Page 15 of Colorado Christmas Carol

“I didn’t mean to do it,” the note read.

“She killed my little brother when I was in grammar school. My father said they’d take me away if I told, that it was an accident, my stepmother hit him accidentally.

So I said nothing. She treated my father so badly.

I hated to see it. He loved her. He wouldn’t leave her.

But I came home for Thanksgiving, and I found him.

His body was still warm. She laughed. She said she was finally free of him, she could go out and get a real man to marry.

I just lost it. There was a bat close by.

I picked it up and . . . I can’t live with what I’ve done!

Essa and Mellie, they’re both so kind. I never had kindness.

Not from anybody. My computer is in my room.

It will explain everything. I spoke to my attorney last night and signed a document online.

You’ll see why. Hug the girls for me. Tell them .

. . I’m so sorry. So very sorry. I loved them both.

I can’t live with what I’ve done. This is what’s best for everybody. Take good care of them.”

It was signed Dean.

Essa was frowning, oblivious to Mellie in the back seat asking to read the note.

She looked at Duke for an explanation.

He took a deep breath and glanced at Jeff Ralston for help. He was too choked up to speak, the first time he was so affected by a perpetrator.

Jeff looked at Essa. “Dean Sutter’s car went over the side of the mountain at a high rate of speed. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt, so he was thrown from the car before the gas tank exploded.” He swallowed. “They’re taking him to the morgue at the hospital pending autopsy.”

Essa felt the blood drain from her face. “He’s . . . dead?”

Jeff nodded.

Tears ran down her cheeks. They ran down Mellie’s, too. Essa reached over the console and gripped Mellie’s little hand tight in wordless sympathy.

“Why?” Essa choked on the word.

“I’ll tell you when we get back to the hotel,” Duke said.

* * *

It was a long story. They pieced it together from what was written on Dean’s computer, and there was a lot of information there.

His father had remarried when he was ten years old.

His stepmother had been a martial arts expert.

She worked at a convenience store part time.

She hated her two stepsons. She hadn’t wanted children, and she would have insisted that Dean’s father give them back to his mother. But his mother had died.

There had been another child, a little boy, Dean’s brother. She’d killed him and threatened to tell the police that his father did it if he didn’t help her conceal the crime.

Dean’s extremely wealthy father was cowardly. He agreed and helped her bury the child. The story went out that he’d wandered off into the woods when his stepmother and father weren’t looking. There was suspicion of foul play, but nothing could be proven.

Dean’s father, a mousy little man, did whatever his wife told him to.

When he wasn’t home, she tortured Dean in ways that he only insinuated on his computer.

She made fun of him when he wanted to play sports in grammar school, ridiculed him day and night.

His father was afraid of her because she did crazy things.

The murder of his youngest son cowed him even more.

He didn’t want to go to prison. She’d threatened to make sure he did if he ever talked. So Dean had no respite from her.

Despite all she did, Dean put up with her until he came home the day after he graduated from college.

His father hadn’t been at the ceremony, but he’d promised he would be.

When he got home, he found his father in a shallow grave next to the place she’d put Dean’s little brother the day she killed him. Dean loved his father.

They went back in the house, and she bragged about what she’d done, said she’d have a new life now, one with a real man.

While she was talking, Dean’s eyes fell on the baseball bat he’d had from playing in Little League, before the evil woman snared his father.

He walked toward it like a sleepwalker, picked it up and . . .

He didn’t bury his stepmother. He left her for the forensics people to go over, to hunt him. But nobody had contacted him, not since the day they’d found her, when the investigating officer asked where he’d been at the time of the crime. Why, in his dormitory, getting ready to come home.

Nobody could disprove it, and the family was wealthy. Very wealthy. So questions that might have been asked of a less-fortunate son weren’t asked of him.

He was, of course, the least likely suspect.

Dean had graduated with a degree in anthropology and had made straight A’s.

His paternal grandfather had died his freshman year and left him rich.

Filthy rich. His father’s death had only added to his fortune.

He was rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

But he was warped by his childhood. Hopelessly warped.

Other women had been mean—women with smart mouths and spoiled attitudes, but Essa had been gentle and sweet. Like Mellie. The two of them had overwhelmed him with their kind natures.

Mellie had pleaded to come along when he invited Essa to the dig site. The child’s obvious, spontaneous affection for him, like Essa’s, had knocked him back. Their kindness only heightened the guilt he felt at what he’d done in an instant’s passion.

So the only solution had been to take himself out of the picture. He could no longer live with the guilt, no matter how fitting a punishment it was for his coldhearted stepmother. He’d sent the car over the cliff to make sure he could never harm another person.

By the time Duke got through explaining in his hotel room, Essa and Mellie were both in tears.

Sitting on the sofa between them, he hugged them both.

“It’s for the best,” he told them softly.

“I know that you both felt affection for him. But he couldn’t have had a normal life in any event, considering what his life had been like.

Losing his little brother and then his father to a madwoman’s insanity destroyed something inside him.

When he killed her, it only added to his desperation. He couldn’t bear it.”

They were pressed close against his broad chest.

“I felt so sorry for him,” Essa said. “He was such a sad person.”

“But he was nice to us,” Mellie told her father.

“Nicer than you know, yet,” Duke replied.

Essa lifted her head. “What do you mean?”

“Dean left a document on his computer. It was signed and notarized, authorizing his estate to be split between the two of you,” he explained.

“Why?” Essa exclaimed.

“He probably felt that you showed him the only real affection he’d ever had,” Duke said simply. “The document, I’m told, will hold up in court. They can’t find a single relative, no matter how distant.”

“That’s so kind,” Essa said. “So at least we can afford to give him a proper funeral, right?”

