McCall had lost faith in men and love and Luke Crawford in particular. He’d betrayed her and that betrayal had kept her from trusting another man again.
Her cell phone rang, making her jump. She checked it and saw that it was a pay phone. “Hello?”
“You want to know who killed your old man?” said a low hoarse voice, clearly disguised. “Why don’t you ask your mother?”
“Who is this?” She realized she’d stopped walking toward her cabin.
“Ask her about the black eye she was sporting the last time anyone saw Trace Winchester and who gave it to her.”
McCall flinched as if she’d been hit. “Are you saying my father hit her?”
A chuckle. “Only because she got in the way. He was trying to hit her boyfriend.” The line went dead.
McCall swore under her breath. Black eye? Boyfriend? She realized she was still carrying the gun Luke had pressed into her hand. Turning, she headed for her SUV.
With luck she could catch her mother before she went out on her date with Red Harper.
“IS SOMETHING WRONG?” Ruby repeated as McCall entered the trailer.
Everything was wrong and had been McCall’s whole life. She’d felt as if everyone around her had lied to her. Now she knew it was true.
“Why don’t you tell me about the black eye my father gave you,” she said as she stepped into the trailer.
Ruby froze. “What?”
“My father hit you.”
“No. It wasn’t—” She folded the dish towel she’d been using to dry the few items on her drain board and placed it carefully on the counter. “Where would you get—”
“Or was he trying to hit your boyfriend?” The one thing McCall had believed all these years was that Trace Winchester had been her mother’s true love. Now even that was in question.
Ruby chewed at her lower lip before reaching for her cigarettes. McCall beat her to them, tossing the pack aside.
“How about the truth for once?”
Her mother shook her head. “There were things I didn’t want to tell you. I wanted to spare you.”
Ruby turned to open the fridge. “You want a Diet Coke?” She must have seen McCall’s impatient expression, because she pulled only one out, popped the top and took a drink.
“Trace and I were having problems,” Ruby said finally. “I told you about his mother cutting off his money, trying to rein him back in. He was torn. She wouldn’t relent. We were broke. I was pregnant and sick and not working as much...” She took another drink, her throat working.
McCall recalled what Patty had told her about the morning her mother showed up at the café late. She’d thought from the mud on the old pickup that Ruby had been out looking for Trace.
“You said the last time you saw him was the morning of opening day when he went antelope hunting,” McCall reminded her and saw her mother’s face flush under the weight of the lie.
Patty had said her mother came in late and it was plain as her face that she and Trace had had a fight. McCall had thought Patty meant: plain as the look on her face, but she must have been talking about Ruby’s black eye.
Her mother started to cry. “Trace used to put his hand on my stomach and just light up when he felt you move. It was his idea to name you McCall after his father, even if you were a girl.” She smiled through her tears. “He would have settled down once you were born. Would have been fine if—”
“The black eye, Mother.”
Ruby finished the soda, tossed the can in the recycle bin McCall had forced on her and motioned to one of the kitchen chairs. McCall had been leaning against the kitchen counter, blocking her mother’s path.
She moved now, allowing Ruby to sit down, but she could tell her mother was itching for a cigarette.
“I was fine when Trace was home, but when he wasn’t...” Ruby said, turning the ashtray in a circle with her finger. “I did something terrible.” Her voice cracked like the ice on Nelson Reservoir in the spring. “I went out on Trace.”
“Went out?”
“It was just that one time. I swear. We regretted it right away.”
“We?”
Her mother kept turning the ashtray, refusing to look at her.
“When did this happen?”
“The night before opening day.”
McCall swore. “So you didn’t see him the next morning, did you? You don’t even know if he had his rifle or not.” She couldn’t believe this. She’d based all her assumptions about his killer on who had taken the rifle from Trace and when.
Ruby stopped spinning the ashtray. “Trace came home the night before opening day, caught us and took a punch at him. I got in the middle.”
McCall sighed. Would the saga of her parents never end? “No wonder you thought he’d left you. Who is the other man, Mother?”
Ruby looked away and McCall knew. A cold chill worked its way up her spine. “It was Red, wasn’t it?”
Her mother burst into tears.
Now it all made sense. Why Red hadn’t asked Ruby out all these years. It had been guilt. He and Ruby had both blamed themselves for Trace leaving.
“Even if he hadn’t gotten himself killed, he would have left me,” Ruby cried. “Now you know why. It was my fault.”
McCall stepped to her mother, squatting down to hug her. Ruby shook with shuddering sobs, her tears hot against McCall’s cheek.
“He married you. He wouldn’t have if he hadn’t loved you,” McCall whispered. It didn’t matter if it was true or not. Not anymore. The truth was that Trace had never left Ruby. Never left either of them.
The sobs slowed. Ruby sniffed, wiped her tears.
McCall sat down across from her, feeling closer to her mother than she had in years. Ruby had cheated. It wasn’t the first time a woman had done such a thing nor would it be the last.
