certainly no reporter or private investigator. Just a lonely widow with a lot of time on her hands.

“I think you’ll enjoy it,” he said, realizing just how unreliable his instincts were since hearing of his mother’s death—and all the news that followed. “The other museum is just across the parking lot. It has a lot of Montana history. That might be more to your liking.”

“Thank you. I’ll make sure I see it.”

“Well, enjoy your visit,” he said and got back in line. Ava disappeared down the aisle. Once outside, he climbed behind the wheel of the SUV, started the engine and glanced back.

Had he expected to see Ava Carris watching him from inside the store?

She was nowhere in sight.

Shaking off his earlier crazy thoughts about her stalking him, he drove away.

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