He smiled at her. “Among other things. His estate is worth ten million dollars.”

Essa just stared at him.

Mellie burst into tears. “I just wish he hadn’t died,” she said. “We could have visited him in jail and sent him mail and stuff.”

“It wouldn’t have worked out that way,” Duke replied. “I’ll explain it to you one day. Meanwhile, I have two other announcements.”

They pulled back and looked at him from reddened eyes.

“First, I just took a job with our local sheriff’s department as their investigator.”

“Oh, wow, we don’t have to leave Benton?!” Mellie exclaimed. “We can stay here with Essa?!”

He chuckled. “I also bought the ranch where we went riding.” He shrugged. “I planned on dedicating my life to paying it off . . .”

“I’ll pay it off,” Mellie said with a grin. “And we can share it, Daddy!”

“I don’t need millions of dollars,” Essa began warily.

“Yes, you do,” Duke said. “You can marry me and live with us, and we’ll fund an outreach program for mental health here,” he added. “That was what Dean asked that a portion of the estate be used for—before your mutual bequests were added.”

“What a sweet man,” Essa said. “I know, he was a killer. But there were extenuating circumstances. And if he hadn’t had the upbringing he did . . .”

“We’ll never know.” He was studying Essa. “I believe I just made you a proposal of marriage . . . ?”

Essa flushed.

Mellie grinned. “You have to marry him!” she told her friend. “Then you can come live on the ranch with us, and we can go riding all the time!”

Essa burst out laughing. “Now, listen here . . .”

Duke got up and pulled Essa into his arms. “Mellie, go play that handheld game of yours in the bedroom. With the door closed,” he added. “Now.”

Mellie laughed gleefully and went running to obey her dad.

Essa was kissed until her mouth was sore, and then kissed some more. It was the most delicious few minutes of her whole life.

“I love kids,” he whispered into her parted lips.

“Me, too,” she managed weakly. “And Mellie shouldn’t really be an only child.”

“So we can get married and raise kids and hell in Benton, Colorado.”

“Most definitely.”

“Is that a ‘yes’?” he teased.

She pressed closer with her arms around his neck. “I might need just a little more persuading,” she whispered. He chuckled.

“No problem at all,” he whispered back.

* * *

A small Christmas church wedding, with Mellie as flower girl, poinsettias all around them for decoration, and a passionate wedding night and morning and afternoon and night and morning later, Mellie knocked on the door of their new ranch house.

Beside her, one of the receptionists for the sheriff’s department, whose family she’d been staying with during the brief honeymoon, grinned, as it seemed to take a long time for someone to answer the door.

Essa opened it, wearing sweats, with her long hair around her shoulders. “Mellie!” she exclaimed, and hugged the young girl, and then hugged her some more. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”

“And I’m so glad to have you as my mom!” Mellie exclaimed, hugging her back, hard.

Duke came to the door yawning, also wearing sweats. “I hate jogging,” he said to nobody in particular. Mellie ran to him, and he hugged her.

“Jogging?” the receptionist asked.

“Jogging.” He sighed. “Our new morning routine. I suggested coffee and toast, but the exercise guru here”—he jerked his thumb at his new wife—“said not until we did a mile. So we did a mile.”

“It’s great exercise, and we don’t want you to go to fat, now do we, sweetheart?” she asked with a purr in her voice.

He just shrugged.

“Thanks for bringing her home,” Duke told the visitor with a grin.

“My pleasure. And when Jack and I go to Yellowstone on our vacation, you get to return the favor,” she teased. “Except that we’ve got four kids. You’ll be calling us every day to see when we’re coming home,” she added with glee.

“Don’t count on it.” Duke chuckled. “I love kids.”

“Me, too,” Essa said. “You’ll have to bring help to get them back.” She chuckled.

“Am I going to get brothers and sisters?” Mellie exclaimed, all smiles.

“We’ll do our best,” Essa said solemnly. She grinned at Duke.

He laughed, too.

“We also think that our chef should retire and work on her profession,” he told Mellie.

“Her profession?” the receptionist asked.

“She writes novels,” Mellie said enthusiastically. “And she’s great! I’ll never forget that first amazing line of her novel!” She stood up straight and struck a pose. “It was a dark and stormy night . . . !”

Essa threw a wadded-up paper towel at her.

And two years later to the day she’d met Duke and Mellie, during the Christmas holidays, Essa sold her first novel. She showed the acceptance letter from her editor to Duke while she held their firstborn son next to the Christmas tree. “Told you I could do it,” she teased.

He pulled her close. They watched Mellie chase their new German shepherd puppy around the front yard of the ranch with delight. “I think you can do anything you want to,” he said softly, and bent to kiss first her, and then the baby.

“I think you can, too,” she replied. “Merry Christmas,” she murmured.

And the look she gave him was so full of love that he grinned from ear to ear.

* * *

Essa gave a thought to the troubled man who’d paved the way for so many changes in their lives. The mental health outreach program worked hand in glove with local, state, and federal agencies to get help to children with mental issues. It was off to a running start and had plenty of support.

Dean, she decided, as she thought about it, would be pleased with the project he’d outlined and financed with his estate.

The children who benefitted were also eligible for scholarships if they decided to go into courses of study that dealt with behavior modification.

Mellie had already decided on a career in anthropology when she grew up, inspired by Dean’s example.

All of this was due to the influence of a tortured boy who had been given no help when he needed it the most. Now, many children would be saved, because of him.

It was a good Christmas legacy, Essa thought as her eyes went from her husband to her new daughter, to the baby. They were all gathered near the Christmas tree with so many colorful presents under it while they looked out at the first flakes of snow.